From Regulation to Integration: Jurisdictions Leading the Way Forward - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2025

the best conference in the world. The energy is fantastic. I think we have something like 15,000 people here in Dubai. This is definitely the center of the digital asset world. And we're talking right now on this stage about perhaps the single most important topic, regulation.

Now, I'd say in many industries, regulation is a bit boring, a bit stayed, but in the digital asset industry, it is what has allowed the industry to rapidly, rapidly mature. Um, joining me are three of the world experts here from different regions. And I kind of want to put this in a little bit of context. I'm an American. You might hear that in my accent, but in the United States, in just the last few months, we've seen rapid change.

In fact, Donald Trump was elected by saying he's going to change the regulatory atmosphere when it comes to digital assets and it's had a huge market impact even uh when he was elected. We saw Bitcoin price for example go up and since then we've seen a lot of activity. We're going to be unpacking kind of Trump's first 100 days in office for quite some time and Teresa is going to be able to speak to a lot of that. But something's very important to note. We're here in Dubai, all of us.

because Dubai has done a very good job of progressively leaning into the digital asset industry without revoking investor protection. So honestly, Matt, I've got to ask you, how are you balancing trying to promote an industry, which I think you effectively are? We're here at token 2049 Dubai with ensuring that there are rules and those rules are thoughtful. Okay, big question. Um, so first of all, what I just want to welcome everybody to Dubai on behalf of VR.

I think it's great uh that everybody's come. The energy here is fantastic and also to to welcome my my co-panelists and moderator as well. You thanks for inviting me to the panel. I think it's worth just as I answer your question framing VAR slightly in terms of why it was set up and and and how we how we look at the problem. Um so we we're really just a a small part in a in a much broader vision within Dubai which is our D33 um economic vision.

The aim of that uh is to double Dubai's economy by 2033. It's it's a it's a it's a simple vision. Part of uh how Dubai is going to execute on that is with new economies and one of those new economies is virtual assets. So um the leadership realized that uh when when they looked at the the sector when we first started to do this that the one thing that most entities in this space were were really crying out for was was certainty and and clarity around what they could do, what they couldn't do, um and how they were going to be regulated. And so VAR was really set up as a as a as a catalyst for that.

you know, we we we were put in place to make sure that those rules exist um and that we sort of champion investment for uh for but you have certain uh authorities for example um you don't regulate stable coins that's done out of some a different department but you do have some pretty broad authority. That's right. So we we have um our remit is any entity in and from the emirate of Dubai for all virtual asset activities and that covers the entire spectrum that you can think of. So, exchanges, broker dealers, asset managers, custodians, token issuance, transfer and settlements. You know, we've got a whole whole range of these.

And when we say token issuers, we mean every type of token issuer, correct? Like everything from what might be securities tokens to perhaps what are considered utility tokens in many markets. Correct. Yeah, that's right. We chose and that's one of the fundamental principles that we that we chose to regulate by which was to be product and technology agnostic.

Our feeling at the time was we don't want to be bogged down by is something an NFT, is something a utility token. Um we want to focus on the the the kind of pure risks of of any given product and regulate on that basis. Otherwise, we felt we would just be chasing our tails trying to keep up with with technology and uh and evolution, which probably wasn't going to be productive. And Eric, you've been a regulator for a while, but today I believe is your birthday. It's my birthday regulator.

You've been exactly one year as executive director. One year old at SFC. Exactly. What have you learned in the last year? What what's what's new for you in digital assets?

Well, definitely crypto is something new to me and it was not in my job description. Uh I'm actually the executive director looking after supposedingly the uh licensing and supervisory of financial intermediaries and I thought that's kind of in my um dictionaries uh include like investment bank, broker dealers, asset manager etc. But that crypto firms uh I don't see that actually in my dictionary but then now actually in my first year I found that uh basically I have a day job and a night job. Okay, the day job is basically doing traditional finance. In fact, I was just having my day job um in Switzerland uh yesterday and then I just hop up a plane.

