From TradFi to Web3: Building Sovereign-Grade Blockchain Tech

Gary: Welcome back to the number one prop tech podcast in the UAE. I'm Gary, co-founder and CEO of Tribe, and I'm delighted to have another very special guest alongside me today. I won't do his introduction justice, so I'll allow him to do it for himself, but please stay tuned. We're going to be talking about some very exciting topics. So, welcome Adam to Block by Block.

Adam: Thank you very much.

Gary: I'll let you introduce yourself.

Adam: Lovely to be here, thanks for having me. I'm Adam, I'm the CEO of SettleMint. I'll keep it nice and short.

Gary: Very good. So we'll talk about a few things later on, so I won't trigger myself just yet. But you mentioned you're the CEO of SettleMint, and was it June last year that you took that role? Prior to that you were CFO, if I'm not mistaken, and you moved to Dubai for the CEO role at SettleMint. So what was your conviction in stepping up from CFO to CEO, and moving to Dubai for the role?

Adam: Yeah, sure. So I'd spent nearly 20 years at a large bank, which I won't name. In that journey, in the last few years, I was one of the few people leading that particular bank's journey into digital assets, and I had come across SettleMint along the way. I'd actually wanted to invest in the business from the bank at the time, but couldn't quite get there. Nothing to do with the business, but the investment mandate we had was quite restrictive. I got to know the founders, really liked the business at the time, which was around 2020. And then, as I was leaving, they gave me a call and said, come and join us, we'd like somebody like you to help us on the next phase of where we want to go. So I was delighted to join. As you said, I initially joined as the CFO. There were a couple of things that became very clear to me after I joined. One was that the technology was even better than I had remembered, it had come on in leaps and bounds. But also that the business had got a little bit ahead of itself and needed to be repositioned, some restructuring, some refocusing. So we did that, we repositioned the business quite aggressively over the first six to nine months, and then in that process the co-founders and the investors asked me to take over as CEO, which I was happy to do. Matthew and Roderik, our co-founders, are still very much in the business and central to it, but we just moved the deck chairs around a little and made sure we were playing to our strengths.

Gary: So the purpose of Block by Block is to talk about building a startup or a venture in this space, whether that's virtual assets, tokenization, real estate, or just the tech startup ecosystem in general, because it's still pretty nascent compared to more established venture markets in places like the US or Europe. That must have been quite a leap of faith for you, going from 20 years in corporate banking, very TradFi as it's lovingly referred to in our space, to quite the opposite. How did you prepare yourself to take that leap from a very structured, very corporate environment to almost the opposite?

Adam: Yeah. So I guess the first thing is, I was always an accidental banker. I never set out, I wasn't born thinking I wanted to become a banker, but the particular bank I was at just offered great opportunities to learn, great exposure, great opportunities to travel to different markets, pick up different skills and so on. So 17 or 18 years later, I kind of opened my eyes and thought, oh my god, I've been a banker. But the last five or six years at the bank, I was already starting to take steps. One, that the next phase of my career was likely to be outside of the bank. Two, that I was getting more involved in new technologies. I ran a small team at the bank that was investing into fintech. So when I came to the end of my time at the bank, it was a very natural step to step into a small fintech. Now, that's not to say it's not a huge change, and very challenging, and it's definitely been a bit of a culture shock in many ways. But the direction was always this way, and I think I've got entrepreneurism in my DNA. So yes, I spent a lot of time in the bank, but every two or three years I would do something else, I'd move on, I'd look to gain new skills and insights.

Gary: So in some ways you were ready for it.

Adam: Yeah, and not as big a transition.

Gary: And conversely, how big was the SettleMint team when you stepped in? How many people?

Adam: Yeah, so there were about 50 people. We were about two years post Series A.

Gary: So a pretty well established business, but still a startup. And how did they absorb you? I can imagine if someone from a bank came and joined the Tribe team today, well, I'd be the biggest skeptic. How did they react to you joining from outside the ecosystem, if you will?

Adam: Yeah, sure. So I had been in the ecosystem, I was doing digital asset investments, I was known to them. So I think that helped. And then Matthew and Roderik, our co-founders, are just incredibly humble people. If you approach it with humility too, I think they had realized they'd got the business to a certain place, but you then needed to add skill sets, add experience, to help get it to the next phase. As long as you come in with the humility of understanding what it took to get from zero to one, which, by the way, I don't have in me. I have a lot of respect for anybody that takes that leap. Where I think I can add value is that 1 to 10. So as long as you do it with humility on all sides, I think it can work.

