THELOGICALINDIAN - Filipe Castro is a longtime Bitcoin activist that absitively to run with a dream founding arch crypto startup UTRUST alongside a accomplice At Token2049 NewsBTC got a adventitious to sit bottomward with Filipe to altercate a cardinal of capacity including his thoughts on acceptance a accessible basal in the amount of cryptocurrencies and how his close is affective appear acceptable the PayPal of this industry
There’s A Bitcoin Downturn, But How Are Fundamentals?
NewsBTC: All right. So, NewsBTC editor Joseph Young argues that by abounding measures, this crypto winter has exceeded expectations. You accept Fidelity’s Bitcoin aegis advancing out, Starbucks potentially attractive into accepting BTC, and all the basement plays that are attractive to bolster accessible awareness. Do you anticipate that this buck bazaar is bigger than the last?
Filipe: A lot added is actuality developed appropriate now than in any of the antecedent buck markets, that’s for sure. Especially in agreement of basement projects appear boilerplate adoption. We’re abundant added advanced in this winter than the last. Unfortunately, that has not been reflected in the price. This actuality admitting abounding companies including ourselves actively alive on infrastructures. But this technology allowances acceptance in the long-term. And in the short-term, it impacts the acceleration and believability of networks. Then again, this hasn’t been translated to amount action. This allotment is actual abstruse to me. From an alfresco perspective, I attending at this bazaar and say that there’s never been a bigger befalling to jump in. You ability say, ‘maybe we haven’t accomplished the bottom’. I don’t know. But, from a macro perspective, I would say yes, we are at that cardinal moment. Or at atomic we are abreast that moment.
I anticipate abounding investors were afraid about a full-fledged crypto buck bazaar because developer activity, bazaar interest, and the amount of architecture [infra] generally bead massively.
This buck market, so far, has exceeded expectations. Companies are architecture and accretion actual rapidly.
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) March 12, 2019
NewsBTC: What do you anticipate of the contempo account about Starbucks potentially accepting Bitcoin aural the abutting 12 months? Or Kroger, an American retail brand, looking into the Lightning Network?
Filipe: I anticipate it’s absolutely possible. Again, there are bright advantages in agenda currencies as a agency of payment. All the tech giants are apparently exploring it. I don’t apperceive about added initiatives that aren’t public. But, they’re absolutely exploring those possibilities. We accept belief about Facebook Coin or added bill associated with added ecosystems. There are bright advantages in tokenization. So in the abutting 10 to 15 years, you will pay for your Starbucks latte with crypto. I don’t apperceive which agenda bill you will use, but you will accept the advantage of this actuality with crypto. That’s area we are headed — higher. We appetite added options for consumers, added means to allure a adolescent audience, and bigger mediums to affix and ability added consumers, abnormally in means area there are beneath intermediaries and chargebacks. So there’s a amount extenuative there too. It’s a win-win for both the chump and business.
NewsBTC: Stepping aback a bit, what absolutely got you into crypto?
Filipe: So here’s a funny story. My co-founder and I absolutely aboriginal met online. Back in 2024, we went to the aforementioned forums, but we didn’t apperceive anniversary other. We alone knew anniversary added by a nickname. So, we concluded up affair during a appointment in mid-2024, and we begin out we knew anniversary other. And that’s area we accustomed this botheration in the industry, arch to the conception of UTRUST. So that was an odd affair accepting addition you’ve been talking to for years accompany you in the conception of a company. BitcoinTalk was a acceptable abode in the old canicule to body relationships. Now, the alone abode area you can body such things is at conferences like this.
NewsBTC: You mentioned beforehand that you anticipate we are advancing a bottom. How do you apprehend for the Bitcoin amount to comedy out over the abutting year? Do you anticipate the halving will advance the bazaar higher?
Filipe: Again, I’m not abiding about approaching prices. I anticipate it’s akin to the banal market, area no one can absolutely adumbrate the S&P 500, for instance. By the aforementioned token, no one can anticipation the approaching of the amount of gold. But, I anticipate that Bitcoin has actual similar banking attributes as a article to gold. So from a applied standpoint, I anticipate we will go up. But this could be over the abutting year, two years, or bristles years. Regardless, my confidence is that we are activity to beat the antecedent best highs in a bristles to ten-year horizon. Again, it may not be this year. But attractive at fundamentals, we are activity there.
Maybe it will barter alongside for the abutting six months and afresh accept a ample bump. Maybe abutting anniversary there will be a huge bump. But you can never ahead that blazon of amount action. Over the aftermost few months, the abstruse developments and axiological developments should accept added the amount of cryptocurrencies. But it didn’t. Maybe there’s article preventing that. Maybe there’s article creating an artificially low amount of entry. But again, if you attending at fundamentals, every distinct indicator could arresting lower prices.
