Why Proposed FATF Rules Could Be a Shock for DeFi - Ep. 171

Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome to Unconfirmed, the show that reveals how the marquee names in crypto are reacting to the week's top headlines and gets the inside scoop on what they see on the horizon. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started covering crypto five years ago and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full time. The Crypto.com app pays you up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin. Get $25 when you download the Crypto.com app with code "Laura." The link is in the description. You may have heard about Interpop, a super team laser focused on the emerging landscape of fandom.

They are tapping into the latest innovations in NFTs to revolutionize gaming, collectibles, and comics on Tezos. Learn more at hellointerpop.io. Today's guest is Dave Jevons, CEO of Cyphertrace. Welcome, Dave. Hi, Laura. It's great to be with you again. Disclosure before we start the discussion, Cypher Trace has been a sponsor of my shows. So Dave, the Financial Action Task Force has new draft guidelines out that could affect DeFi and even NFTs. What does the draft guidance say? So the draft guidance, Laura, goes into, I'd say, six main areas. The first is what is a virtual asset and what is what we call a virtual asset service provider? So what's a VASP?

And I think that's the broad area that we need to focus on as far as DeFi and DeFi providers is Are things suddenly going to change where you have a whole new set of regulations applied on you because now you've become a VASP versus an information provider, an Oracle provider? You're running everything on smart contracts. A couple of other things I'll just touch on, the six points. So one was about stable coins. So no real news there, but OK, stable coins are virtual assets and things. you know, VASPs are on either end. There's a lot about P2P transactions.

So clarifying that providers of P2P services and matching are VASPs. Licensing and registration, no big news there. Travel rule guidance, same thing that we've seen before. There'll be a lot of information coming out over the next three months. And then lastly, just the opportunity for information sharing between VASPs. So that's the six areas that the guidance covers. And so in terms of DeFi, I think this is maybe one of the areas that's kind of new and different. What does that guidance say and how could it affect the different DeFi developers and platforms and protocols? Yeah, so I think that when I look at the proposed guidance,

which is about 70 pages long. And the nice thing is that FATF gave us a red line of from the previous version to this one. So while it's 70 pages, you only really have to read 60 of them. To me, I think .79 comes across as the biggest one, which really is broadly the definition of a virtual asset service provider to whom these regs would apply to. And that really talks about developers of DeFi type products. So it's not attempting to regulate software, but those who develop software and gain a benefit from it later, whether it's directly or through transaction fees or indirectly through the price of a coin

going up that they use to pay for fees and things of that nature would potentially fall under the umbrella of a VASP, which would broadly cover pretty much almost every DeFi platform. So if I were to make an analogy, then it sounds like essentially what would happen is that a DEX like Uniswap would be subject to the same compliance rules as a centralized exchange like Coinbase. Is that what the impact would be? That's correct. So is that even practicable? It's all just software. Yeah, what it does state specifically is that if you, for example, you're a hardware wallet

or you're a software provider of interfaces between a wallet and a browser into a deck, so that type of thing, you're not subject to any of these proposed rules. But if you are the developer of a DAP or if you're an operator of a DEX or you're performing matching services or you're facilitating matching services, and even there's a specification in which here which says even if you commission others to build it for you, you are still potentially could be considered a VASP. Okay. So essentially then what you're saying is that Uniswap would have to collect identifying information and protect that information and relay that information

when a user of Uniswap sends money from Uniswap to another VASP? Is that what this means? Yeah, that is the potential reading of it. So what we can read right now into the proposed recommendations are that they would be subject to all of the recommendation 16, which is identifying the customer, so KYC. Performing sanction screening of transactions and addresses so you don't receive funds from sanctioned addresses, et cetera, and potentially the implementation of the so-called travel rule of moving beneficiary and.

