Stephen: This is your host Stephen Sargeant. Hot off the press episode with Nik Denisenko. He's the CTO and co-founder of the Brighty app. This is where crypto becomes seamless. We talk about the early days of his work at Revolut Business and how he built out that unit. We talk a lot about crypto usage by users.

He's giving us amounts of, you know, monthly spend by crypto users. We talk about a lot about this crypto backed app and the crypto back credit cards that they're reusing all around the world. And obviously this is a compliance focused person right here. So we're going to talk a little bit about regulation and compliance.

This is a great app with Nik. Bright app is pretty cool. So you might want to check out this episode.  

This is your host Stephen Sargeant around the coin podcast. Crypto is all the hype. We have Nik, the CTO and founder or co founder of Brighty, the app that allows you to move crypto around, jump in and jump out of crypto pretty easily. Nik, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and then we're going to go jump into your background, how you got here, and we're going to talk about the market because the market is up and down.

It's like, it feels like a roller coaster sometimes. We even discussed like before recording, I have to make sure everything's working, you know, every day. So tell us a little bit about yourself

Nik: Sure. Nice to be here. Well, I'm a Nik. I'm co founder and CEO. Like Stephen said, like, you know, Brighty, Brighty is a Hybrid neo digital bank that allows customers to move the crypto and fiat very easily. I mean, in just in one place, in one UI, in one application I'm doing that for the last four years.

I'm a little bit CTO also, not just a co founder, so I'm a tech person involved like in. technical solution and decisions every day Wearing a lot of hats cause like when you're a co founder, you need to be like everywhere. So you should understand not just how it's technically works, but it sounds how, how it works in reality, how it works in the real world is all these compliance, legal, finance, banks.

And tech part is just a small, very challenging, very interesting part of the FinTech. Very important one. But there are many others that you should care about.

Stephen: Did you balance? Like, I know a lot of founders, like, you know, usually you see a co founder, you have the really technical person and then you have like either the operations person, that's the other co founder or someone that really great at marketing and growth, how did you balance? Like, Hey, we're going to start this together.

What skills you had versus the other co founder founders,

Nik: right. Yeah, again, so, it depends on the time and the period of the company, what's more needed. I started as a tech co founder. So I was building the Brighty myself. So it's. I mean, I was doing commits in the code, building the infrastructure, building the, the application logic itself. Like at the time that it's the core system were built.

I did understand that the, another interesting and very important part is the compliance. I was involved like in the, we'll say the polishing the compliance and legal processes. Then I, okay. So we need to improve like a little bit in the finance part, like on how we. moving hedging money. I moved there like improve the process.

So I'm trying to jump to, to, to where is like the most I would say important place right now and trying to improve the whole processes of the company itself. Like, so that's, that's how I balance. So like, I implement something, show how, how this works gave it like to my I mean, employees, like my, my, my team, I mean, okay.

So I show them, you should do it's like, like this way just to continue and jumping, like to another place when I can improve a lot of like. It's just how, it's just my system, like Brighty, how Brighty works. Actually I, I learned a lot, like how to build that in the Revolut. Revolut was like my first experience in FinTech startup.

I have been there like for four years with that background again. So I learned how to build the good FinTech in the international team. I mean, jumping around the departments, because in the Revolut, I was a part of a product team, not just a developer team. So I was involved like in the approving the, all the processes around the Revolut for business.

And that showed me like what's really important, like in the FinTech.

Stephen: Was were you already in crypto because you got into Revolut around 2016? Revolut as many people know huge fintech Were you already into crypto at this point or was Revolut even discussing crypto during your tenure there?

Nik: Yes, I was kind of like looking around the crypto. I was looking on that trend and and revelant was also kind of like in a trend, so they, they introduced crypto when it, when it starts a little bit, like. Jumping from the ground the, the management team decided, okay, let's, let's put crypto as a trading.

So, and they introduced the crypto trading and that was very good decision. And this showed me the trend of how the finance can can grow, like using this in new reality. So, and that was the first kind of like sign that I should. Should build something around the crypto because again, so Revolut was just a fintech.

It has great UI when they add a crypto the number of stores is booming,

Stephen: I love it. Now you start brighty in 2020 October 2020 and then we get hit by defy summer 2021 nfts metaverse So you look like a genius, obviously, like you started a crypto platform. What were you trying to solve for though? You saw Revolut, there's, you know, hundreds of players in this place that on off and on, on ramp and off ramp cryptocurrency or have an app.

