Careers in Crypto Webinar

Transcript

okay uh good morning everybody uh these uh those of us on the west coast here my name is Shanta de soubre I'm the uh co-chair of the North America chapter of the crypto Valley Association and so we have a um this is our first uh virtual event that we're hosting uh by the North America chapter of the crypto Valley Association I'll wait a few more minutes before I I speak more because I can see more participants are coming so give it a few few more minutes uh while people come in and then we can start and just maybe one more minute or 30 more seconds okay I think we're we'll keep going then

so as I was saying we uh this is the first event that we're having uh for uh the North America chapter of the crypto Valley Association I normally what uh what I've seen in crypto Valley is we often have uh we have many uh events uh including virtual events like this one but often they tend to be on more technical matters such as crypto custody or a particular protocol uh this one uh I haven't actually seen uh this sort of panel hosted before really on a much more broad topic which is careers in crypto which is I think very interesting because uh uh you know all this are obviously in this space but we do many different things uh it's not the case that everybody is a tech expert in

in the crypto space there are all kinds of opportunities and positions it's a new it's a new and evolving field constantly and so I think that's something uh interesting to consider on this panel we have uh By Design actually a wide variety of individuals from different geographies as well as different uh types of positions that hold some people are in government and some people are in in search Consulting and others are in protocols or investors and so we have all types of perspectives uh which we wanted to have them address you know what types of careers are available in crypto are they hiring um what how should people design their careers uh and these questions could be you know answered from a student or a mid-career professional or experienced

professional someone who wants to get into this space they're different angles we can explore one thing I wanted to talk about is clearly we you know we are in a crypto winter and just to provide some context you know funding is is clearly down uh the market Capital crypto is down I think uh the stats I saw was three billion earlier maybe a year and a half two years ago now it's 1.5 billion trillion sorry trillion US Dollars uh and so there is there is a pullback in the space generally however I think that uh this base is not completely dead uh certainly there are there are still a lot of things going on under the surface maybe there's a lot less publicity uh but there are things still happening in this space I'll give an example yesterday I read about a new protocol called The Canton Network which

a number of financial institutions have joined including Goldman Sachs Microsoft uh Deloitte and others and I think that that shows that there are still large-scale institutional uh uh institutions still adopting this technology and so I think um for example one of the quotes I I saw here which was really interesting it says that the institutional adoption of web3 was still robust this year and last year despite a slump and digital asset prices this current announcement about the Canton Network signals that some firms still positively view blockchain Tech as that has a lot of potential despite a regulatory cloud in the U.S and the harm caused by several crypto native uh collapses of which we're all aware and

so that shows that there are still opportunities in the space and and uh and companies large companies are still out there using this technology and there are use cases that are still being uh applied and will be figured out I think some of the space uh in in crypto has you know the Thunder has been taken away in some ways by the the new new thing which is AI artificial intelligence possibly there's a lot of overlap between AI uh and and crypto as well as Ai and crypto and fintech and so all these skills can be kind of useful uh in this space I think a lot of people also have this notion that to to get into the crypto space you need to be a lot have a lot of technical expertise expertise and that's not necessarily the

case there are all types of positions and or opportunities in crypto could be legal it could be compliance it could be marketing it could be Finance uh as well as you know generally in the sort of devout software development or Tech development space and so I think there are all kinds of skill sets that could be applicable and if you uh have an interest this is a good option opportunity to learn from from uh folks active in the space and some of them have been active in the space for quite a long period time and our Pioneers so let me introduce the panel and then we can get into the questions um I'm just going to go in in maybe it's semi-alphabetical order uh the first person I I have is uh uh Brandon Burke who's a special agent with the FBI the Federal Bureau of

Investigation uh I don't know where which office is located in but he is a member of the FBI high-tech organized crime uh Force task force uh he's over 15 years of experience with the FBI and he's part of the virtual uh currency response team and uh has a lot of experience in in uh in sort of I would say um compliance uh encrypted applications complex money laundering schemes and so I think these are certainly the the negative aspects of crypto in some way but certainly um it's a lot of uh opportunities in that space as well because all of this space is getting regulated uh and and uh very important so we'll we'll come back to I just want

