November 24, 2025 • 24 mins
What if paying with crypto felt as effortless as tapping your card? We sit down with Jess Houlgrave, CEO of WalletConnect, to unpack how stablecoins, smarter wallet-to-app messaging, and a new wave of SDKs are collapsing the gap between crypto checkout and the one-click experiences consumers expect.
Jess traces her path from investment banking to early Bitcoin research to leading a network that connects 700 wallets to 70,000 applications and moves hundreds of billions in value. We dig into the real merchant story: slashing fees from the typical 2–3% card rates to basis points, settling in seconds instead of days, and opening doors in markets where stablecoins are already everyday money. The caveat has always been clunky UX - QR codes, chain selection, gas fees - but that’s changing fast as partners like Coinbase Commerce, Mesh, and Privy streamline onboarding and data sharing.
We explore two frontiers set to unlock the next wave of growth. First, in-store payments, where WalletConnect’s new POS SDK aims to meet the speed and reliability of retail environments and is already rolling out with partners in Asia. Second, recurring payments, where crypto’s push model needs safer, revocable permissions to mirror subscriptions without sacrificing user control. Along the way, we zoom out to embedded finance, where neobanks become financial hubs offering custody, trading, and wealth tools, and to data privacy, where wallets enable selective disclosure so users share only what’s needed for shipping, KYC, or age checks.
Enjoy the conversation, and if it sparks ideas, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast,
where we talk to sea levelleaders from across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing the productsand services that impact the
payment space today, as well astrends and predictions for the
future of payments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Jess
Holgrave, the CEO of WalletConnect.
Jess, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:29):
Greg, thank you very much for having me.
I'm very excited to chat withyou today.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
So before we dive into the topics, let's talk
about your personal background alittle bit, maybe where you grew
up, where you call home today, afew things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (00:42):
So I was born in Devon, which is in the southwest
of the UK.
I think that's probably where Iget my love of the sea from.
It took me a little while to getback to the sea.
Now I live very close to the seain Lisbon, in Portugal.
But in the meantime, spent manyyears working in London,
traveling all over the place,doing a bit of work in the US
and in Dubai.
And then I've been here for thelast couple of years where I
(01:03):
escaped the British weather andget a little bit closer to the
beach.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Nice.
Well, can you walk us throughyour professional journey and
how you got to Wallet Connect?
SPEAKER_02 (01:11):
Yeah, so after school, I studied economics at
university.
And like many of my peer groupat the time, I kind of followed
everybody into the city ofLondon, became an investment
banker, didn't really know whatelse to do, to be honest.
Neither of my parents had verytraditional careers.
And so that just seemed to bewhere the crowd was heading.
So I worked for Credit Suissefor some time and then for a
(01:33):
Canadian pension fund.
And this like love of economicskind of hit me again back in, I
guess, 2014, where I started tolearn about Bitcoin.
One of the things that I'dwritten about at university was
the history of monetary systems.
For me, seeing Bitcoin evolvewas like watching monetary
systems change in real time.
(01:54):
So I became very interested incrypto, left the work that I was
doing in private equity, andthroughout 2015, 2016, was
really like investigating cryptoand blockchain a lot.
I wrote a master's thesis on theapplications of blockchain for
the art world and built my firststartup in the space where we
were using this technology totrack the provenance of physical
(02:17):
assets like high-value artworksto create this immutable record
about their history.
One of the things I learnedthere was like there's a timing
for everything.
We were way too early to startputting this tech into the art
world.
But I enjoyed it immensely.
And after that, I joined apayments company called
Checkout.com, which is aEuropean-based acquirer, was
(02:38):
chief of staff there, workedacross the whole business.
But specifically, especiallyduring my latter years, there
was very focused on our cryptostrategy.
And so worked a lot with bothour crypto customers, but also
thinking about our cryptopayments strategy.
I left Checkout at the beginningof 2023.
And what I was really lookingfor was something that was like
(03:00):
pure play crypto again, andwhere I could really get
involved in building the nextgeneration of financial systems.
And I met Wallet Connect throughsome of their investors and some
of their board members.
It was already this prettywell-established project within
the crypto space.
I, as a crypto user, had usedtheir services and products a
(03:22):
lot, but also kind of built somethings with their products.
And so for me, it was a realhonor to be able to join the
team.
And I spend the last two yearsgrowing it, evolving it into
what it's become today, which isthis really global network.
We have about 700 differentwallets, over 70,000 different
(03:43):
applications, and we move about400 billion dollars a year
across that network.
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
So you've been in this sort of Bitcoin blockchain
kind of from the beginning,probably as long as almost
anyone.
SPEAKER_02 (03:56):
There's definitely a few people who've been there a
lot longer, but I've definitelybeen there long enough that I've
got plenty of gray hairs toattest to seeing those ups and
downs.
And it's been a real joy to seethat space evolve.
And I think particularly for me,having worked on the traditional
payment side as well as the purecrypto side, there's this really
(04:17):
glorious moment right now wherethese two worlds are really
converging.
And we're seeing the adoption ofstablecoins and of crypto and of
blockchain technology reallykind of driving forward in the
more traditional payment space.
So it's a very fun moment intime after all these years to
see these two things uh start towork together.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Well, you started to tell us a little bit about
Wallet Connect, but maybe tellus more.
