#391 Building Confidence in Crypto: Peter Curk on Regulation, Strategy, and Growth

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased joining me, Peter Curk, CEO and CPO of Iconomi. Peter, thank you very much for being on the show here with me today. The way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to [00:01:00] introduce themselves. Tell us a little bit more about you, your background, your journey, and what you're currently up to.

Mehmet: So the floor is yours.

Peter: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Uh, yeah, it's, it's a pleasure to be here. As I said, I'm leading the team at Iconomi, uh, some, uh, pronounce it as Iconomi. Uh, we are basically a crypto platform made for any kind of tokenized assets, uh, and investment strategies. Um, yeah, otherwise I'm a family father, a motorbike driver and I'm currently approaching my 50s.

Peter: So I've seen enough of different businesses. Uh, my past comes from actually business. I'm not that much technology oriented, uh, been working in retail energy. Telecommunications is where I started. And in certain ways, telecommunications, hypes, And those times remember me a bit what crypto went through over the last decade.

Peter: Uh, so, um, I'm happy to share any any of my, uh, journeys, learnings. [00:02:00]

Mehmet: Absolutely. Thank you again, uh, Pete for being with us here today. So, you know what, the first thing I want to, to start from is, you know, tell me more about the, the, the Iconomi, right? So, What's, what's the story? I mean, and, uh, um, what, you know, was the motivation, let's say, to start it, to start the company.

Peter: Yeah. The, the company was founded by, in 2016. Uh, it came out of the need, and I can speak frankly about the user need. You know, people approaching the founders of the company who are very much deep into crypto. Uh, look, I'd like to buy some bitcoins and actually those days it was very, very difficult to do it because you need to be, you know, skilled with some wallets and people usually people who are not that skilled could not do it.

Peter: So they just said, Oh, obviously there's a need for this and they just [00:03:00] created a company and to add a layer on on it. It was also very much seen that, uh, the revolution could come in a way that everybody could manage his own investment strategy, uh, by himself. Not that, you know, like in the traditional, uh, traditional finance industry.

Peter: So out of these two needs and ideas and visions, the company was born, which is currently. It's actually a crypto portfolio management, uh, platform. We are regulated in the UK and in the European union in Netherlands. And we've been around since then, since the inception of the company. We also went the early days through a phase of, um, an asset management, uh, asset management in science, you know, like crypto, crypto assets.

Peter: Uh, those were the, the wild days of the ICOs. Uh, but that side of the business is gone. I think that, that. [00:04:00] That kind of an crypto industry, at least in Europe, is now, uh, gone. There's no way we are more and more becoming a regulated financial institution. That's what the regulators in Europe want. And that's why we also now licensing or about to license the business, uh, for full digital assets management license.

Mehmet: That's cool. Now, you know, talking about cryptos and you're like, there's a lot of questions that can come to mind, right? Um, so we know, you know, the retail investors usually, when I say retail investors, like people like you, me, and you know, and the rest. So, um, they usually tend to be hesitant to Go into this market, right?

Mehmet: And they think it's complex. Uh, sometimes they think, Oh, okay, we don't know what to do exactly. And there's a lot of platforms, you know, right? So what do you believe are the biggest [00:05:00] barriers preventing them from getting started? They want to be there, but there's something still.

Peter: I think it's, it's, um, a lot of, of the last eight years.

Peter: Um, and especially in those early days, there were a lot of, uh, let me put it fake projects, fake, you know, uh, tokens and so on. And there were a lot of people on the retail market that got hurt. There were even a lot of scams. We can on one side and on the other side, there were a lot of also some quite some hacks in terms of the technology was very early stage.

Peter: You know, assets got lost. I know they got Whatever in those protocol bridges over the protocols and so on and so forth So I I guess when this became almost I would call it a popular story like a pop story So everybody has a friend who got lost on crypto He got something something about a crypto and with a bit [00:06:00] of a not positive experience.

