Code, Currency, and Courts Unravelling a Cross Border Crypto Dispute

Good afternoon everyone. Uh first of all a really warm welcome um to this session. My name is Bilal Jaffaur and I cover crypto and hedge funds for Dow Jones in London. Um unfortunately Sarah Green couldn't be with us um for this session but we do have a very very important topic to discuss today. Crypto as an asset class is still relatively new.

Even if you take a look at the history of Bitcoin is less than two decades and most of the digital assets are less than one decade and countries regulators around the world have been working quite hard in the last few years to recognize the status of crypto as an asset class. So to discuss this important topic, we have a bunch of experts who would like to shed some light on this important topic. Uh so without further ado, I would like to start with introduction. Arena.

Hello everyone. My name is Arena Hiver. I'm crypto lawyer based here in the UAE. So nine years ago when I left the corporate world as a general council of the largest shipping group in the world and told my colleagues that I will be um working with crypto people of course people I raised a few eyebrows and now it's so amazing seeing so many of my peers and colleagues attending the events attending the crypto sessions and there's a whole crypto stage dedicated in ADGM. It's absolutely delighting to be here.

Thank you very much.

W.

Hi everyone. My name is Wam. I head up the authorization and the fintech division within the financial services regulator authority. Uh what I what I do at the FSR is that I'm responsible for dishing out licenses for banking, insurance, capital markets, payments and crypto players. And in the fintech division, I look at the regulatory policies around both the innovation side of things as well as the regulatory policies.

Thanks

Andrew.

Hi, my name is Andre Miten. I'm uh co-founder and the group CEO of Bitcoin Swiss, which is the oldest and largest uh crypto financial institution in Switzerland. So, we started around yeah 2013 with the idea to make cryptocurrencies accessible uh to everyone and uh yeah, we're currently in the region um working on a derivative trading uh license. Thanks.

Thank you so much for the introduction. Wam, I'll I'll start with you. So Abu Dhabi has been an early mover and more specifically ADGM in recognizing digital assets as an asset class and drafting regulations around it and making it easier for the firms to come here set up businesses and have some sort of clarity around the status of the digital asset. Just help us understand how important is this to have like a clear legatory understanding of digital assets.

I think the short answer everyone will agree that regulatory and legal certainty and clarity is going to be very important. That's how business thrives, right? Without it, you can't really operate within the rules. Um, so when we first set out set out on this journey to try to regulate this space, uh, we don't have any references. Uh, we were sort of the first mover and looking out there, there aren't many references that we can look to.

Uh, but I suppose we took the vision that, uh, the in the future there's going to be the convergence of threadfi and newi. uh and what we did was essentially anchor our thinking around conventional principles of conventional finance. So in short essentially we just extended our treadf regulations and calf crypto and digital assets is just another asset class within our framework. Uh so just an example if you are a broker dealer responsible for dealing in investment activities u you with that license you are able to do sport securities derivatives cryptos perpetuous so and so forth or sort of product class agnostic but activity is to the same. So hopefully with that extension of uh traditional conventional finance principles, players looking into this space would have something to benchmark against knowing that you are held to the same standard as with any financial regulations and financial institutions.

So that journey I think has sort of been fruitful and helpful in the last eight years. Uh and I think today in ADGM we are seeing the convergence of uh Treadfi and Nefi. Um exciting times ahead even for us as a regulator. So we are learning along the way

and while how do we find a balance between these things so many regulators around the world not ADGM but around the world some people emerging companies they criticize them that regulations are so hard that they can't really innovate but at the same time regulators responsibility is to protect investors from so you need to understand from their perspective as well ADGM has been quite successful in finding that balance so wanted to ask you how do you find that balance between inov innovation and investor protection.