What was the one thing that you were working on that Revolut or on your own, you're like, Hey, this is one problem that really nobody's focusing on, or nobody's, you know, this is not their core feature. What was that one thing that had you be like, I have to build this, you know, to scratch my own niche? How

Nik: answer for that again. So, and that's was what you have started talking about is the DeFi boom. At that moment, the I would say like crypto enthusiasts, they, they start understanding that the crypto on the crypto, you can also earn just providing a liquidity that you own, and that's awesome.

Thanks. It was not very simple, I would say, like I was a part of the early kind of like users of that. It was hard. I would say like my mom would never, I mean, can't do that yourself. Like understanding all these blockchain transaction, blockchain fees, like on how you, you should interact with a smart contracts on all these like wallets.

So that's what's created just for crypto users. And the idea of the briary was. Was to build a hybrid platform when you still get access to this defy protocols with their their utility. So they, they giving your some percentage of the of revenue that they earn from the customers, from other customers who utilize them is very.

easy way, like in one application. So where you can also top up with the Euro, like all USD and if you add currency, exchange these two to stable coin, put it in defy with one button without any complexity. And that was the first idea and why we started Bridey. Cause we would like to deliver this. Very good implementation of, of a crypto to everyone and in, in, in, in one click and one button,

Stephen: do you balance that though? Like you want to make it easy to use, so your mother can use it, but you know, the blockchain is also immutable. You can't reverse transactions. So how do you make this seamless app, but also realizing you have to put some safeguards in place so that someone doesn't send to a wrong address or, you know, add an extra zero by mistake before saying the funds and they can't reverse the transaction.

How do you kind of balance that within that user interface?

Nik: Yes. And that's our main, main purpose, like just to make everything as simpler, as secure. As transparent for a customer in a bright, because on the other hand, they just can use the, this complex, I mean, the web through wallets to protect customers from bad, let's say like bad addresses that exist in the blockchain.

We, we, we, we using this special let's say. Transaction and the blockchain analysis tools. So, like when, when our customers using Brady the Brady will say them okay. So this address might be like, not, not the one that you would like to use because it's connected to like some fraud or to some I mean, hack or it's connected to the sanctions.

So you shouldn't interact with that. So in the Brady always Trying to alert the customers to not allow them to do the things that they don't want to do. And there how we do that. We just, I mean, polishing the tools that already exist in the infrastructure, putting them all together in in one app and just providing the user, like simple, friendly communications on what they are doing again.

So another complexity is all this blockchain networks around. For example, when you're using stable coins, like there is like different networks that you can constantly use the wrong one. We also kind of like trying to Learn and educate the customers to understand a little bit more the difference between them like highlighting each step So it's it's clear and I mean understandable for customers and this is our primary goal again So just make the crypto easy and understandable for everyone I

Stephen: about illicit activity, what are you seeing? Like, we all know whether you're a bank or a crypto, on and off rent, or an app, there's always going to be illicit activity. What are some of the things that you're seeing within your systems? What are some of the alerts? Is it, you know, pig butchering that you're seeing?

Victims of, you know, using the app and sending the funds to transnational crime? Is it like, oh, little things, or using it to purchase stuff from darknet markets? What are some of the illicit activity that you've seen on the platform or that maybe you stopped because you have access to these blockchain analytics tools,

Nik: would say like we are not allowing any interactions with the bad addresses for a customer and we explaining why because it might be like affect their account like in, in the wrong way. So they, they, they can even, they check the address they want to send before and then decide like, whatever, like they will interact with this address, but outside of Bridey, because Bridey will not allow that.

Stephen: Right. I see.

Nik: but we kind of like explaining why we're not just blocking or like stopping the transaction. We explaining why, why this happens. I cannot. Emphasize the specific, I mean, this specific category of the transactions, but why stopping, but we, we checking all the illicit activity again, so we, we, we clearly understand when the customer sends money to another exchange, because again, some regulation activity, we shouldn't understand about the travel rules, like change a little bit information without the exchanges.

We clearly understand when customer interact with some sanctions, not allowing that. It's all, we understand that when customer, for example, interacts with a gambling or betting also like giving them a little bit information on, on, on that activity. So we trying to educate the customers. So, and to protect them from themselves, I would say,

Stephen: Right. How does, you know, you mentioned travel rule, you know, Mika's huge in Europe. How does the new Mika regulations, especially when you have such a beautiful UX, how does that now impact your business model now that you have to capture information about the destination wallet? Does it, is it just more onerous from a compliance perspective?

