Regulation: Finding Clarity Across Borders

Transcript

Guys, welcome, welcome, welcome. We're going to have a lots of fun this morning. Uh, talk about the exciting world of regulations and what's happening uh across the world where we're going to go from Asia to the Middle East to the US. Uh, all I promise you, it's going to be interesting, exciting, and hopefully very, very insightful. My goal is you leave this room in a couple minutes and at least you have the information needed to try to make your own view on where we're going from a regulation perspective, policy perspective. And to do this, we had the dream team with us as Andrew introduced us all one by one. Uh I'm really excited to do this. Brian, by the way, uh Andrew mentioned his role that he has with SUI, but one thing you may not know about him, he's a big golfer.

>> Well, yes, last night we had Lando Norris. And Brian, maybe it's time to go hit some balls with him. I I didn't bring my clubs with me. >> Great courses in Singapore. By the way, uh Jake as well from Hyperlquid the policy center. One thing you may not know about Jake, he in his spare time when he's not busy but with policy, he's a big gardener. You want to ask him about cherry tomatoes. He's the expert. Jake, great to have you with us as well. Great to be here. >> Deepa with whom I have a one-on-one later on today as well. Uh we we'll talk about all the great work she's done at VAR as well. Deepa, by the way, you want commitment from a regulator. She literally lives next to the office.

Literally, I'm not kidding. Like her her house, her apartment is in the same building as the office. Hey, that's that's a that's a role model for a lot of other uh regulators we should add around the world. And of course, last but not least, Arjenti from Payward. Uh the company that owns the whole company of Kraken. And when he's not busy with with Kraken and Payward, he spends time with his kids on the weekend. See everybody in crypto. Great. We're great family uh men on that perspective. Adepa, I'm going to kick it off with you. Uh you know, let's talk about the regulatory framework, what we're seeing globally. I've been privileged to see the growth of VAR from the early days.

What have you learned when it comes to regulatory policym and actually setting up the ecosystem that crypto companies companies need? What have we learned with the VAR experience? And can you share with the audience as well about what makes VAR unique as a regulator for crypto? Uh look, first and foremost, thanks for having me here. And um uh and Henry, you've known us for since our birth. We've been born about four years ago. Uh we're probably the world's only regulator that's a specialist in virtual assets. Uh and as a consequence, we're relatively unique compared to the rest of the world, right? Uh and given that we are relatively young in the game, one of the things that I'm I'm glad that Henry firstly thinks we've learned something, which is good. It's a good

starting point. Uh what I will say is from our perspective uh being a startup regulator versus being a scaleup is no different from most of you in the world of crypto and as you come to a little bit more of a maturity and scale up environment. You also find that your rules and your um your ability to adapt to the changing environment needs to keep pace with the market. If not you're going to be left behind. Right? So what we started with laying the foundations, laying a framework is very different from where we are today where the kind of maturity of players that come into the market, how diversified they are, how deep they are in their expertise and also how willing they are to participate

with the regulator to take uh uh take the industry to the next level. That's been extremely revealing and revolutionary from our own understanding of the market. And I would say uh that's something that most uh most industries probably don't offer because they come in with a a great deal of stability already set up and in this it's it's a very mutually respectful environment as at least as far as the Dubai market is concerned. you know the you mentioned the stability side we need we need obviously crypto regulations we need clear policym around the world and one market that matters a lot is I think uh is is obviously what's happening in the US right um maybe I'll start with you Brian on this obviously clarity didn't work this year it didn't pass and now

we're trying we're seeing the SEC and the CFTC try to close that gap to what extent you believe that the SEC and the CFTC can close this gap and actually the rulemaking authority that the regulators have will they will be able to actually uh compensate for what we're not able to achieve with the clarity act. >> Yeah. So I think first it's it's easy to look back on the last two maybe even four years starting with the fit 21 bill and find ourselves where we are now and say gosh what a waste of time. You know we we put all this effort in only for this to fail in the Senate. But I think that's the wrong perspective because the work that was put into this product over

that period of time has now really informed the regulators about how to think about some of these nuanced issues about what kind of aspects of crypto and blockchain are important for them to consider in uh thinking about what kind of rules and regulations no longer need to apply to this space. uh because there aren't aspects of control or there aren't the same risks to the consumers. And so what we're seeing now is we're seeing the SEC and the CFTC uh start to issue their own rules under their existing authorities because they have very broad exemptive powers to create new architecture that can accommodate these business models in the absence of