Peter: So I think Today, the consumers are okay to be very, very prudent about approaching the space, and I cannot blame anybody for having this attitude. Although, uh, approaching the space in through players like economy that is fully registered with other national authorities or any other player that has fulfills this criteria, is nowadays very, very safe, safe in terms of you're not going to be scammed.

Peter: Uh, of course the asset class itself, uh, is still very volatile. You know, it goes up and down and, um, and this is the other side of the story. So how much, uh, uh, money or your portfolio to allocate that such an asset class, uh, which comes down really to, uh, your individual, uh, financial situation, yeah. Yeah.

Mehmet: Right. So, so, [00:07:00] you know, like I like the flow because this is actually exactly what I wanted to ask you. So, okay. So we get, you know, to how to choose the right, uh, I would say market to go into, you know, and all this now as in any investment, Peter, so there are some risks, right. Um, And it's very to me, at least, you know, so I need to study and understand, you know, how much risk I'm willing to take.

Mehmet: Right. So, so from your experience and your perspective, um, if someone, you know, it's today, like hesitant, You know, and they're not sure, uh, about, you know, which strategies they want to use. Like, what are like the best ways to formulate kind of a personalized crypto investment strategy?

Peter: Um, yeah, because it's personalized.

Peter: It's very hard to answer your question. But, um, let's say for somebody approaching the space, [00:08:00] um, the default strategy should be Uh, should I buy some bitcoins? And it's just a very simple question. Yes or no. And then the next is for how long should I be holding them? And that's why what I always say should be the default.

Peter: Uh, the default strategy to compare any other strategy with. Yeah. So if I just buy bitcoin and leave them there for 10 years, this is a pretty much, uh, let's say huddle strategy. Would I make, uh, anything better if I start trading altcoins going into, you know, DeFi yield protocols and other products that are present in the DeFi space or in the centralized space?

Peter: Should I trade with margin? All, all this, this secondary questions really depend on what your, what is someone's Uh, investment goal. How much skills competence is time. Somebody has to allocate this because [00:09:00] what is true about most investments, not only crypto is that, uh, if you don't know, I mean, if you have to, uh, spend a lot of time about monitoring and then following your investment, then this means you did not invest, but you bought yourself a second job.

Peter: job. And, uh, usually at least, uh, it should be, uh, not straight is trading, but it should be investing, which means money makes money. So what I would say should be a fixed and necessary component of any investment strategy is the take profit tools, meaning whatever you invest, whatever you decide before doing that, just.

Peter: make and clear up your mind about when are you going to take profits and what's going to be when you say, Oh, that's good enough for me. I have enough. This is what I wanted to reach. This is my goal. I'm taking the money off the table or, you know, gradually taking it out, whatever. [00:10:00] Just the key component is yes.

Peter: How much And then it starts with how much will I be satisfied if somebody postpones these decisions to after he's made the investment, especially in crypto, which is very volatile, that the emotion starts kicking in. And then, you know, a lot of stuff starts happening. You know, people get scary about, uh, the down, downward, I mean, the downturns, uh, of the value they sell.

Peter: Maybe. And then there's an, there's an app, um, that the value goes up and then they, oh, so they, they start doing all the wrong things just because they did not really create their own strategy about what part of my money and I'm going to invest. Is it sensible part of my total, uh, investments, uh, ownership and then for how long with which kind of profit goal, uh, and yeah, and then definitely studying, uh, a lot about.

Peter: studying a lot about the risks involved. [00:11:00] Um, so yeah, on economy we have different kind of strategies investments from more simple like index strategies that just index the top 25 coins or to more sector oriented DeFi strategies to very hard coin based strategies. Um, so, uh, it really depends then on what somebody, uh, is, has affinity and also is willing to follow.

Peter: Right.