Gary: Yeah, and big credit to the founders, in this respect, for being able to acknowledge their blind spots, or where they just weren't able to kick the business on to the next gear. Because not many founders have that at that stage.

Adam: Definitely. And, to be fair to them, they saw the potential of this technology extremely early. They stepped out and established SettleMint in 2016. Ethereum launched in 2015. It's taken big banks 10 years to get comfortable with this technology, and they stepped out right at the beginning. So kudos for even surviving, number one. And then, as you say, realizing actually we need to add to this skill set, and it wasn't just me, it was others as well, to help propel this business from 1 to 10.

Gary: So we've mentioned SettleMint a number of times, but we haven't actually talked about what it is. Give me the shortest, most concise version of what SettleMint is, before we dive into detail later on.

Adam: Yeah, sure. So we provide the infrastructure to institutions to launch and manage digital assets, and we focus primarily on large regulated institutions. We do that globally, so we've got clients all the way from North America through to Japan. We focus on the issuance, the tokenization side of things, but then also managing the life cycle of those assets, through the capabilities we give to these institutions.

Gary: And what would you say, at the highest level, is the biggest difference between the institutional side of tokenization or digital assets versus the retail, more crypto-native side, that maybe people don't understand or just completely miss?

Adam: Yeah. So I think the thing that institutions bring to this industry is an understanding of regulation, an understanding of risk, an understanding of control, all those good and boring things, in some ways. But those are the things you need if you want to scale an industry at the institutional level, globally. So that's what they bring. Now, what the DeFi space, where this all started, brings is speed, being able to build quickly, transparency. And so what you've got now is an increasing convergence of the two, which is exciting, because you've got the best of both worlds, and that's going to really unlock the power of the technology.

Gary: And let's continue to hone in on tokenization, which is Tribe's focus, real estate in the GCC. Certainly Dubai and Qatar for us, or Dubai and Doha more specifically in a city sense, and hopefully Saudi in the not too distant future, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. But tokenization was more of a headline even just two years ago than it was actual substance, if you will. There was a lack thereof, a lack of players, a lack of regulatory enablement, a lack of institutional funding and investment. Where do you see we are now on that tokenization journey? You said earlier, before we started, that we have launch velocity. What's been built, and what is missing in that space, do you think?

Adam: Yeah. So I think we've made, as an industry, a lot of progress, particularly in the last couple of years. But I would say we're still very much at the foothills of this, in terms of where it's going to go. In terms of what's been built, you've got certain use cases which are starting to be viable, end to end businesses. So what you guys are building is a great example of that. You've identified an opportunity, or a need. You've identified a sector, you've identified a region that's receptive to this, and suddenly you can build an actual business based on this technology, which is super cool. And we're seeing that emergence globally, but it's moving at slightly different speeds, and every institution is approaching this in a slightly different way, using different use cases as places to start. So if I think about where we were a couple of years ago, just the notion of tokenization is powerful, because it's something that has allowed people who are not in this industry to start to understand what's happening here with the technology. But tokenization is just the beginning. If you think about the process of managing digital assets, yes, you can tokenize something, you take an asset and you put it on chain, but what do you then do with it? So I think a lot of progress has been made, but this is just the beginning of where we're going.

Gary: I completely agree. You mentioned places around the world that are looking, or starting to move. We feel that things are moving quite quickly here in Dubai specifically, thanks to VARA, Qatar as well thanks to the QFC, and obviously Saudi with the work you guys are doing. Outside of those three GCC anchor points, where else globally do you see there being not just eyeballs but movement?

Adam: Yeah, so certainly Southeast Asia. Singapore, we've had major clients there for quite some time now, and we see them moving from one use case through to two, three, four, five, now in production, real life businesses. We've seen a lot of movement recently in Malaysia, so the Malaysian market is opening up to this technology in a major way. Hong Kong obviously as well, particularly with stablecoins and the issuance licenses there recently. London is starting to catch up a bit, for sure. But when they come, it'll be serious, given the depth of the capital markets there. So we're seeing encouraging signs there, and then obviously the US, with this particular administration coming in, there's been a lot of tailwinds there as well.

Gary: Given that you're institutionally focused, whether that's banks, funds, regulators, even governments, and given it was established 10, 11 years ago, I guess there's a degree of inbound that comes your way. And when they do, whether it's a fund, a bank, a government entity, and they say, help us tokenize this, how do you manage that conversation? Like you said, it's a simple concept, but the reality is much different. How do you try to bridge the delta in that first conversation?