uh a piece of legislation. The question of how durable it is, you know, I think will be an open question. Um, I think it's going to depend on how soon we see those rules finalized and how much business activity gets conducted under them because the more activity there is under a legal framework, the harder it is to reverse ultimately and make all of that activity illegal. Uh, so I think that there's actually a very good chance we could get the same amount of clarity now >> as we could have with the law. You know, I interviewed I'll get your view on this Jake in a second. Like I interviewed the governor Cuomo yesterday exactly on the stage and his view was and obviously comes from a different perspective, but that there's a there's a high chance

that things get rolled back uh you know because it's become so partisan. What's your view on that, Jake? Do you agree with Brian that you think that it's difficult to roll them back? I I couldn't agree more with Brian and I I'll start by saying I I think um it's important to recognize as he did how many years went into this effort and not just the 21 four years ago but before that the DCA and before that the DCCPA and before that the DCEA and before that the token tax, right? So on and on and on. This is a a a labor of love and one that has yielded a great deal of consensus. perhaps not enough to get it across the finish line in the Senate, but a lot of agreement on both sides of the aisle about how this industry should

be regulated. And I do agree entirely that the agencies have all the authority that they need, not just through exemptive authority, but also interpretive authority and new rulemaking authority to establish a market structure under regulation rather than legislation that will work for products that are genuinely in demand by the market. and also couldn't agree more that provided we see those markets come online in a robust fashion over the course of the next 2 years, I think it will be very difficult and very uh politically unpalatable to just wipe out a market that is actually trading in a way that consumers and institutions

actually want. The question is if we can get there and I think that we have great leaders of both the SEC and the CFTC in Chair Atkins and Chairman Celig. And so I'm optimistic that we will get there. >> So in a way do you believe and I'll pass it to you Arjun but like that if it becomes like a bit like Uber if everybody using crypto like that it's too big then to put the genie back in the bottle or are we already in that situation like you said to roll it back you know it'll be very interesting to see how it evolves uh on that side. Arjun from your side you you've been in the crypto community for a long time.

You've you know the VC world very well as well. what you think we could have all done better to have either clarity pass or even done a better job to ensure the success of the policym and rulemaking around crypto. Yeah, I think one thing that we tend to forget is we have like a a recency bias around the clarity didn't work [clears throat] but uh not just us but you know a lot of other companies all over the world um they either have commodities licenses, securities licenses um and so I'll kind of walk you through like what we do. So >> we're registered to move money and banking and lending in Australia.

>> Same in the United States. We have an SPDI in Wyoming. Um we have money transfer licenses in each state. And then we have the uh same types of licenses in Canada. And then let's move over to the UK. We have an MTF um uh money transfer licenses, EMI licenses. And then uh so so banking money movement deposits again. Um we'd announced or I had announced that we're you know in the process of acquiring a bank in Lithuania. Um and so that's in a one member state. At the same time we're compliant with MA. We also have our myth license. Um, you know, hopefully, you know, knock on with soon to be invara.

Um, we have our card issuance through Hong Kong. Um, like the list just goes on the types of companies just like us where we're regulated all over the world to be able to um, support our customers. And, and I think in the past, you just had one company do one specific use case, you know, uh, a broker dealer or uh, securities licenses or trading, you know, banking deposits. so on and so forth. And so um the whole world has been used to what I call you know the brickandmortar uh money movement and and uh you know post World War II sort of infrastructure of like people moving around and and getting access to their capital and digital assets is not about something that's you know um NFTTS or something that's speculative. It's just

you have capital and collateral um on behalf of your customers and they want to do something with it and they want to do something that's as seamless as possible. And so if they want to trade, if they want to get yield, if they want to lend it out, if they want to move across borders, if they want to spend against it, all these things are happening at um speed. And then now when you add, you know, crypto and AI agents getting access to that same collateral, the world is moving at a faster and faster pace. >> And so um even in the United States, it's not like this hasn't been happening. It has been happening. The market's been continuing to evolve. We did have Genius Act, right? And so it creates a stability around like what this type of collateral can do and where it moves.