So, Trafi in Switzerland. Exactly. And then now crypto in Dubai. In Dubai now uh half wake up, but now I'm in my night job. Well, I've got to say you are dressed very crypto today.

I think the audience would agree. So, you're pulling it off one year, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So is it is it are there unique challenges to working with virtual assets that you found? Well, I think uh there's just so much to learn. I think I agree with what Matthew said. I think a lot of things have changed and also evolving. It's very important to for me I'm actually come from the market side.

So from a traditional finance but then I think it's understanding the market I think is the biggest challenge for regulator because we can actually come up with a lot of regulatory concept but at the end of the day I mean I'm actually thinking about how there are a lot of similarities between traditional finance and um crypto as a trading asset but that's actually one thing in fact in the Switzerland uh uh uh round table yesterday I mentioned that's one big thing that is very different is about the primary market. Primary market meaning the issuance is actually unlike traditional finance where you have a listed company regulated by exchange or listing authority. It basically there is some kind of government governance around the issuance of it. Of course everything including disclosures for example how underwriting is conducted for example. Yeah, that's actually really out there the crypto uh community through the blockchain kind of co-regulate that instead of having one single authority that's actually very different and that actually well I mean we can learn a lot of things from the traditional finance but also we need to embrace the fundamental difference of crypto as a trading asset.

Yeah. Well, you seem to have learned quite a lot in one year. Um, but I have to ask both of you as regulators, are all of your colleagues as clued into this industry? Because look, it's a big wide world out there. There's what, at least 193 countries or so around the world and even more different regulatory jurisdictions.

That's a lot of places where someone could conceivably make a mistake in creating the rule set that our industry needs to survive within. What's the education look like for regulators all over the world? Without naming names, not asking you to go and uh tell all the stories. Um yeah, look, I think I think it's fair to say that across the world, regulators are at very different stages of maturity when it comes to both understanding and regulating virtual assets. What what's clear is that most if not all are now very certain that they need to do it and they need to understand how to do it.

Um but naturally that that evolution, you know, that maturity of of being educated and um uh figuring out what the rules need to be is is going to be very very different across the across different jurisdictions. So yeah, Teresa, you're in private practice, but you're a former SEC regulator. Um as an attorney, you know, do you have these kinds of I'm going to call it backroom dialogues or roundt dialogues with regulators to help get them up to speed? Yes, we do. And with all different regulators and even different divisions within the regulator, it's very difficult because the taxonomy is so different.

And so everybody is still using different words for the same things and and it's even difficult to have a conversation and the same thing is happening. Sorry, what do you I just want to make sure we all the audience understands. So I mean that is to say people are using different words to describe when you say the same things. Do you mean like virtual asset versus digital asset? uh token versus coin.

Yeah. As fundamental as that. And so, you know, like some some people are still very much into the original, you know, issuance as a coin and then it's a token after that and then it's more relaxed in other places and everything is a token and then what comes into a digital asset? What comes into because digital assets are actually really broad, you know, and then not all tokens are cryptographic although most are. Very few are not cryptographic.

Not everything is a blockchain. you have hideera and so it's you know with digital ledger technology so just even the words that people are using and then as we're trying uh so as we've been communicating like trying to get you know ATS's through for example years ago it was so difficult just to even explain and get on the same page and it was like groundhog day every meeting right um but we've moved forward a lot with that but there's still you can see um I was on the SEC's inaugural roundt of trying to define a security and this was here this year. Just this year. Yeah. And and there were, you know, experts on there.

There were, I think, 10 of us, 10 or 11 of us. And we were also using different words practitioners. I've been in the space for over 10 years. And we've been uh we were using different words in in trying to come up with what is that line between um a security and and a non-security. So, I'll say this on behalf of all the clients I've worked with through the many years.

years. I've now been in business for 10 years at Waxman. Uh, one of the things I hear most is we need regulatory clarity. I'm sure many of you have heard it, too. It's a bit of a meme in the in the crypto industry.

We need regulatory clarity. But it seems to me like we legitimately do. We don't even know which words to use. But you've yet created a regime that seems to work. How is how is that possible?