Does it make that customer interaction add a little bit more friction to that because you're asking for more information? Or is it easier? Cause once you have that information, it's easy for you to make a quick transaction now for a lot of these customers. How does Mika impact you?

Nik: I'll say like, my opinion, like for crypto by the end of the day, the, the, the regulation is good. Because it's, it's it's moving us to the crypto. So when, when it's understandable, when there is known rules, how to deal with crypto, customers feel a little bit more safe utilizing the crypto for everyday life.

So it's, that's why I would say like overall MECA rules and the, the compliance, I mean, regulation in Europe. giving us more access to, I mean, access to more people who are utilizing the crypto. The, but again, so like you said, this comes with some cost. So, and for example, this travel rule that we have been talking about when you, you need to collect some data about the.

Recipient of the data. We played around that and built around that a cool feature. So we named that, okay, so let's build an address, address wallet. So when you send some way, someone, we're just asking information. Okay, give us a little bit of information about that. We will save this data. And show next time you like a fast fast, fast recipient.

And you understand like to whom you said that you can like sort this out. So it's kind of like an address address of your beneficiaries that you're sending. So it's we use that just for a little bit UX improvement and it provided the customer in such way. So, right,

Stephen: So if they do it once, then you kind of like have that information populated. The next time they can just select the address, you already have the information for that specific address. And that way it's a lot more of smooth process for them.

Nik: right. That's correct. Yeah,

Stephen: You're based in Zug. I think it's pronounced like I've never actually really said the word, but you're in Switzerland, you know, Switzerland's been known for being like the crypto Valley.

I haven't heard too much about it. The crypto Valley recently, you've been in the space, you know, since 2020. Talk to me about the Crypto Valleys. It's still a thriving community. Have you seen a change over the last five years? What are your thoughts on the Crypto Valley? And, you know, just operating your business out of Switzerland.

Nik: right. So in terms of the Switzerland, I will, I will talk a little bit more about the community around that because again, so it's very crypto friendly and it's Kind of like everybody's interesting, like in, in building a crypto products there especially the defies around that. So in the video utilizing that part as kind of like, trying to be alongside with all these communities not just like, I mean, Switzerland's base, but overall the, the crypto ones I, I personally kind of like part of the several.

customer group where they just share the the feedback about the different crypto applications, the DeFi protocols that they, they, they using. I would say just not, not in Switzerland specific. It's a, a crypto community is a global one. So it's doesn't matter when you, where you're located. So it's it's about the globalization and the crypto, crypto adoption.

And I do really see the, I mean. How's the, the mature, the growing maturity of these communities. So it's is it becoming more kind of like clear what, what, what, what value you can get from crypto right now than it. It was, I mean, three or four years before

Stephen: Right. That's amazing. Do you, where do you service? Like, who are your customers? Are they based in the EU? Are you servicing other customers outside the EU? What's your core group of customers?

Nik: the core group again. So as we are Switzerland and Lithuania regulated a company in Lithuania, we, we do hold the WASP right now. And we are grading that to CASP in regarding the MICA license. We are serving the, the residents of European Union. We cannot like emphasize any, any, I mean, any specific country.

And we're really making improvements for, for all of them. So we, we, we translated, we localize applications. So every, every text is localized. So we paying a lot of attention, like on, into details to adopt the application to each country. Beside that, the, the cart itself, the product itself working everywhere.

So you can use I mean, variety cart to, to, to. To pay in a value like in Mexico but you should be like a resident of European hearing. That's the one requirement.

Stephen: What do you see? Any trends, especially recently with the Mika requirements rolling out? Is there any jurisdictions are all of a sudden maybe using your app more or sending funds to a certain jurisdiction because maybe the, you know, that region has opened up now to crypto usage because of these Mika regulations.

Nik: I would say like MECA regulation is a, is very mature one. So, and Europe itself, like in, in terms of like, using a crypt as a payment instrument is like, is. Somewhere at, at the, at the top of the I mean countries who kind of like dealing with the crypto and looking on that. Yeah, we, we definitely see the trends like this coming to the other regions.

And that was also like a part of the strategy of Brady going for expansion. And as for now, we, we also like choosing the region where we can expand with our knowledge. 'cause again, we, we launch a lot like on how to build the crypto FinTech startup in the kind of like mature environment. We understand how, how it'll be evolved like in, in other regions.

