Guest: Eric, Head of APAC Business at Cregis
Interview: momo, ChainCatcher
The global landscape of cryptocurrency regulation is being pieced together at an unprecedented speed. The implementation of the U.S. FIT21, Singapore's MAS new regulations, and the EU's MiCA has made compliance no longer an option for Web3, but a ticket to entry. Whether it is Web3 native enterprises or traditional financial institutions eager to go on-chain, the demand for compliant Web3 infrastructure is surging.
Cregis is one of the earliest service providers to lay out Web3 compliance infrastructure. Since 2017, it has focused on providing compliant wallets, custody, and payment solutions for enterprises, having served over 3,500 corporate clients, with a custody scale exceeding $60 billion, while maintaining a record of zero security incidents.
During this Malaysia Blockchain Week, ChainCatcher interviewed Eric, the Head of APAC Business at Cregis. He has over 13 years of experience in payments and fintech, having transitioned from American Express and Western Union to Web3 deposit and withdrawal services, witnessing the evolution from traditional finance to crypto finance.
In this conversation, Eric shared the underlying logic of Cregis—why it insists on building compliance infrastructure? How to seize the opportunities of crypto regulation and crypto payments to create a "plug-and-play" compliance engine for enterprises? Additionally, he revealed Cregis's key roadmap for 2025.
Self-developed Compliance Infrastructure, Custody Funds Exceeding $60 Billion
1. ChainCatcher: Please introduce yourself and your current responsibilities at Cregis. What important work experiences did you have before joining Cregis?
Eric: I am the Head of the APAC Business Team at Cregis, responsible for commercial sales, client development, and market operations in the APAC region. Cregis is a leading service provider offering secure, efficient, and compliant digital asset solutions for global enterprises.
Since 2012, I have been deeply involved in the payments and fintech sector. My career began at American Express, focusing on card issuing, and then I moved into e-commerce payments and fintech, working at Wallace and Western Union Business Solutions. After that, I joined the well-known Southeast Asian company Atomy, becoming the first employee in their Hong Kong office, responsible for building the local business team from scratch.
Subsequently, I shifted to the acquiring side, providing credit card acquiring and deposit/withdrawal services for several Web3 companies and cryptocurrency exchanges, which led me to deeply engage in the Web3 wallet and custody space, ultimately joining Cregis to continue promoting and servicing enterprise-level digital asset infrastructure.
My experience covers the entire business chain of traditional payments, corporate receivables and payables, Web3 deposit and withdrawal, and wallet custody, providing me with a rich cross-domain practical background and market insights.
2. ChainCatcher: Please introduce the core leadership background of Cregis, the current team size, major global office locations, and team composition. Also, please discuss why you are pursuing this project.
Eric: Cregis was founded in 2017 by our CEO Shawn Yan, positioning itself as a digital asset infrastructure provider serving global enterprise clients. We have always adhered to self-research and development, with core products including self-custody MPC wallets and payment engines, focusing on providing secure, efficient, and compliant asset storage, fund management, and digital asset payment solutions, including various application scenarios involving stablecoins.
Currently, we have served over 3,500 corporate clients, supporting more than 100 million wallet addresses, with a custody asset scale of approximately $60 billion, processing over $100 million in on-chain transactions daily, and maintaining a record of zero security incidents. Our product offerings, such as Wallet as a Service, payment engines, Tron Gas services, and Cregis Card, have been widely applied in exchanges, asset management companies, payment institutions, and cross-border e-commerce platforms.
The company is headquartered in Hong Kong, with regional centers in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai, covering the APAC, Middle East, European, and African markets, and we are actively expanding into the U.S. market through local partners.
With clearer and more friendly regulatory frameworks like the U.S. FIT21 gradually being implemented, the global demand for compliant custody is rapidly growing. We aim to provide enterprise clients with a one-stop, scalable digital asset solution through secure and self-controlled wallet and payment infrastructure, helping them participate more efficiently and compliantly in the global crypto ecosystem.
Regulatory Dividend Period, Making Compliance Infrastructure "Plug-and-Play"
3. ChainCatcher: How do you personally view the increasing complexity of global cryptocurrency regulation? What impact will this have on the crypto infrastructure industry? What specific opportunities does Cregis see?
Eric: The clearer the regulations, the healthier the industry. In recent years, places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and the U.S. have successively introduced more constructive policy frameworks, shifting enterprises from the mindset of "launch first, comply later" to incorporating compliance as a core consideration in the early stages of product design.
Cregis has always focused on providing enterprises with compliant digital asset infrastructure. Our wallet system has integrated key functions such as transaction risk analysis, address control, account operation records, and fund flow tracking, helping enterprises effectively enhance their risk control capabilities and meet mainstream market regulatory requirements. These capabilities can be deployed directly without additional development, allowing enterprises to focus on business expansion and continuous growth while ensuring compliance.
