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In this episode of Fintech Confidential, host Tedd Huff is joined by CI (Confidential Informant), Robert Musiala, co-leader of the Web3 and Digital Assets team at BakerHostetler, to discuss the significant developments in the crypto and fintech space during April 2025. Robert shares his expertise on blockchain law and compliance, providing insights into the evolving regulatory landscape and its impact on the industry.

The conversation covers the mainstream adoption of stablecoins, the implications of the Payment Stablecoin Act, and the integration of crypto with traditional financial systems. They also delve into the expansion of programmable money, the shifting regulatory environment, and the growing security threats in the crypto space.

Takeaways:

1️⃣ Stablecoins are becoming a viable solution for faster and more transparent payments.

2️⃣ The Payment Stablecoin Act is prompting companies to adjust their strategies in anticipation of new regulations.

3️⃣ Kraken’s expansion demonstrates the blending of crypto and traditional finance.

4️⃣ Programmable money is enabling automation in financial processes.

5️⃣ Security remains a top concern, with sophisticated attacks targeting the crypto infrastructure.

Links:

Guest:

Robert A. Musiala Jr. BakerHostetler Profile: https://www.bakerlaw.com/professionals/robert-a-musiala-jr/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-a-musiala-jr-esq-cfcs-b6534bb/

Company:

BakerHostetler: https://www.bakerlaw.com/

The Blockchain Monitor: https://www.theblockchainmonitor.com/

Fintech Confidential:

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Supporters:

Bitcoin 2025 - Bringing together digital asset leaders in Las Vegas to explore Bitcoin’s role in capital markets, featuring speakers like Michael Saylor, Caitlin Long, and Elizabeth Stark - https://fintechconfidential.com/btc25

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Skyflow - Helping FinTechs build secure experiences without managing customer data directly - https://skyflowsecure.com

Hawk AI - Providing real-time fraud prevention and AML compliance for FinTechs - https://getHawkai.com

About:

Guest: Robert Musiala has been working in the blockchain and digital assets market since 2012 and has led multiple digital asset investigations, including as the court-appointed receiver over cryptocurrency investment funds used in a major fraud. He advises on various regulatory compliance issues involving digital assets and has drafted/negotiated agreements for a wide range of transactions in the fintech, digital assets, Web3, and NFT markets. He is the inventor of two blockchain patents and co-leader of the Web3 and Digital Assets team at BakerHostetler.

Host: Tedd Huff is the Founder of Voalyre and Diamond D3, professional services consulting firms focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and executive producer on the Fintech Confidential network. Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for global companies, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements, and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

Fintech Confidential: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally.

Chapters:

00:00 Highlights

01:13 Bitcoin 2025 (Sponsor)

02:06 Welcome to Web3 with FTC

02:32 Introducing Robert Musiala

03:22 April 2025 Recap and Strategic Signals

04:16 Competitive Advantage of FinTech Integration

04:58 Integration of Blockchain and Web3

06:12 Kraken’s Expansion in Europe

06:49 Crypto’s Integration with Traditional Finance

07:27 Crypto as a Payment Method

08:43 Stablecoins in Merchant Payments

10:14 Pending Legislation: Payment Stablecoin Act

13:05 Benefits of Stablecoins in Payments

16:15 Wallets as a Service by DFNS (Sponsor)

17:53 Programmable Money and Innovation

19:48 Bitcoin’s Role in Capital Markets

20:52 Kraken’s Traditional Market Offerings

21:09 Approval of Global ETFs and Staking

22:50 Digital Asset Regulatory Environment in the US

26:10 Federal Regulators’ Alignment on Crypto

28:24 States and Digital Assets

30:27 Wyoming’s Digital Asset Initiatives

32:01 State-Based Strategic Bitcoin Reserves

35:23 Legal and Regulatory Enforcement

37:58 Skyflow Secure Data Now (Sponsor)

40:34 Crypto Theft and Security Threats

42:16 Sophisticated Hacks and Scams

46:18 April 2025: Key Developments

47:20 Future Trends in Stablecoins

47:56 Regulatory Environment Evolution

48:38 SEC Roundtables and Public Input

49:20 Conclusion and Future Announcements

50:04 Hawk AI Fraud Prevention (Sponsor)

50:47 Disclaimer

Welcome to FinTech Confidential, bringing you the people, tech and

companies that change how you.

It is not surprising that they're starting to make that direction towards the us.

No one who was really making large high volume international payments really

thought Bitcoin was a solution to that because of all the price volatility,

most of the financial world has been batch

processed on a daily basis.

Each dollar unit backing every stable coin is represented by US dollar

equivalent held in a US bank or

what are you hearing?

Far as the benefits of why the stables are, are

picking up as a form of payment.

The Web3 and digital asset industry has matured enough that some of the

risks that were there maybe a couple of years ago are not as prominent.

