What Seven Years Building Crypto.com's Card Program Taught Cashi's Founder

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Hey.

Hi. Thanks for having me. We are we are excited to dive in. I was just telling Drew, I'm when I think of, like, first cards, crypto.com was the one that kinda started it all for me, and now I get to meet meet the woman behind the product that really helped to bring that card to life. And we're excited to talk more about your journey and how that's led to cashing and and what you're building now. Yeah. I would I'd love to. So the the story behind crypto.com

actually, you know, goes back a little further. It was when I started my first startup company as a at a company called U Trip. So they do cars as well as a multicurrency card. And kinda one and a half years in, launched two products, and it was year 2018. That was the time where I was, like, you know, super interested in blockchain and Bitcoin. So I wanted to do crypto cards. Yeah. And at that time, I I went to crypto.com, and they were just beginning their journey.

So kinda that was that is how, you know, it all began. I started with a passion wanting to bring crypto onto cars. I always thought that blockchain and payments will work well together. Yeah. And then, you know, kinda, like, seven years in, I, you know, I had not really noticed the trend and stablecoins trying to develop for the past two years. They're actually real use case, people from different countries wanting to spend, you know, just to subscribe, you know, Netflix and Disney.

So, yeah, I was really inspired, and I thought, hey. Why not kinda double down and just go all in and build cash sheet? So that's that's how it all began. I feel like there's so much to seven

years at crypto.com. I mean, that is a that is a long timeline. It's, like, unheard of. Pretty unheard of. Yeah. It's pretty unheard of in, like, the world of of working professionally in crypto. Like, what what was it about that company that, you know, really, really kept you around and gave you gave you such a long history there? What was the yeah. Give bring us a little bit into what you were building there and and what kept you so bought into that. Yeah. I think it's definitely a great company.

People there are genuinely smart and, like, very

I would say they're they're very inspired. So for the first four years, it it went by with just a click. The first four years, I launched parts in Singapore, US, Europe, UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Middle East, and it just went by so quickly that I didn't even know it was already four years. So when I did all that, I started to kinda look around and see what else I can do. And then my then manager told me, hey. You know, Esther, you you seem a little bit bored. Why don't you take another product?

So that's when I took on the on chain wallet, which is the crypto.com branded noncustodial wallet. So yeah. So then I had actually two products. I had one of the most web two product at crypto.com and the most web three product there. And I spent the next three years trying to push them together, trying to bring the mass retail using the two products. So it was a really fun was a really fun journey.

And I think the key for me to stay seven years is because it's been so kinda overwhelming, exciting, and I just didn't know time flew until until this year when I actually stopped to to kinda think about how the market has changed, how the whole scene has has evolved and developed. So and when I got that break, I thought, hey. I think it's actually time for me to try and really build something that I I strongly believe in. So, yeah, so that's, like, kinda like the whole story. So what what were those things?

You said the market maturing.

You know? I think a lot of the time, there was the kind of v one early form factor of these crypto neobank like experiences going through exchanges like crypto.com and Gemini and Coinbase was kind of the norm. And then now we've seen this start to break off. So what did you learn from what you built at crypto.com that you said, I want to build on top of and what you said actually, hey. I need to go do this differently. Yeah. There are a lot of

So I'll just go right into it. Right? Institutional adoption. You can see the payment companies like Visa and Mastercard starting to accept stablecoins like USDC. And crypto.com, we're one of the first people to pilot with them. For us, it actually meant that liquidity can be released. We don't have the whole fiat with the big schemes anymore.

And because the settlement time of stablecoin has shortened to near real time, so the amount of collateral we have to hold with, like, each of the funding companies has shortened by, like, you know, 60 to 80%. So that's, like, a huge capital release on on our end. And with that, it actually enable smaller companies to go into this business because the capital requirement has decreased so much. And, therefore, those smaller companies, like the new startups, new fintechs, they can go into the different niche.

They don't have to worry too much about, hey. I need to get x amount of volume before I can actually be sustainable and breakeven. So, you know, those were some of the things I noticed. And, definitely, I think the AI adoption has also been very apparent in how it can help shape companies building that niche. With Kashy as well, we have been very focused on adopting AI, everyone in the team, from finance, legal to, you know, all the devs, we all use AI daily.

