Hugo Finkelstein on Crypto Payments for a Globally Distributed Workforce

[00:00:00] Umar: Welcome to The Accountant Quits, brought to you by the Web3 CFO Club, a community by Request Finance. With a curated community of Web3 CFOs from companies like Aave, The Sandbox, Binance, ConsenSys, Ledger, and many more, joining this club will allow you to network and learn best practices on Web3 financial operations.

[00:00:24] Umar: On the Accountant Quits podcast, we discuss how blockchain will impact the accounting profession and how accountants should prepare themselves for the future of work. My name is Umar, your host, and even if some might refer to me as the accountant gone rogue, my job is to provide you with the blockchain knowledge that you need that will be relevant for the accounting industry as a whole.

[00:00:47] Umar: Welcome to Episode 68. 

[00:00:49] Umar: Can crypto payments accentuate the trend for a globally distributed workforce? More and more people in emerging markets such as freelancers are using crypto to get paid, and having crypto as a payment option enables people to get employed anywhere in the world.

[00:01:03] Umar: So if you as an employer want to have the best talent globally, using crypto as a means of payment seems to work hand in hand. One company that has garnered substantial growth over the past months is Rise, which offers a platform to pay employees and contractors globally with crypto and has to date processed more than 150 million in volume of payments.

[00:01:27] Umar: Some of their clients include T3RN, Bitcoin. com, Velodrome Finance, Lido, P2P, Zen Academy, to name a few. And today I have the pleasure to be speaking with Hugo Finkelstein the Co-Founder and CEO of Rise, who will help us understand how compensation is evolving and the incentives companies are proposing to attract talent globally.

[00:02:32] Umar: In this episode today, you will learn the current regulatory environment across different jurisdictions for crypto payments. Can crypto payroll accelerate the conversion towards a global workforce? How to get started using stable coins for payments? An overview of Rise and its client case studies and much more.

[00:02:53] Umar: Hugo, welcome and thanks for taking the time to be here. 

[00:02:56] Hugo: Thanks for having me Umar, it's a pleasure! 

[00:02:58] Umar: To start, can you share a bit, about your background, how you first became interested with blockchain and the story that eventually led you to co founding Rise?

[00:03:08] Hugo: Yeah, sure. I've been living in the US for the past 15 years, originally come from France. I remember first hearing about Ether and Bitcoin back in my college years. My roommate brought it up to me. So in college I started my first company nothing to do with payments, nothing to do with crypto. It was a student's marketplace to buy secondhand products on campus.

[00:03:31] Hugo: The direct result of my frustrations as a student I did work on that for three years, but through that endeavor met an entrepreneur slash angel investor that was starting his own cryptocurrency exchange. I met him back in early 2017. I graduated in 2017. I moved on from the marketplace. I came back to New York, which is where I originally got to when first moving to the US and joined his team. He was building his project, was building his team, was building his community he was approaching it's ICO and he needed help from a marketing and communication standpoint to build the entire community around the project. So, I joined the first marketing hire and we essentially for the span of a few months developed a framework that was pretty robust in terms of production of content, translation of content and distribution of content in different regions of the world at a very local level with local influencers, local social media platforms, local forums, media, et cetera.

[00:04:38] Hugo: With a team of ambassadors and that turned out to be extremely strong. We built a community of about 40,000 people, 10,000 of which participated in the ICO. I remember it was, late 2017 when Discord which was originally just for gamers, started becoming a thing in the crypto industry for communities to reside.

[00:05:00] Hugo: So we set ourselves up on Discord, the community was there, et cetera. It was really early days of all of these online global communities on Discord for ICOs We did that, we got a lot of demand from other projects to help them essentially deploying the same strategies that we built out the same framework the same team of ambassadors and help them grow their communities either pre or post ICO.

[00:05:26] Hugo: So we decided to launch a marketing agency. That I ran that was part of the cryptocurrency exchange, but that I ran for about a year and a half. And through that, we worked with lots of different projects and I spent a lot of time working with independent contractors. 

[00:05:42] Hugo: It was fascinating to me that I was able to just tap into a flexible, on demand, workforce. I spent a lot of time on the Fivers, the Upworks of the world, those Gig economy marketplaces to satisfy the needs of all of my clients without having to hire full-time and provide, everything that comes with a full time employment, basically, so a very flexible way to accommodate the needs of my customers.