>> [snorts] >> Um, and so I'm I'm actually generally pretty optimistic where I'm not really worried about the regulators figuring out what to do. It's more about you, we've spent the last, you know, not just two years, but 15 years educating them along the way. Uh, and more so over the last two years around like, okay, well, here's what the world is starting to look like at a faster pace. Here's where they're innovating um in these emerging markets. And frankly, in some cases, here's how fast they're innovating where we're being left behind. And so at some point I think the regulators you know um as well as the house and the senate in the United States were even worldwide I think the tone has changed a lot where even when I go to Europe and we start talking about look we want to be able to

give access to companies in your own jurisdiction to go public on our capital markets which which will happen soon. This is something that they have to grasp very quickly because um it helps with their forward mobility of you know even their own constituents and at some point you got to turn the corner. And you mentioned that we you spent all these years educating the regulators and Brian and Jake, I'll bring it to you. Like do do you believe this lobbying and spending time with policy makers actually works? I mean maybe Jake from your side. I mean that's what you do, right? I mean that was a strategy Hyperlid was setting up and actually spending time educating about DeFi and and everything around.

>> I Well, I do. I I'll be curious what former commissioner Quinton >> Yeah, exactly. I want to hear the other side of the when you're on the receiving side. But no, look, I I I I will say that um that uh Brian was an inspiration to me because he was one of the first regulators when he was at the CFTC who genuinely understood the benefits of public blockchains and the promise of decentralized financial infrastructure. And I I think although I'll be curious what his his perspective is, that's because he took it upon himself to educate himself about these different issues and and new technologies at a time when there was not a lot of engagement from the industry trying to talk to regulators about what the the promise of of this space really was.

>> That was a mistake we did as a community, not talking enough. >> I don't know that it was a mistake. I mean, you know, I remember listening to to Brian on a podcast. It might have been, you know, back in 2019 or 2020. That's pretty early in the history of this industry. And you have to remember for the first 10 years or so after the creation of Bitcoin, there weren't a lot of folks who wanted to engage with government in the first place. The the space was largely comprised of libertarians who thought that government had no place regulating the industry at all. And it wasn't really until we started building new tools and and products and services that were broadly appealing that really did deserve regulation in some form or fashion that it made sense to begin engaging. And I I

think it is so important and there is still such an education gap that is an an obligation of those of us working on policy to make sure we're communicating clearly about what it is we're building and how we view the future of finance. So, Brian, as a former CFTC commissioner, what what do you think of that? >> Well, first of all, Jake, thank you for your comments. That's very uh very meaningful to me to hear. Um, we would not be anywhere close to where we are in the United States uh with the positive views of regulators and the positive perspective of many policy makers without Jake's leadership in those discussions throughout many different um roles that he has had. So, I thank you for that. Um I I mean everything is a matter of first impressions. There's

always a limited amount of time no matter what kind of roles you have. Um and when new technology or new innovations or something different comes along, it's really hard to try to think about it as something new as opposed to something old that's repackaged. >> Um just because of those time constraints. And the way that you can force yourself to do that and to make that adjustment is by engaging with people that understand it and having them come to you and want to speak to you about why this is different, why you need to think about it differently, why some of the rules may not fit and why that's okay. You know, as a regulator, you don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to be embarrassed by allowing something to happen that ends up with a

bad outcome. >> Yeah. >> But at the same time, you also have to embrace people's freedoms. you have to embrace people's freedoms to take responsibility for their own actions as long as um you know the regulatory structure isn't compromised for the risk that those do present to people that can be controlled. Um and so the engagement has been key. It's been key all along. I certainly benefited from it a lot. I took it upon myself to learn about it but I couldn't have done that you know by myself in isolation. >> You need it uh interesting. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. What do you think should be done if you know what do you think regulators should do more to educate internally on these? I mean you did it you you took it upon yourself to basically uh learn about the topic and you were able to leverage the resources

that were available but what do you think regulators should do more to ed to get up to speed on digital assets? >> I mean I think they should be able to use these products. I mean, I think right now there's there's there's basically a a blanket prohibition on anyone owning or trading crypto if you're in a regulatory position in the government and and like how can you even familiarize yourself with the benefits of the technology or how it works if you can't use it? And it's and and look, I get it. There there are very legitimate concerns around conflicts of interest and making sure that you're not enriching yourself in your government service and those are very appropriate but where we are now is kind of absurd and ludicrous and people need to be able to familiarize yourself by using these things.

