eXponential Finance

 Once again, we're coming to you live from WebX Tokyo, where the future of decentralized technology is being debated, designed, and deployed. Our next guest needs little introduction. He’s one of the sharpest, most influential minds in the entire space: Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, a four-billion-dollar crypto fund that has backed some of the most iconic projects in the indus...

 While the main stage at WebX Tokyo buzzes with talk of billion-dollar ETFs and institutional adoption, there’s another, shadow economy at play—one that operates on the very same rails we’re trying to build. Hacks. Scams. Sanctions. It’s a multi-billion dollar problem. Just last year, over forty-one billion dollars in on-chain value was transferred to illicit addresses. So how do we build a transp...

Live from WebX 2025 in Tokyo, we bring you this panel featuring: Betty Sun-Lucas, Stellar Development Foundation, Regional Director, APAC Qin En Looi, Saison Capital, Partner Matt Harrop, Figment, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder 👉 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", here: https://www.fintechobserver.com

​Michinori Kanokogi, CFA, is Head of Solution Research at Nissay Asset Management. He leads the research and development of digital investment solutions for investors. ​Previously, he led the launch of AQR Capital Management’s Japan business as head of investment management. He also has experience in multi-manager investment at Russell Investments, equity portfolio management at UBS, and managemen...

Drew Robbins is the author of the book “When No One's Keeping Score: The Meaningful Moves That Build a Fulfilling Career”, a practical, story-rich guide to finding meaning, building resilience, and making real progress at work—without burning out or waiting for permission. Drew is a seasoned leader and mentor with over 20 years of experience guiding professionals through the real-world challen...

Akio Tanaka is a Co-Founder and Partner at Headline Asia. Akio has driven impactful investments in FinTech, E-commerce, and Blockchain, leading to Japan’s No.1 & No.2 FinTech unicorns, freee, and WealthNavi. His expertise spans cross-border digital payment platforms, democratizing private equity access, and nurturing Web3.  We have recorded this podcast episode to celebrate Headline Asia's...

In this episode of the eXponential Finance Podcast, we explore avenues to create legal entities for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), with a particular focus on the structure set up in the Marshall Islands. Adam Miller is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MIDAO. Adam is a passionate member of several DAOs such as Purple, Builder DAO, CryptoMondays, and Beaver DAO to name a...

For this podcast episode, we have picked one of the insightful sessions from the recent TEAMZ Summit in Tokyo, a place where Web3 developers, investors, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts can gather, explore the latest trends, connect with global leaders, and discover business opportunities. This panel of industry leaders discussed “The Future of Bitcoin: Its Role as Digital Gold and Integration into...

In this episode of the eXponential Finance Podcast, we explore the challenges foreign residents face when opening bank accounts in Japan. Declan Somers, Chief Executive Officer of Mobal Communications, the owner of MobalPay, shares his unique journey to & from Japan to Ireland, working in telecoms, and their impactful work in Malawi. The discussion dives into the features and impact of their m...

This panel at the WebX conference held on August 28 & 29 in. Tokyo focuses on the intersection of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and digital assets, exploring the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency investment products. The speakers, representing a diverse range of financial and blockchain companies, discuss the implications of crypto ETFs, the regulatory environment surrounding these products,...

Join us as we dive deep with Chino-san from Binance, exploring the transformation of Japan's financial market through digitalization and cutting-edge technologies. From his career journey at traditional exchanges to pivotal roles at Kraken and Binance, discover why Binance stands out in revolutionizing the Japanese crypto industry. Understand the challenges and opportunities within Japan's...

Habitto is Japan's first connected money experience, helping people save, grow and protect their money. ​Habitto has become the first company to register as a deposit-taking and electronic financial services intermediary in Japan, using a license type that the FSA made available towards the end of 2021. Samantha Ghiotti, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, brings over 20 years of unique...

Jitendra Singh Jaitawat is a Partner & the Founding CTO at Helicap, as well as Co-Founder and CEO at Helix. Helicap is a Singapore-based FinTech firm providing curated and exclusive private co-investments to a wide network of accredited investors. Through their institutional-grade credit analytics technology, Helicap extracts meaningful credit insights for their risk management framework. This...