Mehmet: Absolutely. You know, like you, you just took like some, some points which are like really important. I believe regarding first, you said, you know, what we say crypto people tend to think about the Bitcoin or from, from what I've seen people start to think about, uh, All these bad coins or altcoins that appeared and disappeared very fast, right now What we start to see recently and even you know, this was for me I wasn't surprised but too many people, you [00:12:00] know Like didn't wait to see for example bitcoin etfs or like Uh, even Ethereum, btf, uh, ETFs, right?

Mehmet: And you know, these etf, they start to gain attention and uh, um, you know, but some, some investors might be saying, okay, let's wait before we start this diversification in our portfolio. Right? So why do you believe it's crucial to consider other digital assets? rather than just waiting. Um,

Peter: yeah, I mean,

Peter: let me put it like this. Let's compare for a moment, just an ETF, a single token crypto token ETF, like a Bitcoin ETF. To just buying a Bitcoin on, on, uh, through, through economy or any other regulated, uh, crypto exchange slash broker. So why would somebody wanna go into an ETF, uh, and not just buy a Bitcoin and [00:13:00] then, uh, invest in it?

Peter: So I guess more, it's more about convenience than it is about comparing just these two options. Uh, you know, if you already have a brokerage account in the us. Uh, you just buy the that and there are guests for U. S. Citizens, some tax advantages, maybe and so on. But otherwise there should be no reason why waiting for, uh, just buying an E.

Peter: D. F. So what the E. D. F. S. did, I think, is they gave legitimacy to these two at the moment assets. So we can eat while we can see that there are a lot of exchange traded products that are available to institutional investors. already there. Uh, and they have been available to institutional investors and sophisticated investors for four years now.

Peter: Uh, but they're not available to retail clients. So what we also see is that those institutionally [00:14:00] sophisticated investors started allocating portions of their investments to this space, uh, already years ago. So and usually the rule is, you know, Um, that the institutional investors make money by being on the other side of the retail investors, meaning they, if the institutional investors buy, usually there's some panic in the market, the prices go down and the retail investors sell, that's pretty much the case for all asset classes.

Peter: The non educated investors simply. don't have the knowledge, the, the, the time, and they're not professional investors. And that's why they usually lose money by being on the other side of the trade. So coming back to your question, the institutional guys already came into the space and much more than just Bitcoin, uh, years ago.

Peter: Um, through various forms, products that are only best, uh, available to them. And, [00:15:00] uh, so this should be, um, a good indicator enough to say, okay, if they are in this space, then, uh, somebody could also make some money, uh, in other assets, not just Bitcoin. Um, there are also some very specific market dynamics, at least from the fast cycles, what we can learn.

Peter: So it's like, you know, usually Bitcoin starts first, the value goes up and then later it was followed by the altcoins. So, um, so, but again, these are very specific crypto specific market dynamics, um, which non educated investors, uh, will most probably not, not be informed of and then they will most probably, um, not make the right choices.

Peter: That's why I say my, my not advice, but my, as I said, coming back to having a good strategy, it means like, let's add a single dad digit percentage of my portfolio, uh, of all assets to the crypto. And then let's just say, [00:16:00] Invest in a mid to long term, uh, because there is a four, four year cycle in crypto and anybody just speculating with those wild coins, if I call them, so might really get burned.

Peter: Uh, there. Uh, and this is also maybe a paradox of the space itself because it, the, the, the main promise of crypto is hundred x. You know, people come with these expectations. I'll do a hundred x. And I, and this is then what actually most of the times actually prevents them to do a decent return because they are just keeping and just waiting for up, up, up, and they are not taking profits.

Mehmet: Right. So it's like what they call it, uh, greed, right? So, yeah,

Peter: it's a very high class, especially on retail. Uh, and, uh, yeah, this is something people should be [00:17:00] aware of.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, one thing that also comes to mind, of course, we, we, we repeated it and you repeat actually Peter a couple of times now, uh, in this episode, of course, the Bitcoin is the, is the star, right?

