Building Trust: The Infrastructure of Tomorrow, with Ludovico Rossi

[00:00:04] This is the Crypto Hipster Podcast. This is not a traditional interview show. These are perspective-driven conversations with founders, builders, and independent creators shaping what comes next.

[00:00:26] We go beyond headlines, beyond hype, and beyond price to explore ownership, freedom, and opportunity in the digital economy. Where builders talk freedom, not price.

[00:00:48] Welcome to Crypto Hipster, where we make sense of the digital economy through the people who are building it. I'm your host, Jamil Hasan, and today I'm joined by Ludovico Rossi, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Brickin. Ludovico, welcome to Crypto Hipster. Hi Jamil, thank you very much for having me here.

[00:01:10] You're very welcome. You're very welcome. So, I'll kick things off and I want to find out about your journey. So, first thing I want to find out is where you grew up and what drew you toward entrepreneurship to begin with? Okay, that's a good question actually. Yeah, so I'm Italian. I was born in 1992 in Turin.

[00:01:34] I mean, since when I was a kid, I mean, one thing that was clear in my life was like, okay, I want to be my own boss and I want to build something, you know, and live like a trace in this world. And it makes something better, you know?

[00:01:49] So, yeah, I studied economy business here in Turin. But then after the university, I mean, during the university, I realized that there was too much theory to study and not too much to do.

[00:02:05] So, actually, I had my first business, real business idea when I was 20 years old here in Turin. And I tried to push it. I started to push it actually, but there was no one backing me up. Not even my family, not my mom, not the friends. Everybody was saying, hey, are you crazy? Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?

[00:02:25] I mean, life's so hard to find a secure job? It's like, no, I mean, that's boring. I mean, I need to do something about it, you know? And then I left it because of that reason. So I moved to Barcelona.

[00:02:40] Really dynamic city. I mean, really vibrant. I mean, I put myself in front of different challenges, like, I mean, learning two new languages. I mean, English, yes. I knew it a bit, but not like professional way. And then Spanish, I knew just a couple of words, you know, learned on vacation. And yeah, since then, I mean, I had to do everything by my own. And here we go. After 10 years, actually.

[00:03:07] Awesome. So Italian and Spanish are relatively similar languages. So you. They are. Yeah. So it wasn't that hard of a, you know, challenge, right? No, no, true, true. But after three months, I applied for the first job. So I was already working in that language. I mean, it's something that, I mean, it's cool, it's similar, etc. But then the grammar, grammatical, yeah, the grammar is not that easy, you know?

[00:03:35] So I mean, it's pretty easy to study and put a lot of effort in it. But it was really nice journey. And I would change a coma of it. I've been to Barcelona for one week of my life and I loved it. And I was like, this is awesome. But yeah, so you chose, you chose blockchain, right? You became a founder, you chose blockchain. Why did you choose blockchain? And what were you looking to solve when you came into the industry?

[00:04:03] Actually, the journey is a little bit longer. So I started like, I mean, I don't think like blockchain was the solution for something or was like the first driver I had. So actually, I mean, I think entrepreneurship is just solving problems, no? So today is thanks to blockchain, tomorrow is thanks to some other technology or other things.

[00:04:26] So I mean, when I started, I was like, okay, I want to solve the problem between, I mean, it's a university, a lot of students, they study, but then, I mean, they have no network, they have no experience before jumping in the world of the work. And then I was like, okay, how can I fix this? And that was the first idea. Then I finished the university, I started to travel a lot, I came back without a penny, I was like, okay, I need a job.

[00:04:56] And then after six months, I was like, okay, I don't need, I don't want a job. I want to be in my own thing. So I launched it together with other Italian business partners. Another company was completely different. It was like a matching platform between micro influencers and SMEs, basically. And the first focus on travel, then COVID came with switch and pivoted to, I mean, fashion and all the things around influencers.