4. ChainCatcher: What complex challenges do traditional enterprises face when expanding from Web2 to Web3 in terms of wallet and payment infrastructure? How does Cregis help them overcome these challenges?
Eric: The biggest challenge comes from compliance processes, especially requirements like KYC, AML, and the Travel Rule. The traditional financial system has mature standardized processes, but Web3 is built on a completely new technological architecture, with regulatory logic, data models, and risk control mechanisms that are entirely different. From SWIFT to virtual banks to blockchain, this is a natural evolution of financial infrastructure.
Cregis's philosophy is "leave the complexity to us, and provide clarity to our clients." Our wallet infrastructure has an embedded compliance engine that supports automated routing, real-time monitoring, and risk alerts, while continuously communicating with major global regulatory agencies to ensure our products can quickly respond to policy changes.
For different enterprises' compliance needs, we also offer modular capabilities, helping clients flexibly build their own compliance management systems to achieve controllable, compliant, and implementable Web3 connections.
5. ChainCatcher: What key progress has Cregis made in compliance so far? What are the plans moving forward?
Eric: We have obtained PCI-DSS and SOC 2 Type 1 security certifications, and SOC 2 Type 2 is currently under audit. In terms of licensing, we hold a TCSP trust license in Hong Kong and have received a preliminary approval letter from VARA in Dubai, with the formal license actively progressing. Moving forward, we will continue to advance compliance coverage in markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the U.S.
Three Major Advantages of Cregis Infrastructure
6. ChainCatcher: Compared to developing single-function applications, building underlying infrastructure is often more challenging. Why does Cregis insist on an "infrastructure-first" approach? How does this philosophy shape your strategy and products?
Eric: Any new technology or business scenario must first lay a solid foundation before it can scale.
If we only focus on a single use case, it often lasts only 1-2 years, and once the narrative fades, it becomes quiet. However, financial pipelines like wallets, custody, and payments are fundamental needs that will always exist in the crypto world. I have always focused on payments and cash flow because "money" is the underlying language of all business.
Cregis has been operating for 8 years, which itself validates the sustainability and correctness of this strategy.
7. ChainCatcher: When building a digital asset infrastructure ecosystem for enterprises, why did you choose to first focus on "wallet + payment"? How do you plan to expand horizontally in the future?
Eric: Wallets and payments are the first steps for enterprises to access Web3, where challenges are concentrated and demands are clear. Many enterprises face issues such as decentralized on-chain asset management, complex reconciliation processes, and a lack of mature tools.
We first built the wallet as the main channel for enterprise funds, then layered on automated reconciliation, compliance audits, risk control strategies, and financial tools, gradually constructing a horizontally expandable enterprise service system. Starting from the infrastructure level ensures that enterprises can flexibly use the appropriate "tool combinations" at different stages of development.
8. ChainCatcher: Will doing wallets and on-chain payments conflict with the traditional banking system?
Eric: I believe it is more about forming a complement rather than a conflict. Traditional cross-border payment processes are lengthy, involving multiple intermediaries, with high procedural costs, slow transaction speeds, and risks of being frozen by risk control. I personally experienced a USD transfer from Hong Kong that was frozen by the bank for nearly a month.
On-chain payments have characteristics such as instant settlement, full-process traceability, and immutability, effectively addressing the shortcomings of traditional systems in terms of transparency and efficiency. We are currently in the "Payment 2.5 phase," where the traditional system remains irreplaceable in the short term, but on-chain settlement can already achieve significant efficiency improvements. As infrastructure continues to improve, we believe that Web3 Payment 3.0 will arrive soon.
9. ChainCatcher: What are the core advantages of Cregis's infrastructure services? Why can it attract over 3,500 enterprise clients?
Eric: Cregis's competitiveness lies in three aspects:
Fast onboarding. The entire process on the website and app is self-service, allowing clients to complete activation and deployment in a short time.
Wide asset coverage. Cregis supports over 85 mainstream tokens, including BTC, ETH, and various EVM public chains. Clients can also quickly list their own tokens and apply for integration of new chains based on business needs.
Strong security. As a self-custody MPC wallet service provider, Cregis has never experienced any security incidents in the past eight years. Clients have complete control over their private keys, and we also provide offline signing tools to handle extreme situations, ensuring assets can be mobilized at any time.
These combined advantages enable Cregis to serve both traditional institutions and meet the needs of Web3 native enterprises.
Focusing on Two Major Scenarios to Promote Large-scale Adoption of Crypto Payments
10. ChainCatcher: Crypto payments are widely seen as a key driver for the mass adoption of cryptocurrency. Please introduce the unique advantages of Cregis's payment services in promoting adoption, and what application scenarios you are currently focusing on?