Who are your customers?
Who do you typically sell to?
How do you go to market?
Maybe a few things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (04:48):
To use a traditional payments analogy, you could
think of us a little bit likePLAD or a little bit like ISO
8503 messaging or Swiftmessaging.
What we basically do is providea set of messaging standards to
the industry, which allows themto communicate securely with one
(05:08):
another.
So on one side of the network,we have all of our wallet
partners.
Those include wallets that mightsit on your mobile phone, like a
trust wallet or a MetaMaskwallet, hardware crypto wallets
like Ledger or Trezor thatpeople might use, all the way
through to institutional andcustodian offerings, people like
(05:29):
BitGo, Fireblock, Crypto.comcustody.
And on the other side of thenetwork, we have about 70,000
different applications.
These could be a crypto-nativeapplication like an NFT
marketplace.
It could be a DeFi tradingprotocol.
It could be prediction markets,which are top of everyone's mind
(05:51):
at the moment, like Polymarket.
And it can be a more traditionalmerchant or a payment processor
who wants to be able to acceptcrypto as a payment mechanism.
And we basically connect thesetwo sides of the network so they
can communicate with each other.
So on the wallet side, we have asuite of SDKs that wallets can
(06:12):
integrate.
And on the app side, we haveapplications that work directly
with some of our SDKs.
But we also have a whole rangeof channel partners effectively
through whom applications andpayments companies can access
the Wallet Connect network.
So Coinbase Commerce use WalletConnect as part of their
(06:33):
offering to merchants as part ofCoinbase business.
We work very closely with MeshPay, Mesh Connect, which is
another solutions provider forcrypto, specifically for the
payments industry, Privy, whoare owned by Stripe, also are
partners for the Wallet Connectnetwork.
There's a whole range of waysthat applications and payment
(06:53):
providers can integrate with thenetwork, either directly with us
or with a partner.
SPEAKER_00 (06:58):
What is your business model?
Do you charge monthly fees orpercentage of transactions?
How do you make money?
SPEAKER_02 (07:05):
Very much depends on the specific use case.
So interestingly, only about 20%of the connections that go
through Wallet Connect actuallyresult in an on-chain
transaction, in an on-chainvalue movement.
So for a lot of those paymentsuse cases, we take basis points
on the flow.
(07:26):
For some of the other use cases,things like verifying a wallet
for travel rule compliancepurposes, which is a different
messaging type, we charge permessage, or we can charge more
like a SaaS subscription fee.
So it really depends who we'reworking with, if it's a DeFi
company or a payments company,and what the different use cases
(07:46):
and which pieces of our productsare being used.
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
What's the biggest challenge your company is
solving for your customers rightnow?
SPEAKER_02 (07:54):
You know, I think we have this very broad base, but
if I narrow down to the paymentsuse case, which is probably most
interesting for your audience, Ithink in web 2 payments, the
traditional payments I'll callthem today, we're very spoiled
with the user experience.
Super seamless.
I just take my phone into astore and I tap it and
(08:15):
everything is done.
Or I, through an e-commerceflow, have a one-click express
checkout.
It shares my shippinginformation, everything's kind
of done and dusted.
If I want to pay with cryptotoday as an end user, that user
experience is much harder.
There's scanning of QR codes,multiple buttons to be pressed.
(08:36):
I have to understand which chainmy asset is on.
Does the merchant accept thatspecific asset on that specific
chain?
Do I have enough gas fee in mywallet to be able to complete
the payment?
There's all of these aspects ofuser experience in crypto that
are crypto specific that reallycompromise the user experience
(08:58):
when we compare it to a web 2payment.
So a lot of what we're workingon at the moment with the
participants in our network ishow we upgrade that experience
so that in 18 months' time, acrypto payment is as seamless as
a web 2 payment.
It's a one-click tap or it's aone-click button.
(09:19):
The information is exchanged,all of the compliance is
handled, all of the messaging ishandled really easily.
Because we know that consumerswant to be able to pay with
crypto.
If you look at the cards thatare linked to crypto wallets
today, the volume going throughthere is small on an absolute
basis, but is really rapidlygrowing.
(09:39):
And so there is definitely anappetite for consumers to pay
with crypto.
And we know also that there's anappetite for merchants to be
able to accept crypto payments.
Partly because it opens up a newcustomer base for them.
Stripe, for example, who are aWallet Connect partner, when
they opened up crypto payments,they saw some of their merchants
(10:00):
really increasing revenue as aresult just of being able to
accept new customers throughcrypto payments.
But also, crypto payments aremuch, much cheaper for merchants
than using a card payment.
They're almost instantly able tobe settled.
So the funds can go from acrypto wallet via a PSP and out
(10:20):
even to a merchant in a matterof seconds rather than days.
And so there's a lot ofattributes of a crypto payment
that are really attractive onboth sides of that payment flow.
But in order to make that happenand bring it to reality, we've
got to improve that userexperience.
And so that is really central toour roadmap over the next 12
(10:42):
months.
We just published a new paperthis week outlining the steps
that we're taking towards doingthat.
We've got a large number of ourwallet partners who are on
board.
