Yoshi Yokokawa joins us now.
He is the co-founder and the CEO at Alpaca.
Really nice to have you joining the broadcast now.
Thank you for having me here.
Let's talk about finance infrastructure as a service.
I know you like to say Alpaca is sort of the AWS of finance.
What does that actually mean?
So we have all the clearing and custody settlement infrastructure, uh, as the really platform.
So a lot of creators, developers can build a lot of applications, uh, on top of our infrastructure.
So it's like, you know, AWS.
Talk to me a bit about.
APIs, why they matter, what you see in the space that most excites you as the industry moves towards faster, more programmable experiences for users.
Definitely.
So, of course, like as we saw the, you know, market rallying with a lot of, a lot of excitement about like, you know, AI and the AI is a lot about agents, you know, that has to connect to the actual, like, you know, application programming interface.
So, you know, that's what we have been doing.
So like everything's going to be programmable, like with the AI era, you know, that's going to be more important.
Yoshi, we're talking a lot more about tokenized equities in the last six months than I've ever seen before in my career.
They could make stock markets much more global 24/7.
How big of a shift is that, you think, for the world of finance?
Uh, we see like last over 50 to 60 years, uh, financial services operation moved from paper to computerized system.
I think we're talking about very similar size of the paradigm shift, uh, of the financial services moving traditional finance to the own chain.
So I think like, you know, that it's gonna be as big as everything move from paper to computer, computer to the own chain.
How is Alpaca positioning?
Itself as the infrastructure layer that powers that future as the general conversation continues to evolve.
Sure, in order to move the things on chain at the same time, I believe that what's happening today has to be also make sure to be anchored as well without you know having something from the thin air.
So for us, we are basically like SCC FIMRA licensed broker dealer with the DC.
A membership, so having a very deep anchor into the traditional finance will be extremely important to move the assets into own chain.
Of course it's 2026.
I'm not doing my job if we don't talk a little bit about artificial intelligence.
It's changing the way that investors are engaging with their would-be assets, the way they have a relationship with their brokerage.
What are some of the top line changes that AI is having on the space as you see it?
Yeah, definitely, like I think like you know AI will be the new interface norm.
Just like, you know, 15 years ago we saw the mobile interface is the norm after web browser, and I think we are really the beginning of the new interface evolution, and I don't think we have seen the perfect solution yet, but that's what I'm personally very excited about.
Are there any artificial intelligence and investing trends in particular that most excite you?
Yeah, I, I think like it's really about every evolution of how human interactive financial services.
There's always new players and winners comes up, right?
And that is what I'm personally excited about.
I don't think we've seen the winner yet, but we will hopefully do in the next few years.
And finally, before I let you go, what do you think comes next for the industry and how is alpaca uniquely situated to be a part of that future?
I think like, again, tokenization is a very important component and then us being able to uh offer and anchor in the traditional finance and then also having the uh native operations in the crypto, this combination uh continue to be very important to bridge the gap between the traditional finance to on chain.
Yoshi Yokokawa, co-founder, CEO of Alpaca, really nice to have you on the show today.
Thanks a lot for being here.
Thank you.