and original information around again not clear in but this is what it it seems to imply right here which is the expansion of the definition of a basp which would then of of course you'd have you'd have to comply with all of the other uh recommendations so in a way it's sort of forcing creators of d5 protocols to become centralized is that because otherwise. - Not necessarily centralized, it's causing them to think about gateways onto the platform where to join the platform, you would have to know or have information about who is joining the platform. It doesn't mean it has to be centralized, but it does

mean that there has to be some obligation of understanding who's on the platform so that you can still have decentralized processes and everything like that smart contracts to operate the system for sure but it is talking about an obligation of understanding who's on it and who's using it and having reporting requirements and and travel rule things around it and so what would a decentralized version of that look like because i to my mind tell me if i'm wrong i would imagine that that would only be possible with blockchain-based identities Because otherwise, there's so much fraud. Like, it's so easy to create a fraudulent ID. I don't really know how it would be

done in a decentralized manner. Well, I think there's a couple of ways. Certainly, if you're operating a DEX, let's say, for example, you could say to join it, you have to have an account, which today you do not. Today I can connect my MetaMask or my Ledger to any DEX that I choose to, or at least the ones I've interacted with, and it's easy, fast, it's awesome. It would mean you would have to have an account that went through some minimal form of KYC and some form of reporting that was attached to your wallets and accounts and addresses. Could you have a DeFi version of it or a decentralized version of it? Absolutely. So this would mean that there could be third parties that would attest to your identity. As

you mentioned, a blockchain-based identity protocol doesn't have to be blockchain-based. It could certainly be more distributed than that and have certificate-based things where you trust different CAs and they issue you identities. Some form of that is implied. And what's a CA? Oh, certificate authority. So, you know, where you could have multiple companies in the world that would attest to your identity, where you might have to present some form of credential. But that, of course, means it has to be built into the wallets. which is a huge lift across the industry. There's no standards for it. I don't believe any of these regulatory agencies have jurisdiction on software, nor should they. So I think it might really, I think what they're thinking about is it relies on the platform to have accounts, if you will, before you can trade on it. Is this something that you

feel the industry is really aware of? And if so, what has the reaction been? I don't think the industry is aware of it yet. I think we've been highlighting it at CypherTrace and at some of the other works that we do with GDF, Digital Chamber, the Teresa Travel Rule Information Sharing Alliance, these types of things for probably four, five, six months. I would say that much of the industry is not really thinking about it, thinks that this isn't going to happen. There are specific loopholes and regulations that prevent them from having to do anything i think this is the first shot across the bow i would also say that this is not a broad public you know notice of proposed rulemaking like we saw from finnston united states in december

and january this is a more it's open to anyone but it's a much more closed group so it's not like it's widely publicized there will be meetings next week. So we're recording this in early April. So on April 8th, there'll be a meeting of a number of industry participants. On April 15th, there will be broader meeting of industry participants. I encourage everyone to get involved in those as much as possible because the proposed recommendations will probably be announced around June 15th of 2021, in which case it's probably too late to get your voice heard. Okay, so in a moment, we're going to also discuss how the proposed guidance will affect NFTs. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Meet Interpop, a super team

redefining the future of NFTs and fandom. From comics and trading card games to digital collectibles and everything in between, they are building the architecture of an entirely new landscape of fandom using technology built on the Tezos blockchain to drive their vision. Visit hellointerpop.io to learn more. back to my conversation with dave jevons so for the proposed guidance what does that say about nfts and um how could that impact the nft sellers purchasers and the nft platforms so the proposed guidance that uh the financial action task force has put out for commentary does not speak specifically about nfts they do speak about fungible and non-fungible tokens but

i would say it's It's probably a little early for them to get their hands around it because anything that we're seeing now at the beginning of April of 2021 was already in the works in January and February. And as we know, the NFT space has exploded since then. So there are mentions of it. I would suggest that, I mean, basically what they're saying is they don't want to create a blanket around true NFT things that don't have a money laundering purpose. So that's the good news. I would say though, that, you know, what they are talking about is that you have, if you have an NFT, which is resellable or can be parted out into components, then that could potentially fall under

