CryptoCracker: Simplifying Portfolio Optimisation

[00:00] Introduction

[0:13] Paul: Hello, and welcome to the latest in the Blockchain Leaders Insights series from Blockchain Ireland. My name is Paul Hearns. I am co-lead of the Events and Comms Working Group. And I’m joined today by Fran Meggs, co-founder and CEO of CryptoCracker. Welcome. Thanks very much.

[0:30] Fran: Thanks very much. Nice to be here.

[0:31] Paul: So tell us a little bit about your own background, Fran. First of all, how did you come to the industry? Because being such a young industry, everybody has interesting stories generally as to how they came to it. So what’s your background and how did you come to it?

[0:49] Fran: Yeah, it’s a good question. I have a little bit of a dinosaur history that I’ve been around a while, like anyone that has a little bit more grey in the hair. Technology background, always been in on the computer applications, design. I mean, always I’m kind of at that forefront around the web platforms in the early 90s, enjoyed all that. So I won’t bore you with all the history of coming and going there, but really probably, you know, funny, COVID and that whole thing. Like a lot of people spoke about people had a lot more time on their hands, I guess, if they were bound into the bricks and mortar of their home. And at the same time, a few people were asking me because they knew I had a technical background. Listen, I’m doing a little bit of this, do that. Can you help me buy this? And I hadn’t got a clue. Didn’t know what was going on, didn’t know to read the story, always had the sort of curious mind. And that’s how it started, I just looked into it on behalf of a few friends and went, okay, this looks interesting. I knew I’d heard of Bitcoin, but that’s about as much as anyone knows. A lot of people have the Bitcoin name and that’s about it. And I had a background a lot around APIs, integration, web services, and I went, there’s something interesting here. And as I said, with a bit of extra time on your hands, it started out as a bit of a curiosity. Then it was a bit of a pet project. Then it was a bit of, okay, there’s something here. And then it started to build a little bit. And with having that extra time, it kind of evolved naturally. And got to the stage where it was a genuine opportunity. And that’s where it started to take off. And that was, as I say, 2020, I suppose, is the COVID year. And we’ve really taken it to the next level, I guess, in the last 18 months or so. So really, the curiosity, the timing, which is always the big thing, isn’t it? Timing is a big thing. and having the technical background really helped. And then I guess I’ve got the curious nature. I like to have a look at these things.

[2:43] Paul: Always an important factor. So tell us then specifically about CryptoCracker. What exactly does it do?

[2:49] Fran: Well, it’s a great segue to what I just said because I thought I was an interesting demographic. I was a little bit older, wasn’t finished in my lifetime of curiosity, but I was busy. I had a lot of things I wanted to do, but I wanted to know more about what this opportunity is. And as we were evolving CryptoCracker, going like, I’m really making this for myself. I’m kind of like this. I am one of those people that want to know more, want to do more, but the vested interest can be extremely high. When doing the research, it was like the day traders. You know, it’s the professionals or the semi-professionals or the amateur traders. And the jargon was overwhelming. I hadn’t got a financial background and ultimately it was becoming frustrating. There was a marketplace where there was an opportunity, it was being promoted as the next great thing, but I had to spend a huge amount of time and effort to learn it. To use it and then to maintain it because it meant that if I really was going through this, I would have to spend at least an hour a day if I really got fastidious about this to follow, track, maintain and make sure I got the best return out of what I was doing. And yeah, there was some good platforms there, but it was just intimidating. So really our mantra was we are trying to bring crypto to the masses. It can be controversial. I’ve certainly gotten comments over the years to say, no, no, crypto is for the crypto guys. And I thought that was the most insane sentence I’ve heard in the last few years is that, I mean, I have a product management background as well. So I’m always thinking of product, value, proposition to the market, who is your consumer, who is your ideal audience, all that kind of typical classic stuff. And it didn’t stack up. It really feels that cryptocurrency, blockchain, the whole industry has been in a technical bubble since it started and that bubble is hasn’t burst and I’m dying for the burst in a good way. And to understand the uh that test of you know you bring in in the masses means that you have to have the early cohorts, the scepticals and bring that towards a more major audience and that means we’ve got to get it simpler. We’ve got to get it more effective and the other side of course is timing and market and unfortunately which I’m sure has to come up in any of these conversations is its background was very you know uh dubious in a lot of ways or people felt it was dubious you know there was a lot of corruption in the background. So the two things we’re trying to do is the rising tide for all is bring them to a higher audience work and network as much as possible to promote that idea. I think our timing we were a bit early, but I think now in 2025, definitely get that feeling that it’s the mainstream milestone is appearing to be, the light is in the tunnel. You can see it’s starting to develop into that mainstream idea. Various people and geopolitics are probably helping and hindering at the same time. So our timing is trying to be ready to bring it to the masses and keep it simple, effective, easy, and safe.