Stephen Nagy's latest edited volume (jointly with Indu Saxena) focuses on the changing regional security dynamics of Southeast Asia within the context of the U.S.-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. On the one hand, China’s growing influence and assertive behavior in the South China Sea and the Archipelago region are the main concerns of these countries. On the other hand, Southea...

Kay is the Founder of MVL (Mass Vehicle Ledger), TADA (ride hailing) and ONiON (electric tricycles). Earlier in his founder journey, Mothership, a Singaporean online magazine, portrayed Kay as the “Korean guy who made a ride hailing app for the Singapore market after meeting driver who called himself a ‘dog’”. But then, the sequencing evolved quite naturally. The blockchain needed a use case to pr...

The eXponential Finance Podcast welcomes Bruno Diniz back to explore the evolution of financial technology in Brazil, highlighting the success of PIX in transforming the financial landscape and the upcoming launch of a Central Bank Digital Currency named DREX. We also discuss open finance, tokenizing the economy, and the global impact of Brazil's fintech innovations. Bruno Diniz is the Managin...

Jed is the Founder of  AngelSchool.vc . As a Tech Operator, he built the world’s largest API Marketplace with an a16z-backed startup. Jed began investing in startups in 2016. Like most angels, he staked his own capital. Despite having never worked in VC, he got his first exit in 2018. Jed has also backed 2 seed-stage startups that became Unicorns ($1BN+ valuation). People started asking “what are...

Rakkar Digital is a Singapore-based company that provides digital asset custodian services to institutional clients in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. The company is backed by SCB 10X, the investment arm of Siam Commercial Bank, and powered by Fireblocks. Leveraging cutting-edge multi-party computation (MPC)-CMP custody infrastructure as their underlying technology, Rakkar Digital provides the highe...

CrediLinq is a technology infrastructure company that is enabling B2B platforms to offer embedded finance to their customers. B2B PayLater for buyers and GMV Financing for sellers is a huge opportunity to both improve conversion, increase average order volumes and dramatically reduce operational burden. The future of B2B payments and purchasing will very much look like the current consumer level e...

Oliver Hall is the Head of Tech Investments for Europe and Japan at Copenhagen Capacity, and a Co-Founder & Investment Director for Japanese Investments at the Nordic Asian Venture Alliance. Our discussion covers topics such as sustainability, digitalization, foreign direct investment, Japanese capital, and the new Nordics. Oliver shares his background and how he ended up in the Nordics. We al...

bloXroute created the first high-performance blockchain distribution network (BDN) with the fastest relay solution for Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Solana. The bloXroute BDN and DeFi trading tools allow its users to win at crypto trading. The BDN utilizes a global network of servers optimized for network performance. Nodes access this network through open-source gateways and users can access...

Zurich Insurance has made a significant stride in the insurance industry by introducing its cutting-edge suite of solutions for digitally embedded insurance across all Asian markets, Zurich Edge. Zurich Edge represents an exciting development in Zurich Insurance’s growth strategy across the Asia Pacific region. The company already boasts a robust portfolio of over 200 partnerships in six markets,...

Shwetank Verma is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Leo Capital, an early stage venture capital fund focused on South and South-East Asia. Shwetank leads InsurTech investments at the fund. We talk about some of Leo Capital’s investments, where the exciting incumbent insurer vs InsurTech markets are, and the outlook for fund raising going into 2024, among other things Produced in collaboration w...

Matthew Van Niekerk is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer at SettleMint, offering tooling for enterprises, public sector, and technology partners who want to innovate with blockchain and empower their technology organization. In 2006, Matthew made Belgium his home and eventually worked as the Head of Platform Innovation at KBC Securities Bolero. Under his guidance, Bolero Crowdfunding wa...

Yilan Huang leads Global Development across different regional markets at  CyberConnect . CyberConnect is web3’s earliest and biggest decentralized social network that enables developers to create social applications empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels. Prior to CyberConnect, Yilan had experiences in startups, VCs, and NGOs and studied ec...