Regulation of Digital Assets in UK vs EU vs US | European Blockchain Convention

[Music] thank you very much I'm very glad to moderate the this panel so as you as you figure out during reading this uh this panel uh we will solve everything related to regulation in UK EU and US during uh during this discussion so wide wide uh topics uh before landing the floor to the incredible speakers that we have for the round table maybe a a short introduction my name is stepan blus I work for white and case law firm uh we are advising various institutionalsales of actors in the web free ecosystem uh I will let the floor to Joshua to present herself hi it's nice to see everyone my name is Josh Clayman I've been in the digital asset space since 2015 before that ised leverage finance and I'm at the law firm of Link laders um I lead our us fintech efforts and I'm us head of fintech and head of blockchain and digital assets and one of our Global Tech sector co-heads outside of that I I am on the board of several organizations including the Wall Street blockchain Alliance and H maybe louder closer in the oh I guess you guys can't hear me well I'll just say it really quickly I'm Josh Clayman I've been in this space for almost 10 years um I'm met link laders and I'm us head of fintech and head of blockchain and digital assets and one of our Global Tech sector co-heads I also am on the board of several organizations including the Wall Street blockchain Alliance and now I'll pass it along thank you so my name is David sabon I'm working at the French treasury in the in the Ministry of Finance where uh I'm in charge of payments and crypto assets so as such I have participated in the negotiation of maika and the transfer of fund regulation during the French presidency of the EU and today I'm also in charge of the negotiation of the payment framework in Europe on behalf of France so it's been like more than 5 years now that I've been working on the crypto asset regulation at the international at the EU level and also at the at the national level and I passed the floor to to oh thank you so much everybody it's a pleasure to be here in Barcelona I'm Dr Lisa Cameron I was an MP in the House of Commons uh for the previous nine years during that time I led the cryptocurrency and digital assets cross party group in the parliament which was the first group in history of its kind uh and my mission was to educate the members of parliament regarding the sector including myself that was a steep learning curve uh and to make sure that the opportunities in terms of consumer protection but also economic investment are realized for people across the UK and those companies that want to trade globally thank you for having me great to be here Gabriel liy I'm um general counsel with Hive digital technology we are a Bitcoin miner uh we build we operate data centers uh in Canada Sweden Iceland and now we have a new site that we're building out in Paraguay within our portfolio we have 150 operational megawatts uh We've recently contracted another 100 megawatts in Paraguay so we're going to have 250 megawatts within our portfolio all of which is green and clean power and uh and we also have a business unit which is building out uh tier three facilities some of which which are already operational and that is uh facilitating deployment of AI HPC running large language models so we're a diversified Bitcoin miner uh running on green power yes uh to round this up I'm Max uh I'm not a real doctor uh so it's just just just in law uh I'm managing director at tax bit uh we are the world's largest uh provider for financial compliance in the area of accounting and information reporting I lead the business here in Europe I'm also board member at the International Association for trusted blockchain applications and Global ambassador of Taxation from gbbc I'm um appointed now also as private um sector representative at the business in Advisory Group at the oecd basically leading the discussions on the crypto asset reporting framework uh which will introduce Tex information reporting requirements of on most crypto asset service providers uh on the global scale and it's a pleasure to be here today and to discuss thank you so much for this presentation uh as as you know regulation takes a key part in the assessment by various entrepreneurs CEOs uh assessing their crypto Asset Services and even more so on a crossborder basis because as all the services are provided online it touched various kinds potentially of jurisdiction countries and therefore what would be key during this is maybe to start by highlighting the main uh developments from a regulatory perspective in this true in this three should I say regions the EU the US and of course the the UK maybe we'll start with Europe because as you know in the EU they have been the first into the OCD the first holistic approach with regard to having a aggregated regulation on crypto asset issuance and services so maybe I will leave the leave the the mic to to David about precisely that major step which is the mic regulation thank thank you Stefan um indeed I would say that uh in terms of regulation in Europe uh most of the job has been done with the Mika regulation because now um we have a directly enable regulation that uh ensures Level Playing Field in all the member states of EU and it also ensures harmonization so of course in terms of predictability in terms of legal certainty that's something very important we have also a clear timeline that is given to the actors they all know when they should be licensed they also know that when they will be licensed they will have the opportunities to offer services in all the 27 member states