the definition of being a virtual asset service provider. I would also say in my meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week in the United States, so it's only U.S. only, is when you think about taking an NFT of a sizable piece and then splitting it up into B20 tokens or however you want to do it, that could potentially be a securities offering. so there's we're seeing it coming from both sides on the banking currency side of fadaf but also on the securities issuance side at the sec okay and do you think the nft platforms are designed already in a way where it would be easy for them to follow the fat of proposed guidance can be i would say that there's differing levels of it so

you know the nft side has largely been used at least now for art uh purposes physical art for the last three or so years and now digital art that we're seeing so some of them are already subject to money laundering controls now whether they've implemented they're not is a different question some of them have many of them have not i would say there's many of these platforms that don't have a compliance officer on board yet they're going to have to because they're starting to deal with some significant amounts of of funds Can they do it? Absolutely. It's no different from a small exchange or an OTC desk, you know, five people, 10 people business. You can definitely do it. And there are commercial offerings coming to market to do it.

But, you know, it's early days. So education needs to happen. So I understand that the rule may change between now and June when it's finalized, but regardless of what happens, who does the FATF rules, who do they apply to? And is it mandatory that these entities follow those rules or? So I think what we should be clear about, Laura, is that these are recommendations, not rules. So the Financial Action Task Force is not a rulemaking body. It is a collection of 190 regulators from 190 countries. The countries make the rules and then they have to enforce them themselves. So this is sort of

like the United Nations, if you will, of anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing. And so they can make recommendations, but it's up to each country to implement it. So to say, you know, the June 15th thing is applicable across the world. It's just not a fact. What it's going to be is certain countries will implement all of it. Some of it, some of it will be done before June 15th. Some of it will be done next year. So you'll see, for example, the United States pretty ahead of the game. Singapore, I would say, is one of the most aggressive regimes as far as enforcement is And Switzerland would be the second one behind it as far as aggressive enforcement requirements so that you have to get registered in the jurisdiction. And then

you'll see European countries like France, Germany, Netherlands come behind UK at some point, and then we'll see how it rolls out globally. And so in terms of. these next steps, you know, you've talked about how, you know, it's undergoing changes before it'll be finalized. So where would people reach out to? Who would they talk to if they're interested in kind of helping to shape the guidance? So I think that there's a couple of ways to do it. One, you can reach out directly to the Financial Action Task Force. So it's FATF. So if you look at FATF virtual currency guidelines or you search for FATF virtual currency guidelines, March 2021, you'll get

actually a link to a Google Doc, which will allow you to see the the past guideline and then the red line on the current one and has contact information of who to talk to Financial Action Task Force. You can also work with industry working groups. So Digital Chamber in the United States is a very active group in this area. Global Digital Finance, primarily an Asian based group. out of Singapore, so time zones are a little different, is also super active. There's a few other blockchain groups that you can work with to provide your voice into that. So that's where I would think you should focus. If you want to have a say in it, focus there. But there are a number of folks at FATF

who are willing to listen. They all speak English. even though it's based in Paris. But it's a multinational group. And of course, your local regulator as well. So JFSA in Japan is actually the main regulator in charge of the virtual asset working group. So if anyone needs contacts there, they can ping me at davidcyphertrace.com and I can help connect you up with the various jurisdictions if you want to provide commentary to them. You and I, along with Sean Jones of Xrag, did a show last summer about the travel rule, which obviously also kind of got the crypto community a little bit riled up. And I wondered if you could just briefly cover what that

said and then contrast and compare that rule to this proposed guidance. Yeah. So that rule has effectively stayed the same. It's moved a little bit. Most of the debate on the travel rule, just so everybody understands, is the first thing is it's trying to make crypto look like the banking markets, which means that when a virtual asset service provider, let's call it an exchange for, you know, to be easy in our words. So an exchange sends money to an exchange, a customer sends funds to another customer. You have to send the originator and beneficiary information and account IDs, same way as when you do a wire transfer. So that's what it is across all currencies.