Are did you come up with some like uh did you steal frameworks from someone else and and put them together? How did you put together this uh I would call it progressive thoughtful uh framework so quickly? So so first of all this is why we chose to be activity based um almost you know yeah taking the terminology out of the of the equation and saying look you know let's let's stick with terminology that that that that is common and people understand. So are you an exchange? Are you a broker?

Are you an asset manager? Are you a custodian? You know, so so our regulation is is fundamentally based on those concepts, not whether is this an NFT, is this a utility token, is this a memecoin, is this a soulbound token or whatever, you know, uh he knows his stuff. I'm impressed. Various pieces that come out.

So that was the first thing. Um the second thing in terms of your question is absolutely you know when we built the the regulations we took inspiration um from lots of different existing traditional finance jurisdictions including the US including Hong Kong including Switzerland all of the all of the major jurisdictions that we we thought were um you know a high bar of traditional finance regulation because let's face it a lot of the concepts that we're talking about in virtual assets are the same. It's why we hire it's why we hired people from the traditional finance industry to to to support um what it is that we do. Um so that's how we went about building it. Um we we we used what we could from from those global jurisdictions and then we sort of put a flavor of uh uh of where it was required from a virtual asset standpoint.

So for example uh the travel rule would be a good example of that. So you have a pretty standard AML rule book that would that would be consistent with pretty much any jurisdiction in the world and then you've got the travel rule. So we we would bolt on um uh components that would be very very specific to the virtual asset uh space in order to um just give it that tailored uh that you know that tailored capability for the entities and and some familiarity with the people coming in. Eric, how is SFC approaching this? Well, I think we actually come a long way since uh 2011.

We are diff a bit different from farmer farmer in the sense that I mean you got the benefit of starting from a clean sheet of paper. So we are actually a regulator for 35 years. So I think we actually started oh and I should mention one thing in addition you uh I I've learned that SFC has been working on crypto rules since 2015. Uh 2018 2018 that's kind of a 1.0 and basically I think the the what I think Matthew they use the term which we use a lot activity base.

So we kind of use our dictionary to kind of see how we fit in the the the crypto arena. So we kind of regulate from AML perspective. We actually regulate from a trading perspective etc etc. That's 1.0.

Now fast forward to this year. In fact I think when we were in Hong Kong uh in uh February um right on the stage we actually announced our 2.0. So we actually have a that's kind of my own learning together with my colleagues in the sense that we kind of see where we are and then we draw a road map we call aspire just to be a little bit fancy basically cover five elements six letters five elements market assets a um and then there's a safety where P is product I is infrastructure and then re because there's no fiveletter word that can fit well so is relationship so well part of it here is relationship. So we actually outlined 12 initiatives and learning a lot from our own kind of experience and also from the market as to how we actually want to go forward that will actually give a probably a very it's very well received in the sense that the market get clarity not on the very prescri prescriptive rules but about the direction I think it's very important to get the direction right about kind of how we actually interact with global audible how to actually offer more product how we actually build infrastructure, how do we actually build relationships etc.

So those are kind of given the direction and then we try to kind of march forward based on that 2.0 and maybe one day we have 3.0 but now we actually focus on doing the 2.0 first. I would like to say that even understanding uh clarity of direction is helpful.

Just think about it from a founders's perspective. I I might have to spend millions or even billions of my own and investor money to build a company. Um it's a complicated thing. There's going to be it's going to be rife with competition to do that without the certainty of a rule set or at the very least a direction is nearly impossible. Yeah.

And I think maybe I just add one point because one of the thinking about why we do this at the end is that first uh we cannot avoid this. I mean this is something that as regulator I think we owe it to the market owe it to the investors that it is is there we can't just say this is none of my business. So we have to find way to capture that. This is one thing. The second is that I mean I always struggle with this kind of concept is that we can have the state-of-the-art regulations.