of Europe so of course very significant and at the end we have also a very comprehensive um framework for the issuance and uh the redemp of stable coins for the issuance of crypto assets for financial services provided with crypto assets so of course it's uh it's really a clear and comprehensive uh regulation that has been adopted and that will soon enter into application and uh I may add that when we talk about crypto assets uh really on the scale of France France soon will also introduce a law in the coming weeks clarifying that crypto assets are subject to property rights in order to say that uh the holders of crypto assets uh benefit from the full protection from the property rights when they have crypto assets even when they are hold by uh crypto asset service providers so for us the question is less a question of Regulation than a question of implementation and here we know that there are um several challenges at stake uh for example as I've said about the timeline the actors uh will have to be licensed uh at the very end at the 1 July of 2026 so it will take a little bit of time so this we know that this would be a challenge with what we call the grandfathering close for the actors that are already authorized um it would be another point in terms of implementations that would be challenging is the question of uh all the actors that will actively Target the EU Market even though they are not licensed the thing is that we will be very clear uh all the supervisors would be very careful to ensure that the reverse solicitation is very strictly appli applied because we consider that when you want to offer crypto Asset Services to the EU Market you will have to be licensed you will have to be supervised in the EU as a matter of Level Playing Field and protection of the the consumers and it will be the same regarding um stable coins the issuance of stable coins we have drafted a very comprehensive very protective regulation for the holders in terms of financial stability and we want to be sure that when consumers will buy stable coins through EU regulated platform they will only have access to regulated stable coins in the EU so something also important and um uh two other point to mention very quickly the question of the articulation between the me regulation on crypto assets and the payment regulation uh we know that there are some concerns from the private uh sector we have discussed a lot with them and we know that the payment regulation will have to take into account the specifical features the Technologies uh of table coins and dlts so here we are ready uh at the EU level to clarify all of this and last point because I've been a little bit long the the question of the delineation between crypto assets and financial instruments because as we are talking about tokenized Finance tokenized financial instruments it really challenges the traditional boundaries between Financial instrument which is which exists for such a long time and crypto asset which is more recent so of course at the EU level with the supervisors we are very dedicated to bring maximum Clarity uh in that regard thank you so much David and now after Europe maybe the the continent in itself for this new ecosystem which is the the USA Joshua thank you and hopefully this time you can can hear me before I answer I just want to give a quick disclaimer for I think all of us which is nothing we say is legal advice investment advice accounting advice tax advice any advice and these are our own thoughts and not those of our necessarily those of our employers or clients okay with that we've moved from for the moment you know a a picture of a very clear consistent path comprehensive um with the EU right and licenses that are available to a jurisdiction that in many ways is very different where it is not necessarily clear it is not necessarily consistent it is not necessarily comprehensive and sometimes it's very hard to get licenses that people are trying to get and I guess maybe I'll just frame this for a moment by saying sometimes it's it's hard for all of us to know exactly what what's happening with the us because we have as you likely know you know a federal lever level of government and then we also have individual State levels of government and even at the federal level we have have an overlapping you know tapestry of regulators that cover digital assets we don't have comprehensive regulation right now by any single regulator and there's actually regulatory competition in some respects so maybe I'll pull back for a moment and just say if you're trying to think of what the US in general what our lawmakers and what our Regulators may be thinking when you think of tech in the US and of course digital assets you know that falls within Tech um again and a lot of other crisscrossing things our government would say um the important thing to remember is that the US government generally in my view is looking at Tech and digital assets through a national security lens so if you're trying to think will they care about where this digital asset is going to coming from whether it's in a game whether it's you know outside probably yes because anti- money laundering anti- as financing those sorts of concerns are Paramount and I think that tells you a lot about the map and the mindset now with certain other kinds of of Industries including those that are really touching upon digital assets as well where there's lots of overlap like say AI there has been a view of okay it's a race to the moon it's also an arms race and a talent war and for too long the US has not really seen digital assets as being the talent War part or the race to the moon part but they have