The scrutiny that was there from the federal banking regulators

is not necessarily gonna be as.

Intense as it was.

Do you think it's gonna still be that, that really broad chasm

between hyper restrictive and hyper enablement, the Web3 landscape

seems to be on that tipping point?

The theory of what could be to starting to move towards the execution of what can be.

Bitcoin 2025 lands in Las Vegas at the Venetian, May 27th through the 29th.

And FinTech Confidential is there as an official media partner.

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Embrace the game theory.

Welcome to Web3 with FTC.

If you're asking how blockchain, crypto ai, even quantum computing fits into your

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We talk with the builders and the decision makers who are doing the work.

You'll hear smart conversations, straight insights, and no filling,

whether you're a founder, an executive, or just trying to stay ahead.

This is where Real talk meets real tech.

I'm your host, Tedd Huff and thrilled to welcome our newest

contributor, or as we like to call them, confidential informants,

and his name is Robert Musiala.

Rob is the co-leader of the Web3 and Digital Assets team at Baker Hostetler,

a US law firm that is more than 1000 attorneys recognized for helping clients

address complex business and regulatory issues across digital assets, data

management, and emerging technologies.

Now, Rob brings to us decades of experience in blockchain

law, regulatory compliance, and digital asset investigations.

And he's the lead author of the Blockchain Monitor blog, where he

breaks down the latest trends and legal developments in crypto each week.

Today's format, as you can imagine, is probably gonna be a little bit different.

So we'll be talking about what happened in the month of April, 2025, and I'll

be giving you some of the strategic signals with absolutely no fluff.

And Robert's gonna be nice enough to bring the structure, compliance,

and legal backdrop to all of this.

And today's topics we're gonna be covering payments, capital markets,

regulation, enforcement threats.

Close with strategic outlook.

So let's dive in.

Robert, thank you so much for joining me as one of our first confidential

informants on Web3 with FTC.

Thanks for having me on the podcast, Tedd.

Happy to be here.

So, you know, you and I, we were prepping going through all this stuff,

just trying to pick the good stuff out of, out of the, the blogs you all

do as well as some of the things that are going on in the marketplace and.

I think it's important for people to understand that this has

become a competitive advantage for a lot of fintechs when they

integrate into this technology.

Whether it's stable Coin Crypto as a service.

Uh.

Any other royal loyalty based items really start to, to make a big difference in it.

But of course, it always comes with some fun things like licensing and registration

and cross border things we have to think about, which then of course, brings in

the compliance and the regulatory pieces.

I, I've been saying this for a long time, this is a borrowed quote, but

you, you know, in financial services these days, you're either protecting

the past or building the future.

And I, I think more and more building the future means, uh, figuring out where

blockchain Web3 di and digital assets fit, uh, into your business model.

And so, uh, you know, I, I think it's relevant anytime that we see

traditional financial services company taking steps to integrate

with crypto, a crypto native company.

Then anytime we see the reverse, um, a crypto, a native crypto company

taking steps to integrate with a traditional financial services

company and more, and we're seeing that more and more, uh, you know.

As you mentioned, uh, we publish this blog every week.

We've been doing that for seven years now.

And one trend that I've observed over the years is more and more often we are

reporting on, um, developments where we see this pattern occurring again in

both directions, both tradify uh, taking steps to integrate with crypto and crypto

taking steps to integrate with trap fight.

You know, the recent development you mentioned, uh, I think has a

lot to do with the continued, uh, that continued trend that we're

seeing in the marketplace, uh, and the expansion of that trend.

Really,

I think the piece that makes this one stand out is, you know, Kraken

is using this enabled spending of.

Crypto at about 150 plus million merchants across Europe and the uk.

Um, and not only that, but they're supporting over 300 currencies, whether

it's digital assets or traditional fiats.

They're supporting all of those.

So it, it's not surprising that they're starting to make

that direction towards the us.

Another trend that I've observed over the years.

Is, and, and, and this is something I say often is that, you know, I don't, I,

I've never thought that crypto would ever replace the traditional financial system.

Instead, it's going to become more and more integrated with it.

Uh, in other words, you know, if you think about it, we have a lot of different

methods through which we can pay people.

Today we have a CH, we have wire transfer, we have credit card, we have

debit card, um, and other methods.

And crypto is just becoming one more method to add to that list.

So I think, you know, the development you mentioned is really targeted

at, uh, merchant payments, and that's one, uh, sort of.

Vector that is moving pretty quickly in the, the FinTech space is how do

we make it easier to pay merchants?

Uh, and so, you know, we, I think that problem is something that is being

addressed is, and then similarly, there's a parallel but related problem that has

always been out there, which is for.