[6:05] Paul: Well, we’ll come along to the current environment shortly, but just kind of stepping back a little bit, when the idea of bringing crypto to the masses sort of crystallised for you, what were the sort of the real deficits that you saw in what was there? Because it was already not a developed market, but certainly an extant market. What were the big deficits that you saw in terms of people getting engaged at that point?

[6:36] Fran: One was education. There was a lot of people that I mean and I always did the kind of, the buddy test you know you’d go out for maybe for uh the casual drink of whatever evening with your buddies who would be similar demographic and they said what are you doing lately? Doing a little bit of crypto and it was amazing like half of them at least half of them at all wouldn’t go near that stuff and I delved in to say well why? They didn’t know why. There is a scepticism that is built around the premise that they actually don’t know what it is and all they’ve heard is the scandal factor. So that was one of the biggest, and still is, it’s flattening out a little bit, but there’s definitely a stigma around outside of the crypto audience who know what they’re doing, know what they’re hearing, know what they know. The bigger mass audience don’t know what they’re doing, and that is the biggest hurdle. We’ve got to educate the masses. We’ve got to put, and regulations aren’t a bad thing. I mean, I know it’s a separate topic, but I mean, regulation done properly will help this point and get rid of the skepticism and stigma. So that’s one of the biggest, biggest things is education. And then again, in that sort of segue is the safety. So education and safety, if those things are at least addressed to a point where it’s manageable and seen as a reasonable risk, because there’s always a disclaimer anyway, then the masses will begin to understand more and maybe engage more. But it’s still a journey. We’re not we’re not there yet.

[8:01] Paul: Indeed, indeed but just from another perspective then, as a startup in this environment what was your experience because we’ve heard before about difficulties in you know sometimes getting bank accounts to support these things and as you said regulation is a good thing but sometimes it’s not commensurate with where the industry is at the given point. So what was your startup experience generally and in the space specifically?

[8:32] Fran: Well, it’s still it’s still happening. We’re still at that early stage. One thing is there isn’t that kind of amazing quick turnaround. I mean, a lot of people think, you know, crypto is the quick, amazing, exciting, big curve. It’s the same as any other industry, really. When you get past the veneer of it, it takes a lot of time. So we’re still in startup mode, I would say, firstly. Secondly, is it might be controversial to say it, but there’s a little bit of a contradictory environment. When you look at the open-ended optics that are talked about, they go, yeah, yeah, the crypto industry and blockchain, it’s on its way, and we’re all here to support you. But actually, when you get under the hood and you try to do the day-to-day thing, there’s policies that have not changed. And that includes the banking. We got a bank account, but it took a lot longer than it should have. We got some registration for some advertising and media but it took longer than it should have because there was always this kind of oh, oh there’s kind of like a red flag system, in behind the scenes and so there is still, I mean it’s softening up a little bit but it has been a struggle. I mean no doubt about it and so the way we look at it is if it’s a struggle it means it’s one of those changing environments, if it’s a changing environment it means it’s an innovation. If it’s an innovation we’re still interested. So there’s this really weird irony, it’s hard to do but that might mean it’s worth it. Yes you know there’s that strange thing so yeah banking, even stuff like you know there’s all these kind of uh google and Microsoft based big funds and free advertising there’s still an anti-crypto trading policy in a lot of those as well. I think they are changing over time but still it’s slow because of this somewhat contradictory environment and that is the risk factor and all that kind of thing. So it’s still ongoing, softening up a bit uh but it makes this startup longer to do but as I say the irony is that really feels like it kind of puts metal in in the blood to say well then it’s definitely worth doing isn’t it if it’s that hard to do because it’s an innovation and change and change is always disruptive and difficult.