So I think over the next 12months, we're going to get that
payments experience with cryptomuch, much closer to what we see
in Web 2 today.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
One of the themes that I often talk to CEOs and
founders of companies about isremoving that friction from the
transaction.
And it sounds like that customerexperience that you guys are
working on will be huge becauseright now it's a clunky
experience.
So solving for that, I think,will be huge.
What differentiates you guysfrom your competitors out there?
SPEAKER_02 (11:22):
So we're very unusual in the sense that we
don't really have a directcompetitor for what we do.
The alternative to using WalletConnect is really for an
application to build bilateralintegrations with every wallet.
And we know that mostapplication builders don't want
to do that.
It's very clunky.
(11:42):
It also disrupts the userexperience because one wallet
behaves differently from anotherwhen you make these types of
integrations.
So we're kind of unique in thecrypto space in that regard.
So we've really come to think ofour competitors less of like,
okay, who's connecting cryptoapps and crypto wallets as to
who's moving money around theworld and how can we provide a
(12:05):
better experience for end users?
It doesn't matter whether it's acrypto rail or a traditional
payments rail.
Really, we're out there to makemoney movement much, much
simpler for consumers.
And so I guess if you take thatslightly like step back look of
who our competitors are, reallythey're the payments networks.
And I think as we see cryptoadoption growing, the idea of
(12:28):
using crypto for payments isjust going to become that much
more obvious to many people.
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
Well, let's talk about the future a little bit.
Where do you see the biggestgrowth opportunity for you in
the segment of payments thatyou're in?
SPEAKER_02 (12:39):
We've seen a number of different implementations.
Wallet Connect is used a lot ine-commerce flows, also through
payouts flows for ISVs andPayFac type marketplace setups.
I think probably one of the mostinteresting ones that I'm
excited about is actuallyin-store and enabling crypto
payments at a point of sale.
(13:01):
This is almost like the hardernut to crack in crypto payments
than e-commerce.
In e-commerce we can alreadycreate these relatively
intuitive flows between an appand a wallet.
But for me to go in-store is awhole different challenge.
The speed, the expectation ofbeing able to make an offline
payment, all of that stuff isthat much more demanding.
(13:23):
I think we're really excited.
We just launched this point ofsale SDK a few weeks ago.
It's rolling out with a partnerin Singapore.
We have new partners comingonline in Q1.
So I think that's going to bevery interesting to see people
be able to actually pay forcrypto in store.
The second like big area offocus and where I think we're
going to hopefully unlock a lotof growth is in recurring
(13:46):
payments.
Today, crypto just as a formfactor is really a push payment.
There are some standards thatallow something that resembles a
pull payment, but it looksnothing like pull payments and
recurring payments in thetraditional world.
A lot of work needs to be doneactually at the chain technology
layer in order to enable safeand secure recurring payments
(14:09):
for end users.
So actually, over the last fewyears, we've been working a lot
on this approach of how are wegoing to get to true, safe and
secure recurring payments incrypto without an end user
needing to give up too muchcontrol to a merchant over the
assets that they have?
That's going to take some timeto roll out, but we all know
(14:29):
that recurring payments is ahuge segment of the payments
market today.
And I think if we can unlockthat with crypto, it's also
going to just make crypto a moreattractive payment method for
merchants and payments companiesto start offering.
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
I'm just curious, do you hear from a lot of small
businesses that want to acceptcrypto?
I mean, I don't interview themon a regular basis, but it seems
to me like the local drycleaner, the local pizza shop,
are they looking for thissolution yet?
Or do you think that's a littleways off?
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
I think it really varies geographically.
And that is in two regards.
There are some places in theworld where more and more
consumers are holding crypto,specifically stable coins, often
because their local currency hashigh inflation or for some other
reason.
So in parts of the world whereconsumers are holding a lot of
(15:21):
stable coins, there's a lot ofdemand for small businesses to
be able to accept those stablecoins directly.
So Latin America, parts ofAfrica, parts of Asia, we're
really actually seeing smallmerchants on the ground asking
for that.
A little bit less so in moredeveloped economies at the
moment.
(15:41):
But having said that, there arealso use cases that are
completely at the other end ofthe spectrum where people,
especially for very high-valuegoods, want to be able to accept
crypto payments.
So if we're talking about realestate, cars, jewelry, in
developed markets, there's oftena big demand to be able to
accept crypto payments.
So it really depends on the typeof merchant, who they're serving
(16:04):
and where they are, as to whatkind of crypto payment they want
to be able to accept.
Is it about unlocking a new usergroup, or is it about who your
users are on the ground todayand the currency that they have?
But I also think that it'sstarting to click in that if
people can accept payments, theycan really reduce the fees that
(16:25):
they're paying on their paymentstoday.
Even just in the last week, I'vehad messages in my Twitter inbox
from a bowling alley companysaying, hey, we think we can get
cheaper payments if we acceptcrypto.
How should we do this?
Because if you're a merchant,especially if you have very
small margins, if you can takeyour payments fees down from 2
(16:45):
or 3% that you're going to bepaying on a card transaction
down to sub-0.1%, and you canget those funds the same day
instead of two days later, thisis a really interesting prospect
for you.
As we know in payments, as weintroduce new payment forms,
these things always take longerthan we think.
(17:06):
Look at faster payments in theUS, how we've had this for 10
years and it's what, less than1% of payments.
