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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

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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,

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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?

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>> 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?

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>> 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

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firms that uh are now introducing a

10:34

crypto buying power as well. So you can

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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

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get from us a margin or buying power to

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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

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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.

Interactive Summary

Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro, discusses the company's recent strategic moves, including the acquisition of Trade Zero to expand its footprint in the U.S. market, its aggressive integration of AI through tools like 'Tori' and 'Grock,' and the development of a financial super app. Assia also addresses the company's approach to crypto volatility, the growth of prediction markets via their non-custodial wallet Zeno, and the broader trend of the great wealth transfer among generations.

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