So the very interesting for us is like, Latin and also me main region in Indonesia. As for now, I cannot. Say exactly where we'll be launching Brighty, but it will be kind of like one of these regions. I would say

Stephen: You mentioned the Brighty card. Now, like, that's pretty cool, like, being able to spend your crypto. Do people actually spend, like, do you notice that the crypto, when you can spend it in, like, a credit card form, it's being utilized a lot more than when people have it on just an exchange?

Nik: yes, and that's one of like differentiating point like in the bride because Not all our competitors. I would say like less less of them can give this opportunity. So in a brady You don't need to exchange and pre fund the card before spending that. So, how it works, you just send money like in a stable coin, so like in the Bitcoin on a free room and link a card to that and go and spend.

So, and in the background, magic happens, how, how we do that. It's not so easy. I would say

Stephen: No, you got to deal with FX, you got to deal with exchange, like you got to deal with like the, the, the balancing act, the balance sheet and then you're doing all the tax and accounting requirements, I'm assuming on the back end for your customers as well, so it must be a heavy lift.

Nik: right. And about, about the taxes, I would say like, it's up to the customer, like, whether they would like to share this information. But besides that fact, I would say like, yeah, the hedging, exchanging, moving the funds, moving the funds from crypto to the, to the special account where the visa can, Take this money.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's our, let's say like know how, so this is what we doing and providing to the customers, the service itself.

Stephen: You talked about competitors and not having this card feature a lot of the times. What are the other things with so many opportunities to try different services? What is the one thing that you're like, Oh, our customers are coming here because of this, and that's the number one, there's probably a lot of reasons, but that's the number one reason why they're coming here.

Like a lot of the reason why, but a lot of people engage with Binance is because they had access to so many different coins, tokens, and pairs. That was one of their selling points early on. Asian base exchanges in general, that was one of their selling points. What do you think is that one selling point where customers keep on coming back to Brighton?

Nik: Yeah. And I, I'm getting this response from customers, what I would say they, what they saying, they saying that the Bridecard is just works. So it's very short, but it's defining defining us and from other competitors, because for example, they can rely, they can trust on that. They. That they will go to the market, use our card and, and everything works.

So the payment will be like accepted. The the money will be like exchange, nothing, no hidden fees, no, no, any, any I mean, complaints on, on, on, on that the card transaction will not pass. We have Apple pay. We have Google pay. I mean, that simplifies the card usage. And again, yeah, the most defining feedback from a customer is like Bradycarters just works.

Stephen: just works. I think when, you know, in a world of just like it does what it says it's going to do we don't see a lot of that, right? People make a lot of promises. Companies say how easy it is. And then you go and use it. You're like, well, I I'm still here waiting. I had the transaction. They can go through.

So I think to your point, just making sure it actually works when the customer wants it to work, not just in general, when the customer actually needs it to work, and that's their source of income that they're using. Do you offer, talk to me about some of the, the customer usage, because you have some interesting stats about customer usage, what stable coins are using, give us some of those interesting stats.

So there's a lot of people listening to this podcast and payment. Tech or they're just entrepreneurs in crypto. Give us some of that usage stats that you're seeing on the back end of Brighty,

Nik: absolutely. I'm happy to share that. So in terms of like what, what we have noticed the bride itself, like, like you said, so the recent Biden's a crack and the exchanges that give access to the full amount of these crypto coins, the bride itself, like, trying to solve another issue, not just providing all the access to, I mean, this full mimic coins.

We have fewer, but this is not the most important feature. The Bride is a hybrid finance application with access to fiat and crypto money. And in such way, we're sorting out the problem for the migrants for crypto earners, the corporate customers, the, the retail customer who deal with the remittance instruments.

So, that's means that they need that to, for any payouts or pains or just using them as a collateral on the card payments. And I would like to talk a little bit more about the crypto earners. That's really. Getting a lot of kind of like, value from the variety. 'cause for them it's very easy to accept, like their salary in the, in, in the stable coins.

It's mostly that. We talk to some of them we'll say the, the, the statistic like that. So like on average the crypto earners or like freelancers who are who are using variety earns about like. 3,500 per month. It's coming in. UDII would say that's not the kind of like, a random thing.

'cause yeah, ev most of our customers, which I think stable coins most. Most percentages, like USDT is about 85% USDT utilization comparing to like 5 percent of USDC, USDC, I would say like that might change a little bit because of the MECA. But in terms of like stable coins to cryptocurrency, I would not say that it will change a lot.