So clearly can't be a blockchain implemented thing, has to operate across blockchains. It's a peer to peer protocol. And there's been a lot of work with various standards bodies like Chisa and OpenVASP. So that hasn't really changed. The debate has been more around the thresholds of reporting that data. So there's been proposals that at a thousand dollars or a thousand euros, you send that information. In the United States, FinCEN says it's 3,000. dollars in Europe, they're talking about a thousand euros. There's proposals about lowering it to $250 or euros, but that's the only debate that's happened there.

The thing is still the same, which is you guys are going to move this information around and scan for terrorist financing and sanctions on either end. So that's what's happened there. Now what's happening here is really more about who this applies to. So that was a very narrow definition of VASPs, which were people who could translate fiat into crypto. or certain crypto to cryptos and you were centralized business, what this is all about and the 70 pages, which about 65 of them are modified, is really about what's expanding the definition of a VASP to encompass DeFi companies, DeFi data providers, DeFi software contractors,

NFTs potentially, and really expanding that scope out. So that's what this is about is who do those existing regs apply to? Am I wrong in thinking that the original rules were based on a distinction made between providers that were taking custody of crypto assets versus those who were not? -That's correct. You're not wrong. -So this new guidance obliterates that and it now covers developers and protocols that are not taking custody of assets. That's correct. It does not necessarily cover all developers. And I've been, I think, pretty vocal in the community that, you know, you have no governance over software developers. And, you know, I got to deal in the late 90s and early 2000s as I was coming into my early stages of my career with

the encryption regulations and export controls. And all that happened there was it all went offshore and we just imported our crypto from Australia in the United States to get around those regs. And this is so we can't do that, but it is very close to it. So what they're suggesting is that anybody who benefits from creating something that allows the transfer of assets between people, virtual assets, could be categorized as a VASP, including if you write the software and you release it intentionally that way and you make some benefit off of it, whether it's direct or indirect. Even if you don't have anything to do with it after the fact, you could still be called a VASP and be responsible, which would mean, obviously, the backstory of it is

you would have to write code to facilitate KYC and other reporting. and so when the crypto for people in the crypto community who do reach out to fadof what would be a way to tweak the proposed guidance that is more in line with the thinking that the crypto community tends to have around these issues i think what i would do is i would this is my reading of of the guidance um and and of the proposed recommendations i would really take a look at section 75 in the proposed recommendations. So again, you can Google FATF virtual asset guidance March 2021. So look at section 75 where it talks about P2P. So that's matching services and finding services. So I find someone to do a

transaction with, but I'm not in the middle of it. That would potentially fall under those regulations. And then I would also draw your attentions to Section 79, which is really the one that broadly applies to DeFi, which talks about developers, subcontractors, indirect gains, and focus your attention and your comments on those areas. two areas of the guidance. You don't want to just go off everywhere and say, oh, this sucks because no one's going to read it. You want to focus on, I think, section 75, 79. And if you're in the NFT business, section 78. Okay. Well, this has been a very interesting and informative discussion. Thank you so much for coming on Unconfirmed. Thanks, Laura. Great to talk to you. Don't

forget, next up is the weekly news recap. Stick around for This Week in Crypto after this short break. With over 10 million users, Crypto.com is the easiest place to buy and sell over 90 cryptocurrencies. Grow your crypto with Crypto.com Earn, which pays up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin and 14% interest on your stablecoins. When it's time to spend your crypto, nothing beats the Crypto.com Visa card, which pays you up to 8% back instantly and gives you 100% rebates for your Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime subscriptions. Download the Crypto.com app now and get $25 by using the code Laura. The link is in the

description. Thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap. First headline. The Coinbase Direct listing finally has a date. The highly anticipated Coinbase Direct listing is scheduled for April 14th, as reported by Bloomberg and later confirmed by the exchange via tweet. The company will trade under the ticker "COIN" on Nasdaq. Next headline: Visa uses crypto rails. PayPal enables crypto payments. It's one thing for a company to embrace the positive PR of adopting crypto. It's a much bigger thing for a massive financial services network to actually use a public blockchain to settle transactions. Visa has begun settling USDC transactions directly on the Ethereum blockchain via a trial partnership with

