May 16, 2023

Seamus Rocca, CEO of Xapo Bank

38 minutes

Xapo Bank is a Gibraltar-based crypto bank and custodian that offers dollar and Bitcoin exposure to global customers - US excluded. This wasn't always the case, however. Xapo previously served the US market until 2021 and pioneered the Bitcoin-backed debit card in 2014. The CEO of Xapo is Seamus Rocca. He has a background in traditional finance after spending a decade at Standard Chartered Bank working in Liquidity and Funding Risk.

After talking about Xapo, banking, and regulations, Rocca and I spent several minutes on the geopolitical angles supporting the US dollar as global reserve currency. He's bullish Bitcoin, but Rocca seemed highly pragmatic in this conversation.

Topics covered:

Rocca's crypto origin story

Bridging crypto with banking, breaking the fear of crypto in traditional finance

Xapo starting as a custodian and adding banking as a product

How Xapo generates a profit

Making an interface that works for the majority of consumers

Why Xapo closed its US business, difficult to do business

American market doesn't need banking but the rest of the world does

Why Latin America and emerging markets could be the growth opportunity for Xapo

Xapo's customer is already comfortable with crypto

US Dollar as global reserve currency

A lot of Bitcoin is outside of the US

Do the BRICS nations get a say in how the global currency story changes?

China's regime and wealth controls make it unappealing to the rest of the world

Europe is going to be holding the bag on rebuilding Ukraine, which means Euro likely goes lower

Local currencies in emerging markets will also likely lose steam vs the dollar

Foreign governments holding US treasuries can't dump US debt without realizing a loss

Reaction to Europe's MiCA legislation- TLDL: don't get too excited

The effort to get fully registered and licensed in every US state isn't worth the return

Xapo userbase has grown during 'Crypto Winter' - "positioned as a flight to safety"

I wish we could have kept on going but Rocca had a hard out and I had to be respectful of his time. Maybe sometime down the line I can bring him on again. I hope you all enjoy this episode. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service ⁠⁠BlockChain Reaction. ⁠⁠

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on May 11th, 2023.

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