The Impact of National Policies on Global Crypto Markets - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

[Music] First St congratulations you made it to a 900 a.m. event despite the party last night now we're talking about regulations the rapid expansion of cryptocurrencies as well as the shocking demise collapse of FTC has prompted Regulators wanting greater scrutiny oversight of the crypto space we know it is still in its infancy it is a young sector and regulations will dictate how this particular sector grows so the right policies are essential how does it look like where do we stand right now perfect panel uh to give you insights uh on that Anthony let's start with you let's start with the US the US tried to get a framework together efforts were bearing fruit until 2023 when efforts kind of stalled but when you take a look at the SEC it's been clumping down it's been enforcing regulations on stakeholders participants how are you assessing what it is doing right now to what extent is it an overreach well it's definitely an overreach but I think it can be explained and so what what what really happened is that Sam bankman freed and his parents uh met many times with Gary Gensler they met many times with Elizabeth Warren and Professor Warren which he was at Harvard Law School was very close to Sam's parents and so he was very close to getting margin approval inside the United States before the fraud was uncovered and so when that exploded uh Gensler and Warren made a decision to go very hard at the industry to eclipse the potential media Fallout that they would have had as a result of being that close to FTX and so what they've done has really hurt the Democrats frankly because the regulation through enforcement and the other actions that they've done at the SEC has hurt the industry has also hurt lots of the younger political leaders in the Democratic party and so uh and I'll just say this uh whatever my feelings are about President Trump I applaud him for understanding how important this industry is for the United States and I think ironically he's pulling the Democrats along into a sensous position on regulation but that that's really what happened that's how we got to where we are um and uh hopefully we're coming out of it now this this Dark Age of cryptocurrency Regulation is hopefully ending so an overreach but Jeremy I mean gentler says you know what that's this sector actually r with Ford it has to stop yeah I mean look there's no question that um there's an incredible amount of Fraud and Abuse in in this industry like you just have to look around and see the the the things that that happen and so the concept that you know we should have a set of rules that provide investor protections disclosures Market surveillance Market conduct that I don't think anyone disagrees with that um I think uh and and I don't think anyone disagrees with having rules that you know deal with fraud and criminal you know and all kinds of stuff so I think everyone agrees about that I think what most of us in the industry have been saying for years for in my case you know you know for you know five years 10 years um has been we have to actually do the hard work as policy makers to understand what did ital assets are to come up with the appropriate classification and definitions do the work of statutory definitions of digital assets General General utility tokens digital Commodities what are digital Securities do the work and and then determine the best uh supervisory structure for that and I think that's what the Congress has has been making progress on that I mean really material progress and it blew up uh after after you know the sand bankman freed episode but like that's back at the table and I think um is bipartisan and I think everyone sort of agrees it's it's not straightforward and regulation by enforcement has not been an effective strategy it's been a very very destructive strategy in my view um and uh but it's sort of like do the do the work other countries the European Union you know European economic area is 750 milli people the European Union did the work 600 pages of legislative text and then tens of thousands of pages of detailed supervisory Frameworks and the entire Global industry is now coming into compliance with a reasonable regulatory framework so Europe is outpacing the United States they've done the work so the United States needs to do the work uh is is is really my view and and by the way I think um that work will get done irresp itive of who wins the presidential election because that is work that members in the Senate and the house Democrats Republicans are jointly focused on getting done there may be different flavors uh to what that end product looks like but at the end of the day I think that work gets done it's a it's a priority for congress um and uh and and you know we've seen uh you know leadership on both sides say this is going to be you know top of the list in the new Congress for for them to get done Mike they say that Europe got it done because the market is way smaller than the US I'm sorry I didn't hear that some people say that Europe got it done in terms of Regulation because the market is way smaller than the US it is complicated in the US they say do you agree um I guess I would mostly agree with that I actually agree with what Jeremy said like you know we got to do the work regulation is a little tiny word but it covers a lot of distance across uh the various types of regulations we have and I think even the legislators that we that are in place they don't even know the full scope of how it existed or why it exists or when it was born remember a lot of the Frameworks that we have here in the United States go all the way back 1933 1940 you know the US has LED and put that in place and then it's been iterated on but it hasn't had anything that's as transformative as digital assets until all of a sudden so look you got to break it down there's uh you mentioned fraud which is straight up criminal activity hey we have