payment platform Crypto.com, which, disclosure, is a sponsor of my podcasts, and Anchorage, a digital asset bank. Previously, Crypto.com's Visa card owners would have to convert cryptocurrency holdings to fiat before making a purchase, adding an extra step and cost for businesses. Reuters reported that Visa completed its first transaction this month, with Crypto.com sending USDC to Visa's Ethereum address at Anchorage. Meanwhile, PayPal announced that customers would be able to use crypto to pay at its 29 million merchants in the coming months. Users who hold Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin can now convert to fiat at checkout and make payments, marking the quote, first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies

in the same way as a credit or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet, CEO Dan Schulman told Reuters. However, the merchants will receive fiat as PayPal will convert the crypto before handing it over. next headline goldman and blackrock embrace crypto goldman sachs plans to offer its private wealth management clients exposure to bitcoin and other digital assets sometime in the next three months mary rich the soon-to-be announced global head of goldman's private wealth management division said goldman would look to ultimately offer a full spectrum of crypto investment vehicles be it quote physical bitcoin derivatives or traditional investment As reported by CNN, Rich said consumer demand drove the bank's decision to jump into crypto. She specifically cited contingents of clients who, quote, are looking to

this asset as a hedge against inflation and feel like we're sitting at the dawn of a new internet. Goldman is the second large U.S. bank to offer clients access to crypto after Morgan Stanley announced a similar plan in mid-March, with the caveat being that to invest, Goldman clients must hold a minimum of $25 million at Goldman. At Morgan Stanley, the minimum is $2 million. Speaking of Morgan Stanley, the investment bank said in a Thursday regulatory filing that 12 of its institutional funds might gain exposure to Bitcoin through Cash Settled Futures or the Grayscale Trust. Each fund, the

filing suggests, could allocate up to 25% of its assets to Bitcoin exposure. Rick Reeder, CEO of the $8.7 trillion asset manager BlackRock, hinted that the investment giant was beginning to dabble in Bitcoin back in February. On Wednesday, a regulatory filing confirmed the asset manager's involvement in the Bitcoin space by way of CME futures contracts. The $6.5 million investment was small, representing just 0.03% of BlackRock's global allocation fund, but it is still a step in the direction of CeFi's acceptance of cryptocurrency. Next headline: The NFT craze has some serious backers It appears the recent NFT boom, which has featured a JPEG selling for $69 million

in ETH and burned paintings rising from the ashes in digital form, is being taken seriously by the wider world. This week saw four notable investments in the NFT space. Web3 accelerator and metaverse builder Outlier Ventures announced a $350 million round of funding at a $2.5 billion valuation from, quote, the likes of Mark Cuban and Gary Vee, which means Gary Vaynerchuk. The announcement was made via a tweet by CEO Jamie Burke, a recent Unchained guest. Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties, secured $305 million in private funding from an eye-popping group of NBA stars, including Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant, along with a slew of strategic partners headlined by A16Z. In perhaps the most unexpected words ever

spoken in this recap, you can find the whole report on ESPN.com. Blockchain development firm Enjin has raised $18.9 million in funding with plans to build its upcoming blockchain network Efinity on Polkadot. Efinity will be a purpose-built NFT blockchain that aims to resolve the high gas fees associated with Ethereum and without the centralization of Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain. NMT Marketplace SuperRare announced a $9 million funding round on Tuesday led by Velvet Sea Ventures and Mark Cuban, who will be an upcoming guest on Unchained. SuperRare plans to use the funding to add social elements to the platform. Zora, a SuperRare competitor, also completed a funding round this week, raising