Adam: Yeah. So those requests are also on a spectrum. We have banks, asset managers, funds, government institutions come to us who know exactly what they want to do. They've thought about it, they've done PoCs, their risk committee is comfortable, they know the tech, they've got a business case, they know the market, they've researched us, and it's a relatively straightforward conversation from there. So we have that, and then on the other end of the spectrum it's exactly like you say, hey, we know we want to do something in tokenization, we know we need to get onto this train, but we're not quite sure how, and when, and what, and can you help us do that? And look, both are valid, and we're happy to help on either end of that spectrum. But yeah, there is still very much a spectrum, which also tells you there's an avant-garde that's moving increasingly at pace and scale, and then there are people who are a little bit further behind in the adoption of this technology.

Gary: Yeah. And for me, that's part of the fun, part of the excitement, that there are so many entities, government, regulators, businesses, and people, that haven't even given it a second thought yet. And, like you say, once that does start to go, once the big boys step on the dance floor, the Londons, the New Yorks of the world, then it's going to be incredibly exciting.

Gary: One of the things I saw, from looking at SettleMint and other similar players in the institutional space, is this term, sovereign-grade infrastructure. Is that a term that's been coined by yourselves, or by others, to give government entities in this particular part of the world a safety net in what has otherwise been quite a murky Web3 space, where they could get their fingers burnt, and their sovereign dollars burnt in the process? What is it?

Adam: I think it's to do with two parts. One is, if you're doing something at a national scale, obviously you have to have a technology which can withstand that. Whether it's from a security perspective, a compliance perspective, or a reliability perspective, you need to have that sort of sovereign grade in that regard. So there's that aspect, can the technology operate at real scale in a regulated environment. And then the second piece is that governments, but also other large institutions, will want to own this stuff. They want to build it themselves, have the tools. No self-respecting government or large financial institution is going to want to lock themselves into a particular provider or vendor. They're going to want to build it in house, build the capability in house. So that's also, I think, the second dimension of sovereign grade. It's another way of saying institutional grade.

Gary: Got you. Good to know. This is a learning journey for all of us. So, you moved to Dubai a year ago.

Adam: Yeah, in August last year.

Gary: What's your review of your first year here, both from a business and personal perspective, other than the obvious of the last two or three months that have happened around us? What's your view of the market, regulators, capital flows? What makes Dubai Dubai for you?

Adam: Yeah. So I don't regret the decision for a second, both from a business perspective and a personal perspective. So there are both sides.

Gary: Despite everything that's gone on.

Adam: Despite everything. I mean, what's happened is a bit unfortunate, to say the least. But I strongly believe this is just going to be a blip on the trajectory of Dubai and the UAE and the region as a whole. It's a very unique place. I mean, this is why I'm sure you're building here as well. If I think about, Cormac and I were talking earlier, the relationship that the business community here has with the regulators, it's incredible. It's a real partnership when you're designing the product and designing the regulation in parallel. It's amazing. And then just other aspects around the business environment, the access you can get, there's less gatekeeping, the incentives obviously as well. So I think it's a pretty unique place to build, and there's now a real influx of talent as well, more and more so. So it has all the ingredients to build some fantastic businesses here.

Gary: You mentioned the regulators. Who are SettleMint's regulators in the region?

Adam: Yeah. So we're not regulated, we don't do regulated activity. We're a pure tech provider. What we do is provide the tech to regulated institutions. So they're the ones who do the regulated activity. Having said that, we come across them, particularly with the project in Saudi that you referenced. We're working very closely with the regulators there, because we're pretty hands-on with our client there. And I come across the regulators here in Dubai a lot. We also have projects in Qatar, as he mentioned. So it's not just Dubai, it's the whole region. And there's this fantastic set of ingredients to build a great business.

Gary: And, sticking with Dubai for a little bit longer, I saw a post today, actually it's a year since the first tokenized property happened. It was a post by Dr. Mahmoud, so we'll give another shout out to him for pioneering. And the UAE has made a very calculated move on making itself the hub of tokenized real world assets, specifically in real estate, but now in other asset classes too, looking at gold, silver, diamonds even, working with the guys at Ctrl Alt. They're looking at different assets, but particularly from a real estate perspective, the UAE really has focused quite heavily there initially. Whether or not they're still leading, who knows, time will tell, but they definitely went first. What do you think it takes, from a rails side, for the UAE and the ecosystem to really make this the hub, the UAE the center of tokenized RWA in the GCC region?