Bernie made off too right so those types of straight out persistent long-term Liars they will come from time to time and they will hit any type of Market digital or otherwise then you've got law enforcement related items like AML kyc transaction monitoring sanctions controls we are very good at doing this in the digital space we have technology that far outpaces what some of the guys that were building their technology systems you know 10 20 years ago ever had so we're starting with a point of that's the easy part the do the work part that Jeremy mentions when I think about it is really about the market structure component we have done zero in the United States to Define market structure and the difference here is small players like a a single bad actor you know uh doing some terrible criminal activity versus the entire Market going down and that's what happened with FTX when you don't have the market structure isolating The Exchange away from the broker dealer away from the Clearing House and custodians and I'm not saying that that's the right Market structure for crypto but if you don't have that that's where you get the $10 billion failures so anyway I think the do the work part is to lifting and unfortunately a lot of legislators and Regulators are having to go back and kind of relearn wait a minute why is it the way it is and then what's different about this industry and how do we reapply it Richard how do you look at it binance has been on the other side of uh regulation and we also know that binance has actually spent millions of dollars investing into a regulatory framework how do you look at it and how are you assessing how the SEC is reacting to you well so first of all I'm the minority here all these three gentlemen are Americans I'm Singaporean so it's great to be home but thank you so so if I mean I can't speak for the American lands but if you I mean there are few key trends to look at right so it's not only in the states that this conversation at a political level is taking taking root and taking attraction right so it just show around the world be in places like Latin America Brazil Argentina or Salvador different parts of Asia Pacific in Europe it just show The Grow growing influence of crypto space and people recognize that this is going to be the space of the future together with AI you will form the infrastructure for many different industry building forward right so it is an important sector to Foster the the issue is how to Foster it right different countries have different agenda right so America politics is slly tougher in that sense because firstly you have different different Regulatory Agencies and firstly there's a Turf issue unlike Singapore you and you only have one Central Bank that regulates everything I think that's one so if you ask a Securities regulator what is this product right they'll say it's security if you ask Commodities they say it's a commodity Singapore central banks is a digital payment token so there in lies a tough challenge unlike the banking space or security space where most of the rules are already harmonized globally uh in this space is totally different right depending on where you are some jurisdiction Define it as a virtual asset in a different form so for a global exchange like ourselves and we are the most licensed exchange globally we have secured 19 regulatory approval uh the latest being in India and Indonesia earlier on this year we announced Kazakhstan Dubai Thailand Etc so the the challenge is you have to firstly work with the policy makers and then Regulatory Agencies to understand their agenda and then for us is trying to operationalize based on the local needs and what we really hope is hopefully over time to see greater harmonization of those standards Global but there in lies the issue harmonization a global standard but before we go to that I just want to take a look still at the us since we've been talking about the SEC let's bring in the US election of course has been highly debating on you know what the policies might look like in terms of cryptocurrencies pro Harris is there any Clarity on the kind of crypto policies she would adopt so if it's okay I just want to emphasize what Richard is saying and so we've politicized the regulatory process in the US and so it's it's hard left or hard right regulatory ideas it's not right or wrong for the industry and if if you if you go to Dubai or a place like Singapore they're looking at it very clinically and it's almost an independent standard of Regulation straining out all the politics and so I think it's it's best practices in places like Dubai or Abu Dhabi and Singapore and I think the United States needs to think about adopting best practices that strains out the the politics but on the uh on the topic of uh crypto and vice president Harris there's a group of us that are working with her including this week frankly I'm here but there's a a group of cryptocurrency Advocates Bitcoin Advocates Etc that are working alongside of her to distance the Democratic party the future of the democratic party away from uh Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler and I believe that we are making progress and I think it's going in the right direction and I and I will make this prediction that in the next Congressional session there'll be positive legislation and great clarity on stable coins great clarity on what we're going to do in terms of a regulatory framework that's fair for the industry uh but I just want to say this one quick last thing the the danger that we all have is one side takes it in the United States and then because that side takes it and let's just face it Donald Trump is a polarizing person um he's for it it could touch off an avalan of people that are against it uh and so that's something people that are working alongside of uh vice president Aros as Mike novag myself Mark Cuban really want to prevent that from happening we want crypto in the US to have a bipartisan standard strain from the political uh tribal conflicts