[Music] thank you welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing News Network I'm speaking with Adam O'Brien founder and CEO of Bitcoin well about Trends in the Bitcoin space that might be of interest to the investor Community hello Adam hello thanks so much for having me yes thanks for being here and uh welcome let's start our conversation with just an overview of Bitcoin well could you talk about the company definitely Bitcoin well is a non-custodial Bitcoin ecosystem and we've been around for uh


over 10 years in the space now which has been great we started off with Bitcoin ATMs which is the uh or which was at the time the fastest and safest way to buy Bitcoin you could trade cash for Bitcoin today we operate over 280 Bitcoin ATMs across Canada we've also been developing our online Bitcoin portal for the better part of the last year we deployed it in uh in Q4 late Q4 2022 and today it's a platform that enables Canadians to buy sell and use Bitcoin um as a replacement for their bank so


they can buy and sell Bitcoin obviously but you can also use Bitcoin to pay your bills or to buy a gift card to your favorite retailer etc etc and that's what we are kind of making the the Forefront or the center of our ecosystem as we drive down towards making Bitcoin usable right so Bitcoin has evolved I guess since it was first introduced can you talk about some of the current trends in the Bitcoin space and how they're impacting your business strategy yeah currently we're seeing I think


Bitcoin crypto and blockchain kind of decoupling or or splitting I think when we first started in this industry uh Bitcoin and crypto we're we're kind of one in the same and blockchain was a big piece of that we're seeing Bitcoin separate from crypto that's obvious right now today and how the SCC is going after some of these large Platforms in the US for selling coins that aren't Bitcoin um and then we're seeing blockchain uh blockchain really has been over hyped it's basically just a database and so I


think finally here we are you know 15 years after bitcoin's Advent um is is the population the governments and The Regulators understanding that Bitcoin is a protocol um that that drives value long term and the other tokens um are not and so I think um part of that Trend and it helps us and is very good for our business we've been non-custodial since day one what that means is we don't hold consumer funds at at any point in the transaction when we or when we have the customer funds we


immediately deliver the customers Bitcoin directly to their Bitcoin address um and so that's a key distinction that's what makes us so safe to use as a platform and today in a world where crypto exchanges are melting down the banking system in the US is melting down uh we're seeing that no institution is safe and the safest place for your money or for a consumer for a customer's money is in their direct control and that's what we're enabling through our business right and so can you we can flesh that


out a little bit why is self-custody of Bitcoin important these days it prevents the ability for other people to take control of your money and we're very used in this day and age to other people being in control of our money from day one we're taught you know you aren't smart enough to handle money give it to an investment advisor give it to the bank put it in a savings account um that's transferred to now if you don't hold your money or if you don't give your money to the bank it's not


very usable I've told this story 100 times before I was walking down the street uh of you know quite a while ago and trying to buy a sandwich and I had 50 bucks in my pocket in cash and they wouldn't I couldn't I couldn't spend the 50 bucks they told me they didn't have change for for after I bought the sandwich and it drove me nuts I couldn't believe it you know cash in my pocket is truly the only form of money that I have full control over and I don't even have full control over the monetary policy


but just even how it's handled and and I couldn't spend it and it made me realize just how important it is that we do have control of our money because when your money is held by others in either a banking institution or a crypto exchange you're exposed to the decisions of the people who are who are in control of that bank who are in control of that money um and then further to that you're exposed to frankly government overreach and um if and you know if the government decides oh hey you know we don't like


this individual or we don't like this concept um then you know who will the platform protect their best interests or their or their customers and when you use a platform like Bitcoin Well you aren't forced to make that decision right you immediately give us money and then we immediately give you Bitcoin and it all happens you know virtually instantaneously reducing the risk of of you know either company malfeasance or negligence or government overreach and I think that's a that's a net benefit for


consumers and frankly how money should be handled there's also this trend of uh ATM consolidation in Canada can you talk about I guess first of all for those uh invest for those in the investors Community that's not familiar with how this whole Bitcoin ATM Dynamic Works can you uh sort of provide a brief explanation of that and this trend of consolidation Bitcoin ATM enables an individual to walk up with cash Fiat money in their hand scan a Bitcoin address insert the cache and then receive Bitcoin this is


the fastest way um to buy Bitcoin um because you're you're right there um and so I think that uh there's other features that are that are empowered by Bitcoin ATMs because we use cash um there's a lot less of a risk of Fraud and therefore um while we remain in compliance with our with our MSB our money service business requirements we don't have to request all of the information um from the customers that you would in an online platform for example where you're heavily at risk to fraud so