[00:06:06] Hugo: So we worked on that for a year and a half. Eventually, we had to shut down the business for multiple reasons. The main reason being that the business model was not sustainable enough for us to stay operating. So we wound down the business that was in like late 2018, early 2019, but I knew I wanted to stay in the space.

[00:06:28] Hugo: I knew I wanted to build and at that time was when I met Andrew, who's now my Co-founder and CTO at Rise, we met online actually, we met on Angel list. I posted something that I wanted to meet blockchain engineers and Andrew, I remember was the second one to reach out. And for a few weeks we started having, one call a week, then, multiple calls a week, brainstorming, what practical use cases were out there that we could, tackle basically using these new technologies.

[00:06:58] Hugo: Essentially, we didn't want to do anything speculative. We didn't want to launch our own token. We just wanted to have a very practical use of these new technologies to solve any kind of issue. So after brainstorming for a few weeks, I remember we landed on an article about freelancers and how these new distributed technologies could help freelancers get empowered even more as independents.

[00:07:22] Hugo: And that's how we got started. We did a lot of interviews with freelancers, realized that we had an opportunity at building a marketplace, connecting businesses and freelancers that would be built on chain. So that means, facilitating transactions, facilitating project milestones via smart contracts, issuing stable coin payments, et cetera.

[00:07:44] Hugo: So that's how we got started. That was the first version of our products. We launched this marketplace in 2021, early 2021. And after a few months of activity, I think we did about 60K of GMV. We realized that the problems that our customers were facing, were not finding the right talent. 

[00:08:04] Hugo: It was more after they found the right talent, in multiple places on the internet, or even, in real life, their problem was how to hire them, onboard them, and pay them in whatever currency they want given the fact that they had one particular type of currency in the most compliant way. So we thought to ourselves, listen, we already have the infrastructure, the payment infrastructure that we had built for crypto stable coin and then Fiat payouts, one, we add a compliance layer to it.

[00:08:33] Hugo: So us essentially becoming the bridge between the customers and the contractors, the agent of the payee, we would facilitate KYC, provide the professional service agreements, help contractors with their taxes after they get paid. Why don't we add that layer and sell that as a package to businesses? And that's when we decided to pivot mid 2021. We closed a round of funding and then we got to build what we have today. And we launched that in May 2022. So about two years ago. And since then, it's been a roller coaster of emotions and excitement basically. So today we help essentially any kind of organization, whether they are web3 friendly or web2 friendly with hiring, onboarding, and paying international and domestic team members in the most compliant way.

[00:09:21] Umar: Perfect. Now I want to start our conversation with an overview of the current landscape, the current regulatory and tax landscape for crypto payments. So one of the first orders in starting to make payments in crypto is to feel tax reassured and therefore speaking with the right tax advisor on the tax considerations for your business to start making and receiving payments in crypto, including the tax reporting requirements is essential.

[00:09:50] Umar: So, Rise is not a tax advisor. You offer a platform to make crypto payments compliant. And later during our conversation, we'll speak a bit about the HR and Tax Feature that you offer, but in your experience speaking with global teams, what's the current regulatory environment across different jurisdictions today for crypto payments?

[00:10:12] Hugo: Overall, I think all regions of the world are moving in the right direction. Some of them are faster than others and are quicker to get regulations out for crypto businesses, but overall, I think that you have MiCA coming out of Europe in a few weeks. 

[00:10:31] Hugo: Here in the US there's more and more talks around a Stable Coin Act. So not necessarily cryptocurrencies, but more on stablecoins. So overall, I think governments and agencies are realizing that they need to put order. They need to put clear frameworks. Around for one businesses to be operating in a compliant way and without having to worry about whether or not they're going to get shut down, even though they're trying to do everything they can to be compliant and not move offshore.

[00:10:57] Hugo: We can speak about region by region. But I think that they're all making progress basically, so. Then you have payroll, which is what we focus on which is pretty straightforward. And then you have, taxes around capital gains when you make investments with your crypto.

[00:11:13] Hugo: So we don't touch the latter. And People that get paid on our platform are responsible to declare their own taxes, working with different accountants or firms when they decide to make investments and have to declare those. But when it comes to payroll and payments for services provided that's where we help basically.

[00:11:29] Hugo: And we provide only stable coin payouts, which makes it very easy from a tax standpoint.