to do a broad overview of everybody and then we'll come back to the specific panels and the next I have uh Samantha Pelosi who's the chief compliance officer and Regulatory Council Cube which is a uh crypto exchange actually that combines C5 and defy and uh here uh she's done a lot of um things in the crypto space she's actually an attorney as well uh and she's held a lot of different compliance and um policy roles including at the uh at the Federal Reserve uh then the U.S treasury Department as well as at a large international law firm and so these are two people who I mentioned that have um government

experience uh in particular and so there's there's a lot of opportunity in the government space I also have uh Philly uh Ranier who is uh in Switzerland itself and he's the managing director of uh of uh Sheffield Haworth which is a global search firm I said a global head of fintech uh and he uh we spent over five years at UBS as well where he was focused on digital strategy and it was a BCG prior to that and so I think you'll be able to give us a good Insight from a search firm perspective at a high level what sort of you know private sector jobs are there and we also have uh Stacy Strasser who is uh the general partner at the Cincinnati crypto fund uh and the the

crypto exchange fund as well as an opportunity Zone fund and as well as she's also one of the initial investors in 10 XDS a block which is a blockchain startup focused on the digital digitization of assets so she can tell us more about what that specifically means but that's our panel I think uh you know very uh uh wide sort of uh range of skill sets and backgrounds in that panel but I think what we could do is go through uh and I I you know was able to summarize their buy to some extent but I think it'd be helpful if each person smoke for a few minutes about their own background and and what they can add to that in terms of what's relevant to the crypto space and then we'll just combine the questions

um so in that same question they also asked the next question which is in your company organization what is its involvement in the crypto web 3 space what kind of product services does your company offer regulator enforce so maybe we can start in the same order just because I went to the BIOS in the same space so we could start with uh Mr Burke please and then we'll move on with the others thank you hi this is Brandon Burke hopefully everyone can hear me okay so I am uh I am a special agent with the FBI as as he mentioned uh I've been with the FBI for approximately 15 years and I'm very honored to be here um whenever I get a chance to talk about uh again you had mentioned more of a

negative perspective but yeah I definitely have a filtered lens uh as as I view cryptocurrency as it relates to my job so professionally and personally sometimes doesn't align uh as it relates to crypto but uh as far as my profession is concerned over the last five years I have been specifically involved with investigating cryptocurrency as far as taking a step back over the last 15 years I have investigated large transnational criminal organization that that spans the globe cyber criminal Networks uh or conducting sophisticated money laundering schemes involving fiat currency and obviously most recently

cryptocurrency as part of my job daily I am involved with engaging With Private Industry specifically blockchain intelligence companies under other industry Partners in an effort to assist with their compliance to communicate back and forth with them as I and the team that I work with try to investigate these these organizations that are leveraging virtual assets to commit whatever crime they're committing um and also a part of that an ancillary Duty I have the FBI and I'll mention this later in the broader context of careers in crypto the FBI has really invested a lot of resources resources

over the last two or three years and understanding this space and how it relates to ongoing criminal matters and also the impact from an intelligence standpoint for our country and so as a member of that group which is called the virtual currency response team we support both other FBI Partners within the United States overseas other federal agencies and other foreign partners and uh investigating these these schemes that are involved with cryptocurrency okay now that's super helpful uh I think you know that was part of this Regulatory Compliance uh in in some ways you know in order for this industry really to thrive it has to come out of

you know the quote Shadows uh and become more mainstream and I think this is a big part of that that the industry has had some negative perceptions uh and the more it's cleaned up uh to some extent the better it will be and become more mainstream I think you know exactly what you're doing and also the more sort of large-scale uh institutional adoption so I mentioned this other uh Financial Services Network which just got announced last week with some very large um Financial institutes there are joining that you know that will also put pressure to sort of um you know make this industry more transparent in many ways and because I think the underlying technology um we all see the value of it but at the

same time you know it has to be used in the right right fashion so I think that's that's great yes now absolutely and as it impacts um crime uh as in obviously the US dollar impacts crime significantly as well um you know we we are chartered we have a mission to protect U.S citizens and protect U.S companies and uh so a part of that is understanding the fundamentals of cryptocurrency and and that's kind of the the journey that I've been on over the last five years with the bureau learning about cryptocurrency and and tracing it it's been a lot of fun okay fantastic all right well thank you uh Brandon um I can ask Samantha to go next really on the same thing what you

know about your professional background particularly in the crypto space and then um what your company does in in this space sure sure thanks a lot um so I think it's actually a nice dovetail to uh some of the issues that Brandon raised in his background um so I'm an attorney and I've been in financial services for my entire career which is unfortunately becoming quite lengthy you know we all grow older um so I I started at a large arm doing you know international law and um uh project financing deals um abroad and foreign investment