there's lots of consumer benefits from ATMs at that point they've become synonymous with with quick easy access to bitcoin um done while also preserving some levels of privacy which is which is fantastic and a massive ethos in the Bitcoin industry we've seen for the last couple years is we've seen a consolidation happening as this as these machines kind of transition from new and emerging into a business and and into a into a large scalable business you know much like we've done


um in 2021 we were one of the first Bitcoin Opera Bitcoin ATM operators to bring their Bitcoin ATM technology in-house that was with our acquisition of Ghost Lab that enables us to scale quickly um and and work on our partner program which empowers other uh businesses to buy the hardware we simply install our software and then operate that software so we get we get to grow a lot faster without the capex that's involved in the industry and then further from that Bitcoin ATMs as I said as we move from


this kind of Niche business into more of the mainstream um the single operators where it's more of a side hustle less of a career less of a business um their profit margins get squeezed and it becomes a lot less desirable to operate that business you know we're still Bound by compliance regulations we're still Bound by money service business regulations we're still Bound by customer support and marketing and working capital and liquidity and all the rest of the things that come with


operating the business all of a sudden operating 10 or 15 machines is you know the juice isn't worth the squeeze so to speak and so we're hoping to do and just like we did in 2020 in advance of going public we're looking forward to going out in 2023 and 2024 and continuing to roll up the industry adding those those you know good networks those good Bitcoin ATM networks into our operational flow so that we have the ability to grow and expand while bringing on some more partners and some


more investors and more shareholders into the mix and speaking of expansion I understand you are expanding to the U.S uh can you talk about what that entails and what it means for the U.S market yes we're very excited to be expanding into the US the United States is a very difficult jurisdiction to expand from Canada into because the regulations are quite different so we found a reliable partner with good Banking and payment processing and were able to work with them to integrate their uh compliance


payments banking infrastructure into our portal and offer our portal to our you or to our us customers and our in our soon to be U.S customers the US market is absolutely massive we've seen the likes of coinbase and and the s or and and finance both be targeted by the SEC we saw binance lose their their banking relationship recently we are an absolute gold mine for uh consumers who want to buy Bitcoin in the fastest way and safest way possible while just simply connecting their bank and buying Bitcoin


with self-custody by default and that's the platform that we're going into the states with which I'm very excited we've been in beta in the States now for a couple of weeks the transactions starting to trickle in we have our wait list that we been slowly adding people making sure the transactions are happening it can properly scale the liquidity is good and then we'll be ready to turn it on hopefully by the end of this month uh for the majority of the American citizens which I'm very very


excited about because up until now Americans haven't had a self-custody by default platform where they can buy Bitcoin and then immediately receive Bitcoin in their wallets without any extra steps or withdrawals in the middle where do you see I wonder if you can provide your thoughts like where do you see this whole Bitcoin Dynamic um you know moving forward in terms of going um more mainstream like is it replacing or sort of being operated in the side by side you know the normal currency like


what are your thoughts on sort of future for this I think the next decade it continually well you know barring a a a massive economic collapse which frankly isn't out of the question I think that Bitcoin will continue to work alongside at the end of the day what's important for the next 10 years is Bitcoin usability uh 10 years ago in 2013 when I set up the business I was looking to make Bitcoin accessible and understood today the understandability still holds true but Bitcoin is very very accessible today I


mean right now I can send an e-transfer have Bitcoin directly on my wallet in less than 30 seconds there's nothing more accessible than that what we're working on now is making Bitcoin usable as Bitcoin becomes more and more attractive to hold in yourself custody to hold a portion of your wealth in your custody in Bitcoin it's going to be important that there's places for people to be able to use that Bitcoin and and reap what they sell so to speak and so platforms like our bill payment platform


like our gift card platform you know as we look to integrate what actually what integrating card payments might look like in a Bitcoin ecosystem those are the important next steps as we March down towards making Bitcoin usable and adding that on top of the accessibility and then eventually we just look like a bank we look like a platform where you can use money store money and then obviously earn money and and all of that done where where Bitcoin well gives you access to the Bitcoin protocol and then you have full control


on how you on on how you use the platform which is which is the goal sounds great that's that's very interesting indeed well thank thank you for um you know spending the time to speak to me today amazing thank you so much for having me and looking forward to continuing this journey and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights foreign