Adam: Yeah. So look, I think all of those centers will develop this capability, and this market. And, as you said, Dubai was definitely the first to go, kudos to everyone involved in that, and we'd love to see it, we're cheering it on. With Saudi, they took a different tack. So rather than go through a slightly smaller scale with a developer, in that sort of controlled environment, the Saudi use case is building national scale through the government from day one. We are in discussions in Qatar as well about what their plans are, and similarly in Abu Dhabi. So I think what you're going to see is some healthy competition.

Gary: Yeah.

Adam: And that's fantastic too. It's great for the industry, and everyone's going to learn from each other, from the journeys they go on. I think ultimately what would be very cool to see, and very possible, is, and now I think we're talking 10, 20 years into the future, maybe you and I won't be in these roles, hopefully sitting on a beach somewhere at that point, but something that then becomes interoperable between them. So if you have the same sorts of standards, both of regulation and technology, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to trade tokenized real estate across these markets, not just within the markets.

Gary: 100%. That's the goal, certainly for Tribe, but it should be the goal regionally speaking. I suspect it won't work that way first, but it will work that way eventually. And hopefully we're around long enough to push that agenda as far along as possible. So let's go back to SettleMint for a little bit. Tribe is an example, and for full disclosure we don't yet work with SettleMint, hopefully we will at some point in the future. But fractionalizing an asset such as real estate on top of rails like SettleMint's is an example of what's possible. What are the best use cases, or the best application layers, that you've already worked with in the tokenization space? Because there are a lot of unhealthy examples too. What are the good examples you've worked with, and maybe some bad examples you want to throw into the mix as well?

Adam: Yeah, sure. So what we do is provide tech to large institutions that build their own applications. So imagine a large bank in Singapore wants to tokenize some bonds. We would provide the tech, but they build their own application. Now, in the Saudi example, we're actually building the applications too. And that takes quite something, because we have a partner working with us on that, a large IT company called Inspire, who are a big regional tech player here. Because you need to be able to understand the blockchain side of things, but then also build large scale, national grade applications. That's no joke. So it takes serious people, people who have experience, who know how to navigate the technologies, know how to interact with those sorts of clients, understand their needs. When you're dealing with a large sovereign client, you know what they need, and what their expectations are. So it takes a lot. Now, that's not to say there isn't space for everybody. What I still honestly see a little bit too much of is people who come into the space and want to make a quick buck. There are still a lot of chains being launched where really the aim is just to pump the value of the coin attached to that chain, so people can make money. For me, the less of that we see, the better for the industry. We need to leave that behind. We need to now take this amazing technology and put it to good use on actual, real use cases that add real value to clients and society. That cowboy phase of the industry we need to leave behind. And look, I see more of the serious stuff, the real world utility stuff, but I still see people trying to make a quick buck.

Gary: So more moving towards value creation, rather than hype cycles or hype creation.

Adam: Yeah, that's correct. Previously that's what fueled the increase in perceived value, so to speak.

Gary: Whereas in real world application, the value is nothing but hype. And that's not to say hype doesn't make money, oftentimes it makes a lot of money, but it can only be done so many times, or for so long, before we actually have to start having substance.

Adam: Correct.

Gary: So one of the things I wanted to talk about, with SettleMint as this tech or enablement layer, is that a fair way to put it?

Adam: Yeah.

Gary: A lot of plumbing goes into that, whether that's compliance, governance, smart contracts, you name it, all of the technical API integrations, whether it's with government applications. Better you guys than us, with respect. Applying that lens to more of the startup environment, so ignore the government entities and the institutions for a moment, and look at the startup ecosystem, because this is why we're doing this, to share our experience and help others. There are a lot of mistakes we've made along the way, a lot of expensive lessons, and those haven't finished, there'll be more bumps on the horizon, I'm sure. What are the unsexy bits of the process that a lot of startups will ultimately die on their own sword over? Is it governance, compliance, regulatory adherence? What do you think are the biggest trip ups or obstacles for startups building in this space?

Adam: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the big thing is, like you guys have done, find somewhere where you think you can create real value, number one. If you're not convinced you can create real value, don't do it.

Gary: Don't waste your time.