And I think that allows every one of us to scale ourselves massively. Yeah.

I wanna dive into, Kashy, and specifically what you're building, but I also thought it would be amiss if we didn't help frame the impact of the cryptocrypto.com card program in the context of, you know, real real world card products connected to crypto on the back end. As someone who's been around the space, I think, since twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, I felt like the crypto.com card, to Zach's point, was one of the, like, first real early, like, hero products for that. Like, oh my gosh.

Like, we can bring crypto into spending. Like, that was the first that and then also Coinbase's Marketa card was, like, happening at the same time. Help, like, frame the success of that card product for those who may not be familiar with it. Yeah. Sure.

We have issued millions of cards during the first few years launch because the adoption has been so great. And just to let everyone know, like, compared to Coinbase or other crypto companies, we have started in Singapore. But in the next four years, we have expanded locally in US, Europe, UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Bahrain that covers The Middle East. All these countries is not a cross border issuance, which means that we actually have entities, licenses on the ground in order to issue those parts.

It it means a huge deal because then you can actually do marketing on the ground, and that is actually what accelerated the adoption because we can be seen. A lot of the companies out there doing cuts that cover kinda global is on a reverse solicitation basis, which means they can't do direct acquisition and can't do direct marketing. So I think how built it allows it for mass adoption is because they can then use the the brand, the the marketing power to to just, like, really accelerate the the acquisition.

Why is reverse solicitation like, can you define that term for those who aren't familiar with it and what that term means and kind of the unlock of what that provides? Yeah. Sure. So reverse solicitation means that your product can be can be used, can be found by people that is not in the originating country. So for example, if I launch a car in Singapore, but I can reverse solicitate for people in Hong Kong. Meaning, people in Hong Kong can organically find your product, but you can't buy banners.

You can't buy Facebook ads. You can't do direct marketing. So that's the that's the meaning of it. But if you can, then it means that you you have a direct channel to acquire users. Yeah. I hope I hope that makes sense. No. No. That does. Because I was gonna go you made a comment briefly about leaning into

brand. And, know, we've we've seen this craze, obviously, with VibeCode and being AI native where it's like, hey. Launch a neobank super fast, VibeCode it. It's it's a working it's a functional product. One, your website looks awesome. Oh, I love the little scrolling feature. I think Drew's gonna bring it up here. But but talk to us, like, why is brand important, especially in this era right now of vibe coding when it's arguably easier than ever to launch your own neo banking experience?

Like, what gets people to stay, and why is leaning into brand?

Yeah. Great question. We spent early days defining the brand and also coming with the name Kashy. There are lots of discussion within the team, but we ultimately decided on this name because I think number one, our target audience is actually the mass reach out. We want the name to be very direct and apparent. What this is, there's no ambiguity. Cash is, you know, obviously related to money. And then I I posted about it as well, but there's another fun playing with it.

It's like the cache, like the browser cache, actually means stashing and storage. So we want cache to be a safe place for your cache, so we call it kind of cache. And we chose, you know, orange, and wearing orange now as well, deliberately because we want the product to be to to radiate warmth and be and and and to have a kind of, like, a more human touch.

So if I have to put it in real world, like, you know, relative context is if I were to compare ChatGPT and clot, I will say that we are leaning towards the Clot branding where you see the more kinda human side of a similar product. But maybe other purple cars will be a little bit more ChatGPT, whereas it's very dark, very premium, very functional, very technical, but we're going for the other side. So this is how we position ourselves.

I really like it. Yeah. It's beautiful. That's the feature I was talking about that was really fun. This one? Yeah. Yeah. Send your praise

to the team. They will be happy.

You have no idea how how many rounds of iteration I've done. This this psychology of of color. Right? Because, you know, we've we've been with a few other teams where, like, it's very clear. Brand is becoming a mope. But, you know, we've seen some teams take the side of very much trying to feel elegant and appeal to a luxury crowd room thinking of the motos of the world. This feels like a very different approach thing. Like, how does the color actually make you feel?

