Bobby Zagotta, US CEO of Bitstamp, on US Crypto Regulation, The Banking Crisis, and Web3 Innovation
In an exclusive interview with cryptonews.com, Bobby Zagotta, US CEO & Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, talks about 2023 market movements, Web3 innovation, navigating regulation, and the banking crisis.
About Bobby Zagotta
Bobby Zagotta, US CEO & Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp. He came to Bitstamp from Kraken, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer responsible for strategy, business development, marketing, M&A, research and analytics, and global growth initiatives. Before that, he was a Senior Managing Director, Strategy & Execution and a member of the Executive Team for CME Group Inc., a global, publicly traded financial exchange.
As CEO for the Americas and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, Bobby is responsible for strategy and growing our presence and business globally, as well as overseeing day-to-day operations in the Americas.
Bobby Zagotta gave a wide-ranging exclusive interview which you can see below, and we are happy for you to use it for publication, provided there is a credit to www.cryptonews.com.
Highlights Of The Interview
2023 General Market MovementsStories from growing CME and the parallels to present-day cryptoRegulation/American Adoption; The cryptocurrency industry has the potential to create significant economic value through job creation, investment, and innovationBanking crisis – The collapse of Silvergate and the regulatory takeover of Signature Bank certainly impacts the efficiency of traders and investors on crypto exchangesWeb3 innovation and navigating regulation Bitstamp growth
Full Transcript Of The Interview
Matt Zahab Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Cryptonews Podcast. You’re buzzing as always, and I’m super pumped to have today’s guest on the show, Bobby Zagotta, US CEO and Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp. Bobby came to Bitstamp from Kraken, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer, responsible for strategy, biz dev, marketing, M&A, research and analytics, and global growth initiatives. Before that, he was a Senior Managing Director and member of the Executive Team for CME Group, a global publicly traded financial exchange. As CEO of America’s and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, Bobby is responsible for strategy and growing the presence and business globally, as well as overseeing day-to-day operations in the Americas. Bobby and I have been trying to get a show going for a hot minute. We finally got it going, and I’m super excited. Bobby, welcome to the show my friend.
Bobby Zagotta Thank you, Matt. And glad we finally were able to make this work.
Matt Zahab We did. You and I were playing quite the game of tag. That was me who dropped the ball more than you. I had some unfortunate bounces that came my way, and here we are, pumped to have you on. You have a beautiful background. I feel like we got to start with that. Whereabouts are you right now?
Bobby Zagotta Thank you. Yeah, we’re in Michigan. We have a summer house here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and it’s a beautiful spot, and we absolutely love it here. And it’s a good place to work. It’s a good place to relax as well.
Matt Zahab Probably nice and tranquil, no distractions, besides maybe fishing, boating, all that kind of fun nature stuff.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, it’s a little different than Chicago.
Matt Zahab You can say that. I love that. Now you have a very interesting pass, and we could start at a multitude of places. The one place I’d love to start is the CME Group. I did not know what the CME group was until I started trading. When I just got out of high school and got into university, I, like many people, was a little would be an understatement, rather bored at uni, and I wanted to make some money, so I got into trading, and my mind was blown about the CME group in Canada. We’re literally never taught about that at all. And it’s such a big exchange. I don’t know why we’re taught about that. We hear about the Nasdaq, we hear about the NYSE, and of course, we hear about the TSX and the CSE with the Canadian Stock Exchange, which is the Penny Stock Exchange of Canada, but we never hear about CME. And I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of people on the Pod who’ve worked at the CME before. It is a world class institution, absolutely massive, and you got to grow that as well. I’d love if we could start by you telling us some awesome stories about your time at CME.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, happy to. And like you, I feel so fortunate that I was able to end up as part of that company. It wasn’t by design, necessarily. I started my career as an engineer. I ended up getting into strategy consulting and risk management, and I did a stint as a co-founder and CEO of a startup that we grew and sold. And coming out of that experience, I ended up advising companies on M&A strategy and integration type processes and CME was a client of mine. And to your point, it was really my first deep dive into capital markets and really the extraordinary transformation of that industry. So the CME Group was founded in the 1800s. I can’t remember the exact year, but it’s 165 or 170 years old. It was the Chicago Butter and Egg Exchange to start with, and it was a very necessary capability for our agriculturally based society, particularly in the Midwest, to manage their economics. And the CME has been just an incredibly innovative leader in that space for many years. And it grew up as a mutual company, but ultimately IPOed and became a public for profit company. And it’s just really done an amazing job. So I learned a ton there. I did have the opportunity to join their executive team and lead a couple of different divisions for the company and hopefully help contribute to their continued growth.
