Excellent. Thank you very much. Andrew, Curtis, great to connect, and it's great to sit down again for another long-form conversation this afternoon. Of course, thank you very much for jumping on. Certainly, I'm keen this afternoon to cover a range of topics on DeFi Technologies and, of course, the ongoing crossover between TradFi and DeFi more generally. To set the stage real quick, I'm Cooper Jefferson from Canaccord Genuity out of our Toronto office, and I'm joined here by DeFi Technologies President and Chief Growth Officer, Andrew Forson, alongside Curtis Schlaufman, Vice President of Marketing and Communications. DeFi trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker DEFT, and on Cboe's Canadian exchange under DEFI. Gents, appreciate the time again.
I suppose to kick things off, we want to get into the big picture outlook for DeFi, growth drivers, your team's thoughts on the broader digital asset ecosystem, plus the role DeFi will continue to play. Let's start, I suppose, with the company's evolving strategy and market narrative. As we well know, DeFi is increasingly positioned as not just a single ETP provider but is well-positioned as a vertically integrated digital asset platform spanning Valour, Stillman Digital, your OTC and liquidity provisioning platform, DeFi Alpha, the prop trading group, Reflexivity Research, and I also understand we have an array of other infrastructure projects on deck. To start, for investors who think of the company as a primarily ETP provider, how do you define the business today, and where do you think the market still underappreciates the model?
I'll let Andrew lead off if you like.
Love it.
Since he's the boss.
Well, I think the business is a fully integrated digital asset infrastructure play. While we do create and issue ETPs, the core of our business is we make it very, very easy and transparent to link the world of decentralized finance and digital assets to the traditional world of capital markets. What we're increasingly finding is that world is intersecting. I mean, we have a preponderance of stablecoins. We have also invested in stablecoin projects. When you look at that, you're looking at the transition of fiat money being used on these digital asset rails.
By making it easy for institutions to onboard as digital asset investors and to use digital assets for their capital markets, for their investment activities, you can see that the world of DeFi Technologies itself, it extends into many markets, many verticals, and into facilitating the next generation of finance.
Yeah. I think, more simply put, DeFi Technologies, we, if you look at any other crypto equity out there in North America, most of them are debts or they're offering exposure to maybe a handful of cryptos, Bitcoin included. Whereas our Valour Asset Management firm provides access to 75+ different digital assets, making us the most diversified digital asset manager globally. What's more special about Valour is that we're not your typical asset manager where we just list and launch products and collect a management fee, but we've built this vertically integrated issuance infrastructure where we list and launch products, collect a management fee, trade the inflows and outflows so we get basis points on trading flows. We make the market in those products.
The nature of being a crypto company, we can also stake those products and generate revenue and income off of that. That's the really special sauce of what makes our operational leverage so special. We're generating anywhere from 5%-7% on our AUM from Valour, and then of course you add in Stillman, you add in research, you add in all of these other additional business lines, that just adds gravy on top of our revenue-generating power.
100%. I think it's fair to say we're aligned with the thesis of being a vertically integrated digital asset infrastructure company, but also asset manager, as it's clear there's lots of leverage in that model. I want to get in specifically to, I suppose, one of the highlights, business-wise in the last quarter, Stillman Digital. Before we go there, Curtis, I think that's a good segue to transition into DeFi's current core revenue driver, the ETP platform, as you mentioned, Valour. Real quick, Valour delivered record net inflows of $107 million across 2025, even through a volatile market backdrop. As institutional investors, I suppose, think about the durability of the asset management business, how should we separate the market beta from, I suppose, true franchise progress?
Relatedly, how does your team think about the KPIs that best capture the quality of that growth? Is it net inflows, fee-bearing AUM, product mix, geographic exposure, or maybe something else?
Yeah. I think net inflows are always an independent variable. This is something that really is an indicator of the efficiency of management in all market instances. AUM is a sexy number. It's a top-line number, but it is also very subject to the vagaries and movements of underlying asset prices. Our ETP business, particularly as Valour, it's one of those interesting things where we've been so efficient and productive at generating these ETPs that sometimes the underlying value and signals that they provide is not necessarily captured. For instance, as a traditional asset manager, if somebody wants the most diversified portfolio of access to digital assets via the ETPs, it is through Valour. Additionally, as we see more and more utilization of digital assets for financial infrastructure, sometimes we're the only asset manager that has an ETP in a particular digital asset.
If, for instance, a digital asset like HYPE is having a run, well, exposure to that via Valour is something that is already innate. We also have a Tether Gold digital asset ETP. In this way, there's a lot of strength from the core Valour business, and of course, its passive revenue, which is a good thing because frankly, in the Web3 and digital asset space, we're probably one of the few companies that consistently generates revenue and has been quite profitable and projected to be so over some time.