[00:11:35] Umar: Okay, we'll touch more on stable coins. So on this podcast, we have explored the benefits of using cryptocurrencies as a whole for global payments on numerous occasions.

[00:11:46] Umar: Some of them would of course be the speed and the instant settlement. It offers the lower transaction fees and different access to DeFi. I'd like to revisit, this topic with you given the increased use of companies using stable coins as a means of payment. If there's someone listening right now to the podcast, how would you convince them to start using stable coins after they've obtained the right information on the tax considerations?

[00:12:13] Umar: Like how should they get started? 

[00:12:15] Hugo: Yeah, it depends what their business is and what their needs are what kind of transactions they're making, who they're paying, are they paying, across the globe, large amounts, small amounts, I would want to get all these details from the potential user.

[00:12:30] Hugo: But all in all, I think, and most importantly, stable coins these days to me, it's the killer app. To me, it's the most exciting to date, and I'm sure there will be others later on, but it's the most exciting application of blockchain rails and blockchain applications, basically the ability to send small and large amounts of money at the speed of the internet at literally four cents.

[00:12:58] Hugo: Is no matter the amount is quite remarkable. And we actually see that a lot on our platform coming from the, more traditional businesses that have international workers, they're looking to pay in markets that say are pretty unstable from a local currency standpoint. Be it, inflation or whatnot, those businesses that don't have crypto on their treasury that don't have stable coins on their treasury.

[00:13:23] Hugo: They only have Fiat, they don't know how to pay these workers. The payroll manager typically doesn't know how to gather wallet addresses and think about gas fees and you know do all these conversions by themselves, so. That's where we come in. But that's definitely a use case that I think is the most relevant these days and being able to send stable coins to workers in unstable markets that are trying to hedge themselves against their local currency inflation.

[00:13:50] Umar: So obviously we know a lot of companies in the web3 industry are using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. Have you been pleasantly surprised fromweb2 companies starting to look into stable coins as a means of payment.

[00:14:05] Hugo: A hundred percent. And we see it in our cold outreach.

[00:14:08] Hugo: We see it in our inbound. There's more and more web2 companies, agencies, startups, bigger businesses in some cases that are interested in the topic. I think more and more people are realizing that first of all, multiple tailwinds are in our favor here. You have younger generations that are entering the workforce.

[00:14:31] Hugo: Gen Z's, for example, millennials are already been here, but Gen Z's are becoming more and more important in the workforce. Those are the most open to receiving part of their paycheck, or their entire paycheck in crypto. These companies that are trying to attract the best talent understand that, it's not just the paycheck, it's the environment that they would give to their workers, the flexibility of payment and advanced financial ecosystem.

[00:14:57] Hugo: They give them access to and they understand that in order to stay, hot in the hiring market, these little benefits will become more and more important. Yeah, we definitely see the demand from web2 becoming more and more important, which is super exciting.

[00:15:12] Umar: Next I want to speak a bit about the future of work and how COVID has opened the eyes of many businesses who previously would never have thought of having a remote employee. But we've all survived COVID and we know that most work can be performed remotely. So remote work is here to stay and you can now truly hire without borders. In your opinion, how can integrating crypto into payroll accelerate the convergence towards a more global workforce? And do you think crypto payments will shape global employment practices? 

[00:15:47] Hugo: I think crypto's extremely, and stable coin payments are extremely interesting for many different reasons. So you said the speed, the scale the efficiency and cost of all payments, but in a very important manner too, it gives access to people that don't actually have bank accounts or the unbanked, you know, able to get paid for the work they do, in a very easy and efficient way. In different regions of the world, people In some cases struggle opening up bank accounts.

[00:16:16] Hugo: They still have access to the internet. They get jobs this way on different marketplaces and they need to get paid. I do think that enabling , blockchain rails, crypto and stablecoin payouts open up the doors to businesses to hire more talent, more diverse talent in different regions of the world and helps payees/employees on the other side get access to more work.

[00:16:38] Hugo: So I do think that to some extent it's going to shape the world of work beyond payments. 

[00:16:45] Umar: Before we continue, we'll take a quick commercial break from our sponsor.

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[00:18:27] Umar: Hugo, could you share an overview of Rise, the different features you have today, and also how the onboarding looks like in terms of KYC procedures? 

[00:18:38] Hugo: Yeah. So essentially Rise today is a platform for payroll and compliance.