So we know that this stuff isslow to change.
But I do think this is going tobe an attractive form for
merchants to do, especially whenit gets to the stage where they
don't really have to do anywork.
They can just open it up as apayment method.
They're still going to getsettled in fiat at the back end.
(17:29):
They're still going to have thesame reconciliation options
available to them, the sameintegration, but they can just
switch on a different paymentmethod.
Then I think it's going tobecome a bit of a no-brainer for
a lot of merchants.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yeah.
If you can solve for themgetting paid cheaper and getting
the money faster, then you'vereally got something there for
sure.
What does success look like foryour company over, say, the next
three to five years?
SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
So I think we would love to see those volumes
increase.
As I said, this year we willprocess about$400 billion.
And we're seeing that growthtrend month on month of that
look really positive right now.
A lot of that still comes fromthe kind of crypto native
applications, but increasinglywe're seeing it on the payments
and on the stablecoin side.
I guess my real dream is twothings.
(18:17):
One, it's that I can walk into astore and pay with crypto for
whatever I'm buying wherever Iam.
And I think the second thing isthat we maybe even move away
from this idea of end usersneeding to think about crypto,
businesses needing to thinkabout crypto.
I think the real vision is thatall of this is there.
It's under the hood, it'sabstracted, there's no friction.
(18:39):
I don't need to learn whatcrypto is as an end user.
I just get a better experiencebecause that's the technology
that's powering my payments.
And as a merchant, I getcheaper, faster payments as a
result of using this.
I don't need to think about howit works.
It just works for me.
And I think that's really thelong-term vision is that we can
(19:02):
create something that takes somuch friction out that nobody
really needs to think about it,but they can benefit from it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
I love that vision.
So we're talking about one ofthe biggest trends in the
industry, but what are the othertrends that you're kind of
keeping up with that are reallyreshaping the landscape?
SPEAKER_02 (19:18):
No, I think that end users are becoming a lot more
sophisticated with how theythink about their finances.
The embedded finance trend isincredibly important.
Where am I accessing myfinancial services?
Which companies do I have arelationship with when it comes
to my finances?
And I think especially I'm basedin Europe, but if you look at
(19:39):
the breadth of services thatmany of our like neobank
fintechs provide today, they'removing way beyond just a banking
setup.
They're going to let you holdyour crypto and trade your
crypto.
They're going to be where you doyour wealth management
activities as well.
And so this consolidation offintechs really becoming like
(20:00):
our true financial hub all inone location, I think is a
really interesting trend andhighlights the need for those
fintechs to kind of capturethose users really early in
order to have that long-termloyalty and continue to offer
them great goods and services.
Because when you can do that,then you can create your own
stablecoin or whatever it is tobe able to get the yield on it
(20:23):
and you can create these reallyinteresting offerings for
consumers.
So I think that's one.
The other thing that we'reacutely kind of tuned into and
starting to do a lot moreresearch and building for is
thinking about how end usersshare their data.
Data privacy and how we enableopt-in data, how we enable users
(20:44):
to control their data, whothey're sharing it with, whether
that's for a KYC process whenyou're buying goods and services
that have an age restriction ora geography restriction, or
you're just sharing data inorder for the companies that you
interact with to understand youbetter, I think that landscape
is going to be changing veryrapidly over the coming years.
(21:06):
Consumers care more and moreabout their privacy and who
their data is being shared with.
And companies want to know whotheir customers are in order to
be able to serve them better.
And so thinking about how we canuse the same technology
blockchain and how we can enablewallets to have more control
over data.
Who do I share my shippingaddress with?
(21:27):
Who can see the contents of mywallet from a privacy
perspective?
I think all of this is alsogonna change the relationship
that a consumer and a merchanthas over time.
So I think that's gonna beanother interesting one to
watch, especially as we have alot of regulation coming out
that's really gonna support thattrend as well.
SPEAKER_00 (21:45):
Two final questions.
The first one, if you could goback and give yourself advice at
the start of your career, whatwould that be?
SPEAKER_02 (21:52):
Oh god, I've got probably a long list of things I
would tell myself.
I think the key thing is to dosomething that you're really
interested in and that youreally love.
Everybody says it, but I thinkif you find something that
you're really passionate about,you shouldn't worry about like
if that's where the money is orare you gonna be successful at
(22:12):
it.
There's nothing like getting upevery day and working on
something that you really careabout.
And I'm so happy that I madethat change when I did back in
2015 to really kind of focus onand think about crypto.
Everybody thought that I wascompletely mad at the time for
leaving this very secure privateequity job and going to work on
(22:35):
this technology that nobody hadheard about other than the
Bitcoin stuff.
But having done that for thelast 10 years, it's been the
most interesting 10 years Icould possibly have imagined.
So find what interests yourather than what you think you
should traditionally be doing.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
So, final question: what's one thing that payments
leaders that are listening tothe show today should really be
thinking about in payments rightnow?
SPEAKER_02 (23:00):
It's gonna sound obvious, but crypto payments.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
I had a feeling you would say that.
SPEAKER_02 (23:05):
Spoiler alert, it really is crypto.
This change is coming.
I think you can deliver a lot ofbenefits to your merchants, to
your partners if you have theright strategy here.