Yeah. I think it's important to look at when we're talking about net inflows, that is just additional leverage for our AUM appreciation when digital assets do increase in value. Just to give you some inference, we had an all-time high of about $1.2 billion back in August of 2025 for a couple of days. Even though the digital asset market retraced as of, you know, we had the big liquidation event on 10/10, and a lot of cryptos have been getting hit hard since October, we've still seen a majority net inflows month-over-month.
When the market does recover, our AUM will retrace higher than that $1.2 billion, even if we don't have any additional inflows, for that matter, or if inflows were to stay flat. More importantly, year-over-year in Valour's existence, we've had net inflows regardless of market conditions. That just continues to show that the underlying business continues to grow, and we continue to grow our investor and client base.
Um-
Absolutely.
One of the beautiful things of that metric too or of the business model of DeFi Technologies and Valour is that in the event of high asset prices, even in the absence of net new inflows, the revenue model remains robust. It's actually interesting. We have multiple pathways of generating revenue. Obviously, when asset prices are higher, it's great. When inflows increase, it's a good measurement of management efficiency.
Absolutely. I think it's fair to say we're fully aligned with that approach in thinking about the model. I suppose just to double-click therein, thinking about Valour's product mix, when we consider, I suppose, sort of the crypto market cycle, I think it's fair to say in both TradFi and crypto markets, we often see a flight to quality as market conditions cool with capital consolidating across the most liquid assets and trusted vehicles in respective asset classes. For crypto, I think we have a good sense of what this means. Thinking about that dynamic, what might DeFi's, I guess, forward strategy look like for your suite of ETP products? Is it going to be sort of status quo or more so maybe focus on a handful of select known winners?
I'm gonna let Curtis go first on this because I have an interesting take. Yeah.
Well, I have the uninteresting take, so I can go first, I guess. Just kidding. Yeah, I think, you know, we're at 102 ETPs. About 75 of them are single digital asset exposure, then we have some basket products. We've pretty much filled out the top 75 by market cap cryptos. This is another conversation, but I think the narrative in the market right now is more so the focus on protocols that are generating significant revenue, and have growing user bases and transaction volumes. I think the market may consolidate a bit, moving forward. You're seeing less VC money come into initial coin offerings for new protocols to launch. That's generally gonna lead to less speculation.
If you're seeking less speculation opportunities, if you're like a crypto degen and you're airdrop farming. Sorry for the verbiage there, but I think for us, you know, we're gonna obviously keep the ETPs, single digital asset probably around the 102 number. This year, we're really focused on launching institutional funds of sorts, like a UCITS fund, which is more focused on institutional capital. UCITS are the gold standard in terms of institutional investment frameworks in the EU. To my knowledge, we'll launch the first UCITS fund that actually has spot crypto underlying. A couple of the other UCITS fund in the EU right now are more equity exposure. We'll have a combination of crypto, our own Valour ETPs, and equity exposure, which could also include DeFi stock.
Obviously, we can talk more about that once it's actually launched, hopefully here in the next month or so. Actively managed certificate program, hedge fund structures, fund of funds. This is our next sort of stage of evolution in the products that Valour is gonna be offering, where we're very bullish on the amount of institutional capital we'll be able to drive into these products more so than our current ETP structures, 'cause that's about 90%-95% retail-driven. It's we're very excited about these structures in particular 'cause we think we can significantly
Grow and beat out expectations in our AUM. In return, in regards to our single digital asset ETPs, if you're familiar with our story, you know we just launched in Brazil at the end of December. We're looking at other Latin American countries in Africa, Middle East, continuing to expand our distribution in Europe and then potentially Asia as well over the next couple of years. We will cross-list a handful if not a dozen or so of those ETPs over time, and then hopefully layer in the institutional focus type funds over the long term. Andrew, you can give your interesting perspective.
Yeah. Well, you covered a lot of the great stuff.
Yeah.
I think by us having, for instance, a UCITS fund, UCITS is a gold standard. We already have demand for this particular product on fund platforms in Latin America and Asia, the Middle East. The makeup, the constitution of the UCITS fund also enables us to gain access to our own digital asset underlying ETPs through the UCITS fund. Interestingly enough, I think what we're going to see from an institutional side is a re-rating of some of these digital assets. One of the key things that many of us hear and see on the news is that there's a lot of tokenization and securitization of product happening on digital asset frameworks. You'll have bonds, triple-A bonds being issued on a chain like an Ethereum.
