Infrastructure to Lead the Shift Toward Agent-First, On-Chain Financial Markets

Transcript

[music] Thank you so much for having me. Um, it's a great honor for me to be here. Um, I I'm Yoshima Sato, the representative director of Alpaka Japan, Japanese the licensed brokerage. Abakar is US headquartered company but co-ounded by two gentlemen Yoshi Yokawa and Hitoi Halada and I'm going to stick to very belly basic one the what we are doing who we

are those kind of thing and then if we have time then I should be able to touch upon the AI in the automation those kind of thing. So who who we are and what we do. Sorry to too many text but [gasps] alakar is a global leader of the block infrastructure. So simply put alpaka is a blockers blocker. So if you say here in Japan the SBI securities is the biggest customer for us and then if the SBI securities customers are placing the US stock orders let's say Nvidia 100

shares then that order will be sent from SBI securities to alpakar securities LLC in the US. So this way Pakar securities LLSC other securing broker is doing the almost everything the trading clearing settlement and also custody the in Japanese hogazukari so Alpaka is pro is basically a broker or broker's broker but we are technology backed company historically we are providing the APIs so that individuals can place some orders to our US local

entity but now the on top of the you know direct individual customers we are dealing with brokers customers so and then brokers customers are our biggest revenue source the concerning the mission vision those kind of things the actually we use you know recently updated our you know mission and then mission is right there so open financial services to everybody on the planet. So here in Japan or elsewhere in developed countries the in even individual you know investors are well positioned to place an orders but

if we look at developing countries it's it's really hard for them to have a market access to the developed countries because the because of their you know less you know organized infrastructure technologically legally or operationally and on top of that if you look at their you know home markets they are their home markets are not that big enough. So US market or Japan the European markets are important to have those kind of you know um order flows from various regions and countries. So we are trying to make

that happen by using the technology. So there are so many things but our strategy is to build uh trust blocker or blocker and market in infrastructure to lead the shift of world. So lift the sift means it's the as you can see at the bottom it's agent first more more agentic or automated 245 or 247 trading and uh you know this has something to do with you all but it's so-called onchain financial services I know the text is super small but uh

[sighs] this is a the overview view of our business. uh the if we look at our partners the our institutional customers it's now 300 plus globally and our number of our employees are now the almost 500 and then if we look at our ultimate uh customers accounts like you know here in Japan SBI customers account now we have globally 15 million um user the accounts one5 million globally and it's still growing fortunately.

So this is super the trivial but you know once again we are not a self-cling blocker but we are providing the APIs and AI agent friendly technology um framework for our customers and in terms of the our um global lead the here in Japan we are once again so-called type um fiber um broker. Can you show him?

And if we look at other regions, obviously US is the biggest market and we have our US blockage arm and then this goes on and on and like a Canada, UK, continental Europe, uh India, Singapore and other regions. So sorry in terms of the regulatory statuses the as Yamadas in the previous um fire chart um the fire chart the fireside chart sorry the here in Japan the crypto assets will be you know recategorized as a financial products

rather than the payment methods as you all are aware. aware and then that could be that could the become effective uh sometime next year could be July or August 2027 and after that point on the crypto assets will be categorized or regarded as financial projects the toed you know toable assets. So with that the we should be able to have more opportunities here in Japan.

You know as the Yamadasan pointed out the crypto ETFs should be you know legal uh sometime next year. The biggest one, the world, the biggest one is IBIT, the black lock, the Bitcoin ETF, IBIT. And then second biggest one is Ether, which is also provided by Blacklo US. And then let me talk about our you know investors. So the here in Japan the SBI holdings is our you know investor and as you can see this slide there are many global investors and then we we

forgot to mention that but the MUG is the in innovation partners as a venture capital is also our investor as well and as the as you can see that you can um find traditional online brokers and also crypto players like Clam and Binance here. So simply put we understand that um there is um you know the boundaries between traditional assets like stocks and crypto assets are getting blur. So crypto players like Binance is now doing

a US stocks and if we look at the transitional brokers then it's vice versa they are trying to enter into the crypto asset trading. So once again the jump boundary is getting blur and then it's goes on and on. So we I think we can skip this one. And then concerning the crypto or tokenized assets, the Apaka securities LLC is basically handling with traditional assets, US stocks and um with the help from our external service providers like X stocks, Ono and the

Binance the we at least outside of Japan In the US we are providing tokenized assets the trading services. So the in terms of tokenization that we are you know those players X stocks on and others are doing that part concerning the situation here in Japan. You know as you are well aware tokenized assets is a kind of a gray area. I mean there is a narrow path to make it happen. So soal the trust bank scheme uh scheme

but there are so many uh lists. So it's a kind of a hurdle. It's a kind of the challenge for us to start tokenized assets. But once again the crypto assets will be recatategorized as a financial products sometime next year. So the with that we are still hoping that the tokenized assets uh should be able to you know can be provided here in Japan as well. Fingers crossed.