Matt Zahab And one thing you said that sort of blew my mind, it started off as the Butter and Egg Exchange. Is that legit?
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, it’s absolutely true. And there were a few of these that started in approximately the same time. So the Chicago Board of Trade was another one that started in a similar time frame. They were ultimately acquired by CME Group. That’s one of the deals I helped with before I joined, and same thing in, New York you know, the NYMEX. The New York Mercantile Exchange has a similar history. What happened was farmers back in the day, you know show victims to extreme supply and demand. So they would work all summer, harvest all of their corn or wheat or pork bellies or what have you, and then they’d all bring them to market at the same time, and the price would plummet. They used futures contracts to be able to manage their price risk, and that in itself was an amazing innovation. But then over the next hundred years, and the CME led the charge here, I believe, really diversified that concept of futures contracts into trading and speculation and hedging across a whole range of assets, including oil and gas and financial instruments, etcetera. So, yeah, it’s a great story. It’s a fascinating company and a great learning experience for me.
Matt Zahab That’s wild. What a story. Next part that we have to dive into because you’re one of the few people who actually has his or her finger on the pulse here and that is sort of regulation and American adoption of crypto and we’ll segue also into the banking crisis. This has been absolute bananas. Obviously we had the collapse of Silvergate Signature Bank. It’s not looking good. We’re recording early August. This is going to air mid August. But the US debt also just got downgraded or US bonds excuse me, also just got downgraded as well. Things are looking rather bleak. Things are looking rather no bueno. What is going on right now in regards to the banking crisis? And then we’ll segue into regulation and American adoption of crypto.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, I really can’t think of anything going on in either of those spaces. I’m kidding. Obviously it’s been an absolutely tumultuous year. And we’ll start with the banking situation. Silicon Valley Bank was the first that was affected by the macroeconomic environment. I don’t believe they had any material crypto holdings or anything like that, but they, I think, were the first to be really caught flat footed by the rapidly rising interest rates versus how they were managing their debt portfolio. And then that put a lot of regional banks on notice and a couple of those. So Silvergate and Signature who also played an important role in the crypto ecosystem. So not only were these guys useful banking partners for a lot of players in crypto, but they had these real time settlement networks that really reduced frictions for people participating with exchanges and with other kind of players in the ecosystem. It was very, what I would say, current in terms of how financial transactions should work real time, fast and low cost. However, as you know, Silvergate voluntarily wound itself down. Signature was forced into a wind down situation, as I understand it, by their regulator in New York and also federally. From my standpoint, I would love to have more information about the nuts and bolts of why wind down was the right answer for both those institutions, because I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems like it wasn’t an obvious or the only path, let’s say.
Matt Zahab Yeah, no, that’s very true. Another issue is the debt ceiling. This is pretty bananas. Everyone is hoping that President Biden and Congress will come to an agreement, whether it’s short term solution or long term fix. This is a very touchy subject and it would be a huge loss if I didn’t ask you. So I must ask Bobby, what is your two cent on the current debt ceiling issue? And do we have any solution that could potentially come into play over the next couple of months or years?
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, I wish I knew the answer to that question. But my perspective on it is it’s really crucial, obviously, that we can bridge the Yawning cavern between the two political parties operating in the US. And start to compromise, start to work together so that we don’t get ourselves into a situation where we’re on a slippery slope in terms of the role that we play in the global economy. So today, as you know, the United States has a very enviable position in the global financial services marketplace and the global economy. And that’s not a sovereign right that we have that’s just because of how the economies have played out. But if the fundamentals of that equation change, such as the credit worthiness of the country, such as even the role that the country plays in the emerging crypto ecosystem, these things are going to determine the role of the US. In the evolving economies, that we shouldn’t take it for granted. So I feel like a lot of the people on Capitol Hill are taking it for granted. But I think if we don’t make some important and very decisive moves now, that’s in jeopardy.