Doesn't mean you need to go outand build it and launch it
today.
But I think starting to investnow is gonna set you up really
well for the future because Ithink the wave is coming, is
(23:26):
coming very fast.
And of course, get in contactwith Wallet Connect, if we can
be helpful on that front.
Just having an understanding ofcrypto, maybe getting over some
of the skepticism that you haveand putting some biases aside
and just like learning what thetechnology really does and how
it works, I think is animportant thing for every
boardroom to be doing.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
Jess, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show.
So thank you so much for beingon today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
Greg, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
And to all you listeners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Thank you for joining us this week on the
Leaders in Payments Podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersandpayments.com, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening, pleaseshare on your social channels as
well.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast,
where we talk to sea levelleaders from across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing the productsand services that impact the
payment space today, as well astrends and predictions for the
future of payments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Jess
Holgrave, the CEO of WalletConnect.
Jess, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:29):
Greg, thank you very much for having me.
I'm very excited to chat withyou today.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
So before we dive into the topics, let's talk
about your personal background alittle bit, maybe where you grew
up, where you call home today, afew things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (00:42):
So I was born in Devon, which is in the southwest
of the UK.
I think that's probably where Iget my love of the sea from.
It took me a little while to getback to the sea.
Now I live very close to the seain Lisbon, in Portugal.
But in the meantime, spent manyyears working in London,
traveling all over the place,doing a bit of work in the US
and in Dubai.
And then I've been here for thelast couple of years where I
(01:03):
escaped the British weather andget a little bit closer to the
beach.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Nice.
Well, can you walk us throughyour professional journey and
how you got to Wallet Connect?
SPEAKER_02 (01:11):
Yeah, so after school, I studied economics at
university.
And like many of my peer groupat the time, I kind of followed
everybody into the city ofLondon, became an investment
banker, didn't really know whatelse to do, to be honest.
Neither of my parents had verytraditional careers.
And so that just seemed to bewhere the crowd was heading.
So I worked for Credit Suissefor some time and then for a
(01:33):
Canadian pension fund.
And this like love of economicskind of hit me again back in, I
guess, 2014, where I started tolearn about Bitcoin.
One of the things that I'dwritten about at university was
the history of monetary systems.
For me, seeing Bitcoin evolvewas like watching monetary
systems change in real time.
(01:54):
So I became very interested incrypto, left the work that I was
doing in private equity, andthroughout 2015, 2016, was
really like investigating cryptoand blockchain a lot.
I wrote a master's thesis on theapplications of blockchain for
the art world and built my firststartup in the space where we
were using this technology totrack the provenance of physical
(02:17):
assets like high-value artworksto create this immutable record
about their history.
One of the things I learnedthere was like there's a timing
for everything.
We were way too early to startputting this tech into the art
world.
But I enjoyed it immensely.
And after that, I joined apayments company called
Checkout.com, which is aEuropean-based acquirer, was
(02:38):
chief of staff there, workedacross the whole business.
But specifically, especiallyduring my latter years, there
was very focused on our cryptostrategy.
And so worked a lot with bothour crypto customers, but also
thinking about our cryptopayments strategy.
I left Checkout at the beginningof 2023.
And what I was really lookingfor was something that was like
(03:00):
pure play crypto again, andwhere I could really get
involved in building the nextgeneration of financial systems.
And I met Wallet Connect throughsome of their investors and some
of their board members.
It was already this prettywell-established project within
the crypto space.
I, as a crypto user, had usedtheir services and products a
(03:22):
lot, but also kind of built somethings with their products.
And so for me, it was a realhonor to be able to join the
team.
And I spend the last two yearsgrowing it, evolving it into
what it's become today, which isthis really global network.
We have about 700 differentwallets, over 70,000 different
(03:43):
applications, and we move about400 billion dollars a year
across that network.
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
So you've been in this sort of Bitcoin blockchain
kind of from the beginning,probably as long as almost
anyone.
SPEAKER_02 (03:56):
There's definitely a few people who've been there a
lot longer, but I've definitelybeen there long enough that I've
got plenty of gray hairs toattest to seeing those ups and
downs.
And it's been a real joy to seethat space evolve.
And I think particularly for me,having worked on the traditional
payment side as well as the purecrypto side, there's this really
(04:17):
glorious moment right now wherethese two worlds are really
converging.
And we're seeing the adoption ofstablecoins and of crypto and of
blockchain technology reallykind of driving forward in the
more traditional payment space.
So it's a very fun moment intime after all these years to
see these two things uh start towork together.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Well, you started to tell us a little bit about
Wallet Connect, but maybe tellus more.
Who are your customers?
Who do you typically sell to?
How do you go to market?
Maybe a few things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (04:48):
To use a traditional payments analogy, you could
think of us a little bit likePLAD or a little bit like ISO
8503 messaging or Swiftmessaging.
What we basically do is providea set of messaging standards to
the industry, which allows themto communicate securely with one
(05:08):
another.
So on one side of the network,we have all of our wallet
partners.
Those include wallets that mightsit on your mobile phone, like a
trust wallet or a MetaMaskwallet, hardware crypto wallets
like Ledger or Trezor thatpeople might use, all the way
through to institutional andcustodian offerings, people like
(05:29):
BitGo, Fireblock, Crypto.comcustody.