definitely been concerned about National Security I think that's changing and you know in our little prep session before uh Gabriel very rightly pointed out that you know even in Nashville just a couple months ago we heard some very strong words about making the US the crypto planet of the crypto capital of the planet excuse me but we'll talk more about that I'm sure a little later what I will say about regulations just very very quickly um in terms of potential legislation there have been a number of Acts including potential Federal stable coin bills and you know the fit 21 act the lemis Jill brand Bill lots of comprehensive um in some cases Market shaping uh legislation that could provide Express and well-defined roles to certain Regulators like the SEC and cftc so far those haven't been passed now some of our our big supporters in Congress like uh McKenry will no longer be in Congress after this term but there is hope and it's been in the press that you know there's going to be a push during the lambu session of Congress to try and get some things passed so hopefully and what that means is like after Congress you know is sort of over but before the new group of of Congress people come in the new class comes in that hopefully we can get something passed um in terms of whether it looks like the fit 21 act or some kind of Market legislation who who knows though also Maxine Waters who often has been a big opponent of digital assets in many people's views has been pushing really hard to try and get a federal stable coin Bill done signed into law by the end of the year so we'll see on that front I will say just very very quickly um although I'm going to cut this very short with the SEC which many of you guys know has been really on a tear for quite a long time you know there's a view that and I won't go into all of it because I know we'll talk about some of this later uh but there's a view that perhaps there was a bit of over hiring in the SEC enforcement right and raises went up eight % I believe don't quotee me on that but the budget was flat a lot of the major cases as I understand it from people who've recently left the SEC are already out there although of course there may be some in the pipeline but what this means is that while as we know working through the courts right now and I'm happy to discuss it later if we have time on the panel against trading platforms against other major players are out there what that means is that if you receive a subpoena from the you see you might be dealing with that for a very long time because many people on staff are trying to figure out what they're going to be having their workload be for a long time anyway that's not substantiated that's just what I've heard but I'll pass this along now because I could go on forever thank you so much Joshua so we we have clearly viewed that there have been very different both regulatory strategy and current state of regulatory framework between the EU and the United States what what could be key is also to have the perspective from Lisa about the UK where there have been various discussion and and position by dfca and also debates currently yeah thank thank you so much um so when we started the group in uh 3 years ago in 2021 there had been absolutely no debates in the House of Commons on cryptocurrency at that point in time and I remember speaking to the legislators around me and saying we need to really be learning about this sector it's coming on mainstream uh with the public and uh a lot of the misperceptions and you know people would say well we're not doing this in the UK we don't need to do this in the UK uh we went away and did a lot of research and I came back and said well at that point in time now it's more it's more now and I can update but at that point in time about 3 million people in the UK were involved in this sector so I had to come back to the Parliament and say actually we are doing this the people are doing this in the UK but the the parliament has to catch up with the people um and that's why it is so important um you know there's about 4 and A2 million now who are involved so this is not this is not something you can stick your head in the sand with and hope it goes away so part of the work we did was education you have quite a lot of technological jargon I would say in this sector it's not my background I'm I'm a psychologist I'm the first psychologist to be elected to the parliament because obviously my constituents thought that our Parliament needed a psychologist and that's you know how I got there um but that aside uh it was a lot for me to learn as well and I would go into meetings where a lot of the jargon was spoken about by industry coming into Parliament and you know I remember talking they would talk about D5 cbdc Fiat and I remember sitting in a meeting with members of the House of Lords and someone said to me why are we speaking about Fiat uh isn't that a car I thought we were here to talk about cryptocurrency um so we had a good number of years of education in our Parliament to even get up to speed with the potential of this sector and originally we came with a very consumer protection um at the core of everything we were doing which has remained there it's not a race to the bottom in the UK um however it meant that it took a bit of time to get debates to get questions going to get government to be progressing with bills and over the past three years since we've been working in the parliament with the group and with members of parliament and the House of Lords we've had uh the financial services and markets act come through uh we've had some uh regulation on financial promotions the new government has come