Revolutionising Digital Assets: Dinis Guarda Interviews Baylor Myers, Vice President For Corporate Development At BitGo

In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda Podcast, Baylor Myers, Vice President for Corporate Development at BitGo, discusses BitGo’s strategic growth in digital assets through BitGo Ventures, stablecoin infrastructure, and institutional services.  He emphasises the company's strategic focus on institutional security, tokenisation, and enabling decentralised finance through infrastructure innovation. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.

Baylor Myers is the Vice President for Corporate Development at BitGo, a leading company that provides digital asset solutions like custody, wallets, trading, and financing, secures 8% of all on-chain Bitcoin transactions and serves over 1,500 clients in 50 countries. 

Before joining BitGo, Baylor worked as Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, where he helped manage key initiatives, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill.

During the interview with Dinis Guarda, Baylor Myers discusses the launch of BitGo Ventures, designed to accelerate the growth of the digital asset ecosystem:

"We were very excited to announce BitGo Ventures. We announced a token 2049 in Dubai, and that was in April of 24. So, a little less than six months after closing the series C. 

Our main motivator there was to try to catalyse the digital asset ecosystem. We wanted to provide mutual support for projects that we found to be worthy, especially in terms of tokenisation. So L1's and L2's that have token projects are of interest for us. That's the thesis of the fund.”

BitGo: Revolutionising digital assets 

Baylor Myers discusses BitGo, its evolution, and its pivotal role in the crypto ecosystem:

BitGo is one of the original crypto companies. It was founded by Mike Belshi in 2013 after he had finished up at Google. In many ways, as I just mentioned, his career charts sort of the development of the internet.

And I think for founders in those early days of the Bitcoin white paper, it seemed clear that finance was maybe the last industry to truly be disrupted by technology, and it was sorely needed when you think about just the hours of operation of markets. It's not consistent with the way that we live in a digital world.

Mike started the company in 2013. It was one of the original wallet platforms, and that's the core foundation of our business still today. It grew into a custodian. So that was a natural progression. We did not take the exchange route. So we became custodians.

We have significant assets under custody right now in the tens of billions at various points, depending on prevailing asset prices, over a hundred billion in assets on our platform.

We have moved from there to the next product line, which is institutional trading and lending. We're an entirely institutionally focused business, which is why some retail investors may not have heard of BitGo but if you are a financial institution, whether that's a fund, a family office, an exchange, anyone who's moving serious amounts of capital in digital assets, you've probably heard of BitGo.

It's the safest place to store them, bar none. We've never had a hack. We've never had a major incident. We're 100% cold storage. It is as secure as it gets.

We see the future of the business in staking stablecoins. We have a new product vertical called stablecoin as a service, where entities that want to build a stablecoin can contract with Bitcoin on our infrastructure rails, and we see institutional trading and lending as well as a big future growth sector for the company.

We were very happy to complete the series C, and we were thankful to our partners. As I mentioned, Brinks participated, and in the period after closing the series C, we were able to complete two acquisitions of our own, which have enhanced our product suite."

Baylor Myers talks about the future of BitGo and its positioning:

"They're going to continue to keep us strategically positioned to meet demand in the RAIA and RWA space here in the months and years to come."

Global regulation challenges in crypto

Baylor Myers discusses the challenges of global cryptocurrency regulation:

"I want to be mindful that we're sitting in Britain, but I do believe that given the US's position globally with our currency reserve status and just the military presence that we've had across the globe since the Second World War, the US often has a very transcendent impact on global regulators.

And that was one of the big issues from the 2021 to 2024 period, is that the US federal financial regulators were quite hostile towards the industry. And I think that had a chilling effect on regulators across the globe, especially in countries that are close allies of the US.

And I anticipate, given the dramatic and much needed change in approach from the current regulatory regime in the Trump administration, that that will cascade across the EU and Asia and the Middle East.

And I think ultimately once we get a strong framework in place in the US and there's pending legislation that's being voted on perhaps as we speak in Washington, a number of different bills that hopefully will be passed and signed before August that will I think be a cornerstone of solidifying the strong foundation for crypto regulation across the globe. 

Certain countries have done very well, and they've outpaced the US. I was mentioning Singapore earlier, the UAE, even the EU in some aspects have been, I think, quicker to move forward on these regulatory frameworks.

But once we get everything in place in the US, and then the agencies, the SEC, the CFTC, the Treasury Department, the Fed, all come together and probably issue some rulemaking based on whatever legislation has passed, I anticipate no longer having to answer questions, hopefully, about regulation. It'll become well-known. 

We will not have to wonder what might happen. I mean, it's sort of like wandering around the dark and we're going to turn the lights on, and there will be a lot of clarity, and that will allow people to focus on business and continuing to innovate in the space."

Stablecoins & crypto innovation

Baylor Myers discusses the significant role stablecoins play in the crypto ecosystem and the global financial system:

"We were very proud to be announced as the infrastructure provider for World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin USD1. Got a significant amount of press in late April, mainly because a wealth fund in the UAE is going to use USD1 to facilitate a $2 billion investment into Binance.

So just think about that. You have an investment, a corporate investment that's being facilitated by a stablecoin. It's much easier for them, right? They don’t have to go through a bank. Their fees are essentially zero. So it's better for them. It’s good for us.

And I think all in all, the experience is much easier because the USD1 stable coin is backed one-to-one by US treasuries, which we facilitate, and we do all the minting and burning. 

We have considered going our own route with the stablecoin, but we're very happy with the current situation. We think competition is healthy, and we expect to see USD1, USDC, and USDT continue to compete, and there may be many more stable coins. 

You know, there’s no reason why banks could not get involved in the game as well. They're just going to have to give up some of their long-held precedents and start innovating.

And once you see transactions like USD1, MGX, and Binance, you have to think, if you're a traditional bank, are you really going to lose all this business by this innovative technology? Are you going to get in on the game?

And there are a bunch of other ways that stablecoins could be used in areas that do not have easy access to banking services.

We’re excited about it. We have a whole new product vertical called stablecoin as a service, which I think I mentioned earlier, where entities can basically onboard with BitGo and we can help you build your stablecoin. So we’re looking forward to the continued growth in that space, and we’re very excited about it. We’re strong believers in it."