Mehmet: Like it's, it's like the, the one that takes all the light. But of course, sometime there will be some altcoins that comes up, which are like. really good, right? So, and some of them know, so what, what's very known to be as shit coins, right? So, and the market was full of, and still, I think sometimes we see these, these coins coming.

Mehmet: Um, so for me as a normal investor, a retail investor, you know, how I first, which criteria should I, should I consider when I select, you know, uh, something? And how I can do the differentiation between a healthy asset and a potential scam.

Peter: Um, [00:18:00] yeah, maybe this is something that actually Iconomi as a platform does, uh, as in, in its first step.

Peter: So what we do is we scan all the tokens that are out there and we only list on our platform, uh, tokens that we believe, good enough to be invested in, and they're now coming to the criteria for this. Definitely it should be a project that's Around it has, uh, it has, uh, commitments in the development team.

Peter: It has a com growing community. It has some business value. Then there's the compliance side. So it should be a, a legal token compliant with the national regulat regulators and legislations, and then not to be mis underestimated as the liquidity side of it. So, um, in bull markets, when the [00:19:00] liquidity is high.

Peter: Almost, I mean, not all, but a lot of the shit coins also get, uh, get some liquidity. But when the market starts going down, the liquidity drains up very, very quickly. So what we do, and I believe also other registered or regulated players are doing, or at least I'm sure they should be doing, is Already having a very high threshold on which coins, which tokens to allow the users to be bought because we as a platform don't want our users to be stuck with a kind they, they're not able to sell because nobody's buying it.

Peter: On the other side. So that's number, I think these are the key components. So, and you can imagine there are like thousands and thousands of tokens out there and for investor, for retail, for some simple person to, to do all these due diligences. So to go and check. Uh, on GitHub, what's happening [00:20:00] with the development committee to check how many commitments and how many code is being developed to check the token economics and the revenues, the usage data of a certain protocol to check how much is a certain token traded on various different exchanges, not on one exchange.

Peter: Um, and then follow that daily liquidity and evaluate. Is the liquidity going up? Is the liquidity going down? Um, not all of this is basically what a legit crypto platform nowadays will do because, um, it's simply managing this risks off cutting out of the market and out of the offering. the potential shit coins as you name them, and only offer to the clients that tokens that have, uh, passed a due diligence stage.

Peter: So if the platform doesn't do it for you, then you have to buy, [00:21:00] you have to do it yourself, which just means you, you have to have a sincere passion to do that because just to do it for one token, it takes hours.

Mehmet: Right. So, so do you offer that as a, uh, kind of a service? I mean, kind of a SaaS offering, uh, Peter?

Peter: So our platform runs, uh, so what we do, we list at the moment, I think around 150 tokens and we monitor all those tokens daily. Uh, so. Any token that starts, uh, failing as I could say. So we start seeing that there's no, the, the liquidity on various markets is draining down. So we simply delisted sell those assets, return the assets in ETH or Bitcoin to the, to the users.

Peter: So it's kind of a prevention or already what we do for the users of our platform. Uh, but yeah, you're right. Our platform is completely run in SaaS. and mode. So it's a cloud platform. It's accessible through either a vip or [00:22:00] browser or a mobile phone, uh, in the form of mobile application. Um, and, um, it's part of the regular processes that we do as a crypto platform, um, to really, um, basically check which assets are on our platform.

Mehmet: Got it. And by the way, like what you just mentioned, uh, Peter is very important, I believe, because especially for someone who's a newbie, I mean, they're just starting, uh, to test water even in, in crypto. Uh, funny enough, I was just talking to some people yesterday and, you know, they said, Oh, like we, we did something we didn't study.