in and continued the momentum which we're pleased to see and now um digital assets will be classed alongside property rights uh so I suppose if we get divorced we could split them all up um you know at that point in time uh so things are moving but I would say that we're kind of we don't have the clarity of mikas yet we're looking at International best practice and I'm very keen to see how that develops um but we perhaps a bit further along the road than the US which has uh as we've heard hasn't been as clear as perhaps you know people might have liked so we're somewhere in the middle just now but the most important thing is that you continue to engage if you're in the UK or even in the EU anywhere else with your Member of Parliament you educate them about why this sector is important for jobs of the future uh for the skills for young people coming through into uh digital technology and for the economy um because this we learned is not just even about a financial revolution in digitalization it's about art and culture and Sport and I had the pleasure of opening digital Fashion Week in the UK just a couple of weeks ago so this is about the way we live our lives and there are huge strides being made and the blockchain technology can be helpful for financial inclusion and with our International Aid I heard from UNICEF yesterday about the projects that are ongoing but what I would say at the core of getting this legislation through and helping the UK to become a hub is making sure that the parliamentarians are informed and able to have um really important debates about why we need to support the jobs coming out of this sector and the technological advancements so please my message to you is get involved it's as much your job as it has been ours in the parliament to make sure that MPS are educated and understand this sector thank you so much uh Lisa and thank you so much to the free of you for presenting the different approaches that have been adopted in the EU in the US and in the UK what would be also really interesting is to to have potentially the the Insight the the relevant experiences that you you had Gabrielle about uh precisely another topic which is potentially the problematic country by country that you've met during uh your underground expertise thank you so much so Lisa I really appreciate your what you're saying because we've largely had uh so many of these challenges in Sweden uh in Canada and and really in every jurisdiction we're in so much of what we do is education and meeting with government and being around the table um and and so our approach to every jurisdiction starts off the same um we start off when we're we're looking for you know what jurisdiction should we pick up and and move to um first of all essentially we're we're a Canadian company uh based in Vancouver we're publicly traded we're on the NASDAQ we're on the Venture exchange out of Vancouver we're on the Frankfurt exchange so we we put in a lot of time and energy into the due diligence before we we we move into a jurisdiction um and when we do uh we look for political stability we look for fiscal stability and we look for large amounts of renewable usually hydroelectric power at an affordable price and then the most critical thing that we look for is Community Support we want to get on the ground we want to meet the local community the local utility the mayor uh different stakeholders and really get the feeling that we are part of their long-term vision that we have things that that they understand that we could contribute to their community and and if there's that level of understanding that's when we consider putting in an investment because um what we build is essentially Data Centers of 50 or 100 megawatts or or even more and that could be um an investment of over a hundred million if you consider the equipment that goes into these data centers so um we we really need um to have um you know that that relationship that very close relationship on the ground and and what it looks like is a discussion with the utility on how we as a consumer can provide services to them and and that Services through demand response its services through helping them manage their cost balancing their grid uh sell Excess power um essentially we're the the buyer of Last Resort for these utilities who have too much hydrop power so we permit these utilities to have a green and healthy balance sheet that they could reinvest and and when I talk about stranded power there's nowhere else for this power to go it's not going to go from northern Sweden where we're operating to Stockholm so there's there's just no connection uh between the two cities so um that's what we look for before moving in and then when it checks all the boxes we do move in we deploy we build and uh and what we've seen come up unfortunately as every jurisdiction has a challenge and and it'll come up in one form or another eventually so in Canada one of the things that came up is that the federal government who is quite a bit removed from the small town uh or the small towns which are you know involved in the the the the Bitcoin mining you know where we have our Economic Development projects the federal government comes in and says okay we're going to single out Bitcoin how do we do this and they managed to do it through tax legislation so what they did is they changed uh the legal essentially they made a legal change which deemed a Bitcoin miner uh through a legal fiction they deemed us not a commercial activity so what that did is it set us apart from any other business that's doing any commercial activity and saying that us we are not that precludes us from getting back our input tax