Thank you, members of the committee, for having me today. It's an honour to be here.
I'm Jean Amiouny and I'm the CEO of Shakepay. I'm an engineer and a graduate of McGill. I've been in the Bitcoin industry for just shy of 10 years, since 2013.
In 2015, I co-founded Shakepay, a Montreal‑based technology company that employs over 100 employees and allows Canadians to buy, earn and interact with bitcoin. We offer a mobile app that makes it easy for Canadians of all ages to buy bitcoin in a matter of minutes. We service over 1 million Canadian customers, and we are exclusive to Canada. The majority of our customers are Canadians between the ages of 25 and 44, and have an average account balance in bitcoin under $900.
Since our inception, we've been strong advocates for building safe, reliable and easy-to-use products that allow Canadians to adopt this new technology with a trusted, locally grown platform.
Shakepay takes a proactive approach to regulation, having secured a licence as a money-service business by FINTRAC and Revenu Québec to operate in all Canadian provinces and territories. We are in the advanced stages of becoming registered with all provincial security regulators as a restricted dealer. Once that designation is obtained, we will be pursuing IIROC membership.
We also invest heavily in building world-class security and finance teams. We take customer protection very seriously at Shakepay. We don't take risks with customer funds. We don't lend out customer funds. We don't do anything with them unless customers instruct us to. All customer funds are held 1:1 in trust with Canadian financial institutions and leading cryptocurrency custodians.
Since this committee is talking about blockchain today, I want to briefly discuss its pros and cons.
The blockchain is a shared database. It's a way to store data. In comparison to most databases, blockchains are slower, more expensive and more complex to use. They are not a panacea, therefore not everything should be built on them.
In what context, then, are blockchains useful?
Most importantly, they are useful as technology that provides a reliable, secure and verifiable way for two parties to transfer money without an intermediary. Blockchain can be thought of as a public good: It's always available, and it's available to everyone. For example, the Bitcoin blockchain has had a 100% operating uptime since 2014 and is available to use by anyone with an Internet connection.
Many blockchain projects are led by individuals or entities that are often venture-backed and profit-driven. In contrast, Bitcoin has no CEO, nor is it run by a company. By design, it has a fixed supply of 21 million coins, and no one can create more of them. That is why Bitcoin is unique.
My father is from Lebanon, a country where the banking system is not nearly as strong as it is here in Canada. If I were to send money to Lebanon through banking rails, it would take days to arrive, and the recipient would only be able to access a fraction of what was sent due to their bank's withdrawal limits. With bitcoin, I can send money directly to them, instantly, and without intermediary fees.
At this very moment, there are new Canadians who rely on Bitcoin to send money back to their families. For them, it's a cheaper and more reliable way to make sure that money lands in the hands that need it most. Once a Bitcoin is received, it can be used to purchase goods or services directly, or it can be exchanged for another currency like the U.S. dollar. This inclusivity and accessibility is what makes Bitcoin so powerful. It's a public good that exists on the Internet and is available for everyone.
At the start, any new technology is never well understood, and it takes time for society to experience its benefits. The Internet in the 1980s was an incredible innovation, but it took time for it to mature and develop into what it is today.
Because industry and government work hand in hand to create a framework to allow the Internet to grow and benefit all Canadians, it has now become a public good that provides a fast, reliable and cheap way to communicate remotely.
Bitcoin can bring about similar benefits. We need to be pro-innovation and encourage smart regulation so that homegrown companies like Shakepay can continue to innovate and educate Canadians on the benefits of adopting bitcoin. We have an exciting opportunity as a country to be a leader in determining how this technology can shape the future.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to answering your questions.