[10:38] Paul: Excellent okay well that sounds like a good recipe. But once You actually went out to market then and started getting people on your platform and using your services. How was engagement? What was the feedback you started to get? Because quite obviously you saw that opportunity whereby it wasn’t easy for people. So in setting out to do that specifically in opening up this world to people. How did they react? What was their engagement like?

[11:10] Fran: Yeah, it’s a good question as well. And again, still stuff that’s happening as we go. We’re building up the critical mass. It’s going well, but it needed an awful lot more boost and various other factors to make it happen. It didn’t happen organically. We did a lot of the SEO. It’s a B2C. Maybe we should point that out up front that we’re hitting the harder audience. The B2C in the consumer market, always harder than going direct to business relationships. We had to tweak that message quite a lot. You know, it was real, that sense of refinement, of getting it bang on. We brought in marketing companies and services to really refine the message and get it articulate and straightforward. And it was still slow. One of the things that we have found that has really helped the market is we’re working with other platforms. Because we were getting people in, but there was a cohort out there that is, can I get it free and can I get it quick and can I make a million? Right. And we’ve got to kind of get past that cohort a little bit. It’s the you know everything for nothing type thing so we have a large freemium base we do have like a free tier and then we move on to the billing tier. The free tier is moving fast and but they’re all getting a little bit disappointed. Oh I didn’t make my amazing money on nothing and I didn’t have to give anything. That’s correct yeah you do have to actually do something here to make it work. So what we did was we moved in with other aggregated referral platforms and one of the key things in B2C is getting a validated user. Like you can see the Revoluts of this world, I think the average is they’re giving people up to 50, 60 euro per recommendation per referral. A few years ago that would be huge money. That’s what it costs these days roughly they say statistically to get one validated interested user. So if you start thinking about a B2C that needs really hundreds of thousands and not millions it gets expensive. So we’re using referral platforms to bring in validated users and that’s really helped the curve has gone up because now we’ve gotten past that kind of pre-validation period say are you actually interested in crypto? Do you actually want to trade? Are you willing to give us your identification at least to say who you are? And that has really helped. The initial reception was lots of freebie audience coming in still the real active users were hard to find, referral platforms networking and partnerships of platforms have really, really helped in a big way.

[13:30] Paul: But you mentioned, as part of your own technical background, that term API, so interfaces.

[13:37] Fran: Right.

[13:37] Paul: They’re a key part of what we’re talking about here. So in terms of the technologies generally, as you got into that development phase where you started putting real things, prototyping, that sort of thing, what was the experience there? What was the level of readiness in the tools and the technologies when you started to implement the vision?

