This is your host Stephen Sergeant on the Around the Coin podcast. We have Jess Houlgrave, CEO of Wallet Connect, the infrastructure and ecosystem connecting hundreds of wallets and thousands of applications. We talk about embedded finance, AI, agentic wallets, and how Wallet Connect is building the ecosystem, like Visa working in the background. This is a must-listen episode.
This is your host Stephen Sergeant. Around the Coin podcast, we have the CEO of Wallet Connect, Jess Houlgrave. Jess, give us your three-minute elevator pitch of who you are and how you got into crypto.
Thank you for having me. I'm Jess Houlgrave, CEO at Wallet Connect. I've been with the company for about two years. We are the connectivity layer between apps and wallets in crypto. I got into crypto more than 10 years ago, sparked by an interest in economics. I've worked full-time in the space for the last 10 years in payments, NFTs, and now Wallet Connect.
You created Codex, a decentralized registry for valuable collectibles, essentially an NFT marketplace before the hype. What were you working on then, and can you take us through the timeline of NFTs from back then to now?
In 2016 I wrote a master's thesis on blockchain applications for the art world. I was studying at SBS after six years in traditional finance. The outcome was Codex, a tool to track provenance using blockchain, creating a passport for art pieces issued by artists or auction houses. We were very early, before the ERC-721 standard. CryptoKitties launched around the same time. The project was eventually acquired, but it was an interesting journey.
Was the Beeple sale something that resonated with you? Did you feel like you had been doing this for years and now everyone is interested?
I differentiate between NFTs as artwork and the technology used in the traditional art world. We've seen cycles. Back when we worked on Codex, there were CryptoPunks, rare Pepes, and artists like Kevin Abosch. I think NFTs will see adoption by the traditional art world, through projects like Verse.
This NFT craze is like explaining to your wife why you spent money on a digital hedgehog. You then spent three years at Checkout.com leading go-to-market. What were you doing and how did you leverage your blockchain skills?
At Checkout.com, we wanted to innovate in crypto. We launched a solution for a payments company to settle acquired funds in stablecoins, reducing time and cost. Having worked in crypto for a long time, I applied that to the payments world. Now every payments company is doing something in crypto.
Every payments company is now a stablecoin company. Before we jump into Wallet Connect, tell me about the transition from go-to-market leader to CEO at Wallet Connect. How did you make that mindset shift?
When I first joined Checkout.com, I was chief of staff during growth from 250 to 2,500 people. I worked closely with the CEO and saw the whole operation. I'm a generalist with experience in finance, go-to-market, and product. I enjoy building and leading teams. The best CEOs find great people; I'm worse than my CMO and head of product.
What was the transition like going to a startup? How did you assess that decision compared to staying at a larger company?
I wanted to go somewhere small and agile again. Wallet Connect is pure crypto and deep in infrastructure. I had used it as an end user and saw its unique value. I met Pedro, the founder, and was impressed. The opportunity to lead the next phase was exciting.
Tell me about the connectivity layer. We've had DFNS and other wallet infrastructure companies. Can you identify where you fit?
Everyone you mentioned is a partner. Wallet Connect is a two-sided network: about 700 wallets (mobile, hardware, institutional, custodial) and about 70,000 applications (NFT marketplaces, DeFi, in-store payments). We are chain-agnostic. Our role is to make it easy for developers through a single entry point and to make interactions seamless, fast, and secure. Today you can scan a QR code for an end-to-end payment in a shop.
Is there anything scarier than those 45 seconds when purchasing an NFT, not knowing if it will confirm? Is that what you're trying to solve?
We can't change block times, but we can impact the wallet experience. We work on not having to pay gas, clear signing so you know what you're signing, and security verification like Verify. We're working with the Ethereum Foundation on clear signing.
You mentioned POS stablecoin payments. With stablecoins and the GENIUS Act, tell me about that POS and your thoughts on stablecoins. I assume your network has seen increased usage.
About 72% of transactions on the Wallet Connect network are in stablecoins. Stablecoins avoid volatility and are compatible with commerce. Crypto-backed cards reached $400 million in transaction value in October. We launched a point-of-sale SDK, live with DTC Pay in Singapore. We want to make web3 payments as good as Apple Pay, with merchants accepting fiat at the back end.
Live social shopping is exploding. What are your thoughts on integrating web3 into that?
Agentic commerce is the other big trend. The way we interact with value is evolving. You want to bring experiences close to everyday life to reduce friction. Web3 will be part of that, with cost-effective microtransactions and fast settlement. Every payments company is figuring out crypto and stablecoins.
Our podcast is fintech crypto payments-focused, and your ecosystem is the target market. What are some common use cases for your company, and any unique ones like memecoins or agentic AI payments?