And on the other side of thenetwork, we have about 70,000
different applications.
These could be a crypto-nativeapplication like an NFT
marketplace.
It could be a DeFi tradingprotocol.
It could be prediction markets,which are top of everyone's mind
(05:51):
at the moment, like Polymarket.
And it can be a more traditionalmerchant or a payment processor
who wants to be able to acceptcrypto as a payment mechanism.
And we basically connect thesetwo sides of the network so they
can communicate with each other.
So on the wallet side, we have asuite of SDKs that wallets can
(06:12):
integrate.
And on the app side, we haveapplications that work directly
with some of our SDKs.
But we also have a whole rangeof channel partners effectively
through whom applications andpayments companies can access
the Wallet Connect network.
So Coinbase Commerce use WalletConnect as part of their
(06:33):
offering to merchants as part ofCoinbase business.
We work very closely with MeshPay, Mesh Connect, which is
another solutions provider forcrypto, specifically for the
payments industry, Privy, whoare owned by Stripe, also are
partners for the Wallet Connectnetwork.
There's a whole range of waysthat applications and payment
(06:53):
providers can integrate with thenetwork, either directly with us
or with a partner.
SPEAKER_00 (06:58):
What is your business model?
Do you charge monthly fees orpercentage of transactions?
How do you make money?
SPEAKER_02 (07:05):
Very much depends on the specific use case.
So interestingly, only about 20%of the connections that go
through Wallet Connect actuallyresult in an on-chain
transaction, in an on-chainvalue movement.
So for a lot of those paymentsuse cases, we take basis points
on the flow.
(07:26):
For some of the other use cases,things like verifying a wallet
for travel rule compliancepurposes, which is a different
messaging type, we charge permessage, or we can charge more
like a SaaS subscription fee.
So it really depends who we'reworking with, if it's a DeFi
company or a payments company,and what the different use cases
(07:46):
and which pieces of our productsare being used.
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
What's the biggest challenge your company is
solving for your customers rightnow?
SPEAKER_02 (07:54):
You know, I think we have this very broad base, but
if I narrow down to the paymentsuse case, which is probably most
interesting for your audience, Ithink in web 2 payments, the
traditional payments I'll callthem today, we're very spoiled
with the user experience.
Super seamless.
I just take my phone into astore and I tap it and
(08:15):
everything is done.
Or I, through an e-commerceflow, have a one-click express
checkout.
It shares my shippinginformation, everything's kind
of done and dusted.
If I want to pay with cryptotoday as an end user, that user
experience is much harder.
There's scanning of QR codes,multiple buttons to be pressed.
(08:36):
I have to understand which chainmy asset is on.
Does the merchant accept thatspecific asset on that specific
chain?
Do I have enough gas fee in mywallet to be able to complete
the payment?
There's all of these aspects ofuser experience in crypto that
are crypto specific that reallycompromise the user experience
(08:58):
when we compare it to a web 2payment.
So a lot of what we're workingon at the moment with the
participants in our network ishow we upgrade that experience
so that in 18 months' time, acrypto payment is as seamless as
a web 2 payment.
It's a one-click tap or it's aone-click button.
(09:19):
The information is exchanged,all of the compliance is
handled, all of the messaging ishandled really easily.
Because we know that consumerswant to be able to pay with
crypto.
If you look at the cards thatare linked to crypto wallets
today, the volume going throughthere is small on an absolute
basis, but is really rapidlygrowing.
(09:39):
And so there is definitely anappetite for consumers to pay
with crypto.
And we know also that there's anappetite for merchants to be
able to accept crypto payments.
Partly because it opens up a newcustomer base for them.
Stripe, for example, who are aWallet Connect partner, when
they opened up crypto payments,they saw some of their merchants
(10:00):
really increasing revenue as aresult just of being able to
accept new customers throughcrypto payments.
But also, crypto payments aremuch, much cheaper for merchants
than using a card payment.
They're almost instantly able tobe settled.
So the funds can go from acrypto wallet via a PSP and out
(10:20):
even to a merchant in a matterof seconds rather than days.
And so there's a lot ofattributes of a crypto payment
that are really attractive onboth sides of that payment flow.
But in order to make that happenand bring it to reality, we've
got to improve that userexperience.
And so that is really central toour roadmap over the next 12
(10:42):
months.
We just published a new paperthis week outlining the steps
that we're taking towards doingthat.
We've got a large number of ourwallet partners who are on
board.
So I think over the next 12months, we're going to get that
payments experience with cryptomuch, much closer to what we see
in Web 2 today.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
One of the themes that I often talk to CEOs and
founders of companies about isremoving that friction from the
transaction.
And it sounds like that customerexperience that you guys are
working on will be huge becauseright now it's a clunky
experience.
So solving for that, I think,will be huge.
What differentiates you guysfrom your competitors out there?
SPEAKER_02 (11:22):
So we're very unusual in the sense that we
don't really have a directcompetitor for what we do.
The alternative to using WalletConnect is really for an
application to build bilateralintegrations with every wallet.
And we know that mostapplication builders don't want
to do that.
It's very clunky.
(11:42):
It also disrupts the userexperience because one wallet
behaves differently from anotherwhen you make these types of
integrations.