[00:05:25] Then I started there to look at the blockchain because it was like privately an investor in crypto. And I was like, okay, but this is something more. I mean, it's not only Bitcoin. I mean, what about the blockchain and the technology underneath? So I was like, okay, let's study this subject. And then I wanted to implement it in my first company. And then after a while, I was like, I don't know, I need to quit this because I mean, it doesn't flow with my business partner, whatever.

[00:05:55] And they quit completely. And then that was the moment where I met, I mean, a couple of years before I met Edwin, my business partner, the CEO of Brickin. And then when I was like, hey, man, I mean, I need something really challenging. I had to jump on. And so it was like, okay, I got this. We just started this company, Brickin. I mean, let's see if you're interested in it. And then he called me and was like, man, I mean, we should, you should come.

[00:06:24] I was like, okay, let's see. Right. So we started to have the first, I mean, exploration about the business, et cetera. And it was like, oh, this is cool because they knew exactly what the security token were. I mean, what was the potential and started to dig a little bit more. And at the beginning, I mean, it was, okay, Bricken, I mean, we do tokenization in Spain, especially real estate. So we started with that idea. Yeah.

[00:06:54] But suddenly then we realized that was like, no, this is way bigger than this. I mean, there are projections six to, I mean, 16 trillions by 2030. So, I mean, how can we capture as much demand there in the market? And then we swapped, let's say, the vision with, okay, maybe we should build infrastructure. We should go for the Shopify, you know, angle.

[00:07:21] And that's where, I mean, what really triggered the interest, I think, of all the group was like, okay, I think we should go all in that direction. And that's what we need to do for the industry. And after five years, because this was, yeah, late 2020, beginning of 2021. And then there was like, okay, let's start to build this.

[00:07:46] So since there, I mean, we've been step by step, brick by brick, actually, building what Brickin is today. Got it. So the industry shifted a lot, you know, from when you started, right? So if you started with security token offerings and you try to do that still, you wouldn't be in business. You know, so you are building brick by brick. So how are you examining how to incrementally build your business?

[00:08:15] And what surprised you with each new brick that you built? I mean, a lot of surprises. The thing is that I cannot resume all of them in this podcast. We would need like a series on Netflix probably. The thing is, I mean, there were more. And more about surprises was more about challenges, right? Because, I mean, it's always problem solution.

[00:08:43] I mean, that's the approach, the day by day approach. So, I mean, we started, I mean, with a little amount of money from, you know, business angel that is still with us, actually. First believer in the founders, the idea and the group and the potential of everything. And then since then, I mean, also we actually, we run in the 2021 and ACO. So, that was the first huge challenge that we got.

[00:09:11] So, we've been able to raise two million dollars there and with more than 13,000 investors. And, I mean, at the end of the day was, well, it was good. I mean, we started with that. We then got like into the Spanish sandbox, regulatory sandbox. Also, where we were able to really understand how the government were thinking about this technology, right?

[00:09:38] And then also to start building the products or putting together the team, especially the tech team and building like fast and well. So, the thing is, in the industry, we started when everything was a security token, right? So, it was STO, the acronyms.

[00:10:01] And the thing was that it was really difficult to sell in that moment because, I mean, security, you know, falls under, at least in Europe, the MIFI 2, you know, in the US, the SEC. And, I mean, security is not like an easy game to do.

[00:10:21] And when a new entrepreneur in a new market wants and needs to take the decision of, okay, I'm going to change my company, I'm going to tokenize my company, I'm going to launch a security, I'm going to like put up front kind of a good amount of money, depending on the region. And, I mean, that money was like, okay, full of uncertainty. So, the first clients, they were like really hard to convert, to convince, to guide even, no? Because the legal framework wasn't there, wasn't clear.

[00:10:50] And then year by year, everything changed, no? And that's the beautiful story that we can tell today because we saw every little change. We saw, I mean, the legal framework evolving, the adoption from the first, you know, little entrepreneurs. So, now, I mean, we have BlackRock out there that is, I'm glad I think, the first one, I mean, big promoter, biggest promoter of tokenization. When Jamie Dimon was saying, no, Bitcoin is a scam.