Adam: Yeah, exactly. Your time, your money, other people's time, other people's money. That's number one. Number two, know who you are and who you're not. From our perspective, we're very clear. We're the tech provider, a great tech provider. We do issuance and life cycle management of digital assets. We're not a custodian, we never want to be a custodian. That's a completely different business model, it requires a different experience, another 10 year build. That's not who we are. There are great custody providers out there, you know them, I know them. Equally, we're not an exchange. We don't want to do market-facing regulated activity, like we talked about earlier. So we're very clear, this is the box we play in, and we're very disciplined about that, and we want to stay the course. And I'd say there's a lesson in that, disciplined execution of a vision and a strategy, stick to it, don't get distracted. Now, that's not to say things don't evolve. From a SettleMint perspective, the first five or six years of our existence we had a very broad blockchain-as-a-service offering. We came to market saying we're the best blockchain providers, you can trust us, what do you want to do? And that worked at the beginning, we had lots of great pilots and PoCs with all kinds of massive institutions globally. But then we realized, where was the market going to go? The market is going to asset tokenization, and then, if you want to differentiate yourself within that, you need to not just issue the token, you need to manage the life cycle on chain, and be able to do that at the highest possible grade. So that's how we evolved. So it's not that, don't mistake me, I'm not saying don't pivot or don't read the market, but have a clear vision, know who you are, who you're not, and then execute within that, and pivot within that if you need to.

Gary: I think that's a great point, because when you raise capital, or at least try to, and there's a big, stark difference between trying and actually raising capital, particularly in this market as an early stage venture, particularly in a heavily regulated environment where it's a cost-first model, where you have no choice but to pay the regulatory licensing fees, application fees, supervision fees, paid out in cash, let alone building the actual product.

Adam: And everything that goes in between.

Gary: You often get asked about competition, and to know what you're building and who you're building for, but answering that question of who you're not, I think, is just as, if not more, important. And it's something we didn't do well enough, honestly, in the first six months of our existence. But I think we began to realize, actually, yes, our focus is really narrowing. Alastair always uses the phrase, inch wide, mile deep, in terms of our initial focus. And it's certainly made us way better as a team, really aligning on who we are and who we are not, and being very comfortable with, we are not this now, and possibly we're never going to be this either. And if an investor comes along and says, I'll give you loads of money if you become this, we say, thanks, but no thanks.

Adam: It is easy to get swayed, or confused, and then suddenly you're building many different businesses, and you're doing it really badly. You're stretching yourself way too thinly. We have the largest banks in the world coming back to us. At the beginning, five or six years ago, we'd have conversations with them and they'd say, yeah, thank you, but we want to build this ourselves, we're so-and-so bank. Fine, we stuck at what we were doing. And now, guess what, even if you're at that scale, and you have those budgets, they're coming back to people like us and saying, actually, we've realized it's really hard to do what you guys are doing and continue to develop in this space. It's a small piece of the puzzle. So I see a lot of startups, your stage, even later stage, who are shooting for the stars, which is great, but I worry that they have unsustainable business models that sooner or later are going to catch up with them. So really understanding the market, having a firm view on where it's going to go, and then what your place within that is going to be, and, as you say, what it's not going to be. And then, by the way, for the bits of what it's not going to be, find the right partners, in the way that you guys have. You've got your chain that you use, we know those guys well, and we're integrating their chain onto our platform too, we have a great relationship with them. There are others. You partner for those things. Can you imagine building the business that you're building and also running an actual blockchain?

Gary: No, I cannot. I don't want to either.

Adam: Exactly.

Gary: And again, building a startup in the Dubai startup ecosystem, a lot of people have this misconception that it's so glamorous, the capital just flows, you just need to look at an investor and they'll write a check. It simply doesn't work like that. It's one of the hardest markets, in my opinion, to raise capital from. The failure rate is astronomical, but it doesn't get reported that way, obviously, for obvious reasons. So having that focus will enable you to either build a business that's revenue generative and you can bootstrap, and again, bootstrapping a business in Dubai is extremely hard as well because it's such a front-loaded cost environment, or it will help you raise capital. And with investors, you can make it very clear, this is what we're building, and give them a clear line of sight from the beginning. That, for me, is where a lot of startups trip up. They don't know who they are, what they're building, what they're not. And then when it comes to having conversations with investors, it's no surprise those investors have no conviction, because the founder didn't have any themselves.

Adam: It becomes evident within 30 seconds.

