The Total Economic Impact™ Framework Of Zerohash

Interviewee’s Organization

Forrester interviewed the COO of a US-based retail investing platform that partnered with zerohash as its crypto-as-a-service provider. According to the interviewee, zerohash operates as a regulated digital asset infrastructure layer that allowed their organization to embed crypto trading, stablecoin payments, and tokenized asset capabilities without building and licensing the full stack internally. The COO’s organization has the following characteristics:

• Their organization is a privately held, high-growth, venture-backed brokerage that serves individual investors across North America with a multi-asset offering that includes equities, fixed income, options, and crypto.

• It employs approximately 150 people across engineering, product, operations, compliance, and customer support.

• The platform provides advanced capabilities, such as real-time market data, fractional investing, fundamental and alternative data, news analysis, and AI-driven portfolio optimization tools, to deliver a tech-forward investing experience.

• Zerohash powers integrated spot-crypto trading and token transfers within the platform’s multi-asset experience to give retail investors access to digital assets alongside traditional instruments.

Key Challenges

Prior to its investment in a crypto‑as‑a‑service solution powered by zerohash, the interviewee’s organization relied on an alternate third‑party provider to enable spot crypto trading, wallet transfers, tax reporting support, and operation. While their prior setup met basic functionality needs, it introduced strategic uncertainty, regulatory risk, operational burden, technology constraints, and coordination demands that slowed progress against business goals.

Overall, the ability of the interviewee’s organization to move quickly and scale confidently was limited by several challenges, including:

• Strategic uncertainty and lack of long-term alignment. The COO noted their organization faced concerns about whether its previous crypto-as-a-service partner could provide stability and continuity over time. Shifts in priorities and uncertainty around the prior provider’s commitment to its crypto‑as‑a‑service offering for retail spot trading and transfers created risk that their organization might not have a dependable partner for its growth strategy. This made long-term planning difficult and introduced operational risk.
  The COO explained: “The primary issue we had with [our previous provider] is that they were making material changes to their business that made us question whether or not they were the right long-term financial partner, which led us to question whether or not they were going to be in the business that we do with them for the long run.”
  The interviewee continued: “After a while, it became clear that they viewed their role in the long run and their shift as a business more towards stable coins and less towards the crypto-as-a-service business that we were using them for. We didn’t want to find ourselves in a position where we were a large customer of an orphan business of theirs.”

• Vendor neutrality concerns. The interviewee’s organization wanted a partner that would not compete for the same end investors to eliminate any conflicts around client acquisition, data usage, and roadmap priorities. Neutral posture with no B2C funnel and clear guardrails was a prerequisite for protecting brand equity and preserving ownership of the client experience. The COO said: “Some providers compete directly with us. That was a major concern. Zerohash stood out because it doesn’t operate a B2C platform, so there was no conflict of interest.”

• Regulatory risk concerns. The COO noted their organization’s prior provider’s shifting priorities and leadership changes created uncertainty about its ability to adapt to evolving crypto regulations and maintain strong compliance posture. Their organization needed a partner positioned to respond quickly to regulatory changes and support long-term compliance.
  The COO shared: “We were concerned about the regulatory and financial standing of the provider we were previously with. It’s important that we have a partner that we know and trust to be able to build and run the business with for the long run. Those are things that we didn’t have with [our previous provider].”

• Operational inefficiencies. According to the interviewee, the prior provider’s platform lacked maturity, which produced a steady stream of back‑office friction that pulled engineers off roadmap work. Teams were routinely diverted into manual token‑transfer data cleanup, reconciliation checks, and ad hoc break/fix tasks when processes did not run cleanly; work that did not surface to customers but eroded predictability in sprint planning and delayed feature delivery.

• Customer support burden from legacy access setup. The interviewee’s organization’s prior provider maintained a separate “direct access” platform so customers could access crypto without going through the main application. This fragmented experience confused users and drove inbound support requests. Customer support teams at the interviewee’s organization had to spend time redirecting users back to the primary platform and resolving related issues, which created a sustained resource drain.

• Limited flexibility and slower product improvements. The interviewee noted that their prior provider’s technology constrained their organization’s ability to evolve its offering, thus limiting both feature depth and asset coverage. Advanced trading functionality was restricted; for instance, the platform only supported 24‑hour limit orders, which prevented persistent order types like “good ‘til canceled” (GTC) and created friction for investors who wanted standing price targets. Token onboarding was similarly slow and inconsistent, thus delaying access to new assets and making it difficult to keep pace with investor demand for broader coverage. Together, these limitations slowed product velocity and reduced competitiveness.
   

Partnership Objectives

The interviewee’s organization partnered with zerohash to:

• Secure a financially stable, long-term partner to reduce the risk of disruption from strategic pivots or business uncertainty.

• Ensure regulatory resilience by working with a partner positioned to adapt to evolving crypto regulations and maintain strong compliance posture.

• Maintain operational reliability and reduce manual interventions and back-office cleanup caused by prior platform issues.