We can kind of bring in kind of the top-notch kind of rules and regulations there but if there's no liquidity I think this is a waste of time. So that's why I think that need to be I think as you first question uh kind of hinted there need to be a balance and I think both side actually come with both sides in the sense that yes the regulator need to have some humility understanding the market but also I I reach out to the the the practitioners is that you also need to learn our dictionaries because that's one thing I do believe there's some merit of traditional finance and then we actually can learn from each other through this process so business an industry can learn from regulators and vice versa. Yes. Let's talk about the third group here that I think that all of you have to a certain extent I would say some responsibility to investors traditional investors. The retail investors sometimes sometimes you're institutional and we see a lot of that retail activity in the digital asset virtual asset space.

Um this is a community I've got to be honest that has been burned before. We've certainly seen some tragedies in the virtual asset space in the last 5 10 years and to a certain extent uh regular people the media have called upon regulators to put rules in place to protect everyday folks. How are you thinking about it from that perspective? And and Teresa, I know this is something that the new SEC, the new CFTC, the OC and all the other regulators in the US are reconsidering today. Yeah, exactly.

And it's it's really molded a lot by uh President's Trump uh immediate action in this in this area. His immediate day one executive order is saying this is a national priority. You know digital assets is a national priority and this is important for our leadership in the international market. And he called to for all of the heads of all the important of all the the relevant regulators to come together and work together comprehensively. Not to do you know some elaborate plan over the next three years or or two years but you know within six months come together and talk and and and have their own roundts.

And they're really doing that and they are trying to focus on, you know, all the different parts of of facilitating capital formation for example, you know, promoting innovation and protecting investors. That's one part of it. And it's it's an equal and important part of it, but not all of it. And then oftentimes, you know, that depends the level of uh investor protection depends on the type of asset that you're talking about. And so the United States is approaching this and at warp speed to uh classify assets based on more of a functionality.

And so kind of like what we were discussing here, activity based, right? And so you know like a security would go under the SEC, commodities under the the CFTC and derivatives and futures. And then um for those that aren't anything, you know, we still have like the Federal Trade Commission that does false advertising and things. And so it depends on the functionality of the asset and that determines what kind of investor protection the level of investor protection. And so when you look at the securities laws, you know, put it in context, these were these were based on the 29 crash of of in the United States, the stock market crash that caused tons of people to go homeless, lose their jobs, banks closed, they lost their savings.

Horrible time, right? And so those are the protections that were put in place for that. And so looking at what are the what are the rights and obligations of the people? What are the risks you know for a security when you entrust your money to somebody else and you know you're relying on them to do something and you don't have any kind of control in that and you expect a return. there's certain obligations that come from that as opposed to, you know, buying wheat and eating it or, you know, or selling it on the market.

So, there's there's different types of um risks for investors and then these different regimes are set up that way uh to address those risks and also facilitate those markets and efficient markets. Well, especially in a space as unique as digital assets. Uh you're mentioning everything from soulbound tokens that might be less transferable, let's put it that way. But one of the issues I I could say it out loud with digital assets is things like Bitcoin are kind of digital bearer bonds. They can't be retracted so easily even if yes they're eminently traceable on a blockchain.

So how are you thinking through this um when it comes to investor protection because I know that you know of course the AML regime that's something that I I know both of your uh jurisdictions have thought through quite heavily. But how are you looking at investor protection for a space this unique? Yeah. Okay. So look, I think it's obviously this is something that we take very very seriously.

Um I'd say two things. Number one, our rules are clear. Um so I you know it's clear what entities can and can't do in our market and it's clear what they can and can't say in our marketing regulations to make this is interesting. You have probably at least from what I've seen the most comprehensive marketing regulations and indeed every exhibitor here is supposed to and I hope they are. They are.

Yes, indeed. Watching um it's clear in our regs what entities can and can't do and it's clear in our marketing rigs what they can and can't say. Um and simply put now we need to enforce against that and we are um and you know at VA you're here folks. Yeah. At VAR, we have a continuous strict supervision and enforcement program um that identifies unlicensed activity or breaches in our regulations and takes action against those entities.

And you'll see on our website the uh you know we publish this on our website. We publish the entities that we've enforced against uh and we will continue to do so um until such time that um the problem is the problem is tackled that nobody is is is violating these rules at all hopefully. Um there is one more aspect though which is really really important. So that's kind of the the enforcement piece but the other piece is education and it's something that I talk about quite a lot. I think there's a there's there's there's only so far that you can go with with an enforcement program like that.