[00:11:20] And now, I mean, they are fully on blockchain. So, I mean, everything changed in business-wise when the word RWA, the acronym RWA came, no? Because it wasn't a security token offering, it was like real-world asset tokenization. So, it was way softer and actually picked up was the new password in the industry and then became like the major trend that we are seeing today, no?

[00:11:49] So, that was like a big switch in the market that helped, I think, the whole industry and where we really started to see some growth around. Got it. So, you said your daily, I think I heard you right. So, your daily discipline is to recognize a problem and then build to solve that problem. And it's a daily discipline.

[00:12:11] A lot of founders I've spoken to over the years have recognized a problem and went to solve it and then pivoted so much, they pivoted themselves right out of business. So, how are you able to get and be – you're still standing. How have you been successful in being able to recognize that this problem is a long-term problem that's worth being solutioned or solved while other things don't have to be? Okay.

[00:12:39] Let's take, for example, I mean, the picture that you have in your background, right? So, it's a future city, I mean, interconnected, full of assets, no? And when you realize that if the projections are right or not, but we are still talking about the trillion dollars, multi-trillion dollars opportunity by the end of this decade, no? When we started, it was like, okay, how all that amount of money can be tokenized, right?

[00:13:07] So, starting from there and doing a little bit of reverse engineering is like, okay, so we will need a lot of players tokenizing, right? Because we are talking about millions, maybe thousands at least of assets, maybe millions of assets.

[00:13:22] So, at the end of the day, it's like, okay, so if we build just a simple platform with a conventional marketplace to tokenize assets in Spain, we are reducing our market to this. So, it's really, really little.

[00:13:44] On the other hand, I mean, okay, if we assume that all this will be tokenized and we assume that there will not be only one or 10 players tokenizing this, maybe 10 players, right? It's like, okay, how we can become one of those players, no? And then we were studying the market.

[00:14:08] So, at the moment, I mean, we define ourselves as a second generation of tokenizers over there because, I mean, the first one, they were Polymath. You remember, it was the case of Black Swan, Red Swan, sorry, still there, friend of Edward, actually. Then there was Securitize, already there. And then there was Tokenin Solutions. And then a few more. Let's say that the others are all from our generation.

[00:14:36] And then again, it was like, okay, but we are still seeing, I mean, these players taking and having their own technology, but also their own platform, etc. So, my approach has always been slightly different. And also, in Brick and in general, we're thinking a little bit different from the others.

[00:14:54] I was like, okay, so if we're thinking about trillions of dollars tokenized, I mean, assets, and multiple players around, maybe we should create the infrastructure for everyone to tokenize easily. And also, blockchain was offering like a really bad user experience. So, like, okay, first problem, we need to offer like a better user experience.

[00:15:17] So, we've been like adding piece by piece new, I mean, integration of partners, like the first MPC wallets. We were there with the FNS, etc. And there are little steps that brings an offer to the users like a way better user experience. On the other hand, it's like, okay, how can we start today to get there and offer the full infrastructure? So, we need to fill the problem first.

[00:15:44] So, it's like, okay, we need to create this software and the people start using it. We still need to lead the way in tokenization. We need to fill all those problems because then once we solve all of them, we can just serve the market with an end-to-end ready-to-go platform. Okay. And that's why first we started with our tech stack solution that we call Issue Studio for asset owners. Okay. Where still the approach is completely different.

[00:16:14] It's like not a marketplace with a platform, but it's like you, Jamil, for example, you want to tokenize your podcast or your company or your assets. You go on the website. We match you with the local legal law firm. Okay. Okay. So, you're able now to tokenize in your jurisdiction. Okay. If possible. And then, basically, from the dashboard, you can create like a new URL, unique. Okay. So, you have a landing page.