I don't think I know the answer absolutely to that. Um but I think from my philosophy um my starting point has always been if that innovation benefits the people it it results in better outcomes if it results in better efficiency that's a good starting point to be um and then I think about the risks that I need to address. So perhaps from that perspective there's sort of a reversal of uh mindset from a risk template first approach uh uh instead of a risk template approach first I look at the benefits that innovation can bring and then think about the gut rails I can put in place right so so hopefully that that um I've got a team I've got colleagues who are all very experienced in the conventional finance space and we tap on each other for that uh judgment calls uh and we harder together we jump together so I think many of us has gone through crisis uh so I think from that it sort of hones our judgment call so I'm grateful that I have a team uh that uh help us u bring us to where we are today and 2025 specifically has been an important year for crypto regulations around the world uh we saw late last year in December Micah came into fill force then earlier this year uh I mean a lot of changes in the US regulatory environment regarding digital assets. Genius we saw that as well. Couple of other regulations and recently UK has started recognizing at least they can they have put that option that digital assets can be recognized as a personal property.

So in your opinion this year how all this has changed the sentiment around the status of digital assets?

Uh it was a tough year of course but uh very productive as well. So it's great to see the achievements but there was a lot of like pre-work as well that went into those regulatory um let's say frameworks over many years and of course a lot has happened this year now all the eyes are on the uh genius act um on clarity act of course uh like in the US m has advanced but from my perspective what is like amazing to see is I mean the regulatory clarity that we're having uh and seeing today because when we started 2013 there was basically no regulator regatory clarity because when we started you didn't even know how to treat Bitcoin. Is it like is it treated like money? Is it treated like a commodity? Treated like property.

We had legal opinions going all in all different kind of directions because nobody really knew what it is. Most said yeah it's actually nothing. So we in 2014 wanted to become self-regulated and even had to like then explain why do we want to be regulated because the crypto industry at that time uh was associated with uh with not like the best things around. So regulation for us was always like an enabler uh for for actually growth and acceptance of the whole industry. So that was a key driver and then of course over the time the regulatory framework started to like evolve as well.

Um at one point I mean it you had clarity on that for example Bitcoin is treated uh as a as a property and has certain characteristics of money. Later on you had different kind of token classifications where not all tokens are the same not like property. All of a sudden you had like security characteristics. All of a sudden securities law started to to apply as well uh or potentially even like banking law accepting of public deposits. Especially like in Switzerland if you have all um or if you like comingle certain crypto assets of clients on the same wallet like in a in omnibus or pulled account then all of a sudden it has characteristics of public deposits.

Right? So the the the crypto regulatory framework started to evolve over time. But what I think is important especially when dealing with regulators is that you have a regulator that understands crypto and it's as a whole and of course I mean we see that here as well but where you also have like some sort of a importance and prioritization on the topic because it's a very innov innovative and like fast growing environment so it evolves over time and that's just not different token classifications I mean we 2017 18 did a lot of uh like initial coin offerings and supported them all of a sudden one of um switched from a proofof work validation mechanism to proof of stake. All of a sudden you had staking. So how do you treat that?

Right? So the the requirements towards a a regulatory framework uh are evolving like over the time and you need to have a regulator that understands that but also the important uh importance of it and supports it um throughout the the time. And Arena as a crypto lawyer from your perspective and the observation you have in the industry is there enough education available for crypto lawyers to just learn and adapt to the technicalities of the status of digital asset? How are lawyers seeing this space? Because you can only resolve legal disputes within the crypto and digital asset ecosystem if you understand the concept and how does it work across different jurisdictions.

So how are lawyers seeing this space?

So lawyers here in the UAE, we're quite privileged to be in a situation where first of all we have more than one regulator. We have five we have five regulators and each of them produces their own body of law and we're also lucky that some regulators are very responsive. They run workshops. Um I mean we can uh reach reach out to ADGM's regulator and ask specific questions on the points of law we unsure and um we have that opportunity to reach out and educate ourselves but you know your fate is in your own hands. If you want to become a practicing lawyer at the cutting edge of technology, you have to push yourself because you are at the cutting like literally bleeding edge of technology.

Now web 3 and AI is merging. So if you want to keep up, you have to educate yourself. I spend around one or two hours a day just reading what is happening just to be able to keep up with my job. And I'm not talking about, you know, um, entering a new a new area of of of law, a new area of expertise. So there's a lot of resources there if you know where to find them and if you can go after that.