You have to also couple it with clear awareness and education for the market about you know what the risks are, how they should use the technology, what they can and can't do. And that is also something that we're uh you know that we're very very keen on. We're working with the entities in the market to create those education programs for and some sort of consistency between the even the delivery right of of such educational materials. Absolutely. Yeah.

How's Hong Kong looking at this? I think Dave, you just stole my word because I actually want to make three points about the investor. Okay. The first point is about consistency. Yeah.

I mean I I agree with what Teresa said in the sense that I think there is a reason why certain measures are there out to protect the investors they come from maybe 50 60 70 years ago and it is very difficult to argue for a regulatory regime where actually well for crypto we actually doesn't do that but then for traditional finance other kind of investment product we do that so consistency we do not need to reinvent the wheels I mean we have to stick with that principle that actually we protect investors the same way irrespective of what kind of products you're selling as long as you are kind of owing a duty to the investors. This is the first point. Now the second point is that there's also an opportunity which is because of the uh the the the crypto market the blockchain nature of the market in the sense that there are new technology we can use to actually make the investor protection more effective. I mean in the old ways I think maybe a lot of paperbased or kind of disclosure based or a lot of kind of report based um regime so that we can kind of look at the market how actually investor are being protected or hurt but now I think with the blockchain with all everything being digital I mean you actually have a better footprint you have actually a better way of analyzing the dynamics of the market and that is something as regulator we need to uh pay attention and also upskill ourself self into us. I mean these tools are extraordinary right I mean these the chain analysis and such uh elliptic all these extraordinary tools I mean when I was in Switzerland talk about traditional finance half the day was talking about use of technology I think we are actually we will be amazed by the amount of tools we can use now to make the market better and the third point is about collaboration I think the reason yeah what do you mean by collaboration well for because of of uh like the crypto asset trading is global in nature.

We always always talk about global trading B. I mean we actually as regulator need to kind of work together to avoid again a very uh bus word that we use is avoid regulatory arbitrage. I mean regulatory arbitrage. Yes. We we should not allow for so please define the term for the audience.

Well basically if actually we have a loser regime while actually maf has a kind of tighter regime then everything kind of moved to Hong Kong. That is not what we want from the market because at the end of the day it's very global and even the investor for example in Hong Kong they can actually buy things out there in the cloud I mean god knows where actually where it resides if we actually allow this crossber nature to go out of whack just go to kind of the regime with lesser kind of requirement I think at the end of the day it's not our self-interest I think it's not good for the investor so at the end of the day I think we need to have also some kind of denomin minators common denominator among the major regulators to make it more consistent so that we avoid this regulatory arbitrage. Yeah. And can I just add because I think that's so important with the collaboration not only like with global I mean this industry is global and so many industries are global now but in the collaboration with the regulators in the industry to really understand how that's working and collaboration among each other but I and that's something now that is finally happening in the United States with all you know the industry is being invited and and they want to come in and talking to them is making this a lot smarter regulation. And then something else I w wanted to note too that you said about bringing the technology in because that is so important that the regulators have that technology and this is something that there's so many things that President Trump is doing and I don't think people really understand how comprehensive it is but it's even he's affecting the federal um acquisition act and and how you can basically get um the contracts to get the technology in.

Right now the process people don't know this is so ownorous it takes years process to like for example as a regulator make use of these new tools that discussing. Yes. It can take years to get that contract and then by the time you know you have your they build your own you know in-house product it's already five versions later or trying to hire people who can do it it's hard to get pe people who will do it for that salary right and so this is very under reportported this is yes like there he is this is such a comprehensive approach that's happening so fast in the United States and people don't really understand just how comprehensive it is um to bringing that regulation in and then also the the cost cutting and and the waste and and making it so it's it's easier to um get rid of people and federal jobs that are not performing well and I just having things run more efficiently. But the the federal acquisitions is a huge issue and it is really under reportported. It's fascinating.