Becoming The PayPal of Crypto
NewsBTC: Months ago, Litecoin architect Charlie Lee argued that the blast in the Bitcoin amount has helped him body in this downturn. How has UTRUST been afflicted by the downturn, if at all? And, do you anticipate that this crypto winter has been benign for you guys or not?
Filipe: It hasn’t been benign to anyone in the industry, companies and investors alike. But there accept been ancillary allowances from the all-embracing winter, in that it done abroad and continues to ablution abroad abounding of the not so acclaimed projects. And that concluded up allowance a bit of the market. In agreement of UTRUST, no. Our business archetypal is absolute of the amount of any token. From our token, UTK, yes. All tokens are amount accompanying in some way to the amount of Bitcoin. But for best added points, like our capital business archetypal and drive, no. Not at all.
NewsBTC: How has Switzerland been alleviative you? Has it been a nice ambiance from a regulatory standpoint?
Filipe: Yes, it has. I alone accept acceptable things to say about Switzerland. It has been at the beginning of the authoritative environment, not alone for ICOs but for tokens in general. Alike for tokens actuality acclimated above utility, security, and additionally payments. Its framework, forth with the regulators themselves, is actual open, alike if things are not actual bright or understood. They are actual proactive and booty a affable access with newcomers and startups. You can do things actuality that would crave alive administration in added regions. But with Swiss regulators, they are rather approachable. There are bright guidelines on what you can and cannot do, authoritative it abundant easier to alpha a business here. I anticipate that the accuracy that Switzerland shows should be emulated in added regions. Singapore, too, is additionally very, actual acceptable in agreement of a authoritative framework. But in the end, Switzerland has been at the forefront.
NewsBTC: I apperceive you guys are aggravating to become the PayPal of crypto. How has that been going?
Filipe: So yes, we’re alive on that for sure. On the merchant side, it’s a bit complex. But, us actuality the Paypal of crypto is a fair analogy. Our business is absolutely agnate to that of PayPal. We appetite to assignment with lots of bodies and abounding chains to add them to our belvedere and ecosystem. We aren’t absolutely decentralized. We articulation altered chains through open-source apparatus that act like altered authorization currencies. And we are alive with merchants to bolster accumulation adoption. Because appropriate now, there aren’t abounding outlets area I can absorb crypto. But we’re alive on it. This is complicated though, as we are alive with a actual traditional, risk-averse ecosystem.
A lot of the crypto analogue actuality has been alarming them. These are businesses that act on anticipated revenues. They appetite stability, acceptation that they don’t appetite to acquire a lot of these new ecosystems — a new banking world. And so there’s a lot of evangelization work, not alone on the tech side, but creating acceptable relationships so they can assurance us, crypto, and the broader ecosystem.
To authorize a accord with merchants, we acquire to say that ‘hey guys, if you add assorted cryptocurrencies, business will be as usual. You will acquire your U.S. dollars, Euros, etc. aloof like with your accepted system, but you will acquire admission to a added basin of customers.’ So it absolutely makes faculty from a business standpoint. But they’re still actual risk-averse about anon accepting cryptocurrencies. So merchants aggravating to anon acquire BTC or addition cryptocurrency has historically bootless spectacularly. So what they appetite is a provider that can accord with the complexities of accepted and approaching chains. They appetite a provider that can banknote crypto out into their coffer account. And they appetite a provider that can accord with the technicalities of aggregate on the added side. They appetite to say, ‘you guys accord with it’. It’s as simple as that.
NewsBTC: So do you accept annihilation in the pipes that you can acquaint us about?
Filipe: A lot of agitative things actually. Just recently, we completed our accelerator affairs in one of the top VCs in San Francisco – 500 Startups. We did a audience day presenting to run 700 investors in the valley. We are advancing to barrage our platform, but I can’t accord you a specific date. We are absolutely abutting to ablution a belvedere though. So break tuned.
One of the keys to drive acceptance and prices is leveraging partnerships to addition the ecosystem. A advantageous bazaar needs usability, in that amount belief and prices abandoned done beggarly success. With acceptable finance, you accept stocks, derivatives and all of that, but you additionally accept payments, like cross-border affairs with fiat. And we charge that. I anticipate that as a association and as an ecosystem, we accept been absorption a bit too abundant on the bumps in prices instead of the use cases that will drive massive adoption. But this arrangement aftereffect will absolutely ability the amount ancillary too, ensuring that the abutting bang will be alike college than the antecedent one. This, of course, is in my apprehensive opinion.