[00:18:43] Hugo: We help any kind of business that could be a web2 friendly business or Web3 friendly business. It could be a DAO, it could be a protocol, it could be a startup, be an agency, any kind of organization hire onboard and pay international or domestic workers. In whatever currencies they want. So essentially it's super straightforward.

[00:19:05] Hugo: And we only work with independent contractors today. So a business will sign up a manager, a founder, an operator, a finance, manager, you name it. They will sign up, create their account, during the onboarding we, KYB all of the businesses that sign up on the system. So we collect all of the information around articles of formation, beneficiary ownership, et cetera.

[00:19:27] Hugo: Making sure that it's a real business with real people behind it. Once they are onboarded, they will invite all of their team members, team members being independent contractors will sign up. We process KYC. So we verify identity documents, anti money laundering checks proof of address checks.

[00:19:44] Hugo: And we'll still enable full background checks, but we verify the identity of the payees. And once they're on boarded, we're going to provide a professional service agreement between the business, the contractor with a signature of Rise that becomes the agent of the payee to make sure everything is compliant and we're here to facilitate payments on behalf of our customers.

[00:20:04] Hugo: And from there, the customer will be able to choose whatever pay schedule he or she wants to put in place for their workers. So we have a variety of pay schedules, the most flexible. So we have all kinds of pay schedules you can think of that can be automated, that can be processed manually, that can be processed in batch, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:20:22] Hugo: So they put these pay schedules in motion and then the next step for them is to fund their account. They can fund it in Fiat or they can fund it in stable coins. We work on different chains, so they can fund from different chains. Or they can send, wire or an ACH to us basically. Once that is done, their balance gets topped up.

[00:20:42] Hugo: They approve payments. When they approve payments, the contractor's balances are topped up. And from there, the contractors can choose what currencies they want to cash out into, so they can choose local currencies in Fiat. And we have access to the best cross-border payment infrastructures out there that give us the best FX rates and real time payments, or choose L1 or L2s to withdraw their funds in stable coins.

[00:21:06] Hugo: And that gives us that amount of flexibility between the funds that are being used by the customers to fund their payroll and the funds that are issued for payouts, basically. 

[00:21:16] Umar: I'll have to ask you to repeat the part of funding your account to pay the contractor, because I believe this is why you have such a diligent KYC procedure.

[00:21:26] Umar: So if I, the employer, I need to pay my contractor at the end of the month. And let's say currently my funds are held in a Safe. So from the time the funds are in my Safe until the moment I'm paying my contractor. How does that look like? 

[00:21:44] Hugo: Essentially, they would fund their account basically. So we give them, unique addresses on chain.

[00:21:50] Hugo: They send their funds to that are only associated to them. There's also the Rise ID that I would love to touch on because the Rise ID is a key component of our infrastructure that helps with security and authentication, but essentially from the Safe, they would fund their account and then their account would be topped up.

[00:22:07] Hugo: They would approve payments and then contractors would cash out from there. One thing that is our key pillar within the business is our compliance components. So we have different procedures and programs, whether it is onboarding with KYB, KYC, or transaction monitoring, or different reporting procedures that we have, everything is compliant to its maximum, basically.

[00:22:29] Hugo: And to us, that is one key pillar that differentiates us from most of our competition in the space. 

[00:22:36] Umar: Now blockchain, one value proposition is that you have this public ledger with blockchain, but a lot of times people want the option to keep their transactions private and payroll is one payment category where people tend to want the option of privacy.

[00:22:50] Umar: So, could you share how you've integrated this privacy component of payroll transactions into your product and elaborate a bit more on Rise ID? 

[00:22:59] Hugo: Yeah! So, the Rise ID is a smart contract that is minted by our user during onboarding after they pass KYC. So after we do all the checks on the payers and the payees, they get to a step and it's the final step of the onboarding process where they create their Rise ID.

[00:23:18] Hugo: So the Rise ID is a smart contract. It's the ERC -725 token standard. And essentially it helps us authenticate users when they're interacting with our smart contracts via a wallet signature that is associated with their smart contract. So when they mint the smart contract, they're going to add a wallet, whether it's their own or one that we help them create on the platform.

[00:23:44] Hugo: That wallet is going to own the smart contract. They can then add, different affiliates to the smart contract. So that can also approve transactions. So essentially that helps payers build a full on hierarchy on chain and on their smart contract. So you can have the founders create the Rise ID, but then add the payroll manager, the finance manager, the accountant, et cetera, and give them different permission levels.