Gary: Correct. And you've sat on the other side of the table, the venture arm of a bank. So I guess that gives you an unfair advantage, or a competitive advantage, shall we say, in this sense. You understand both sides of the equation.

Adam: Yeah, and it certainly gave me insights into how this technology was going to be adopted at scale in the global financial system. So I certainly had that insight. And then with SettleMint, I had conviction very early, way before I even thought about joining, which obviously helped make that transition. And then the investors, we're very lucky, we have some top European VCs who are core investors, with some others, and they're very, very good at what they do, and they've been extremely supportive. So we're very grateful for the support we've had. But it's not been easy, and we've been through our ups and downs as well. There were times when it was extremely challenging.

Gary: Yeah, 10, 11 years building in this space is no mean feat. Where is SettleMint domiciled? What's the structure, if you don't mind?

Adam: Yeah. So it was launched in Belgium. Both Matthew and Roderik actually still sit in Belgium. Roderik, our CTO and the real genius behind our product, is actually relocating to Dubai. So that's going to give us even more presence here. And then we have our local entity here in the DIFC. We've got legal entities and people in Japan, Singapore, and then across Europe as well, London and some other places in Europe. But we're a remote-first company, a small remote-first company, and, as I say, we've got clients all over the place.

Gary: I ask because, again, we talk transparently and openly about raising capital. Raising capital as a UAE-based entity from European or US investors is very hard. It's still very few and far between. Smart Bricks is one of those that have broken the seal, if you will, and had some success, and absolute credit to them, because someone had to. But it's still so small in the grand scheme of things. And structuring is one decision, one chess piece in a very long and strategic game of raising capital. If you want to raise capital as a UAE-based venture from the US or Europe, it plays a significant part.

Adam: Yeah, because those guys then need to not just get comfortable with the technology, but get comfortable with the jurisdiction, and understand this market. And unless you're really sitting here, or you're big enough to have teams that make investments in these kinds of places, then it's quite hard. But I would say I'm seeing an increasing amount of VC activity here. I'm also seeing more local capital finding its way into VCs, whether it's local VCs or international VCs. So I think the future for that is bright, but yeah, right now I can imagine it's challenging.

Gary: No, it's definitely complicated, and it's one of the many elements of fundraising that founders simply do not recognize until it's too late. You can't restructure mid-raise. It's a very costly, time-consuming process that doesn't really add value, other than giving the investor comfort. And you shouldn't be raising money to give investors comfort, you should be raising money to return good multiples on that investor's dollars. Which doesn't always happen, by the way, and again, the failure rate isn't publicized here, but I would imagine it's very, very high.

Adam: Yeah, and that's very high. The jurisdiction question, I think, is part of the who am I.

Gary: Or who am I not.

Adam: Exactly. So if you're building a business which you think is going to require investment, then choosing your jurisdiction, where you think you've got higher chances of getting that investment, obviously should be part of the analysis. The thing is, it may not always be where the opportunity is.

Gary: So that's the chicken and egg.

Adam: Yeah, exactly.

Gary: On that note, you mentioned the future, so let's look forward for a little bit. As I mentioned, and Dr. Mahmoud coined the term tokenization day, today, the 25th of May, when we're recording this. Two questions specifically. Tokenization at large, and then the tokenization of real estate here in Dubai specifically. What are your views for the next 12 months? Let's just keep it at 12 months for now.

Adam: Massively bullish on both. So I think we are just at the foothills when it comes to tokenization and the digitization of assets globally. We're seeing an acceleration now in the work our existing clients want to do with us, but also new clients coming on board. So we've had really good growth over the last year, and I think that's a reflection of the market as a whole. And likewise on the Dubai tokenization of real estate side, I think what you guys have done is leading the way, and now the question is, can these markets scale? That's the real question. I assume, though I don't want to assume, not knowing your business well, that it's about creating value on the supply side and the demand side. And once you can start to demonstrate the value you're creating there, I imagine this is going to scale, because the underlying fundamentals of the market are not going to change, that's positive, and the regulatory picture is only going to get clearer and more supportive, particularly given recent events. I think there's going to be a very big snapback, and if anything there's going to be an acceleration in tokenization generally, but also specifically in the real estate sector, which is obviously a huge part of Dubai's economy. So no, I'm excited. There's, you know, we're just at the beginning, we're starting to see these use cases, real use cases, real utility, real value creation coming to the fore, and it's just the beginning. There'll be more and more, and we're seeing it here in the banking sector too. The big banks here are now moving.