I I do want to talk a little bit about enforcement actions. We've seen the US SEC either drop or suspend many of its original cases. We've saw the the US Department of Justice has kind of retasked seemingly the the crypto crimes unit uh to a certain extent. Why why is all this happening right now in the UNESC? Well, there was this massive attack on the on the crypto industry and you know a lot in the former administration, right?

The former administration under under Biden. I mean the the lawsuits that came after all and it's it was a lot of crypto um other thing other industries and other people as well but to basically just try and um destroy the the industry by enforcement actions and you know you would see they they would talk about exchanges the SEC gendler would talk about exchanges and then go after them as kind of like the the neck right and so it was very strategic in a way to try and kill an industry um and the current SEC, you know, before you you can have the uh before they can have the clarity of exactly what is security, what is not, the director, I'm sorry, the uh chairman has a lot of discretion, enforcement discretion. And acting chair UEA chose to use his discretion to drop cases and settle cases. And that was so pivotal because all these companies were caught up in these investigations and cases and spending millions and millions of dollars. And once you have a an enforcement action by a government regulator, it's like I always say it's like having a white suit with a black suit mark and you can never get it off and it can affect you being able to get licensed by different regulators in different jurisdictions.

It can have such a huge impact. Um so even in trying to just bring some um clarity, bring some order to the markets, you know, they had to simmer down and close some of those enforcement actions. Um but then we've seen the states now going a little rogue with Washington state now bringing a case against Coinbase for exactly the same things that the SEC just dropped the case against. And so now we're talking about preeemption a little bit and about how a complicated topography. Yeah.

Well, well, getting it so basically the federal government can um do something to bring order and clarity and preempt the federal the states from being able to do something. And then with the AML laws, we've seen the Department of Justice say that it's not going to go um it's not going to be uh bringing cases using enforcement discretion against, you know, AML violations for uh particularly for crypto companies um that are not willful. And then the CFTC acting chair fam, she issued a statement saying the same thing that they all likewise are not going to. And we know that we've seen tons of these cases um in the crypto space over the past the previous administration. And so we're going to see enforcement discretion not used there, which is is really what you need because you need to really balance innovation and law enforcement.

So let's talk a little bit about that. So the in the former administration um what's been popularized is the the term choke point 2.0 that was preventing digital asset companies or even those that touch digital assets from having bank accounts. Simply simple as that. And I know in Hong Kong one of the things that we've heard is that there's been an encouragement to allow companies that are compliant that are in the digital asset space to get a bank account.

And I know that sounds very simple but it's pretty fundamental to running a business to have a bank account. Yeah. It's actually not easy because I think we do actually encourage the more collaboration between banks and um the the well the crypto native um I think it's also a learning process. I think the the kind of overhand um concern I think the traditional finance like the banks have is on the uh uh AML KYC front. So I think that's also again a mutual dialogue where I think the the crypton native also have to find a way where that's that's why they need to learn our language to explain to articulate as to why actually they're compliant on the AFL the the the KYC and AML front and in fact by getting a license from a proper regulator be it SEC VA or um um um Hong Kong is a good way to start because that actually give the traditional finance community a an assurance that at least they are being regulated in important areas like AML.

Well, let me ask you this very practically. Do you take meetings with companies? Do you actually open your doors and let and and talk with them about this so they can learn your lingo and speak your language? Of course. Actually, that's actually very important of my job and also my colleague job.