so Anthony is pro Harris Mike is anti- Harris in fact you've been pretty public you've said that if you're a crypto Enthusiast do not vote for Harris well look I think I'm looking for for for a clear path forward uh first off business and politics don't generally mix so usually in my career I have never put business wish somebody told me that a long time ago um I missed that memo that business and politics so we are in a strange situation where all of a sudden we've got a political tie to the business that certainly that I'm in that everybody here on the stage is in um so it creates a unique circumstance um but if you look inside the United States you've got the Presidential Power the president is basically in charge of the appointees to all of the Regulatory Agencies and so the president uniquely has a tremendous influence and although we talk about Gary gendler in the SEC you got to remember it's the OCC behind the scenes it's the FDIC behind the scenes ft uh the FTC itself all of these agencies have got heads of those those regimes that are put in place that carry uh the views of the president so we just have a tremendous amount of power up at the executive branch and that's why this is so important so we do have Clarity you know from the Trump and you know proposals they want to make sure we put in Pro crypto folks there we have not heard the same from Harris uh with Biden I think it was pretty clear if Biden were the were the the candidate it would be clear that he he would keep the same people in in play with Harris there's a little bit of mystery like maybe she's going to switch it up but she really hasn't come out and said much and then lastly you know look we all like to think that crypto is the center of the political universe and you know maybe it will should be it's certainly a huge part of the future um but the rest of the world ain't there yet so there's a lot of other issues that are at stake she's not necessarily going to pick up crypto as the main not to defend Harris or any anything but her nomination did come in quite late so perhaps she still needs some time to figure out what she want to do with in terms of crypto policy but in terms of trump Jeremy I mean he's been quite clear he is for it he launched a platform just recently just weeks before the election and of course yesterday was all over how he bought his burger with the Bitcoin in Gran Village surely there must be a a line to be drawn conflict of interest not necessarily a good thing for for the industry look I I'll say a couple things just on the general topic I think the first is if you look at Circle circle's color palette purple is our primary color and so circle is purple and and I really mean that and I believe this this guy's getting Regulatory and I believe that crypto is purple meaning that this is technology and this technology keeps being built and The Innovation around it is global and it's engineers and it's entrepreneurs and it's all these people building this technology technology does not care about politics technology is technical progress and you know I have been in this industry through multiple Democratic Republican other administrations and the technology keeps improving doesn't matter who's in power the technology keeps improving doesn't care about politics but policies do no but here's here's my view here's my view my view is that when technology delivers utility to society to individuals to firms to households to people around the world um policy is responsive to Society at the end of the day uh when Uber became a better way to take Transportation it didn't matter that all of The Regulators in all these countries said we don't like this because Society said this is better and so they adapted and so I think what we're seeing right now is we're seeing breakthroughs in this technology the asset class the infrastructure stablecoin utility like we're seeing breakthroughs in the technology we're on the cusp of significant mainstream acceptance of this all around the world and policy is actually responding to that they're saying okay you know I think everyone thought after FTX and if we just you know sort of contain this thing and so on it'll just go away you know cuz they weren't paying attention to the actual technology progress this will go away we'll just like pound on this and hopefully it's gone and that obviously doesn't work because this technology keeps making progress and so my view is it doesn't matter it doesn't matter who wins the presidential election because everyone who's here if you look around is Building Technology Building more Innovations building more useful things and policy will in the end be responsive to that technology development it's happened in every other technology epic and it's going to happen here so I don't actually think it matters you might have it matter around the margin in different areas you might have it it might matter if there's a different appointee to a particular Federal agency you might get a a a a bend in the curve in some a certain way um but that doesn't that isn't going to change the Arc of the technology and so again you know crypto is purple Richard well see well so I I I agree with Jeremy so if if you look at it right why is that the case there are few General Trends to take note of I got involved in crypto right about 2017 um and it has been a sea change since then right so I mean until 2 three years ago not many Regulators were talking about it institutions are not in this space so 2024 marks uh very big milestone on that front I got involved because I believe that this is going to be the future of money future of Finance but it needs clear regulation so that players know how to operate in and users know what sort of safeguards what sort of guard RS they out there to protect their interest right so that's essential and with that institutions will come into play crypto is the only asset class that went the reverse Direction so asset classes normally go from institutions to corporates to high netw