Matt Zahab And speaking of important and decisive moves, the US. Is also and again, I speak as a Canadian here, but we usually follow in your guys’ footsteps when it comes to a lot of regulatory climates. We, as in North Americans are dropping the ball when it comes to crypto regulation. There’s still nothing really solidified. And this can be a huge ball drop as we’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds of really solid companies and people move to spots that are more open, like Singapore or the UAE. What’s going on on the regulatory talk right now? Is there any news? Is there anything to look forward to? Is there anything to be happy about currently with the US regulatory crypto talk?
Bobby Zagotta Well, there’s a couple of things I would point to globally and I’ll start with the US, so obviously the judgment in the Ripple case I can’t overstate the importance of that ruling to what I would call bringing some balance to the landscape, to the legal landscape, and to the conversation, frankly. Now that could be appealed. There was a recent ruling from a different circuit court that had a different take on the securities question, so it’s certainly not a done deal. But what I felt like is the SEC’s perspective was kind of unchecked from a legal perspective and from a marketplace perspective. And that Ripple ruling checked them, right? It didn’t say they’re wrong or didn’t prove they’re wrong, let’s say. But it definitely brought them back to the right playing field to have a productive conversation. So that’s a bright spot from a US regulatory perspective. Another one is some legislative action. So there’s two bills that have come out of committee, been approved by committee, the Agricultural Committee and the Financial Services Committee. And that of course, doesn’t mean it’s just going to be a law tomorrow, but that’s a huge step that we have not realized as of yet to actually put some laws or a framework in place that the regulators can then enact. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And when we don’t have that legislative foundation in place, the regulators can kind of act on their own. That’s what we’re seeing, I think, with the SEC, and I’m sure there’s multiple opinions about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, but from my perspective, it’s not the most productive path. So I’ll pause there. I’ve got some other international bright spots to share if you want.
Matt Zahab Bobby, the floor is yours. Keep going.
Bobby Zagotta So the other thing I would point to is Europe, and you may not know this. Bitstamp was founded in Europe, and Europe is our primary base of business, about 65% of the business. We have a whole range of regulatory licenses there, and we do a tremendous amount of business with institutions and on the retail side.
Matt Zahab Bobby, your European business is larger than your USA business.
Bobby Zagotta It’s true.
Matt Zahab Wow.
Bobby Zagotta It’s true. I mean, I can give you kind of 60 seconds on background. So Bitstamp was founded in 2011. We’re the longest running crypto exchange today. And I was founded in Europe, and our global business is based in the UK. But we have legal entities in other jurisdictions in Europe as well, we have a very strong and growing US business. We have a little bit earlier stage Asia Pacific business, but Europe is kind of Bitstamp’s home court, if you will. And in Europe, Bitstamp is a household name. I would say in North America, we’re still kind of building it. But one of the reasons I’m happy about that footprint for Bitstamp is because the EU has adopted this MiCA regulatory framework. And from my standpoint, this is a really good, common sense regulatory framework that is specific to crypto and digital assets. It’s not trying to retrofit traditional assets or securities law or something else into the crypto space. It’s a legitimate specific and well defined framework. It’s passportable across the EU. When it comes into effect. I think mid next year. And so what’s happening is we’re getting a lot of more inbound interest from corporations in Europe than even in the US. And obviously it’s still a healthy marketplace there. That’s because corporations in Europe, whether they’re hedge funds or banks or other types of players, now have more confidence to participate. And we think that’s great, and we hope that the United States and other jurisdictions take a hint from that.