[14:01] Fran: You’re hitting all the right questions anyway, Paul, that’s for sure. So there’s a big conversation around there. Because it’s such an evolving, new, kind of nascent technology in some ways. Some people say, no, it’s been there for a while. But the integration platforms are quite new. And what we found is, again, another topic we’d spend ages on, if you want, is centralised versus decentralised. The kind of slightly anti-establishment, wide-out space versus decentralised, more regulated space. And we felt that we would prefer to err on as best we can as robust as possible integration platforms. So for example we started out with Coinbase as our platform that we sit on top of we are not an exchange ourselves we sit on top of platforms. So exchange was our first exchange to work with. Namely because it’d been around one of the longest, it had the highest you know one of the highest reputations and its APIs were there. Even their APIs have evolved quite a bit they’ve done quite a lot of acquisitional phases. APIs were coming together and there were some let’s call them breaking changes as the industry calls them. They were pretty hardcore but again it was part of the nature that we’ve spoken about – it’s disruptive, it’s innovative, there will be a lot of this kind of stuff going on. But they were the best of what’s there. That’s the amazing thing is that they to be fair to them they were quite responsible about it and made it as easy as possible or as straightforward as possible to deal with these changes and they were some of the best APIs we had available and still use them. Whereas the other networks I mean we’ve tried a few and we have a few auxiliary networks and APIs out there but it’s just because everything’s so new on the you know this the phase two you’ve got the phase one which is the core systems and our blockchain network is there forever. The phase two is what’s nascent is the sitting on top of the integration layers. They are evolving and changing as they go. And of course, if you get into the regulation space and that conversation, those things may change again for different reasons. So everything’s been a challenge, really. But for good reason. And we feel, you know, I’d say over the last 18 months, we’ve created an incredibly mature integration point with these systems and really dealt with those edge cases and rough points and the exceptions. And it’s is really settling into quite a mature system. In that sense yeah it wasn’t a kind of pick up the book step one to ten done it was like evolve as you go be ready for the changes and try and this is the key thing we’ve done is we’ve tried to create it as generic an architecture as possible so we’ve built a kind of plug and play architecture around the exchanges so we’re actually looking at our second and third exchanges now at the moment and because of that kind of plug and play every time we do a new one it’s easier it’s easier it’s easier. I think that’s what we hope and feel is the right way to do it and it’s a good architectural direction to take.

[17:06] Paul: Indeed, indeed. Well, that kind of robust platform and I suppose modularity as well to build gives you a resilience which brings us along to the current macro environment. So there’s been incredible change lately. Attitudes in the States have changed significantly, we’ve had our MiCAR regulation coming in over here, which provides a certain amount of stability. There’s regulatory regimes giving assurances around the world. So in that environment, how has it affected yourselves, your outlook, your direction, your attitude? What do you do when the tide not only moves, but the waves change direction?

[17:59] Fran: This is it. Again, to start, we welcome the regulation space. I think we all need it. And we just, we can’t live in, I honestly don’t think we can believe in an anti-establishment world where some of these things have come from. I’m not slighting the original idea, you know, that we did want to break open a little bit of those traditional TradFi kind of concepts. They were quite strangulating. But there’s a balance, right? You can’t go from 10 to zero and have absolutely no modicum of regulation. So I’m hoping we hit the sweet spot. And I think most of these establishments that are building up the regulations, if we were really to sit them down in the intimate question, they’d say, yeah, their learning is who? They’re definitely learning along the way, but that’s okay. It’s okay if we all learn together and we all work with each other to make that work. So I would say on what we’re trying to do ourselves is going back to a point that we’ve kind of had that epiphany about 12 months ago is the way that we can do this, we cannot stand just on our own. We’ve got to have the networking and the partnerships, and that’s technically and commercially and regulatory. So we’re working with a firm at the moment, still a bit more work to do but they are taking the heavy lift around the MiCAR but we’re trying to represent that geography and region and work with them to represent them under that MiCA regulation. So I mean we’re a small setup, it takes time and effort and ultimately cost to get into these regulations which can be very can be a stymied kind of problem, you know, start-ups are start-ups, you know, that typically have been bootstrapped even, and still looking for the funding, but it’s not, it doesn’t make sense for us just to try and do this all on our own. So it is all about very clear, earnest, and transparent partnerships, whether, as I say, financial partnerships, regulatory partnerships, technical partnerships, or all of those things. So that’s our approach, and it’s starting to pay off dividends. Because actually as well, just going back to that point about funding and interest and investment, people get more confident if you have already or are building out those relationships. Because the way they’re looking at it is, someone else is taking you seriously. someone else is putting their conviction in you we’ll start thinking about that as well and that co-investment co-interest, that’s to me that’s the sweet spot and we’ve kind of had that epiphany or light bulb last year. Yeah we’re great we’re brilliant but we’re not that good we’ve really got to build up the confidence and even stuff like say um advisory people massively valuable we’ve met some brilliant people in the last while and I must say for this environment or ecosystem, the willingness to help and share and provide has been really, really good.

