Julian Sawyer has spent the better part of a decade in the trenches of crypto, first running Bitstamp, now steering Zodia Custody.
So it lands with some weight when he tells IBT the most exciting future for digital assets is the one where nobody talks about them at all.
That future showed up early for him. In May, Standard Chartered's offer to fully acquire Zodia Custody was accepted by the firm's shareholders, a deal expected to close by the end of August that folds the regulated custody business into the bank and effectively retires the Zodia Custody brand.
Sawyer doesn't read that as crypto being swallowed. He reads it as crypto winning.
Crypto Feels Dead, What's Next?
Sawyer's core argument is that digital asset rules can't behave like traditional finance, where a framework gets written once and dusted off every five years. The market simply moves too fast.
"Innovation always leads regulation. What we need to make sure is that regulation is a fast follower to that innovation curve."
He sees the major financial centers aligning rather than equalizing, and warns that until global standards settle, capital will keep hunting for the friendliest jurisdiction.
Bitcoin is trading at $62,275.11 at the time of publishing, down 23% on the month. Sawyer's team keeps their head down working on regulation regardless of price action, expecting BTC to rebound later in the year.
"Whilst these standards are being developed, we will likely see regulatory arbitrage as clients and partners move products and services across their global client base."
Stop Calling It Crypto. Start Separating It.
Sawyer's sharpest frustration is with cramming everything under one scary word. Bitcoin, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets are three different products with three different risk profiles, he argues, and a stablecoin is really just tokenized money whose entire job is defending its peg.
"As soon as you lose that peg, it's not a stablecoin, it's an unstable coin. No one's going to put their money in that."
The lesson he carried out of Bitstamp was less glamorous. When the gold rush hits and you're onboarding customers around the clock, compliance is the first thing that quietly slips and the last thing you can afford to lose.
The Endgame Is Crypto You Never Notice
What excites him now is the banks. Every one of them is asking the same question about how to hold and manage digital assets, and that demand is exactly what makes the technology vanish into the background.
"It would be wonderful if we stopped talking about digital assets and it just became part of financial services. The blockchain just sits underneath. We don't tell you it's Swift today. We just move money."
He runs a custody firm, but he's no maximalist. Raise the person with their entire life savings in Bitcoin and the TradFi instinct fires hard: own some, size it like the volatile bet it is, and keep something dry for the rainy days.
Julian Sawyer is CEO of Zodia Custody, the institution-first digital asset platform backed by Standard Chartered, Northern Trust, SBI Holdings, National Australia Bank, and Emirates NBD. He previously served as CEO of Bitstamp.
