Former Citadel Trader is Now Betting on Retail

[0:00] If I've got $10,000 in Moomoo, I can't
[0:02] do anything with it. I can pledge it for
[0:03] a margin loan, great, but I can't pledge
[0:05] it for a home loan. I can't take cash
[0:06] out against it. If the stock loan gets
[0:08] tight, I get no yield. If I hold the the
[0:10] blockchain native token, I can enter
[0:13] into a smart contract either on figure
[0:14] or on another platform, earn yield, take
[0:17] cash against it. I can use it as a home
[0:19] loan. You know, it's got utility to me.
[0:21] What's going on, guys? Today we got a
[0:22] great conversation with Neil McDonald.
[0:24] He's the CEO of Moomoo US, and Moomoo is
[0:27] taking over the United States. These
[0:28] guys are on fire.
[0:30] >> And he's here to explain to us exactly
[0:31] what's happening, why so many retail
[0:33] traders now have sophisticated tools,
[0:34] what are they doing on the platform, how
[0:36] is he thinking about tokenized stocks,
[0:38] crypto, and various other new
[0:39] technologies. And then we even get into
[0:41] what he's doing himself on the platform.
[0:43] Neil's very interesting because he used
[0:45] to work at a bunch of very large
[0:46] financial institutions. He was a big dog
[0:48] there. He ran some of the teams. He's
[0:50] going to explain to us what was going on
[0:51] there, how cultures work. But now he's a
[0:53] CEO of a retail trading platform, and
[0:55] he's trying to bring a lot of those
[0:56] types of tools or those types of
[0:57] approaches to the retail trader. That's
[0:59] you, that's me, and that's a lot of
[1:01] people who are listening. Here's my
[1:02] conversation with Neil McDonald.
[1:04] All right, Neil, I thought a good place
[1:05] to start the conversation, Moomoo is
[1:06] taking over the world. I think that
[1:08] people in the United States a couple
[1:09] years ago they had never heard of this
[1:10] thing before. They had heard of, you
[1:12] know, all the other retail brokerage
[1:13] platforms, but you guys burst on the
[1:15] scene. You're taking over the subway.
[1:16] You got a Mets partnership. All this
[1:18] stuff that is marketing. But I looked
[1:20] into the numbers. You guys are massive.
[1:23] Talk a little bit as to why is Moomoo
[1:25] being so successful on a global stage
[1:26] behind this whole retail trader
[1:28] movement? I I think we kind of caught
[1:30] like the the
[1:31] uh it's it's good timing, right? So, the
[1:33] rise of the retail trade everyone talks
[1:35] about. Um
[1:36] so, we've got like Moomoo is a global
[1:38] firm, so we started in Hong Kong. Uh we
[1:40] came to the US about 2019-2020, but the
[1:43] big push in the US has been really the
[1:45] past couple of years. You know, with the
[1:46] subway, with the Mets,
[1:48] uh and just the name recognition. We're
[1:49] we're going old school, but opening a
[1:51] store, back to the old E-Trade days with
[1:53] a coffee shop in it uh in Midtown on
[1:55] 33rd and Broadway uh just to be more
[1:58] visible and you know, have something
[2:00] people can touch and trust and and and
[2:02] everything else. So, I I I got a call 2
[2:05] years ago from I Moomoo was not on my
[2:07] radar. It was kind of I knew all these
[2:09] I've got every other platform.
[2:10] >> No, you did you did the marathon. You
[2:12] you went through pretty much every major
[2:13] amazing finance company. You worked
[2:15] there and ran a very big division there,
[2:17] right? Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan. I
[2:19] mean, you just ran the gamut. Yeah, so I
[2:21] was always a
[2:23] I ran options trading desk and quant
[2:24] trading desk at Citadel. I did all that
[2:26] kind of So, I was always on the other
[2:28] side of the retail trader, right? I was
[2:30] always the guy happy to take retail. I
[2:32] would pay more to people like E*TRADE
[2:34] and TD Why? and those guys.
[2:38] There's four things that retail traders
[2:40] have lacked, right? First was
[2:41] information. The information asymmetry.
[2:43] When I started in late '80s,
[2:46] I was at Goldman's and when Procter &
[2:48] Gamble had their earnings, for example,
[2:50] that some guy would dial it in from
[2:52] Cincinnati to the sales guys. They'd go
[2:54] and speak to institutions.
[2:57] The stock would move. The the All the
[2:59] information would be digested into the
[3:00] stock price. And then, by the time I got
[3:03] it the next day as a retail guy in the
[3:04] Wall Street Journal or the Financial
[3:06] Times in the UK, all the alpha's gone,
[3:09] right? So, there was that huge
[3:10] information asymmetry. That got solved
[3:12] by the internet. And then the second
[3:14] thing was access. So, people like
[3:16] E*TRADE, Robinhood really gave cheap,
[3:19] fast access to to data, to the markets
[3:22] themselves. And then the rise of like
[3:24] free trading. So, Robinhood was
[3:27] revolutionary back in 2013, '14 and
[3:29] that's when
[3:30] Futu Moomoo started in Hong Kong around
[3:32] the same time. Um
[3:34] So, I was saying, it was information
[3:36] they lacked. So, they're always going to
[3:38] be wrong. If you do your Series 7 today,
[3:40] and this is in 2026, they still have a a
[3:43] question and a section on a thing called
[3:46] the odd lot theory. And this is a a real
[3:48] thing. And that is And this is obviously
[3:50] before you could slice dice orders,
[3:52] block trades were institutions. Small
[3:55] trades were retail. That's just how it
[3:57] was before you sliced trades into small
[3:58] algo stuff as an institution.
[4:01] And so, when the volume divided by the
[4:04] number of trades hits a certain level,
[4:06] so it's more retail participation, when
[4:08] that gets high, it's a sell signal.
[4:10] And when it gets low, it's a buy signal.
