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Co-founder and CEO of EToro Yoni Assia Talks TradeZero Deal | Bloomberg Talks

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Co-founder and CEO of EToro Yoni Assia Talks TradeZero Deal | Bloomberg Talks

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304 segments

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[music]

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Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio

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news and

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>> I'm looking at shares of E Toro Group.

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They're lower today, actually having the

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biggest decline ever, down about 13%.

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This after the fintech company reported

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revenue from crypto assets for the

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second quarter that missed the average

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analyst estimate. Also big news, it

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announced to buy Trade Zero based in

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Brooklyn for up to $231 million. We've

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got with us Yoni Assia, the CEO of E

0:29

Toro. He's back with us here in the

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Bloomberg Business Week studio. So, the

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numbers you were saying you had a good

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quarter and this is an acquisition that

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that you think is is a right the right

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move obviously at the time. What's the

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market getting wrong about this?

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>> Well, uh you know, I can't control the

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markets. I can control the business. Uh

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Q2 was another beat quarter. Uh great 9%

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uh growth year-over-year of both uh

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topline and bottom line. 18% uh

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exceeding actually market expectations

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of funded accounts. Huge roadmap coming

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in uh across AI in the company. We

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actually released uh a new app which is

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taking the old app and rewritten 100%

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with AI with AI focus and center around

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Tory AI agent which is the Gro frontier

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model and uh we were talking now about

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Denip Patone from Trade Zero and the

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team a great team joining us here in the

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US to lead it to Toro uh in the US with

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the trade zero acquisition.

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>> Yeah, let's talk about the trade zero

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acquisition. Dan's been on our program.

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I used to speak to him all the time just

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a few years ago. Uh so certainly a

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familiar name to our audience. Why buy

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Trade Zero rather than build something

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internally? Like what does bringing on

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Trade Zero do for E Toro that you

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couldn't offer US customers before?

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>> So when you look at our business, the

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vast majority of our business is outside

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the US. We have a huge franchise Europe,

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UK, uh Australia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi,

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uh and the US a bit got left behind sort

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of the rest of the world for us where

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the big part of the business is. Uh what

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this brings is one a great team based

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here in Brooklyn uh uh in the US with a

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significant also franchise $80 million

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revenues uh and a lot of knowledge and

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experience in US capital markets

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infrastructure. So a lot of the great

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products that we actually have outside

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the US which include leverage stock

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trading uh long short uh on top of long

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short trading we actually created

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quantitative smart portfolios which

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create hedge fund like strategies uh

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market neutral strategies outside the

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US. So all of these products operate and

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work for it outside the US. Uh and we

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believe that together with trade zero we

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can actually bring all of these products

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including futures trading which is a lot

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of our customers were trading oil, gold,

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silver during Q1, Q uh during Q4 Q1. Uh

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so all of these products will now be

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enabled to our customers through the

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integration with Trade Zero.

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>> Yeah. How are you planning to kind of

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differ your approach when it comes to

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dealing with your international clients?

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Because you know I lived in London for

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almost 10 years and the average retail

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investor there tends to be more

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conservative. they tend to prefer

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physical assets whereas US investors are

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really just very much into this and so

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yeah how would you kind of differ the

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approach uh now that we're looking at a

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broader base of international clients

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>> so I I think this actually shows the

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huge opportunity that we have right so

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it has been hugely successful outside

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the US and places like Germany Spanish

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France Italy the UK uh across multiple

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by the way both geographies and products

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247 trading of both stocks from 26

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different capital markets of

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commodities, indices, currencies as well

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as investing, copying the top trades all

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around the world. We actually feel our

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products have a huge untapped market

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here in the US. uh but until 2025 until

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the IPO basically we just took a step

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back waited actually for also the crypto

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environment to be the right environment

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here in the US and together with a trade

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zero acquisition we were going to double

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down on the US market introducing our US

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customers and US customers to basically

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the global community and the collective

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intelligence uh in it Toro

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>> you mentioned AI and one thing that

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we're increasingly hearing more about is

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agentic trading uh there was a great

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piece in Bloomberg just last week uh a

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big take. Everybody should check it out

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if they haven't already about the way

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that some retail traders are are

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harnessing this technology. ETO is

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allowing customers to use AI agents to

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trade autonomously, but that's within

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certain defined parameters. Give us an

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update on adoption and activity that

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you're seeing thus far. So, uh first of

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all, just yesterday uh we launched uh an

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official connector to Grock. So, we have

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a great partnership with SpaceX. You can

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actually go now to Grock and click uh

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search for it Toro connect your e Toro

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account click uh it opens basically an e

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Toro single signon and then Gro suddenly

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has visibility into your entire

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portfolio into the portfolio of all of

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the rest of the traders in it Toro and

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into the X feed. So you can ask

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something like uh uh look at my port

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look at my portfolio look at my expost

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tell me what I'm missing uh in my

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portfolio. Now we've launched Tori our

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own AI agent uh a while back which is

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also based on grock. We launched also

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now claude MCPS and we are seeing more

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and more users are actually connecting

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AI. There was one missing piece which we

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launched about two months ago which is

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sub accounts or we called it agent

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portfolios. A lot of people including

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myself were afraid to connect their

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entire account into AI. Uh now you can

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actually connect it just to a sub

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account to an agent portfolio and say

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let's say I have $100,000 in my

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portfolio. I want $5,000 invested and I

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want this now AI agent to manage my

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portfolio autonomously. Now the

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beautiful thing about AI agent is they

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never sleep. Uh you can train them

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basically on everything. My, by the way,

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AI agent uh goes every day to

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universities across the globe, downloads

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research papers on behavioral economics,

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connects the data in it Toro and runs

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back tests uh uh on on on actual

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proprietary data of it Toro. So we're

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seeing things that up until 2 years ago

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only people in places like you know

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Renaissance and Millennium could do.