I mean, it's like the psychology of color is an is an interesting thing in in the marketing world. Did you AB test this? Was this something you learned at crypto.com? Was this just working with the marketing, you know, team, and they they threw some options on here? But, like, what influenced, you know, that decision and that approach to to brand? Yeah. I think initially when we chose the color, we had two directions.

But we all it revolves around the same theme where it's what what feels organic and what feels warm. So we chose colors that you'll probably see in the in in nature. So we definitely moved away from, like, you know, kinda dark, silver, and all those colors that were leaning towards either green, orange, blue. Blue is really overplayed in in in the crypto world. Everyone is blue. Coinbase, even crypto.com is blue. So very soon eliminated that. And personally, I love orange.

I think it just shows a kind of, like, a bright future, and and and we and that that's why we settled on this color, and then we start to, like, develop themes a little bit. I I thought it felt very energetic too.

And it would pop out if we're just looking at the fold of your, like, cards in your Apple Wallet. It would be, like, the number one thing that that pop that would pop out in mine at least. You should see the physical card that we have in the making.

It it it will it will be kinda surprising. Out of all the cards that I've made, I feel like, you know, that one is, like, pretty it will have a silent premiumness

to it. Excited. I'm excited for that. Alright. So let's let's talk about the card and the program a little bit. Bring us into some of the specifics of how you've decided to build this. We we talked about your really extensive experience building some of these early card programs at crypto.com and now coming in and leading this personally for yourself as you build the brand and you build the product.

Like, what were some of the key things as you thought about differentiation, user experience, product, making this actually, like, useful and valuable and different? Like, how are you thinking about that? If I'm looking just at this screen, I would be asking myself if I'm a a user or a potential user, this looks nice, but it also looks very similar to other things out there.

How do you explain what's different about it? Yeah. Just on the product level, not even talking about kind of marketing and distribution. We are a custodial wallet. It might be like, a lot of people on CT might not understand the decision. But having owned a a noncustodial wallet for a few years, I realized that, actually, there are tons of people outside of CT that doesn't know what a noncustodial is. And with a custodial wallet, we're able to provide a more kind of control user experience.

They don't have to worry about guests. They don't have to worry about losing their keys. And we can support more chains, including the native chains such as Bitcoin. So that's the reason why we built a custodial wallet. And then in terms of the product design, we deliberately made it very simple, and we remove all the kind of crypto crypto terminologies out of it. And if you really look into the details, you will see that we sent some effort into polishing the transaction details.

In some of the apps you see, they might just show you kinda like a code. You you can vaguely guess what merchant you spend at, but it's not that clean. So we we actually spend some effort into, like, making sure that the transactions are clear so that users don't have to second guess where they spent the money at. And then I can talk a little bit about our rewards program. It's called three two one Cashy. Thought it sounded quite cute and also easy to remember.

So we're gonna start with a few selected merchants first, but the idea is you get 3% back on your subscriptions, 2% back on your online and ecommerce, and then 1% back on travel. We it might seem low to to you guys if you're comparing with, you know, programs that go up to, what, 50%. But this is because we're giving users back in US dollar in US dollar value with no expiry. We're not going to have a point system. We're not gonna launch our own token. We're gonna get give user what they what they see.

So this is a very direct and simple product that

everyone can use. So this is how we're thinking about it. Does your mom know how to use this? It's the test. I'd be interested to unpack. Zach, feel free to drive this in any way, but just the difference of, like, the difference of true dollars and what you're talking about here compared with some of these other alternatives that you're mentioning. Like, for the audience you're going after, what what what is the difference or benefit of, like, the trueness of this model versus

your own token or some other method? Yeah. I think it's just the well, it's just the the feeling. Right? When you use the app, are you intimidated by it, or are you comfortable with it? And if you're intimidated by it, would you then put money into the product? So this comes from, you know, having interviews with a lot of users, especially on the noncustodial wallet site. They find it hard to deposit money into the wallet. I think number one, they don't know what coins they're buying.

They don't know what chains they need to use. And then when they eventually want to spend, they just want to spend. They don't want to say, oh, hey. I I earned some cashback in x y z token. And then they have to worry about that token's price performance. So to them, it doesn't really help to it doesn't help them elevate their spending experience. It actually gives them another layer of worry, any another thing they have to manage.