[4:12] Mhm.
[4:12] >> Right? So, they're always wrong. So, we
[4:15] solved the internet solved the
[4:16] street.com or Yahoo Finance. That's
[4:18] democratized information. All of a
[4:20] sudden
[4:21] I know when the when the Fed changes
[4:23] rates, I know when an earnings report
[4:25] comes out. I can watch the news, I can
[4:26] watch CNBC, I can listen to podcast. So,
[4:29] we all have the same information, but
[4:31] then do you have the access? And now
[4:33] everyone has the access and um
[4:35] commission-free trading, so it's cheap
[4:37] and it's accessible. So, the next step
[4:39] what they didn't have is the tools.
[4:41] Right? So, you've got the access, you've
[4:42] got the information. How do I actually
[4:45] use the access and information to make
[4:46] money?
[4:47] So, the tools-wise, uh if you're looking
[4:49] at our platform, it's it's bonkers. It
[4:51] really is. It's You have on our desktop
[4:54] and our phone what I had at Citadel
[4:56] running a quant trading desk. You've got
[4:58] backtesting. Um
[5:00] It's funny. It's it's New Year's. So,
[5:01] every New Year for the past maybe 10, 15
[5:04] years, I bought the Udemy teach yourself
[5:06] Python course, right?
[5:08] >> Yeah. I've done two lessons and given
[5:09] up. Um on our platform, you don't need
[5:12] that anymore. It's uh
[5:14] no-code algo building. So, just block to
[5:16] block to block. Just if then if then if
[5:18] then. But, here's Here's the crazy
[5:20] thing. I can build an algo
[5:23] and then I can backtest it on 20 years
[5:24] worth of data for free. Wow.
[5:26] >> And it'll give me every entry and exit
[5:28] point I did, every trade, and how your
[5:31] P&L looks over time for what- whatever
[5:33] time period you choose. And then if you
[5:35] like it, you click and you run the algo.
[5:37] That's pretty cool, right?
[5:38] >> That's, you know. So, it's great having,
[5:40] you know, but then again, it's great
[5:41] having great tools, but you have to
[5:42] teach people how to use them.
[5:43] >> Now, as the retail tools increased in
[5:46] efficacy, did the
[5:48] big bad Wall Street firms, the Citadels
[5:50] of the world, etc., their tools
[5:51] obviously have increased as well. So, do
[5:53] you think that they still have an
[5:54] advantage, but maybe it's a little bit
[5:56] more of an even playing field? It's much
[5:58] more even. Their advantage is still
[6:00] maybe in speed. Mhm. Right? So, we're
[6:02] we're pretty quick, but we don't have
[6:03] our bare metal servers, you know, 3
[6:07] cm away from where the matching engine
[6:09] is. Cuz we don't need super super
[6:10] microseconds or speed, but certainly the
[6:14] tools are at a at a par of where it was
[6:16] 5 years ago. I mean, that's pretty
[6:17] crazy, right?
[6:18] >> And then with agentic AI and everything
[6:20] else, it really has leveled it to the
[6:21] point.
[6:22] >> Mhm. Now, when you look at you guys
[6:24] versus many of the other retail trading
[6:25] platforms, what do you think the big
[6:26] differences are? Why have you guys had
[6:28] so much success? Well, so the the first
[6:30] thing I'd say that we lack We've got to
[6:31] go back to that for a second. So, it's a
[6:33] it's a
[6:34] information access tools. And then it's
[6:36] really
[6:38] risk discipline, right? Human beings are
[6:40] generally terrible traders on your own.
[6:42] Mhm. So, when when I sat at Goldman's or
[6:44] JP Morgan, I was in a big trading floor
[6:46] with 500 smart people trading somebody
[6:48] else's money. That's kind of
[6:50] that's an easier thing to do than to be
[6:52] sat at home with your own money trading
[6:55] to try and build a financial future for
[6:57] yourself. It's tough. Mhm. You know,
[6:58] human beings are emotional Mhm. um
[7:02] emotional beings.
[7:04] um
[7:05] FOMO
[7:06] uh
[7:07] risk aversion or the heuristics from the
[7:09] Chicago school, all that's, you know,
[7:11] Taniman Kahneman and Tversky stuff. Uh
[7:14] it's tough to trade cuz even when I
[7:16] trade on my own, so when I've had to
[7:18] leave a company and have a
[7:20] uh 3-month or 6-month garden leave, I've
[7:22] been trading my own money, terrible.
[7:24] Awful. Interesting.
[7:25] >> Cuz I chase stuff and I panic out and
[7:27] cuz it's tough. So, what we have is this
[7:29] 29 million people distributed
[7:33] uh crowd-sourced risk management kind of
[7:36] um
[7:36] desk of people. So, you'll see people
[7:38] when our biggest influx of cash was uh
[7:41] liberation day last year. Really?
[7:43] >> came and they bought the dip. And I'm I
[7:45] was on the Nvidia chat and it's every
[7:47] second someone saying something. But
[7:49] this is someone in Tokyo, in Hong Kong,
[7:50] in Singapore, in Australia, in Canada,
[7:52] or in the US. And it was like, "What do
[7:54] I do here?" And they're like, "No, guess
[7:56] below 100, we're all buying." And it's
[7:58] There's like a It's like having a
[7:59] trading floor of people to speak to. So
[8:01] you don't I always before I trade, I
[8:03] say, "What do you think?" And I'll send
[8:04] my trades out, I'll send my port-
[8:06] portfolio out, I'll send my algos out,
[8:08] and people will take the time to run
[8:11] them themselves and change parameters to
[8:12] say, "Hey, there's an extra 400 basis
[8:14] points if you change this." Interesting.
[8:16] And so this social component is
[8:18] something that most of these other
[8:19] platforms do not have. Explain a little
[8:20] bit more as to how this works. So it
[8:22] It's certain It's a bit like Wikipedia
[8:24] against Encarta, right?