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Suddenly we're doing it with our own

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quants and we're building those tools

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for our customers to run basically

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quantitative trading and agentic trading

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as well. I I believe this is just the

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beginning of that and that is going to

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actually surpass the amount of trading

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activity of people on it Toro by the end

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of next year.

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>> Wow. Okay.

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>> Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about

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prediction markets as well because

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that's another growth area for a lot of

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companies like E Toro uh surging in

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popularity. what sort of opportunity

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does that present for your company

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moving forward?

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>> So, uh we announced another acquisition

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uh in Q2 which is Zeno. It's a

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non-custodial wallet uh outside in the

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US. It's a it's a great opportunity.

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It's a regulated market uh outside the

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US. A lot of the prediction markets

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actually operate in the DeFi world uh in

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non-custodial wallets. Uh Zeno uh is a

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firm actually run by a great founder

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that uh was actually a VC that I pitched

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DTORo to 20 years ago. Um and and now

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sort of uh working together, we've

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launched prediction markets in a DeFi

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model uh in a non-custodial wallet. It

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took us, by the way, 2 weeks from uh

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closing the acquisition to actually

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launch the SSO connector uh uh to

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basically the non-custodial wallet. So

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you can transfer money seamlessly from

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basically your Toro account into a

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non-custodial wallet and then actually

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trade tens of thousands of crypto assets

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through DeFi swaps versus only 200 on it

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Toro. But 200 is actually a lot. Uh uh

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and of course uh new markets such as

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prediction markets and coming soon

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perpetuals as well.

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>> Uh how does it diff how do you

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distinguish at least in the US between

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what maybe KHI and poly market are doing

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with prediction markets and I mean this

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is a really crowded space.

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>> Um first of all nothing is really

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crowded when you think of the entire TAM

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right. So the entire TAM were still very

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very early stages of the largest

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transformation of wealth in history. You

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think we're talking about a hundred

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trillion dollars moving from older

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generations to younger generations.

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>> Yeah. That's outside of just prediction

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mark. I mean that's that's the whole

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great wealth transfer.

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>> I I think it's appetite. It's risk

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appetite and type of new products. And

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one of the reasons we did Zeno is we

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noticed we have gen zeters who are

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actually very interested in living on

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chain and doing transaction on chain. I

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think that's where a lot of the

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ecosystem is. And when you look at the

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different products that we've been

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launching in it Toro, it's about making

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sure that customers on it Toro can stay

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on it Toro whether they want to trade

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stocks uh or commodities or whether they

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want to actually trade crypto or

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actually copy somebody else or invest in

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um Alpha Portfolios on Toro or spend

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their money with a Visa that's connected

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to the account. So, what we're building

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is a financial super app that provides

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you access to any type of financial

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product that you want within the Toro

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ecosystem.

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>> All right. Well, speaking of crypto,

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Yon, we got to talk about that uh since

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that seems to be a little bit of a weak

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spot uh for your most recent earnings,

9:12

but I mean, what's what's the outlook uh

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in terms of the revenue from that market

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and really just outlook for the market

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directionally moving forward?

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>> I I think uh we're seeing uh you know,

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crypto yet in another super cycle.

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Everybody's talking about the four-ear

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cycles of crypto. We launched it in

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2013. Boom. Crashed 85% in 14 that we

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had huge amount of revenues in 2017

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coming from crypto. A huge crypto rally,

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boom, a crash in 218, 2021, 2022, now

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2025, and 2026. So, it does seem it

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works on a clock of a cycle, maybe a

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self-fulfilling prophecy. Um, and I have

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no doubt I'm a very big believer in

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Bitcoin as digital gold that we are

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going to see Bitcoin uh going way beyond

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the all-time highs that we've seen in

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October, but it might take time and

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people to adopt to these technologies.

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>> Uh, real time, what are you seeing as a

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result of the cold card wallet hack made

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by Canada based Coin Kite, the crypto

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that was stolen?

10:11

>> Does it have any impact on it Toro? Are

10:13

you seeing more people invest in

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>> we have bitcoin ETFs?

10:17

>> Uh we we no we're seeing actually more

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people moving to non-custodial. Uh so we

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actually have seen people coming into it

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Toro depositing crypto in it Toro uh

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into Zeno and then from Zeno into it

10:29

Toro. We actually are one of the unique

10:31

firms that uh are now introducing a

10:34

crypto buying power as well. So you can

10:36

actually come to it Toro, bring in your

10:38

crypto from basically, you know, either

10:40

non-custody or custodial wallet and then

10:43

get from us a margin or buying power to

10:45

buy stocks as well.

10:47

>> Are there a lot of people doing that?

10:48

It's kind of could be risky.

10:50

>> Um, you know, risk return. Uh, we

10:53

believe in educating people about the

10:54

markets.

10:55

>> Yonyi, always good to see you.

10:57

Appreciate the update on what the retail

10:58

investor is doing. and Yon AIA,

11:00

co-founder and global CEO of E Toro,

11:02

joining us here in the Bloomberg

11:04

Business Week studio.

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