So about five other persons using BTC and everything else like other cryptocurrencies. So in terms of their behavior they usually spend that for luxury travel. And the third interesting Point yeah, we know it is that the a lot of our customers using the withdrawal mechanics Using bridal cart to revolute or to other financial institutions what they do they top up with Crypto like stable coins usdc link a card to that and do the top up there.

I mean, main bank or financial institution with Apple pay on Google pay. So in that case, they kind of like moving money from crypto to fiat world with just one click on Apple pay. And I think it's a, it's a good feature itself.

Stephen: That's awesome. So like if I'm today, I I'm using my, you know, Starbucks app and India top up money. That's basically them topping up their crypto or topping up their Fiat using their crypto.

Nik: Yes, yes, yes. And that's a really cool feature. So in terms of like, how, how they spend this money again. So these crypto earners usually about like 40 percent to 60%. So these 40 percent is spent like 60%. They, they put some somewhere like to the to the walls that we have. The walls is kind of like wrapped DeFi's that I have been talking about like previously.

Stephen: And how much is like an average person either earning, spending? Do you have any amounts that people are regularly utilizing? Like, are we talking about people are spending 20, 000 a month in crypto or a year in crypto? Or is this like micro payments where they're spending maybe 3, 500 or 1, 500 a month and they're using their crypto?

Nik: If we are saying about the, the, I mean, very lovely group of the crypto earners, so they spending about like, 1000 500, like to, to 2000 on average again. So, if this is just, I mean, every, every, they use. Not everyday use. I would say like, it's just normal customer without any earnings in the crypto, it's about like two to 300, not more.

We have few customers that are high wealth individuals. They spending much more, more. So these customers just earn. on a trading or like, on a BTC growth and they need a product where they can, again, use their crypto that they have earned. And they're using Brighty. One reason for that, I think like I know them personality, so I have some trust for them.

But I would

Stephen: are your, those are the ones you're trying to get to know personally, the ones that have a high net worth.

Nik: right, and I'm trying to kind of like expand this, this idea that the high net worth individuals also can use Ebride, it's very safe, so we are, we are regulated, compliant and our cover to this works. Yeah, but we don't have so much, I mean, these customers as for now, so mostly it's like some, some migrants, some, some crypto earners, some, some customers who are just checking how, how crypto can improve their life, let's say like that.

Stephen: Talk to me because you also have like a busy, you mentioned business and corporations. What is the use case for them? Are they paying out, you know, employees? Are they receiving crypto as part of, you know, their services or products that they're selling? How are the businesses within the Brady app using using the app?

Nik: Let's say like two use cases, too many use cases. One, one use case is when, when the corporates, they aggregate the fiat money, like for example, Euro. So they have some acquirers acquiring. Platforms where they aggregate money from their customers who paying by cars, whatever, or like sending money. So they aggregate this in Euro and they send this Euro to variety platform, and they need to do the payouts either by the invoices or to the contractors or to dividends.

They exchange this euro to stable coins and do the payouts. This is one use case. Another use case is when the corporates already have some USDT and they need to pay their contractors in the Europe or like their agencies in the Europe. And for that, they can also use Brighty and they're using that Brighty.

So they top up with the stable coins. And that's the major use cases. I would say, like, if you have some connection in Europe, you need this Fiat Rails, Brady can help you. If you have a business in Europe and you need to do a global remittance, Brady also can help you like, well, you just need to distribute a dividends.

And the easiest way is just to accept to send it in the Euro exchange to use it and send it out.

Stephen: think one of the most challenging things, I think obviously Revolute is, you said, one of the main, you know, connectors or counterparties for a lot of these transactions. How hard is it for crypto companies like yourself to obtain and maintain good banking relationships, or is in Europe, are they a little bit more free to the idea?

I know they have a lot of e money licenses, so these banks are a little bit used to dealing with fintechs, challenger, neobanks. Crypto companies, how hard is it? Is it still hard to maintain a bank account or is it a little bit, there's a lot more options than there are in place like Canada, where we have like five or six major banks, and it's a little bit challenging to keep that, you know, crypto based account.

Nik: It's for sure challenging by experience, not just by, by, by theoretically, because we through the life of the variety, I would say like the most difficult part is this Fiat part. So I would say like crypto hedging. Even car transactions is not so difficult as this fiat last mile when you need to deliver or accept fiat because you need to find reliable partners in reliable banks that also do a little bit understand how crypto works.

