If 2024 was the year of recovery, 2025 was the year of "overexuberance followed by utter deflation." While market cap peaked at $4.2 trillion and Bitcoin hit a high of $126k, the market has since cooled, with Bitcoin struggling to break past $100k since mid-November. But looking past the price action, the real story was the quiet rise of institutional plumbing.

Hann Liew, Founder and CEO of Halogen Capital, joins BFM to review a volatile 2025 and outline the outlook for 2026. We discuss:

• The 2025 Scorecard: Hann describes the year as "overexuberance," where a pro-crypto US administration drove hype that outpaced reality. However, the market floor is now significantly higher than previous cycles.

• The Genius Act: How new US legislation has legitimised stablecoins, forcing major banks like JP Morgan to explore the "blockchainisation" of their internal systems.

• The $300B Stablecoin Utility: Beyond trading, stablecoins are now essential infrastructure. Hann explains why you can't have a tokenised bond market without tokenised cash to settle it.

• Tokenising Real World Assets (RWAs): How tokenisation upgrades assets from paper certificates to immutable code. We explore the potential for a tokenised bond and what it could mean for Malaysian capital markets.

• Bots Paying Bots: The intersection of AI and Crypto. Hann explains why AI agents can't open bank accounts, making stablecoins the essential currency for the emerging "machine-to-machine" economy.

• Outlook 2026: Why the lack of a "blow-off top" is a sign of maturity, the potential passing of the Clarity Act, and why fiat currency debasement remains the ultimate long-term tailwind.

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Malaysia’s economy scored an ‘A’ in 2025, with strong GDP growth and a strengthening Ringgit. But with slowing global growth and US tariffs looming, was 2025 a fluke or a foundation?

Pankaj Kumar, Managing Director of Datametrics Research & Information Centre (DARE), joins BFM to kick off our "2025 Review & 2026 Outlook" series. We unpack the disconnect between stellar macro data and the "ground reality" of rising costs, and why the full impact of US trade policy might hit Malaysia like a tsunami in 2026.

NOTE: This interview was recorded just before the US attacked Venezuela and captured its President Nicolás Maduro. As such, this development is not reflected in the conversation.

We discuss:

• 2025 Report Card: Pankaj grades Malaysia’s GDP performance an ‘A’, driven by a surprise 17.7% surge in net exports in Q3 and the successful rollout of the BUDI 95 subsidy rationalization.

• The "Feel Good" Gap: Why businesses and consumers aren't feeling the growth. Pankaj attributes this to the booming e-commerce sector killing retail footfall, low wages, and the compliance costs of new taxes like the widened SST.

• Cabinet Reshuffle & Governance: Pankaj welcomes the recent appointments but argues the Prime Minister should relinquish the Finance Minister portfolio to ensure better governance.

• The Trump Factor: Malaysia navigated the "liberation day tariffs" well with a reciprocal 19% rate, but Pankaj warns that 2025’s export numbers were inflated by "front-loading" demand, meaning the real pain will arrive in 2026.

• Outlook 2026: With the US and China slowing down, Malaysia must pivot to domestic demand and broader investments to sustain growth as export momentum fades.

• Ringgit to 3.80? Why Bank Negara will likely hold rates steady, and Pankaj’s bold prediction that the Ringgit could head back towards its peg-era level of 3.80 as the US dollar’s safe-haven status erodes.

• Investment Strategy: Navigating the risks of a "Trump-friendly" Fed Chair and why Pankaj is bullish on precious metals, specifically arguing that platinum is undervalued relative to gold.

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When we talk about Malaysian tech, we often talk about data centers and infrastructure. But are we actually building anything? Two weeks ago, over 600 developers, students, and founders answered that question at the Cursor x Anthropic Hackathon Malaysia.

Kong Ka Weng and Faw Ali join us to break down how a small community meetup exploded into one of the region's largest AI coding marathons. They explain the phenomenon of "Vibe Coding", where non-technical founders use AI to build production-ready apps, and why the rise of AI agents is allowing solo founders to skip the traditional seed stage.

We also dive into the tech stack that made this possible, exploring how "agentic" IDEs like Cursor allow developers to go from idea to MVP in hours, not months.

We discuss:

• The Grassroots Explosion: Scaling from a 30-person meetup to 1,800 signups in weeks.

• The Tech: How AI Agents (like Claude) read files, edit code, and visualise UI changes autonomously.

• The Projects: From "Waze for Sailors" to a retro fighting game based on social media profiles.

• The Venture Track: Partnering with 500 Global to fast-track hackathon projects into investable startups.

The Talent: Addressing Malaysia's brain drain and the influx of regional builders.

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A recent analysis of 4.6 million global conversations reveals a fracture in the climate narrative. While emerging markets like Brazil and Indonesia are surging with optimism driven by tangible infrastructure delivery, the US and UK are mired in skepticism, policy reversals, and fatigue.

Dan La Russo, Senior Partner at Penta, joins us to unpack the massive shift from the era of "Climate Commitments", where ambitious targets were enough, to the era of "Climate Credibility," where stakeholders demand proof.