we have definitely open door in the sense that uh I think very important to have what I emphasize is direct communication I mean in the old days it's very e kind of used to the practice where um a regulatory appoint a intermediaries consultant advisory firms wherever or law firm to kind of reach out to us and now if you have that intermediarations sometimes a loss in translation feels like a lawyer exactly so I Think why actually I mean because this is not an enforcement meeting it's nothing that we are going to get to arrest anyone I mean by having that meeting right having that direct dialogue I think is very very important and actually help eliminate a lot of loss translation and if you actually get through intermediaries often than not there are actually uh translate kind of slightly differently because they're very used to different languages yeah man have you found the same thing yeah I was going to add um I this engagement with the industry is is one of the sort of founding principles of of VAR. So we've we've spent the last three years uh uh you know doing exactly that understanding how their businesses work, understanding the specific risks associated with that um and sort of working together on you know how a regulator might see risk and understand that. But you mentioned banking specific specifically and that is something else that we've worked on in in in the UAE. um our you know we've we as VAR have spent um I don't know how how many hours with with local banks to help them understand the specific risks of this industry how you know an exchange might deal with KYC uh how custody works to get them familiar with not just the terminology but the the processes and how they might need to you know think about the problem when they're giving bank accounts or um you know providing banking access to these uh to these VAS and we've now got an ecosystem where I think we've we've got you know more than 30 fully licensed entities with client money accounts that is remarkable with these banks um it's not yet perfect but it's getting there and the banks are willing and our central bank is very very supportive and so we're grateful for that relationship as well. What we're also now seeing is the local banks venturing into becoming virt uh be custodians for example.

Yeah, we've got and the question is will they also be issuers? We've got Yeah. Well, that not yet here but there there are at least two banks. One is licensed for custody, one is in the process. Um we have two that are offering brokerage services to their you know to their retail clients and and so you know the interest in LFIS is now building.

they're they're starting to understand the risk profile of the industry and become a little bit more warmed up to that. Um uh so yeah that I I think it's really really important and again it all comes down to engagement and and what you can do in terms of education. Eric, you you mentioned this a little bit but I do think in the closing minutes I want to talk a little bit more about global harmonization. What does that mean and why is it so important? Well, again I think um in the traditional finance uh world we have IOS like a kind of super national um uh um entity which coordinate all the regulators.

we don't have that for crypto and I think uh it is up to us in a way as regulator to establish that type of communication and to be honest um like every major regulators I talked to be SEC or in London P or FCA and in far here of course or with Singapore MAS and Japan JFSA none of them don't talk about crypto no wait none of them don't talk about exactly it's a double neck that actually everyone like one two years ago maybe this is something that they try to avoid but now basically they reach out to us we reach out to them to exchange views now this is interesting because there are a lot of bilateral communications so I talked to Matthew Matthew maybe talked to kind of mas talked to like IC and then a lot of this this is not the most efficient way that sounds like the same game of telephone you were complaining about earlier exactly so but again I'm not trying to overthink as it's very difficult Now the exception is something like kind of inter super national um uh organization to coordinate that. Let's start with something kind of just next to me. So I mean the reason why I'm in Dubai today is because last time Matthew was in Hong Kong and then he invited me here. As simple as that. If I don't come to Dubai, we won't have this conversation.

We don't have the next step. So once I come to Dubai, I actually want to find the next step. So I think uh Middle East is actually a very good cluster. I mean you have Vara you have other regulators here who are actually quite progressive on crypto and this time I hope to that give me insights at to how at least this small community which we actually learn from each other we borrow from each other whether we can establish some commonality. I mean I cannot tell you where actually we start with this kind of um kind of um uniformity or commonality of our kind of work but that must be some at least something and and Matt I know you've taken meetings first all over the world but also here in the UAE with regulators from different places are they learning from either early mistakes and more importantly the progress you've already made here at Thor?

Uh yeah look we we have always been uh open to sharing how you know how our journey has played out and the things that we think are really really important. Engagement with the industry being being one of And I was asked on a panel, I don't know when it was, maybe a couple of months ago, what learnings I would I I would give. That would be the first one. You know, engage with the industry. But we what we try and do at VAR is really just open our doors to other regulators and, you know, not not just regulators, but maybe even law enforcement bodies from from other jurisdictions as well where, you know, we just help them understand what we've been through and the types of risks that exist in the industry.

Um and we spend quite a bit of time doing that and we're very willing to continue doing that in the in the coming coming years uh in the future. Well, I do hope the 193 plus jurisdictions in the world are listening to this panel u perhaps we'll have some more common rules, common definitions and great progress for the digital asset industry. So panelists, thank you very much for being here. Audience, thank you very much for listening. Thank you.