Utila transforms institutional crypto adoption and treasury management

0:00I'm ashon Addison from the cryptocoin show and today on blockchain interviews we have back with us beny rabby CEO of utila beny welcome back to the show and thanks for taking the time again thank you Ashton thanks for watching me it's been about a year or so since you last came on and I know you've been really focused on uh business operations and helping with on the

0:24crypto side treasury management I also want to dive into institutional stable coins uh and where you see businesses going Beyond just holding Bitcoin and ethereum into the other categories like defi Etc um and 2024 know when we first spoke it was around the launch of the Bitcoin ETF and uh institutional adoption has skyrocketed since then there's many more businesses interested

0:49in crypto and blockchain so I'm excited to hear your insights uh I would love to start off with sort of a high level on what you and the team at utila have been doing since then and and what's the scope of the operations and then we can dive into all the latest yeah thanks so uh yeah it feels like yesterday but uh already almost a year ago uh last time we spoke and uh

1:16and I think that um you know there was a big shift on the market on the positive side you know since then um there was the Bitcoin ETF early last year and um also I would say there was also the ETF moment of the stable coin World um um and I would put it on the acquisition of bridge by strip um by you know Q3 Q4 last year also the change in the

1:44government in the states um you know around the end of the year beginning of this year so we already feel you know there already like a few things happening MAA in Europe um also early this year um in general many positive movements um from our side our bet from the beginning was that you know every financial institution in the end of the day will leverage you know crypto behind

2:11um it can be as a part of a trading offering it can be as a part of payments offering uh or even just tokenization of real world assets right and uh and we've seen a growth of demand in all aspects like in all of those verticals um and I think the titila today is a much more robust platform also compared to where we used to be a year ago uh we have a lot of um

2:38capabilities that are relevant for these you know different worlds whether it's like more like deep um support for um defi um we see growing Demand on trading firms um for these kind of capabilities uh whether it's like more um stable coin oriented um capability so it can be like gas management connectivity to banking rails um connectivity to IML

3:05Etc um and also I would say things around tokenization so we we added tokenization capabilities um support for multiple blockchains multiple standards protocols so you know it's it's it's it's growing rapidly and and we we feel that we are serving a main part of this uh of this use cases yeah yeah it's great to hear uh that more businesses are getting

3:34involved I feel like when there are large businesses or Enterprises that are first diving into crypto and maybe it's foreign territory to them one of the concerns and topics that's top of mind is security and with the recent hack uh from the Lazarus group in North Korea uh on on buet Exchange stealing over $ 1.4 billion in ether it's pretty crazy historic hack to see

4:03that this kind of stuff is still happening I'm sure businesses that are doing treasury management or looking to hold a lot of Bitcoin and get involved might be curious on how secure it is can you talk about UA's security side and and how you ease those concerns of of businesses to ensure that you know security is top of Mind course so security that's our bread

4:31and butter that's that's our background you know me and my co-founder and most of the R&D team uh all coming from the security space um I think that in the end of the day the sad news uh is that it probably it wouldn't be like the you know the the less big hack in crypto um um and I think that um the reason for that is a combination of every really

5:01fast evolving Market when you have all the time new protocols new advancements these kind of things they all the time require like new set of security you know crypto at the beginning was Private Keys um and you know mostly movement of funds and then came smart contracts right and and Defi and and this was like a new you know a new um place where organizations can be attacked because

5:28interacting with this contract is very different than just moving money right um from around and and I think and and and that's also like the um the the area where was the attack recently I would say that in the end of the day we are trying to provide security as much as we can um and there is also like a a part here that is in the end depends on the human U that is

5:56like you know signing the transaction and doing the action uh we we are trying to provide this person as much as information as we can um to understand if what he's doing is legit and if what he's doing is like the right thing he wants to do right but if we think about what are like the layers of security so of course key management was also there and would also be would always be there

