Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Julian Liniger: The Surprising Truth About Who's Buying Bitcoin
- Julian Liniger, co-founder and CEO of Relai (Europe's leading Bitcoin-only exchange), discusses his company's growth from 100,000+ onboarded Europeans and ~20,000 Bitcoin purchased over six years.
- Relai's user demographics skew older and more affluent than expected—primarily 40–80-year-old professionals (taxi drivers, hairdressers, students) rather than digital-native millennials; many progress from small recurring purchases to six-figure investments.
- Self-custody architecture: Relai never holds customer funds; instead it integrates a self-custodial wallet with the exchange to eliminate counterparty risk and align with Bitcoin's core principles.
- European regulatory landscape: Relai obtained the MiCA (Markets in Crypto Assets) license by the January 2024 deadline, enabling operations across all EU countries; regulatory friction remains higher in Europe than the US.
- Current bear market sentiment at historical lows; retail investors are distracted by AI/big tech IPOs, geopolitical uncertainty, and cost-of-living pressures rather than Bitcoin accumulation, despite strong "buy the dip" volume when prices drop.
- Relai's vision: build a "bridge" for ordinary Europeans into Bitcoin; pursue unicorn status and eventual public listing as trillions of capital shift from fiat to fixed-supply assets.