Not All Regulation is Created Equally - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2022

thank you very much indeed and hello everyone so I'm Oliver Lynch and CEO of Beatrice global my job today here is to get you to be more questioning to be more demanding to ask more questions of people when they come up here and they say oh we're regulated what does that mean you should be asking where are you regulated how are you regulated what does that mean for your day-to-day life and probably most importantly of all why does that make exchanges token teams investors our entire Community safer because that's what we're ultimately trying to do here so in a short time I have here I'm going to try and talk about three things I'm going to talk about bitrex global and its history of engaging with regulation done the right way secondly I'm going to talk about why it matters and why we you and everyone at this conference today should be really pushing for the highest standards and the highest uh importance placed on doing regulation properly and then thirdly I'm going to try and indicate the sort of things that you should be looking for when someone says they're regulated the sort of questions you should be asking to test whether that's really true so when bittrex Global or bittrex was first set up back in 2012. we were set up based on three pillars of belief security innovation and regulation so security and Innovation have always been kind of uncontroversial uh although some have been more successful than others at doing it but regulation back in 2012 2013 was hugely controversial right nobody more or less was out there saying that crypto should be regulated we back then got people telling us that we were ruining crypto our Founders got death threats from people saying getting governments involved getting regulations involved is anathema to everything crypto is about nowadays though everyone comes up here everyone on this stage we've heard it today we've heard it on the other stages we hear it at conferences around the world everyone says oh yeah we're regulated we believe in regulation we're doing it properly so what's happened well one of two things has happened have these people like had a massive damascene conversion and genuinely now believe that they were wrong in the past and that regulation is the way forward well take some of them sure and when that happens we think that's great and every time we engage with a new token team or a new set of investors or a new platform that is doing regulation the real way the proper way we Delight in that because we see that as a Vindication of our vision for what crypto should be as a mature sophisticated grown-up legitimate investment but unfortunately that's not everyone unfortunately there are a lot of people a lot of exchanges a lot of token teams and a lot of countries who are wrapping themselves in the language of regulation for the quick buck to stick something in their trophy cabinet to get a couple of media headlines so they can say well we're regulated we're like basically the same as bittrex Global so come invest with us or come put your trust in US they're not willing to put in the hard yards to actually make it work the reality of what it means to be regulated in a way that Beatrix Global has been since day one so why does this matter well it matters because it's your vision of what crypto can mean what it does mean and what it can mean in the future if crypto is to become a serious contender for disrupting classical traditional Finance then it needs to be as trusted as traditional Finance now at the moment that not might not be a particularly High barrier to entry but across the board people need to have confidence in the system right so let's look at retail investors me my sister my mom if we want to invest in crypto there's a hell of a lot of information out there but not a lot that you know you can trust so how are you supposed to get started how are you supposed to know what's safe and what's not you wouldn't put your money in an unregulated Bank so why are you being asked to put your money onto a non-regulated exchange what do you think that's wrong and we think that it's a big barrier to mass adoption of crypto because people simply don't feel safe and people coming and saying oh we're regulated and it turns out they're kind of not or they're sort of regulated or by regulation they just mean registered they've ticked the box somewhere that's actually even worse because that under actively undermines confidence but professional investors as well it's hugely important pretty much every major institution now has a crypto desk every major bank has a crypto desk even if they don't admit it every every fund manager has to have crypto as part of their portfolios they just have to the demand is there but how are they supposed to measure apples for apples how are they supposed to compare one product to another like for like if crypto out there is such an unknown quantity they can't do it so you've got Pension funds who would love to be able to get involved in crypto but they can't the shareholders won't let them they're governing documents won't let them and then thirdly let's look at token teams right there are a whole load of token teams layer one layer two teams here the look to an exchange now more than just an exchange as a partnership they're looking for people to actually get involved with to help launch their products right whether that's through bitric Global's ieo platform or whether that's just part of a token listing where they want a little bit more engagement they want to trade off the reputation of an exchange well that's great if the exchange has got a reputation that's worth having so that's why this really matters to everyone in the community we should be pushing people to get to guarantee to prove that when they come up and they say we are Regulators we're now regulated here we're now regulated there what does that mean well let me explain to you where Bishop's Global is regulated and why and then what you should