But at at the end of the day, it's your own responsibility to educate yourself and do the best work you can perform for for your clients. One of the most interesting things that are are happening and this is what Wayum has mentioned. So um the regulations are around 10 to 15 years behind the innovation. So by the time the regulators come up and with with a new regulatory framework the technology has moved on already the founders and the entrepreneurs are building completely something else and then by the time a dispute uh gets to a judge gets to a court that's another two or three years. Oh, so we have 15 years from the time when technology has already moved on.

Um, a recent case in Abu Dhabi 3 years ago uh analyzed the property right of a bitcoin. Uh, I'm sure you would be very hurt if I come and take one bitcoin away from you. You would feel it was yours, right? But only two or three years ago, a judge was deciding if bitcoin is a property and uh can it be stolen, right? So to us it sounds a little bit funny.

Uh but to a judge that was very important to understand because from their own they can apply certain rights or they can enforce certain rights they can apply certain laws and also um for for the um projects that are working in the space for regula uh regulated intermediaries. It's very important to understand of all of these elements because they will receive a court order to freeze their account or not to freeze their account or a police um uh enforcement action for example against a certain account. So we are practicing law and the founders are living the life at this cutting edge of technology and it is very exciting but at the same time um there's a lot of unknown. um 10 years ago when somebody wanted to issue a token what is a token we don't know what a token is so we had to find the most nearest definition available at law airline miles we used an example you issuing an air mile airline miles that you will then use right so you just need to find the nearest equivalent and then eventually regulators like um FSR come up with regulations and then they imple um uh change them um based on the market realities and also based on the feedback of market participants. So this becomes um regulation by almost by by feedback from the community which is also quite uh interesting and unusual in this part of the world doesn't really happen in many other places

and crypto is global in nature I mean you can do transaction from any anywhere in the world and due to the reason we don't have comprehensive regulatory framework across the world obviously in jurisdiction yes different jurisdiction but not across the world so if someone were to buy crypto coins at from a certain jurisdiction or a certain location where the clarity is not around the status of digital assets is bound to arise crypto disputes in your opinion at the first place how to avoid these crypto disputes altogether I mean once you have a dispute it's often too late right especially in crypto because then as mentioned before the dispute happens many years after something happened and then it's difficult to figure out I mean what happened at what point in time and and who did what wrong. So the approach that we usually have as a as a financial intermediary is to see that we're having a a fiduciary duty at the end of the day to protect our clients. So we need to assess for example I mean we when uh when we looked into the case we had like this case study of like algorithmic stable coin for example there were a couple of examples like in the market where those ideas did not really turn out to be like like that good where all of a sudden the algorithmic stable coin started to depack for example uh and then you had of course a big problem but I know pretty well those days uh when clients came to us and said hey can we trade this token please and then we started to look into it I mean regulatory wise we would have been able to trade it but from a purely fiduciary point of view we actually had questions. We thought I mean this does it really make sense and and I mean what are the risks behind it and so on. So we actually refuse to to trade uh those kind of tokens.

later on it turned out to be the the right decision but I think we need to protect clients in a way of of doing this kind of homework for them on on behalf of them as well when it comes to listing and assessing tokens and that goes of course much further than like complex structures like algorithmic tokens but also like meme coins and stuff like that it goes yeah it becomes very exotic and and interesting at one point of view but the same is also like selecting counterparties for example uh trading venues then doing proper um let's say um um like education of clients as well. What are really the risks and who at what point in time has what kind of risk and we for example we front actually we pre-inance trades on exchanges for clients uh in in many of the cases. So they do not really have a direct counterparty uh risk of any of the exchanges no matter where they are doiciled. I mean there is different kind of modalities on how you can address this kind of topic but our approach at least from the industry is to avoid those kind of disputes ideally before they appear and then of course once you have them uh yeah you you receive a court order ideally from your uh jurisdiction and then you need to freeze accounts or a tier according to that but often it's then definitely too late right

arena would you like to share some thoughts on it

crypto industry would like to state that we're decentralized we are governed by code is law communities running us all until there is a problem. Then we all look for the adult in the room, for the responsible person in the room, for the CEO who can block the account and return me my hard-earned coins. Right? So this is something that um I see um um every day and we need to decide are we decentralized um and protocol is running what we're doing or do we need an adult in the room who will press the switch off button and and and help me out. It's a little bit it's a little bit of a of an interesting situation to be in.