Etc but I also did uh sanctions and Export control work and those are still relevant today um you know years and decades later uh so I how I came into cryptocurrency is really through financial services because no matter you know where you sit with the regulation of um crypto whether it's a commodity or a security or a currency um it is definitely Financial Services uh and so I came into it from the fact that I was a compliance officer at a

money transmitter and in the US money transmitters are um crypto exchanges are regulated by the states um as money transmitters and of money exchangers and so I had that aspect of it um also from the aspect of a uh from payments um crypto is used for payments it's also used kind of for investment and a store of value uh and so I I definitely have had that kind of stream uh following that line of finance and and banking as um I started looking at Financial crime

compliance and anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance very early on on in my career so right after the law firm I went to uh fincen after 9 11 and uh participated in the writing of the regulations um so I'm really the in the lawyer The Interpreter of law the uh crafter of regulations and then compliance with those regulations internally at corporations um as Brandon is more than on the enforcement side right uh you break the law you break the regulations and he may come after you

um so I really backed into but to the crypto area when I was at the Federal Reserve working in the payments division which is the same division that's looking into um Central Bank digital currencies uh and we launched a number of retail payment on initiatives when I was there uh and I was the head of retail uh including faster payments in the United States and um and chip and pin cards Etc um and I wrote a lot of consumer protection laws under Dodd-Frank when I was at the FED

um so most recently I've done some on Consulting work on in crypto and then right before Cube I was at an nft company that had nothing to do with financial services however I do think that nfts will have a large role actually in financial services in our future and then um I moved to cube which is a pretty new startup um exchange and you may be wondering why we need yet another exchange um we think that we do have the secret sauce uh we have uh uh MPC wallet that uh allows our

users to maintain control of their crypto if we go bankrupt um we don't pull your assets in with us to bankruptcy um like happens with FTX and other organizations um at the same time if you do end up being a terrorist we can freeze your assets in the wallet so they can't be further transferred out um we also have a very special matching engine that speeds up the matching process for trades as well as increased transparency and uh perhaps we'll talk about this more um but uh with a crypto winner I don't really think that crypto is dead and

certainly blockchain technology is not dead but I do think there has been a weeding out uh Bad actors on actors that are just kind of fast and loose uh with any kind of laws not even Financial Services laws but just general governance and operation of their firm terms um so I think there's gonna be kind of the the um survival of the of the fittest of the strongest and um we're going to see the firms kind of double down and work on their technology you work on internal controls and um building out resiliency

and uh redundancies and really um we're coming into a new era of Regulation if not in the United States unfortunately we are quite behind and um quite disorganized but abroad we're doing you know there's a lot of stuff going on and there are actually rational Frameworks being stood up um and so Cube even though it is base corporate is based here in the United States we are opening operations in Australia and then starting to work our way back West word um and that's very intentionally not because it's so much easier in other

jurisdictions but it's actually clearer and as an attorney and as a former regulator I'm looking for Clarity on how I can be on the right side of the law um and once I know the rules I can you know comply but if we don't know the rules and it's like a free-for-all like I think it is in the United States um currently except for fincen Vincent was one of the very first Regulators that came out um and it's pretty clear where you stand and what you should be doing if you're an exchange but otherwise I I think it is really a free-for-all and there's a complete lack of clarity and it's a

given that everyone is going kind of offshore to set up their new best businesses and even established businesses are moving offshore and it's not to avoid regulation I think it's to move to places uh Samantha maybe you could talk about that when you talk about like where are the opportunities in crypto I think it's a relevant Point either in the US are they actually abroad so I just want to make sure the others join in sorry thank you yeah so a lot to say but I appreciate it we do we do need to get to some of the other folks so Philly please yeah thanks uh thanks for thanks for having me uh my background uh is quite non-trational for

uh an executive Search guy I need someone who decided to move in English search uh originally I was with Boston Consulting Group in Switzerland um mostly recovering strategy engagement with uh well Financial Services firms in Switzerland being Switzerland it's mostly wealth management um moved to um to UBS uh where I had like a number of um you know executive positions were always related somehow to digital and fintech instead of um being in charge of the team who built the corporate Venture Capital fund of UBS called UBS next um and then I moved to be the head of digital Saji um and I had well mandates with free main pillars which were selling the the defining digital