[8:26] Some things are organic and can't be
[8:28] replaced, and some things you can't just
[8:29] throw money at. So we started this back
[8:31] in 2013 just to make it like a a chat
[8:34] room for people to share ideas. One of
[8:36] the
[8:37] one of the main tenants in the firm is
[8:38] to make investing easier, but not alone.
[8:41] Mhm. And that's super important.
[8:44] I know as I said, I'm a terrible trader
[8:45] when it's I'm actually on my own and not
[8:48] talking to other people, not bouncing
[8:49] ideas off people, not I'll I'll panic,
[8:52] I'll do all the all the trader stuff the
[8:54] traders do. Same things I do. Same
[8:56] thing, yeah.
[8:56] >> [laughter]
[8:56] >> So this this community aspect is really,
[8:58] really important. It's I'm on there
[9:00] every single day. I have thousands of
[9:02] people follow me, I follow thousands of
[9:04] people. And I have people I really
[9:05] trust. I'll go, "What what are we doing
[9:07] here? What are we thinking? Is this
[9:09] important? Mhm. I'm thinking about
[9:10] buying these calls." And I'll get I'm
[9:12] waiting till this level before I buy
[9:14] them. You know, what we think.
[9:17] Or you know, I'm saying, "Where's my
[9:18] exit point here?" So if I'm trading
[9:20] options, I'm like, "Where's my exit
[9:21] point?" And they go, "We think it's
[9:22] here." Mhm. So it's It's like being on
[9:24] the trading floor, but this is people
[9:27] around the world, yeah. Now, do you
[9:28] think at some point you'll also be
[9:30] asking the AI? Like it Right now you're
[9:32] talking to humans, do you think that AI
[9:34] will also be fast enough, good enough,
[9:36] etc. to start
[9:37] >> think so,
[9:38] It's interesting, right? Cuz you start
[9:39] to mix AI and humans.
[9:41] >> platform. It does some fun stuff. Some
[9:43] of the Some of the LLM stuff we've got.
[9:45] Like for example, if you like if you're
[9:47] a technical trader, you like
[9:49] double tops or head and shoulders, you
[9:51] just pick one of 26 strategies. You
[9:53] click on it, and in a second it finds
[9:56] every stock in the universe that has the
[9:58] setup and shows where it's drawn.
[10:00] So that's great for entry and exit
[10:02] points. Mhm. So So explain this a little
[10:04] more cuz I think This is like a very
[10:05] fascinating way to think about retail
[10:07] investing is
[10:09] um
[10:10] information and education has
[10:12] drastically increased. Now you got
[10:13] somebody at home who says, "Hey, I like
[10:15] double tops." Okay. I I look I spend
[10:18] hours a day trying to find stocks that
[10:20] are, you know, in this specific
[10:22] formation.
[10:23] Um now they can basically say to the
[10:25] system, "Go find me every double top in
[10:27] the US listed public stock market."
[10:29] >> click it, and it just it goes swoosh,
[10:31] and it's ins- it's instant. And then
[10:33] what? It's just like another click or
[10:34] two to be able to buy? You just buy. And
[10:35] then it's you just click on it, and it
[10:36] say, "What do you want to do here?" Mhm.
[10:38] I mean it's it's You couldn't do that to
[10:40] a human being. Yeah, I mean you're
[10:42] you're basically automating what is uh
[10:44] hours and hours of
[10:46] uh time, but also frankly prone to
[10:49] mistakes. Yeah. Right? I mean, you know,
[10:51] I'm very fascinated
[10:52] >> are really good at like seeing patterns
[10:53] that aren't there. That's what I mean,
[10:54] right? Yeah. You want to You want to You
[10:56] want to buy, you'll find something to
[10:57] tell you that it's right to buy.
[10:59] >> they say technical analysis is just
[11:01] astrology for men, right? You know, you
[11:02] just draw the lines everywhere. Um but I
[11:04] kind of think of it like with doctors,
[11:05] right? Like now AI's doing more and more
[11:07] reading of X-rays, and there's still a
[11:10] doctor involved, but the X-ray AI system
[11:14] is able to pick up things that the
[11:15] doctor may miss or maybe the doctor is
[11:17] just tired or, you know, been a long day
[11:19] or whatever. To me, that's where AI
[11:21] becomes really, really interesting is
[11:23] it's augmenting the human, which sounds
[11:24] like kind of what you guys are doing
[11:25] where you're basically saying that human
[11:27] has an idea, it tells the system to go
[11:29] find a bunch of stuff, and then the
[11:30] human is the oversight and and double
[11:32] checking and saying, "Yes, confirm I
[11:34] want to do this."
[11:35] >> always got the do you want to trade yes
[11:36] or no? There's always a confirmation pop
[11:38] to any kind of
[11:39] trade that's kind of suggested or
[11:41] whatever. Um
[11:42] but it's it's tough cuz it's um
[11:45] you know
[11:46] I came here, I was on the subway, I was
[11:47] still on my phone. I was on Twitter and
[11:49] stuff. I was reading some of your stuff.
[11:51] We're just we're bom- bombarded with
[11:53] information more so now than at any time
[11:55] in history. You're just bombarded with
[11:57] opinions, views, information, data. Um
[12:00] So, what AI does on our platform anyway
[12:02] just cuts through that. It tries to make
[12:04] signals to give you actionable things to
[12:06] do. So, you know, to it will suggest to
[12:08] you, here's the summary from uh from you
[12:11] know, the filings from You can even ask
[12:13] it the earnings report, "What was
[12:14] different in this earnings earnings um
[12:17] announcement than the last one?" And I
[12:20] can't do that. I'm not going to go
[12:20] through every announcement, listen to
[12:22] listen to the earnings call for the last
[12:24] three or four quarters. That's just too
[12:26] much work. But you can do that with AI.