Another issue that I see with the with founders is there's a dispute. They're unhappy. They come to a lawyer, help us out. I want to take this party to court. Fantastic.

Give me the evidence. Oh, we have a voice note in the telegram. So maybe we're not adult enough to even get to the point where we can go to the court. In most of the cases, there's a lot of growing up to do in this young industry. growing up to do by regulators, growing up to do by lawyers, by judges for sure.

A lot of growing up to do by the entire industry. And that is okay. We are only what 15 years old. How old are we? Uh so that is okay.

We we're uh um we're not even a teenager yet, right? So we will get there eventually. But um it is quite an interesting we we flip and change depending on the depending on the on the day how we want to present ourselves. And that is probably not uh how a mature industry should um should act.

And in terms of regions, obviously we discussed briefly about Middle East and more specifically UAE taking a lead, but we saw after Trump administration quite a lot of things have changed positively for the crypto sector in the US as well and we mentioned the EU as well. Uh regarding uh Mika, which regions in your opinion, Arena, we'll start with you. in your opinion are taking a lead in in making it clear what the status of of a digital asset is.

I'm going to shock you right now and I will say that's UEIE. I've been here for 18 years. Uh we have a very um developed and rather u you know rather certain regulatory framework. Yes, there's some edges that we're still unsure how the regulator will apply this or that certain case. Um, we have a lot of choice and I love choice.

I'm all about uh I come from a country where we had no choice and my family had to pack their bags and run for their lives and the country took everything away from my parents. So I like being in a place where there's choice, where is a sovereignty, where is freedom and this is why um I choose to live um in the UAE for the last 18 years. I've been choosing it every year. So, um I would say that UAE is definitely uh ahead ahead of the game. Yes, Trump can say they're going to be the crypto capital of the world tomorrow.

That's absolutely fine. He'll be gone in a couple of years time, right? And there will be a new person saying new things. And what I love about the UAE, the leadership consistently pushes the agenda of entrepreneurship consistently opens the agenda of open for business consistently open pushes the agenda of everybody is welcome, capital is welcome, founders are welcome and I love that. I love being in this environment.

And another thing which I also really really like and a lot of countries tried to uh do that but they miserably failed. We have the ecosystem. Just now we published a map of regulated entities, regulated crypto entities in the UAE. More we are more than 85 regulated entities. Maybe a couple of more with all the ADG DGM recent announcements.

I'll have to update this map um and I'll publish it. So this huge ecosystem didn't grow in isolation. This huge ecosystem grew thanks to the leadership of the UAE, thanks to the policies, thanks to the regulators, thanks to people like Andre who is building uh hard uh since 2000 since 2023. Right. So it takes it takes a village to grow a crypto community and we have achieved that

and do you think having multiple regulators or having a choice is actually helping UAE having an advantage over the

Yeah, it's a feature. It's not a bug. It's a feature. But that feature needs to be um navigated very smartly and very intelligently. We also have so we have multiple regulators but we have multiple dispute resolution choices which is also very important.

You can choose to go to an onshore court. You can choose to go to ADGM court. You can choose to go to ADGM dispute resolution center which is my the pref preferred method. And to be honest for crypto people I think this is the best option you have. you should should probably stay away from growing up on shore courts for now.

Um, so private dispute resolution which is a fantastic method and it's an opt-in jurisdiction. So you can be a crypto founder anywhere in the world and you can uh have your dispute resolved here because it's all great. You know, you sign a contract, you're going into a new joint venture, you're entering a new contract and it's all, you know, happy days. But you have to think about what if something goes wrong. And hopefully your lawyers who are doing your transaction will be those grown-ups who will think about the negative cases and who will put in a good um jurisdiction such as ADGM who will and the uh dispute resolution as such as arbitration for example.