Eric: Our payment engine adopts a modular design, allowing enterprises to flexibly integrate and deploy based on their business models. Currently, we are primarily focused on two scenarios:
The first category is foreign exchange and brokerage platforms. This field is highly competitive, and many enterprises hope to optimize fund circulation efficiency by introducing Web3 liquidity, making crypto payments the optimal solution.
The second category is innovative Web3 enterprises. For example, in Malaysia, we are collaborating with an AI company that has already supported payments in cryptocurrency, generating considerable real transaction volume in a short period.
Both types of clients are characterized by quick implementation and high transaction density, allowing us to rapidly validate and expand our payment capabilities.
11. ChainCatcher: What are the most common pain points for traditional enterprises when entering crypto payments? How does Cregis help them implement this?
Eric: Web2 enterprises are generally very familiar with their own business, but they often face issues such as a lack of understanding, high technical barriers, and unclear compliance risks when dealing with Web3.
We reduce the learning curve through streamlined design, providing standardized APIs and user-friendly interfaces, allowing clients to complete deployment in just a few lines of code. At the same time, our platform has built-in KYC, risk control, and compliance tools to help enterprises smoothly transition from Web2 to Web2.5, and then to Web3.
Currently, we support over 40 mainstream public chains, allowing clients to connect once and receive payments across multiple chains, reducing technical and integration difficulties.
12. ChainCatcher: What key trends are you observing in the field of crypto payments? What role will the Cregis Payment Engine play in the ecosystem?
Eric: Stablecoins are gradually becoming the settlement standard for global digital assets. With the introduction of Hong Kong's Stablecoin Regulation, the implementation of the U.S. FIT21, and the EU's MiCA, regulatory transparency is at an unprecedented high.
Only after regulations are clarified will enterprises truly enter the market. We have already seen forex brokers, fintech companies, and even brands in the high-net-worth consumer sector piloting crypto payments.
The Cregis Payment Engine is positioned as a modular, compliance-embedded enterprise-level crypto payment engine, supporting mobile, web, and POS scenarios. We hope to become the most trusted partner for enterprises in the era of stablecoin payments.
2025 Roadmap: Continuing Focus on Wallets and Payments
13. ChainCatcher: Why are you focusing on Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, and Malaysia? Are you considering entering Japan, South Korea, or more Southeast Asian countries?
Eric: Our regional layout strategy primarily revolves around the friendliness of regulations and market activity. Singapore and Dubai have highly active exchange ecosystems, with strong demand for enterprise-level wallets and payments, making them our core markets for early entry.
In recent years, Hong Kong has been continuously promoting stablecoin regulation and policies related to RWA (real-world assets), creating an ideal development environment for wallet and custody businesses. Malaysia, as a geographical and policy hub in Southeast Asia, has a solid local policy foundation, and through our local partner network, we can effectively reach emerging markets like Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
As for the Japanese and Korean markets, we are very optimistic about their potential, especially regarding the payment compliance needs of institutional clients and user scale. However, we also understand that these two markets require deeper local investment. We have already initiated discussions with local partners and are steadily advancing our implementation path.
14. ChainCatcher: Why choose Malaysia Blockchain Week? How do you view the Malaysian market compared to Singapore?
Eric: Malaysia has consciously begun to lay out its Web3 ecosystem over the past one to two years, with both policy acceptance and industrial support gradually improving. The government is also actively welcoming Singaporean enterprises to enter, establishing academies and promoting talent cultivation, which injects continuous professional strength into the local market.
As Singapore tightens its regulations, some enterprises are beginning to migrate parts of their business and operational resources to Malaysia. We believe that Malaysia is becoming a more resilient and cost-effective emerging hub for Web3 development, with its strategic value in the entire Southeast Asian region continuously rising.
15. ChainCatcher: What are Cregis's strategic goals and key events in the APAC region for 2025?
Eric: We will continue to focus on "wallet + payment" as the main product axis, further strengthening our foundational capabilities and ecosystem collaboration.
In terms of products, we will continue to upgrade our wallet infrastructure, enhance API flexibility and integration depth, and introduce a more flexible tiered pricing mechanism to better cover the differentiated needs of startups and large institutional clients.
In terms of ecosystem collaboration, we plan to establish strategic partnerships with multiple public chains to expand the range of supported assets and the depth of chain integration. At the same time, we will maintain brand exposure in key regions, continuously participating in core conferences such as the Dubai IFX Expo, Singapore TOKEN2049, and Singapore FinTech Festival, establishing closer dialogue mechanisms with the market, regulators, and partners.
Our goal is to continue leveraging infrastructure as a driving force in the APAC market, helping more enterprises efficiently, securely, and compliantly enter Web3.
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