6:20like that's the the most interesting and important part in the end of the day securing private Keys then the second layer is how you secure internal operations in terms of like user management okay so very similar to banking right like in the banking world you have also if a group of people having an access to you know to the money of of of an organization and then

6:46you need to have you know the capabilities of setting like different roles and setting like transaction policies Etc so that's like the second security layer that we provide at utila and this is also connected to authentication um which you know um um we have MFA and we have like different methods to enable organizations to to provide like secure um authentication

7:11and I would say the third layer is okay now we have we have secure uh Key Management um on multiple blockchains we we we can enable organizations to um to manage users roles permissions and policies and then okay how we enable them uh or mitigate the risk of doing mistakes okay so one thing is of course white listing right which was already there um from the beginning of the

7:37institutional adoption how we make sure that they're not moving to the to the wrong address which is there are still mistakes but this is I would say more or less like a solv thing um but when it comes to defi it's like or you know signing just messages um it's a new you know new Vector of attack and there you need much more visibility into what are

7:59the implication of any action that you are doing whenever you're are signing a transaction you know in the b in the BB tag it was like one bit that was like one instead of zero um and that was all the attack there um and you know we are providing this info to the client the client also needs to you know to to make sure that the parameters that they see

8:25are actually the parameters that should be there I think that here it was uh a a mix of Lake of visibility and also like a human error um you know I I don't have all the information but based on like every everything I read I've been following this story pretty close actually my CTO Sam he wrote down a a really good breakdown on what really exactly happened there um and and I feel

8:52you know in the end of the day we are trying all the time to be able to cover the new gaps in the market new advancements means new security risks and we are all the time working closely with some of our partners uh who are other security vendors um with some other security letters in the space to make sure that we bring the best security uh to our clients um in the end

9:18of the day but still we as a nature of a non-custodial solution we cannot sign transactions on behalf of our clients they need to make the decision in the end and we we are providing them um you know all the tools we can in order to be able to do the right actions mhm yeah know it's a great explanation and I was looking at the different parts of utila I know there's

9:45there's trading operations as as you mentioned different blockchains there's so many that are coming out keeping up with that but there's also the treasury management side can you talk about why a business should and and can do with aila's treasury management and why it makes sense for them to use that service yeah I would say um I would say that payments in general

10:15um today uh can be changed dramatically um utilizing stable coins um movement of money between different geographies I would say that's like the the Ling fruit here and you know today we live in a very International World okay like we I I sit in Tel Aviv we have clients all over the world we have employees all over the world now it's it

10:43became much more easy let's say to make business over Zoom much more easy especially after covid right to hire people remotely and and I think there is still a big pain when it comes to moving money internationally right like you have bank account in in in one place but in another place you don't have a bank account but you still need to do a payment there right what's the best way

11:06to do it um you have a person who is actually living in a place that it's not that easy to get a bank account or US Dollars bank account like what what's the best way to move money to this person right and I would say that um utilizing blockchain Wells actually are um solving every pain that I just mentioned um from being able to you know to move money to places where um you

11:32know it's very difficult to move money today because of like broken banking uh or just on how you manage internal um money operations of your own organization okay so Space six I think it's a very good example um it's it's not a secret that they are utilizing stable coins behind um to do payments worldwide and the idea is simple um instead of like moving from bank to bank

11:59Bank utilizing like a chain of correspondent banking in the middle which takes time and money to move they can just you know attach a stable coin wallet to different bank accounts and just move the money between them right and then they just need a leg of on ramping and off- ramping in every jurisdiction okay so and that's all and then they can easily move funds from a

12:25bank account in Mexico to a bank account in Australia pretty quickly much low charges than how much they will pay today and they solve a big problem I also spoke recently with the CEO of one of the biggest payments companies in the world and he told me that a huge amount of money they pay every year just for banking fees Beyond okay so I think that stable coins um can save a lot of debt