[12:28] So, it just cuts down your research
[12:30] time.
[12:32] You guys have all of the traditional
[12:34] assets, you also have crypto on the
[12:35] platform. So, talk a little bit as to
[12:37] what do you see users actually doing on
[12:39] the platform? Are they mostly equities?
[12:41] Are they more crypto traders? Are they
[12:43] international, domestic? Just like what
[12:45] are some of the patterns? Yeah, so so so
[12:46] our guys are generally the
[12:48] uh stock guys.
[12:50] Uh our our class tends to be like buy
[12:51] and hold and longer term.
[12:54] We have more of those than kind of the
[12:55] in and out active day traders.
[12:58] Uh so, for crypto, we found it's people
[13:00] who want to make it 5 10% of their
[13:01] portfolio. So, they buy through fiat,
[13:03] they they don't have to have a wallet.
[13:05] It it's in their account. They look at
[13:07] their account. And even though it's it's
[13:10] you know, in in digital form, in in
[13:12] their daily statements on their phone,
[13:13] it just looks like a stock. Mhm.
[13:15] >> And they buy it with fiat, we do the
[13:16] conversions, we do all the back end
[13:18] stuff.
[13:18] >> Mhm. And we actually funny if the
[13:20] talking about like digital stuff and
[13:22] tokenization, so the big deal happened
[13:24] in February the the first um
[13:27] SEC blockchain native thing with Mike
[13:30] Cagney at Figure. So, we were the I I
[13:32] I'm an investor in Figure and
[13:34] I'm a big fan of Mike Cagney. So, that
[13:36] was fun to see. I was talking to I was
[13:37] talking to him yesterday. So, we he had
[13:40] there was a tight deadline for the S-1.
[13:41] It ran out on I think Feb 16th. They
[13:44] only got the okay on the the Thursday
[13:46] before. And we were the only broker with
[13:49] the technical ability to make that
[13:52] happen. Interesting.
[13:53] >> So, on our platform, you buy it with So,
[13:55] you just it's a US dollar asset on our
[13:57] platform. On the back end, we convert to
[13:59] WLTS and then we get it minted on open
[14:02] platform on on Figure. So, the only
[14:05] place you can buy it outside of Figure
[14:07] ATS is through Moonbase. Interesting.
[14:10] >> So, so we did that and we think there's
[14:11] going to be many more of those.
[14:12] >> going to say, do you think that over the
[14:14] next 5 or 10 years, like what percentage
[14:16] of the stocks that people are buying on
[14:17] your platform will be tokenized versions
[14:19] versus kind of the traditional
[14:20] electronic use?
[14:21] >> Mike Cagney would say 100%. That's what
[14:23] Mike Cagney would say when you were
[14:24] there. 100%. Um
[14:26] We're just hoping that maybe with
[14:28] things like Open AI and
[14:30] you know, and the
[14:31] the big IPOs coming, that those guys are
[14:33] fairly technically advanced and they
[14:35] would they would make some portion of
[14:36] those blockchain native, you know.
[14:38] >> Yeah. So, for I mean, we we took down a
[14:40] third of the IPO. Mhm. Our clients So, I
[14:43] said I said to my client, "Why did you
[14:44] buy it?" They there was a they wanted to
[14:46] be to buy the first ever SEC registered
[14:49] tokenized security on on the platform.
[14:52] And then also you can earn yield, right?
[14:53] There's no
[14:54] If I've got $10,000 in Nvidia, I can't
[14:56] do anything with it. Right? I can pledge
[14:58] it for a margin loan. Great. But I can't
[15:00] pledge it for a home loan. I can't take
[15:02] cash out against it. If the stock loan
[15:04] gets tight, I get no yield. Mhm. But if
[15:06] I hold the if I hold the um the
[15:09] blockchain native token, I can enter
[15:11] into a smart contract either on Figure
[15:13] or on another platform, earn yield.
[15:16] Um I can take that and
[15:18] take cash against it. I can use it as a
[15:20] home loan. You know, it's got utility to
[15:22] me, that just a stock in a stock um
[15:24] portfolio has very little utility apart
[15:27] from
[15:28] collateral for margin. Today's episode
[15:30] is brought to you by Uphold. Are you
[15:32] someone who's tired of juggling multiple
[15:34] apps just to trade, earn, stake, or
[15:36] spend your crypto? Then listen up,
[15:38] because Uphold does all of that in one
[15:40] single unified platform. You can access
[15:42] 300-plus crypto and fiat currencies with
[15:44] an interface that works for you, whether
[15:46] you're a beginner or an expert. Uphold
[15:48] also features any-to-any swaps, where
[15:51] you can swap crypto to fiat, fiat to
[15:54] metals, and tokens to tokens directly in
[15:56] the app. If you prefer self-custody,
[15:58] Uphold's vault gives you multi-sig
[15:59] security, key recovery, direct trading
[16:02] access, and peace of mind without giving
[16:04] up convenience. Uphold is also 100%
[16:06] reserved, meaning no fractional
[16:08] practices, and proof of reserves are
[16:10] updated every 30 seconds, so you can
[16:12] verify your assets anytime. For US
[16:15] users, you can even earn yield on
[16:16] dollars with a USD interest account. No
[16:19] fees, no minimums, and funds are insured
[16:21] up to $2.5 million through [music] the
[16:23] Atomic Cash Sweep Program. If you want
[16:26] one app for your entire digital asset
[16:28] life, check out Uphold [music] today. Go
[16:30] to uphold.com to learn more. uphold.com.
[16:34] Go check them out today.