So, and this is really challenging to find those in a brighter way. We tried three to four, I think. So we are four now. Yeah. We changed about four, four banks who, who, who has been working with us on the fiat part. And that's including because the when we start. kind of like our relationship, they're saying that they can deliver, then at some point we we don't understand that they don't even understand how crypto works, how the compliance works, how how the screening of transaction works, and when you're talking to some someone who doesn't understand how this works, you cannot even, I mean, explain.

So when you're talking with the guy who doesn't understand the theme, I mean, it doesn't matter what you say for him. So I'd say like, it's still complex, complicated part, it's becoming much more easier because of the Mika cause Mika putting some defining the rules and defining the stage where everybody's playing.

So, and when the rules are defined, it's. Much more easy to explain your opening about the, what's happening here. So I would say,

Stephen: And I feel a lot more of these banks are actually getting into digital assets and cryptos themselves. So they understand a little bit more than I think in 2020, where it was very new to them. They just didn't want to touch it. Now they're figuring out how they can monetize off of this new asset class.

I'm curious, you know, in North America here, you know, everyone makes the joke that the banks are the de facto regulators, right? It doesn't matter if the regulators requirements are here and the bank requirements are up here, the bank requirements is what you have to, you know, adapt to in order to keep your bank count and operate anyway.

Is that very similar in, in the EU or the banks and the regulator requirements vary on par, do you feel?

Nik: I think they, they're, they're almost there. So I would not say that the, the, something very strict in terms of like banks itself and not covering by regulations again, so I would say like, it's more, more, more. adjusted in that

Stephen: Where the banks and the regulators are pretty much aligned and the banks aren't putting more requirements than the regulators are. Well, that's very interesting. That's awesome. You know, obviously we just, you know, a saw the news about Tyler freezing 27 million associated with Garen text. But we also saw the news recently, 1.

4 billion, a historic number stolen from Bybit exchange. We all know centralized exchanges are a honeypot for hackers. Like, when you see that news of a massive hack and sophisticated you know, sophisticated attacks on employees and, you know, phishing attacks. What are your thoughts on that coming from a technical background and trying to secure customer funds?

What are your initial thoughts when you see something like that hit the newsstands?

Nik: First of all, I was really disappointed to see that. I mean the hack, I'm personally very, very in love with the Ethereum and hoping that the Ethereum, I mean, will, will recover. Coming back to your question. Yeah. The, the transparency, security. is really the first priority for Brighty. And how we, how we protecting our customers is just utilizing the, the, the best either, either built in in house solution or like the third party solution that we We really trust, for example, for custody, we utilizing the fireblocks.

I think it's number one MPC technology that exists in the market. So we, we haven't tried to build something. I mean, on our own, cause it's, it's really difficult and these guys do have the experience and, yeah, every, every decision I mean, in terms of like, how we can improve the security, we, we considering like several partners who, who are best in this area understanding the pros and cons and then go, go with them again.

So there is no any, any one kind of like one point how you can protect from that. It's it's a number of rules and we, we improving every, every week, like in terms of like security, how we it's either done with a policy, so like restricting access is I would say like the Brighty back office is not accessible, like through the internet at all.

The it's not possible to do something like that in the Bible because I know the hackers, they do kind of like social engineering, get access to the developer environment understand how this works, engineer it a little bit. So I would say like, it's not possible, like in a variety like that, because no, no engineers do have the access to the product environment at all.

That's restricted. We really care on how we do the interviews. Also, like we, we would say we're trying to do the, a little bit background check also on, on, on, on the home we are talking about.

Stephen: That's where maybe the industry's dropped the ball a little? You know, there's been authorities in the U. S., there's been several reports that unknowingly, a lot of these crypto companies are hiring North Korean actors. And they're giving them access directly to their code. They're helping to build the code and then they're not rushing.

They just sit there for months and months and months until they're, they're ready to attack. How, what are your thoughts on that? Are we trying to hire, is it so hard to hire that we're hiring anyone with expertise and not doing enough background checks? Or is this like, just the, this is the risk of, you know, non face to face remote style working that the crypto industry is used to.

Nik: I would say like, it's a. remote work effect, because again, so even you don't interview this guy itself, for example, you have interview with myself, okay, so we did that, you did a background check, everything good, but who, who says that I would be like working on this project. So the, this this Korean hacker can, I mean, can, can work instead of me.

So just I just give him access, for example. So in that case, the, I mean, doing just a background check a little bit more. KYC check or like interviewing the face to face wouldn't help the sort out this issue. In DeFi, I would say we are less affected on that because again, so the code is visible for everyone.