And um but one thing that is very very important we are a very complicated jurisdiction. a lot of um a lot of regulators stepping a little bit on their toes a little bit sometimes maybe a lot. So you need to navigate it very very smartly even um very seasoned uh practicing attorneys making mistakes for example confusing DMCC for a regulator that's not or calling ADGM. Uh there was there was the funniest article I read the other day and I was like wow this is a completely new legal regime that was just invented by this individual for some reason. So you have to of course don't listen to judg because if you talk to judg you will get all sorts of legal advice which probably will definitely end you um and end up very badly.

So navigate it smartly. W and any any views?

I think that point about um having an ideal um regime uh I I'm more neutral to that. I think every country has got their own realities uh in in their framework. Uh the fact that today we have a very divergent and uneven landscape around the world. The fragmented landscape so to speak is because every country's every jurisdiction starting point is different. Right?

So I would ideally like uh regulatory conversions, regulatory harmony uh but I don't think that's possible because uh it all depends on the priorities of that particular jurisdiction. Um I I do think that if I have a choice uh I think a jurisdiction where there is one regulator that is integrated will probably make things a lot easier. Uh in the US you have got a problem of the CFTC and SEC so on and so forth. So structurally there's a reason uh there's a a factor to consider in whether that regime is that that jurisdiction is ideal or good for uh doing business. Uh the other one is really political realities.

Uh because every country has got their own uh realities and priorities. Um and I think being situated in a common law uh regime helps uh because this place is moving so quickly right that um you might have the most express of rules with the best intention regulatory clarity um um uh to the best intention every dispute will always be brought to the court and the judge will have to make a decision almost on a case by case right um I've never seen a crossber dispute from a commercial perspective because I'm a regular later. Uh what I've seen is very much on the resolution and insolveny side of things and when it involves cross border inevitably it always goes to the court of law right because um every lawyer will be fighting for the interest of their clients everyone will be innovative and creative and go to the court of law and the judge have to make a call right so without fail you might have the clearest of regulations but it always goes back to the judge to protect the distribution ution model uh the the res resolution model right and I think that's that's uh what I've seen um in the crossber resolution uh process so I don't think there's one best u jurisdiction or or or or framework inevitably it goes to the court of law

I would probably double down as well on what Arena said because at the end of the day I mean we went to UAE like two and a half years ago because of the regulator regy framework and already in that short time we have seen that it's like adapting and and and growing. Of course now all the eyes are on the on the yeah clarity act in the US and it's like a huge market and so on but um what is also not a given is that I mean the regulatory framework can change again and looking a few years back from where we came from especially in the US it was a very hostile environment uh especially when it got related to like digital assets and crypto. So you had uh regulation by enforcement at the end of the day from the different regulators. You had uh operation chokepoint basically pro prohibiting most of the banks to deal with crypto institutions also AI institutions and so on. And of course that's one extreme to the other one even uh resulting in the incoming president back in the days launching his own memecoin right I mean it's from one extreme to the other uh and uh yeah who knows where we will be in in in four years or in 10 years from now.

So why I would also select uh the the um local regulatory framework uh is definitely for the longevity of its decisions. So you have a very clear vision but it's long-term. So it goes beyond just like election cycles. So the skin in the game at the end of the day and the longevity of the decisions here is much longer than what we see in Europe or in the US for example. Plus it has a very specific um setup as well that you have different regulators just like also in the UAE competing uh against each other.

and you mentioned it before, sometimes they step on each other's toes and so on, but it's still a different kind of setup as we know it from other jurisdictions because at the end of the day, I think also regulators need to compete for innovation at the end of the day and they need to adapt to what is happening especially in such an environment that is living uh yeah extremely fast and where um uh innovation and changes are happening very fast. So you need to have a regulator that understands it but also grows together with it. And at the end of the day we're living in a very global world and I think uh yeah education but also innovation is key in that.

And if I may and only going to get even more complicated um we finally figured out that Bitcoin is property took uh courts and the judges a little bit of time. Now we have AI agents trading your crypto right? So what is the issue? you know, how are we going to assess the intent, the agency law, the liability? Where is it going to end?