Mehmet: We didn't know anything about the market and then we lost, you know, this amount of money and it was not like It was not a small amount of money. It was big one and I think it's because just the the main thing you just mentioned about, you know, checking the health of the asset right and Um, and people I think they tend to not understand also Uh few [00:23:00] of the terms like liquidity and uh, you know market stability volatility also as well So yeah You know, and this is, I think, where it's important for platforms like yourself to come and also, uh, offer that as a service and at the same time, you know, help them choose the right portfolio, I would say.

Mehmet: But now, if I want to, to, to, you know, get a little bit more into the, From portfolio perspective, um, how do you help, you know, the, the, your, your customers to, uh, ensure that their portfolio are like really having, uh, like kind of resilient assets, like maybe in the details, but on a high level.

Peter: Yeah, so we as a platform don't go into giving individual financial advice because this is not something, uh, authorized to do or neither is our service.

Peter: What we can offer users is, as I said, this set off, um, a safe, safe, a safe environment. It says that we take care of the due [00:24:00] diligence of the assets that are presented on the platform. That's one. role that we take and and we also manage that role very actively while we can on the other side, just give users a lot of information to make sound decisions on one side.

Peter: On the other side, what we can also do, we can basically push certain functionalities of the platform and the one that we are pushing most is, uh, and I will reconnect with what I started with. So it's to take profit functionality. Meaning, when a user onboards to the platform, he is invited to basically set his own take profit rules.

Peter: So meaning that when the values will go up, and if the values of his investment or her investment will go up, those, he will take the profits out. And then take them off the platform. Um, so this is one side. And as I said before that, so the other side is the educational in the space. So by having regular market updates by having [00:25:00] deep dives into certain specific kinds by, you know, posting analysis.

Peter: It's just already we have a very rich block section, uh, and academy section on, on, on our platform. Uh, a very unique side or not on the other side of our platform is also the social feed where all the users pose their own content and then they share it, uh, in the platform and in there, somebody who is following a certain or investing into a certain portfolio can see the thinking of the other users about that portfolio and exchange, uh, opinions.

Peter: Um, so I think this is, uh, this is what we try to do. So I would say we are an enabler off, uh, this and try not to give individual financial advice because it's always very, very tricky and it would require us to really individually sit down with a certain client and then you have to analyze his wealth position.

Peter: So it's not that simple. We have [00:26:00] specialized, uh, specialized, um, uh, partners that do that and they actually use. then our platform to, to not the partners, but basically financial advisors, advice clients what to do, and then they can come to our platform. What we've developed over the last year is also a section of our platform, which we called, uh, it's called economy wealth, that is actually tailored to this financial advisors and wealth managers.

Peter: So we are basically, they open an account on the platform and we take care of all the crypto related business compliance and everything. While they only spend time on advising these clients on you know, how to invest, which portfolios to invest and so on and so forth. And this is a B2B proposition that we as economy have and we believe strongly in it.

Mehmet: That's cool. Uh, now I want to come to something. Maybe you touched a little bit on it before Peter, [00:27:00] which is regulation, right? So regulation is currently a hot topic in, in, in the crypto world. Um, so how are you seeing, you know, This landscape is evolving now and anything like me as a retail investor should be aware of uh, because I know like you you Your company is also like a registered platform Like of course you follow some and when I check the website, I can see you do kycs and amls and all this So what are we seeing in in this space?

Mehmet: And you know, how do you think? um All parties will benefit from from this regulations

Peter: Yeah, I mean, I have the luxury of seeing two sides of it very hands on. I mean, we are present in the UK and we see the regulatory approach that the UK is taking. Uh, and on the other side, we're also present in Madeleine's on.

Peter: We are part of brother European Union [00:28:00] regulatory framework there. So, and I can daily compare the differences, uh, that these two regulators took. Uh, so I would say that, um, let me start maybe with the European side of the business. So the regulators, they're created a common framework. That's going to be valid across all the member states.

Peter: which was basically gonna create a pretty unified market in Europe and level the playground of who can do business and which kind of business you can do in crypto. in the European Union. So I think this is good because the threshold of running such a business is increasing. You have to have more people, you know, more detailed and sophisticated systems in place and not everybody will be able to do it.