Matt Zahab Very interesting. I would have not known that. I mean, from the narrative standpoint, it seems like Europe is so far behind, and it seems like Europe also has very stringent rules. Maybe I’m just completely off the pulse here, or why is that narrative true? Or perhaps it isn’t true, but why would I and some of my peers perhaps would believe that narrative, I guess, is the better question.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, I think that in many areas of law or society, there’s that perception about the EU being a very tough bureaucracy, let’s say, and difficult to create unified perspectives. And I’m certainly no expert on any of that. But from a crypto perspective, they have, in my opinion, just taking a strong step ahead of the US. And they’ve created clarity, or a level of clarity that will enable crypto players and other players, whether they’re just individuals or companies, to participate. And in the US. It’s still too high a degree of uncertainty. Bitstamp has always positioned itself as a compliance forward organization. We were the first crypto company to ever get a license in 2016. And we think we’ve got the most extensive regulatory footprint in the business. And that’s not because we love working with regulators as much as we just know it’s necessary for broad adoption. We know that common sense regulatory frameworks are necessary to give people confidence. I just hope the US can get there in a reasonable amount of time, otherwise the innovation is going to move to Europe or move somewhere.
Matt Zahab Very true. Folks we’re going to take a quick break and give a huge shout out to our sponsor of the show. And when we get back, we are going to talk about some of the bit stamp growth that we’ve seen US corporate customers up 14%, quarter over quarter, retail verifications up 12% and a bunch of other really good things moving and grooving over at Bitstamp. But until then, huge shout out to our sponsor, the show PrimeXBT. If you are a trader and you’re looking for reliable and professional market data and performance, do go check out PrimeXBT as they offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a vet, you can easily design and customize your layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. PrimeXBT is also running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the Cryptonews Pod. Use the promo code CRYPTONEWS50 that’s CRYPTONEWS50 all one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account. Again that is CRYPTONEWS50 all one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account. Now back to the show with Bobby. Bobby, you guys have grown in a pretty bananas bear market. I absolutely love to see this. I love when when people who continue to grind see good results, especially in the bear market. It seems like everyone got the pardon my French, shit kicked out of them over the last 18 months, give or take. And you guys continue to grow. How are you guys doing this? I’m looking at the stats in front of me. General markets. You guys are moving and grooving. US. Specific markets. You guys are moving and grooving. What are you and the team doing to make sure that Bitstamp continues to grow in such a shitty time?
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, there’s a few things I would point to. The first one know, as I alluded to earlier, our very strong regulatory compliance and overall governance kind of reputation and footprint. So coming out of FTX and some of the SEC activities and even the banking crisis, to me, that has ushered in a flight to quality. So people being more choosy about who they partner with and why. And we’re a beneficiary of that. So our global market share has tripled, really, since the FTX prices last November or the FTX debacle. And Bitstamp is viewed as very well managed, I think. So I’ll give you one example. Bitstamp, just to give you a sense of who we are. Bitstamp made the decision this was before my time, but made the decision in 2016 to become a globally financial audited entity. And they didn’t just hire a regional accounting firm. They hired a Big Four accounting firm in 2016 to do a global financial audit. And we’ve done it every year since then. So we’re the only crypto company on the planet that can say we’ve got seven years of big four global financial audits. Now you got to think about what 2016 was like. Nobody was thinking that way in 2016. It was quite the opposite. It was more like, let’s burn the traditional financial services space to the ground. But Bitstamp has always been, let’s do it right kind of company. And because we get audited in a very rigorous way every year, we have burned in the process of doing things right. It’s what we do. So because of that, we never got much credit for it until FTX. Now everyone’s like, oh, actually, maybe this is the right model, and maybe I should care about who I partner with. Not who names the stadiums, but actually who’s got the credentials and the governance in place. So that’s a big part of the story. The other part of the story is I mentioned we’re the longest running exchange. So we’ve been through a few of these market cycles, and we have the playbook, if you will, and the playbook is essentially, obviously we manage our costs very tightly in a bear market, but we invest in the product, right? So we use this time to perfect the experience for users, both institutions and individual retail investors. And that’s where we’ve been able to maintain our onboarding we’ve improved our onboarding processes. We’ve improved every aspect of the user experience, and we just make it easier for people to participate with us. And that really helps our numbers a lot.
Matt ZahabSo refreshing to hear you’re lying about we don’t have our name on stadiums. That’s too freaking good. Oh, man, that’s too good. It’s still weird to think that the Miami Arena is FTX and Staples Center is now Crypto.com. It’s still a little weird. I don’t know.