Uh, crypto holders for those who prefer to hold their money in crypto, how

do we make it easier for them, uh, to pay for things without having to

exchange their crypto for fiat first?

You know, and I think anytime we see announcements related to, um,

uh, crypto debit cards, uh, or other sort of traditional FinTech

payment mechanisms that allow you to pay at traditional FinTech.

Point of sale systems or, or, uh, online portals, but spend under, but

behind the scenes spending your crypto, you know, we're seeing, uh, a race

to address that need, uh, where, you know, crypto holders wanna spend their

crypto without having to go through the stuff with exchanging first.

And then merchants wanna just be able to accept different types of

payments and reach a larger audience.

Well, and, and the merchants just, they just want their money.

That's really, they just want their money and, and, you know.

We've heard a lot of of things this last April related around stable coin that

seems to be picking up a lot of momentum.

Coinbase and PayPal, they, they've done a little deal together

that offers rewards, uh, for.

For using the, uh, P-I-U-S-D.

They're, they're waiving some fees.

There's a whole bunch of fun stuff that's going on around that.

And I know we didn't talk about this, but I had to bring it up because it

came up on the last day of the month.

I thought it was very interesting also.

That Ripple decided to place an a bid on, on circle the last day of the month.

But you know, that to me just shows how frothy the waters are getting around

stablecoin and how important they're gonna be to be moving forward with those things.

Rob, what?

What are you.

That, is that just something that's going on now or is there something

deeper that you're seeing as well?

A little bit more to it and, uh, you know, for, for those who are working

in this space on a day-to-day basis, like me, I, I think this is more common

knowledge, some of this stuff, but for, um, you know, those who are working in

FinTech but not necessarily crypto or who are not living and breathing this

industry every day, um, some of this stuff hasn't really come to the mainstream,

so I'm glad that we're talking about it.

Um, but you know, really behind the scenes driving a lot of this is,

um, the pending legislation that's being discussed and circulated in

Congress, uh, that is broadly referred to as the Payment Stablecoin Act.

And that would be a law that would, uh, create a, a very

sophisticated, uh, and detailed regulatory framework for stablecoin

issuers here in the United States.

Um, that would, um, include.

Various very smart, uh, protections, things that a lot

of the US stablecoin issuers have been doing for a long time now.

But things like ensuring that, um, each dollar unit, backing every stablecoin,

uh, is represented by US dollar equivalent held in a US bank or, or qualified

custodian, and that those accounts are audited, uh, on a monthly basis with auto,

you know, audited by US public accounting firms, things that make, uh, sort of

the consumer a lot more comfortable.

Using stable coins and all that.

Uh, it has really underpinned what some people are calling

the stable coin wars right now.

Uh, because you've got this in the background, pending legislation.

A a lot of people keep saying we will get a law, um, passed very likely in 2025.

Um, it could be sooner, could be later, but um, by all counts,

many people say that they expect that for that to happen this year.

And so we're seeing companies preparing for that, you know, so we're seeing

the current, uh, stable coin issuers that have already been in the market

for a while are, um, starting to get a little bit more competitive.

Um, also starting to, in some instances, um, cooperate a little bit more to sort

of support each other in the market.

Uh, and then we see new players getting ready to enter the market.

And I think we'll talk a little bit more about that with.

Things like, um, the state of Wyoming or, um, a, a Wyoming based

bank that has recently, um, tested and issued a stable, uh, you know,

a stable coin for themselves.

I'm

bringing us back to the, the payments piece of it.

What, what are you seeing or what are you hearing as far as the

benefits of why the stables are, are picking up as a form of payment?

You know, there, there's a. There's many different kinds of

stables, and we're not gonna get into the differences between them.

But, you know, the, the stable coin is, is almost a equivalent to a digital dollar.

But why, why do you feel, or, or what are you seeing that has

garnered the attention of it so much?

So outside of regulatory, outside of those things, what, what

are some of the things that.

Are making it appealing to, to the powers that be, let's say?

Sure.

Well, I mean, as you know, um, and anyone who has, uh, observed or worked in the

FinTech industry has known, um, payments are clunky historically, had have been

relatively clunky, uh, for a long time.

And, you know, the technology has evolved over time.

Um, we still have instances where, you know, international wires have

trouble clearing on time, where, um, you know, companies feel like they're

paying way too much, uh, for payments.

Are there too many intermediaries involved in processing payments and,

um, stable coins Being powered by blockchain really do solve a lot of those

problems, you know, fundamentally, um.

Blockchain in, in many respects is about removing intermediaries.

And so when we talk about payments, that means removing all the corresponding

banks, uh, that are underlying and sit behind any, any, any payment transaction,

any electronic payment transaction, uh, especially international, and streamlining

that so that you're having this, those payments, uh, cleared by a blockchain.

Now, of course.

