CoinShares International Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the CoinShares Q2 earnings broadcast. All participants dialing in are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. You can submit your questions via the postbox below the video on the platform. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host, Jerry Lee Brown. Thank you.

Thank you, Operator. I would like to welcome you all to CoinShares 2024 Q2 Earnings Call and Webcast. Speaking from management today will be John-Marie Magnetti, Chief Executive Officer, and Richard Nash, Chief Financial Officer. All those joining today are encouraged to log into the live event where you'll be able to view the accompanying presentation during today's call. Alternatively, the results and a copy of the presentation are available to download from the investor relations section of the CoinShares website. A replay of the webcast will be available for 30 days following the live call and a transcript will be posted on the company's website as soon as it is available. Following the presentation, we will host a short Q&A via the webcast platform. Should you wish to submit a question to the management team, please provide your name and company affiliation. We will do our best to get to as many as we can within the allotted time. Lastly, our safe harbor statement. CoinShares would like to remind everyone that, except for historical information contained herein, statements made on today's call and webcast that would constitute forward-looking statements are based on currently available information. The company assumes no responsibility to update such forward-looking statements, and I would like to appoint you to the risk factors associated with our business, which are detailed in our prospectus. At this time, I will turn the call over to John-Marie.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss conscious performance during Q2 2024. As it is our custom for now 13 consecutive quarters, I will begin with an overview of the digital asset market landscape before dwelling into our business performance. So let's start. The digital asset industry has continued to demonstrate remarkable resilience and evolution this quarter. We have observed strong investor interest in spot Bitcoin ETPs with Q2 inflows for our industry reaching 2.75 billion US dollars. As of early July, cumulative total net inflows year to date had reached 16.84 billion US dollars. It is interesting to note that this number is tracking fairly well the projection made by the company when we launched Coinshare Physical back in January 2021 in Europe. We have also seen significant, yet at this time unexpected, momentum towards the approval of spot Ethereum ETPs in the United States. This has been driven by the SEC's shift in stance on this topic. We are not US agency experts, but there is no other explanation but a political request for such a dramatic acceleration. This could potentially, and in due time, open doors for a wider range of other crypto-based investment vehicles, In short, a very positive development for industry and coin shares. Interestingly, Bitcoin showed again its hyper-macro asset characteristic recently, with the price dropping sharply during the Iranian weekend attack before surging on the back of prediction of a Trump prediction victory following a failed assassination attempt. This trend is linked to Trump's perceived crypto-friendliness and proposed economic policies. Since then, the Democrats are now also quoting the crypto audience, again, who are not US politics expert, but common sense indicate that crypto should be a bipartisan topic and not the monopoly of one camp. It is important for industry to remain balanced and above parties. On the global regulatory front, we have witnessed notable progress across the various jurisdictions. As an example, Hong Kong made a significant move by approving its first spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, making a crucial step in integrating cryptocurrencies into the Asian financial landscape and certainly one day into mainland China. In Europe, we have seen advancement in the implementation of MICA rules, but also redefining the regulatory framework for digital assets in the region, especially around the question of stablecoins, something I will briefly touch upon later in the discussion. In what used to be Europe, the London Stock Exchange has taken a step forward by listing Ethereum and Bitcoin ETPs, providing institutional investors and only these ones with regulated access to these digital assets. This move to date has not been a successful one, but it's not surprising given the regulatory constraint imposed by the country since 2019. Meanwhile, in the US, the House passed the FIT Act, which aimed to provide much needed clarity on crypto market regulation. These progresses across different regions are expected to bolster investor confidence and market stability. These developments continue to validate Coinshare's initial investment thesis about the institutionalization of digital assets. To conclude this broad market update, I'd like to highlight a significant achievement for Coinshare this quarter. We successfully completed the sale of our FTX claim, which yielded a positive result for the company and its shareholders. Our patient and strategic approach paid off, resulting in a recovery rate of 116% net of broker fees. In concrete terms, we wrote off from our balance sheet 26.6 million sterling in November 2021 and generated an exceptional revenue of 31.32 million sterling in June 2024. This outcome is allowing us to, at last, turn the page of the FTX saga and focus on the future. Now, before we go any further in business updates, let's turn to our financial results. For this, I'll hand over to Richard Nash, our CFO. Richard, over to you.