worth and Retail this asset class has been embraced by retail for the longest time time and nobody else believe in it right but this year when you have the largest money manager in the world Larry Finn saying that he went from a skeptic to a Believer and supporter now that marks a big Landmark Shi so we can we can bigger around the sidelines of what's Happening you know why is it so slow but if you look at compared to even two three years ago close to one3 of global Regulators are now regulating this space providing Clarity right two3 are still thinking true formulating you have the top 100 financial institutions in the world two years ago probably didn't have a crypto blockchain agenda today is so different I mean I can just give you some data just at binance right so we serve today 225 million users globally right this year alone we onboarded about 45 million new users so the first 100 million users took us 5 years to onboard second 100 2 years the next 100 will be even faster and if you look at the Young adults their first investment are into crypto higher percentage into crypto than stocks or bonds or other form of Investments so this is the asset class for the future this conversation is going to be extremely important for policy makers because you can't fight that Trend the momentum is coming right so you you can't reverse it you can't reverse it momentum is coming millions and millions of people invested in it there in lies the issue that is why regulation needs to be accelerated why are we still here talking about regulation having to play catch up what are the issues that still remain we we got 500y old people running the American government is the answer you know I mean you have to really just step back and think about so we have the wrong people deciding on policy and look at the way the voting goes if you look at the you know the Saab 121 or you look at any of the votes the people that are above the age of 70 always vote against it and the people that are below the age of 50 particularly on the Democratic side they vote for it and so you know this is a demographic moment uh in our democracy where the younger people are looking at the older people and saying hey you got to move out of the way and make this work for people but what has me concerned and I've said this repeatedly we've had maybe three meetings with White House Personnel members of Treasury uh sitting members of the Congress both the Senate and the House of Representatives is that you've you've got good actors there's a protocol and a system in place at binance that I would argue is best in class in the industry Jeremy is best in class in the industry Mike is best in class in the industry if you've got people and I would add coinbase and people like Kraken as well if you've got people that are best in class in the industry and want to do no harm to the consumer why are you antagonistic with them if you go back to the origins of the SEC Franklin Rosevelt said okay we're going to go to the industry we used to call these people banksters in the 1920s okay they were ripping people off uh the markets crashed Rosevelt got the job and he went to the industry and said help us identify the Bad actors tell us what people are doing in this industry that is terrible and so we're going to regulate out of that and protect people and it worked incredibly well we don't do that anymore in the United States and we have to go back to the origins of the SEC there's a great book on this Diana henriquez wrote a book called taming the street that talks about the origins of the SEC my thing and I've said this in several White House meetings now go back to the origins of the SEC and let's build this thing so that it it it it takes care of the industry takes care of the customers and Rewards the people on this de here that are best practicing people Jeremy brought at the point that Europe got its act together right it's the first to come up with its comprehensive framework if there is a model to be adopted why not adopt it or how should we be looking at this bless you excuse me um I mean lots of governments have adopted Frameworks on this uh Thailand uh Japan um there's some here in Singapore um the EU is probably the biggest Market that that has adopted this and and I would say in terms of the kind of coverage of topics the MAA is is probably the broadest um but lots of governments have pursued this and a lot of governments in fact virtually all of them have you know clearly done the work of saying you know we're going to Define digital assets and we're going to Define some classifications here um and and and and so I think there is a lot to follow there um so it's I I think one scenario as you're saying is like copy paste here's something Etc it's not typically how like the largest governments in the world uh think uh that they're not you know they're not interested in copy pasta right they they they want to you know they've got their own embedded complexities and they want to have their own View and the United States for example right we have we don't have an Mas right we have the cftc the SEC the O FDIC the OCC the Federal Reserve and then we've got State Regulators uh and you know and on and on right so you have a uh alphabet soup and everybody wants to have a say and so it's it's harder in some ways in in in the United States because there is so much large large regulatory infrastructure already that has evolved because of history in a different ways um and so there's you know political infighting between The Regulators over control and who gets it and who gets the budget and there's land grab all this stuff so that's just like the a the agency politics let alone the politics politics and so it's it's hard in in a in an environment like that to just uh to just copy paste um but um yeah I mean I think um the work that I'm seeing and I think if others here you know like the the digital Commodities act that is sort of coming out of the Senate which is a complement to the fit 21 bill in the house like