12:51they can bring um fast experience lower fee experience but I would say there are also still some parts that needs to be solved so crypto is very good in being fast um but he not very good in being private okay and I would say that privacy for example is still a big issue when it comes to payments you don't necessarily want everyone to see like you know what are your wallets how much

13:17you pay to everyone what do you get from everyone Etc so I do think that there are still some missing parts here uh in terms of you know how you do private payments for example um on on the other end there also a lot of you know positive movement so for example MAA in Europe um bringing more regulatory Clarity um actually makes it now easier to utilize table coins and now we talk

13:42to a lot of PSPs Etc that are feeling more comfortable entering the space and we at utila we are aiming in the end of the day to be the leading um wallet infrastructure for any kind of like money movement right think that there you need like a new set of capabilities whether it's like gas management which is a big thing when you are moving like money around you need to

14:08manage a lot of addresses on multiple blockchains um if you don't manage guys efficiently you know the crypto savings might not might not be you know as as big as they can be right so I think this is like one thing better apis connectivity to liquidity connectivity to banking right so we manage to to create like a combination of everything that I just mentioned and and we see

14:33many businesses that you would not even dream of like utilizing stable coins Beyond you you know using our platform or similar platforms that's really exciting and I appreciate that that lengthy explanation I think it's really important to for businesses to understand the the savings and the efficiency of stable coin payments and I think that was part of the ethos of

14:55Bitcoin when it came out and crypto in general was hey we can send money to to the other side of the world in minutes or seconds for a fraction of the cost and you know the percentage of businesses using stable coin payments versus Traditional Bank payments where they have to wait a week and go to intermediary Banks and have crazy banking fees is is crazy uh the amount

15:18that still haven't transitioned over so with that process on on utila how do you provide the ideal environment for that to happen you you mentioned the having the on-ramps and off-ramps in in different jurisdictions and then having the options of of different stable coins there's there's not that many um I think you know with the with the m coming out maybe there'll

15:40be an increase in the European stable coin but for now it seems like usdt and usdc and then there's all the different blockchains which have different speeds and costs although the cost difference is is minimal so how do you set up that environment for uh a success for businesses yes I would say the um the base of everything is private keys right and and managing like

16:06multiple addresses so when you think about a business um or you know a PSP or neobank utilizing stable coins so the first part they need is like um the ability to manage wallets in a secure and scalable way and that's like the basic thing that we provide um they need it to be um um multichain um because you know they Ser they save clients in

16:34different jurisdictions in some jurisdictions usdt on Tron is like you know the most popular payment method in some jurisdictions it will be usdc on polygon okay they want to be able to support different blockchains um and then they want to be able to um support gas optimizations okay so in many cases they will need to create a lot of addresses um for let's say getting paid in and

17:03then they will need to sweep them into an internal treasury it's not like you know not creating the whe just taking what they do already doing you know in in traditional payment flow and just doing it the same thing on stable coins right but Justice sweeping um requires um a a pretty complex gas operation management because it means that they need to tap gas to every

17:27different wallet that they manage and then they might have more gas than they actually need and then they would have a a gas Tas problem uh which can actually uh end in losing a lot of money so they need like an efficient way to be able to move funds from if diff multiple wallets into like a main Treasury and do it in an efficient way when it comes to paying

17:51the gas for these transactions they need connectivity to AML tools um you know um due to regulatory requirements compliance Etc so they need the ability to connect these wallets to a chain analysis or a lipti or trm or you know any one of these players some of them they will need like a travel rule integration now for example in Europe um so we are partnering uh with a notab

18:17which is like a travel rule provider um they will need like reconciliation in the end of the month so also in utila we have all the capabilities to you know to track all the transactions and balances like in different dates they need connectivity to liquidity right so some of them they will need in the end of day like an Exchange accounts um and we also

18:37provide the ability to connect them and move funds to them they will need connectivity to Banking and that's why we are now building something pretty exciting so it's um an on and offr Marketplace and and that's a place where we actually let our clients to be able to connect to their own bank account maybe in the future it it it will also be third party bank accounts in