>> Yeah. So talk about using tools. I think that's the best way to learn about crypto right you got to use it and to understand how it works. One of them I want to talk about new new products new instruments. Uh let's talk about derivatives in particular. Actually Deep, I'll move it to you because and from a VAR perspective, how are you guys dealing with these new instruments? And I'm going to bring it to you guys on the on the derivative and per aspects as well. What's your view? What's been var's approach to understanding and regulating new instruments that are coming into the crypto world? I'm I'm firstly going to resonate what both Brian and uh Jacob just said, right? Unless you're willing to engage with the industry and see where their head is at, you're simply never going to be on top of what you

require to do as a regulator in order to enable them. But it's as fundamental as that. I think all people at this table in this forum um are are um not only familiar with it, but they've gone through the process themselves. of course as a fellow regulator you would also uh brand's more familiar with that environment anyway in in our context we would say there's a set of rules that borrows obviously set up and in the first two years of our existence and in the last couple of years it's been more about engaging with the market that we already licensed we've got a reasonably significant number of licences right we've got about I think 58 as of this morning uh number of licensed fully regulated entities and each one of them

will have a a different way in which they want to evolve their product and service to market. And Arjun just said this a little while ago. No one is still only dealing with uh I'm a I'm a native crypto person. I want to stick with crypto and I wanted to only um um exchange activity or broker dealer activity or what have you. They want to spread across the chain and you need to evolve in set in terms of setting up your own rules to facilitate that. So the only thing in VAR that is not permitted to be done by the rest of the uh service providers is custody activity. So that's got to be exclusive.

But other than that, pretty much everything is funible. You mentioned the things about new products, new tools that are coming to market, derivatives being one of them. We uh we typically engage in what we call an MVP program, a minimum viable product program. Um people like to talk about it as a sandbox. We kind of think of sandboxes as as where you just go and never get out of. It's uh sandboxes are a very very limited types of practices. This needs to be a full market exercise because if you don't see something operating at scale, you simply don't know where the risk is. So typically an MVP is for institutional and qualified investors. No retail is permitted. But at that point you're able to see also

what scale can do or rapidity of process can do to to kill it industry right so derivatives was one one such kind we had about four entities working with us through the MVP and they all kind of got through we developed rule books around them we observed them in practice we create the rules thereafter and once we launched the rules in March of last year uh you then had people licensed by May and they were operational by about June or July So just as as a context from June of last year to to um the December the amount of trading activity that happened just because you enabled regulated derivatives was about 7x what had happened the year before.

>> Wow. Interesting. >> Significant. >> Interesting. Before on derivatives, I'm just going to on that point right as we're seeing even more convergence even between Tratify and crypto as well. I mean you guys have had tremendous success with all these security tokens on the platform which I think is quite impressive. Are you seeing this being a problem? Are you seeing that there's the regulators are not catching up with where the market is heading? >> I think the I'm trying to tone down how I think about the world with regulators and lawyers here. I I I think the uh >> I'm not a regulator. the [laughter] former former um I I I think the biggest issue is we talk about rules around how to protect and uh the biggest if if if I was in any government or local um you

know capital markets is a large part of your economy and your country surviving. Yeah. >> Um and so when you think about the heartbeat of an economy and you think about like your constituents and your customers, I actually think like most regulators um and rulemakers kind of lose the plot. And so if you just take a look at what the world used to look like from, you know, the 1980s and the 2000s, 2010s where we are today, um, US has just continued to far exceed um, any other market in the world. And that's continuing to happen. And so um, when you've got an elephant in the room that's actually just becoming bigger, as becoming the woolly mammoth, um, you have to sort of sit back and think like, well, what are you doing to continue to lose this market? That's one. And I think like most of the conversations

that we have in at you know at the white house or even with the house and the senate and so it may look chaotic on the side is really about how does the US win continue to innovate and then build the best uh products and service for um its US space as well as people all over the world. How does that continue to happen? And so I I I think again there has to be a um a sort of mental uh uh mindframe switch to say okay yes you can protect but you can also regulate to death where it's just not going to happen. Yeah. >> And so um to your point yes it could grow 7x but like you know worldwide derivatives and perpetual markets like that's the majority of volume the world and there's a reason why it's happening in DeFi. There's a reason why innovation

