Kraken's Chief Legal Officer: Banks are shying away from taking on crypto customers
Marco Santori is the Chief Legal Officer for Kraken — the crypto exchange recently charged by the SEC for failing to register the offer and sale of its "crypto asset staking as-a-service program" in the U.S.
In this episode, Santori explains how recent regulatory actions in the U.S. have caused banks to become hesitant to accept crypto companies as new clients, and how this favors 'incumbent' crypto players such as Coinbase and Kraken.
During this episode, Chaparro and Santori also discuss:
'Operation Choke Point 2.0'
Kraken's efforts to establish a bank
How regulators view DeFi
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network
About Circle
Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more.
About Railgun
Railgun is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let Railgun’s zero-knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with Railgun SDK, and be sure to check out Railgun with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more.
About Flare
Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network.
Down 94% Since Winter, What Has Happened to ICOs? - Ep.91
After the ICO craze of 2017, such offerings have raised extremely little so far this fall, with total sales in October down 94% since February, according to Token Data. Why? And where to next? Andy Bromberg, president of CoinList, and Marco Santori, president and chief legal officer of Blockchain, discuss the changing nature of token sales. Andy reveals how the projects approaching CoinList have changed over the last year, how investors are changing their approach to due diligence in the space, and how CoinList complies with various regulations. Marco explains the origin of the SAFT framework, what laws would apply outside of securities regulation and why rulings in civil lawsuits and no-action letter are likely the next way we'll get regulatory clarity. We also discuss why the Civil token sale failed, why airdrops could be a better than ICOs for seeding usage on networks and how to figure out which wallets to target in an airdrop. Plus: Marco and Andy disagree on one aspect or how regulation could apply to airdrops.
Thank you to our sponsors!
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Episode Links
Andy Bromberg: https://twitter.com/andy_bromberg
CoinList: https://coinlist.co
Marco Santori: https://twitter.com/msantoriESQ
Blockchain: https://www.blockchain.com
Autonomous Next data on September ICOs down 90% since January: https://next.autonomous.com/thoughts/crypto-september-icos-90-down-from-january-but-venture-funding-is-ray-of-hope
Token Data on October ICOs down 94% since February: https://twitter.com/TokenData/status/1057953301440983040
SAFT project: https://saftproject.com
Previous episode with Marco and Joshua Ashley Klayman including her concerns about the SAFT framework: http://unchainedpodcast.co/how-crypto-and-blockchain-technology-should-be-regulated
SEC Director of Finance Bill Hinman's comments that ether is not a security (5:25): https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-announces-ether-not-security-162658147.html
Jay Clayton's comments that every ICO he's seen is a security: https://www.coindesk.com/sec-chief-clayton-every-ico-ive-seen-security/
Civil token sale: https://tokenfoundry.com/projects/civil
Blockchain's Airdrop program: https://www.blockchain.com/airdrop
CoinList's Airdrops program: https://airdrops.coinlist.co
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Trends in Crypto: Marco Santori, Michael Sonnenshein and Barbara Minuzzi on 2017 and What's Next
In this live recording of a panel discussion at the CoinAlts Fund Symposium, Marco Santori, president and chief legal officer of Blockchain, managing director at Grayscale Investments, and Barbara Minuzzi, cofounder and managing partner of Ausum Ventures take stock of the 2017 year and discuss a range of trends they're seeing in the industry. Santori describes what the ICO wave was like from his seat as one of the most in-demand lawyers for ICOs, and why he doesn't actually think that securities (such as a SAFT) can later transform into something that is a non-security. He also talks about how big corporations are thinking about use blockchain technology -- and why we haven't yet seen much activity on that front in the market. We talk about the current clouds over the industry -- custody and regulation -- and Sonnenshein explains why investors choose Grayscale's investment products, such as the Bitcoin Investment Trust, rather that investing in the coin directly, and
Blockchain.info: https://blockchain.info
Grayscale Investments: https://grayscale.co
Ausum Ventures: https://www.ausum.vc
Thank you to the CoinAlts Fund Symposium for hosting the panel: https://www.coinaltsfundsymposium.com
For more on regulatory issues, check out these past episodes:
Perianne Boring and Amy Kim of the Chamber of Digital Commerce on crypto regulation: http://unchainedpodcast.co/the-chamber-of-digital-commerces-perianne-boring-and-amy-kim-on-why-us-crypto-regulation-is-complicated-and-confusing
The Tax Rules That Have Crypto Investors Aghast: http://unchainedpodcast.co/the-tax-rules-that-have-crypto-users-aghast
How Crypto and Blockchain Technology Should Be Regulated: http://unchainedpodcast.co/how-crypto-and-blockchain-technology-should-be-regulated
Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh of Coin Center: http://unchainedpodcast.co/how-coin-center-is-helping-define-the-big-fuzzy-gray-area-of-blockchain-and-cryptocurrency-law
Caitlin Long on How 'Utility Tokens' Are Now Legal in Wyoming: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/caitlin-long-on-how-utility-tokens-are-now-legal-in-wyoming
Former DOJ Prosecutor Kathryn Haun on What the SEC Subpoenas and FinCen Letter Likely Mean: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/sxsw-episode-former-doj-prosecutor-kathryn-haun-on-what-the-sec-subpoenas-and-fincen-letter-likely-mean
For more on custody issues, check out the episode with Mike Belshe of BitGo and its acquisition of Kingdom Trust: http://unchainedpodcast.co/mike-belshe-on-what-bitgos-kingdom-trust-acquisition-means-for-crypto-and-how-security-will-develop-in-the-future
Thank you to our sponsors!
Ethereal Summit: https://etherealsummit.com
Quantstamp: https://www.quantstamp.com
StartEngine: https://www.startengine.com/unchained
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