JD Durkin: Trevor Traina joins us now, live on the trading floor of the NYSE. He is Founder and CEO of Kresus. Nice to see you here today.
Trevor Traina: Thank you for having me.
JD Durkin: Institutions have been talking about moving assets on-chain for quite some time. I’ve been having these interviews for many years at this point. How much actual adoption are you really seeing out there?
Trevor Traina: It’s happening. I mean, it’s finally happening, and not just in the U.S. It’s a global phenomenon.
JD Durkin: What most surprises you about the rate of adoption that we have seen? And what work, what progress is not quite happening maybe as quickly as you originally thought?
Trevor Traina: Well, I think what surprises me is that despite not having perfect regulatory clarity, institutions are now just diving in. You know, big banks, insurance companies, they’re just doing it. It’s a thing.
JD Durkin: I know Kresus helps institutions access, as well as manage, digital assets. Talk to me about that process, the considerations that go into it, and how do you most think that you do things differently?
Trevor Traina: So these big institutions that want these Web3 platforms are thinking, how do we do it? What are the components? How do we build it? How do we support it? Right?
And so what we’ve seen at Kresus is kind of this execution gap, where there’s an appetite to have a platform, but a partner that can build that platform is still needed. And Kresus comes in and puts together digital platforms, wallets, token management, managing tokenized assets. And we do the whole thing. And we don’t just build it, we support it ongoing.
JD Durkin: What would you say are among the biggest on-chain opportunities for institutions right now?
Trevor Traina: I mean, 24/7. You know, the idea, here we are on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and stuff, you know, shuts down on a Friday. Money should move 24/7. Stablecoins make that possible. Blockchain makes that possible. Kresus makes that possible.
JD Durkin: I know you’re working with Canton, among other groups, newly announced partnerships to tokenize private assets. What does that process look like, and what do you think that unlocks as those relationships continue to develop?
Trevor Traina: Well, the Canton Network is great because it’s everything you need in a rail, but with privacy, right, which big institutions really rely on. And Kresus is well partnered with Canton to really provide wallets and digital infrastructure that maximizes the privacy that comes from the Canton Network.
But we work with many networks.
JD Durkin: What are among the top assets that most excite you that have not yet been tokenized? Where are we in terms of the overall progress? Because for the better part of the last year, we’ve been doing a lot of these interviews. People say this could be tokenized, that could be tokenized. Where are we in that natural evolution?
Trevor Traina: So that’s a great question. I mean, everyone talks about equities. Obviously, you can buy equities. I think commodities, you know, aluminum, copper or gold, et cetera, and things that are like part of an asset portfolio that people have wanted but can’t have. Types of real estate, you know, parking, malls, self-storage, things like that, that complement equities and other traditional assets.
JD Durkin: What is one part of the overall story of tokenization that you think we are still not quite yet talking enough about?
Trevor Traina: So everything is going to move on-chain. And I mean your life insurance, you know, your retirement plan. And they won’t just move on-chain, which means you can now hold them and view them, but you can then lever them, right? You can borrow against stuff in the future that you can’t today. And that’s going to unlock so much value.
JD Durkin: All right, Trevor Traina, I’m out of time, which is sad because I have more questions. That just simply means you’ve got to come back on the show.
Trevor Traina: I’ll come back.
JD Durkin: I appreciate you being here. Trevor Traina, Founder and CEO of Kresus.