$8 million in equity sales with five investors, whose identities remain unknown. Next headline, the SEC sues library for selling unregistered securities. The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging LIBRARY, a decentralized publishing platform, for allegedly selling unregistered securities. The charges stem from the LIBRARY team selling tokens as investment contracts before the project was developed to raise money, with the assumption that the token's value would go up. The SEC is seeking a permanent injunction against LIBRARY from selling further tokens, along with a disgorgement of the $11 million it received in the alleged securities sale. Library CEO Jeremy Kaufman, in a statement shared with Decrypt, said, "The SEC complaint against Library reflects an outdated view of the economy that stifles innovation, accessibility, and creativity. Under the overreaching standards set

by the SEC complaint, most blockchain tokens would be deemed securities, leaving uncertainty and confusion in the industry." Gabriel Shapiro, partner at BSV Law, agreed, adding that "the SEC is not helping the crypto industry figure out a way to comply with securities law." He also said that to continue suing blockchain creators is "now inexcusable, unethical, and violates core American jurisprudential principles of predictability and economic freedom." Next headline: The Wyoming Effect Hits Texas & Iowa between wyoming led by blockchain wonder women caitlyn long ceo of avanti bank and senator cynthia lemus and miami directed by mayor francis suarez the race to become the crypto safe haven in

the us has begun in case you missed them both long and mayor suarez have been recent guests on the show This week, two more states joined the fray. The Iowa House of Representatives unanimously approved legislation that would permit the use of distributed ledger technology and smart contracts when providing records of transactions. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott tweeted his support for a recent crypto law proposal that aims to adapt existing laws to the wide world of digital assets, recommending that Texas should lead on this like we did with the gold depository. While positive news for the industry, Long pointed out the gaping hole in the Texas crypto proposal that would create a lean mess,

meaning a mess around potential liens on Bitcoin if passed. Long recommends that Texas follow Wyoming's suit and amend the bill's language to better map how, quote, Bitcoin lending actually works so that the passage of Bitcoin receives the same blank slate as cash after each transaction, rather than lenders retaining the right to any Bitcoin issued as debt. next headline tether releases a report claiming to be fully backed in an assurance report delivered by more cayman a cayman islands based accounting firm tether purports to show that its stablecoin is fully backed while the report does not delve into how tether's reserves are held it appears that as of february 28th tether's assets amounted to 35.3 billion dollars and its liabilities equaled 35.2 billion dollars The attestation is the first third-party verification of

Tether's reserves since 2018. Tether plans to issue another attestation for the month of March, after which it will move to quarterly reports going forward. These attestations are separate from the disclosures intended for the New York Attorney General's Office regarding the recent Bifinex settlement. USDT is currently the largest stablecoin in the world, sitting at roughly $40 billion, making it the fourth-largest token by market cap. Time for fun bets! SNL answers, what the hell is an NFT? Saturday Night Live added to the long list of head-scratching NFT headlines in a skit last weekend that included Kate McKinnon dressed up as Janet Yellen, Pete Davidson singing in a Robin costume, Morpheus orange-pilling a national audience, and a

janitor, Good Will Hunting style, perfectly explaining what an NFT is while rapping. If you haven't seen it yet, I would highly recommend it. Tubby coin to the moon? In a well-designed April Fool's joke, the Teletubbies, yes, the children's show, announced its own cryptocurrency on Thursday. To mine the Tubby coin, all you have to do is share the big hugs token on social media accompanied by the hashtag Tubby coin as part of the initial coin offering. The company will make a $5,000 donation to the charity Kids Help Phone. While the coin turned out to be a marketing ploy, I have to commend the Teletubbies for their crypto native announcement of an announcement and execution of the almost believable white paper. All right. Thanks for tuning in. To learn more about

Dave and the proposed FATF guidelines, be sure to check the links in the show notes. Follow Unchained on Twitter at Unchained underscore pod, where you can find all sorts of content ranging from my weekly newsletter to updates on my upcoming book and a whole lot more. Unconfirmed is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Anthony Yoon, Mark Murdock, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.