Our guest this week is Flex Yang, founder and CEO of Babel Finance ( babel.finance) out of Beijing and Hong Kong. Babel Finance provides crypto-backed loans, deposit services, financing, margin trading, and other derivatives services and has grown into one of the largest commercial crypto banks in Asia. With Babel Finance Flex is aiming to build the JP Morgan of Bitcoin, and initially attacked goal by focusing on lending and other financial services targeting Bitcoin miners in China. Prior to entering the Bitcoin space Flex worked in financial services and was a founder of a credit services focused fintech Standard Financial Inclusion in Beijing. He has raised money from some of the most well regarded VCs in China including Zhenfund and Lightspeed. The first twenty minutes or so of this conversation covers Flex’s background and experience with those previous companies and his experience as a founder Beijing, and then we jump into Babel and dig into some of the specific business lines that are being built out around demand from miners, from more institutional players in China and from the dynamic of western companies and Chinese players not being fully connected.

You can find Flex on twitter @moonmanflex.

Topics:
- Building companies in Beijing
- Starting a crypto bank by focusing on servicing miners first
- Risk management as one of the largest lenders in the space
- Rise of Lubian with the trend of big private capital entering mining in China and consolidation
- Derivatives market and new financial products