be looking for within that what kind of questions you should be asking so Matrix Global is regulated in Europe in Liechtenstein and it's regulated in Bermuda Liechtenstein used to EU regulation sophisticated regulator genuine embracement of the crypto at an early stage Bermuda British overseas territory used to sophisticated extremely complex regulation especially in the insurance sector in brains crypto at an early stage so I'm gonna I'll get you to ask a few main questions firstly what does it mean when you say regulated secondly how did you become regulated and what does that mean on an ongoing basis and thirdly what standards are you applying so when we say regulate it what does that actually mean at its best done most sophisticatedly being regulated means dealing with the essence of what crypto is when I transfer a token to you and you transfer a token to me what is happening what rights have been transferred what what kind of property is that that I've managed to send to you because if I have a legal system or jurisdiction that hasn't tackled that problem it's worth nothing it's worth not even the paper that it's not even written on right because I don't know what I'm getting and I don't know what I'm giving and if it all goes wrong I'm left with nothing so the very first thing that any genuine crypto exchange operating in a regular in a jurisdiction that wants to do it properly needs to be asking is have you figured out what crypto is and this is where a few countries come unstuck because there's a tendency to try and shoehorn crypto into existing categories oh it's a bit like a security they'll say I was a bit like a commodity the truth is it's kind of a mix of everything but it's its own new category and the best countries are the ones that have embraced that and have dealt with that properly so that's what it means to be regulated what does it mean to get authorized in the country to be supervised in the country well the first thing to note is when I speak to investors or I speak to government so I speak to Regulators if the first thing they say to me is oh you should come get regulations here it's real easy that's a huge red flag to me it shouldn't be easy it should be damn difficult because millions of people are relying on that certification to be able to trust the institution so if you want to make it easy in terms of process great like no one likes unnecessarily convoluted processes actually that's not true I spent 10 years working in a law firm doing regulation before that there's exactly one category of people that likes overly complicated legal processes and that's the lawyers the rest of us we're happy for there to be a quick path to getting regulated but it needs to be difficult The Regulators need to ask questions they need to examine your business plan they need to check that you're applying standards not just on paper but in reality and that's not a one-off thing on the points of authorization right that is an ongoing obligation to supervise to ask questions to dig into the details and I can tell you like I let this every day it's really annoying like it's really annoying but it's the right thing to do because it's only through a competent sophisticated regulator doing that work for the consumers for the end users that those end users can have confidence in the system so yeah my heart drops when we go through another round of questions for The Regulators in the same way as it does when I was working at a bank at the same way as it does if you're working at investment firm it's really annoying it's really difficult but if you want to say that you're regulated if you want to come up here and broadcast to the world come invest in us it's safe we're regulated those are the hard yards that you have to put in that means turning away investment opportunities if you can't do them properly that means spending an awful lot of money on compliance officers and training and manuals and processes it's got to be done it's done in the bank it's it's done investment firms it's done at Asset Management firms it needs to be done properly at the exchange level as well and then finally I'm running out of time so finally I want to talk about the standards to be applied so the big cop out that a lot of people say is oh you know we're committed we're committed to doing regulation but unfortunately there are no standards to be applied yet they'll really wave at Mika in the EU and say oh you know it will probably look a little bit like that this is nonsense right and everyone knows that it's nonsense yes the details in some countries may not be worked out yet but don't go to those countries or better do go to these countries and get them to impose the standards that we all know are coming anyway anyone that tells you that they don't think they know what sanctions regulations are going to look like are either just massively incompetent or straight up lying it is going to be based on fat of Standards whether we like it or not and where Global do like it because we don't think that crypto should be seen as a proxy for illegal activity so if you're there and you're not applying that of Standards take a good hard look at yourself and say is this legitimately because oh you're so confused you don't know what to do or is it because it's difficult and you don't want to have to do it is it because you don't want to have to turn away all those Russian users with their money because sanctions have been applied to them that you weren't expecting do you really not know what what's going to happen or do you really not like engaging in the system that you claim the benefit of so it's up to all of us it's the community it's journalists it's investors when people come up here and they say come invest in our exchange come invest in our token come put your money in our funds rear regulate it the question you have to ask yourself is are you are you ready and if I can get you all doing that or even better not asking them and coming straight to Beatrix Global then I'll be a happy man thank you very much