AI To Be ‘Revolutionary’ for Exchanges: Crypto.com Product Head

When it comes to crypto products, user experience is still not easy enough, according to Crypto.com’s head of product. He believes that incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into industry exchanges could alleviate this issue, however.

Earlier this month, Crypto.com introduced Amy, an AI companion currently in the pilot phase. Amy’s underlying technology is based on ChatGPT from OpenAI, though the company is working on specifically training Amy to provide helpful responses to industry-related questions.

Abhi Bisarya, Crypto.com’s global head of product, said Amy — currently available only on the company’s price page — and other AI initiatives will be “game-changing” for the industry.

“Slowly [AI] will start to weave into our trading products, into our apps, into our exchange,” he told Blockworks in an interview. “That’s kind of where we will see it be more helpful to the users in terms of what they’re looking for and guiding them through our products.”

Combining AI with real-time analytics to offer low-latency solutions will be key, Bisarya added, especially as crypto extends to newer users that may know less about the space.

“[Early adopters] were willing to jump through a lot of hoops to find the solutions they were looking for,” the executive explained. “I don’t think that’s suitable for a mass adoption environment. We’re not going to get to a billion users if things are really complicated.”

Back in March, Crypto.com unveiled its CFTC-regulated crypto derivatives product, called UpDown Options, for US users. It also launched an on-chain staking solution that month for those outside of the US and Canada.

Though Bisarya said the company will continue to expand its offerings, ease of use will remain paramount.

“It’s very easy to say we’re going to build 50 different features inside an app and then users find them,” he said. “I think winning solutions will have a good narrative, a good story to tell and help users get more comfortable.

Keep reading for more excerpts from Blockworks’ interview with Bisarya.

Blockworks: What do you see as a main focus for crypto exchanges right now and in the future?

Bisarya: Exchanges will have to make it even easier. It’s still too hard to move money in and out, go through the process of setting up bank accounts and passing all the regulatory requirements.

If they remain difficult to do, it will hurt adoption. So I’d say in the future exchanges will make these kinds of experiences very, very seamless. We never want a user to be more than two clicks away from doing what they want to do.

Blockworks: AI is not new. Why has Crypto.com and others seemed to more deeply explore it recently?

Bisarya: It’s been around for awhile, but at the same time if you think about recent new applications that are coming out of it, suddenly it’s a lot more accessible and suddenly a lot more people are talking about it.

I think AI is going to be revolutionary in how we look at productivity, whether you’re writing code or writing a presentation or generating an image.

The things you can do at the pace you can do it with the quality you can do it is going to be really rapid. We’re definitely looking at those aspects.

Blockworks: What have been some of the initial lessons from testing Amy?

Bisarya: One of our key learnings is how do you make sure that you build it in a way that is interactive, because roboting is going to be boring. But if it’s completely open, and it’s the Wild West, then it’s not going to have the outcomes we’re looking for.

So it’s that balance we’re trying to strike.

We see a long roadmap for this technology to assist our users, assist our internal teams and really drive a lot more innovation.

Blockworks: How has the crash of crypto exchange FTX impacted Crypto.com?

Bisarya: We kind of build products for people at different stages of their crypto-nativeness — from someone who’s new to someone who’s very degen. But a lot of the users coming into the space are new, and that’s what’s going to drive adoption of crypto.

Obviously events…like large players going down like that, shakes confidence in the industry, but we’re not necessarily looking at this as reacting to one particular event. It’s obviously one that’s going to make history in our industry, but I think our view has been we have to keep a steady pace.

This doesn’t change how we build out products. We have a goal of building things that are impactful and are helping our users get comfortable with crypto, that are safe and secure, meeting their needs and are leveraging the latest technology.

Blockworks: How has the lack of crypto regulatory clarity in the US impacted Crypto.com?

Bisarya: From a product perspective, it doesn’t change our view.

Of course, as we develop our products, we have to make sure we’re working closely with our legal and compliance teams and making sure our products comply.

But outside of that, lucky for me, I get to not worry too much about how the regulatory environment plays out. I get to ensure that however it does, and whenever it does, independent of that our products continue to get better.

Blockworks: What other crypto trends do you and the company have your eye on?

Bisarya: If you look at the world of fintechs, traditional finance companies and digital banks, I do see all of them making forays into the crypto space. I think that’s an interesting trend to watch because I think they see the promise and the value in this space — so I do see some convergence happening there.

For a while, we were tracking how the utility of NFTs is going to grow. The market of NFTs is pretty down at the moment, but I think the potential in that technology has not gone away.

I think GameFi is a new space that’s come up…and there’s a big future there.

How does this all link into the metaverse? I mean, these are quite interesting technologies to track.

This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.