[00:16:43] Let's say we call it investment portal. And now the users, they can land straight on your page with no noise about other projects and invest in your project. And you can get this URL and put it in your original website or YouTube channel. Okay. And your podcast and say, hey, guys, you can support, you can invest actually in this podcast. Right? This is just a simple example. So, okay. Now we are giving uniqueness to every project. We are filling their problem every day.

[00:17:13] And we are able to support them in this. The second step was like, okay, now our WA world is there. The legal framework is out there getting clear, especially in Europe. We also have been part of the European regulatory sandbox afterwards. So, it was like, okay, now we are ready. And actually, last year, we started to sell the weight level solution. Okay. Why was the right moment to do it?

[00:17:40] Because new entrepreneurs finally felt secure. So, now we don't only have the asset owners, but we also have people that want to capture a little bit of this market share of this multi-trillion dollar opportunity. So, white label actually is my favorite product so far. And it's built for all of those that see potential in tokenization, asset tokenization, and they want to jump in and just focus on what they are good at. Okay.

[00:18:10] So, if you're good in generating money, managing asset vendor manager, generating distribution programs for the assets of your client, whatever. And you want to offer now tokenization service because just you're offering efficiency, actually, to your clients, also to yourself to manage those assets. Now, you can just choose us and pick us as tech provider. We are really good at it. And then you can focus on your business where you are better than us.

[00:18:40] Okay. Okay. So, that was the scope. And now, afterwards, also, we launched and deployed our APIs. Okay. Since last year, they are picking up more this year. The market is more mature, et cetera. But also because we are facing this agentic economy. Right. So, this is another story. We can talk more about that later. Okay. But it's like, this is like a natural evolution. So, you see the product. You see the opportunity.

[00:19:07] And again, the goal is the background that you have. So, how can we connect and allow everyone to tokenize all those assets, thousands or millions? So, we provide you with infrastructure for that. Do you need APIs? Do you need weight label? Do you need to do it yourself? This is the solution. This is easy to use. And you can use it right now. So, what you're talking, what you just explained to me. Yeah. You explain your platform. You explain, you know, what you're doing. What you're not doing.

[00:19:36] I mean, there's product conversation, which we're not going to go down that road. But what you're telling me is more important. Is you're building trust. You're building trust with your organization and the market. Okay. And when you were 20 years old and you came in to be a founder the first time, you weren't thinking that way. Right. So, how has your leadership evolved over these past several years?

[00:20:01] And how do you now think about things holistically in terms of serving people, you know, through trust? I think trust is the password, right? So, actually, I mean, trust is something that you build. You don't get it from day one or day zero. And it's something that you have to prove and build together.

[00:20:24] So, before I was a little bit more superficial about relationship, let's say, in the sense that, okay, business relationship. Yeah, it's good. We need to have this connection. But something that I learned, for example, in the crypto world, no? We go fast. We go really fast. And I don't know you, Jamil, but we're talking about 50 conferences, summits in a year. I mean, always in a plane, you know?

[00:20:54] So, I mean, it's hard. And, I mean, after years of doing that, I mean, we built some really strong relationship. I built some solid relationship with our partners, clients, and friends, you know? We can call the friends today. So, that's good. But also, I have to say that I'm a little bit more tired about speed dating at conferences, you know?

[00:21:18] So, I prefer to go out for lunch, spend like one, two, three hours with one person where I know that in the future, we can build a serious business together. We can really deliver value to the clients, to the industry together without speed dating all around, you know? So, I mean, I think trust is really important.

[00:21:42] You build trust when you spend time with people, when you share values with people, when you share interests with people. So, you can even have a lunch, I'm talking 60% of the time about, I don't know, philosophy or history or sports or whatever you like, right? Or the future technology in general, and then just dedicate a little part about business. So, what I changed when I was 20 to now is I don't want to only sell.

[00:22:12] I really want to connect with people. I want to build trust. I want to have a fun time with the people that I have around, and I build with. God, you just blew my next question away. I got to ask it in reverse. Because it was going to be, why do you believe efficiency matters more than ideology? And you just said the opposite. You said the ideology matters a lot more than speed dating. Okay?

