Dean Skurka, CEO of WonderFi Technologies Inc., was recently interviewed by Benzinga.
WonderFi operates digital asset platforms trusted by over 1.6 million Canadians. WonderFi's Bitbuy, Coinsquare and CoinSmart cryptocurrency trading platforms provide Canadians with access to regulated cryptocurrency trading and staking. SmartPay provides cryptocurrency payment processing on a global scale.
WonderFi boasts one of the largest communities of regulated cryptocurrency investors in Canada.
WonderFi operates digital asset platforms trusted by over 1.6 million Canadians. WonderFi's Bitbuy, Coinsquare and CoinSmart cryptocurrency trading platforms provide Canadians with access to regulated cryptocurrency trading and staking. SmartPay provides cryptocurrency payment processing on a global scale.
WonderFi boasts one of the largest communities of regulated cryptocurrency investors in Canada.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hey, welcome, man. It's Michael Murray with Benzinga joined today by Dean Skirka, the
00:06 CEO of Wunderphi Technologies. Dean, thank you very much for taking the time. How are
00:10 you today?
00:11 Doing great. Thanks for having me.
00:12 Pleasure to have you here. Let's get started with a quick overview of your company. What
00:16 exactly does Wunderphi Technologies do?
00:18 Yeah, thanks. Wunderphi owns, invests and operates various platforms across the digital
00:24 asset ecosystem. We have been primarily focused on consolidating regulated crypto trading
00:30 platforms that operate in Canada. Over the last year and a half, we have acquired Bitbuy,
00:36 Coinberry, Coinsquare and Coinsmart. And on the back of these acquisitions, Wunderphi
00:41 has the largest platform for digital asset trading in Canada, with over 1.6 million registered
00:48 Canadian accounts and over $17 billion of lifetime value traded across the platforms.
00:54 Fantastic. Now, with your company investing across the digital asset ecosystem, what do
00:58 you see in crypto and digital assets? What's so promising about this industry and what
01:02 would you say makes it so disruptive too?
01:05 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot to like about the industry. Over the last 10
01:09 years, we've seen tremendous growth in terms of relative interest, education and understanding
01:16 about the technologies. And of course, from a crypto exchange perspective, volumes and
01:21 users onboarding. And so we've seen tremendous growth in this industry thus far. We believe
01:26 the technologies represent meaningful opportunities to disrupt financial services industry and
01:33 to provide a fair and level playing field for the majority of the globe to invest in
01:37 these opportunities in a transparent, reliable manner where prior to they would have limited
01:44 access, if any, to some of these products and offerings in market.
01:47 Terrific. Now, Dean, a barrier to wide adoption that crypto has traditionally faced is the
01:52 ability to actually pay for products. Can you tell us more about your crypto payment
01:56 business and how you guys are growing that?
01:58 Yeah, absolutely. Historically, I believe the main area of focus for people in the digital
02:03 asset industry has been around trade and speculation. More recently, we've seen an emerging trend
02:09 around payments. And I think a big contributor to that is education and understanding around
02:15 digital assets, the emergence of stable coins. And really, from a smart pay perspective,
02:23 which is the subsidiary that we own and operate, that is a B2B crypto to fiat payment processor.
02:29 We believe one of the biggest barriers for growth that has prohibited payments from being
02:35 predominant in the past, the way they are today, is the understanding that the end user
02:40 may have around the abilities of holding digital assets and whether or not they actually want
02:45 to do that as part of their broader strategy. Smart pay really simplifies this process by
02:50 allowing merchants to accept digital assets for the goods and services that they offer.
02:55 But what smart pay does is it liquidates the digital assets once they are received and
03:02 ensures that the merchant only receives fiat and the dollar amount that they would expect
03:09 to have otherwise received less the processing fees. And so in a world where merchants are
03:15 not in the business of speculating on digital assets or setting up their own wallets or
03:20 infrastructure to warehouse these digital assets, smart pay is really providing a pivotal
03:24 role, integral role in the overall process towards more adoption and the broader use
03:30 of digital assets for payments by really simplifying that process and ensuring that the end user
03:36 only receives the fiat that they would have otherwise had received less the processing
03:41 fees. We believe crypto payments represents a very meaningful opportunity for long term
03:46 growth. And we're very excited that through the acquisitions we've completed, we have
03:50 a strong foothold in that segment through smart pay.
