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00:00Three months into the job. How's that man. It's quite quite right. I have to say crypto markets are really getting a big push especially from the institutional side. And we see him a lot of players coming into that market and actually for us as derivatives player. That's very interesting. And being in Asia is very interesting too because this naturally where where most of the developments are coming from. So it's awesome so far. And your key priorities right now for the business itself. I think we are just on the brink of the next maturation step for the crypto markets. And the next big thing to come is derivatives markets. So for us getting a good relationship with the regulators and getting into a more regulated and licensing regime is the biggest obstacle that we have to take. You know we were just having a conversation just before this interview started just on just how volatile Bitcoin is for example in other coins. And I would imagine before you get massive corporate adoption and you and I were having a conversation before the show you know that needs to be addressed. So in terms of new products what what sort of furthers that goal for you. I think that we need more let's say mass market like plain vanilla products that we can use in the mass market for retail institutional players. But I think what is needed is stability from a regulatory framework. A lot of regulators are already working on this. And I think this is important to give confidence into the market that the products have approached a pretty environment and sound basis. And this will then also support the confidence and into the product. Some of the products will be wallet titles still. And for this I think also we need what is widely discussed the central bank digital currencies as stable clients to support their development. Are those competitions since you brought it up. I mean we had big news overnight from the PBR see digital and you on for example. Do you see that as competition or is that something that sort of further should go. No I think no. I think it's more supporting the goal and further away. Yes. And it is it is supporting as we see more products and classical institutional players coming into the market. And this supports the wider acceptance of the products. With more classical players into coming in. And so from my point of view it has a long lasting positive impact. And more regulators will look into these products and warm up to that one. So I don't see it as negative or competition effect. Or does it necessarily. Not so much that. Did you know the digital versions of fiat currencies themselves but more crypto. Does that latter part need to fall under eventually. You think central banks. Or is is the allure and the value of using these mainly because they are outside the purview of monetary policy makers. This could the question is how you want to tackle that one. I think that for the beginning we will see more centralized approaches before we really have led to open markets. I think that central banks will play a major role in definition especially for stable coins. Central bank digital currencies. But I think also that we see a lot of positive effects of coming from this small public approach to crypto currencies. So it's very hard at this point in time to see and you see the TV space which is also developing quite fastly in this direction. So it's quite hard at this point time to see other developments occur. And I would imagine part of what you guys are looking at too apart from growing organically things like acquisitions for example I know you can't comment specifically on what targets you might have already but give us a little bit of a clue. What types of assets would fit your strategy strict your strategy. I think when you look at the development of the crypto market you see that a lot of these players starting a couple of years back about markets infrastructure they are now expanding into brokerage and especially CASSIDY to serve wider client aspects. And I think there is something that we from Bit Mix will have also look into and see how we can support our clients in the full approach of products offer to the markets. And so from our point of view this is something that we definitely look at. And yes at this point time you have to see which markets do you tackle with which approach and see whether they are interesting players for partnering or maybe for expanding organically or organically. And from. From a client perspective what percentage of your clients are actually corporates. More than saying I don't want to use retail investors but more the institutional type of course the one that you think is going to lead us into the sort of next phase. It's a little bit hard to say at this point in time because we don't have this clear client definition from a regulatory standpoint. But the products that we are offering right now are pretty sophisticated products. So we are more targeting right now the professional or semi-professional traders. I think we need to expand that product universe also to more plain vanilla products to increase the customer base and bring new customers and clients to our platform. Now for the institutional side naturally these sophisticated products are very interesting. I know you can't comment specifically but I'm getting a lot of people are wondering right now that you and I are talking of course in the. That makes of course Arthur hates me. I've interviewed him a couple of times. I know you can't comment specifically on the case. I need to ask you though. What was the biggest fallout from what's happened late last year and of course then leaving. And how are you addressing the fallout now as you said and actually can and will comment on anything related to what happened there. But I think that the most let's say impacting thing is the uncertainty that normally goes around this. And now bringing this confidence back that it makes is here to say I mean we've heard the inventor of the perpetual swap the most traded derivatives products in crypto space. And this power we will use again to to rise with new products with new offering in more markets. KYC money laundering. The case aside that's going to be the core issue really of regulators. When you have that conversation I used to work in the back it was front 80 90 percent of what bankers did. Do you have an annual policy for example and how do you assure KYC all throughout the process. Yes we have a KYC AML program prophecy process in place and we have the largest exchange where the fully KYC to name its customer base. So we implemented that early on. And I think it's also very important for the approach of the regulators. Our regulators are not regulating technology. They're regulating function. And as long as you fulfill a certain function you need to have the processes in place. So for us it's very important to get into the regulated space as we see this as the next step for maturity. And so we're reaching already out to several regulators globally to see how we can offer our products in these markets on a standardized basis. Final question. It's interesting that a guy like yourself with your type of background of course a classic exchange guy is heading this sort of endeavor. And the reason I bring that up in short distance from a real right now is the world's most valuable exchange. I'm talking about the HK ex. Now in your view the future of crypto and all the derivatives of course. Is it inevitable that you will see an overlap mergers and how would you approach that. I think there will there will be a lot of interest from classical players into the new let's say quote unquote digital world and crypto custody world. Crypto world. Yes. And maybe a couple of years back they might have thought about acquiring one of these exchanges. And your coming up exchanges as you see from let's say some of the developments in the US that maybe the the values of the new players might even surpass the ones of the classical ones. But as you see now that more and more markets are developing you will see also a couple of years down the road of consolidation effect. So how we see an approach that naturally reaching out having discussions around that and see how and when there are opportunities for collaboration in partnering. Very quickly have you been approached. I won't come in and. All right. OK.

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Crypto Markets Getting 'Big Push,' 100x Group CEO Says

Alexander Höptner, chief executive officer of 100x Group, the holding group behind cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, discusses the prospects for the market and his company. Höptner's appointment in December came two months after the founders of the exchange were charged with skirting U.S. laws that prevent money laundering. He speaks with David Ingles on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia." (Source: Bloomberg)

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