they're going in the right direction and I think they're they're I think taking a a fairly reasonable and purpose-built approach to crypto assets and crypto markets and the payment stablecoin act which is you know probably at the 90 e yard line whatever the two yard line um uh you know I think there's sort of basically agreement from everybody that that is a sound a sound piece of Law and like it sort of fits within the the state and federal kind of banking supervision framework so I I I just I feel like it the US has got a path and they're and they're pushing on it and isn't as much about um just taking something that you know another regime has adopted Mike I'm sure you've had had conversations with Regulators I mean how optimistic are you about a framework in the US yeah look we've got B has seven trust companies around the globe I think it's probably more than anybody does we talked to a lot of regulators um actually unifying kind of some of these statements Jeremy's right like crypto is going to win over some Arc of time it doesn't really matter what happens you know in this election uh crypto and Technology will persevere uh but it is a matter of what happens over the next four years or eight years and we get quickly to the next set of conversations or do we kind of have to churn in some of the political stuff can we get out of the divisiveness regardless of who wins where instead of being like Oh the one side wins and then overturns the the previous side once we get past that Shenanigans then we can actually get to the the next level so Jeremy mentioned stable coins right super easy one actually for Regulators to get their hands around a lot easier we can start to take that piece out tease it apart now the pro the rest of the problem is a little bit simpler and we can move on to the next thing I mean there you know even you if you want to take stable coins look at how each jurisdiction is thinking about well where do you want to put the backing of the stable coin they're like okay well Europe wants to have it in Europe and us is going to have it in us some of these are pretty reasonable things to ask for but they got to get defined and you know Federal Regulators across the globe are all figuring out kind of what it means for them so I think the reason we we want to see a quick resolution on the US for getting the politics out of crypto is so that we can get on to the next set ofver a faster if it doesn't happen in November it'll happen either four years down the line or 8 years down the line we'll see is it even fair to say it doesn't matter Richard I mean we're talking about regulations protecting investors we saw how the collapse of FTC sent the markets reeling and people in disarray and getting burnt is it fair to say it doesn't matter no certainly it does matter so when FTX collapse I I think that is a big wake up call because for the longest time the industry has been requesting has been prating let's have clear regulations right so that we know how to operate in let's have clear regulations so users know what our protection is out there right for their purpose and and it does matter because it's very important not only from things like how do you fight Financial crimes anti-money laundering but the user protection part of that is very important but I believe that regulation itself cannot be the beond and all right so you have Smart regulations and you have not so smart regulations right so if you have regulations that come out just looking at one dimension just managing the risk aspect of it and forgetting the Innovative aspect of it how do you support this sector where the best and brightest Talent are working on there will be the future industry of the world then you're forgetting a very important part of that Dimension so I rather to have regulations that get it right from the start instead of having regulations that really just focus on the risk and that inhibits the growth of that sector even further right so I I my own person personal preference is get it right come out with smart regulations and smart regulations will be hugely beneficial for most countries around the world right so if you look at how do you develop web tree ecosystem how do you develop AI ecosystem Etc this will become the foundation for a lot of foreign direct Investments for creating new talent pool coming into the future uh for economic growth of countries so smart regulations is actually essential in instead just just trying to roll out regulations right which may me make sense we've been talking about regulation in the US let's talk about Asia regulations vary significantly globally not only in Asia globally yeah let's say Asia because we've been talking about the us we talk about Europe I mean how do you navigate that and what would you like to see well again going back to my previous point right so it's tough uh you have to understand local landscape so we do a lot of local deployment and I always say that for us to do successful local deployment you need to engage three different group of stakeholders closely right policy makers Regulators for one your users in that jurisdiction understanding their needs is the other and then third working with partners fellow Partners this very early stage of development we have 5 to 6% crypto adoption today and that pace will go up quite rapidly so it's tough for example Indonesia now regulates it as a commodity Singapore regulates it as a digital payment token Japan has a slightly different definition around that right so we operate across the globe and it is tough because every time you go local then you have to tweak the setup of the local jurisdiction be in terms of how you do operations how is it set up the rules and regulations are different the type of token listings that you are permitted the type of product features that you're allowed to R are totally different right locally so there's a lot of adaptation uh to local needs and that makes Global deployment tougher uh but at this point in time it's something that we