Figment CEO Lorien Gabriel’s Big Bet on Staking Has Paid Off

Lorien Gabel has spent decades gathering net infrastructure companies, from ISPs to unreality information firms. In 2018, recognizing the transformative imaginable of proof-of-stake networks, helium co-founded Figment, which has since go 1 of the world’s largest autarkic staking providers, offering exertion and services that alteration users to involvement their tokens without having to usage a centralized speech oregon custodian.

Today, the institution manages $15 cardinal successful assets and serves implicit 500 organization clients.

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Here, Gabriel, who volition beryllium a talker astatine Consensus Hong Kong, discusses Figment’s enlargement into Asia, bitcoin staking experiments and his company’s cautious process for deciding which caller crypto networks to support.

This interrogation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

What led you to commencement Figment?

This is the 4th institution my co-founders and I person built unneurotic implicit 3 decades. Our erstwhile ventures were each successful net infrastructure. When we started exploring blockchain successful 2018, staking was hardly a happening — Tezos had launched, and Ethereum was inactive lone discussing it. But we saw a earthy alignment betwixt our expertise successful web security, unreality infrastructure and scaling B2B solutions and what proof-of-stake (PoS) could become. If PoS gained traction, we believed our acquisition successful gathering secure, institutional-grade networks would beryllium invaluable.

We primitively planned to commencement a fund, and present we bash person a VC fund. But the money didn’t travel archetypal — the staking infrastructure institution did, and past we launched Figment Capital. We fundamentally took a flyer connected proof-of-stake, believing it had immoderate advantages implicit proof-of-work, and we were fortunate capable that it really worked and took off.

How ample is Figment now?

We presently negociate $15 cardinal successful staking assets and service 500 organization clients. While worker number isn’t ever a meaningful metric, we person astir 130 employees and expect to scope 150 by year-end. Asia is our adjacent large enlargement focus. We opened our Singapore bureau past year, and we’re adding Japan, Hong Kong and different cardinal markets. While North America remains our base, Asia’s request for staking services is increasing rapidly.

What challenges bash you spot to Asia’s adoption of staking compared to different regions?

First, Asia isn’t 1 marketplace — it’s a postulation of vastly antithetic economies and regulatory landscapes. Japan, Indonesia and Korea, for example, person chiseled concern cultures, adoption levels and regulatory frameworks. We’ve ever been compliance-focused, moving lone with organization clients alternatively than retail users. But successful Asia, compliance varies wide by country. Unlike the U.S., wherever you chiefly navigate SEC and CFTC rules, each Asian marketplace has its ain regulators and policies.

Also, Western companies often neglect erstwhile expanding into Asia by not knowing section hiring, scaling strategies oregon lawsuit behavior. I was calved successful Kuala Lumpur, and I’ve seen North American firms overinvest excessively rapidly oregon misread marketplace needs. That’s wherefore we started tiny successful Singapore with 3 people, truthful we could larn earlier scaling.

Education is different challenge. In galore Asian markets, staking is not well-defined and is sometimes misconstrued arsenic DeFi lending. We walk a batch of clip astatine conferences, lawsuit meetings and media interviews explaining what staking is and wherefore institutions should see it implicit riskier yield-generating alternatives.

What has been the biggest situation successful scaling your business, and however did you flooded it?

The hardest portion of immoderate startup is the “zero to one” signifier — figuring retired whether an thought volition work, what customers request and however the concern exemplary volition evolve.

Early on, we ran aggregate experiments — we had a distant process telephone (RPC) infrastructure business, a developer cognition portal and antithetic gross streams. But erstwhile we recovered a beardown product-market acceptable successful staking, we unopen down the remainder and focused wholly connected scaling 1 halfway offering.

The 2nd large situation is crypto’s volatility. Our concern operates similar a premix betwixt a information halfway company, a money and a bundle business, but with adaptable pricing successful dozens of volatile integer assets. That complicates planning. I gag that my unofficial rubric is “Chief Stoic” — I don’t get excessively euphoric erstwhile markets are booming, and I don’t panic erstwhile things spell south. Whether it’s FTX’s illness oregon bitcoin hitting $100,000, we absorption connected semipermanent execution.

Are you seeing accrued organization involvement successful staking successful Asia?

Yes, organization adoption is accelerating, peculiarly from banks and telecoms. We’ve had organization equity investors from Asia for a portion — large names similar Monex and B Capital—but implicit the past year, we’ve seen much accepted fiscal institutions actively entering staking. Each marketplace has its ain ascendant exchanges and custodians, and we often spouse with them alternatively than dealing with extremity users. As much banks research staking, we expect adoption to snowball — akin to however institutions successful the U.S. started cautiously investing successful staking earlier scaling operations.

How bash you determine which tokens to enactment for staking? Do Asian markets power this?

We person an valuation model that we’ve refined implicit the past six years. Since we tin lone enactment a constricted fig of caller tokens each year, we person to beryllium selective — past year, we added enactment for 12 oregon 13, which is rather a batch fixed the complexity of each integration. Right now, we’re supporting astir 40 networks, but each caller summation requires cautious analysis.

The process starts with the basics: is this a existent task oregon a scam? Does it person a beardown thesis and a squad susceptible of executing it? In galore ways, it mirrors a VC framework. From there, we excavation deeper, speaking with the instauration and founders, assessing the level of custody enactment disposable — since that’s important for organization adoption — and evaluating the broader ecosystem.

At immoderate point, though, erstwhile you person 20 beardown candidates but tin lone enactment 10, you person to marque a bet. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t. Over the years, we’ve seen capable web launches to make a beardown intuition astir what works and what doesn’t. We effort to connection guidance to projects wherever we can, though ultimately, it’s up to them whether they instrumentality our input.

Customer request is different origin successful our decision-making, and the Asian marketplace is an important portion of this. Occasionally, a large organization lawsuit volition petition enactment for a task we mightiness not person different considered — oregon adjacent heard of — truthful we behaviour an expedited evaluation. In immoderate cases, we’ve had to archer clients no, either due to the fact that we don’t spot the task arsenic morganatic oregon we fishy it mightiness beryllium a scam. Those are pugnacious conversations, but they’re necessary. Ultimately, we besides look astatine however galore of our clients are apt to clasp oregon involvement a fixed token, which plays into our last decision.

With galore Asian investors seeking high-yield opportunities, however does Figment guarantee competitory returns portion staying unafraid and reliable?

Staking is not the highest-yield enactment successful crypto, but it’s the safest mode to gain output without counterparty risk. We absorption connected providing the highest risk-adjusted staking rewards. While immoderate providers pursuit higher returns by cutting corners (e.g., ignoring OFAC compliance oregon MEV risks), our clients — chiefly institutions — prioritize information and compliance.

In crypto, staking is the equivalent of a 10-year Treasury enslaved — it’s the stable, reliable enactment compared to high-risk DeFi strategies. Some investors similar liquidity pooling oregon lending for higher yields, but institutions typically take staking for its security.

Are determination immoderate staking-related trends oregon innovations successful Asia that excite you?

Some of the astir breathtaking trends successful staking close present see liquid staking and re-staking, with EigenLayer starring the complaint globally successful these areas and having a beardown beingness successful Asia. Bitcoin staking is different country of interest, with projects similar Babylon exploring its potential, though request remains uncertain. Additionally, we’re seeing caller chains with important Asian influence, specified arsenic BeraChain, which is rapidly increasing its idiosyncratic basal successful the region. We’re actively supporting BTC staking portion intimately monitoring caller staking models emerging from Asia.