[16:37] Today's episode [music] is brought to
[16:38] you by Arch Public. I absolutely love
[16:40] these guys. Arch Public is an agentic
[16:42] trading platform that automates [music]
[16:43] the buying and selling of your preferred
[16:45] crypto strategies. Using sophisticated
[16:47] algorithms like the Intelligence,
[16:48] Arbitrage, and Oracle protocols,
[16:50] >> [music]
[16:50] >> Arch executes advanced automated crypto
[16:53] strategies fully customized to your
[16:54] goals. Is your aim to accumulate Bitcoin
[16:57] during [music] market dips, generate
[16:58] profits from Ethereum volatility, or
[17:00] sell Solana or XRP in layers as it
[17:03] reclaims all-time highs?
[17:04] >> [music]
[17:04] >> If so, Arch Public is built for you. Are
[17:07] you worried about doing it alone? No
[17:09] problem.
[17:09] >> [music]
[17:09] >> Arch Public provides everyone, yes,
[17:11] everyone, with hands-on dedicated
[17:13] support [music] from their concierge
[17:15] team to help implement the strategy that
[17:17] you choose. As a preferred trading
[17:19] partner of Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood,
[17:21] and Gemini, Arch Public [music] offers a
[17:23] proven track record of security and
[17:25] performance so that you can trade with
[17:27] confidence. Sign up today at
[17:28] archpublic.com [music]
[17:30] and start your automated trading
[17:31] strategy for free. No catch, no hidden
[17:34] fees, just smarter trading. Your [music]
[17:36] crypto, your exchange, your profits.
[17:38] Arch Public. Go to archpublic.com
[17:41] and [music] tell them I sent you.
[17:43] Mhm. Yeah, it's fascinating to see.
[17:46] Um on one hand you've got crypto assets
[17:48] that are trying to get into the
[17:49] regulated system. On the other hand
[17:51] you've got things like a hyperliquid or
[17:52] something, right, that's trying to
[17:53] basically create uh the like
[17:55] crypto-native decentralized, you know,
[17:57] version. And both are working. Yeah, I
[18:00] think that's the part like to me that's
[18:01] the biggest thing is it's not either or,
[18:02] it's both, it seems like. Yeah, so like
[18:04] on you know, one of the biggest traded
[18:06] uh contracts on hyperliquid was oil. So
[18:08] people like permissionless, and there's
[18:09] going to be a certain sector of the
[18:11] investor base and the client base who
[18:12] always want to do permissionless stuff.
[18:14] And then there's people who want to
[18:15] trade on a platform that's secure,
[18:17] that's uh guaranteed, they can and
[18:19] they're used to using the tools for
[18:20] stocks.
[18:21] Um so what we we didn't rush into crude
[18:23] oil, we took our time. So we wanted to
[18:26] try and um
[18:27] you know, bring some rigor, discipline,
[18:29] transparency to the process, and just
[18:31] make trading crypto just like trading
[18:33] stocks. What about with the options?
[18:34] Like it seems like retail investors
[18:36] have, you know, really flocked to
[18:37] options trading. Um zero-day options now
[18:40] are the most popular option. Um
[18:42] there's, you know, potential pitfalls
[18:44] with so many people trading options, but
[18:45] it does feel like this is a huge part of
[18:48] uh the market.
[18:48] >> Yeah, we we special our option product
[18:50] is probably the strongest product we
[18:52] have, and that's kind of one of our
[18:54] advantages over some of our competition
[18:56] is that some of the tools we have we
[18:57] have So I've been trading options for
[18:59] 35-plus years.
[19:00] You know, the people say AI and tools
[19:02] will take your job. All my knowledge is
[19:05] worth zero right now. All that
[19:07] experience is worth nothing. We have a
[19:09] thing called option strategy builder,
[19:11] where you say, "I'm very bullish,
[19:12] bullish, neutral, bearish, very
[19:14] bearish." You can set a slider for your
[19:16] risk tolerance,
[19:18] um for your um for the tenor you want to
[19:20] go out, and it will just build you the
[19:22] strategy.
[19:23] And show you
[19:24] all the payoffs all in um
[19:27] image format, and then you can just uh
[19:30] slide the strike, slide um
[19:32] whether you want to take more risk or
[19:33] less risk, and it will build the
[19:35] strategy, and you can click trade it
[19:37] straight through the interface.
[19:39] So, it's almost uh obfuscating away some
[19:42] of the technical components of it, and
[19:43] you're more so the user interface is
[19:45] making it much easier to interact with.
[19:46] Cuz you you can just see your payoffs.
[19:48] And then for zero DTEs, as you know,
[19:50] they you know, gamma goes to infinity
[19:51] about 5:00 to 4:00.
[19:53] And so, one thing we have is we have a
[19:55] trailing stop on zero DTEs. Mhm. So, I
[19:58] use that all I never enter into a zero
[20:01] DTE without a trailing stop, especially
[20:03] cuz you want to catch that wizard,
[20:05] right? You want to go it's 10 cents,
[20:06] it's not it's a $1.50, um but then it's
[20:09] a $1.50 and it's 10 cents again. Mhm.
[20:11] So, I use tra- I use our trailing stops.
[20:13] So, I know if it goes up and it's down
[20:14] by 10, I'm out. Yeah. How important is
[20:16] it that you're trading on the platform
[20:17] as well? I I make all the mistakes. So,
[20:19] I'm like, this is what the the you
[20:21] normal average uh trader will do. So, I
[20:24] I use it and you know, we have
[20:25] everything we do is we have this system
[20:27] called Andon. I think it came from
[20:28] Toyota.
[20:30] But um every change we make is driven by
[20:32] clients. So, people make suggestions,
[20:34] I'll make suggestions, that goes when
[20:36] it's a certain level goes straight to
[20:37] our product guys, and then they start
[20:39] So, it's not we it's not like I'm
[20:41] thinking, "This be a great feature."
[20:42] It's when people ask for the features.
[20:44] >> Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, but you as the
[20:48] uh leader of the business, you are like
[20:50] touching the problem. Yeah. Right? Like
[20:51] you're Yeah, yeah. It feels like that
[20:53] would be pretty important.