all have to live with which is why I said that if you if we can work towards a common set of Standards globally that users around the world can say hey this the minimum protection I'm looking forward to by participating in this space it will be so much better for everyone on on on that front and it gives certainty for all of us cre question is how do we get there that minimum protection let's go down the road well I'm I'm I'm I'm going to stick what I said previously and I think Richard's actually done a good job of this in the UAE he he tells The Regulators what the industry needs to protect the consumer and I think we've got to do more of that around the world we've got to have Regulators committed to working with the best practitioners to get the framework right uh and that historically has has worked the best and I'll just again remind people when the SEC came into Power the 1933 act for the SEC uh there was a lot of loss of trust in the American Securities markets in the late 1920s uh by the by by the end of the second world war after we got through the War uh the capital markets became the deepest widest most liquid Capital markets in the world and one of the reasons why was the disclosures the prospectuses and the things that we came up with in the early 1930s and so I I think we've got to go back to that now this this industry is going to change the way we transact with each other it's going to reduce costs it's going to end third-party verification by and large as a result of the technology and we've got to get people ready for that we got to get people out of the horse and buggy side of this business Mike how do we get there well look I think uh you know certainly there's a lot of Education being done already we talked to a lot of regulators they're very uh very open to all of the information that we have to share about like what are we doing and and and how does it work um I think the one thing we need and you know if the US were leading forward it helps a lot of the rest of the world it just kind of it gives some air cover for the rest of the world to kind of move forward more safely they're always worried about what's going on in the United States I'll disagree with Richard a little bit which is like on one hand it' be great to get the regulation all right and you know take the time to do that how be perfect I I'm just going to predict that it's not going to be right on the first time and we're going to need to go through iterations so if there's any one thing I could change it would be to eliminate the regulation by enforcement and switch it back to here's the framework we want you to use and then if the framework turns out to not quite be right we figure out how to to tweak it and adjust it in a in a relatively fast manner this can be done right like the the SEC with some of the cases that they've brought okay there's the enforcement path and whatever that brings it doesn't bring a lot of clarity to everybody else when they do that it has a resolution for one particular issue but it doesn't solve it if we switch that around and we say all right what would it take to bring that guy into compliance with what the SEC is looking for so much more reusable all right so anyway yeah no more regulation by enforcement we'll smooth it out so on that point as just as a former regulator you rais an interesting point about enforce uh regulation by enforcement in most part of the world policy makers Regulators are the one that's holding the pen writing new legislation they have the power to come up with clear rules and where the rules are unclear or ambiguous they have the responsibility to make that clear so that people know what sort of rules to follow and in those in many parts of the world uh if the rules are unclear it's construed against the pen writer right conu against the people that come out the RO so but us is is quite interesting in in that regard yeah yeah I mean look I I I think about this at a kind of practical technical level CU at the end of the day the the policy needs to just be um aligned with the technology and the technology reality so you know we need definitions of different types of digital tokens we need to clearly differentiate between things like an nft versus something that is uh specifically performing an investment product uh that is an ongoing investment product we need to acknowledge that general purpose digital Commodities that power protocols and networks are general purpose digital Commodities we need to determine like if there's Capital formation happening around a project well what are the rules that go along with disclosure and capital formation but the reality is that the capital formation can evolve into a a a state where a digital token um that had Capital formation around it can actually operate as a generalized commodity so that's like the actual specifying the the reality that we live in uh we need to acknowledge that you know digital tokens could simultaneously be used as rewards as incentives as as compensation but also used in governance and Define what those are don't just say this is a you know a a you know the kind of square peg round whole problem don't try and fit it just Define these things that's really critical I think that's what some of the legislation is trying to do um and if you do that and do that clearly and you create a pathway where people can launch digital tokens with Fair disclosure where they can Undertake and and make use of the general utility of those tokens to drive economic incentive design customer Behavior design and participation in technology in this novel new way like it will it it will bring an incredible number of entrepreneurs into this industry so many people who want to start businesses in this space don't want to because they're afraid of the law and they're afraid of being sued by a federal agency that's a terrible place to be so we have to do the work to Define things and and and and that needs to map to the reality of this not try and take not try and take the reality