What we're going to see is portfolio managers are gonna have to come to terms with the fact that you can't have a risk-free instrument issued on a chain or a product or technology that is considered risk on. When that happens, you're going to find an increased re-rating of these single digital assets like an Ethereum, like a Solana, where assets are issued. That is positive news for our ETPs. The other thing that we're finding is that the way our ETPs work, they're so efficient and transparent that in this age of tokenized instruments, other entities are able to pull two or three of our ETPs together to tokenize them because the underlying products are actually very liquid. We do our own market making. We keep spreads small, price slippage, very, very efficient.
We're gonna see tokenized instruments that feed into our ETPs as well.
Brilliant. I love it. I could certainly see how investors looking for bespoke exposure could utilize a selection of ETP products to deliver some type of custom risk or yield strategy therein, which seems like a clear opportunity for the firm. That's brilliant. I suppose just to transition next, I wanna spend some time to touch on Stillman Digital, because I'm excited by the various progress on the OTC and liquidity provisioning front. While we're on the topic of regulatory clarity, which is topical today as the Clarity Act continues to sort of snake its way through the U.S. regulatory process, let's chat quickly about the coming clarity, hopefully provided by the U.S. regulation onshore and what this might mean for DeFi's business considering concentration rest of world as the gray zone in the U.S. for digital assets potentially goes away.
What opportunities does this bring for the current set of products currently on the platform and where might DeFi be thinking about going next?
Yeah. Well, I think briefly put, anytime you have regulatory clarity, it generally means that you'll have increased demand for the products because safe capital can flow into instruments that are deemed safe. When we go back to your original question, when we were talking about inflows and assets under management, well, if capital can flow into these instruments, we're one of the greatest benefactors in terms of the increase that would accrue to assets under management and asset prices. I think that as far as DeFi goes, because we've been an early adopter, we're being an early adopter again in terms of the UCITS fund and in building out an institutional custody platform, that just expands our total addressable market.
Obviously, if the U.S. is doing well and if there is clarity in U.S. markets, they tend to be one of the most active capital markets, that's of great benefit to DeFi, to Stillman Digital, to Valour and all of our products.
100%. I think it's fair to say crypto advocates view the Clarity Act as the catalyst offering the next leg up, granted obviously some of the macro headwinds we're currently facing potentially clear. Fully aligned in that view, it's hopefully going to be a boom or at least provide renewed liquidity, as risk assets or risk appetite returns for the digital asset class. That's brilliant. Transitioning to Stillman Digital, for those who might be unfamiliar, Stillman Digital is DeFi's OTC trading and liquidity provisioning platform, which has realized I would say almost market-leading success specific to the cross-border stablecoin liquidity provisioning business. Specific to Stillman Digital, as we continue to see sort of quarter-over-quarter progression in that business, what kind of opportunities does DeFi see for their continued expansion?
Are we looking at geographic expansion and licensing therein, potentially the breadth of products available, or a renewed focus perhaps on blocking and tackling new institutional customers leveraging their trading and infrastructure services?
Curtis, would you like to answer that?
Sure. I guess I'll give the high level. I think yes to all of the above. Stillman is gonna report their best year ever in 2025, and then we expect them to grow at a 20% year-over-year growth rate for 2026. It's sort of a shining star in our integrated business model. The great thing about Stillman is that it's market agnostic. It's not tied to crypto volatility. As long as there are trading opportunities, Stillman will have business, and they continue to attract new clients, institutional or high net worth. We are certainly looking to expand their service offerings into new jurisdictions. That's an ongoing effort.
You know, the more jurisdictions and liquidity they can open themselves up to, the more revenue, and we're really happy with how they've performed and how they've grown since we've acquired them. I think it was the second half of 2024. Certainly, I think their revenue generation alone probably justifies where our market cap is. If you cut out all of all the rest of the business, you're still getting Stillman on the cheap and Valour and the rest basically for free. They're a great value add and, I think there's a lot of potential there once we start broadening their reach and service offerings.
Yeah, 100%. I mean, Stillman is such a lovely and easy story to have in our portfolio when we travel. It doesn't matter who, because every market, every exchange, every platform, every stablecoin demands additional liquidity. I was recently in Brazil, and I had met just randomly speaking with investors, with an investor who had a position in a Brazilian regulated stablecoin. They were so excited that DeFi Technologies was the owner of Stillman Digital. Their biggest concern was how can they get onboarded to Stillman. The business of offering liquidity and being able to buy and sell large blocks of digital assets is a winning business in good markets or in bad markets. Stillman Digital, since its inception, I believe, has done over $60 billion in transactions.