So we're kind of unique in thecrypto space in that regard.
So we've really come to think ofour competitors less of like,
okay, who's connecting cryptoapps and crypto wallets as to
who's moving money around theworld and how can we provide a
(12:05):
better experience for end users?
It doesn't matter whether it's acrypto rail or a traditional
payments rail.
Really, we're out there to makemoney movement much, much
simpler for consumers.
And so I guess if you take thatslightly like step back look of
who our competitors are, reallythey're the payments networks.
And I think as we see cryptoadoption growing, the idea of
(12:28):
using crypto for payments isjust going to become that much
more obvious to many people.
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
Well, let's talk about the future a little bit.
Where do you see the biggestgrowth opportunity for you in
the segment of payments thatyou're in?
SPEAKER_02 (12:39):
We've seen a number of different implementations.
Wallet Connect is used a lot ine-commerce flows, also through
payouts flows for ISVs andPayFac type marketplace setups.
I think probably one of the mostinteresting ones that I'm
excited about is actuallyin-store and enabling crypto
payments at a point of sale.
(13:01):
This is almost like the hardernut to crack in crypto payments
than e-commerce.
In e-commerce we can alreadycreate these relatively
intuitive flows between an appand a wallet.
But for me to go in-store is awhole different challenge.
The speed, the expectation ofbeing able to make an offline
payment, all of that stuff isthat much more demanding.
(13:23):
I think we're really excited.
We just launched this point ofsale SDK a few weeks ago.
It's rolling out with a partnerin Singapore.
We have new partners comingonline in Q1.
So I think that's going to bevery interesting to see people
be able to actually pay forcrypto in store.
The second like big area offocus and where I think we're
going to hopefully unlock a lotof growth is in recurring
(13:46):
payments.
Today, crypto just as a formfactor is really a push payment.
There are some standards thatallow something that resembles a
pull payment, but it looksnothing like pull payments and
recurring payments in thetraditional world.
A lot of work needs to be doneactually at the chain technology
layer in order to enable safeand secure recurring payments
(14:09):
for end users.
So actually, over the last fewyears, we've been working a lot
on this approach of how are wegoing to get to true, safe and
secure recurring payments incrypto without an end user
needing to give up too muchcontrol to a merchant over the
assets that they have?
That's going to take some timeto roll out, but we all know
(14:29):
that recurring payments is ahuge segment of the payments
market today.
And I think if we can unlockthat with crypto, it's also
going to just make crypto a moreattractive payment method for
merchants and payments companiesto start offering.
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
I'm just curious, do you hear from a lot of small
businesses that want to acceptcrypto?
I mean, I don't interview themon a regular basis, but it seems
to me like the local drycleaner, the local pizza shop,
are they looking for thissolution yet?
Or do you think that's a littleways off?
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
I think it really varies geographically.
And that is in two regards.
There are some places in theworld where more and more
consumers are holding crypto,specifically stable coins, often
because their local currency hashigh inflation or for some other
reason.
So in parts of the world whereconsumers are holding a lot of
(15:21):
stable coins, there's a lot ofdemand for small businesses to
be able to accept those stablecoins directly.
So Latin America, parts ofAfrica, parts of Asia, we're
really actually seeing smallmerchants on the ground asking
for that.
A little bit less so in moredeveloped economies at the
moment.
(15:41):
But having said that, there arealso use cases that are
completely at the other end ofthe spectrum where people,
especially for very high-valuegoods, want to be able to accept
crypto payments.
So if we're talking about realestate, cars, jewelry, in
developed markets, there's oftena big demand to be able to
accept crypto payments.
So it really depends on the typeof merchant, who they're serving
(16:04):
and where they are, as to whatkind of crypto payment they want
to be able to accept.
Is it about unlocking a new usergroup, or is it about who your
users are on the ground todayand the currency that they have?
But I also think that it'sstarting to click in that if
people can accept payments, theycan really reduce the fees that
(16:25):
they're paying on their paymentstoday.
Even just in the last week, I'vehad messages in my Twitter inbox
from a bowling alley companysaying, hey, we think we can get
cheaper payments if we acceptcrypto.
How should we do this?
Because if you're a merchant,especially if you have very
small margins, if you can takeyour payments fees down from 2
(16:45):
or 3% that you're going to bepaying on a card transaction
down to sub-0.1%, and you canget those funds the same day
instead of two days later, thisis a really interesting prospect
for you.
As we know in payments, as weintroduce new payment forms,
these things always take longerthan we think.
(17:06):
Look at faster payments in theUS, how we've had this for 10
years and it's what, less than1% of payments.
So we know that this stuff isslow to change.
But I do think this is going tobe an attractive form for
merchants to do, especially whenit gets to the stage where they
don't really have to do anywork.
They can just open it up as apayment method.
They're still going to getsettled in fiat at the back end.
(17:29):
They're still going to have thesame reconciliation options
available to them, the sameintegration, but they can just
switch on a different paymentmethod.
Then I think it's going tobecome a bit of a no-brainer for
a lot of merchants.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yeah.
If you can solve for themgetting paid cheaper and getting
the money faster, then you'vereally got something there for
sure.
What does success look like foryour company over, say, the next
three to five years?
SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
So I think we would love to see those volumes
increase.