So I have to say that this is a learning I I had from crypto.com because the rewards was given in in the native token. So there are some other things that that will cross the user's mind when they're sending.

And what what specifically was the learning at at crypto.com with the token?

Learned that it's better to not have a token. And but due to fluctuation? Due to what what reason? I think for the user, the fluctuation is something that a lot of them might not want to manage. And then for the the corporate side, right, then it's also a lot of things that they will have to handle, like the price performance and then the narrative around the price performance and then something to to help, like, save the the price action as well. So just a lot of un unneeded actions,

in my opinion. Yeah. We we it reminds me of our chats with Rags a little bit, like, throughout the years now, like, around how he's thinking about it it's a very dynamic thing. You know? Like, if you wanna actually launch a native token, stablecoin or not, how those incentives work and promises made versus promises kept, you kind of open yourself up to a whole other incentive system for the people and why they are using your thing. And it's a very different incentive system to say, hey.

You know, come use this product because you're, like, some sort of, like, token religious belief around where this could go and speculate into the future, and then, like, earning this token and hoorah, hoorah versus just like, hey. This is a really practical, useful utility dollars. Everybody wants those. Like, let's focus on the fundamentals. K. It's interesting. Yeah. Let's take this.

Yeah, let's let's take this a little bit to the infer like, the infrastructure in actually building this product, because you you briefly touched on this decision for a custody, you know, custodied a wallet experience, which I get yeah. You're right. Very very divisive right now. So what about from the perspective of of build versus buy? How much of this have you built in house? How much of it is, hey. Actually, we wanna focus on brand. We wanna focus on distribution.

I see you even have, like, a I think there was a crew. That's an interesting feature of, like, again, I think trying to build out these these local communities centered around this card and experiences. So how much of your focus is on actually, like you said, building infrastructure, building the product, and how much is it in on say, hey. We're gonna bring in good partners that are doing that better than we can so we can just focus on building brand, building community, building distribution?

Yeah. Great question. So I will say that we are focused on building the things that we have an edge in. So for me, it's actually building the payment infrastructure. We are not using a lot of our players off the off the shelf solution. We actually went into negotiations to get our own account and to build our own infrastructure with the processor at the back end so that we can control a lot of the experience ourselves. But having said that, there are things that we would rent because we don't have an edges.

For example, I I would say down the road, right, if I were to have a earn or yield product, then that's something that I'll probably rent because I haven't built an edge to, you know, manage the treasury and have, like, a really good strategy. So I think the important thing is to know where you're where when you're good at and for the things that you don't know, you have an edge, just just rent it. And then that is a answer to the infrastructure question, but you also touched on cash it through.

Do you want me go there now, do you I was like, if we need a hand raise button on the stream because, like like,

hand raise. What's really, really, really interesting. And we've probably met with some of these folks in the, like, yield earning side of, like, that infrastructure. When you think about solving that problem, and I love what you're saying around, hey. This is not my specialty. I know that, like, I can go, yeah, rent this part of it, at least to to start. Who comes to mind there? What types of companies exist in this stack in your mind right now that can solve this, like, yield problem?

Are you I'm sure you're talking with some of these or thinking about that. Yeah. Actually, a lot.

I think I I I see some of their names here and sponsors as well. Yeah. So a lot of them have reached out to me. I haven't drilled into any of the kind of, like, commercials and also the text file. The ones that we previously would use, you know, back in the days of crypto.com, I'll say, you know, p two p or Cleon, you know, all those partners are a big ones. Infrastructure great, even like BitGo. But, yeah, we haven't decided one for Cashie yet

to accept. What's what's most important for you in making this commercial decision? If I'm gonna, like, sell if I'm, like, on the sales call for one of these, you know, how many companies I ask you that question, like, what is most important to you here? Security compliance

and then the yield. I would say that I'm not going for the super high yield product because for my target market, my my competition is not, you know, chasing the the top percent yield and above. I'm just trying to give users some yield that they're comfortable with. So, yeah, security compliance is definitely top of mind before I chase the the side view. Yeah. Drew, you remember when we talked to Joey from Nook's? And he they actually did a study

where it was like, what was the user's responses to seeing you you know, Nook is more of a high yield savings account alternative. And they did a study where they showed 712%, and you would think you know, we we naturally wanna think that people are gonna jump to 12% because higher is better, but there was a lot more friction because it you know, all those warning flags started going off.

