Blockchain.com: Building the future of financial encryption

The private company runs one of the oldest and most used platforms in the world to store and track encrypted currencies and explore its basic technologies. Since its launch of 2011, customers have treated more than one dollar across the company, which is currently counting 37 million users verified all over the world.

“We build products and tools that make it easy for people to be part of the financial encryption system,” the co -founder and CEO Peter Smith tells the Scottish Mortgage Mortgage Investment Manager Tom Slater.

Smith determines his mission in terms of freedom and choice. Previous, he says, to allow anyone to arrange a financial transaction with anyone else. “It does not matter if you are in Kenya while you are in South Korea or sitting next to each other, we can interact economically.”

He adds that the latter revolves around expanding the scope of assets that people can possess. “The dollar and the pound are relatively stable actions [but there are] Places with less stable systems, such as Uganda, where most banks have escaped in a period of 15 years, and the Schela of Uganda gets rid of the net net value of all.

“One of the problems I wanted to solve is to give everyone, everywhere in the world, the ability to obtain the same financial access and financial options that many of us enjoy in the West.”

Blockchain.com not only serves individuals. Since 2017, the company has also targeted institutional clients, including banks, Hedge boxes And family offices.

Smith says that this aspect of the market exceeded its consumer counterpart in 2024, although this is a temporary phenomenon. In any case, he says, the service of both types of customers achieves the same goal.

“At the end of the day, institutions are just consumers groups,” he explains. “All money is ultimately returning to people somewhere, somehow. Whatever this path is long and back.”

Confidence

Providing easy access is only half of the story. Smith admits that confidence in its manufacture is more than most of it, is “Paramount”.

The failure of one of the Blockchain.com competitors in late 2022 casts a dark cloud on encryption. The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison to steal 8 billion dollars of customers.

“You can quickly lose confidence, but you cannot build it quickly,” says Smith.

“One of the things I am proud of in the ten years of more than 10 years as an executive president is that we have never washed a trade, and we have never honored withdrawal.

“In depths [FTX] The crisis, we had a lot of customers via email, saying: “Do you have all our money?” We have already sent an e-mail at the client level and we said-Click this button, and all your money is transferred from our custody to reservation. “

He adds that he realized that this could have paid the “money out”, but it was important to keep customers’ confidence.

“About 10 percent of customers press this button,” he recalls. “But we got more money that fell to the platform where people saw that they could withdraw their money in a demonstration.

“Confidence was slowly built by doing the right thing day after day, year after year.”

The draw with the Dallas Cowboys American Football team shows the feature of getting a great reputation. The deal, signed in 2022, means that the Blockchain.com brand is very clear in sporting events and through ads.

“It is very strong support from one of the largest sports brands in the United States,” says Smith.

The National Football League had to approve companies to become sponsors of the teams. We are the only shepherd of the American Football Association from the encryption industry. I think half of the companies have tried. “

New age

The future of Crypto looks brighter thanks to changing the last guard of the White House. While Joe Biden’s presidency focused on restrictions and risk alleviation, Donald Trump pledged to make the United States a “coding capital of the planet”, and even suggested building a “national bitcoin strategic stock”.

“It is really a completely new world, a completely new market with the Trump administration,” says Smith.

“I think you will be able to get banking services. I think you will be able to serve more customers. I think you will be able to stay away from patching [state-based] Licenses that you have today to be an encryption company in the United States and towards a federal charter.

“I think it changes more or almost everything than how the encryption market appears.”

The Scottish mortgage invested for the first time in Blockchain.com in April 2021. After about half a year, the encryption industry entered a severe contraction. Bitcoin fell more than 75 percent against the dollar, and the so -called “Stablecoin” Terra collapsed, causing bankruptcy and chaos, as well as a FTX bombing.

Blockchain.com has shown strong flexibility in dealing with this disorders. The Scottish mortgage has since participated in two additional financing rounds. At the end of 2024, the reservation represented about 1 percent of confidence file It is one of the 10 largest private companies.

“Not even many of them failed, this is more than that,” Smith notes the coding victims that have been collected over the years. “When we look at it statistically, it is similar to seven out of 10.

We were able to survive three of this encryption winter for several reasons. The first is that we are very committed in the long run.

“Many of the companies that GO Go is in bankrupt is really doing short-term things, trying to sing quickly, trying to grow very quickly. We are very directed in the long run-and this is something that we share a lot with Baillie Gifford.

“The second thing is that we were very fortunate because there are great people around us in terms of blackboardIt is really experienced people who know a lot about risk management.

“The third thing is that often, the reaction of people who failed is very slow. It was very slow to reduce costs, and very slow to reduce risk.

“We have benefited from living through this before, so we knew as soon as things seem darker than expected that we need to be incredibly aggressive about responding to it.”

It can be said that Shakeout left the company in a fitter condition and with a lower competition, as it went to the subsequent height. While Director Tom Slater is reflected in the Bodcast Conclusion, the Blockchain.com Investment appeal remains the ability to “produce severe returns” by “building a future financial infrastructure”.