credits so every government or sorry every company is getting back their tax credits um and that is how the Canadian government attracts people to Canada but Bitcoin miners no longer will be so this is one of the the things that came up where we as an industry had to mobilize all the Canadian miners came together were in the same room with Department of Finance in Canada making sure that this legislation doesn't go forward educating government and um and and that process is still ongo we're not caught in the net uh we uh through um you know our efforts um and and essentially the definitions of what is a Bitcoin miner you know it gets pretty detailed into the the mining process and the pools and the type of pool you're using and whether you're not you're your own pool or you're a joint venture with the pool so it's quite technical um but but that is how the Canadian government tried to dissuade investment into the space um in Quebec there was another effort to dissuade uh Bitcoin mining uh initially in 2017 Quebec Government invited miners from around the world to show up and mine Bitcoin they had too much hydroelectric green power and they wanted to monetize it instead of sending it cheap to to the US or to other places where the job creation is in the US so uh we established ourselves or companies established themselves at the time in Quebec only for a change in policy uh one year later and the change in policy is because there was Zero framework work around this invitation so anyone um who any entrepreneur any broker anyone who you know had any interest in making some money would put in a request you know okay if I buy this building how much power could you send me and the utility would put together a report and that would go into their you know future demand calculations so all of a sudden the the utility thought that they had a gigawatt of power that they needed to deliver but not one person had a deposit so they were not serious by so it was a complete mismanagement of of this initiative and and so after that year there was a moratorium um so they could uh you know figure out a framework a legal framework to to make this work better um and they got a big four accounting firm to P pull together a 200 Page tender uh with all the requirements that a company would need to go through to um to participate in the green and clean power that Quebec had to offer no one not one megawatt of of project came out of this uh this this tender process no one participated no one built anything everyone went elsewhere um in Sweden also companies like us were invited and um and and we got a tax rebate to set up in Sweden I think it was two or three years later that tax rebate is now removed so what we're seeing is You know despite all the due diligence and in looking for these jurisdictions challenges come up legal battles you better be ready for them because in this industry there's a lot of Education that we need to do there's a lot of interviews there's a lot of um there's there's a a lot of work that continues to need to be done thank you so much Gabrielle for such insight about how building your project would require both analyzing the jurisdiction specifics that may be raised during the uh the assessment and the uh delivery of your project but potentially some local requirements that could be also emphasized analyze in order to be fully ready to enhance and and explain and and deploy your your project in contrast uh to this uh jurisdiction specific or local specific rules we have seen also in the last couple of years some key uh initiative in order to Foster aggregated some somehow world wild uh rules related to crypto assets there was the work by the basil committee on credential treatment of the F fatf gii on a rules and uh I will let the floor to to Max precisely on that uh International Trends thank you very much Stefan um I actually took some notes so I think that 90% of the people are here because they ask themselves okay they read regulation of digital Assets in UK versus you versus us so the question is really what is the best country to place your business in right so then you have like does it like what has the country has the best regulation does it even have regulation do I care about legal certainty because as Gabriel mentioned from a practical side we just see that a lot of countries are ever fast moving we see like George highlight in the United States a law by enforcement approach which leaves a lot of legal uncertainty as well from a business perspective and ultimately it's also about taxation right what country do I place myself in um in order to have the lowest tax rates and to make the most gains possible possible and this is what we see in the European Union as well I mean we now have the markets in crypto asset regulation but uh looking at that it's just like we talk about regulation of digital assets I mean the markets in crypto asset regulation is really about issuing and um public offering right but um as as um David also mentioned there is other questions like what about property rights right we seen the United States we seen the in the UK that they are trying to create a new property rights schema for for crypto assets where it's like a digitally recorded um record like a digital record Josh will know more about that in the United States for sure but this is something very important right because like if I especially if I use that in Defi and I trade tokenized assets do I actually claim an asset without any competing property rights on the edra asset so these are basic questions that need to be answered on a global scale however what we see right now and this is coming back to to like the comparing