In the summer of 2020, while the pandemic-driven volatility gripped the markets, SoftBank Group shocked Wall Street with a series of large options bets on US technology stocks. Behind the trades — which earned SoftBank the “Nasdaq whale” moniker — are Akshay Nahetaan executive whose career has been marked by bold bets on disruption.

Now, after orchestrating multi-billion-dollar deals, including an attempted merger between Nvidia and ARM, Naheta is making perhaps his most ambitious bet yet: That the world’s payments infrastructure is ripe for the reinvention.

His Zug, Switzerland-based startup, Distributed Research Technologies (DTR), tries to bridge the gap between traditional banking and blockchain technology, joining an army of companies trying to modernize the global payment infrastructure.

The startup claims its technology can eliminate various payment inefficiencies, from transfer costs and exchange fees to foreign exchange conversion fees and settlement delays. “Current payment networks suffer from inefficiencies – transfer costs, exchange fees, FX conversion fees, settlement delays and other opaque fees,” Naheta told TechCrunch in an interview.

DTR’s core technology, AmalgamOS, essentially connects banks to blockchain networks. Through APIs, it allows businesses to integrate payment capabilities while maintaining compliance with local regulations. The system can handle everything from merchant payments to treasury management, supporting traditional currencies and major stablecoins in 48 countries.

The startup is building what Naheta describes as an “international orchestration network” that automatically routes transactions through traditional banking or blockchain rails, depending on which path offers the best combination of speed and cost. . “We are connected to 12,000 banks in Europe,” he said in an interview. A business that integrates DTR’s APIs can allow its customers to initiate transfers directly through banking apps.

DTR’s push into payment infrastructure comes at a seemingly opportune time. Visa and Mastercard — both of them charge 2-3% swipe feeoften the second-highest cost to merchants after payroll – face increased scrutiny of their duopoly, and the proposed US Credit Card Competition Act may require banks to offer merchants alternatives to the dominant networks.

DTR’s first customers say its infrastructure fills a significant gap. Philip Lord of Oobit, a crypto wallet startup, said the system allowed his company to transfer money from its crypto wallet to a UK bank account on Christmas Day in less than 30 seconds – a transfers that take days through traditional channels.

Naheta’s interest in payment infrastructure came from an unlikely source: SoftBank’s acquisition of Fortress Investment Group in 2017. The deal put about $20 million worth of Bitcoin on SoftBank’s balance sheet.

As he studied the underlying blockchain technology, Naheta says he saw an opportunity to apply his background in wireless communications to payment networks. While still at SoftBank, Naheta began assembling what he hoped would become DTR’s founding team. He reached out to his undergraduate thesis advisor, Pramod Viswanatha wireless communications expert who currently leads Princeton’s blockchain center and Sreeram Kannanwhich later begins Own layer.

The team sees blockchain as a peer-to-peer communication network at its heart, one that can leverage decades of research into wireless systems to revolutionize payments. Naheta said he was close to resigning from SoftBank in summer 2018 to focus on DTR and crypto venture Bakkt, but was persuaded to stay by senior executives, including Rajeev Misra and Masayoshi Son.

Naheta’s earlier forays into the payments sector also included SoftBank’s investment in Wirecard, which later collapsed. SoftBank is still making money on its investment in Wirecard. “I made a lot of missteps,” he admitted. “I look at it from a perspective of, here’s a company that has all these regulated licenses around the world, obviously with payment technology.”

Those experiences seem to have influenced DTR to emphasize compliance and institutional credibility. This measured approach spans the company’s growth strategy. “Even if I increase my headcount to 60 people in the second quarter, we will be free-cash-flow positive,” he said.

The startup faces competition on many fronts. Wise has built a successful business matching money flows between countries, Ripple offers blockchain-based settlement despite its legal troubles, while traditional banks also say that they are upgrading their systems through initiatives like SWIFT. Last, but not least, Stripe’s recent $1 billion acquisition of Bridge stands to help the most valuable fintech startups make deeper inroads into payments.

However, Naheta sees an opening to serve businesses caught between worlds – especially digital nomads, creative economy platforms, and companies that operate across the globe. market.

“Banks are not used to running KYC/AML at that small level, where you pay $200 to 10,000 people per month,” he argued. The fragmented nature of national payment systems creates particular challenges for businesses operating around the world, as each jurisdiction maintains its own guidelines and regulations.

The payment industry’s high margins and network effects make it extremely difficult to disrupt. PayPal commands a $70 billion market cap even after recent declines, while Visa and Mastercard together are worth more than $1 billion.

“I really think the retail customer is screwing up the payment,” he said. “And it’s not the banks’ fault. They were plugged into legacy systems and it was very difficult to build a Titanic.

Lord of Oobit said in an interview that space remains wide open. He points out that up until just a year ago, the only option for businesses that needed to move between crypto and traditional banking systems was to “go to the likes of an OTC store and pay maybe like 1 to 3% to move it.”

“It’s crazy that over the years, we’ve had so many startups pop up, we’ve had so many coins show up, and whenever I want to do an on-ramp or off-ramp, there’s no other formal legal system of the idea. environment,” he said. DTR’s solution is “faster block” than the alternatives.