19:03different jurisdictions and we are powering behind we're using behind Solutions like Bridge XYZ um borderless and similar and similar Solutions and in a way we enable our clients to manage a treasury but also to provide a seamless connectivity to on and off firms in different areas right so today in utila by one click you can actually onramp for example US

19:27dollars to usdc on different blockchains and you can also offer in one click um stable coins also to to different bank accounts that you manage um I'm sure that I'm missing some things because it provide a pretty wide range of um um Integrations and capabilities but um but I think that I mentioned all the base um that is needed today yeah no that's

19:55that's great and it's so interesting to see their you know there there's so many different blockchain Technologies uh now and having stable coins uh integrate into all of them is great but then you have to move between them and yeah like Tron over here polygon over here um so yeah so for that we also have have now um we're adding soon the ability to

20:19bridge between different blockchains inside utila which is also a very needed thing right like you you are doing like an international movement and you got like again USD on throne but you need to move someone usdc on polygon that's like the um you know what they receive or that's like what their off- frame solution um support so instead of doing to like a an exchange or instead of like

20:46now connecting to a Smart contract uh externally so they could they will be actually be able to swap inside utila so yeah we're also working on these kind of things yeah that's great I was going to ask that is there third party Bridge or you know once you have to change currencies or chains then uh you also rent extra steps so I think streamlining that process as much as possible for

21:10businesses that just want to make the payment they don't want to have to care about you know which blockchain is which um whatever gets the job done that's great well um one other part I was going to ask about because of course payments and stable coin payments are super important uh but now there's the expansion of functionality into decentralized finance and uh real world

21:38asset tokenization which I'm sure many businesses will be getting involved in as that part of the industry continues to grow do you also touch on supporting businesses and getting involved into other parts of web 3 if they want to yeah of course so one of the main areas where I'm proud to say that you is differentiated than many solutions in the market is the depth of the defi

22:04support and and defi support comes in in in multiple areas okay so from the ability to interact with defi on multiple blockchains evm today is is I would say is easy but what about Solana what about Cosmos what about ton okay what about upos what about Su and I think there uh we managed to build a pretty good user experience um also highly secure that enables our

22:33clients to connect easily to defi on multiple evm and non evm chains um we also have a lot of embedded security capabilities so we just talked about bybit um one super important layer when it comes to interaction with Defy is the ability to understand what you're going to sign right in terms of like simulating the balances changes that will happen if you will actually perform

23:00the section the ability to understand what will be the actual transfers that will happen the ability to um to see the method the parameters we do have like very sophisticated users on utila that are actually looking to the beats and bites that we are giving them as a visibility layer before approving and signing any smart contract interaction besides that I mentioned before that one

23:25of the things that we uh provide is a policy engine for internal operations so our policy engine doesn't support necess only like simple transfers of like moving five Bitcoins and then saying okay if Ashton is moving more than you know $500 and then I need the approval of two out of four Etc but we also have the same kind of um capabilities for smart contract calls um for actions like

23:52burning minting tokens um um and and different like um um function calls when it comes to Smart contact interaction so we build the ability for institutions to set like very specific um permission flows on different types of um defi interactions we also have the ability to see defi positions from the utila platform um so

24:20we provide you know full visibility into wallet balances exchange balances and defi positions today or historically um so I would say that in the end of the day um we see also a lot of success when it comes to rwa um projects um exchanges um liquid funds Etc mm that's great to know and you mentioned there about uh

24:49burning tokens or managing is there uh especially when you start getting into rwa tokenization or even just creating a token for for a business is that something that you guys can help manage as well if they're actually creating tokens yeah of course so when it comes to um to issuing right like a token um uh it can be a stable coin it can be a a