is happening outside of these regulated markets. And so you can make an argument to say u hey that's unsafe. But if you take a look at okay well why do people use it? Well they're opting out of the regulated system. They're opting out of the products and services that are regulated. They're opting out of really really bad products where you're reading disclaimers where you're about to commit suicide before you say accept. And so I think like there there's a there's a large dichotomy to that. And so, you know, part of what we try to do and educate is like, look, this is ideally good for your economy, your customer, because they're already going to do it anyways. And the worst thing that can happen is them leaving a region, uh, your customers. Um, and so we we have a lot of flow when we see our customers.

Again, we do a lot of banking. And so you know what we try to tell a lot of the European regulators is we just see a lot of capital flight and movement of our largest VIP customers leaving the UK, leaving Europe and coming to Dubai. >> The biggest risk to Dubai or you know UAE at some point is them doing the same thing. Yeah. Uh Singapore doing the same thing, Hong Kong doing the same thing. And so if you want economic viability, your your rules and regulations have to catch up with what's happening with what the customer demands in the markets are. >> It's and on that point I can see I mean I can always say but with my hedge fund in Dubai I'm one minute walk away from all my counterp parties one minute walk and obviously we can see the impact with

the volumes as well you mention about derivatives right I mean in traditional markets the derivatives are 56x spot markets and it's the same in crypto >> crypto is I think that people don't know the size and scale it's it's 95% of all crypto derivatives yeah >> it's absolutely huge here obviously we're in Singapore there was a big article in the FT yesterday at the time this is October 8 for those listening to the recording afterwards a very you know uh talking about hyper native and uh the fact that obviously in the US it's sensitive in Singapore as well ironically what's your view how do you think we're going to be able to have derivatives in particular like products like Hyperlid available in the US >> yeah well I I think um a couple thoughts on this one is whatever product is

offered in any given jurisdiction has to comply with the laws of that jurisdiction a very simple thing to say but but I think worth repeating for for those who think that putting a product on a blockchain somehow circumvents the the laws or regulations in a given jurisdiction. That is absolutely not the case. I think also that there is a a broad misunderstanding about what hyperlquid is. Hyperlid is infrastructure. It is not itself an exchange. Hyperlquid is technology that allows any other person who wants to offer a product and service to their customer or some user to do that in a more efficient, more resilient, more secure, more transparent way than they would if they were using legacy technology such as a centralized

proprietary backend as the traditional financial system has been doing for decades and decades. And the question becomes, how does an entity that has a customer or user base offer a market that trades, clears, and settles on a public blockchain like Hyperlid in compliance with the the laws and regulations of that jurisdiction. Now, we at Hyperlid Policy Center are mostly focused on engaging with US regulators. So that means talking to the CFTC about how this could work. And I won't be telling anyone anything you wouldn't hear directly from Chairman Celig when he goes on podcasts or gives uh you know talks about what it means to have onchain markets in the United States.

The CFTC has a regulatory framework that it is required to administer under the Commodity Exchange Act. That regulatory framework includes registrants that have to comply with core principles and ensure that they're satisfying all the obligations under law. And it's it's a very um complicated although also uh in some ways a little bit boring uh mission to figure out how does one of those entities swap out the technology that it's been using for this next generation of technology. But I do think that's the direction that we're heading.

>> Just as a reminder um we announced that we're bringing Hyperlink to the United States in a compliant format. Um so hit three star and so to his point yeah >> yeah it's extremely complicated with the existing license but to the point in the United States is that you know even without clarity you can still clear so a DCM a DCO and an FCM there's multiple folks in which they can bring you know infrastructure like hyperlquid and that type of product to the United States >> talking about finding clarity cross borders perfect example of that Arjun Brian what do you think as a former uh you know from all your experience in the CFTC to what Arjun and Jake said on this >> yeah Well, I really like what Jake was talking about. In fact, I mean, um, I wish more projects in the ecosystem were

like Hyperlid. Um, you know, you just think about the airdrop that they did, uh, and how we were seeing a lot of the opposite of that in the space where projects are dangling airdrops in front of their users to farm them for volume to basically extract higher valuations from VCs that enrich themselves. you know, one of those is an extraction of a community and one of those rewards a community. Um, and I mean, I just have I just have a very very high regard for the Hyperlquid team. um for taking that and and and showing the example of that across the industry. And I think to Jake's point around uh what the CFTC has been describing and what the chairman