• Enable incremental product improvements, such as expanded token availability and advanced order types, to deliver a competitive trading experience.

• Strengthen customer experience and trust by partnering with a provider that is purely B2B and not competing for the same end customers.

• Support future scalability and innovation through a technology platform capable of continuous enhancements and responsiveness to market changes.

Benefits And Flexibility

Improved Developer Productivity

Evidence and data. The COO said that prior to partnering with zerohash, their brokerage’s engineering team spent a material portion of its time handling operational friction in crypto workflows. Token‑transfer values occasionally failed to pass cleanly through upstream systems, and developers were routinely pulled into manual data corrections or break/fix cleanup that distracted from roadmap work. These tasks were not customer‑visible, but they introduced unpredictability into sprint planning and drained focus from feature delivery.

After partnering with zerohash, the COO described a more stable and predictable operating environment. Transfer flows produced fewer anomalies, manual data correction declined, and the platform’s completeness reduced the number of edge cases that previously escalated into multiteam efforts. The COO emphasized that improved operational maturity and responsive vendor support lowered coordination overhead and allowed developers to stay focused on product enhancements and strategic initiatives rather than firefighting.

The COO said: “With zerohash, fewer things go wrong. We’re seeing fewer issues that our developers have to deal with because we now partner with a more robust, complete platform. With [our previous provider], we’d have to deal with situations where something would break, and we would have to go fix it.”

Customer-reported impact. Based on the experience of the COO from a brokerage, developer productivity related to crypto-specific break/fix activities, manual reconciliation, and operational support improved by 50% following the transition to zerohash. This interview-derived metric serves as a key input to the financial modeling framework presented in Appendix B. Readers can use the framework to estimate the potential impact based on their own organization’s staffing levels, operational baselines, and labor costs.

Improved Customer Support Agent Productivity

Evidence and data. The COO noted that under the prior provider, regulatory expectations required their organization to maintain a separate “direct‑access” crypto portal alongside its main application. This fragmented experience confused customers and drove sustained inbound support volume, as agents regularly spent time rerouting users who had navigated into the wrong interface or started actions in one system that needed to be completed in the other. Support teams also performed reconciliation work, such as confirming whether a transfer had been initiated in the main app or the external portal, clarifying mismatched status messages, or verifying balances that appeared differently across systems. The COO described this as a persistent operational drain that diverted time away from higher‑value interactions.

After partnering with zerohash and decommissioning the legacy access path, the interviewee’s organization experienced clearer transfer flows, fewer edge cases, and a more consistent customer experience. The COO noted that crypto‑related inquiries declined because customers were no longer encountering disjointed navigation steps or inconsistent system states. As a result, support agents reclaimed time previously spent explaining fragmented workflows or manually cross‑checking transactions. By reducing confusing handoffs and avoidable errors, the platform also reinforced brand trust by signaling reliability and control in moments that matter to customers.

The COO explained: “Customer support is probably an area where, for a variety of reasons, we’ve seen productivity improvements because there are fewer things that go wrong, fewer edge cases. In terms of support, I think the experience [with our previous provider] was a little less mature. We’ve seen fewer one-off issues with zerohash.”

Customer-reported impact. Based on the experience of the interviewee from a brokerage, crypto-related inbound support inquiries decreased by 30% following the transition to zerohash. This interview-derived metric serves as a key input to the financial modeling framework presented in Appendix B. Readers can use the framework to estimate the potential impact based on their own organization’s support volumes, resolution times, and labor costs.

Increased Revenue From Incremental Trading On New Tokens

Evidence and data. After partnering with zerohash, the COO highlighted two changes that directly affected trading activity and monetization: faster addition of tradable tokens and support for GTC limit orders. The prior provider enforced a 24‑hour-limit order cycle, which required investors to reenter orders daily and shortened the effective resting time of limit trades. According to the COO, this structure introduced friction and reduced the likelihood that price-target strategies would convert into executed trades during off-session market movements.

With zerohash, GTC orders remained active until executed or canceled. The COO explained that this aligned more closely with common trading behavior and improved order durability, which increased the probability that investor intent translated into completed transactions.

On the token side, the interviewee’s organization experienced a faster onboarding cadence for new assets, subject to compliance and risk reviews. This allowed their platform to expand its tradable token set within the core multi-asset experience. While the COO acknowledged that newly listed long‑tail assets typically generated modest initial activity, each additional token represented trading volume that their organization was unable to support under the prior provider. This faster listing cadence also enabled their platform to respond to shifts in top-traded digital assets year over year, ensuring that newly prominent tokens, such as those moving into the top 10 or top 20 by trading volume, were made available more quickly to capture incremental trading activity as demand evolves.

The interviewee also noted that broader token coverage — when paired with improved order functionality — strengthened the credibility of the trading experience and reduced the likelihood that users sought access to missing assets on external venues. The modeled benefit therefore reflects incremental trading revenue attributable specifically to newly supported tokens rather than broader changes to overall trading strategy, investor engagement, or user growth.