Gary: Yeah, they're going for it.

Adam: Getting licensed, getting ready.

Gary: So, no, it's exciting times to be here. And what about SettleMint? What's the next 12 months for you guys, here regionally or globally? What are you most excited about?

Adam: Yeah, so it's kind of more of the same. We set out a strategy about a year ago that we're executing against, and that's disciplined execution, like we think we have the best tech stack of its kind in the market, the market moment is now, there's this inflection point, it's really about growth. So we're excited, we're growing in all of the regions of the world, and we want to pick up and support quality clients, and help them on their journeys to adopting this awesome technology. So that's what we're focused on.

Gary: And if, by any chance, someone in that space is listening, who are the kind of people you want to work with, or hear from?

Adam: Yeah, so we focus on the larger businesses and institutions, large banks, large public sector institutions, large asset managers, large financial market infrastructure providers. We tend to focus on the larger clients, because our model is to provide them with tools for them to build themselves up, ultimately. So that's who we focus on.

Gary: Tools and resources, it sounds like.

Adam: Yeah, tools, resources, know-how. But it's really the tech that we focus on. There used to be a lot more consulting, and now it's really just the technology.

Gary: Awesome. And then my final question, which is the same final question to everybody who joins us on Block by Block. The purpose of this podcast is to be open about our journey building, when we get it right, when we get it wrong, some of the opportunities we've grabbed, some of the hurdles we've tripped over, for Tribe building in this space. And you said you don't know our business model, but I think you have a good enough grasp. What do you view as being the biggest opportunities and obstacles for us in the next 12 to 24 months?

Adam: Yeah. So, again, my understanding of where you guys are at, you've got an amazing, proven concept. Now the question is, can you scale that? And again, I go back to, I think what that means is, can you prove value to the supply side, all those developers you're trying to get their properties onto your platform, and then can you provide value to the investors? So I would have thought you're at the point in your journey where that sort of proof of value becomes really important, and that will then also help you scale. As the market becomes more and more receptive, more and more open to this, having those value proof points really helps. I mean, the same journey we went on. We needed to do something at a certain scale, in a relatively controlled environment, prove the value, and then you can go from there. So, I may be way off, but I imagine that's kind of the way.

Gary: Whether you are or you aren't, it doesn't matter, that's the point. We'll look back in 12, 24 months time and say who was right, who was wrong. But I think ultimately proving value to our investors is the ultimate measure of success. If we've got the asset selection right, the entry point right, the liquidity layer right, then yeah, those investors will be happy. They'll keep their money in, or they'll take it out and recycle it. And if we don't, they'll try and get their money out as quickly as they can and move to a different platform, and rightly so. And that's something we've always been very open, honest, and transparent about, that we're here to make the best possible asset selections we can. Obviously tokenization is the method of entry, the way in which you invest, as opposed to whole direct ownership, or crowdfunding as the alternative. We must never forget that crowdfunding was, and will remain, an option. We're buyers, we believe tokenization is a more efficient and effective pathway for investors. But yeah, proving that value is critical, and it's either our biggest opportunity or our biggest obstacle.

Adam: I think you've asked it very well.

Gary: So, yeah, we'll look back in 12 to 24 months and see who was right, and who pointed out those trip ups and how did we avoid them. And again, that helps. We're learning from experts, people who have trodden the path before us, got some battle scars of their own.

Adam: Yeah, and I commend you for doing that, as you guys call it, building in public. Super cool, and very difficult to do. It has its pros and cons, I'm sure, but probably more pros.

Gary: We hope so. I mean, we might look like idiots in six months time, but hey, we'll place our bets, and we'll hope we don't. But at least we've worn our heart on our sleeve, and we're doing what we said we would do. If we get something right, we get something right. If we get something wrong, we get it wrong. But we say it how it is. And that's quite nice, to be able to sit down with people like yourself, who are experts in their field, who have built great businesses, seen a lot, experienced a lot. It's an honor and a pleasure for us, because we get to learn. The minute we stop learning and think we know it all, that's when we fail.

Adam: Absolutely. And looking like idiots, I think, is part of the entrepreneurial journey. We all have to go through that.

Gary: Yeah, we do. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. We're a big fan of the work you're doing, and of SettleMint and what they're doing. So keep it up, keep paving the way for us to follow, and hopefully we sit down again in 12 to 24 months time and reflect on all of the successes.

Adam: Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.