[20:54] >> Yeah, so I'm I make suggestions, I'm
[20:55] like, "We can do this better. Here's
[20:56] what I'd like to see." And then it goes
[20:58] we to a group of people, we discuss, and
[21:00] then Yeah. But we we actually turn out
[21:03] product really quickly. We've got 4,000
[21:06] We've got 4,000 people
[21:08] globally. 3,000 of them are in product
[21:11] development and um
[21:13] yeah, product and dev.
[21:14] You've made a huge push into these IPO
[21:16] allocations and really advocated for
[21:18] retail investors to get bigger and
[21:19] bigger portions. What have you seen
[21:21] there in that effort? Yeah, I mean we've
[21:22] had most success with with people like
[21:24] Mike Cagney, Mike Belichic cuz they're
[21:26] just disruptive people by nature. And so
[21:28] they look at you know they made their
[21:30] money by looking at a legacy ecosystem
[21:32] saying that doesn't make sense. I can do
[21:34] that better, cheaper, faster.
[21:36] Um
[21:37] so they look at the you know um you go
[21:39] to an investment bank and you have to
[21:41] pay them to tell you your price should
[21:43] be this so they can send it to their
[21:45] institutional um clients. And there's a
[21:47] conflict of interest there or people can
[21:49] see that as a conflict of interest. So
[21:51] we went directly to these guys or we
[21:53] went through uh some of the banks who
[21:54] said, "Listen,
[21:55] um we can show you all the data. Retail
[21:57] is not The idea of the narrative that
[21:59] retail's a flipper is not the case. So
[22:02] we have all the data. If I take uh Fig
[22:04] or Bill Rich for example, we've been net
[22:06] buyers of the stock every week since the
[22:08] IPO." Interesting. So we have more
[22:10] people who hold the stock now than
[22:12] actually we got allocation for. Yeah,
[22:14] I'm a great great for those businesses,
[22:15] right? And we and we get huge amounts of
[22:17] demand. BitGo, uh it was a $200 million
[22:20] deal. I know it's down uh from its its
[22:22] price. But we had like almost $700
[22:24] million of
[22:25] um demand. Wow.
[22:27] Um
[22:28] you've been friends with uh Jordy Visser
[22:30] for a long time. Jordy's a a star of the
[22:32] show. Uh maybe I have to change it to
[22:34] Pomp and Jordy show. Um but
[22:36] >> and Pomp or maybe. Yeah, that's actually
[22:38] yeah, at this point why don't even have
[22:39] my name in it? It's just the Jordy show.
[22:41] Um
[22:42] talk a little bit about the early days
[22:44] of Morgan Stanley in your career and and
[22:46] kind of what you learned there and then
[22:47] also I think Citadel is a pretty
[22:49] interesting place that you know most
[22:51] people with your pedigree and and
[22:53] experience they don't kind of flip over
[22:55] on the other side of the table. And I
[22:56] think it's very fascinating you worked
[22:57] at some of these places that are you
[22:59] know very well respected for a long time
[23:01] for the culture they built, the quality
[23:03] of the people, the tools they built. So,
[23:04] talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I I
[23:06] what I remember about
[23:08] Stanley, JP Morgan Stanley, I think
[23:10] culture was the main thing. There was a
[23:11] culture of excellence of uh being
[23:14] humble, um never thinking you're right
[23:16] all the time, collaboration. So, I I
[23:19] when I joined Goldman's, there was maybe
[23:20] 4,000 people globally when it was still
[23:22] a partnership.
[23:23] >> Mhm. And it felt like you were part of
[23:24] something. That That was really very
[23:26] important to me. And I've been looking
[23:28] to work at places that have had that
[23:29] kind of Mhm. that
[23:31] it doesn't feel too corporate.
[23:33] Obviously, they're large banks, but you
[23:34] know, in within groups of people, you're
[23:36] working with very smart people who are
[23:38] all trying to get to the same point.
[23:39] Mhm. So, uh moomoo is is exactly like
[23:42] that. It feels like a startup. It feels
[23:43] exciting. So, I when I've been at the
[23:46] banks, I've always done the more
[23:47] cutting-edge stuff. So, with Jordy, when
[23:49] I was at Morgan Stanley, uh we were
[23:50] index option traders together. I was
[23:52] doing Europe, he was doing the S&P.
[23:54] And then when the um when the ISE was
[23:57] formed in '99, the first electronic
[24:00] exchange, uh I co-led that group. So, I
[24:03] got into the automated market making,
[24:05] and then that led to the the quant algo
[24:07] trading at Citadel. Uh at JP Morgan, I
[24:09] built globally the electronic market
[24:11] making business. So, the tools to trade
[24:13] have always been something I've been
[24:14] interested in.
[24:15] And then that kind of was natural that
[24:17] comes to like moomoo that feels like a
[24:18] startup. Um
[24:20] a bunch of super smart people all
[24:22] working really hard, uh a lack of egos.
[24:26] It's it's it's the favorite place is I
[24:28] would say it's it's my favorite place to
[24:30] have worked in all of my career. Yeah.
[24:32] Wow. And when you think about
[24:35] uh this business, I think one of the
[24:36] things that's really interesting is
[24:38] you've got a lot of fronts that you've
[24:39] got a uh kind of manage, right? You've
[24:40] obviously got the internal team and the
[24:42] culture and and things that every
[24:43] business has to deal with. You're
[24:45] building technology, so there's all the
[24:47] product and dev work that you got to do.
[24:48] Uh but you're building it in a dynamic
[24:50] environment where, you know, 10 years
[24:52] ago crypto wasn't a thing really uh for
[24:54] a lot of these platforms. Now there's
[24:55] tokenization, prediction markets. I
[24:57] mean, it's just every day there's
[24:58] something new. And then you've also got
[25:00] to deal with regulation on top of that.