When it was just, when we were just talking about Bitcoin before the, the,

um, idea of stable coins came along, you know, no one was really, none of,

no one who was really making, um, large high volume international payments.

Uh, really thought Bitcoin itself was a solution to that because

of all the price volatility.

Uh, and then you enter, enter stable coins that attempt to

solve that problem by saying, Hey.

We're creating a, a digital asset that functions just like Bitcoin in terms of

its transferability, uh, and its, um, accessibility on a blockchain network.

Uh, and each unit is gonna be backed by a real dollar and a real bank account

audited by a US public accounting firm.

Now, um, that, that to me, uh, that type of stable coin, a fiat

backed stable coin, so to speak.

Is, um, in my view, one of them, uh, the innovations in this industry that

really excites me the most because it solves a lot of these fundamental

problems and payments that you and I and others that have been working

in FinTech have been dealing with, you know, for our entire careers.

Um, by making them faster, um, near instant, you know, there's still

some issues with, uh, some of the networks, but really a lot faster

in most cases than existing methods.

Then, especially from an international standpoint, uh, a lot less expensive.

Uh, and then fully transparent on a blockchain network so that everyone

knows, you know, when I'm paying you, you know that you received it

and I know when you received it.

And, uh, we're both looking at the same record of that transaction.

Uh, so those are some of the things, some of the things that I think

excite, uh, FinTech professionals and, and businesses working in

the payment space or businesses.

Looking to accept payments about stable coins.

And then we can also talk about some of the advantages, uh, for

actually just the merchants.

Um, but I'll, I'll pause there.

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One of the things you left out that is something that gets me most

excited is really the ability to.

Programmatically have things happen based upon, uh, a trigger or based

upon a rule, or based upon some action happening or a time period,

like all these different things.

So instead of having to have a person there or waiting for the next cycle to

happen is, is most of the financial world has been batch processed on a daily basis.

A lot of that starts to go away.

And I think that is, that is really interesting, um, that

we've been able to, to do that.

I agree.

And I think that will be the next phase that we see, you know, once uh,

we get a stable coin, uh, act passed into law and businesses become more

comfortable with stable coins, I think the very, one of the next phases is

going to be a lot of experiments with, you know, what you mentioned, what

folks call program programmable money.

Where, um, you know, payments are made instantaneously upon the

occurrence of predefined events.

Uh, and that theoretically you could unlock a lot of liquidity

in the financial system.

So as we talk about stable coins, you know, it brings us back, and you even

mentioned it, you know, we really didn't look at Bitcoin is a, well, and

I shouldn't say we, but Bitcoin has not been very frequently looked at.

As a means to make a payment.

It's looked at more of an asset and, and we can go into all that fun

stuff, but it hasn't been a really good means to do a, a transaction.

And I think this is why, you know, the stable coins give you that nice bridge

between the crypto native and, and the traditional finance side of the house.

But I, I would be remiss to state that in April.

Bitcoin finally made it back up in the 95, 90 $6,000 area.

What are some of the other things that, that you're looking at, that

you're seeing, especially when we start thinking capital markets type stuff?

Um, and we can, we can start with the Bitcoin and then move from there.

Crypto and digital assets, uh, certainly over the last

month and also just over time.

Appear to have to be becoming more and more intertwined with traditional finance.

And so we're seeing that same thing theme play out in, in

the cap in capital markets.

Now, I, I always say I'm not an expert on the Bitcoin price,

so I'm not gonna opine on that.

But what I will say is that, you know, more on a lot of occasions it seems

to be tracking, um, what's happening in, uh, the US equities markets.

And so that itself, you know, is a potential sign that the crypto markets

and the traditional capital markets are becoming more and more intertwined.

Uh, and to your point, um, you know, some examples of that have been some of the

traditional players launching crypto based ETFs, and that's absolutely been a theme

in April and over the past several months.

Well, yeah.

And, and so even in, in April, I know, I know we're talking a lot about Kraken,

but they did a lot this month, right?

So they decided to launch into the traditional markets.

They're offering over a LA 11,000 plus US listed stocks, ETFs, FX futures.

I mean, it just, it just keeps going and going with that one.

But us isn't the only place that things are changing, right.

So, um, in Hong Kong and Canada, they both, uh, approved some

ETFs, um, Ethereum and Solana.

But the part that I thought that was really interesting is that we started to

see the, the staking and, and the lending of digital assets starting to roar back.

And so I. What do you think is, is really driving that desire to on,

on those return side of the house?

Does it have anything to do with the stablecoin stuff that we talked about?

I, I think it's mostly separate in my view.

I, I, I think that, um, you, the similarity again is the continued.

Inter meshing of the traditional and Web3 markets.

Um, I think the staking point that you raise is to me the

mo the most interesting.

Uh, and that's, um, a relatively new development.

