Key takeaways

• The CFO role is transforming: crypto finance leaders are now strategic architects, bridging regulation, tech, and commercial expansion.
• Trust has become the decisive currency. After a year of geopolitical shocks and shifting U.S. policy, CFOs are personally front‑running audit conversations and embedding real‑time controls to prove completeness and accuracy.
• Every company needs a stablecoin playbook. Visa, Amazon and Walmart are already signalling that a well‑designed stablecoin strategy can shave billions from fees and trapped‑cash costs.
• IPO readiness starts at least two years out. US GAAP restatements, three‑year audits, transfer‑pricing files and cultural change all need to be running in parallel long before bankers ring the bell.
• Risk-first treasury management is key: yield matters, but only after concentration‑ and counterparty‑risk limits are nailed down; “losing the money” still tops the CFO nightmare list.

Panelists

• Massimo Di Placido, Chief Financial Officer – B2C2
• Philipp Prince, Chief Financial Officer – BCB Group
• Mika Thompson, VP Finance – Yellow Card
• Saira Bux, Senior Director of Finance – Blockchain.com
• Jeff Rundlet, Head of Accounting Strategy – Cryptio (moderator)
  
  

The expanding CFO mandate

What does it mean to be a crypto CFO in 2025? If this panel made one thing clear, it's this: the job is rapidly expanding and now goes far beyond accounting.

“You’re not just managing books – you’re managing regulation, infrastructure, tax, transfer pricing, custodian models, disaster recovery,” said B2C2’s Massimo Di Placido. “The remit has expanded massively.”

For Blockchain.com’s Saira Bux, that expansion is matched by intensity: “Being a crypto CFO is not for the faint-hearted. You’re on the front line with auditors, handling complex areas, all under pressure from volatile markets and geopolitical shifts.”

And for BCB’s Philipp Prince, the evolution is cultural: “What was acceptable three years ago isn’t now. If we want to be taken seriously by regulators, auditors, and banking partners, we need to match TradFi professionalism – without losing crypto’s edge.”

The rate of change in role expectations has been exacerbated by a year of geopolitical shocks and shifting U.S. policy, pushing CFOs into taking a more proactive role in audit conversations and embedding more stringent controls and processes to prove completeness and accuracy of data, as trust is becoming the decisive currency.

Stablecoins: from optional innovation to competitive edge

A few years ago, stablecoins were seen as little more than a safe haven for crypto traders to park out of volatility. In 2025, they’re shaping up to be the backbone of global treasury operations.

Visa, Amazon, and Walmart aren’t just experimenting – they’re announcing plans for stablecoins and related infrastructure with the aim of routing billions in payments over these rails. Mika Thompson, VP Finance at Yellow Card, noted that these firms stand to save over $140 billion annually by bypassing traditional intermediaries.

“Companies are realising they need a stablecoin strategy just to stay competitive,” she said.

It’s not just about saving money – it’s about gaining control. In many African markets, access to US dollars is unreliable, and FX processes are manual, slow, and expensive. Yellow Card’s platform abstracts all of that. Corporates can move value internationally without ever touching a crypto wallet.

“If it’s working,” said Mika, “you don’t even need to know it’s crypto under the hood.”

Stablecoins, in other words, are becoming invisible infrastructure: frictionless, borderless, and increasingly indispensable.

Africa: the next proving ground for crypto finance

Stablecoins are becoming core treasury infrastructure, and Africa is a region where their real-world impact is being tested and scaled.

Saira framed it bluntly: by 2050, 25% of the working age population will live in Sub-Saharan Africa. That demographic shift, paired with limited dollar access and fragmented banking infrastructure, creates both urgency and opportunity for crypto-native models.

Blockchain.com is betting early – partnering with regulators, not just entering markets. “It’s about shaping the rules, not reacting to them,” said Saira. That means transplanting hard-earned controls from UK and US operations into new regions to raise the regulatory bar.

Mika explained Yellow Card’s expansion playbook. “We’re now in over 20 African countries,” she said. Before entering a new African market we ask three questions – Is the commercial upside worth it? Can money move quickly through the local banking and payments rails? Do workable licences exist?

“If central banks or market regulators are clearly anti-crypto, it’s a no-go,” she said, but Yellow Card keeps a close eye on political or legislative shifts that can flip a red market to green.

She pointed to Kenya as a recent win. A 3 % gross-transaction tax on crypto “would have effectively killed the Kenyan FinTech industry,” yet collected zero revenue in nine months. Yellow Card’s policy team worked with the Finance Ministry and Revenue Authority; and the rule was replaced by a 1.5 % levy on fees, helping avert an illogical measure that could have crippled the industry. The lesson, she said, is simple: “You need people on the ground – good intel, people who know what’s going on and how things work.”

IPO readiness: discipline, data, and long-game thinking

Circle’s blockbuster IPO re-ignited conversations across boardrooms – but as the panel made clear, going public is a marathon, not just a milestone.

“Think two to three years out,” said Philipp. “If your timeline is under 24 months, it’s probably wrong.”

The message: start early, build internal muscle, and don’t pause growth. An IPO is not just a financial event – it’s an operational stress test for every system, ledger, and team in the business.

