Lorien Gabel has spent decades building Internet infrastructure companies, from ISP to cloud security companies. In 2018, recognizing the transformative potential of the stake test networks, Figment co -founded, which has since become one of the world’s largest independent betting suppliers, offering technology and services that allow users to bet on their tokens without Have to use a centralized or custodian exchange.
Today, the company manages $ 15 billion in assets and serves more than 500 institutional clients.
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Here, Gabriel, who will be a speaker in the consensus of Hong Kong, discusses the expansion of Figment in Asia, Bitcoin’s betting experiments and the careful process of his company to decide which new encryption networks support.
This interview has been condensed and slightly edited for clarity.
What led you to start Figurmen?
This is the fourth company that my co -founders and I have built together for three decades. Our previous companies were all in the Internet infrastructure. When we started exploring Blockchain in 2018, it was barely one thing: Tazos had launched and Ethereum was still discussing it. But we saw a natural alignment between our network safety experience, cloud infrastructure and B2B solution scale and what state test (POS) could become. If Pos won traction, we believed that our experience in the construction of safe institutional networks would be invaluable.
Originally we plan to start a background, and now we have a risk capital fund. But the fund was not the first thing: the infrastructure company that did it, and then launched Figment Capital. Basically we took a steering wheel in the watertight test, believing that he had some advantages about the work test, and we were lucky that it really worked and took off.
How big is Figurming now?
We currently manage $ 15 billion in rethinking assets and serve 500 institutional clients. Although the employee count is not always a significant metric, we have around 130 employees and we hope to reach 150 by the end of the year. Asia is our next great expansion approach. We open our Singapore office last year, and we are adding Japan, Hong Kong and other key markets. While North America remains our base, Asia’s demand to rethink services is growing rapidly.
What challenges do you see for the adoption of Asia compared to other regions?
First, Asia is not a market: it is a collection of very different economies and regulatory landscapes. Japan, Indonesia and Korea, for example, have different commercial cultures, adoption levels and regulatory frameworks. We have always been focused on compliance, working only with institutional clients instead of retail users. But in Asia, compliance varies widely by the country. Unlike the USA, where it is mainly navigated from the SEC and CFTC rules, each Asian market has its own regulators and policies.
In addition, Western companies often fail to expand to Asia by not understanding local hiring, scale strategies or customer behavior. I was born in Kuala Lumpur, and I have seen North American companies that invest too fast or read the market needs badly. That is why we started Small in Singapore with three people, so we could learn before climbing.
Education is another challenge. In many Asian markets, the rethinking is not well defined and sometimes they are misunderstood as defi loans. We spend a lot of time in conferences, client meetings and interviews with the media that explain what the rethink is and why institutions should consider it on more risky performance alternatives.
What has been the biggest challenge to climb your business and how did you overcome it?
The most difficult part of any startup is the “zero to one” phase: discover if an idea will work, what customers need and how the business model will evolve.
At first, we did multiple experiments: we had a remote procedure call infrastructure business (RPC), a developer’s knowledge portal and different income flows. But once we find a strong product market in the rethink, we close the rest and completely focus on climbing a core offer.
The second great challenge is Crypto’s volatility. Our business operates as a mixture between a data centers, a fund and a software business, but with variable prices in dozens of volatile digital assets. That complicates planning. I joke that my unofficial title is “main stoic”: I do not get too euphoric when the markets are booming, and I do not panic when things go south. Whether it is the collapse of FTX or Bitcoin reaching $ 100,000, we focus on long -term execution.
Are you seeing a greater institutional interest in the reference in Asia?
Yes, institutional adoption is accelerating, particularly banks and telecommunications. We have had institutional capital investors of Asia for a while, great names such as Monex and B Capital, but during the last year, we have seen more traditional financial institutions that actively enter participation. Each market has its own dominant and custodian exchanges, we often associate with them instead of dealing with end users. As more banks explore the rethinking, we expect the adoption of the snowball, similar to the way in which institutions in the United States began to invest in caution in rethinks before climbing operations.
How do you decide which to support the rethinking? Do Asian markets influence this?
We have an evaluation framework that we have refined in the last six years. Since we can only support a limited number of new tokens every year, we must be selective: last year, we add support for 12 or 13, which is quite given the complexity of each integration. At this time, we are supporting around 40 networks, but each new addition requires careful analysis.
The process begins with the basics: is this a real project or a scam? Do you have a strong thesis and a team capable of executing it? In many ways, it reflects a VC frame. From there, let’s dig more deeply, talking to the Foundation and the founders, evaluating the level of support of custody available, since that is crucial for institutional adoption, and evaluating the broader ecosystem.
However, at some point, when you have 20 strong candidates but you can only support 10, you must make a bet. Sometimes we do it well, sometimes we don’t. Over the years, we have seen enough network releases to develop a strong intuition about what works and what is not. We try to offer guidance to the projects where we can, although ultimately, depends on them if they take our opinion.
Customer demand is another factor in our decision -making, and the Asian market is an important part of this. Occasionally, an important institutional client will request support for a project that we have not considered, or even that, so we carry out an issued evaluation. In some cases, we have had to tell customers not, either because we do not see the project as legitimate or suspect that it could be a scam. Those are difficult conversations, but they are necessary. Ultimately, we also observe how many of our clients probably possess or bet a given token, which plays in our final decision.
With many Asian investors looking for high performance opportunities, how does competitive yields guarantee while staying safe and reliable?
Bet is not the highest performance activity in cryptography, but it is the safest way to gain performance without the risk of counterpart. We focus on providing the highest risk adjusted betting rewards. While some suppliers pursue higher returns by reducing corners (for example, ignoring compliance with the OFA or MEV risks), our clients, mainly institutions, prioritize security and compliance.
In cryptography, bets is the equivalent of a 10 -year Treasury bonus: it is the stable and reliable option compared to high -risk defi strategies. Some investors prefer the liquidity group or loans for higher yields, but institutions generally choose the rethinking for their safety.
Are there trends or innovations related to the bet in Asia that excite you?
Some of the most exciting trends in the rethinking at this time include bets and liquid resumption, with Eigenlayer leading the world load in these areas and having a strong presence in Asia. Bitcoin Staking is another area of interest, with projects such as Babylon that explore its potential, although demand remains uncertain. In addition, we are seeing new chains with a significant Asian influence, such as Berachain, which is rapidly growing its user base in the region. We are actively supporting BTC Stking while we closely monitor the new rethinking models that emerge from Asia.