[25:01] And so talk about how do you like like
[25:03] what is your normal day look like? How
[25:05] do you handle so much complexity? I
[25:07] think that's a good point. So we're a
[25:09] fintech company, but we're a
[25:10] broker-dealer, right? So it's it's you
[25:12] can't be like a fintech that just throws
[25:13] things against the wall and breaks
[25:15] things and cuz you can't cuz if you
[25:16] break one thing and people can't trade,
[25:18] you're out of business, right? And then
[25:20] you know, we're regulated by FINRA, uh
[25:22] registered with the SEC.
[25:24] Um so we you know, a large part of our
[25:26] US office is compliance, right? So
[25:28] [clears throat] it's protecting the
[25:29] customer, uh
[25:31] AML stuff. So we're
[25:32] we're super tight on that stuff. It's a
[25:34] useful discipline to work within a
[25:36] highly regulated environment. It
[25:38] protects our clients, it protects us.
[25:40] Um and so we're trying to bring that
[25:42] kind of as I said rigor, compliance,
[25:44] transparency, discipline, trying to
[25:46] bring that to new
[25:47] new classes. It's the first time in
[25:48] history I've never know I don't know
[25:50] what next year will look like. It's
[25:51] super exciting. It's exciting, but it's
[25:54] also you got to try to figure it out. So
[25:56] like what how do you figure it out?
[25:57] Yeah, so uh not rushing it not rushing
[26:00] into the next So we we think long and
[26:02] hard. We think why us? Why this? Why
[26:04] now? And so they have those three
[26:06] questions have to be have to be
[26:08] answered. Is it the right thing for our
[26:10] clients? Is it the right timing for us?
[26:12] Are we the right people to do this? Can
[26:13] we deliver something different?
[26:15] >> Mhm. And so when you look at these new
[26:17] technologies that are coming out, uh one
[26:19] of the other things I think is really
[26:19] interesting is like who the
[26:21] quote-unquote retail investor or this
[26:23] like I call them independent investor is
[26:25] has really changed. It used to be you
[26:26] know, somebody with five bucks.
[26:28] These people are wealthy now.
[26:29] >> These people wealthy, Right. And then
[26:31] talk talk a little bit as like who that
[26:32] user is.
[26:33] >> Yeah, I mean it's like 25 to 42. Uh some
[26:36] of the money's come down from their
[26:37] parents. You know, there's that whole
[26:38] waterfall from uh from the boomers. But
[26:41] they're smart. I mean, they're not your
[26:42] average they're not the retail investor
[26:44] of even 10 years ago. Um
[26:46] again, it's about educating yourself. So
[26:49] you know, you can have all the best
[26:50] tools in the world, but if you don't
[26:51] teach people how to use them, they make
[26:53] it makes no sense.
[26:54] >> Mhm. So, our our investors say our
[26:56] average AUM is much higher than our US
[26:59] competition. Um
[27:01] they tend to be buy and hold. They're
[27:02] not they don't they're not going crazy
[27:05] on zero DTEs. They have the tools and we
[27:07] do have a some active traders on the
[27:08] platform. Uh
[27:10] but generally
[27:12] um the
[27:13] I'm always amazed by their fortitude.
[27:15] Right? They And that's part of being in
[27:17] the community stuff, but we have people
[27:18] who bought Nvidia Jan 23 at
[27:22] below 20 bucks. And all they've done is
[27:24] buy dips all the way down. And then when
[27:26] it's a bit extended, they'll sell sell
[27:28] credit spreads. When it's coming off
[27:30] again, they'll sell, you know, um
[27:32] put spreads.
[27:33] So, they're quite sophisticated. They're
[27:35] sophisticated. They they don't panic.
[27:37] You know, that's um
[27:38] you know,
[27:39] I I I kind of make the joke that um
[27:41] my wife's not going to find me from my
[27:43] 401k, right? If I have a bad quarter.
[27:45] But you know, if you if you're in a pool
[27:47] at Millennium or you're over-leveraged
[27:48] hedge fund, you have a bad quarter,
[27:50] you're out. You're down 5% you've lost.
[27:52] Right? So, my um
[27:55] our clients will take drawdowns and see
[27:57] it as opportunity. Talk a little bit
[27:59] more about like take the pods, right?
[28:01] And whether it's Citadel or anywhere
[28:02] else or Millennium.
[28:04] Um
[28:05] I don't think people quite understand
[28:06] the risk limits and how
[28:08] uh kind of unemotional the
[28:10] decision-making there is. So, so talk
[28:11] just a little bit. Well, it's completely
[28:12] automated. So, if you're a PM and you're
[28:14] running a strategy, you have to show
[28:15] your sharp above like 2.6 I think it is
[28:17] for for same Millennium. I don't know I
[28:20] quote is he here, but 2.6 is 10, you
[28:22] know, you have to show a track record.
[28:24] And then they'll give you money,
[28:25] absolutely. And if you do well, you get
[28:27] paid. Mhm. The downside is they start to
[28:29] gate you down to an off three and down
[28:32] five you're out. Mhm.
[28:33] >> just stop you out and you're wiped out.
[28:35] Yeah, so like this year, I don't know,
[28:37] maybe 100 million dollars, once you're
[28:39] down 5%
[28:40] it's over. That's over. Yeah, and it's
[28:42] really a culture of I mean, if you up a
[28:44] you know, if you up 100, then I think
[28:46] they scale it, so but if you down five
[28:48] below average zero, then you definitely
[28:50] are. Yeah. And so it it's interesting
[28:52] because they're doing this across, you
[28:54] know, in some cases hundreds of pods,
[28:56] and it really just becomes this like
[28:57] automated big risk mitigation, you know,
[28:59] and just
[29:00] >> I mean, it's uh it's
[29:02] they're getting paid on the picks and
[29:03] shovels, and other people are taking the
[29:05] risk. Mhm. So, it's a great business
[29:07] model. Mhm. Yeah, it's pretty uh it's
[29:09] pretty interesting.
