From Healthcare to Hashes: Kelghe D’Cruz on Bridging TradFi and Web3 with PAIRS

🎙️ Guest: Kelghe D’Cruz, Founder & CEO of PAIRS
🕒 Duration: ~48 minutes

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Lindsey McConaghy chats with Kelghe D’Cruz, founder and CEO of PAIRS, a platform bringing DeFi and CeFi tools into one interface. Kelghe shares how his early experiments with Dogecoin, a healthcare startup, and a near-ICO all shaped his approach to building something more practical for crypto users today.

They cover:

• Mining Dogecoin and selling it on eBay in 2013
• Walking away from an ICO raise after legal advice
• Letting users trade across chains and settle to fiat
• Building with third-party banking partners, not replacing them
• A future profit-sharing model tied to trading activity
• Challenges of running a startup with a live token
• Why he’s prioritizing licenses early, even before it’s required

Where to Listen

🔹 Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-healthcare-to-hashes-kelghe-dcruz-on-bridging/id1799063494?i=1000718911639
 🔹 Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yckAYzd77ydd2BZhKlidQ?si=8d25210fb8fb4d0e
 🔹 YouTube → https://youtu.be/RP6ZN785G-A

Connect with PAIRS & Kelghe D’Cruz

🌐 Website: pairs.xyz/
🐦 X (Twitter): @kelghe | @pairs_dex
🔗 LinkedIn: Kelghe D’Cruz

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro & why crypto still feels fragmented
• 1:09 Basement Dogecoin mining, selling on eBay, then Mt. Gox
• 5:29 The ICO he didn’t do: legal warning, refunds, and bootstrapping to 30k users
• 8:25 Spinning out PAIRS: taking the retail side and why
• 12:28 Building PAIRS: cross-chain DEX, fiat rails, “real ownership,” profit‑sharing & the AI co‑pilot
• 37:10 Licensing-first strategy, KYC-on-chain, and why CeFi x DeFi will just become “finance”