[00:22:40] Why is that ideology important to you? And how does that help institutions adopt new technology through your ideology lens? I think when you... I mean, it's all about the lens that you want to use to look at it, right? Because, I mean, speed dating is good.

[00:23:07] Let's say that I sell a simple product like a pen, right? We don't have to think deeply about the integration and the future scenarios of it. I mean, just a pen or a product. You take it, you get it, that's it, right? But when you want to step up and go to the next level, you need to really think deeper. And that's why, like, when you close an institutional client, it's taking six months at least.

[00:23:36] If you go to a bank, maybe years. And if you want to close, like, the tokenization of the bar here, down here at the corner, it's maybe like 30 days. Right? So, that's the difference. So, how deep you want you to go and how much value can you get out of it? Right? So, I think we... I mean, what I do is not the same thing that maybe our sales team does every day. Right?

[00:24:06] And that's the difference. There are different levels. And, of course, we took all the debt levels in accounting. But, of course, we need... You need always to, I mean, allocate some time to the things and more time to the things that really can move the needle. Right? So, there is the 80-20... I don't remember the name. Pareto, no? It's... Yeah. It's Pareto.

[00:24:31] So, if you allocate, I mean, 80% of your time on something that moves only 20, makes no sense. But, if you do the opposite 80% of the time on something... 20%, I mean, on something that can really move the needle, it's way better. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that seems to move the needle is regulation. You know, and you have been in the regulatory sandbox. And why... How did... When did you realize that regulation is important?

[00:24:59] And what does the market misunderstand about, you know, partnering with regulators that maybe they should consider? Yes. Absolutely. We've been part... I mean, we always try to work with the regulators. Right? I think also we have a good... I mean, know-how to bring to the table. So, in order to accelerate things, to avoid mistakes. So, we did it in Spain.

[00:25:28] Spanish regulatory sandbox. We did it in Europe. Actually, we are also talking with people in Hong Kong. I mean, Argentina. I mean, all over. Even in Salvador. El Salvador. Right? So, the thing is, I like to build with the regulators. We have an amazing legal team. I mean, Edwin, my business partner, he's a lawyer. I mean, a lawyer. So, we're coming even a little bit from that side.

[00:25:57] On the other hand, I mean, regulators, they are always low. Right? So, the thing is, if you wait for them, if you wait for perfection, I mean, it's really always difficult. So, I mean, you always have this trade-off. And something that we built, I mean, we built a really scalable solution. Like, okay, you can use it in Hong Kong, like in Europe, in every continent, and still be compliant. Okay? That's difficult to do. But actually, we achieved it.

[00:26:26] And that's the way we scale, actually. Because if we could have... With God's take to the initial plan, just being in Spain, you know, one single platform, waiting for regulation, etc. I think we would have... I mean, just being small at the end. And today, with the global solution, I mean, we've been tokenizing in more than our clients, tokenizing in more than 40 different countries.

[00:26:55] And for me, it's a big, huge achievement. Yeah. It is. Yes. So, you said the magic words earlier, two words. You said agentic and AI. And then you talked about, you know, tokenization, which everybody's also... Which is also a buzzword. We want them together. But in practicality, where do AI and digital assets intersect?

[00:27:19] And then as both ecosystems and economies grow, what will surprise people the most? I mean, surprising people today. I mean, it's getting hard, eh? No, no. I mean, I think with all the cloud stuff that you can build today, it's hard. No.

[00:27:42] Something that, I mean, I see and maybe the crypto people, you know, is aware about this. Okay. So, all the crypto community is definitely aware about AI converging to blockchain, etc. I'm not sure that the AI community or the rest of the communities are aware about this converging. No? I don't know how to say it. I say about them converging, no? To themselves.