And you know, as you mentioned, we saw, um, some developments in Hong Kong

where there was some regulation passed.

Uh, to provide the market with some clear rules as to how to do this in a

way that was going to be, um, met with approval by the financial regulators.

If your provider doesn't allow you to manage all your assets in one

place, we're already starting to see that, that people are behind.

So that's gonna be a big piece of it.

And of course, you gotta have the trust and, and.

We're gonna move into the next segment, which is the regulatory side of the house.

And of course, if you don't, if you have all that stuff in one place, that

means you have to make sure you've got all your ducks in a row and are being re

in the regulatory sites in a good way.

I, I think I. It's been really good, and I'm gonna come back to the US again.

Uh, we're just, we'll just land back in the us Heck, let's go to DC and, and

talk, you know, uh, all of the, the, the acronym agencies have, have really

decided to, to roll back or to simplify or to make, make it a little bit easier

for these digital assets to move forward.

I, I really like the directions it's gonna go.

At least my perspective.

I'm liking it.

But, you know, you started to talk about it earlier and I'd love to go a

little bit deeper into, uh, the SEC's guidance on stable coins and, you know,

it being us backed one-to-one redeemable.

Requiring liquid reserves, not securities, like, help us

uncover that a little bit more

in April.

Um, the SEC published its own, uh, set of guidance.

Uh, and this is from the SEC's division of Trading Markets, I believe, uh, addressing

what they call covered stable coins,

it makes me start to to wonder, are they already expecting to provide returns on.

On stables, like, like are they, it's not like they're preparing for that

type of a, a position to be placed in?

Well, that, that's an interesting comment.

I hadn't thought about it that way.

Um, you know, from my perspective, um, you know, and just to give a

little bit more context, a covered stablecoin, according to the guidance,

if it meets that definition, generally would not be considered a security.

And that's the whole point of the guidance is to give.

Market some confidence that if you're doing stable coins the right way,

you're, you're not going to get an enforcement action or a subpoena by the

SEC. Um, and, you know, we talked about the payment Stable Coin Act before.

I think another, um, smart thing that has been done by the SEC here is that

they're getting ahead of the, the payment stablecoin Act a little bit and giving

the market a little bit more comfort.

Wow.

Some of the similar definitions are worked out in what will eventually become a

law, um, and maybe giving, you know, in some respects, giving the legislators.

Um, you know, some advice as to what that definition, you know,

might look like in the law.

Um,

just, just kind of giving a little bit of guidance, you know,

trying to shepherd it along.

I mean, that there's, there, there could be worse things that go on with that.

Uh, but the other thing that also happened, again, just keeping in

alignment with some of our, uh, our federal, federal agencies.

I mean, federal Reserve, uh.

Rolled back their restrictive guidance and really got it

really aligned with OCC and FDIC.

And, and you know, this, this month I've had a, had the opportunity to,

to participate, um, at, at the NACHA conference in, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

And this seemed to be a really big thing that they were talking about.

There is the, the guidance that has been adjusted by the OCC and the

FDIC around these types of things.

Really seems to be opening up a number of opportunities and making

these financial institutions feel a little bit more comfortable

with bringing on digital assets.

Now, again, I said a little bit more comfortable.

Not a lot.

It's not like they're gonna open the floodgates, but they're,

they're feeling that way.

Uh, what, what other things are you seeing with all of these rollbacks

and, and the perspectives that, that others are having from this?

Well, I, I think the develop the development you mentioned where we

now, as of the month of April, have all of the major US banking, right?

Federal regulators, essentially, um, in alignment in saying that, um, the, the

former process of a bank, uh, needing.

Notice or a letter of non objection, in other words, permission, um, to

engage in crypto related activities.

That guidance is gone and banks can now engage in crypto related

activities at their own discretion.

Mm-hmm.

But also subject to the normal supervisory review process.

So a bank will get reviewed and they'll get reviewed for a lot of different things

and crypto will be one of those things.

You know, and I think, um, part of the, um, press releases that announced

these developments noted that.

Um, the Web3 and digital asset industry has matured enough that some of the

risks that were there maybe a couple years ago, um, are not as prominent.

And so, you know, these risks can be addressed in the

normal supervisory process.

Now,

if the.

Systems and the market itself has matured a lot, though I believe that the

understanding from those who regulate it probably has matured more so than, than

the actual products and and technologies.

So that, that one, I, I see where you're headed with that.

Um, but you know, the thing I wanna talk about next is really, you

know, we look at this, we're talking about federal regulators, right?

And federal regulation.

But in the US the states can do all sorts of fun stuff, um, all by themselves.

And you know, the one that that makes, that has come to light,

especially this month, was Wyoming.

Um, they've decided, uh, to, to launch the YST.

It's in testing, they're running with that.