we see that there's um regions there's certain jurisdictions that Implement certain laws like we see in the European Union with MAA on on um on issuance and on on the public offering part and then with have the United States that don't really have anything in place right now they're coming up with certain bills trying to regulate stable coins Etc um and then we have the UK that is also now trying the question is okay are we going to implement like a mik regime yes or no it's a important question right like um a service provider that now will apply for a ma license in Europe they question themselves can we then also leverage this in order to expand to other jurisdictions like to the UK I mean the UK introduced a lot of additional burdens as well so after all it's a very very comprehensive set of Regulation that service providers have to deal with and we see like especially on the registering and Licensing part this this is still something very Global it's still something which is really down to individual jurisdictions all like the European Union in this regard um so there is not really a trend of harmonizing these standards internationally and even within the European Union I mean we will introduce MAA which is which allows service provider to passport all across the union but then again does it really the there is I mean after all there's AML and tax regimes and there are certain countries that have more stringent requirements than others and mostly it's really those AML requirements and those reporting requirements that like Push service providers to place themselves in certain jurisdictions we all know that there is like very very big differences right and so when we come down to these compliance requirements and this is something we see in AML we seen taxation this is something that is more right now trying to be handled on a global scale I mean we have seen this with AML being the focus of attention ever since 2014 2015 2016 in the financial action task force the fat which basically also then released the first guidance on Virtual asset service providers creating Global standards in crypto regulation uh this is something that we now also see being implemented for taxation not de facto taxation so meaning like okay how much tax do I have um ultimately have to pay in an individual jurisdiction but really information reporting so information reporting is being more and more harmonized on a global scale we have now coming up the crypto asset reporting framework the C under the oacd which is often overlooked because it's a tax related information reporting requirement and service providers are not really aware of it but there's actually being very very fundamental discussions um in the context of the crypto asset reporting framework that are being led right now and one of them is actually should defy so should non-cost exchanges and decentralized platforms be reportable under the crypto reporting framework which would mean that basically they would also have to like Unis swap labs for example would have to report the transactions of each and every user using the protocol um because you you have transaction based reporting or aggregate reporting per year and this is often overlooked like I said it's it's a framework that no one really cares about at the moment but will have huge implications so regulatory Trend we see compliance from the compliance side there is a standard rolled out globally that where there's a minimum standard that all that most jurisdictions expect service providers to comply with when it comes down to registration licensing still very Regional approach and a lot of limits that that um service providers are facing when they're trying to scale internationally thank you markx so for for now we have talked about the state of the current framework on Digital Data assets but what about the future and notably about future Trends topics such as Defi and also potentially some future or current election grounds on which there could be substantial Evolutions maybe we we will start with some emerging Trends topics and I'm thinking notably about defy to end about the potential impacts of the future elections notably into into the us so on on defi maybe David you you wanted to highlight some potential EU Evolutions yes uh thank you Stefan indeed uh when we look about defi we all see and we all know here that there are significant opportunities in terms of innovation in terms of modernization of Finance so um we see that defi um really brings a new a total new Innovative ecosystem and as I often say defi it's the new frontier of Finance but we also need to be cautious when it's about regulating defi I've heard uh from uh certain persons from certain organizations saying in EU we need to have a mik 2.0 because we need to regulate defi at this stage when we have negotiated defi we have said we have excluded defi from the scope of maika and France has been very uh has very advocated for this exclusion during the the the the French presidency of the EU uh we need first to really deepen our understanding to make the good analysis before regulating defi because one thing that could really hamper defi is to regulate it very uh hastily to make it very quickly without really assessing what we should do what kind of OB itive we should pursue and how we should regulate defi because thinking about defi another thing that uh we should have in mind is that maybe replicating the whole traditional Financial regulation that applies to financial institutions to Banks Etc might not be the right approach when it comes to regulation of defi so maybe we should think of another way of regulation of another way of provision to avoid