[29:09] >> Assuming you've got really tight risk
[29:11] limits and that you can liquidate down
[29:12] five. Well, that's the other thing.
[29:14] Yeah. You get into these correlations
[29:15] and, you know,
[29:16] um I I always uh I yearn for the old
[29:19] school like cowboy risk takers.
[29:21] They're they're not working any pod
[29:23] shops, right? Cuz these guys might go
[29:24] down 20% and, you know, make it all back
[29:26] in a single trade. Um but I do think
[29:28] that the rise of the pod shops mirrors
[29:31] the rise of the sophisticated investor,
[29:33] where everyone is becoming much more
[29:35] informed and understand some of the
[29:38] pitfalls of financial markets together.
[29:40] Um and, you know, Twitter X has been a
[29:43] huge part of that, but but it does feel
[29:45] like the pod shops have really hit their
[29:47] stride and become super sophisticated.
[29:49] Retail has as well. Again, it's not
[29:51] saying a retail investor's like a pod
[29:52] shop, but um there just feels like
[29:55] overall the market is getting smarter.
[29:57] Yeah, I'm I'm in again, it's an
[29:58] education process. We've got 2,000
[30:00] videos and stuff on the platform, trying
[30:02] to take people from you know, trading
[30:04] 101 to to using algos, to using uh
[30:08] backtesting environments, to using the
[30:09] tools. The gap between the guy at
[30:11] Millennium and Citadel and the
[30:14] sophisticated retail retail trader has
[30:16] never been narrower, and AI is making
[30:18] that really, really tight. Interesting.
[30:20] What what do you like lay awake at night
[30:22] over? What what what are the challenges?
[30:25] Um
[30:27] other than the Mets not being good.
[30:30] Well, the Mets being seven and 11 at the
[30:31] moment.
[30:32] And they they've got to play one more
[30:33] game in in LA as well. I know. I know.
[30:36] As a Yankees fan, I can, you know, give
[30:38] a little. They're going to be they're
[30:39] going to be seven and 12.
[30:41] They're going to be seven and 12 by this
[30:42] evening.
[30:43] >> [laughter]
[30:43] >> I I won't be watching the late game
[30:45] tonight. Um
[30:46] Uh
[30:47] regulation with the ask on clarity act I
[30:50] really care about. Regulators having to
[30:52] move quicker than I think it makes them
[30:54] comfortable. The The world is changing
[30:56] so quickly.
[30:58] We got lots of issues with the AI stuff
[31:00] and with our tools. Um
[31:03] And it's just can can we keep up? Can we
[31:05] keep giving our guys the tools that they
[31:07] need? Mhm. So we know we we we we most
[31:10] of them when it goes in R&D and product
[31:12] development. And we're just hoping that
[31:14] you know we keep turning out the
[31:15] product.
[31:15] >> like super AI piled and they're all just
[31:17] like running wild with all the models
[31:19] and everything? So we have some like
[31:20] that. We have a whole section that we
[31:22] got Remember we we've got over in a
[31:23] broker dealer. So we need the safe
[31:25] boring infrastructure. Mhm. Um cysex
[31:28] stuff. All the stuff you need. And then
[31:30] we've got the more fun stuff which is
[31:31] the AI. Mhm. Um and and the people
[31:34] coding the fun stuff. But a lot of it is
[31:36] just making sure we're up all the time.
[31:39] Like for for for Take it for the we make
[31:41] markets 24/5 in the we make markets. We
[31:43] give access 24/5 to figure D to the
[31:46] token. Mhm. So that was a big step for
[31:48] us and then so we have we have to be up
[31:50] all the time. So my worry is that at
[31:53] some point something happens and we go
[31:54] down. Do you sleep? I do sleep. Yeah
[31:56] yeah yeah. I sleep a lot more as CEO of
[31:59] Moon Pay than I ever slept at Citadel
[32:00] Jefferies before.
[32:01] >> Why? Cuz I'm not running risk. Oh. I'm
[32:04] running risk. I care about my my clients
[32:05] and reputational risk and they make sure
[32:07] the platform's up.
[32:08] >> Yeah yeah. But not like a book Not like
[32:10] a book, yeah. Yeah yeah. That's
[32:11] interesting though that actually there
[32:13] you felt much more kind of pressure to
[32:16] on the risk side of the the book versus
[32:19] the
[32:19] >> Yeah I mean especially because there's
[32:21] so much more information on weekends
[32:23] now. Mhm. So if I was running a huge
[32:25] global options book and then you know
[32:27] something happens on a Saturday
[32:29] You know we got a guy at the White
[32:30] House. He likes to do stuff on Friday,
[32:32] Saturday, Sunday. [laughter]
[32:33] I mean I I would He's He's suspiciously
[32:35] waits till the market close on Friday
[32:36] and starts firing the information. I
[32:38] would never be not running slides. Yeah.
[32:40] You know, but back then you mentioned
[32:42] Monte Carlo before.
[32:43] We should run those overnight. Mhm. On
[32:45] bare metal servers. Mhm. Right?
[32:47] [clears throat]
[32:48] And the fact on our platform you can
[32:49] click and just run a whole back test is
[32:51] is That's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah.
[32:54] That's democratization right at its
[32:55] finest. And then you you can share them
[32:57] with people. Yeah. So you see you see in
[32:59] our chat everyday taking video. People
[33:02] just putting their trades up and their
[33:03] wins, their losses. Mhm. And there's a
[33:05] feeling of being part of something, you
[33:06] know, you're in a big trading venue.
[33:09] Yeah. Uh rather than just being in your
[33:10] bedroom or in the kitchen or
[33:12] Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right,
[33:14] well thank you for taking the time to do
[33:15] this. If you guys want the best trading
[33:17] experience go to Moomoo. Go check them
[33:18] out and uh we'll do this again in
[33:20] future. Anthony, thank you.