And then on top of that, you've got Custodial and Vantage that launched

their first bank stable coin.

I mean, there's just, there's so much stuff that's going on

at the state level right now.

Um, I, I, I'm starting to feel, and you and I kind of talked about this

as we were prepping over the last few weeks, because I'm starting to feel

like, I wonder if we're gonna start looking at digital assets the same way

we look at money transmitter licenses.

How it, it's, it's a state by state variation.

Uh, what, what are your.

Perspectives and what are, what are the things that I left out

that's going on at the state level?

Sure.

Well, I, I think first, you know, at, I think the states now are gonna

become a lot more comfortable, um, taking actions that maybe, uh, they

wouldn't necessarily have taken in, in the absence of, um, the recent

guidance from the federal regulators.

So companies and then even state-based agencies now have a

little bit more comfort, um, that.

The, um, the scrutiny that was there from the federal banking regulators

is not necessarily gonna be, um, as intense as it was a couple years ago.

That opens up, you know, gives confidence to state-based agencies as well as banks

within states that are operating our state charters, um, to take some actions that

maybe they were kicking around from, like an rn, you know, research and development

and new product perspective that.

They were afraid to launch a couple years ago and now, you know, I think

some of that fear has been lifted.

Um, and so I think in large part that has triggered some of these

developments, uh, like the ones you mentioned in the state of Wyoming.

Um, so when I look at

Wyoming is, has been very, um, digital asset forward for a really long time.

And then you look at a state like New York that has been

very, very super restrictive.

And the other state that I'm still trying to figure out why the, where

they're going and what they're doing with, with digital assets is Illinois.

But what, where do you, do you think it's gonna still be that,

that really broad chasm between like hyper restrictive and hyper uh.

Enablement, like, are, is that, is that something you're seeing?

And as you look through all of this stuff,

I, I think we're gonna see a, a, a real mix across the board.

I, you know, I think we're gonna see, um, you know, on one end, like the state

of New York, very restrictive licensing regime on another end, like the state

of Wyoming, uh, very open to innovation.

We couldn't picked any two further opposites.

And, and we'll see everything in between.

We'll see.

We're gonna see everything in between.

Um, and I think over time it may be, it may be that some of the states that,

um, are slower to act may sort of, uh, observe what the results are in, you

know, the more restrictive categories, less restrictive categories, and

then sort of follow suit, you know.

Um, and so just as a couple more recent examples, um, you

know, some states have been.

Discussing their own state-based strategic Bitcoin reserves.

You know, um, Arizona apparently is, is pretty far along in that process.

Yeah.

From what I understand.

But it's been really interesting to see how, how those types of things.

I think Texas is another one that has it on the books as well.

Um, I think we're gonna see a lot more, more folks do that.

And,

you know, this market is growing.

It's very big.

It's not just a one size fit all market.

So, uh, you know, as some more examples, you know, strategic Bitcoin reserve could

be one area where state focuses on another could be stable coins like Wyoming.

Another could be licensing for exchanges, think New York.

Oh yeah.

Um, another area could be the mining sector.

And Texas has been very receptive to the, the mining sector.

Uh, and there are, you know, I'm sure we could come up with many more, and

I think different states, maybe even based on their own sort of economies.

May pick and choose which areas in this market that they want to

regulate more heavily versus, um, take more of a light touch approach.

A lot of these states, and a lot of the players in this space aren't

waiting for an act of Congress, right?

They're, they're looking at the frameworks that are already there

that have already been working.

They're taking guidance from the enforcements that have

happened over the years and.

Really allowing people to, to find their way, whether they're, they're

navigating just based on the regulatory tone shifts, uh, the enforcements kind

of managing through that because it.

It doesn't mean that it's less responsibility when you have,

uh, everybody on the same page.

It just means that everybody is starting to look at it from the perspective of,

okay, so we know it's going to be here.

We know that we're gonna have to protect consumers and businesses and, and keep,

make sure that our economy keeps moving.

Um, and I, I think a lot of them are, are really starting to.

To, to see it from that perspective.

But,

but coming back to kind of your original point about Wyoming, you know, the concept

of a state getting ready to launch its own stable coin, that's groundbreaking.

You know, that that is really something that is, we haven't seen anything

like this before, you know, and that's, that's, that's fascinating.

And then also hosting, being the home state for what will

very likely be the first.

Bank, you know, chartered bank to issue a stable coin.

And I, I am, uh, pretty sure we're gonna see many more chartered banks issue their

own stable coins in the coming years.

You know, it's funny and I appreciate you bringing us back to that because

I've, I've been watching custodian and I've been watching Wyoming for so long,

and as probably many in the, in the industry have been that that big change

sometimes just is kind of like the.

The obvious next step, right?

So it doesn't feel as climactic as when you step back and you look at where it

started and where it's at today, that that really sets the, the stage and really

gives us a good perspective to look from.