[00:24:07] Hugo: And the payees also get, their unique Rise ID. We think it's their professional identity on chain, basically. And down the line, it has multiple use cases that we're exploring now that I think are going to be tremendous for the industry. But they get their Rise ID.

[00:24:21] Hugo: Now let's take an example. They get paid a contractor gets paid, they want to cash out. So during cash out, whether they cash out in Fiat or in a stable coins, we will ask them to sign a transaction. We'll approve a transaction with one of the wallets that is associated with their Rise ID.

[00:24:40] Hugo: And that essentially you can view it as a 2FA or a second layer of security. And we've actually had use cases where someone got their email compromised. And someone got access to their Rise account, but they weren't able to touch the funds because they didn't have access to the wallet that was associated to the Rise ID.

[00:24:57] Hugo: I said, I was pretty practical, a practical show of the security that we've put in place. And yeah that's pretty much how these Rise IDs work. And then when it comes to privacy, we're actively actually building our V2, which will include a full on payroll engine on chain.

[00:25:12] Hugo: Right now, we just do contractor payments. And we have anonymity put in place during onboarding if contractors don't want to essentially, reveal their identity to their employer. And it's mostly for DAOs and protocols, you have anonymous contributors. We still KYC them.

[00:25:30] Hugo: So we verify their identity and we still do all the transaction monitoring and all the compliance procedures we have to put in place, but they stay anonymous with their employer. With payroll we're actively building and working on it, but essentially there will be a way to add a second layer that will provide privacy to employees essentially that will help employees not reveal, how much they get paid basically to their team members and we're making it in a way that is fully compliant.

[00:25:58] Hugo: With all of these different procedures, but also fully, usable by large, traditional companies that don't want to reveal the salaries of their employees. 

[00:26:07] Umar: I want to dive a little bit further into this word compliance. And what does compliance actually mean for you?

[00:26:13] Umar: Because sometimes I go on different websites. I see this word compliance, but maybe it means different things for different platforms, it gets thrown around a lot. So it's very easy to make a payment in crypto. It's instant. It's peer to peer. Now, how would you say it would be not compliant for someone not using Rise just for the listener to understand, because they might have been using a different product or a different way of making payments. Some people I speak to sometimes they making payment from exchanges. There's no let's say paper trail or document to back that transaction. They just make a payment from an exchange or wallet. So how to explain to them that maybe this way of paying is not compliant. 

[00:27:01] Hugo: I think to us, there's two like fold of compliance. The first one is around HR. So you can make a lot of payments to contractors, but most of the time you want to check the identity, verify that you're paying real persons, you're not paying criminals. You want to have a contract in place, like a service agreement in place.

[00:27:22] Hugo: And HR and Tax basically, and you want to make sure that the people that you pay declare their income and pay their taxes on their income. We automate all of that process for our customers. So essentially we're going to automate the KYC. We're going to automate the production of professional services agreements, and then we're going to help contractors with, tax documents when the time comes.

[00:27:46] Hugo: And then the other set of compliance is around everything that's, money transmission being able to have, and this is more for our type of business, but a full on AML/ BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) program in place with onboarding procedures, transaction monitoring procedures, reporting procedures and all of the policies that come with it. Associated with the different registrations we have to make because we're based in the US, at the federal level and some particular states money transferring licenses that we have to acquire. 

[00:28:15] Hugo: So, yeah, I wouldn't recommend paying, you know your whole team of contractors out of an exchange or out of a wallet without any documents associated to it for multiple reasons.

[00:28:26] Umar: Now, speaking about these tax forms, could you explain how these work?

[00:28:30] Umar: What jurisdictions apply? If it's the US only, then will you be handling, let's say the 1099 for contractors? 

[00:28:38] Hugo: Correct! Yeah, exactly. And Rise is based in the US today. So we provide the 1099s. We filed 1099s for all of the contractors that are based in the US.

[00:28:47] Hugo: And we plan to deploy that same feature essentially to the equivalent documents in different regions of the world as we expand. The contractors outside the US today that get paid are responsible to declare their income and pay the taxes on them, basically. 

[00:29:01] Umar: Beautiful. Now, can you also maybe share some of the success stories of some of your clients and how they've been able to successfully implement crypto payroll?

[00:29:12] Umar: And I believe at the moment they are headquartered in the US, right? 

