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Hany Rashwan
#551: Hany Rashwan on Building Crypto Products
- Crypto indexing through ETPs and ETFs: 21Shares issues regulated exchange-traded products on European exchanges; Amun issues tokens to provide similar crypto exposure through alternative structures, avoiding single-asset ETF restrictions in Europe. - Institutional adoption remains concentrated among family offices, private banks, and asset managers rather than pension funds or insurance companies, which are moving much more slowly. - Talent recruitment from traditional finance has accelerated dramatically, with heads of departments and regional leaders from major exchanges and asset managers now actively joining crypto firms. - Corporate adoption by companies like MercadoLibre and MetroMile is beginning to normalize Bitcoin holdings on balance sheets, following early movers like Tesla and MicroStrategy. - ESG and "clean Bitcoin" narratives are primarily compliance tools for fund managers with regulatory mandates, not fundamental improvements to the asset. - DeFi innovation is moving at extraordinary pace, with protocols like Uniswap, SushiSwap, and PancakeSwap reaching volumes and activity levels that rival or exceed traditional exchanges.
Hany Rashwan, Founder and CEO of Amun: An Egyptian Born Entrepreneur Talks Crypto
- Hany Rashwan founded Amun to list the first crypto exchange-traded product (ETP) on a public stock exchange, specifically the Swiss Stock Exchange, offering physically-backed, 100% collateralized crypto exposure modeled after gold trading infrastructure. - The company's basket index tracks the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin), representing 75–80% of the crypto market and rebalancing monthly for diversification. - Regulatory approval required visiting 28 jurisdictions globally; only Switzerland offered a suitable framework, though operationalization proved harder than securing regulatory sign-off due to legacy accounting systems that don't support crypto's decimal precision. - Geographic arbitrage and regulatory differences across jurisdictions (Switzerland, Malta, Singapore leading) create opportunities for crypto adoption, especially in emerging markets where currency debasement and capital controls restrict financial access. - Bitcoin's opportunity lies not in replacing the US dollar but in serving the 85% of the global population living in countries where their local currency is unreliable—a social and economic leveler for emerging economies. - Regulators are more sophisticated and innovation-friendly than commonly assumed; crypto's marketing and communication failures have perpetuated negative narratives and delayed mainstream adoption.