Right? We just had a fantastic presentation uh about uh uh becoming a cyborg. I'll be the first one. My my hand is up first one to get to inject a chip. I mean, this one is attached to my hand 24/7 already, right?

It will be easy if it's a chip and then that chip is trading while I'm sleeping. How is it going to end? It's just so exciting. But I'm happy that I will leave it for younger lawyers to worry about. Um that's that's too crazy even for me.

Yeah, it's it's difficult to predict future for sure as no one has a crystal ball or anything. But what the future of regulations crypto regulation might look like? We'll start with you and them in the sense because I live in London and a lot of stakeholders in in the local community have openly publicly criticized that the pace has been a bit too slow. Obviously recently there were some developments but how the future of crypto regulations might look like in the future. I

mean one important fact and we're already working on that is really the harmonization across different jurisdictions. But I agree with what has pre previously said VM because it's uh it's it's very difficult right you have different agendas different priorities different uh environments as well uh that work slightly uh different of course also across uh regulatory frameworks but what we have seen in Europe and I know it's being attacked now a lot the the myar framework but in my point of view it's already a major step in the right direction having some sort of a regulatory framework that is going across uh different jurisdictions previously it was very fragmented and that's of of course difficult especially from for people from the industry to trying to do business. You need to properly assess every individual jurisdiction. Then you need to have like specific setups there. It's very expensive and um then of course again this is just a point uh in time kind of consideration.

So uh the regulatory frameworks are evolving and then you need to constantly monitor what is happening where and so on. So it gets very complicated but also very expensive to to deal with that on a on a daily basis. So I think this kind of harmonization approach is extremely relevant and should be done even more on a global basis. But I'm quite optimistic on that one because a lot of the initiatives are going in that direction but it takes time and at the same time of course the industry is not sleeping. So yeah, blending in AI as an example where you have already by now you have the first crypto uh wallets that are millionaires that are like um like guided by AI uh principles or AI bots at the end of the day or agents uh which uh of course leads to a complete new wave of a lot of questions that yeah lawyers but also regulators will need to deal with in the very near future and that's yeah the next kind of evolution that I definitely so see coming but a lot of challenges as well for sure.

Wo I think given the space of development in this space um I would imagine it has to be a hybrid of effective and adaptive rules and regulations and effective and progressive court system right u because again you have the best of rules with the best of intent there will be dispute there will be crisis and then the court of law the judges and the lawyers would have to make the representations and make decisions along the Okay. And then from those lessons learned, the regulations will then start to also be amended and enhanced to address future uh issues. So I see it as a symbiotic relationship between the regulations as well as the court system and I I can if you look at the international financial centers around the world the most sophisticated um regime and judgments are all in centers where the ecosystem is very developed. Right? So in the digital asset space, I dare say that now that as our ecosystem starts to grow, uh more and more players come because of our progressive regulations, I can imagine more and more cases going to the courts and I think uh Linda might freak out.

Uh I think in future you will see that the thought leadership of courts might be actually be driven from ADGM courts because that's where the digital assets disputes might be most uh commonly handed. Right? So I think um to me that um um that balance and that interaction between uh progressive regulations and effective and adaptive court system it's uh probably the future of digital asset regulations and

arena

what was the question

your views about understanding um this crypto regulation and what the future might look like uh as as we were mentioning about different regions taking different approaches no one has a crystal ball so I'm not putting you in a spot to give us like a right answer. What exactly is the future of regulations? But what in your opinion is is the future of crypto regulations?

Um, a government that is willing and able and wants this industry here. So, I have a a pleasure and an honor of spending uh some of my time of the year in Switzerland and I see no uh political will to push the agenda of crypto adoption or crypto regulations. Andre, if you disagree with me, please uh interfere. I mean, there is a reason why we're here and not in Switzerland, right? So, and while we could could be there.

So, there needs to be a political will. There needs to be a political power to tell the founders to tell the crypto businesses, multi-billion dollar businesses now. So the um if you remember Malta back in 2018 uh they wanted to be the blockchain island. Did it happen? No.