So this is a community who who kind of like doing their checks on the eligibility or. All of that or those checks, I mean, changes like in the code in the centralized world, yeah, things becoming a little bit more difficult, but, but again, so like, while you are not growing too fast, I mean, growing step by step, understanding who you're working with, it's, it shouldn't be a problem.

Stephen: Talk to me, you're a co founder, entrepreneur to entrepreneur. How difficult was it to make those first couple hires? You know, those, those are key hires when you're building something like a cryptocurrency exchange for the masses. How, like, how did you figure out who do you want to hire? What were some missteps you made early on?

Hiring a friend that didn't really know much, but they're a friend. Talk to me about, give us some entrepreneurial takes about your hiring early on in writing.

Nik: Not safe don't have a lot of experience in that. Why? Because again, so I was kind of like ex Revolutioner and we had a very, very good community. So like, sometimes like this community, like names, like Revolute Mafia, we had like. Very great people around have been working on Revolut and for me, it was pretty easy to hire, to do the first hire because, okay, so I already work with some of these guys they were not already part of, of, of Revolut.

I just know, okay, so when, when I will be going to build the MyStar, I will be working with these, that, and that guy. So, and that happens. So we just talk all together. I explain the, the whole idea. They, they like it. Is it like they believe the, the idea itself. They believe myself and we started building everything.

So the first hires was just a tech, the tech team. So we, because we were building a platform, the core platform, and then adding a little bit more product features. But again, the first hires was pretty easy because of my later experience.

Stephen: I think that everyone has that. The ex PayPal, ex Google, you kind of have a core group of people that are working, not working, or like contractors that are coming in and out where you can kind of assess their skillset. You don't have to guess as much at that point. Talk to me about, we're going into Q2, talk to me about what's going on, what's exciting about Bridey for 2025, any features, any announcements that you want to like, slowly whisper into our ears as we, as we get ready to launch, or even just new partnerships that you're excited about.

Nik: I would say like, I'm really happy that we finally released the zero QIC access in the variety. So that's means that we were building that I think for months, maybe like a month and a half. So the, this feature was released recently when the customers can get access to the variety just without providing any, any, any information.

So we, we showing the whole part of the features, we showing our commissions, how this works, giving a little bit. Explanation on, on what is Brighty and after that, only after that we started getting the request. Okay, so now if you want to use Brighty, go through the QIC and that's really improved our, I mean, feedback from the customer.

So we are not forcing them to give us any details about themselves before they check application in terms of our. Next steps plan. So we are really working on improving our referral program because right now it's easy to Hack I would say like a lot of bad actors utilizing our referral program

Stephen: Ha ha

Nik: You know, like, sending it back and forth to each other and ha ha, getting some, some free crypto.

yes. I have one story about that. Yeah, we really need to improve our referral program because we love all the customers. Even those that hook trying to little bit, I mean, trick us. We love them also. But we would like to be valuable for the customers.

Stephen: We love, we like to love them less, ha ha, the people gaming the system, we like to love them less.

Nik: So I would say, like, give them a little bit less possibility to trick us. So, and that's why we're working on their, this referral program. And another very big story that I'm very proud to, to work on is a corporate expense management cards in a crypt. I would say that this will hack the system and will improve.

Everything like in terms of like product product line on how we sell our product to whom we can sell our product is I found really very interesting, like, from the different companies, like travel agencies or like, concierge services who would like to provide their customers ability to, to, to utilize the crypto cards.

And we are working on that product and I do think think that it will help Brady a lot and like in terms of like crypto mass adoption and the. product line itself. Yeah, that's

Stephen: Explain that a little. Is that more of like a corporate card that any employee can use for the corporation or is that more of like a, like a luxury card like that maybe brands are now associating themselves with and they can offer this crypto app card?

Nik: Right yeah, the second part. So, where the brands or like any companies, they candistribute that among their I mean customers like or in place. And they can, I mean use this cryptoto connected card for, I mean, for, for payments. So that's the whole idea. So the, in that case, we get a distribution. Of our cart is in a little bit different way.

Stephen: I like that. Go back to the no KYC. You're talking to a crypto investigator by nature, so go back to this no KYC. Are you doing no KYC, or you just don't have to do KYC once you get on the platform. And then once you start transacting is when you would put in the information. So you can get them onboarded and ready to go.

But once they start transacting, then they have to kind of fill out the information that

Nik: Right, right, right. We cannot offer financial services with no QVC, but what we can do, we can explain a little bit about the full functionality of O'Brady before asking any, any, any documents, because in that case, the customer. Don't send a little bit more on about what, what he or she can get from Brad is like crypto card, earning walls, the Fiat accounts, the crypto accounts, the exchange rates, how much it costs, how much card you can issue, how much you pay.