has been saying in the recent speech that he gave earlier this week and talking about onchain finance. You know, he was he was noting that the commission is looking at um how to think about, you know, areas where there are where there is control over certain aspects of derivative offerings. What it means to control the offering and listing of a derivative. what it means to control the execution of a derivative, the settlement of a derivative, you know, the custody of customer funds. Those are very important things that might invoke the CFTC's rulebook. But if there is no control or if there's a lack of control and how the agency defines that, then maybe you absolve, you know, the

technology of needing to comply with very specific registrant focused rules. um that is going to be a complete you know landscape shift in terms of how a regulator thinks about applying its rule sets to this new technology. It's going to be very exciting to watch. It's going to take a lot of hard work. I'd expect them to be conservative early and then build on that. Um but uh you know we're in we're in for kind of a treat. It might might take a little longer than people want but um it's going to be exciting.

>> Talking about the excitement uh I I know you sit on the board of Kalshi. What's your view on where we are right now on prediction markets? If I could put a bet on Kelshi, I would say that it's going to the Supreme Court. >> I think that's a good good trade. A good trade. >> Should see if it's available on the markets. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, Cali can't list that because they have [laughter] some kind of, you know, ability to affect the settlement of that contract. So, ironically, um, they can't be involved with that. But, but I agree. I mean, right now, I think there's a discussion and and and legal challenges that are happening because I think people's first impression is that, well, this looks like some of these some of the aspects of this look like gambling. Yeah.

>> It looks like things that we would normally see in a casino. But I think number one, people need to be a lot more intellectually honest and thorough when they try to differentiate speculation from gambling >> and where you draw those lines and why and is it really about what the product is or what the product is on or is it about someone's intent or is it about the venue? Uh, further, I also think there's a misunderstanding that allowing the CFTC and of reaffirming federal preeemption of the CFTC's rules over derivatives, exchanges, and the products listed there in any way negates state authority over their own businesses and casinos.

They're different business models. They have different risks. They offer different purposes. Um so I think this is going to the Supreme Court but I think there's a middle of the road outcome that can you know allow each to continue. >> I think it could be very very interesting uh to see. I think the prediction market ecosystem is where crypto was a couple years ago. It's a lot to be done on that side. We we really have a couple minutes left and I just you guys are you know both Brian Jake and Arjun you guys are very bullish from a US perspective actually which is very uh refreshing to hear actually >> and I want to just as bullish on international market >> international as well. So I mean so on that point Arjun like how do you make sure to uh I would argue right now the

US is a great place to launch a crypto business in practice I mean we're in Singapore people will tell me Henry that's great but I can set up my business but then I cannot get a visa or the tax situation right whereas one thing that Dubai has done very well there's all these regulation been like visas and and then lifestyle everything is very easy how do you think we can overcome that hurdle from a US perspective >> or doesn't matter >> yeah I'm not a policy yeah immigration expert. Um, I was born in the United States, so >> you know, my blue passport works. Um, >> uh, look, look, I I think I think it just really comes down to um, well, you know, historically, if you take a look at the United States has always been oscillation with immigration. So, um, I

think these things have a general tendency to recalibrate. Look, I I think one of the things that works really well and I'm a venture capitalist across multiple companies in multiple jurisdictions, you know, till till the state regardless of what happens, the US is still the easiest place to do business. It's the fastest way to be able to experiment, uh fastest place to be able to get customers. It's also, you know, one of the key markets outside of what we've seen recently where um the speed and adoption and distribution because you've got rule of law, you've got, you know, um um I'd say like, you know, contract law, especially at a federal level. Um you know, I'm not thinking about >> a California perspective versus a New York perspective until recently with crypto with u um like custody laws. But

you know outside of that like you you you open up your business in California and you know sell a product um in anywhere in the United States and and then in many cases it extends to other other places in western markets. My my hope is that just continues to happen in cascades. And so I think a part of what regulators actually do pretty well is you know talk to each other around like what does transatlantic trade look like? What does it look like between the Pacific? How do the how do these regulatory rules extend? I think what's more important when we're talking about prediction market is crypto financial services that actually how does that extend so that if you want to innovate in Dubai if you want to innovate in Singapore or Hong Kong how can you extend those products and services into the United States as fast as possible.