strategy together with uh you know the management of uh of the bank um deriving from that digital transformation roadmaps so basically what the bank should be investing in in terms of digital products digital features Etc to make sure that the digital strategy that we've agreed on is actually delivered and then the whole uh fintech partnership and Investments um piece and the idea here was a bit if that guy and his team defined digital strategy uh derive the digital transformation roadmap from from the society probably um they're the person that are the best able to Define which of those features should be built internally versus the ones that should be outsourced uh

through Partnerships with um with fintech I've been already quite a bit exposed to the digital asset topic back then when I was GBS because um my team together with some other stakeholders uh uh within EBS started defining the third actually within the under being the first digital asset strategy of UBS obviously you know um without getting into details and I can't really get into details anyways on that um you know a lot of that so far has been more of theoretical exercise that's something that has been implemented in reality because you know a lot of the large banks are at the very early stage when it comes to their crypto roadmap there are some exceptions obviously in

Switzerland and in the US but most of them are in what I call with the POC slash white paper stage where there's a lot of great intentions but uh what is actually being delivered on the market get actual products that can be used by customers is very limited and um what led me to extreme search uh surprisingly um is a bit that um through my managed at GBS I had to interact with a lot of um fintech uh crypto companies in some cases but also with fintech that have nothing to do with crypto digital investing firms New Banks lending platforms Etc and um I got to know this use uh NC levels very well and um a feedback I got very

often was was a bit whenever we raise funds we invested Tech and we invest in people to take part we sort of know um it's not like it's easy but we know what we have to do the people part where it's low to mid management level it's sort of fine when it's like what the you know right executive Executives and sea levels that are really going to drive you know the roadmap and allow us to deliver on our Ambitions which is basically the main drivers of success of not only finte example any company the ultimately right now it's super difficult to do it um and I sense a bit that there was an opportunity uh together with the fact that I was interested by that space so join Chef will have to be the global head of um

fintech and if you wasn't Jeffy love um it's a might or might not know that company but it's one of the largest Institute search firms so there is a you know a very International uh headquarters in London with offices you know in all continents including the US with offices in New York and Los Angeles we are initially Financial Services Specialists but we've expanded in adjacent sectors and especially relevant to today's discussion we've expanded and we very much expanded in Tech and we typically partner with you know executive management teams of large financial services and Tech firms and and specialize in retain c310 HTT level uh searches and how is that related to crypto

well the role I have at um at um is Google ahead of fintech and crypto is uh one of our key Focus areas so uh typically and concretely what this means is that we help you know large and not so large in some cases crypto businesses if there are exchanges market makers digested custodians foundations or whatever else to be honest or also a traditional you know Banks or asset managers that want to do something in crypto we help them find their next gxors their next you know VP VPS Etc and I have to say quite successfully so far unfortunately

um so yeah that's that's about it as an intro who better positions positions it clearly okay now that's helpful and I think the other uh interesting thing is that clearly your clients are companies who are looking to hire Canada and therefore uh if you have a business it's because people are actually looking to our candidates so which is positive because you know I think to some of the other um panelists earlier Point crypto isn't yet dead you know the rumors of his death are uh possibly still exaggerated there's still activity beneath the surface maybe a reset of the space uh but those companies that are still out there building maybe doing building much more quietly uh and and will come out you know out on the other side of

this winter and and uh maybe you know the industry would be a little more focused uh which is not entirely a bad thing but we'll we'll uh I think um people have some good experience in the next set of questions around what kind of careers available how should someone design their careers so we can come back to you for that in particular um we can uh I'd like to go to Stacy uh next who's uh an investor uh so Stacy could you please speak thank you yeah my background was in systems integration and automation so I'm from the tech perspective I started looking at the blockchain about 10 years ago and when you showed up to something that was talking about the blockchain 10 years ago it was truly all tech people it was people

conceptualizing real ideas on how this could impact the world so it was there that I met my first business partner um Michael Hiles and he would like we're going to start a blockchain company and I'm like all right so uh you know we got together some investor money I was with some of the founding investor money in that and uh we started building that was six years ago um then and right after that we met another business partner who whose interest was more in a safe way for um for crypto investment right because at that time there was a lot going on about so and so lost their key and you know this space it just the wallets