[20:50] Paul: Well, that was the next question in terms of, as a startup generally, how did you find the scene? Because we know that there are very established hothouse and development centres, But we’ve also seen that there have been challenges in the startup space as well in terms of support. So how has the experience been generally as a startup in the tech space, but then more specifically within this crypto environment?

[21:26] Fran: Yeah, it’s been really good. Something to reflect on, I suppose, is that willingness to help doesn’t create a product. And I think some people got overexcited, and there still is a little bit of that overexcitement, is you can’t have excitement without substance. And I think that that’s somewhat of a problem in the environment, is that people are trying to surf the buzz and make something happen. And maybe a few people were able to do that and turn it into something but I’m always of the factor that you know you’ve got to have strong product. I mean again probably the product managing background is helping a bit but if you don’t have a product or at least a very clear idea for a product with articulated clear design concepts and then no amount of help and support networking is really going to help. I mean they’re not going to make the product for you they’re not going to give you the innovation so that was one thing that was very clear there was a lot of it was a kind of a lot of edge case people who are trying to ride a wave but my advice would be take it seriously look at the long-term goal, this is not a get rich quick scheme and I hate that phrase because there’s so much of it out there. Have and embrace the corporate or embrace the establishment, because there were that’s where the funding comes from yeah there’s a middle ground culturally to try and break into new innovation that isn’t all trad but going back to the point about the support is a lot of willingness, but if you did not articulate yourself well and have a clear sense of innovation and product, then it would wane quite quickly, and that’s fair, that’s reasonable. So we were early in some of our, and still are, I still feel we’re quite disruptive, which is a good thing. And the willingness to help was great. Like, for example, we had programs with yourselves with Blockchain Ireland. We did a brilliant boot camp there last year. And we got an internship of people very interested in helping. And they were really, really good and really helped. But the point is, they can only help to a certain degree. We’ve got to hit the, you know, the sense of a commercial reality. Because no matter how people wax on about this stuff, people need to have a livelihood. They need to be paid. They need to have something that’s tangible. I think that really removes a huge percentage of people who might still be in the novelty recreational space. So that’s what one thing I’d say was very clear to me was we needed to make sure that we were taken seriously. I mean, myself and my partners all have a very big, you know, big background in technology, product and design and work the corporates and work the startups before. That built credibility. But then going back to those that help and support, I think you need to look for it when you’re ready. And you can’t go back to that point. You can’t have the excitement without the substance. I think that’s where things started to take off a little bit more. We genuinely had really good working prototypes, really good platforms, and had proof of concept very clearly in place.

[24:26] Paul: Okay. Well, you’ve touched on it slightly already, but maybe we could elaborate slightly. What is the value of a Blockchain Ireland type organisation in the environment generally and then, say, for startups like yourselves?

