Will Peck: How WisdomTree Went From $30M To Over $1 Billion Onchain (Full Breakdown)

Andy (0:00)

What is the vision for...

Will Peck (0:01)

Yeah, what is the vision?

Robbie (0:03)

How many more assets do you expect to pass that 100 million marker?

Will Peck (0:11)

But I mean, tokenized money market funds are clearly the first example of product market fit after stable coins, right?

Andy (0:26)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Convergence, the show powered by The Rollup and Token Relations, talking about the convergence of legacy finance and on-chain finance. We're here today with Jacquelyn. I'm Andy and welcome to the show.

Robbie (0:39)

Yes, we're excited to be here. And more importantly, we're going to be introducing our guests in just a second. I think maybe a little background on this, why we decided to launch Convergence. It's basically a simple thing. Everyone's using the term, the conversation around crypto, traditional finance has changed and it's all coming together into one. And we thought it would be great to launch this show and have it powered by WisdomTree. So without further ado, we'd like to bring on our guest.

Andy (1:03)

Welcome to the Tokenization Tower, Will.

Will Peck (1:05)

Good afternoon, guys. Great to be with you.

Robbie (1:07)

It's great to have you here.

Andy (1:08)

Yeah, Will. Maybe just a quick intro about what you do at WisdomTree, your back story and why you're so passionate about this Convergence that's happening right before our eyes.

Will Peck (1:18)

Yeah, absolutely. So as I'm sure the screen says, I'm head of digital assets at WisdomTree, WisdomTree global asset manager, ETF sponsor, manage, you know, about $170 billion in assets center management today.

So I've been at the firm now for like 12 years and then doing everything in crypto, blockchain, on chain financial services for about the past six years. And so, you know, WisdomTree thinks of ourselves as an innovator and on chain financial services is kind of very clear, like the next wave of innovation happening in financial services. And so I'm very excited to be a big part of it, we think.

Robbie (1:51)

I mean, you've been building in the space for a number of years. So do you actually think that Convergence is happening today and it's warranted?

Will Peck (1:56)

Yeah, definitely. I mean, more so now than ever before. Like, I remember going to some of these events, you know, six years ago, and there's like kind of the same cohort of people who were there at the time. And it's just like one of those things like you're kind of like talking into a wallet, it feels like. And it actually, so a lot of the people that I worked with at WisdomTree have been in like the ETS space for a long time. And it's interesting to talk to them about it, where they used to feel like they used to be going around 20 years ago and talking to people about this thing called ETS and why they're better than mutual funds and how this is going to be the future of asset management. And again, it felt like you were banging your head against the wall. And so that never really scared me that there'd be stuff where you're, you know, kind of pitching stuff talking and things kind of happen over time. And so it does feel like there's a lot more happening now. We could talk about regulatory distribution, other reasons why, but it does feel like a good moment to kind of be in the space and have been in it for a while.

Andy (2:52)

You know, Will, I totally agree, right? It's been just a total, you know, growth phase, right? Since Genius Act, we've seen the rise of tokenized assets on chain explode.

Robbie (3:04)

Clarity is kind of here. We'll see. Clarity may come.

Andy (3:06)

We'll see what happens. But clearly this trend is just snowballing. And we're calling it the Convergence, which I think is very accurate. And so I just want to know what this term means to you and what this kind of series means to the WisdomTree team.

Will Peck (3:20)

Yeah, I mean, I think Convergence, like maybe it's not going to feel like so much of like separate systems or some things that are kind of on the side and actually adding value for, you know, lots of use cases in financial services using this new infrastructure. Maybe talk about the infrastructure even a bit less in this and more about the outcomes that you're getting, where people aren't thinking, oh, I'm using a stable coin for this because like XYZ reasons. But it's just like the thing that you're using kind of just like you wouldn't think about RTP or whatever it is. Right.