Storm Partners’ Sheraz Ahmed Talks Crypto, AI, and the Future of Finance

As the crypto market continues to evolve at breakneck speed, bridging the gap between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) has become one of the industry’s defining challenges—and opportunities. Sheraz Ahmed, Managing Partner at Storm Partners, has had a front-row seat to this transformation.

In a recent interview with BeInCrypto, Ahmed reflected on nearly a decade in the space, noting a fundamental shift in perception: what was once dismissed as an abstract experiment is now being taken seriously by major institutions. According to Ahmed, the growing digitalization of daily life and increasing concerns around centralized data control have driven trust toward blockchain solutions.

Sheraz Ahmed on the Evolving Relationship Between DeFi and TradFi

The journey has been extensive. Having been in this industry for nearly a decade now, I can tell you that there’s been a profound shift. Initially, people dismissed crypto as an abstract concept—some “digital gold” without backing or value. Traditional financial institutions believed that to gain trust, you needed a banking license with significant capital. The notion that a purely digital solution could work seemed unfathomable. But over time, this perception has changed.

Why? The answer lies in the growing digitalization of our world. Today, more people spend hours online every day, which directly correlates with the trust and value they place on digital systems. This digital evolution has led to greater acceptance of digital payments, as they’re now seen as natural. Services like Revolut have shown that instant money transfers are not only possible but widely trusted.

The Rise of Blockchain Solutions

Blockchain offers transparency, speed, and security. As people started realizing that centralized platforms were monetizing their data without proper consent, there was a demand for more privacy-focused, transparent alternatives.

Blockchain technology emerged as a solution, offering a decentralized, immutable ledger that people could trust. This, combined with the speed of transactions and transparency of the system, made it a natural choice for many users.

Storm Partners’ Role in Blockchain Innovation

Trust has always been our foundation. When we started Storm Partners, the goal was to bring together experts from various fields—lawyers, marketers, finance professionals—to provide a trusted service in an industry that was rife with scams and uncertainty. The biggest growth we’ve seen is in the consolidation of the crypto market. More cryptocurrencies exist today than publicly traded stocks, and while many are for fun, some projects face significant gaps in expertise or complementary technologies.

For example, the merger of SingularityNet, Fetch.ai, and Ocean is a perfect illustration of this trend. These projects were working on complementary technologies—AI and blockchain—but from different angles. By coming together, they can offer a more complete solution, combining data management (blockchain) and data creation (AI) to power decentralized, AI-driven systems.

AI and Blockchain: The Next Frontier

AI is a central component, especially now that large organizations are heavily investing in it. It’s becoming like the internet—something so embedded in every project that it’s no longer necessary to highlight it. Blockchain and AI are complementary. While blockchain manages the data, AI generates it.

And when you combine these two technologies, you can create powerful decentralized systems. The best projects today are those that leverage AI from day one to generate value and move quickly to market.

Challenges for Traditional Institutions Adopting Crypto

The biggest hurdles are regulatory concerns and cybersecurity risks. After the 2008 financial crisis, regulatory frameworks became stricter, and these regulations have only intensified in the digital age. Many institutions are hesitant to adopt crypto for fear of regulatory fines.

Furthermore, cybersecurity remains a concern. Recent hacks, such as the Bybit hack, highlighted vulnerabilities in third-party providers. Banks, in particular, are reluctant to custody crypto because they fear the risks and liabilities involved.

It’s a tough situation for banks. They want to offer crypto services, but the risk management, custody, and regulatory issues make it complicated. The reality is, crypto was never designed to be custodied by banks. People have the option to hold crypto directly and use it for cross-border transactions, while keeping their fiat in more traditional banking systems for safety.

The Future of Blockchain and Finance

The future of crypto is about striking that balance. It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach. By integrating crypto with traditional finance in a hybrid model, we can achieve a system that combines the strengths of both worlds.

So, how can Storm Partners help bridge this gap and support institutions and new companies? Well, we’ve developed a new corporate innovation sandbox called LightningBox, which essentially aggregates Web3 tools and providers into three distinct layers. The first layer is service providers, such as cybersecurity companies like Hacker or legal firms like Valdives. This layer focuses on writing services.

The second layer consists of infrastructure providers—companies that offer tools like custody solutions, payment solutions, and compliance tools such as Chainalysis that provide Know-Your-Transaction (KYT) services.

The third layer is the actual blockchain technology itself—the backbone of the system. These three components work together to create a Web3 application. By combining them, we’ve built a sandbox environment where we welcome luxury, finance, and impact organizations to come in and interact with the full composability stack in one place.

In the real world, a bank or institution would struggle to connect with all these providers separately—it would take too much time, and many organizations simply don’t have the resources. Plus, the costs involved are high and there’s no economy of scale. But by aggregating all of them in one place, we’ve made it easier to create proof of concepts and minimum viable products (MVPs) quickly.

With minimal resources, companies can market-test these concepts, determine if they’re valuable, and present them to their board. If the board approves, the next step is to secure funding—whether it’s $1 million or $10 million—to develop the product for mass adoption. LightningBox is designed to make that process faster, easier, and more cost-effective.

What to Expect From Storm Partners in the Near Future?

There are always exciting things ahead. In the second quarter, we’re expecting major M&A announcements from clients we’ve been working with. Additionally, we’re looking at potential acquisitions ourselves, which is a very interesting development.

We’re also planning an exciting expansion into new regions, particularly into the GCC area, focusing on a country that’s not widely known today but has a growing reputation for its crypto regulation. This expansion will be a strong entry point into the Arab world, and we’re really excited to announce it in Q2.

Beyond that, we have more exciting projects coming from our clients, though some details are confidential. I strongly believe that 2025 will be a great year for the industry. A lot of organizations are bullish on 2025, and they’ve been setting aside budgets for that year. There’s a lot of potential for growth, and I’m eager to see what initiatives will come forward as companies start deploying their funds.

We also anticipate some fantastic projects emerging from LightningBox, and we’ll be announcing some of them at our Corporate Innovation Day in Decentral House in Daytime. It’s going to be an exciting event, with some incredible enterprise-level announcements. I hope to see you there! It will be a great opportunity to learn more about the work we’re doing and see firsthand what’s coming next.