I don't like to talk about all the negative stuff, but

I've got to bring it up.

And of course, because we have you from Baker here, um, I, I, I, I do

gotta, I, I do have to talk about the.

The legal regulatory enforcement whirlwind that we've had.

But I thought it was really interesting that in April alone, um, SEC either

dropped or settled with Ripple and Coinbase and Kraken and Immutable

and Yugo Labs and Gemini, and Consensus and Robinhood and open seat.

Uh, I could probably go on for another five minutes of listing all of the

enforcements that were in flight.

Have just been resolved.

I've got to imagine that you're seeing and you're hearing a

huge, huge sigh of relief.

What, what is your perspective on this enforcement environment now?

Well, you know, look, being a, um, a payments professional and FinTech.

Web3 attorney for, you know, over 12 years now and working my entire career

in compliance and investigations.

I think what I could say big picture is that, you know, the regulations

are always changing, so, you know, you've gotta be nimble, especially

in FinTech and Web3 because they're changing, they always change rapidly.

And, um, you've gotta keep up on those changes so that you can understand the

current environment plan for the future.

And we're seeing, we, we have seen a real sea change, uh, no doubt about it.

I think that is, at this point, you know, based on all, a lot of those, um,

actions you just mentioned, it's, it is 110% clear to everyone that there

has absolutely been a sea change, um, in the enforcement environment.

And that obviously opens up a lot of opportunities and, uh, you know, allows

businesses to pivot from, you know, sort of, uh, what may have been a more

defensive stance, uh, to more of an offensive stance, you know, to, to

try to capture or be more aggressive, try to capture some of those market

opportunities, uh, that maybe they were discussing in years past, but

were, um, you know, a little bit, bit too, uh, Tim had just pull the

trigger on for, for very good reasons.

Um, and so I think that, you know, that change in the marketplace

has at this point become.

Absolutely 110% clear to everybody.

There's no doubt that there has been that pivot.

And I think that is, you know, one of the things we can absolutely say

coming out of the month of April, uh, with all of the actions you mentioned,

um, be being dropped, uh, over the course of really March and April, I.

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And you know, New York has always been very, uh, regulatory

or, or enforcement heavy.

I mean, just this April.

Um, they find block, uh, $40 million for some a ML violations.

I don't know that's quite a bit.

But if you look at the total assets that block has in digital

assets, it's not really that

much.

You know, part of the message with that action is that the

state of New York, as we would've expected, is going to continue.

To police this industry and is going to continue to find companies that it

thinks, uh, are violating its New York Bit license regime and is gonna continue

to take, uh, in particular anti-money laundering violations very seriously

In the early days and even some conversations today, you

still have people saying that cryptocurrency is, is for criminals,

cryptocurrency is for the scammers.

Um, I think we're, we're.

We've moved past that, but this is just another area where the, the providers

and the technology and the fintechs in the middle can, can get a little

bit over their skis and, and maybe not meet the criteria that is there

and perpetuate a little bit of that.

Hopefully it doesn't keep going, but you have the hacks and you

have the social engineering.

You have all these other different things that, that the losses and the fraud

and the scams that go along with it.

Are are crazy.

Um, but one of the things that you wrote about in the blog

is that crypto theft totals.

Um, right about 1.63 billion ish.

I'm using a ish area.

Um, I thought that was really interesting because if you look at it, that's

about 1% of the total market cap.

For Bitcoin itself.

So that's a lot, a lot of value that's been stolen.

Yeah, it, it, it's, it's, it's really a staggering number.

And, you know, as you know, Ted, like one of the things I, I say all

the time is that, um, in my view, the biggest threat to the crypto

industry, uh, becoming adopted by the mainstream is not regulation.

It's actually hacks and scams.

And other related threats.

And I think, um, a lot of the data that we saw published in the month of

April, um, really underscores that.

So 1.3 billion worth of crypto lost in Q1 2025 alone.

So just the first quarter of this year.

And as you mentioned, that representing 1% of the entire, what is it,

the entire Bitcoin market cap.

Uh, yeah, so that's a, that's a very big number.

Um, that's a, it's a very big vulnerability, frankly, um,

of this growing, um, digital asset based financial system.

I mean, these things are happening on, on defi platforms.

They're happening through, you know, social engineering

where someone says, Hey.

Take a picture of the, the QR code for your wallet and like, there's

so many different things on do you are, what are some of the.

The ones that, that you came across in doing the research that just, you're like,

wow, I would've never thought about that.

Generally, um, take a couple different forms.

So, um, hacks of exchanges, that's always been a threat.

And, you know, we, um, had the recent buy that hack, I believe

that was in March on April.

But, um, that was the, at that time the biggest, became the biggest

hack, uh, of an exchange ever.