really killing defi so at the EU level um uh the MAA regulation prescribes the European commission to makes a report on that and we hope that this report will bring some some uh some clues some um some ways to be explored before uh regulating uh defi thank you David any any other views from uh potential uh other speakers on defi I mean yeah like there I think like people always talk about defa regulation but don't really understand what is actually meant by that right and this is what the regulator struggling with as well because I mean we throw out the term define decentralized Finance but what ultimately is decentralized right so if we look at MAA Mark and crypto asset regulation um within within its um recital basically it states that only fully decentralized applications and systems would be excluded from M so if if I would for example write now go into like an individual jurisdictions and then the the the level of decentralization would be challenged then every Supreme Court would say this is not fully decentralized like no matter what the regulator says it's written in the recital of M so M applies to default that's it's a fact because this won't be challenged like every single Court I worked as a judge in in Vienna at the court and if I get like a recital a regulation that I go through and it says in the recitals that only fully decentralized applications and systems are not in scope then I would say okay but I actually have someone here that clearly works with that protocol that is related that makes gains from this protocol that's not decentralized so the question is like I'm like I I'm very Pro defi by the way I'm not like saying okay def decentralized Finance should be should be should be like regulated because I agree that there's a lot of potential coming from from from defi but it's just we are really struggling at the moment with that with that regulatory regime because that was really overlooked by the time of the conclusion of the markets in crypto asset regulation and also when we look at the at the discussions that are being held on the on the level of the oecd that I was referring to before in the United States um there has been the 1099 da regime that was uh approved and um concluded last year uh basically or like this year sorry this year starting from next year which introduces transaction based cost basis reporting for service providers on the customer transactions and basically the US last minute excluded non-custodial exchanges and decentralized platforms from these reporting requirements and basically just deferred these trans uh these discussions to the O level of the oecd and now the oecd was was faced with the question does uh is a reportable crypto asset service provider does the definition exclude non-custodial exchanges and decentralized platforms and the question the oecd is giving at the moment no it does not exclude them so by default they would be in and then the question again is if they're in by default they have to prove that they are not decentralized but how does a decentralized player prove that they are not decentralized that they are decentralized right so a lot of questions coming up the question is how can you approach this from a regulatory angle a lot of jurisdictions take different approaches but it's it's quite a chaos at the moment yeah I mean I think there's going to be a lot of um bespoke regulatory progress in different jurisdictions as we've seen but there will also have to be a degree of shared best practice and interoperability um at the end of the day and I think that that's you know what we need to come together and collaborate in the different jurisdictions on um and part of the role that I'm moving forward now is a Global Network um of legislators who are interested from different jurisdictions on sharing best practice on Lear learning about the sector and on taking that learning back to their individual parliaments and making progress and the only thing that I would say very quickly as I think that this is very very important not just for um those who are operating now but for the future one of the most pivotal things that happened to me in the parliament was hearing from our youth Parliament uh the young people came in between the ages of 12 up to 15 16 and uh they were learning about technological change and uh we had the MPS in the room the members of the House of Lords and the young people from the parliament um and the question came up who understands web 3 and blockchain Technology well all the young people put their hands in the air you know hardly any MPS not any members of the House of Lords so again we have a digital gener ation ahead of us and we owe it I owe it as a parent to make sure that opportunities arise in this sector for young people right across the UK and actually right across the globe so I think it's very very incumbent upon us to work together to collaborate to make sure that we can increase Financial inclusion that we can reach those who might be left behind in other jurisdictions and that we can make the best of this for young people's future and I think um that was brought home to me very clearly when the young people came to the parliament they're digitally native and this is It's the future it's in your hands as as well as it's in ours and we have to work together to achieve it yeah I think maybe I'll jump in quickly with with the US on on D5 just for a moment I think one thing to remember is that the SEC and many Regulators including sometimes the cftc you know there's a very there's a skepticism that there actually is true decentralization in defi right and that you know this view that perhaps it's Defi and name only