[00:28:11] So, the thing is, the surprise will be that, I mean, talking about finance, talking about AI, I mean, there will not be like finance not running on chain. Because the blockchain, if I, I mean, I'm really convinced that it's not built for humans, but it's built for machines. It's perfect for machines. You know? It's transparent. You can track everything. I mean, the information is there. It's reliable.

[00:28:37] So, at the end of the day, I mean, we will see this blockchain plus AI. And when we put it into like tokenization, so RWA tokenization plus AI becomes fantastic. Because it's literally, again, the image that you have in the background, that is this velocity, you know, in transmitting and trading assets.

[00:29:06] And moving the value around. So, I mean, machines, they will be able to read the asset information. Okay? Not just a weight paper, but like machine readable data. Right? In order to take informative decisions. And then to make trades and rebalancing portfolios, etc. So, something that we will see in the next years. And, I mean, it's definitely having AI agents.

[00:29:36] I mean, of course, backing up have been guided by people, by humans. But acting as a speed that we don't even image. And that, on the other side, we will need all those assets tokenized and translated in machine readable data. In order to allow this economy to flourish.

[00:29:56] So, I think that we will see, we will all be surprised about to see the velocity of the adoption in the future about tokenization and AI in general. Yeah. That makes sense. Velocity. With that velocity, like the tools are going to, of course, continue to evolve. And innovation is going to continue to innovate.

[00:30:22] But you're building a global financial infrastructure. So, in addition to the tools and the technology, what responsibilities do you see come along with that? That's a good question. I mean, the responsibility is, I think we all have a responsibility today.

[00:30:46] It is bring the data on chain and make the data refilable and readable. Right? So, I think this is the challenge of this year, at least. I mean, not the challenge, but the mission of this year. Where everybody is working on data and we all need and want the data on chain. Right?

[00:31:09] So, in the future, I mean, if we are building the infrastructure for the future, I mean, we just make sure that everything is flowing. You know, in an easy way. It's secure because it's about to be safe as well. And it's also efficient. Right?

[00:31:33] So, if we bring these three parameters into the market, I think, I mean, we have a good solution out there. And us, as everyone. You know, but we are all working in this direction. So, the responsibility is, okay, we are building a really real new financial system all together because everyone is adding a piece. Right?

[00:32:00] We are building infrastructure, the rails, where in the future, the asset can move on and the agent can trade those assets. So, I think here it's all about that. I mean, make sure that once this system picks up, I mean, this is working really well. And then we can scale to the mass adoption without any problem. Got it. So, let's say you achieve mass adoption.

[00:32:28] Let's see, Brickin is a very long-term successful company. And it succeeds beyond your involvement someday. Right? How would you like people to remember you and the work that you're doing into the next generation of people at Brickin? Okay. Okay.

[00:32:51] Today, we are doing, I mean, also work in the open source environment because we are pushing standards. Okay? So, I think then, of course, we do it also to build products on it. No?

[00:33:06] But I think that how we should be remembered is like, I mean, those guys that, I mean, allowed thousands of people, you know, easily to tokenize their first assets. Right? Right? Or those institutions to really jump into this market and taking the leap with the least of the frictions. Right? But also, I mean, being the partner of the future.

[00:33:35] So, thinking. Like, those guys were already thinking to the future. So, I started with them because they offered a nice entry. No friction, solid technology, nice user experience. That is what you need today. Right? But we are already looking at the future. So, those guys 10 years ago, they started with this, but they were already building towards AI, Argentina, economy, regulated finance, for example. Right?

[00:34:02] So, I mean, remember like, hey, they build some standards, open source for everyone, actually. That's the most beautiful thing. Building for the community and living there. So, everybody can build on top of it. And then, on the other hand, like, being the partner that guided the partners and the clients, I mean, towards this really bright future. That is the tokenized finance.

[00:34:32] And together with AI. Excellent. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for spending time with me today and sharing your founder's journey. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you very much, Jamil. It was, I really liked it. Thank you very much. It was fun. And thanks for the amazing questions, actually. Thank you very much for listening. But thank you very much for watching.