In this short highlight reel, Philipp and Saira break down what it really takes to get IPO-ready:

Key themes that emerged:

• Revenue first, admin second – bankers reward momentum, not perfect spreadsheets.
• Stay ready – “You won’t get a year when the market window opens,” said Prince. “Missing that boat is painful.”
• Build a core team – IPO planning needs dedicated owners for tax, legal, contracts, and accounting – but “don’t outsource it all,” he warned. “You need internal expertise to keep standards high.”
• Consistency across regions – Saira highlights the importance of aligning cost-basis methodologies and audit controls across jurisdictions: “Balancing group standards with local compliance isn’t optional – it’s foundational.”
• Culture shift required – IPO prep isn’t just a finance project. “You need every employee working toward the same goal,” Bux added. “It takes a mindset shift across the whole company.”
• Data will make or break you – real-time ledger feeds, data accuracy, on-chain reconciliation, and system-wide completeness checks aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re the backbone of audit readiness at scale.

Bux offered a final reality check: even at Blockchain.com’s level, the hardest challenge isn’t ambition – it’s data plumbing.

“We’re an exchange; we have big data to deal with,” she said. “You have to control the processing of that data for every single hop – internal or external – and that means more than just accountants in the room. You need data-science, fin-ops and middle-office teams involved from the start.”

Treasury & FP&A: balancing risk and reward

Volatility may spook traditional finance – but in crypto, it’s the engine of the business.

“Volatility is how we make money,” said B2C2’s CFO Massimo. But with upside comes operational pressure. In a 24/7 market, forecasting isn’t just hard – it’s often outpaced by the market itself.

That’s why crypto finance teams are building infrastructure designed not to predict the future, but to absorb constant change.

At B2C2, that means processing $500 million in OTC volume every day, across 50+ cryptocurrencies and a dozen fiat currencies. Behind the scenes, a live treasury stack aggregates balances across banks, exchanges, and wallets – then routes settlements through the most efficient path.

“Our goal is near-instant settlement, regardless of asset, time zone, or counterparty,” said Massimo. “But that takes deep infrastructure and continuous iteration.”

The FP&A challenge? Planning when revenue swings with market mood. Massimo’s approach: focus on what you can control – primarily, costs. Revenue forecasting stays conservative, while treasury operations stay agile.

Across the panel, one shared principle stood out: risk before yield.

As Philipp put it: “I’ll get shot for losing the money, not for earning 20 basis points less.”

Philipp explained that BCB holds most safeguarded client funds in same-day bank cash, seeking yield with only 5-10% in a tiered combination of short-dated instruments, treasuries, and only then, potentially, riskier investments. Even there, the team tiers exposure by tenor and counter-party, and Massimo noted BTC-backed lending “is often 160 % over-collateralised.”

The playbook is simple:

1. Keep the majority of liquidity where you can grab it instantly.
2. Limit yield-seeking to amounts you can afford to risk.
3. Over-collateralise every crypto-native credit line.

As Philipp summarised: “Understand the risk first, then decide if the extra yield is worth it.”

Tokenised treasuries: potential, but not yet priority

Real-world assets (RWAs) such as on-chain U.S. Treasuries keep cropping up at conferences, but this panel’s verdict was muted rather than euphoric.

The most direct view came from Massimo. Asked whether tokenised bonds or RWA vaults are finding traction, he replied:

“Our return on capital from trading is much higher than the five-percent you get on a tokenised bond, so from a pure economic perspective it doesn’t make sense to shift balance-sheet into that – for now.”

No one rushed to counter him. Philipp noted that BCB Group has entered a deal to develop stable-coin rails with Societe Generale, but he did not put a date on adopting tokenised Treasuries. The impression was clear: institutions are watching the space, yet they will only move once yields, liquidity and client demand offset the opportunity cost of better-paying core businesses.

Talent & tech: the small stuff is the big stuff

In crypto finance, the hardest challenges aren’t just technical- they’re human.

Mika offered her opinion: “It’s critical thinking and systems thinking –people who can connect the dots, trace root causes, and problem-solve across messy, fast-moving systems.”

Remote work compounds the problem. Yellow Card is fully remote, which Mika loves – but she admits it limits organic, on-the-job learning, especially for junior team members trying to absorb nuance from seasoned finance leads.

And the technology side?

“Don’t sweat the small stuff? I disagree,” said Saira . “When you’re processing billions, the small stuff matters. Get the data right – and you unlock time for strategy.”

For CFOs, the lesson is clear: it’s not about flashy innovation – it’s about precision, training, and clean data. That’s what separates scalable crypto finance from spreadsheet chaos.

About Cryptio

Cryptio is the leading financial data platform for tokenization compliance, crypto accounting, and lending. Trusted by over 450 clients - including publicly listed companies like Circle, Bitcoin Depot and Semler Scientific, crypto-native leaders like Uniswap Labs and MetaMask, and global audit partners like KPMG and Deloitte - Cryptio provides an enterprise-grade data layer that translates complex on-chain activity into auditable, GAAP and IFRS-ready records.

Whether you're building stablecoin rails or prepping for IPO, Cryptio ensures your data is audit-ready, fast.

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