And this is before you're getting access to the platform. So we, we giving the, the full maximum information explaining what is a bright is, and only after that. So if you would like to stay with us, okay. So. Next step is this complex QYC part. You should be doing that, but you will get all this functionality.

Stephen: And I think that makes sense, right? Getting people to understand a little bit about what they do. I think a lot of people just want information. You know, when they're getting into crypto, they just want as much information. And if they're not getting that information until they, you know, send in pictures of their passport and all the other KYC, it's less likely for them to want to engage with the platform, to your point.

I think that really does add to the customer experience. Well, you're a tech person, as we're ending this conversation, what are the gadgets you and your tech friends are playing with on the weekends? Is it like Nero stuff? Is it like, you know, a Waska going you know, into the mountains and trying mushrooms for the, for like, what is the stuff that you're like, super tech people are playing with AI agents?

Tell us about what we're going to be seeing within the next few years. That you guys are already playing with,

Nik: Okay, so actually it's depending, like, whether my wife is with me or somewhere else, right? So if, if she is with me, I'm just doing hiking, some sports, so we're going out just to relax. So kind of like a little bit, I think in some other stuff, not just fintech programming, and that's also helps. Once she's out, I usually do the either trading or creating some, some, some, some trading bots around the AI and AI agents.

I'm trying to learn as much as possible in all, all I mean, in this. Crypto evolving world. So I would say like last month I was trying to understand what's happening there, like in Memel all these pom poms and all the stars, all these strange things around Solana. Yeah. That's, that's also part of our world.

It's someone doesn't like us, someone do like, I'm. Trying to be aware of what's happening

Stephen: right? It's like the way I look at like gambling and porn, like so many people say like, Oh my God, this stuff. But it's also like the biggest businesses in the world. So there's obviously a demand for it. People just don't like to say that they're involved in it, right? What are you seeing? Are you using any AI within, you know, Brighty, whether that's a chatbot for your customers, or are you using AI to help build code in the backend?

Where are you seeing AI in the blockchain conversion?

Nik: I would say like we using AI everywhere. So like the developers, myself also like using Courser and, I mean, AI tools for mostly for coding tests, I would say like, it's, it's really, really improving the, how we, we doing the unit functional tests. So writing code is not so. So cool. But writing this is pretty cool.

For customer support, yeah, we had a trained AI bot that's also like communicating to the customers, trying to sort out the issues before connected to the real person. And. About the products in the variety. We also have AI product, AI crafted product. I will say like beside the, the defi strategies where the customer can earn on like in liquidity pools, like that's also put in the bright.

We hold, we have this AI generated portfolios based on different thematic. So like in br also you, you, you, you have access, for example, to part stock portfolio that's chosen by ai. In the thematic security. So in the, in thematic of the it or in thematic of consumer goods. So we, we, we have like about 10 different thematics.

The stocks in this thematics are chosen by, by ai. It's trained on the very, very huge amount of the data. So it's analyzing every day and doing the rebalancing of these stocks inside this portfolio every day and doing the backtrack rebalancing every week. So like we getting the fresh.

Choosing choose stocks every week. So, and this rebalancing happened very smooth for our customers. So we're trying to be on a trend here. Right now,

Stephen: any big winners? Is there anything that you're like, Oh, this one's crushed. Absolutely crushing it. And more people need to like, take a look at this.

Nik: we trying to, to, to put this in kind of like in the variety, a product line. I would say like, we haven't did enough marketing just to sell this point. So we, we, we, we preparing for rebooting that. So I would

Stephen: I love it. I love it.

Nik: Polishing did a little bit job, kind of like explaining how this works. And I would say like, we will reboot that next month, like in

Stephen: Yeah. It means you're trying to get all the profits first before you. Nik, what's the best way for people to connect with you? Reach out to you. I'm assuming you're on either crypto Twitter or on LinkedIn. What's the best way to reach you?

Nik: Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn, emails. I'm happy to answer anything on about the variety, outside the variety, on about the venture fund raising capital. So anything, so

Stephen: Awesome. We really appreciate you taking the time out. I know it's a hectic schedule being a CTO of any kind of crypto based application, much less something that's doing FX and, you know, trading and all of that good stuff. So we appreciate you joining the podcast and hopefully we'll talk to you soon.

Nik: yeah, nice. Thank you very much.