weren't even readily available and so um so we thought okay great let's find a way um to make this easier for and for investors so we put together a hedge fund which is the Cincinnati crypto fund and we were fortunate along the way again at another tech oriented meeting early on in the space um to meet some of the inventors of high frequency trading on Wall Street and they had moved over to crypto and just finished uh testing their algorithms and we had just raised a couple million dollars and we were like perfect you know we had no intention on necessarily making our strategy about picking ponies

but um so it worked out so we are a fun to fund to their fun and they're really well known in the space they're called Hyperion um and they're running high frequency trading algorithms um which is is definitely very new and I think a lot of people go to them to to kind of understand what their strategies are because I think they are at the Forefront and of course as a as a crypto hedge fund that's six years in this is like dinosaurs right so that's going well um along the way we also uh you know flipped open an exchange fund about two years ago uh one of my partners is a tax lawyer slash estate planner and he was

like all these people are sitting on these big PL you know these these big gains and and wouldn't it be great if they could diversify without cashing out so that's our exchange fund where they you know if somebody went from you know 200 in Bitcoin to two million and they decided hey I want to diversify they can exchange a portion of their Bitcoin to us for a diversified holding in our portfolio so that is uh our exchange fund but we started that right as the crypto winter tanked so uh nobody was sitting on large gains and wanting to diversify at that time so we think our season is coming uh for that fund and we'll be uh looking to take that to

Market shortly um and I find this extremely interesting that we'd be on a panel that was probably not assembled um for Regulatory and compliance but I do want to flip the switch back to 10xts which is the software company because we have been building for the last six years a regulatory compliant layer one infrastructure for Capital Market tokenization and interoperability and I know that's a mouthful there's a ton of people like securitizer t0 which everybody's heard of that have been at the Forefront like you know we're tokenizing real estate right for all the promises of liquidity and distribution which are all true but we think that their thesis isn't as

great as ours because at the end of the day they put it into your wallet and it sits there in a Walled Garden and there's no distribution and there's no interoperability and so we really thought long and hard about how does how can the blockchain impact uh Regulatory and compliance distribution and interoperability and liquidity and at the end of the day what most people miss about the blockchain is that it's a powerful tool for automation um it brings together disparate systems to be able to grab data in a decentralized place um to facilitate that interoperability that we're talking about so like right

now the way the trades are held and and done you've got an issuer and then it goes to the broker and then it goes to you know maybe an alternative an exchange or an alternative trading system and each one of those parties has you know their own set of data and what is it that that enumerates that that asset as the security that it is besides all the Regulatory Compliance data associated with it all the lp agreements all the GP agreements all the signatures that go on to those agreements and currently those things are all like Nancy over here at the issuer pulls it out of her system and sends it over to Bob over there at the broker and you know all of this happens with all these

uh disparate systems with redundant information and so what we've done is we've created a layer one blockchain for governance risk and compliance data that can be provisioned in that interoperable way and cut the transaction fees the redundancy of the data and so forth so we've actually tokenized the recreation of all the documents that enumerate that asset and we are we have an ATS partner that we're integrated into and we were the first to file a form 10 of a fully digitized and we're waiting on the approval we're going back and forth it costs a lot of money

with lawyers and uh trying to get these approvals from the SEC because they have a lot of questions and we've we've hopefully answered them to all of their satisfaction then I'd also like to add that you know being early in the space has been very cumbersome right there's lots of legal fees you're trying to comply with regulations that are not necessarily clear but we have found the way the form 10 that we hope to get approved is a legal pathway of registering a fully digitized tokenized security for secondary market trading and um we also along the way ran into custody issues which is a huge deal right now everybody's talking right a bank doesn't want to hold custody of

crypto they definitely aren't even thinking about a digitized asset and holding custody so a couple years back we ran into that hurdle with our thesis and we started and forged the software company a team to go out and get that spdi Wyoming Charter so we are the recipient of a fourth spdi Charter in the state of Wyoming called commercium bank and so the tech is being integrated into the bank because the thesis is that the bank will hold custody of these digitized Securities so we are the only uh Bank in the state of Wyoming who's thesis is not to hold crypto but to

actually hold digitize Securities like a real estate Reit carbon credits we just had a call today with a sports team this is exciting right a sports team is going to fractionalize the ownership of of a sports team in Luxembourg and they are going to give each person ownership and and to the decision-making of the team like that just you know sometimes it's a boring reg D and sometimes it's something really cool like that so uh we are tokenizing but our our real main uh priority and agenda here are are to see the real Promises of blockchain

