Backpack CEO’s journey from Apple, Alameda, to creating a global regulated exchange
Solana Sessions: A Monthly Series Focused on Builders
Welcome to the first edition of Solana Sessions, a joint campaign by Token Relations and Talking Tokens.
Each month, we’re diving into one founder’s journey building on Solana, as well as noteworthy network updates to help readers get up to speed.
The latest Solana Sessions podcast
For the first Solana Sessions episode, we sat down with Backpack and Mad Lads Co-Founder and CEO Armani Ferrante.
We discuss Ferrante’s journey from Apple to Alameda to building multiple startups on Solana. We also dive into his experience operating during the FTX collapse, how that shaped him to operate Backpack’s business, what he’s doing to scale the exchange and more.
This episode is a part of a campaign focused on Solana founders. The podcast is available on Talking Tokens on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
Backpack’s climbing a mountain to fill a “hole in the market”
Security and trust are two of the biggest factors crypto users often take into account when engaging with their money onchain.
And for Backpack, a crypto exchange and wallet, trust is paramount, according to its co-founder and CEO Armani Ferrante.
Providing a form of shared ownership between the exchange and its users is "a very unique relationship and dynamic that's pretty special," he added. "[It's] specific to crypto that doesn't really exist anywhere else."
The 2022 FTX collapse played a huge role in the shift of his point of view. At the time, Backpack lost 88% of its operating capital and while most founders might have walked away, Ferrante saw it as a shift from both a mindset perspective and product one.
At the time, FTX was one of the largest exchanges globally. “I think a lot of people saw the exchange opportunity the moment FTX collapsed and thought oh - I'm going to go build the next great exchange and fill that hole in the market,” Ferrante stated.
Although Ferrante's first reaction was to not build an exchange, his perspective shifted.
“I felt like I could build an exchange. No problem,” Ferrante said. He felt that the frameworks he’d have to operate in would be “easy.”
“That’s the big unlock that gave me the confidence to build a team,” he added. Backpack wanted to bring a more regulated exchange experience to the market at a global scale, to fill a “legitimate hole in the market.”
“A lot of us think that crypto will eat finance in the same way that software ate the entire world.” Ferrante said. “And that, you know, this whole conversation of DeFi versus CeFi is a momentary thing, and ultimately we'll just think of it all as finance and, and let's go build for that world.”
Ultimately, Ferrante saw Solana as the perfect place to do just that. “Everyone was saying Solana's dead - I was one of the people who was not in that camp,” he said.
Even though Solana was arguably tied in with FTX, as the former exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was an advocate for the network, Ferrante held the belief that it had the most developer possibilities.
“If you look at it from a pure engineering point of view, [the Solana network] has a really important system design that somebody has to go build, and that somebody will build, and the person that operates at scale will do really well.” Ferrante said. “The world just needs [Solana].”
Looking forward, Backpack wants to be a global company. It’s available in over 150 countries, but Ferrante still sees this expansion as one of the “biggest mountains to climb this year.” It has expanded operations recently in Europe, alongside acquiring FTX EU, and other strategies to grow its presence globally.
“I think the first mountain that we've climbed was really the most important one which is to be able to serve users all around the world,” Ferrante said. While deemed as “not the sexiest thing in the world,” it’s important to build a regulated company. “I think we more or less have a clear path to get to the top of that mountain.”
Unpacking Backpack Metrics
Spot trading volume (24hr): $48.2M
Total assets in reserve: $79.5.M
Total volume traded: $60B
Total transactions completed: 500M+
What we’re watching on Solana
Solana turned 5 years old and celebrated with these stats:
Total transactions: 408B+
Network validators: 1,300+
Total volume: $987B+
The network’s stablecoin market cap hit $11.11B, up 141.52% YTD
Two Solana IMprovement Documents were proposed and completed voting this week:
Solana Foundation is hosting Accelerate, a weeklong conference with developer workshops and dApp showcases
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.