00:00We've got to start with geopolitics and what's happening with the war right now because a lot of people before
00:04this war, Dubai was this sort of sanctuary in the Middle East where a lot of entrepreneurs would go, a
00:09lot of crypto folks would go to do business.
00:11I think a lot of people now are saying that's been called into question the safety and security of it
00:15amidst this war.
00:17What's your view there?
00:18Well, I mean, so I've been there about two years and I've been living through this.
00:23It's still all those things and it'll be all those things after the crisis.
00:26This is a bit episodic throughout the entire Gulf.
00:29You know, Qatar and other other Gulf states are going through the same.
00:34But, you know, it hasn't changed the strategy by still there hasn't been, you know, exodus of people and that
00:41sort of thing.
00:42We're still as busy as we've ever been.
00:44And we haven't seen a single firm in our licensing pipeline that has has said we want to scale back
00:50or pause.
00:50So business as usual.
00:52Yeah, I'm in the crypto space for sure.
00:55Right. And a number of other industries as well.
00:59You know, we've we've licensed 49 firms, nine this year, seven since the conflict started.
01:07Many of them were in the process prior.
01:09But for us, it's we're moving and grooving.
01:12Meantime, you look at what's happening in the U.S.
01:14There's definitely some movement on the Clarity Act this week.
01:18And in fact, we might get a full Senate vote fairly soon.
01:21So with the U.S. aggressively courting crypto companies to move back with regulation and friendlier SEC, we've also seen
01:29Europe, of course, do quite a bit on the regulatory front as well.
01:33Singapore and Hong Kong are very competitive on this front, too.
01:36You've said that in the past Dubai is a jumping off point for firms going east and west.
01:40But if we see the U.S. and European regulatory efforts on crypto really come together and those houses are
01:47in order, does Dubai's advantage start to disappear?
01:51Well, it's a good question.
01:52Again, without talking about politics, what's happening in Washington is good for the global ecosystem.
01:57There's no doubt about that.
01:58In terms of the points I've made in the past about Dubai, Dubai is four hours away from one-third
02:04of the world's population of flight.
02:06It's an eight-hour flight from two-thirds of the world's population.
02:09So we see a lot of folks expanding internationally, and Dubai is a perfect space for that.
02:14Without talking about other regulators in the EU or Southeast Asia, we've been able to position Dubai as a place
02:20where you can do different types of projects and products.
02:23We're big agnostic around business model and tech.
02:27You know, we regulate the activity.
02:30And so for us, regulatory clarity is kind of our religion.
02:34So we kind of have highlighted what firms need to do, but how they can be commercially successful.
02:40We give them room to grow and room to run around, you know, guardrails from not just our regulations, but
02:47I also run the supervision team around how we regulate their particular business model.
02:51Yeah, how does that supervision work? Because you were chief compliance officer at Citadel, so you have an understanding of
02:56compliance when it comes to a very large, sophisticated firm.
03:00Does Vera actually supervise these firms in real time?
03:04Yes.
03:05Or, oh, so more so than just creating rules that you're hoping they're abiding by.
03:09You're monitoring them in real time.
03:11Oh, yes, in real time.
03:12How does that work?
03:12Yeah.
03:13So it works in a number of different ways.
03:15I also run our blockchain analytics team.
03:17That's like our on-chain surveillance, which focuses on financial crime prevention and potential market misconduct.
03:25You know, it's similar to the guests you had from Elliptic.
03:28We use their tool, and we use a lot of the other competitors' tools.
03:31And so we regulate them from a prudential standpoint.
03:35We take financial data from them.
03:37We take customer wallets from them to make sure that we can run those through scans and make sure that
03:44they're not touching, you know, dark web or terrorism financing and that sort of thing.
03:52And we kind of go back and forth.
03:53We do a lot of what a lot of other regulators do.
03:55We do on-site inspections and that sort of thing as well.
03:57So, I mean, Tim mentioned that you used to work at Citadel.
04:00You have a storied career across regulation and compliance at a number of different firms.
04:06What brought you into the DeFi world?
04:09How did you make that transition?
04:10Yeah, it's a very good question.
04:12And, you know, before Citadel, I did 20 years at Goldman Sachs in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
04:18So I've seen a lot of different regulators.
04:19I kind of have a sense of what good looks like.
04:22And so I always, at the end of my career, wanted to kind of dabble in the regulatory space.
04:29This project was presented to me.
04:32And the ability to be part of what Dubai is committed to doing in terms of building up the space
04:37as a big part of their economy with the view that they have clarity of purpose.
04:43There's no politics around is it good or bad.
04:46They knew exactly what they wanted to do.
04:47And so to be able to get into the space in that seat with a clear path was something I
04:52couldn't say no to.
04:53Would you consider coming back to the U.S. and being a regulator here?
04:56Good question.
04:56Yeah, I would.
04:58I mentioned I'm here to pick up my daughter from Notre Dame.
05:01So, you know, I have three adult kids that are here.
05:04I come back and forth quite a bit.
05:06Sure.
05:07But right now I really like being in Dubai and I like being part of this project.
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