Bobby Zagotta It is Super Bowl ads and things like this. I have my own kind of internal index. If there’s like a tech company in any industry, that’s one of their kind of early stage investments, I think, all right, their days are numbered. That’s my own bias, right? I could be wrong about that, but. My bias is, like, if you’re still an early stage company, you got to be focused on the product should take every dollar or not every dollar, but these are big price tag marketing investments that, in my opinion, should be plowed into the product.
Matt Zahab No, it’s very true as well. You guys also just partnered with BitGo. That seems like you two are a match made in heaven. I mean, two of the oldest and most reputable and trusted and audited firms in the space partnering together, that just seems like a match made in heaven. And that was announced, I believe, last week or the week before. Congrats on that. It seems pretty straightforward, but what does that partnership do for both you guys?
Bobby Zagotta Actually, we’re a longtime partner with BitGo. They’ve been our primary custodial services provider for many years. I’m not even sure how many. But to your point, the reason that partnership came into being and is so powerful today is because they approach the marketplace like we do. They’re licensed. They’re a trust company in state of new york. They have license in other states as well. And so it enables us to deliver more confidence to the marketplace, because, first of all, there’s a little bit of separation between church and state. The exchange and the custody are separate. Generally, that’s viewed as a best practice from an overall safety and security perspective. And then secondly, they’re a licensed entity, we’re a licensed entity, and it all kind of works. Now, what we announced, and the reason that we’re really wanting to to be vocal about this right now, is they are also creating an off exchange settlement network, the Go Network. And we’re an early participant in that network, and we’re anxious for more institutions to adopt it. What that enables people to do is be extremely when I say people primarily institutions, they can realize some really great capital efficiencies by participating in trading but not having to move money off and on the exchange. So, yeah, really powerful new opportunity. There’s some other networks out there as well, which we’re looking at, but BitGo is primary for us.
Matt Zahab I’d love to take a quick step away from Bitstamp and just focus on Bobby for a second. While doing research for the show, I learned that you are a triathlon. And I have one buddy who just did a triathlon. Shout out my buddy Andres. He’s a sick puppy. You must be a sick puppy. That’s a compliment, by the way. Anyone who does a triathlon, I’m always like, whoa. I used to be a runner. I can run, I can throw in a pair of shoes and still put up a good 5K, 10K time. I feel like most people can bike, but doing all three, the swimming, I’m a decent athlete, and when I get in the water, that’s a whole new different beast. What went through your head the first time when you’re like, you know what, screw it. I’m going to do a triathlon. And walk me through some of the training you have to do because that can’t be fun. That’s nightmare fuel for me.Bobby, I don’t know how you do that.
Bobby Zagotta Well, gosh, I love to talk about this topic, and I was a runner for a long time before I ended up in the Triathlon space. But I’ll give you the straight dope here. How I ended up here was a very good friend of mine’s wife got sick and he wanted to raise money to help find a cure for her for her sickness. And he asked me to do a triathlon with him. And I couldn’t say no, of course. And I was highly motivated to help any way that I could. But I will be honest with you, I said, yes, absolutely, I will do that sign up. But in my mind I was like, holy shit. What am I going to do? I can’t swim a mile, I’ve done a dozen or so Olympic distance triathlons and I’ve done a half Iron Man distance as well. And I’ve learned a couple of things. Firstly, running is obviously a great form of exercise and mental health and has all these benefits. But what I’ve learned, as I’ve become more of a triathlon focused endurance athlete, is it’s a fairly narrow exercise compared to, like, swimming. Swimming uses so many muscles. It’s a completely different kind of workout and I really love that now. So I started hating swimming, but now swimming is my favorite and then cycling, too. Different kind of workout. That creates different kind of, what we call vo, two drain on your body. I love that it’s varied and I love that it’s always a test, it’s always a test of you. And the last thing I would say about it is, to your point about the beat down side of it, the training takes a lot of time, it just takes a lot of investment, but it’s easier to do it. Half the reason I do it is because when I have a race on the calendar, I got to do it. I do not want to drown. So it’s really motivating to get out there and work out. So, yeah, I highly encourage you to try it, Matt. Put it on the count.