[00:29:18] Hugo: So we actually have customers outside of the US too. So we have both, within the US and outside the US, but essentially, we've had, I think the best success stories that we've seen are, traditional companies being able to retain talent.

[00:29:32] Hugo: That time I wanted to be paid in stablecoins because they are located in countries where inflation is, out of the roof basically and those companies came to us and said hey we want to be able to pay our workers by the end of the month in stablecoins. We don't know how to do it. Can you help us out? 

[00:29:48] Hugo: In less than a day, they were onboarded, KYB'ed, their teams were onboarded and KYC'ed and they were able to get paid a couple days later. So that to me was the most satisfying success story that I've seen. And then we have others, web3 native with treasury in stablecoins that were trying to make payments to workers that needed to get paid in Fiat and those companies didn't know how to do it.

[00:30:13] Hugo: They were going through exchanges, converting, having fees left and right, and then sending they came to us and we're able to automate that entire process for them. And now they can efficiently pay their workers in whatever currencies they want. It's quite exciting! 

[00:30:27] Umar: Now, when I first started this podcast, almost like three years ago, there weren't a lot of crypto accounting tools. It was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. But today, three years after there's so many web3 accounting and finance tools. So for the new web3 CFO starting out, navigating through all of these emerging tools for crypto and understanding which one is most complete to fit their use case is quite a time-consuming task.

[00:30:57] Umar: So yeah, for crypto payments, some of the names I have some of your competitors basically would be Request Finance, Coinshift, Acctual maybe not Acctual because I believe they do more invoicing, BitPay, Parcel, and even for payroll specific, there is Niural who I recently interviewed, Toku, HelloFranklin.

[00:31:20] Umar: I'm sure I've missed a few, but you can see how long this list is. So it is a very competitive market. So I want to ask you, how does Rise differentiate from all its competitors? 

[00:31:30] Hugo: Yeah, I'll start with the first category the Request, Acctual, Parcel, I think these are focusing more on B2B payments invoicing and don't have the HR component that we bring on.

[00:31:43] Hugo: To my knowledge, I don't think they have the professional services agreements that we provide and all of the KYC and KYB of people that pay and get paid. I also do think that extremely compliant approach that we have in all of our policies, procedures and programs and registrations enable us to get access to some of the world's best cross-border payment infrastructures in Fiat.

[00:32:08] Hugo: So we have more capabilities from Fiat's standpoint, so offering a more compelling offer to contractors and provide the HR and tax components basically. For the payroll ones that are in the space, I would say it's the fact that we have built our entire infrastructure in a completely native way that brings us the most amount of flexibility when it comes to payouts in crypto and stablecoins, as well as fiat.

[00:32:37] Hugo: And again, I think that by having this extremely compliant first approach, we get access to better ecosystems with better rates. And better like geographic reach basically.

[00:32:50] Umar: Now, can you share some of the upcoming features and milestones you have for Rise? I saw on your website, you have employer of records in the pipeline.

[00:32:58] Hugo: That's what we're actively building! We believe it is the world's first on chain payroll engine with tax deducted on chain with privacy involved for salaries. And tied to that engine will be our employer of record service. We're going to start in the US essentially allowing any international customer and even domestic that want us to employ full time employees for them and provide healthcare benefits, W2s, employment agreements, and essentially get access to our compliance and entity infrastructure for us to employ these full time employees. Starting in the US and then deploying that around the world over the next few years. We see a lot of demand from our existing customers and just demand in general. 

[00:33:45] Umar: For the listener to better understand, let's say it's a US employer who wants to hire someone from, let's say, South Africa or Argentina, but they don't want to hire them a contractor, they want to hire them rather as an employee and offer them all the benefits that come along all the health insurance, pension and whatnot. So, for the employee based in, let's say, South Africa, how would that work for them? Would they have to worry anything when it comes to like their tax filings or would Rise be taking care of that?

[00:34:18] Hugo: So Rise would be taking care of all that. So in this particular use case, Rise would have an entity in South Africa. And Rise South Africa would become the employer for that full time employee. So essentially the customer would come to us, they would contract us to become the employers, hence employer of record.

[00:34:36] Hugo: And then we would provide the employment agreement, the healthcare and the benefits the payments to these workers on behalf of the customers. So we're going to start in the US meaning that we will employ full time employees based in the US for international customers.