come full circle within the governance risk and compliance of the current constructs of the law right now and we have been one of those companies that have been like behind the curtains you know like there's a lot of people that hear what we're doing and they are just shocked and they're like where have you been and we're like look we've been trying to figure out the regulations we've been trying to to figure out the pathway and building the team um and all of those things were huge hurdles like if you've never tried to get a banking Charter especially a new one it's uh it's not as exciting as it might sound it's very expensive it's very time consuming and uh so that's a little bit about me um oh that's that's great I think one of

the interest things about the crypto space is it is it is new uh there's a lot of uh uncertainty which is good and bad good in in the sense there's a lot of intellectual challenges with uh figuring things out so people who like to figure things out um there's a lot of things to figure out in crypto and so there's a lot of challenges in the space certainly in the US where I think the regulations are and some of the other panels alluded to it where there's a lot less Clarity on this of these uh these regulatory environments uh perhaps it's clear abroad including in Europe where you know there's new regulation past Switzerland obviously is at the Forefront of any of these uh regulatory decisions um but we can let's now go back to more about careers facility and crypto uh if

I can go back to the the beginning panelists which was uh Brandon um and I want to uh focus more on at the actual careers in crypto so you know what what kind of we have to collapse some of the questions because uh we we were we only have uh I think till um uh the top of the hour but we can extend it and also if folks from the audience have questions they can type in the questions in the Q a unfortunately we can't actually go to the audience uh in this format but if there are questions I can actually uh I could read them and uh discuss them with the panelists so for our questions please let me know but just in order to make sure we have time for uh the rest of the questions and really focus on careers in crypto so I'll combine some of these

questions and and give every panelist time to answer them but you know what kind of careers are are available in crypto what kind of uh what roles are employers hiring for what what are your specific organization or company uh are you guys is your company organization hiring and then related to that if if you're how would a candidate a student whether it's a student a new graduate or experienced professional how should they design their career around uh or education around crypto I mean you know I guess there are some courses one can do are they are useful does it help um and and I think a lot of people have you know have been in this space and and it's been very turbulent and so uh is it

you know is it even advisable really you know for people to enter this space are you so I presume that there's still you know it's still still long-term space what's the future of this space and how uh will other Technologies sort of uh add to the space including for example yeah I mentioned earlier that AI is sort of the new new thing uh and I don't think it's an either or there probably are lots of AI um and fintech uh I mentioned this kind of an overlap between fintech Ai and crypto in any ways uh in in everything that that we could do here and so it's not either or maybe a lot of these skill sets kind of merged but around those questions it's not really yes or no but uh question but those sort of

ideas and Concepts if the panelists could sort of discuss some of those at least in the time that we have they'll be helpful if I could start with Brandon first that'll be helpful yeah there's a lot down back there but I will be brief um so I'll just specifically no I'll specifically focus on uh the FBI in a career in the FBI um obviously it's very well documented out there at fbijobs.gov uh what it takes to become an FBI agent but we don't only have FBI agents I'm a special agent with the FBI and and more I'm more of a generalist because not only do I have a niche of uh investigating crypto current or matters involving cryptocurrency but there's so many other items that I have to understand how to uh you know

investigate cases how to Liaison with defense attorneys prosecutors uh how to do uh interviews interrogations there's so much involved in being an FBI special agent uh and kind of the the icing on top of the cake is I get a chance to do all that plus uh be involved in a space that I I really care about and enjoy and that's that's the crypto space um but in the FBI we have uh a lot more positions than uh agents we have uh intelligence analysts we have operational Specialists we have a computer scientist data scientists data Engineers we have forensic accountants which are are heavily involved within our organization on the tracing of the

cryptocurrency the illegal proceeds that we follow and so there's a lot of positions available within the bureau that you can find yourself once you open the door and get in our organization that you can you can kind of focus on a niche such as cryptocurrency um so that that's one way and kind of in the background of all that I wanted to highlight uh as it relates to a career in the FBI and cryptocurrency is uh the space of stem and that is uh engineering computers anything technology uh our organization obviously sees what hat is happening in this space and the people that comprise this space they're very technically inclined uh both both the

legitimate and the criminals both of them are equally good um and so equally we have to match that expertise uh just so we can combat uh the threat both here in the in the states and assisting our our agency partners abroad and so we really invest on uh applicants that have those Pursuits or have the that that background of STEM related background uh that's kind of one category uh and once you get into the FBI as an agent or as another uh type of an employee you can really leverage your your skill set with computers encryption that your fundamentals of of how blockchain technology works and really pave the way