Matt ZahabMy knees, I’ve torn my pretty much A to Zcls. I do not have knees, so. It’s a little difficult for me. The swimming part is actually the easiest on the knees, but yeah, anytime I run more than ten clicks, the next day my knees are the size of softballs. But another question in regards to being an endurance athlete how many sort of aha moments or how many incredible business ideas or just states of mental clarity have you achieved while being on one of these runs or bikes? Personally, I can’t see myself thinking of anything good while I’m swimming 2 miles. I think like you, I’d just be focusing on not drowning or getting eaten by a shark. But I know when I’ve gone on longer runs or walks before, I’ve had some of my most clear mental states, mental thoughts and have thought of some really good things. Have you had the same thing as me or thousands of other people?
Bobby Zagotta Absolutely. It’s maybe the best part of it because I think it’s so therapeutic. I think it teaches your body and your muscle memory and your head resilience because if you’re running or swimming or whatever you’re doing, it’s hard and you have to push yourself through those moments when you want to stop or you’re doubting yourself. And once you do, I feel like your mind opens to new possibilities and they come ideas or thoughts sometimes for me, it’s just a recognition of something that’s actually okay, something I was concerned about that’s actually okay, it’s going to be okay, or what have you. And swimming is very, then it’s all technique. It’s all technique so you have something to think about all the time. But then there’s that other part of your brain that starts to operate. It’s a great observation. I really love that side of it.
Matt Zahab I’ve never gotten into flow state while swimming before. I don’t think I ever will and I’m a swimmer. My grandparents had a pool growing up and I spent a lot of time there, so I’m a good swimmer. But, yeah, I definitely don’t have a good enough stroke. Yeah, I’m usually focusing on breathing. You got to come out here. I know you got the perfect one. I’d love to jump into the hot take factory Bobby segment on the show where we let a couple of hot takes fly. It doesn’t have to be crypto related. Can be health, wealth, happiness, something super spicy like politics, AI, space. But is there anything that’s really getting you going at the current moment?
Bobby Zagotta Well, this is going to sound absolutely overused at this moment, right? But this AI thing is just continuing to fascinate me and I’ve just scratched the surface. I’ve just been playing around with it a little bit, reading about it, and it’s just quite amazing what’s possible here. I think we think about the Hollywood side of it and robots and the Matrix and whatnot, but it’s the mundane things that I think are so easily transformed in a very value added way. Obviously, this whole topic has a lot of risk attached to it and it needs to be managed in a smart way. But I’ll give you an example. We at this sample, we have a learn center. So, again, as I mentioned, trying to make it very easy for individuals to be educated so that they can participate with confidence if they choose to. And so we have a learn center. We have several hundred of articles up there that tell you anything from what does MultiChain mean to who is CZ to a whole wealth of information. And we generate we grind out all of that content. It’s a lot of work and AI or ChatGPT is one example that doesn’t replace us in terms of creating it, but it gives us a significant leg up. We haven’t done this yet, but we’re experimenting with it. Because if we can get an 80% solution for a piece of content and then bring our expertise to bear on that, first of all, make sure it’s correct, but also to bring it home for the reader. That’s an incredible efficiency and that’s mundane. That’s not like, take over the world or be autonomous. I’m quite fascinated with that and just can’t underestimate the potential impact on day to day lives.
Matt Zahab It’s so cool. I have a friend of mine who I set up. I’m again spending all my free time AI related as well. I have a friend of mine who I just set up no Free Ads. So I’m not going to give the name of the software because I would like to partner with them and sell for them, sell their product because it’s so good. But I’m sure you sent your thousands of Cold emails back in the day. I’m sure you still send Cold emails. There is a couple of different pieces of AI software that find your end clients and do the hardest part of a Cold email, which is make it non generic. So it would scrape everything Bobby Zagotta related on the internet and it would go pick a beautiful subject line and go, hey, Bobby, this is, you know, Matt’s water company. We think you should drink more water because and then it would go, because you’re the CEO of Bitstamp, which obviously everyone can find, but you’re also an ultramarathon runner and have ran these marathons and have participated in these triathlons. It auto fills all the data on the person, too. I was blown away. I actually got one, and when I got it, I contacted the company and I was like, how the hell did you guys do this CEO took me through a demo. Again, no free ads. Can’t give him a shout out, but absolute craziness. One other topic, probably the most trendy topic right now is this. And this is way above my pay grade. I’m not a science guy. But this new semiconductor, I’m sure you’ve seen this ZP 99, or whatever it’s called. Have you seen this craziness going on with that?