25:18tokenized money market fund right it can be a tokenized real estate it can be tokenized gold we also have a clients like that um in the end of the day there are like a few a few steps right so and I'm talking mostly from the technological perspective I'm not a lawyer I'm not a compliance person but I know exactly what they need when it comes to security

25:41and infrastructure so one thing of course is a smart contract okay behind every tokenized asset you have actually a smart contract so organizations need um you know the capabilities to be able to to write a smart contract and when it comes to St coins actually um many of those smart contracts should not be very different than let's say the one of usdc

26:06um for some other assets it might be a bit more um complex we do have Partners there um so we do help some of our clients also with you know like writing the the smart contract and do it in a secure way uh we partner with players like libera uniform Labs Etc there um then the next step will be okay now we have the smart contract How We Do Run um secure burning and minting operations

26:33okay so how do we manage the private key uh of the admin wallet of the smart contract How We Do set policies and permissions about who can meant um who should approve every meting who should approve every meting of a lot of tokens right and then in utila you can actually set different policies and mint and burn directly from the platform so you can import your smart contract of the the

26:58asset that you want to tokenize then the next step will be that you can actually set burning and minting policies and then you can actually burn and mint utilizing our platform then you get actually the tokens into your utila wallets that you specified and then the next step will be probably um spreading them across your partners liquidity providers exchanges some other channels

27:25and also there you can utilize our whitelisting mechanism operational workflow so for how you move money around um transaction policies Etc um so it's a pretty full solution there including other things I mentioned balances reconciliation Etc yeah that's definitely a lot of functionality for for different businesses to explore uh from the basics to being so in-depth and

27:52and what do you think from from a high level businesses that aren't yet in uh crypto or they're looking to sort of integrate some of their operations into crypto what are the key pieces of all the things that that UA offers and in general in the industry that are going to drive more businesses to get involved in crypto so I would say first and foremost

28:16um more clarity around regulation um you know serious organizations in the end of the day they need to understand exactly how they need to operate um in different jurisdictions so M Dora is a is a good example um last week I I was in Hong Kong at consensus I met the hkma they're also working now on regulation framework for stable coins so

28:45you know seeing more and more like um official Frameworks for that uh is super important to drive adoption second piece I would say is like security and good infrastructure in the end a day you know that's a muster right like events like buybit they're bad they are bad for the market they are bad for the adoption um and and I think having um you know a good set of tools that enable

29:13you to um to run this kind of operations securely easily is critical okay so I would say it's mostly about these two parts like good technology good and secure technology and also regulatory Clarity if you have both of them you can succeed definitely now I think that's a great basis and I'm hoping we'll see some stable coin regulation uh in some major jur jurisdictions and I think that

29:40will pave the way for businesses to get involved and then all of a sudden they'll be going down the the D5 route and the tokenization and all of this uh once they have more of a green light so I'm looking forward to that um and what is the best way for businesses to start dabbling in this if they're interested in using some of the operations that that utila has um can they reach out to

30:03you or just go to the site and and get started how does that actually work to get into business it's pretty quick yeah um um send me a message on telegram Ben from youra or just you know um get to us through the website um and we had already multiple um cases where someone reached out and on the same day they already had like a util running um the good thing about us is that on boarding

30:32is a few minutes that's all it's very it's very easy to set to set up an environment uh we also have a lot of materials around you know the different parts of the system so it's a pretty self serve easy to use user experience you don't even need to talk to us in order to be able to to run entire crypto operations in utila um yeah awesome sounds great uh I appreciate the

30:59insights into all of this uh I'm really hoping uh we can check all the boxes and and have more businesses get involved and that the new Administration helps pave the way in legislation around the world uh for businesses to jump on and and utilize all of these amazing benefits of not just the stable coin payments and off-ramps and on-ramps globally but all of the other fun stuff

31:22that that web 3 is innovating on so I appreciate your insights beny wishing you and the team all the best at utila uh moving forward and would love to follow up again in the near future thank you Ashton thanks for hting me and um it was a pleasure talking to you again