Okay, I think the I covered almost everything about Haka. I'd like to take questions from you guys, but it seems that this is a oneway presentation. So, let me touch upon more you know AI agent or the trend in the near future. The this is the not necessarily our house view. It's not necessarily alpaca's view. So this has some something to do with my own personal view. But it's more like a generally speaking kind of thing.

But the we and you know as like you guys we are also trying to make some best out of AI tools and then I personally think that AI might not kick us out from the you know labor market but someone equipped with machines AI could be you know kicking us out right. So we including myself need to be very careful and we need to prepare our job.

But the if you look at the you know AI in general the it's super super good for you know finding an optimized solution you know something almost everybody can reach out right if that kind of answer or that kind of goal or that kind of target is can be calculated by using just numbers then that's something AI is very good at right only with the electricity you know AI machines are just you know you know

moving moving and then they finally reach an answer. So roughly speaking the the we humans including myself should more focus on something uncertainty something we can make an decision based on their past knowledge based on our philosophy based on our values those kind of thing but other than that anything you know automated or you know anything we can automate should be done or needs to be done by AI

machines or something. The reason why I'm talking about is that if we look at the financial markets the this is a trend in the near future or something going on but the if we look at the trading not only the traditional asset classes like a US stocks, bonds, options and other derivatives but also if we look at the crypto assets and potentially tokenized the assets in the future. The trading is basically 245 or 235.

Of course, the from the crypto perspectives is already the 247, but if you look at the traditional asset classes, it's still 245 on the limited scale. But the later this year uh from December 6 on uh NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange and SIBO, those US major gigantic exchanges will go live with so-called 235, not not a 24 strictly speaking, but they will go live with 235 from December 6 on. So after that the in

APAC daytime you know you can trade the US stocks or listed products the in ape time zone. So that could be a kind of you know that could be a kind of cannibalization um situation not only for US stocks I mean Japanese stocks or any other apex stocks but also crypto [clears throat] assets as well. So the I'm look forward to it but we also need to be very careful I think and if you look at the third bullet point the AI agent driven um once again if

you know time differences or time zones has nothing to do with the you know trading activities or liquidity then I do not think at least at least the people can do trading 245 or 247 right so that's where AI or agentic trading comes in so once again a agentdriven trading is almost there you know just around the corner and onchain um the even if we look at the traditional US stocks or any other

traditional assets at least in the US and somewhere else the we are providing so-called tokenized assets. So it has nothing to do with the US stocks or it has nothing to do with traditional um clearing settlement bank transfer those kind of thing. So a combination of 245 or 247 and onchain are coming not only to the US stocks and the transitional assets and but also the other asset classes including the crypto assets and finally the multi-asset class in the

region. Um so the the boundaries between the traditional assets and also crypto assets are getting blah and blah and the time zone or time differences could could you know have nothing to do with the our customer trading activities uh with the help from the AI agents and some other automation technologies. So but the thing is the amount the money amount of investable assets are limited right the if a certain person has only say $100

then he or she has to allocate to this number to each asset classes or tradable um you know instruments. A part of that could be going into US stocks. Another part could be going into the crypto assets. But it's at least the the financial service providers including us are trying to get that kind of liquidity.

So the we think that the competition will be you know more fierce amongst various players including us. So this is something we are thinking. I prepared the my two cents part but it seems that I have you know less than one minute. So I'm going to just you know quickly do that but the not only trading but elsewhere the in our business activities the AI machines are all over the prices right and then we need to um think it over how we can

utilize that but the what we are thinking is that how we can focus on what humans needs to um needs to do. So once again a machines are very good at the you know finding an answer based on the past objective facts you know numbers or something it's super super useful but if even if the there are so many moving parts or there are so many uncertainties we need to make a decision so let's focusing on that so I think that's it from me thank you so >> [music]