Bobby Zagotta I have. The numbers are just staggering.
Matt Zahab It’s looking legit, too, by the way. Again, we’re still very early, but it’s looking like for the listeners at home, this is the equivalent of almost like discovering fire. Like it’s that crazy.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah. I can’t even pretend to understand all the ramifications and implications of it. But just looking at the sheer scale of what is possible on a chip is absolutely game changing. But I got a couple of others. Do you want two more?
Matt Zahab Yeah, please.
Bobby Zagotta So I don’t know where I got this idea, but I read it somewhere and I’ve started doing it and it’s been so awesome. Which is I take one meeting a day on a walk, right? So as many of us are, my schedule is pretty full and I’m going from meeting to meeting. Most of them are remote. So I take one on my phone, put in my AirPods, go for a walk for 30 minutes or 45 minutes. I’m not trying to work out per se, but putting your body in motion brings about some of what we were talking about. Kind of clears your head. The person you’re talking to also, they’re like, wow, I want to do that. I think it’s just very healthy. It feels healthy and it leads to better conversations, I think. So super in at that right now.
Matt Zahab I do that every morning. Eight to Nine, I go for a walk downtown Toronto at the harbor front. And it’s a great way to start the day. We’re in kilometers, not miles, but again, my hour meeting is usually between 5 and 6 km. What’s that? 3, 4 miles kind of thing? I look at my watch and I’m like, oh, I just burned 200 calories, got 5000 steps in and walked 5 km. It’s the absolute best. You and I are in the same yacht with that one. What’s number three?
Bobby Zagotta Oh, the next one is I’m in nature at the moment, and there’s something incredibly centering about it. And I live in the city, I live in Chicago, and I love it there. But there’s something very center about staring at water, breathing different air, walking through a forest. It used to be like recreation, but now for me, it’s like critical, necessary for kind of mind and body health. That’s my other hot take.
Matt Zahab It’s prescribed. The doc prescribes that Bobby must spend X amount of time at the lake house per year. I love that. I am jealous of your background I must say. I’m very grateful for my beautiful view of Toronto right now. Rogers center CN tower, Lake Ontario. But I would do bad things to be where you are, my friend. But Bobby, this has been an absolute treat. Thank you so much for coming on. Had a blast, learned a ton. Can’t wait for round two. Before we let you go, can you please let our listeners know where they can find you and Bitstamp online and on socials?
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, that’s basically it @BobbyZagotta @Bitstamp we’re on Twitter and LinkedIn a lot and all the other usual suspects. Or I should say X.
Matt Zahab Yes, I guess we’ll conclude with that. Do you believe in Musky’s vision? You think he’s going to turn this into not only the global town square, but a global payment network or whatever the heck he has planned?
Bobby Zagotta All I can say about that is I wouldn’t count him out.
Matt Zahab Yeah, don’t bet against that, man.
Bobby Zagotta Yeah, I wouldn’t count him out. The vision seems not intuitive for me, but I’m not an expert on the Twitter business. But like I said, I wouldn’t count him out. He seems to find a ways to innovate in meaningful ways.
Matt Zahab Yeah, he’s the man. I’m a betting man, and that is one man that I would never bet against. Elon, we’d still love to have you on the show if you’re listening, by the way, I’m positive that you’d make a great guest and I’d dig up some good dirt on you. But Bobby really appreciate your time. This was an absolute treat. Learned a ton and can’t wait for round two. Thanks for coming on.
Bobby Zagotta Oh, thank you, Matt. It’s been a blast.
Matt Zahab Folks what an episode with Bobby Zagotta US CEO and Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, told some great stories, dropped tons of knowledge bombs and had some good hot takes as well. We’d love to see that. As always, I will include everything Bobby and Bitstamp related in the show notes. If you guys enjoyed this one, I hope you did, please do subscribe. To the team love you guys. Thank you so much for everything. Justas, my amazing sound editor, appreciate you as always, you are the man. And to the listeners, love you guys. Keep on growing those bags and keep on staying healthy, wealthy and happy. Bye for now, and we’ll talk soon.