and actually there's always someone to hold responsible so even if you look at the iosco report which is global Regulators the lead drafter of that was someone from the SEC and the the cftc also contributed to that as a drafter so that's something to bear in mind what I would say on the positive and then if you want me to talk about the election I I can too but just a positive just in general for the treatment of defi I would say in the US is that we no longer have Chevron Defence what that is that was something that was longstanding it basically said that there will be a level of difference to Regulators to interpret their own authorizing statute and so for rul making purposes that sort of went more broadly than their actual statutory mandate you know there was a difference to the reg The Regulators that is no more due to a recent US Supreme Court decision so what does that mean we have proposed rules in the US that would expand the definition of exchange to cover things like defi who knows whether that rule will be able to proposed rule will be able to go anywhere so I think that is is something positive did did you want me to touch on the election yeah you have to conclude on that okay so this is this is my view um I think you know I'll go through the two positions very quickly or two possibilities but I would say in general no matter who wins I feel very positive about the trajectory and I will say that because of Chevron Defence which I just mentioned also because you know the SEC for all of its regulatory you know regulation by enforcement it's starting to get slapped back a little bit right we saw in the de box case it was sanctioned for for bad actions you know with a scathing opinion we also saw a recent apologetic footnote in a filing related to the US the secv binance case where the SEC apologized for any Fusion caused by the term crypto asset security and made clear that they're not saying that it's the tokens themselves that are securities rather that those are the subject of the transactions I would say in certain situations right there are certain situations where they do take a different position and I will say even on the same day as that they did have a settlement with utoro where they use the term crypto asset Securities and said that the token was a security so your mileage may vary on that but I say this because you know they say the tone that they gave in that footnote it sounds much more like the SEC from a few years ago when they had this idea oh look you know current Day offers and sales say of eth as in the director henman's speech you know maybe that doesn't involve the offer and sale of the security whereas more recently the SEC had been veering off into this ecosystem Theory which how do you get away from having an ecosystem so I think there are positive things either way I will say uh former president Trump in Nashville um just a couple months ago stood up and said if he's elected he will make the US the crypto capital of the planet and his running mate JD Vance has been very um you know anti-regulation in many respects not in all respects so there's a view that there's a lot of positivity towards the treatment of crypto R Joshua what what what got two standing ovations during the speech I mean well I I I was also in Nashville and and Trump uh made a statement that the first thing he would do when he gets into government is to fire Gary guinsler and the entire room of thousands of people 8 to 10 thousand people went wild so Trump what he he did he he did what he always does he doubles down so the first thing that a trump government will do is fire Gary gendler so I I agree with that um I would say though just it's important to remember that the heads of regulators generally are appointed by the president so it would be unlikely that Gary Gensler would say anyway right even if he wasn't affirmatively you know pushed to however I will say moving to quickly to the other side what I've heard from folks who recently have left the SEC in various capacities unofficially is that it's expected that no matter who wins Gary Gensler will not continue as the head of the SEC which would be very in my view great for crypto now who knows if that's true but kamla Harris certainly has been seeming to have a more positive view of digital assets she does say that she sees the future where there are digital assets you know there are crypto town halls for for Harris now and I think it's important as an industry that we not place all of our bets behind one candidate because no matter who wins we want to have a future and we want not to have disenfranchised anyone and we want to be able as as Lisa and others have said to continue to educate right and also to try and and get movement but yeah I mean another thing that was we've seen RFK Jr who was another candidate throw his weight behind former president Trump um including with respect to common themes like having a Bitcoin National Reserve so you know here we have a candidate who has his own nfts right so on one hand and on the other hand KLA Harris it's unclear exactly what her positions are but I think one thing is clear she appears to be more friendly to the digital asset space than Biden um and I think in any event we're moving in a positive direction and I think if anything is true it's that this election people are feeling the power of the digital assets space and frankly the money of the digital assets space and I feel much better about the US than I have in a while we'll conclude on this positive notes I really want to thank these amazing panelists today want to thank the EBC organization I want to thank you to attending this event many thanks byebye