[24:40] Fran: Yeah, I mean, we discovered Blockchain Ireland in the early stages, three or two, three years ago, and never looked back. I mean, we feel you guys are massively beneficial to the marketplace. But again, we’re all learning. We’re all trying to figure out what this stuff means. I think in Ireland specifically, I mean, I think Ireland has this incredibly high SME ratio, firstly. We know other than the corporates and the blue chips and there’s a massive amount of startups that want to do something. But the crypto is still got an issue that a lot of people are still doing it recreationally and that’s because they’re finding a hard to you know really put the you know metal on the bone and say right here is the commercial model that will make money and people go oh the money where that’s terrible. Sorry guys like I mean the world is the world it is. I mean nobody is going to think it’s great to have this, you know. Like, I remember being in a panel and somebody said to me, or in the panel, we were talking about getting it out to the masses. And one of the guys just said, look, I just want to make cool stuff. And I was kind of going, okay, okay, I understand where you’re coming from, but this is a forum of trying to build a marketplace. And building cool stuff is just not going to cut the muster. So it really is important that we get to grips with the fact that we’ve got to make a commercial. And therefore, we’ve got to embrace all the different funds and people and places that are out there to make that happen. And the balance is, yeah, you can keep a little bit of a rogue nature to it and that we’re breaking it. But that’s just innovation. You know, I think what happened was people used the anti-establishment label instead of using the innovation label. And innovation is disruptive. There should be plenty of gusto and positivity about change through innovation. You don’t need to be go down the anti-establishment. I just find the anti-establishment thing becoming a little bit of a non-reality to be honest, and okay, there’s a balance there, but ultimately, we all need to get to a point where there’s a commercial reality of these things working, while at the same time, having the fresh, new outlook on how we can change finance and banking, for the better with all the banks, because they’re changing as well. No matter what people say, banks are changing as well, and I don’t believe in this them and us kind of culture. You know, it’s got to be rise the tide for everyone, work together. Everybody needs to compromise to meet the middle ground and create the commercial reality.

[27:15] Paul: And looking then, say, maybe in the short term, maybe 12 to 24 months kind of time frame, what are the sort of market trends that you’re seeing? What are the sort of the usages that you think are of note? and what does that mean for where you’re developing as an organisation.

[27:37] Fran: Yeah that’s yeah and very timely of course isn’t it I mean the world is just turned upside down in so many different ways. We’ve got to ride that wave and figure out what all those these changes mean. I think that in some ways uh any kind of news in this space is good um we need to get the awareness factor up higher. So what’s happening in the US and the changes in there, I would say maybe for the wrong reasons, it’s still a positive benefit that we can raise the awareness of what’s happening. That’s number one. Number two is if that awareness can transcend into usability, because I think that that is the always being the blocker is that we can turn something that is a good idea and the innovation and people are talking about it. How can I get the general guy or girl with various demographics sitting down and wanting to consume I think was the word we used earlier on can make it a consumable and so I would feel and think the market is opening up for this opportunity and then in terms of what it can be utilized for we’re probably we’re coming in quite generically to be fair. We’re probably not going to be the people that say here is the new specific use case what we’re trying to do is create the awareness and allow people to feel comfortable just to go into these markets and play around initially and then you know if they’re putting in 50 quid today they might put 500 quid in next week and they might put a thousand in the week as they build a balance. So we’re coming in as a fairly general market to allow you to trade securely and safely. So I probably don’t have too many insights. I can hear of a lot of different things about what we can do but I think ultimately where’s the goal? The goal should be that we walk around in a given coffee shop and we can tap and pay for crypto. Now the reality is you actually can do that today and so many people don’t realise you can do it. So it’s not always with the technology and the product it’s about the awareness and how do you make that a very clear consumable? Well the problem is getting that you know crypto card or whatever you want to call it or getting the wallet on your phone and making the awareness of that availability and making it even more wide usage and the higher availability is the key. So I don’t just so there’s no such things as bad news in some ways you know all news is good news and with it being very somewhat bizarre and what’s happening in the us, I would say let’s use it where we can. Let’s utilise the momentum that it’s building and build the awareness so ultimately that guy and girl will buy that coffee in the next 12 to 24 months with a crypto card.

[30:27] Paul: Very good. Very good. Okay, I think that’s a good place to round it off because I’ve seen that video of a person in Ireland paying for some small items in a popular supermarket chain with cryptocurrency. So it can be done. As William Gibson said, the future is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed.

[30:54] Fran: That’s a nice way of looking at it.

[30:55] Paul: So it’s just getting that awareness out there. So it’s good to hear that that’s part of your mission. So thank you very much for joining us today. Fran Meggs, co-founder and CEO of CryptoCracker.

[31:08] Fran: Thanks very much for having me.

[31:09] Paul: Thank you indeed. So thank you very much to you, ladies and gentlemen, as well. We’ll hopefully see you soon for another episode of Blockchain Leaders Insights. Thank you.