Peter: On the other side, uh, well, there's also like an element of consumer protection there because, um, if somebody is not going to be [00:29:00] registered and having, um, uh, a license. Uh, the consumer will be, uh, very easy, uh, and very protected. As you know, it would be really stupid to work with a business that's not licensed if it is a reg, a regulated, uh, business.

Peter: Yeah. Uh, I mean, uh, a regulated industry in the uk we are still in a phase where most crypto businesses only have to comply. Strictly a very narrowly speaking with AML, uh, legislation and then so on. But, uh, and it, and then you have the consumer protection, uh, laws in place. So the UK didn't start from regulating the fully regulating the business, but it started from consumer protection.

Peter: So the way we communicate there, it's, uh, restricted. Uh, it's much more similar to what you can communicate in terms of. stock brokerage, stuff like this, how social media is used and so on. So it's a [00:30:00] combination of AML and consumer protection. Um, um, let me say, um, yeah, um, that's the angle from which the regulator started regulating it in, in the UK.

Peter: So I think, uh, the European Union is going to be very fast because it's 1st of January that the regulatory framework steps in, at least in the Netherlands, where we have the company. While I believe that in the UK, it's going to take a bit of time. Uh, you know, we have a new government, uh, the policy might change and so on.

Peter: So it's not a such a clear, uh. regulatory outlook in the UK at the moment.

Mehmet: Mhm. That's interesting. Um, you know, like really your way, Peter is really very easy to understand. You know, like even I think someone very beginner they can get from you. Uh, you know, the inside out of [00:31:00] navigating, you You know, these, uh, topics that we discuss with you today.

Mehmet: So as we are almost coming to an end, like final things, like final advice, maybe for people who are interested in cryptos and, uh, maybe even for like fellow investors and also where people can get in touch and get to know more about, uh, uh, economy and about you, of course.

Peter: Yeah, I hope your audience is very diverse.

Peter: So there are a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, also at Rayak Tech is in there. So whomever would want to get in touch with me about, you know, the platform side or slash B2B side of the business, feel free to reach out through LinkedIn. I think I'm a bit older guy, so I don't use the other social media channels that much, but I'm still, uh, My main business is actually a channel is actually linked in, so I'm more than happy to get in touch while I think anybody just approaching [00:32:00] the market should really feel free to check out our index strategies.

Peter: I can mention maybe blockchain index. It's the longest running, uh, Blockchain index strategy. I think out there. I'm not sure, but it's been running since 2017 so it's been there on the market for seven years and it's simply indexing the market the crypto market as a whole I think it has top 25 Composition so just entering the space with a very low frequency trading strategy, which rebalances Once a month and just follows the market might be an an easy way to enter the market for somebody approaching the space If somebody feels like ready for it, then he can also open an account and then just create his own strategy always More than happy to to to see this kind of users Um, so yeah, feel free to to use us

Mehmet: Cool.

Mehmet: Great. Peter, really, I enjoyed the discussion, you know, and as, as I was saying, [00:33:00] like it, you made it appear very smooth. And even if people go to the website, they will understand exactly, you know, also like everything is super clear and very straightforward. Thank you very much, Peter, for, you know, all the information you shared with us.

Mehmet: So people, you can find the links for the website and Peter's LinkedIn account in the show notes. If you're listening to us, if you're watching on YouTube, you can find it, of course, in the description. And as I say, always, this is how I end my episodes. Um, thank you for passing by. If you are a first time listener or viewer, I hope you enjoyed, if you did so please give us a thumbs up.

Mehmet: And subscribe. Also share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you are one of the people who keeps coming to us, thank you for doing so. And thank you for all the encouragement and all the feedback that you sent to me. And as I say, thank you very much for tuning in. We'll meet again very soon.

Mehmet: Thank you. Bye bye.

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