We discuss why consumers have become the most skeptical stakeholder group and how companies can bridge the trust gap by reframing sustainability through the lens of affordability and daily life rather than abstract long-term goals.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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General Managers must own AI, not CIOs or CTOs. A new report from Bain & Company reveals a sharp divide: while most companies are stuck in "pilot purgatory," a small group of AI leaders are securing 10–25% gains in EBITDA. The difference isn't the software, it's the strategy.

Shazrul Asari and Dhruva Murugasu, Partners at Bain & Company, join us to explain why scaling AI requires a fundamental business transformation rather than just "sprinkling AI on top" (like adding extra sambal to Nasi Lemak). We explore why plugging AI into old workflows is like driving a supercar in a traffic jam, and why the rise of "Agentic AI" demands a total rethink of the organisational chart.

We discuss:

• The Divide: Why leaders achieve scale while others get stuck in sheltered pilots.

• Workflow Redesign: Why you must decommission old processes, not just layer AI on top.

• Agentic AI: The structural shift from "digital helpers" to "digital workers" that act autonomously.

• The Talent Trap: How to prevent the "hollowing out" of junior roles via augmented apprenticeships.

• CEO Advice: Why momentum matters more than perfection in the race to scale.

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As the year winds down, cyber attackers are gearing up. Semperis’ 2025 Ransomware Holiday Risk Report reveals that over half of ransomware attacks hit during weekends or holidays, when most organisations sharply reduce monitoring and response capability. With identity systems at the heart of almost every major breach, and with global cybercrime costs set to reach USD 10.5 trillion, the stakes have never been higher.

Jeff Wichman, Director of Incident Response at Semperis, discusses what really happens when attackers strike, why identity weaknesses amplify the damage, and what frontline ransomware negotiations can teach business leaders. A grounded, visual, and highly practical conversation on how every organisation – from SMEs to large enterprises – can strengthen resilience before the next holiday season.

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By 2026, cybercrime will no longer just be a service, it will be a fully automated industry . Trend Micro predicts a seismic shift where autonomous AI agents can scout targets, infiltrate systems, steal data, and even negotiate ransoms without a single human finger on the keyboard .

Sage Khor, Technical Lead at Trend Micro, joins us to break down this AI-fication of cybercrime . He explains the dangers of "machine-speed" attacks hitting organizations that still respond at "human speed" , the rise of "poisoned" AI models that trick systems into ignoring threats , and why Malaysia saw a 29% spike in data breaches in early 2025.

We discuss:

• The 2026 Prediction: How cybercrime moves from "as-a-service" to fully automated factories .

• Machine Speed vs. Human Speed: Why traditional defenses can't keep up with AI agents .

• Poisoned AI Models: How attackers "teach" AI to ignore dangerous threats

• The Cloud Risk: Why simple misconfigurations are often more dangerous than zero-day exploits .

• Resilience Strategy: Why the focus must shift from blocking every attack to rapid containment and "cyber risk exposure management"

Related & Mentioned Podcasts

• Rise of the Agentic Enterprise: AI That Plans & Act

• The 7 Sins of Enterprise AI Investment

• Handling the Hack: The 4 Rules of Crisis Comms 

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AI is changing how businesses operate and how they get attacked. Palo Alto Networks’ 2026 New Rules of Cybersecurity Report highlights six major shifts that will redefine cyber risk, from deepfake identity deception, rogue autonomous agents to data poisoning, quantum threats and even the browser becoming the new workspace.

We speak with Sarene Lee, Country Director for Malaysia at Palo Alto Networks, about what these predictions mean for Malaysian businesses, where the blind spots are, and how leaders can prepare to stay secure in the AI economy.

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We are in the middle of an AI gold rush, driven by FOMO and massive capital expenditure. Yet, a recent MIT report reveals a startling statistic: 95% of Generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable business impact. Why is the failure rate so high?

Prashant Kumar, Founder of Entermind, joins us to discuss his new white paper, "The Seven Original Sins of AI Investment."

He argues that the problem isn't the technology, it's the lack of "orchestration" between people, workflows, and data. We unpack why companies are failing to scale their AI pilots and why the next competitive moat won't be data, but human instinct and creativity.

We discuss:

• The 95% Failure Rate: Why most AI pilots are built for demos, not the "messy reality" of the work floor.

• Sin #1: The danger of forcing AI into legacy workflows instead of redesigning them.

• Sin #4: "If you own the house, you are owned by the house", the trap of building everything in-house.

• Sin #7: "Training brains you don't own", the risk of feeding proprietary data into public models.

• The Future Moat: Why "Human Deviation" and empathy will matter more than data.

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We’ve spent the last two years learning to talk to AI. Now, we’re entering the era of "Agentic AI", systems that can plan, execute, and act on their own. But are we ready to manage digital employees and what happens if they make mistakes?

Huy Nguyen-Tuong, Managing Director at BCG, joins us to discuss the "Agentic Turn." He explains why adding AI to old workflows ("paving the cow path") is a recipe for disaster, how to balance supervision with autonomy, and why leaders must bring the "shadow workforce" of secret AI use into the light.

We discuss:

• Agentic AI: The shift from AI that talks to AI that does.

• The "Shadow Workforce": Managing the risk of employees using AI in secret.

• Governance: Why humans must remain liable for agent actions.

• Workflow Redesign: Why you need to rethink processes from scratch, not just automate them.

• The Talent Trap: How to prevent the hollowing out of junior skills.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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