of this and shove it into something that really was never designed uh to contemplate a technology like digital assets and blockchain can I can I ask Richard a question because I I'm just curious about this as a former regulator give perhaps you can provide some context and rationale what is the general reluctancy I'm not just talking about the United States but in general for a regulator not to want to interact with the best practicing practitioners what what's the mindset of the regulator what what are they fearful of well I think it's a couple of things uh going back to Mike's Point about education right so I think first of all um many regulatory agencies are constrained by budget by priorities right so in any given year there's always budget and priorities what you focus most of your time and attention on right so it could be that they do not have enough resources on that front to devote expertise to understand this sector or to recruit expertise to recruit to understand this sector so that doesn't become a priority and once you don't devote enough resources you don't know this space and how best to formulate a framework to try to start regulating and then the second thing is really is there any possible impact of this part particular sector being so transformative in nature to traditional Industries for instance right so there are some a fair bit of economic con economic sort of considerations on that front uh really because they don't understand this sector enough so on our own we actually do a lot of Education effort around the world so last year we conducted close to 100 sessions globally with policy makers and law enforcement agencies to highlight to them the power of this technology why is so transformational it's traceable it is here to fight Financial crimes uh and all those Beauty and how why you should support this Innovation why this so important so a lot of things goes through education it must become an agenda at a political level the agency must be given enough resources to devote enough attention and recruit talent to try to do this properly so it is a good segue to talk about stable coins at this point in time so as Jeremy and Mike because usds there is a lot of appetite for greater scrutiny as well when it comes to stable coins because it's grown phenomenally 150 billion if I'm not wrong from five bill at some point in time how are you looking at this appetite for greater scrutiny is it a matter of Education them not understanding I mean it is in many ways the most straightforward uh piece of this ecosystem um because you're you're dealing with a payment system Innovation a core definition of electronic money and you know clear you know clear rules around disclosure reserves um anti-money laundering kind of you know from from a a payment system perspective I think it it's it's it's it's clear um I I agree with Mike though that um you know there there isn't normalization uh of of these rules rules around the world and so I think unfortunately we'll get stable coin laws uh around the world and um you know there's going to be there's going to need to be iteration so for example in Europe you know we we had to work very very closely with up and down the whole regulatory apparatus of Europe to ensure that you could have a fungible usdc that worked under the issuing rules of Micah and and we we've come up with the framework for that but that that was a sort of We're the guinea pig in in this in this system so I think many other governments need to kind of deal with the same set of issues which is stable coins that are internationally issued uh that exist in different markets uh and but you're not going to like have a standalone uh you know uh distinct stable coin for every Market uh from a single company right so I I think there's a lot of progress It's 2025 basically stable coins will be legal electronic money pretty much every in every Major Market in the world and then we got to continue to work on on harmonization are we getting out of this without election predictions if we are that's great so let's see on the stable coin uh I think it's the easiest thing for Regulators to get their heads around because it's most familiar with kind of existing products and services that are out there um you know today they haven't really picked leges that run through the banking system you we run a bunch of custodial Banks right around the globe custody and holding of assets and backing stores kind of consistent as we go and talk with Regulators about how that would work through us it's kind of got a lot of similar metaphors um I do think we're going to see actually inconsistent law coming out from different countries where it'll be actually technically impossible to adhere to both of them uh on on iteration number one but I think if we can work with The Regulators that'll get smooth out and we'll figure it out if we get regulation right we're seeing a bull market I think I think we're in the early stages of a bull market one way or another I think that's that's the beauty of the technology and that's the promise of what's going on irrespective of faulty regulation I think we're going to be in a long-term bull market Mike anytime you connect people together with faster more efficient technology you end up with more business being done you end up with better outcomes for people uh it's it's all around goodness so yes Jeremy incredibly optimistic we're seeing the most technology progress that we've seen the most legal progress that we've seen the most Market infrastructure progress progress that we've seen in 11 years uh since I've been in this industry and so I I I believe the the next couple of years are going to represent extraordinary growth for this industry I invested in this space I'm a long-term boo so you know there are many more Innovative projects coming out with greater utility greater use cases this sector will continue to grow and we're just at the beginning watch the space gentlemen thank you so much for your time thank thank you thank