Uh because EU didn't let them breathe. And fortunately UAE has enough of political will and has enough of political stability to make their own life decisions and that's what I love. Um UAE is doing that. Of course EU is pressuring uh very heavily. US is pressuring very heavily.

Thank you very much EU bureaucrats for the taxes that we have now. I hold you personally liable for that. So there's a lot of uh but UAE does stand on their own feet and that's what I what I what I love about being here. So for me it's the country states maybe another country state like Singapore. Um I understand that the retail crypto is not on the agenda.

It's more institutional. But if a country state has the political will and the desire, then the regulations will follow, the regulations will follow, positive practice will follow. Because there's one thing to have regulations, Malta has the regulations, but what is happening there? Nothing. Actually last month we last week we received the um uh award for um the uh technology deal um Middle Eastern technology team of the year for relocating the largest protocol out of Malta where to the UAE.

We structured it here um because this is the place where founders want to be where the protocols where want to be where the developers want to be where people want to be right we are here so I think independent country state autonomous country states like UAE is the future

and just last question as we are running out of time understanding the legal status of crypto so that we can resolve crypto disputes from stakeholders perspective is one thing lawyers perspective is one thing but ultimately judges are the one who going to make decisions. So what can be done to increase that awareness around the legal status of crypto and digital assets?

I really don't uh envy them uh like imagine a deal has happened the parties to the deal themselves not sure what the deal is because if you have a deal and you ask five different people on five different days they will give you different um explanations of what the deal is about. Then uh certain time passes, some people move on uh with their lives. Um then the dispute goes to a judge and so I don't really envy them trying to sort of um to to understand what has happened to open that can of worms. Um and what what is happening now is specialized technology courts are being established uh in the UAE. I'm not fully aware if there's a division uh similar in ADGM but that is definitely happen happening in in Dubai for example.

So it's very important for judges to be techsavvy because they receive techsavvy um cases but then what's the average age of a judge? Probably you know your grandparents age. So would you trust them with a Bitcoin wallet and would you trust them to do that transaction? Probably not. So a lot of um I I I don't know I don't have the answer but I definitely don't envy them.

That's why I would always recommend and I always recommend that the alternative dispute resolution such as an arbitration is probably a preferred um dispute resolution for crypto founders because then you can appoint an arbitrator who is techsavvy, cryptosavvy, bitcoin savvy uh and there's no better venue than here in ADGM.

Yeah. I I think the most powerful combination where we at a confluence of technology and legal uh and law right uh is to actually have an individual who knows both law and technology and that individual today is very very difficult to find. Um I can say within the regulator we complement our regulatory skills with technology experts out there. uh we try to hire some um who uh is technology native but at the same time has the open-mindedness to learn regulations right um I I think the future u I mean the regulators always say that we are technology agnostic but that doesn't serve justice to what regulators actually do when it comes to regulating this space because a lot of our concrations go into understanding the technology and technology A differs from technology B. Each has different risk profile.

So for a judge to make that u call uh today of course you can rely on expert advisor um but to make the judgment between technology and B and understand um the the the risk involved and to make a sound judgment. I think it's important that um uh the legal practitioners today and the judges of tomorrow think about how to embibe that skill set and know how uh and future proof yourself in

Andre. Yeah, I would continue on that thought. I mean it's all starts with like education but also being attractive to the right talents and and I mean here it's super easy to get access to like a global talent pool. Everybody can basically come here and work here. Well, for example, you mentioned Switzerland before and it's super difficult to get a work visa for somebody outside of the EU, for example, or outside of Switzerland even.

So, you need to justify why do I try to get somebody from Asia for example, from the US or so on. That's super difficult. So, I think all starts with education and then having or being attractive enough for the right talents and of course then they go into those positions and will do the right thing for sure.

Well, on that that note, you want to add something?

No, absolutely. uh getting into Switzerland completely impossible. Uh I did this myself. So and in the UAE you have what 3 days you have a residency permit you have a visa you have a car you have apartment your kids are in the best school I mean it's just where would you have such an such a privilege nowhere else.

Well thanks very much for your valuable insights and uh thanks everyone for staying with us for this session. Thank you.