[00:34:51] Umar: I understand. So it's something similar to Deal, Oyster, Remote.com, but now for crypto.

[00:34:59] Hugo: Essentially with a full on  and native blockchain infrastructure. So essentially, we have the same Fiat capabilities, but more flexibility and capabilities from a crypto and stablecoin standpoint. And on top of that infrastructure, we can bring on other components of the financial stack, that are built on chain and provide more products, more financial opportunity for employees.

[00:35:20] Umar: Hugo, we've come to the end of the podcast. As closing thoughts, do you have anything that maybe we didn't touch on today that you'd like to share with the listeners? 

[00:35:30] Hugo: Yeah, the door at Rise is always open for cooperation, for partnership, for exploration of use cases.

[00:35:36] Hugo: We didn't really touch on the Rise ID component, but we're looking for partners that would benefit from having a Rise ID implemented in their system. So the Rise ID, essentially we see it as the connecting tissue between HR, Finance Compliance, and we want users to travel the web with their Rise ID and plug it into different providers, into different systems.

[00:35:57] Hugo: And for example, skip KYC, on multiple of these providers, like that's one of the use cases, being able to share KYC information. So we're always looking for partners that could see the use of the Rise ID and on top of that, we're looking for businesses that are adjacent to our world.

[00:36:16] Hugo: So what talent marketplaces, accounting practices, businesses that could essentially help our customers, we're always looking to meet with them. 

[00:36:25] Umar: So for the Rise ID, could you give an example of let's say a current partner that you have? So I do have my Rise ID and then what are some of the other platforms that I'll go to and I'll be able to basically skip their KYC because I already have this Rise ID. 

[00:36:42] Hugo: So one thing that we're exploring now is, we enable all of the contractors on the platform to get access to travel and health insurance via a partner called SafetyWing, and we're exploring SafetyWing's ability to consume our KYC data and our KYC check for the contractors.

[00:37:00] Hugo: So instead of having the contractors to pass KYC on Rise and then pass KYC on SafetyWing, you could pass that information along right away via a wallet signature. So we're exploring that right now. That would be one of the use cases. 

[00:37:13] Hugo: On the Rise ID, we can add multiple attributes as well. So KYC status, work history, payment history, so that tomorrow, if you go to, let's say your LinkedIn, and instead of having to fill out, all the work that you've done, you'd be able to plug in your wallet and they will be able to read the data and see that you've worked at, this company and this company for how long, et cetera. But there's multiple use cases that we're exploring. And that we think will essentially make Finance, HR, Compliance, more modular.

[00:37:43] Umar: Fantastic. I was a client of SafetyWing when I was traveling lot and I can see why that makes sense. Yeah. That's great. Hugo, there's the last question that I like asking my guests before they leave. it's like a tradition on this podcast. It's, do you have a maxim or a quote that you live by?

[00:38:02] Hugo: A quote that I live by, you know what? I don't think I've ever said it on a podcast, but it's something that we used to say in my family, basically growing up. And I still say it cause I think , it means a lot. It's in French too, so I don't know how I'm going to translate this, but basically it's an acronym. It's TFCC. I'll say it in French first and then I'll do the translation, but in French it's, actually the first two words are in English, the second two words are in French. It's the fucking "combat continue" Which basically means the fucking fight goes on. And I think that it's, I apologize for these words, but it's something that I basically live by.

[00:38:46] Hugo: I think we're crazy enough to start businesses, especially in this space so essentially the fight goes on basically.

[00:38:54] Umar: I could say the show must go on as well. 

[00:38:58] Hugo: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:39:00] Umar: Something like that. Okay, cool. Hugo, thanks a lot for dropping in today. If people want to learn more about Rise and they want to get in touch with you, how should they do so?

[00:39:11] Hugo: Yeah. The entire team is available on all platforms.

[00:39:13] Hugo: So whether that is X, LinkedIn. Telegram, you can go to our website. It's riseworks.io. There are ways to get in touch with us. But yeah, we're super open to collaboration and partnerships. So door is wide open. 

[00:39:27] Umar: Fantastic. It's been a pleasure to have you today and learn more about Rise.

[00:39:31] Umar: And I wish you the best of luck and we'll stay in touch. 

[00:39:34] Hugo: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:39:37] Umar: I would like to thank everyone for listening to this episode. You will find all the links of the episode, show notes, and transcript on the website of The Accountant Quits at theaccountantquits.com  

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