for what you want to do and kind of write your own take and there's a lot of opportunity I do applaud our organization we we do um we have embraced the space as far as uh enforcing it I think it is Samantha said we are the enforcers um and so there's a lot of opportunity uh for people such as myself invest in cryptocurrency right and and uh in terms of hiring yeah there's a website and I guess you know there's constant hiring yeah it's fbijobs.gov uh again I I'm gonna agent in the field so I don't necessarily I'm not part of Human Resources but I I did it 15 years ago and it's possible if a guy like me did

um and so there we are hiring I again it's not only an agent there's so many Specialties that you can get into the bureau with and if there's any college students on on this call right now you know the the FBI internship program is a great entry into uh the FBI and also government service because obviously a requirement and again we're talking about United States citizens uh a requirement is you've got to hold a secret bag or a secret clearance or some type of clearance to get in our organization yeah the neat thing is you get a badge too right we got very cool badge yep that that works you know as an agent uh you know I'm a law enforcement officer so um there's not only on crypto but

there's just a lot of opportunities that that exists with our organization so it's a great job okay fantastic that's that's good to hear because you hear a lot about you know layoffs and everything else that's going on in the private sector uh but I think what the interesting is the government is is always looking for for talented people regardless of how the economy is it's not necessarily uh impacted in some the same way yeah for sure and again as it relates to the space uh the crypto winner obviously the crypto winner doesn't really affect us directly um but you know we see the trends in crime the criminals that that use cryptocurrency just like they use the US dollar um and we certainly have not seen any

decrease in in that as it coincides with the crypto winner and again we're talking about the movement of illegal funds via cryptocurrency uh it's actually increased during this time so which I find very interesting okay sounds good um uh can we go to Samantha please yeah so I think there are still plenty of opportunity if you're interested in a um and again the larger space would be blockchain right um and digital assets and not necessarily in financial services but across the board um Stacy mentioned you know carbon credits and uh Securities are of course

financial services but there's just so much that can be done with this um registration of anything of any asset um not necessarily Securities but um uh there's just a lot of applicability uh in everyday life and it does make things easier right the fact that there's an audit Trail the fact that it is that audit Trail is relatively secure um because there are these cryptographic links to each uh transaction to a larger blockchain and the fact that it's done

near instantly and the information is distributed across these nodes on and then if one node goes down it doesn't really matter um the rest of the nodes just carry on and they all have the same record so uh and that's blockchain technology for you and there have been you know some major improvements on the technology itself and the speed and capacity for throughput uh recently and um there's a lot of great minds here so I think there's plenty of room uh for people to get in involved there have been you know really bad failures and layoffs and again there have been

um some sorting out of the Personnel I guess in the space but I really think that if you're interested in this space you don't necessarily have to be a coder um you know just most of us here on this call or not on Engineers or coders uh and really there's a need for all of the typical roles that um you would see in any Corporation there's a need for marketing people there are need for just regular I.T people that don't know how to do blockchain coding there are blockchain coders there are strategy people lawyers

compliance people um operations so it's just any any there are routers human resources in any kind of Corporation you'll find those same roles at a crypto firm um and then likewise on the government side there are Regulators lawyers on law enforcement uh so it's really the panoply of um of services that are needed and a whole ecosphere that's not really that different from anything else except for defy a true defy you know it's really all about the code being set out there on its own and operating on its own

that's true D5 there's not a lot of true defy out there there are a lot of humans still or corporations or organizations standing behind what is supposed to be a D5 organization uh but that you know leads to another whole can of worms um so I I kind of I forgot what your other the other parts of your questions were just to then maybe it's a refreshment for the others who still haven't spoken yet but uh you know I think we you talked about the types of careers available in crypto uh but I think the other one is how would a candidate whether it's a student a new graduate or experienced professional design their

education or career and the future of the crypto space uh short medium long term and also around new technology like AI how's this going to change things so anything you want to touch on that right so I would say um if you're interested in crypto and this is how I did it and I don't think it's necessarily wrong crypto is just uh a sliver like a different kind of Technology a new emerging technology which you should definitely learn about and kind of immerse yourself in learning but I don't think like if you're a lawyer there's you know you need to um I would say go with your whatever

