Inside VALR: Badi Sudhakaran Reveals Secrets to Crypto Exchange Success

In this edition of Behind the Startup, Ishan Pandey sits down with Badi Sudhakaran, Chief Product Officer of VALR — one of Africa’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. In a no-holds-barred conversation, Badi shares how a spark of ambition, the right team, and bold decisions helped build VALR into a global crypto force. From product innovation to cybersecurity, he breaks down what it takes to stand out in one of the world’s most competitive industries.

Ishan Pandey: Hi Badi Sudhakaran, it's a pleasure to welcome you to our "Behind the Startup" series. What inspired you to build VALR, and how has its product vision evolved over the past seven years?

Badi Sudhakaran: There was a glaring opportunity staring me in the face. It was mine to take—but it required courage, initiative, and a bit of creativity to bring it to life. I also knew I needed the right people to do it with, and at the time, I was indeed surrounded by the right people. All I had to do was convince them that it was a good idea to quit our stable jobs and start something from scratch, without any guarantees of capital inflow or long-term success!

In 2017, when the idea for VALR was still forming in our minds, our goal was to create a world-class crypto exchange—one with the best fees, best API, best user experience, best mobile app, and the widest selection of crypto assets available in South Africa. At the time, the only alternative for consumers was a single exchange with a monopoly on the market, offering just Bitcoin trading at extremely high prices. We were able to deliver on everything we set out to achieve.

Since founding, VALR’s vision has evolved: today, we’re focused on providing innovative financial services not just for retail customers, but especially for institutional clients who can use our crypto products and financial infrastructure to serve their own customers.

Ishan Pandey: In the competitive scene of crypto exchanges, how does VALR differentiate itself to enhance user experience and satisfaction?

Badi Sudhakaran: In my opinion, the biggest driver of crypto adoption is user experience. There’s still a perception—especially among those new to the space—that crypto is difficult to learn, understand, and use. From day one, we’ve aimed to deliver a world-class experience in everything we launch, making it accessible to users of all experience levels.

From spot & spot margin trading to perpetual futures, staking, lending, and VALR Pay, our core offering is comprehensive. But, what sets VALR apart is the depth of functionality we provide for advanced traders and institutions. Our world-class API is built for speed, reliability and scale, empowering high-frequency traders (HFTs) and institutions to execute sophisticated strategies.

We also offer powerful features like subaccounts and shared accounts, designed to meet institutional-grade requirements while ensuring best-practice security for all customers. Alongside this, we aim to be among the fastest in terms of response times and resolution when users need help. We believe crypto is for everyone, and we design our products and services with that belief at the core.

Ishan Pandey: As Chief Product Officer, how do you balance the integration of innovative features, speed and security with maintaining a user-friendly interface on VALR?

Badi Sudhakaran: At VALR, we aim to operate like we run a security company first and a crypto exchange second. Security is always top of mind—it’s at the core of everything we envision, design, and execute. Security and convenience often stand at odds, but we strive to make security measures as simple and intuitive as possible. We iterate on them multiple times to ensure the result remains user-friendly without compromising safety.

Ishan Pandey: Considering the unique aspects of the African crypto market, how has VALR tailored its services to meet the specific needs of users in this region?

Badi Sudhakaran: VALR is the largest crypto exchange by volume based in Africa. In South Africa specifically, we’re a licensed and regulated crypto service provider. We’ve partnered locally with banks to enable lightning-fast fiat rails, allowing users to instantly on- and off-ramp South African Rand—the local currency.

We’ve also engineered our products for institutions and fund managers to enable them to distribute crypto products and services. We’ve seen strong demand in the African market for trading dollar-backed stablecoins like USDT and USDC, and we’re well-positioned to serve both retail and institutional clients in meeting this need.

Ishan Pandey: With the global evolution of cryptocurrency exchanges, what trends do you foresee, and how is VALR positioning itself to adapt to these changes?

Badi Sudhakaran: We’re seeing several major trends shaping the future of crypto exchanges globally. One is the proliferation of stablecoins, which are increasingly acting as crypto rails and unlocking massive potential in the remittance space. Another is the rise of real-world asset (RWA) trading—tokenized versions of financial instruments like bonds, savings, and yield-generating products that bring traditional finance into the crypto world.

There’s also growing adoption in payments use-cases, with merchants accepting crypto directly, and from existing crypto users who want to borrow against their holdings or use crypto-backed cards for everyday spending. These use-cases are rapidly transitioning from fringe to mainstream.

At VALR, we’re actively building for many of these emerging opportunities and look forward to unveiling these solutions in the near future.

As the crypto industry sheds much of the misinformation and misunderstanding that plagued its early years, traditional financial institutions are entering the space and beginning to offer crypto products and services to stay relevant to their customers. VALR aspires to play a pivotal role in this transition—and we’ve already begun doing so by helping several large financial institutions get onto their crypto feet.

Ishan Pandey: What cyber security strategies has VALR implemented to enhance user trust and security of the platform?

Badi Sudhakaran: VALR employs a multi-layered approach to securing both our infrastructure and our users’ accounts. Our wallets span hot, warm and cold wallets. Our hot wallets are online for operational liquidity and hold a fraction of the assets we manage at any given time, while our cold wallets—where we hold the majority of the assets we manage—are fully air-gapped, not connected to the internet, and require multiple signatures from geographically distributed signers to operate. The keys are securely stored in institutional vaults with 24/7 surveillance.

From a user account security perspective, all personally identifiable information is encrypted. Two-factor authentication is enabled by default. Each new device must be explicitly authenticated by the user before it can be used. Users can also lock their withdrawals to a custom whitelist of addresses, and they can instantly block their accounts if they detect suspicious activity. All sensitive actions automatically require multi-factor authentication.

We employ multiple third-party security experts to conduct audits and penetration tests to assess every potential point of vulnerability within our platform on a regular basis. We continually review our processes, tools, and practices to ensure we implement best-in-class security measures across every aspect of the platform.

Ishan Pandey: How do you envision the future of crypto exchanges worldwide, and what are your thoughts on the evolving regulatory environment around crypto?

Badi Sudhakaran: This past year marks the first time in VALR’s seven-year journey that we’ve operated within a formal regulatory framework—we’re now officially licensed by the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority. It’s a major milestone, not just for us, but for the African crypto ecosystem as a whole.

Running a financial platform that operates 24/7/365 while navigating years of regulatory ambiguity is a testament to the world-class team at VALR.

Globally, regulators have moved on from questioning crypto’s legitimacy to actively defining the rules that will govern it. VALR is already expanding its licensed footprint across multiple jurisdictions and building infrastructure that can serve not only crypto-native users, but also banks, asset managers, fintechs, and even governments.

My co-founder and VALR’s CEO, Farzam Ehsani, recently said:

“The financial markets are going through tremendous upheaval, portending a changing world order. The world is still establishing the role Bitcoin and crypto will play in this order.”

These are extraordinary times, and I’m excited to see how VALR can contribute meaningfully to a more inclusive, transparent, and efficient global financial system.

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