Happening happening in 2025.

Uh, we've got scams.

To your point, that's been a growing concern.

Uh, um, and you know, there are even.

Um, by, by many accounts, um, large operations overseas that are all fully

with like the lots of people dedicated to proliferating these scams where

they're just looking to trick people, uh, into sending them their cryptocurrency

or trick people into giving them credentials that allow them to hack

someone's cryptocurrency accounts, um, or company's cryptocurrency accounts.

Um, and then we've got Defi Hacks.

So just a couple data points, um, from April alone.

Uh, in April, $90 million worth of crypto was stolen from Defi platforms.

Um, some of those, some examples, uh.

We had hacks of the Aber Cadabra Money Defi platform, the ZO platform, and more

recently the the Luke Scale platform.

These are all popular Defi platforms that were hacked for 13 million,

8.4 million, 5.8 million in crypto.

Um, not enormous, but enough to really, uh, it adds up.

Yeah.

And, and diminishes trust, you know, and I think that's another big factor.

Yeah.

From my perspective, it makes sense.

Like the, the folks who are more technologically or technical savvy

would be less prone, uh, to, to some sort of malicious attack

or hack or something like that.

But it seems to be, at least for right now, and maybe it's vibe

coding that's causing this to happen.

But you know, they're coming through, uh, API hacks, they're coming through,

uh, Python packages, like all these different things that are coming on

that you would think that someone who understands the technology at that layer

would, would know what to look for.

It, it like.

That's surprising to me.

Yeah.

And that's an example of a new a, a growing attack vector.

And I think a sign that some of these attacks are becoming more

sophisticated and looking to target more sophisticated victims, people

that are likely to use crypto or maybe likely a whole large amounts of crypto.

Um, but to your point, you know, in April we, we reported on, um,

two pretty sophisticated hacks where the hackers didn't attempt

to hack the victim directly.

Instead, the hackers.

Um, altered and inserted malware, uh, crypto malware into popular,

uh, programs that are, um, popular among crypto users to download and

deploy in various applications.

So, you know, that's a sign that you see hackers targeting, um, more sophisticated

users, whether those might be companies that are building their own crypto

infrastructure like we talked about.

The proprietary staking services earlier, uh, or maybe, uh, they're targeting

more sophisticated users who are more likely to hold crypto on their own rather

than on, on a third party exchange.

Uh, and likely to hold, frankly, more crypto, you know, higher volumes.

Um, and obviously the hackers are interested in that.

Oh yeah.

The, the bigger the honey pot, the, the more bears will come,

come trying to get to that honey.

So, totally.

Got it.

You know, we've covered a bunch of stuff today.

Obviously we can't cover everything that happened in April, but these are the

ones that, that we really identified and thought were important to bring up.

One of the things that's important to note is what we've noticed in April is

that the Web3 landscape, um, seems to be on that tipping point from the theory of

what could be to starting to move towards the execution of what can be and really

is giving us the next steps of what to do and how to get there and how to enable it.

And I can only imagine.

The number of announcements that come out in May are just going to

continue to come, especially with these historic changes that we've had so far.

Rob, what?

What are some of the things that, that you think we might.

Might see happen in May that were just signals being sent to us in April.

Well, I certainly think we're going to see this continuation of, um, developments

in stable coins, and I think we're gonna see more people enter that market.

Uh, the players that are already in that market looking to launch new products.

Maybe there's products that are.

Getting ready to be launched behind the scenes, uh, that

could make a, a large impact.

Um, but I absolutely think stable point applications, integration

between traditional crypto firms, Web3 firms with traditional financial

services firms will absolutely for you, uh, continue to be a trend.

I think it'll be interesting to see, um.

How the regulatory environment in the US continues to evolve.

You know, as we talked about, we've seen a clear 180 degree

shift, a, a clear sea change.

And then, um, you know, will we see more developments along those lines in may?

Probably, uh, what form will they take?

It's hard to say.

And so that, that will be interesting.

And then at some point we're gonna sort of, the regulatory environment

should shift focused from sort of.

Dismantling the policies of the prior administration to then building

kind of the foundational policies of the current administration.

We're seeing some of that with the SEC statements that we talked

about today, but I think we're gonna see more and more of that.

Um, the SEC is gonna continue its roundtables where it's

receiving input from the public, um, on, um, oh, you know what?

That round.

So the, the last round table of, of, of April, um, I, I did,

I did, uh, watch it, uh, live.

Uh, it was very informative.

Um, if you watch it on YouTube, um, go ahead and bump it up to like five

x. Um, that, that'll get you there.

Or, or just copy the transcript.

Throw it in the chat, GPT and read through it.

It'll, it'll help you out and it'll save yourself at least four and a half hours.

And, well, folks, I. That's it for this episode of Web3 with FTC.

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