The COO explained: “We saw incremental improvements in token availability and were able to add four or five new tradable tokens very soon after going live with zerohash, and we expect future additions to happen more quickly. There were also enhancements in the types of orders supported. For example, zerohash offers a simple GTC limit order, meaning you can submit an order and keep it active for as long as you want — days, weeks, or even months. Our previous provider’s limit orders typically expired after 24 hours. So, we’ve seen more trading revenue come on both fronts.”

Customer-reported impact. Based on the experience of the interviewee from a brokerage, approximately 20+ new tradable tokens became available annually following the transition to zerohash. This interview-derived metric serves as a key input to the financial modeling framework presented in Appendix B. Readers can use the framework to estimate the potential revenue opportunity associated with newly supported tokens by applying their own assumptions for trading value per token, revenue rates, and operating margins.

Legacy Environment Savings

Evidence and data. The COO explained that partnering with zerohash streamlined operational workflows and reduced developer effort tied to ongoing platform maintenance. In the prior environment, developers were frequently pulled into remediation work when edge cases or minor inconsistencies occurred. The interviewee’s organization also maintained a separate “direct‑access” crypto portal for regulatory reasons: a setup that created additional complexity across systems and required developers to manage and support multiple integrations.

After transitioning to zerohash, the COO noted fewer issues requiring developer attention, reduced edge-case remediation, fewer reconciliation anomalies, and a generally more stable operational environment across token onboarding, transfers, and settlement workflows. According to the interviewee, in addition to these efficiency gains, zerohash also offered moderately lower provider fees than their prior solution — an added benefit that complemented, rather than defined, their organization’s decision to switch. In addition to fee savings and productivity gains, the interviewee’s organization avoided the need to maintain parallel licensing structures and compliance tooling that would have been required to support an internally built crypto stack. The COO shared: “With what we pay to zerohash now compared to what we used to pay to our previous provider, it’s been nice to save some money and get an objectively better service with fewer existential risks and curve balls.”

Customer-reported impact. Based on the experience of the COO at a brokerage, the cost of revenue associated with its prior provider decreased by 20% following the transition to zerohash. The interviewee also reported a 20% reduction in developer time spent on ongoing platform management. These interview-derived metrics serve as key inputs to the financial modeling framework presented in Appendix B. Readers can use the framework to estimate the potential impact based on their own organization’s crypto trading revenue, staffing levels, and provider economics.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organization experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Regulatory resilience and credibility. The COO emphasized that partnering with zerohash helped their organization maintain confidence in its compliance posture and readiness for evolving crypto regulations. By leveraging zerohash’s existing licenses, audit frameworks, and compliance infrastructure, the interviewee’s organization reduced regulatory uncertainty, shortened internal approval cycles, and avoided the capital and staffing burden associated with securing and maintaining licenses independently.
  The COO explained: “We are in a meaningfully new regulatory environment for crypto after the most recent presidential election. If we can’t predict how that might change, and we know there will be change, we wanted to make sure we were well-positioned in working with a partner that we felt was going to be able to react and take advantage of meaningful changes to help us improve our business. Zerohash is that partner.”

• Improved customer experience. The COO explained that zerohash’s platform enhancements simplified the investor journey and reduced friction. Previously, 24-hour limit orders forced customers to reset price targets daily, and onboarding new tokens was slower, limiting trading options. With zerohash, GTC orders allowed persistent order control, faster token onboarding broadened asset access, and improved on-chain transfers reduced errors and delays. These improvements made trading smoother, more reliable, and more predictable, which ultimately bolstered customer confidence and reduced the likelihood they seek alternative platforms. The COO also highlighted that faster token onboarding and persistent order types increased trading velocity and reduced user churn risk, contributing to incremental revenue durability beyond simple feature expansion.

• Reduced operational exceptions and customer-impacting incidents. The interviewee highlighted that fewer system edge cases, token transfer errors, and ad hoc platform issues minimized disruptions for investors. This reduction not only freed internal resources to work on higher-value initiatives but also reinforced investor confidence. By minimizing operational disruptions, the interviewee’s organization maintained a more reliable trading experience and protected its brand reputation.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might partner with zerohash and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Long-term partner fit and financial stability. The COO explained that zerohash’s focus on B2B infrastructure and proven ability to navigate multiple economic and regulatory cycles gave them confidence in their partner’s stability. This stability enabled the interviewee’s organization to explore new crypto offerings, expand platform functionality, or integrate additional workflows without needing to switch providers. By having a trusted, adaptable partner, the interviewee’s organization could pursue emerging business opportunities and evolve its crypto strategy as market conditions and regulatory guidance change

• Expanded stablecoin capabilities. According to the COO, in addition to spot trading infrastructure, the zerohash enabled stablecoin account funding, settlement, and transfer workflows that operate 24/7. This allowed their organization to leverage these capabilities to reduce funding friction, shorten settlement cycles, enable cross-border payments, and improve capital efficiency. Real-time funding and settlement capabilities could increase trading frequency, reduce abandoned transactions due to funding delays, and enhance platform competitiveness in volatile market conditions.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project.