Alex Vlastakis

Our builders and problem solvers moved heaven and earth again. Vanessa, Al, Chris and many others.  This is the team to back in this space, but we know that. I want to pause on is how the new CFTC-regulated rails fit into the overall strategy and competitive differentiation for tZERO.   Our mission is to tokenize Wall Street.  We are in the golden age of tokenization. Tokenization is not an experiment.  The sea change is irreversible. But this is also a transition for which most market participants – traditional and crypto – are unprepared.  We address that gap. tZERO has been the original innovator in this space going back to ten+ years.  While success has many fathers and mothers, my team and I stand behind a large chunk of the regulated innovation behind tokenization in the US.   And we sit right in the middle of this generational shift.   We are one of a few participants in this market and and represent a very differentiated proposition and entry point into the industry.  We operate the broadest and deepest diversified infrastructure-as-a-service platform across securities and, now, derivatives/prediction markets/crypto verticals.  Our tokenized securities vertical is deep with a more complete licensed infrastructure stack for a differentiated customer funnel.  These capabilities are underpinned by a portfolio of 103 patents across 23 families. Our stack is end-to-end and turnkey and serves institutional clients across the asset lifecycle. The offering is built, ready and commercialized with Tier 1 clients. Our core moat and competitive differentiator is our end-to-end suite of regulated services that cannot be replicated on any timescale consistent with this fast-moving marketplace.  The human capital and operational capabilities that support off-the-shelf and bespoke solutioning are also critical to our success.  We are independent and not captured by any single client or investor allowing for a customer funnel. Individually, these capabilities are scarce and hard to secure and, as importantly, operationalize (for example, those who own the new CFTC capabilities use them for own books of business – and not as infrastructure-as-a-service even in face of significant demand).  Together, these services address every pain point in the tokenization lifecycle and provide full horizontal interoperability, and opportunities to cross-sell capabilities as needs evolve and we work with our clients to provide comprehensive solutions for sticky and evergreen relationships. Our customers run the gamut – from broker dealer and other financial institutions to asset managers, crypto platforms and blockchain ecosystems.  Each has specific or full-stack needs for our services depending on the product they are looking to support.  One theme is our infrastructure, technology and footprint passing rigorous due diligence with top organizations.
Our near-term execution list illustrates the diversified demand base. A couple of off-the-top examples.  Goldman Sachs bringing a traditional product to tokenized settlement rails.  ICE using us as design partner in their tokenized public equities marketplace.  Uphold, a 10m customer crypto platform using us as a vehicle for their US tokenized securities market entry. We have also been actively pre-selling capacity on our derivatives/prediction markets/crypto infrastructure platform to global and US clients looking to offer perps and other products.  Overall, in a long sales cycle industry, our revenue pipeline has never been bigger – organically and with the strong industry tailwinds.  Like any infrastructure, there is an obvious fixed cost.  But that is also our moat.   This is where our diversified strategy – with securities and derivatives verticals and a range of clients – is particularly critical.  We are not exclusively correlated to the pace and scale of tokenization of public equities, for example, or other products.  That is another core difference.   Couldn’t be prouder of @tZERO!