This is, as Curtis said, we've recently acquired the firm. All of the technology is developed in-house. They are regulated in Bermuda and other important, certainly North American markets. The team is young, they're hungry, they're intelligent, but most importantly, their offering has applicability globally. Whether it's Indonesia, Latin America, Nigeria, Canada, there's always room for what Stillman Digital has to offer.
That's brilliant. I think it's fair to say very much aligned with that thesis. Just to wrap some, I suppose, further quantitative analysis around that context, Stillman, who again is a market leader in the stablecoin liquidity provisioning arena, global transaction volumes and stablecoins generally have exceeded 10-12 trillion annually, which rivals the scale of major card networks, where institutions will continue to rely on OTC intermediaries like the Stillman desk rather than exchange execution to tap, I guess, liquidity in the stablecoin market. Lots of runway for growth on that front, and it's an exciting story, and I think also speaks to the DeFi team's ability writ large in terms of acquisition integration. Exciting stuff on that front, which is also potentially a great segue.
I know one of the other things that your team has been busy with, Andrew, Curtis, revolves around the venture portfolio. I know there are some exciting, I guess, other bets therein. I'm thinking, Neuronomics, which is a prop trading firm leveraging AI. I know they're generating some interesting ideas out of their proprietary strategies applicable for DeFi Alpha. But maybe could you take a couple of minutes because this is certainly something I think the market doesn't fully credit DeFi for, also contemplating the Swiss banking opportunity as well. Would love to hear about the high-level remarks there.
Yeah, absolutely. Neuronomics is a Swiss-based asset manager, and their team, they're comprised of a number of PhDs in algorithms, in artificial intelligence, and in machine learning. On the basis of their algorithms and systems, we are able to create new structured instruments that can generate algorithmically alpha returns and can create specific strategies that hedge funds or family offices or portfolio managers can use to help define their portfolio targets. The beauty of this is how they work. It is not necessarily limited to digital assets, for instance. We can also, just as we have been very efficient at creating a number of structured instruments around single digital asset ETPs, use these strategies for our own instruments that investors can buy.
I think going forward, we're going to find that just as portfolio managers have specific asset allocation rules, certain amount of debt, certain amount of precious metals, certain amount of equities based on the specific goals of the portfolio, we're going to see that increasingly portfolio managers are going to want to have these artificial intelligence-based, machine learning-based algorithms because they're able to generate returns far more consistently than sometimes human portfolio managers can. Stillman Digital is right at the cutting edge of that. We're really excited for the range of products that will come that integrate AI and machine learning and asset management.
Yeah, I think just one more note on our venture portfolio. Generally our philosophy now, it's when we make investments in other companies or protocols, we look to integrate their services or products into our own infrastructure and business model that we can monetize off of. You're looking at Neuronomics in this, and then on top of that, our last couple of investments in Stablecorp, who are launching Canada's first regulated stablecoin in QCAD, and cNGN, African localized stablecoin as well. Stillman Digital will be also, you know, their preferred liquidity provider in that sense.
100%.
We can launch structured products around those stablecoins as well.
Certainly it's a great idea generation platform for the business as a whole and an exciting value creation opportunity for, I suppose, the stock price for it large. Excited to continue following, I suppose, the progress of the underlying companies they're in. Gents, while I know we've jumped around and covered an array of topics, I'm happy with, I suppose, the depth of our discussion across the array of different DeFi initiatives. We'll turn it over to your team for any closing remarks and any final thoughts you'd like investors to come away with.
Yeah. I'd just love to say that sometimes the entire space of decentralized finance, it's somewhat confusing because it's a combination of asset management, it's a combination of finance, it's a combination of technology. Where we're very good is we do all of the above, and we do it profitably. We do it at scale, we do it globally, and we're very, very risk averse. You'll find that many of our revenue streams are passive and recurring. When we report, you're finding revenue streams that can be recreated, but tend to be, to some degree, a function of the underlying asset prices. With wonderful venture assets like Stillman Digital and Neuronomics, what we're finding is we have the ability to have revenue streams that continue to grow as this broader market grows, but are also somewhat insulated from significant volatility.
I'd say that we're a strong company, we're getting stronger, and we're excited for this opportunity to share that message with you and our shareholders.
If anybody ever wants to chat more, we have a lot more to talk about. We didn't have enough time to cover it all. Andrew and I make ourselves pretty widely available. Reach out to us, Curtis, curtis @defi.tech, or IR@defi.tech.
Excellent. That's brilliant. Thank you again, gentlemen, for taking the time today. Exciting things to come from DeFi Technologies, and we're keen to stay in touch. Thank you again.
Thank you, Cooper.
Thanks, Cooper.