03:54 Got it. Now, Dean, since combining forces with Coinsquare and Coinsmart, which you mentioned
03:58 earlier, you've been working to consolidate Bitbuy and Coinsquare together. How is that
04:02 progressing so far?
04:03 It's been progressing really well. You know, part of acquiring four regulated cryptocurrency
04:08 trading platforms, you know, obviously entailed the integration and identifying and extracting
04:15 those synergies from an operating and cost perspective to really consolidate our efforts
04:19 around fewer platforms. And so dating back to August of this year, Wonderfi announced
04:26 that it successfully migrated the users from Coinberry, a platform that we acquired in
04:31 July of last year, into Bitbuy, therefore migrating those users and winding down the
04:37 Coinberry business. Through that process, Wonderfi was able to extract meaningful operational
04:43 and cost synergies and continue down that path towards consolidation of these platforms
04:48 through the migration and wind down of the Coinsmart trading business. So today, whereas
04:53 we have acquired four crypto trading platforms over the last year and a half, we operate
04:58 two today and Bitbuy has all of the users from Coinberry and Coinsmart in it. We believe
05:05 there are significant benefits to the users beyond the benefits from an operational and
05:10 cost synergy perspective to the business, including more functionality, a better platform
05:17 with staking available on it, as one example, with an order book and with other functionality
05:25 that both Coinberry and Coinsmart didn't have. And so as we continue along this path towards
05:31 integrating these platforms and consolidating our efforts, the next stage of this will be
05:36 integrating the Bitbuy trading platform inside the Coinsquare regulated entity that today
05:42 is the first and only of its kind in the Canadian market.
05:45 Dean, speaking more broadly to what trends are on the horizon for crypto in your estimation?
05:50 Yeah, it's a great question. Certainly regulation has been one of the main trends over the last
05:56 few years. And you think back to 2022 and some of the issues that took place in the
06:01 U.S. market, we're really looking to the reaction from the U.S. regulators in terms of establishing
06:06 that framework and allowing the industry to grow through stabilized and intact regulation.
06:13 Beyond that, we've seen growing trends through the adjacent products and services that exist
06:19 on exchanges globally. Staking would be one example, which allows users that hold proof
06:24 of stake assets on exchanges to stake them and therefore earn rewards based on the yields
06:32 that are being offered to do so. And so that's an example of a trend that we believe will
06:38 continue to grow in terms of its overall size within the Bitbuy business. As we consolidate
06:44 all of these trading platforms, all of those users get the benefit of now being able to
06:48 stake their digital assets. And we believe staking represents one of the trends within
06:54 the industry that we're really excited and focused on. Beyond that, we're looking at
07:00 ways in which we can utilize our regulatory positioning in Canada to continue to roll
07:05 out the products and services that we believe Canadian participants are looking for. We
07:10 believe two of those primary products and services that can provide meaningful value
07:17 to both Wonderfi and its users would be margin and derivatives trading. You think about the
07:22 growing industry for digital assets. Globally, when we look at it, margin and derivatives
07:28 are two products that have generated significant traction and value to participants globally.
07:35 Being a regulated business, we are looking at the ways in which we can work with our
07:40 regulators to balance product innovation and consumer protection to bring these products
07:45 into the Canadian market under a regulated entity and ensuring that Canadian participants
07:51 are safeguarded with using these products and services through a platform like Bitbuy
07:55 or Coinsquare and really look to broaden the products and services that we offer through
08:00 that process. Amazing. Dean, we can't thank you enough for the insights that you've given
08:04 us not only about Wonderfi and what you're up to, but also about the industry at large.
08:08 Dean Skirka, CEO of Wonderfi Technologies. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
08:12 Thank you for having me.
08:19 channel.