As I said, this year we willprocess about$400 billion.
And we're seeing that growthtrend month on month of that
look really positive right now.
A lot of that still comes fromthe kind of crypto native
applications, but increasinglywe're seeing it on the payments
and on the stablecoin side.
I guess my real dream is twothings.
(18:17):
One, it's that I can walk into astore and pay with crypto for
whatever I'm buying wherever Iam.
And I think the second thing isthat we maybe even move away
from this idea of end usersneeding to think about crypto,
businesses needing to thinkabout crypto.
I think the real vision is thatall of this is there.
It's under the hood, it'sabstracted, there's no friction.
(18:39):
I don't need to learn whatcrypto is as an end user.
I just get a better experiencebecause that's the technology
that's powering my payments.
And as a merchant, I getcheaper, faster payments as a
result of using this.
I don't need to think about howit works.
It just works for me.
And I think that's really thelong-term vision is that we can
(19:02):
create something that takes somuch friction out that nobody
really needs to think about it,but they can benefit from it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
I love that vision.
So we're talking about one ofthe biggest trends in the
industry, but what are the othertrends that you're kind of
keeping up with that are reallyreshaping the landscape?
SPEAKER_02 (19:18):
No, I think that end users are becoming a lot more
sophisticated with how theythink about their finances.
The embedded finance trend isincredibly important.
Where am I accessing myfinancial services?
Which companies do I have arelationship with when it comes
to my finances?
And I think especially I'm basedin Europe, but if you look at
(19:39):
the breadth of services thatmany of our like neobank
fintechs provide today, they'removing way beyond just a banking
setup.
They're going to let you holdyour crypto and trade your
crypto.
They're going to be where you doyour wealth management
activities as well.
And so this consolidation offintechs really becoming like
(20:00):
our true financial hub all inone location, I think is a
really interesting trend andhighlights the need for those
fintechs to kind of capturethose users really early in
order to have that long-termloyalty and continue to offer
them great goods and services.
Because when you can do that,then you can create your own
stablecoin or whatever it is tobe able to get the yield on it
(20:23):
and you can create these reallyinteresting offerings for
consumers.
So I think that's one.
The other thing that we'reacutely kind of tuned into and
starting to do a lot moreresearch and building for is
thinking about how end usersshare their data.
Data privacy and how we enableopt-in data, how we enable users
(20:44):
to control their data, whothey're sharing it with, whether
that's for a KYC process whenyou're buying goods and services
that have an age restriction ora geography restriction, or
you're just sharing data inorder for the companies that you
interact with to understand youbetter, I think that landscape
is going to be changing veryrapidly over the coming years.
(21:06):
Consumers care more and moreabout their privacy and who
their data is being shared with.
And companies want to know whotheir customers are in order to
be able to serve them better.
And so thinking about how we canuse the same technology
blockchain and how we can enablewallets to have more control
over data.
Who do I share my shippingaddress with?
(21:27):
Who can see the contents of mywallet from a privacy
perspective?
I think all of this is alsogonna change the relationship
that a consumer and a merchanthas over time.
So I think that's gonna beanother interesting one to
watch, especially as we have alot of regulation coming out
that's really gonna support thattrend as well.
SPEAKER_00 (21:45):
Two final questions.
The first one, if you could goback and give yourself advice at
the start of your career, whatwould that be?
SPEAKER_02 (21:52):
Oh god, I've got probably a long list of things I
would tell myself.
I think the key thing is to dosomething that you're really
interested in and that youreally love.
Everybody says it, but I thinkif you find something that
you're really passionate about,you shouldn't worry about like
if that's where the money is orare you gonna be successful at
(22:12):
it.
There's nothing like getting upevery day and working on
something that you really careabout.
And I'm so happy that I madethat change when I did back in
2015 to really kind of focus onand think about crypto.
Everybody thought that I wascompletely mad at the time for
leaving this very secure privateequity job and going to work on
(22:35):
this technology that nobody hadheard about other than the
Bitcoin stuff.
But having done that for thelast 10 years, it's been the
most interesting 10 years Icould possibly have imagined.
So find what interests yourather than what you think you
should traditionally be doing.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
So, final question: what's one thing that payments
leaders that are listening tothe show today should really be
thinking about in payments rightnow?
SPEAKER_02 (23:00):
It's gonna sound obvious, but crypto payments.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
I had a feeling you would say that.
SPEAKER_02 (23:05):
Spoiler alert, it really is crypto.
This change is coming.
I think you can deliver a lot ofbenefits to your merchants, to
your partners if you have theright strategy here.
Doesn't mean you need to go outand build it and launch it
today.
But I think starting to investnow is gonna set you up really
well for the future because Ithink the wave is coming, is
(23:26):
coming very fast.
And of course, get in contactwith Wallet Connect, if we can
be helpful on that front.
Just having an understanding ofcrypto, maybe getting over some
of the skepticism that you haveand putting some biases aside
and just like learning what thetechnology really does and how
it works, I think is animportant thing for every
boardroom to be doing.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
Jess, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show.
So thank you so much for beingon today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
Greg, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
And to all you listeners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Thank you for joining us this week on the
Leaders in Payments Podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersandpayments.com, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening, pleaseshare on your social channels as
well.
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