>> Do you think deeper on your side the the inherent benefits of Dubai lifestyle weather location ease like contributed to make the success you've had with Vara in building the ecosystem? >> You mentioned weather that's definitely not one of them. >> Yeah. Yeah. Definitely not in the summer. Yeah, >> seriously. Uh but everything else works and I I will say that um look um I moved to Dubai from the US, right? So I'm very familiar with uh uh with the kind of environment and a very entrepreneurial setup uh that the US offers. What I will say about Dubai though is um is the fact that the government's willing to work with the market is willing to work in in collaboration with any industry that

comes up and this this is not an exception. So we aren't a very hydrocarbon based environment even though people may think so. It's very much about what new industries are coming up and how do we create around them enable them in a way in which it's not just right for the professional uh but also right for their families is education and available for the children once you make it sticky enough for a population exiting a country becomes extremely difficult right you know yourself >> we'll talk about that for those interested I'm doing a one-on-one with Deepa later this this afternoon to go more in depth on those topics so uh I think very very interesting point on the stickiness of the ecosystem. Guys, we literally have two minutes left. My best friend, the bell, is here with me. I'm

going to ask you guys quick questions and I need one or two word answers. >> Hope you guys are ready. >> Well, even if you're not, we're going anyway. So, like, uh, we're getting kicked. I'm going to start with you, Brian, here. >> Uh, let's start where, um, what is the one thing that is exciting you the most uh, in the crypto ecosystem right now? >> Um, actually tokenized yield-based products. >> Yeah, lot lots of stuff. Yep. >> Oh, same question. Yep. >> Perpetual futures. >> Perpetual futures. Oh, here you go. Deepa, what's exciting you most about crypto ecosystem right now? >> Uh, they're coming to a gather of trad.

>> AI agents, machine to machine, programmable capital. >> Opposite question. What is the what's what's the one thing that's scaring you the most right now in crypto that we're not paying enough attention to? >> Nothing really scary right now. >> Life is good. Deeper, >> I would say uh prediction markets. >> Yeah, prediction market. interesting. >> Uh the ticking clock. Uh time is short and we have a lot to do. >> Yeah, it's a good point. >> I I would say um people that don't think they have to follow the rules and and um you [snorts] know maybe get away with it in the short term, but ultimately it's going to harm the ecosystem.

>> Very very very wise words. Um interesting one. I'm starting with you this one, Brian. If you could go back to university today, what would you study knowing what you know about the future of finance that you think every student in the room should study? >> Um, computer science and public policy. >> Very good. >> Uh, the same thing I did study which is psychology. >> Psychology. Here we go. Deepa. >> I actually studied architecture so has nothing to do with what I do today but I would probably do the same. >> Same. Okay. Arjun >> uh that university and education was the biggest waste of time in my life.

[laughter] >> I think many would argue I agree with that in the room. Um interesting one. Um the actually let's do one for Singapore. What's your favorite thing about being in Singapore? >> Uh the food. >> Food. Deepa. >> Wow. I I really got to answer that coming from Dubai. I I actually do like the diversity of the population. >> Yeah, very nice one. >> Yeah. Having locka for breakfast. The >> Here we go. >> Um the landscaping. >> Landscape. Wow. Here we go. I thought you were in gardening as well now with >> [laughter] >> uh with Jake. And guys, to finish it off, uh my traditional question, whoever comes on stage or on my show, um I'm going to start with you, Arjun, on this.

Uh, if you could have a lunch or dinner with one person dead or alive, lunch or dinner with one person dead or alive, who would you have lunch with? Albert Einstein. >> Albert Einstein. Here we go. >> I just want to know if the quotes that everyone quotes, if he ever said it, I don't [laughter] >> I would have actually picked Newton. >> Newton. Here we go. My god. Einstein Newton. Jake. Um, George Washington. >> Wow. Here we go. Here we go. And to finish off the panel, Brian, on the regulation of finding clarity across borders at token, >> I think I'll speak for all of us and say Satoshi.

>> Satoshi. Here we go. Great way to end it, guys. Thank you very much. A big hand to us to our panel. I'll pass it back to our MC. Thank you, everybody.