So it's it feels like such a such a dance to figure out, like, what's high enough to offer that's attractive, but I don't wanna go too high because then I'm gonna start scaring people away. And maybe they may not trust me. Maybe they don't trust the financial, you know, because they've been burnt by the apps or the and something in the past. Drew, did you have another hand raise? I'm good. I'm good for now. Tell us about tell us about Cruise, though, because this is a I think this is a this is a unique approach.

We know that, obviously, with with what we're building, community is impactful. It's probably been one of the the biggest things that's helped grown grown our business. But what's your approach to to cruise in these in these local local market?

Yeah. I think to to Kashi, to me, Fruz are definitely super important because they are the ones that will be on the ground speaking the local language, being able to bring us feedback from the local communities that they are building. And the way I see about Fruz and people who kinda join Cashion early on in the journey is, I think right now, the the whole economy is going to be shaped quite differently going forward. Everyone will be some sort of creator for themselves. They need to earn psychics.

I think traditional jobs will be very different. So the way I see crews and people who join us early on is how can you, you know, also benefit and grow yourself and grow your wealth through the journey with Kashy? The way we design affiliate program is you you actually get to do revenue share with us as you help us grow. So to them, can you, you know, can you actually be part of Kashy? Can you actually be, like, the owner of Kashy by helping us grow because you have revenue share?

So that's the that's something that I really want to to to build and also to nurture so that it's not just us growing, but, you know, everyone who's part of this journey is growing with us. Where's your biggest crew right now? We have I mean, the product is prelaunch. Fingers crossed. We're gonna launch, like, in Okay. Few weeks time. But we have four crews onboarded, and then we have, like, 30 crew members and application we see on them go through. They're in Chile, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Spain.

So we have kinda one in each continent that we wanna be in, and then we also have people on the ground in Dubai and also Brazil. But, yeah, we're we're reviewing more applications. And for people who are seeing this, you know, feel free to apply. We'd love to have you. What makes a good crew member? What are you looking for? So there are examples on our Twitter and LinkedIn. We already have kind of those crew members posting about it.

What we're looking for is someone that believes in a brand, believes in a vision so that they can actually feel comfortable representing us. We don't want people to see this as just like a job, and they're doing a lot of psychics. They actually have to believe in it in order to feel passionate about it. I think it actually you you can see it from the the way they talk about it and from the way they ask me questions about about my my thinking for Kashy and what I have planned for the future. That's awesome.

It kinda reminds me of the traditional banking and card approach, at least in the town I live. It's like a pretty normal typical American town, and there are a lot of banks. And then those banks work with partners or, like, distribution partners who will customize the look and feel of that debit card or that mostly debit cards or bank cards. Very a lot of sports teams will do this, and it's kind of like, you know, go take the but it's interesting with this.

It's not like do do you imagine eventually the anything about the front end changing, or is this gonna be completely like the brand is gonna stay the same? Or maybe eventually, if this works, you can kind of customize this, go back go down into a a layer deeper white label things, or is that not the plan? I I wouldn't say that we have that planned already.

I would say maybe the bigger bigger opportunity for Kashy is how do we enable agent assist the payments in the near term. So I think that would be kinda naturally a bit more interesting. I I know we might not have time to cover the that that part, but it's something that is kinda like, you know, have to do part two. Yeah. We have we definitely have to do part two. But, yeah, I think agent assisted payments is going to be the next thing that I'm focusing on for Kashy. Cool. Awesome. Let's have you back.

Once there's some news to share, product goes live, and we have some, like, agent focused things to discuss. We have another segment that we do with Breeze who's listed on the sponsor below, all about AgenTek Commerce and what's getting built over there. So we'll meet you on the other segment. Maybe we'll book our next travel, Drew, with Cashy Agent Pay. Maybe that'll be 1% back. Maybe that'll be the goal. 1% back. Alright. Lester, thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming on, Lester.

Great to meet your business today. Great to meet you.