Common use cases include payments (online and in-store via QR codes), compliance (signing travel rule messages for identity verification), and logging into web3 applications. Unusual ones include topping up onchain gift cards, creating identity in games, and managing data. There's experimentation with digital identity on chain.
This is interesting. My background is in crypto compliance. You also mentioned UX of connecting wallets being clunky. What are you implementing to fix that?
It's not easy due to how wallets and blockchains work. We introduced standards for one-click, combining connect and sign into one action. We're also working on clear signing so you don't see random strings, with the Ethereum Foundation.
Initiatives that we're working on with the Ethereum Foundation, with Fireblocks, with Ledger, so that when I sign a transaction, it doesn't just say, you know, like ABCD EFG, it says you're buying a coffee at Pratt. Much better user experience, much more secure. So a lot of the focus for us is around secure and safe interactions because I think that's a really big part of user experience.
You know you're talking about security. We have to ask, there are so many access and approval phishing attacks, wallet drainers. We even saw a couple years ago the Ledger Connect. I believe their SDK had some malware. So when people were connecting their wallets, their wallets were getting drained. How do you protect users, you know, from being victims of these attacks that only seem to be rising, especially in DeFi and web3?
Yeah. So, we try to keep our surface area within a wallet very limited, which, and all of our code is open source. Anybody can review it. It's open source, we get security audits a lot. So in terms of our code base, we really try to make the attack surface area very minimal. For wallets, obviously they have a much broader surface area and you know we try to encourage them with some of the best practices. We also try to innovate in our products so that some things like this don't happen. So one example is our verify API. What that does is it verifies the domain and soon it will also verify the actual smart contract itself on the side of the application. We have about 15,000 of our apps have gone through the domain verification process so far. And that means when your wallet can read the other side of that API. So when you then connect with your wallet to that application, it will either say yes confirming this is a verified domain, it's safe to interact with or it will say hey you think you're interacting, you know, you're interacting with a malicious domain. And that's often the case in crypto. Somebody thinks that they're interacting with Uniswap, actually they're interacting with like Uniswap or something completely different. And so this domain verification feature is a way that we can help signal to end users when they're doing something that might be dangerous for them.
You know, um, when I think about wallet connect, you're connecting everything. It's all coming into like one hub. You are that hub. Do you foresee wallet connect being something like the super apps like what we see Kareem in Dubai or WeChat in China where it's like you're connected to all these applications anyway? People just literally pull up their phone, they open up the wallet connect app and they can do everything from that app because you have all the payment infrastructure and wallet connectivity. Is that like a goal? Is that possible? Is the backend infrastructure able to support something like that?
So, rather than thinking of us as a super app, I actually think that we're really valuable because we work with all of the other apps and wallets. So people know the wallet connect brand less because they are a customer of wallet connect but more because they know they can use this functionality. I think an analogy that I often use is like Visa. So if you take your Visa card that's in your wallet, you're not actually an end customer of Visa. You get your Visa card through your bank. But you know that wherever you take that card, you can use it. And it signals this element of trust, of confidence. You walk past the coffee shop in a country that you've never been to before, but you know you can pay with Visa and you know that your money is going to get there and that it's safe. And it's the same with Wallet Connect. You're not actually a customer of Wallet Connect. You don't have a Wallet Connect app. You're a customer of MetaMask or you're a customer of OKX wallet, but you know that when you see the Wallet Connect logo, you can pay with your wallet. You can connect that wallet into an application really easily. So I think really our focus is on making sure that anybody can use any crypto anywhere with any wallet and that's what brings true digital asset adoption.
I'd have to ask cuz you're plugging into so many different wallets and applications from all around the world. What are your regulatory obligations? Are there hurdles you have to go through when certain wallets or certain applications are based out of certain countries? I'd love to know like what's your responsibility there and how challenging it is to keep up with the emerging regulations coming out of Singapore, the EU, where they don't technically cover self-hosted wallets or DeFi, but there's a lot of, you know, they're definitely covering the on and off ramps, which could still make interacting with those and having a connectivity later, I'm assuming, still challenging.
So really what we provide when you kind of analyze it from a regulatory perspective is like a messaging layer. And that means that we're not involved in the movement of value. We don't ever touch the end user's funds. Those all move onchain. We are really just the technology that enables the wallet and the app to understand how to interact with each other. So that means that we fall outside of any regulatory requirements. We of course are very conscious of making sure that that continues to be the case and that we're always compliant everywhere we are. But more often than not, actually, regulation is often a driver for people to use our technology in these like travel rule compliance type use cases and other things. So for us, it's purely just the messaging layer and so we don't have any regulatory registration requirements.