career you're interested in and go ahead and develop that out and then make your specialty in crypto oh um I think there's a lot of overlap um and taking what is kind of old or traditional whatever and then applying it to crypto um so you're gonna need to be and I think we do need creative minds to be able to bridge from the old way the traditional way of doing whatever you know Human Resources paying people in crypto whatever the case may be and translating it over into crypto so I think your base skills just pursue those

base skills for that function but then really learn about crypto and how it works and what the current problems are um I I I think making those kind of um analogies and being creative about it is where it's at because it's not all laid out it's not like oh if you take this class on crypto you'll be set you'll know everything and you'll be set up um it's still very much evolving and then I would say with um technology including AI I think it's only going to actually be a great Synergy in with crypto with blockchain technology but it's just another technology

um and I don't think folks should get too caught up in a specific technology because there's going to be Quantum Computing and there's going to be I mean there's all kinds of different technology in different spaces slowly but surely rolling out right and um I think that Ai and blockchain I think AI will eventually have even more of an impact than blockchain technology on our society as a whole um but I think that again if you're interested in that learn about that too and learn about you know the the strengths the weaknesses and um start making analogies on on that

side as well and thinking about the impact on how things have traditionally been done I think really your critical thinking skills are going to be the best skills that you're going to need in this field um versus uh some kind of you know harder education the ability to think innovatively and on flexibly is going to be the most important factor in your success okay that that's that thank you very much I think that's really great I think that one of those points you made that I think is very relevant is that there are all types of positions available whether it's marketing or even accounting you

know there's so many things within this space that all types of positions available I think people often have this notion that it is you have to understand this technology to be a coder which is not true and I think that's I mean you have to have an interest in it but this doesn't have to be your core uh so I think that that makes a lot of sense um we still have a few minutes left and I'll uh I'd like to turn to Philippe because I think there's some audience questions that actually Philippe would probably be uh very well suited to answer some of these questions which are in terms of really around that same uh question around you know what skill sets do you need you know are there positions and strategies for example uh in encrypt crypto that that aren't necessarily around the pure Tech and I think the

other is a geographical location uh a lot of you know these positions that folks are talking about they have some U.S orientation but clearly this industry is global so Philip also could you talk about you know the global space there are certain um areas in crypto I think we're all familiar with that uh that are quite uh the Forefront whether it's Dubai you know UAE or um there seem to still be a lot of activity in these other Geographic geographies maybe the China world is slightly a different uh Universe right now but elsewhere in the world you know where you know where our uh folks hiring and

just like for example uh uh Brandon spoke about the FBI I think you know every large country will have uh their own government organizations uh hiring in a similar space and so those opportunities you know uh could could exist in in other countries as well but please go ahead absolutely so on the government roads I can't really uh comment to be honest but um maybe let me start by sharing probably one of the best advice a career advice I ever received which was uh from one of my MBA professors uh which was whatever you do always try to be for business to the company that you're joining and so you know when thinking about the types of um positions um and careers that are possible that

crypto companies I think it's important to to sort of you know be thinking about that and uh thinking depending on the type of company whether it's an exchange whether it's a market maker whether it's a Christian Etc what is really core core to their business um and obviously a lot of the examples I'm going to give are Financial Services related because that's what I didn't want but the the same logic apply in the blockchain space even outside of financial services so a few examples would you know if you look at market makers for instance like the likes of wintermute b2c through GSR for instance you know they'll be primarily hiring or at least if you want to be core to their business it's probably going to be around you know trading profiles um as well as forms who can develop

pricing and risk management models or even technologists who can sort of maintain trading platforms apis Etc and you know just to contrast that with um digital students for instance in digital security you know obviously the tech continents I think in crypto businesses it's it's important regardless of the the crypto model but in digital asset custody probably one of the core core core functioning sales you know if you can't really sell um you know your uh your your custody infrastructure solution to whichever Financial Services firm whichever in the world you know uh you don't have a business anymore basically so uh B2B experience B2B and well connected B2B

salespersons who can you know who have those relationship or are able to build those relationships uh who are able to manage a long sale Cycles um manage also the implementation Dimension you know once you've sold those things uh it's a whole project to actually integrate the solution within the infrastructure of the the bank that is the client you know this is a special skill set and this is really cool to the business of those digital students and so you know for each of the verticals um specific skills are um well what is core is different specific skills those the skills that will be needed will be different and I think candidates need to sort of be thinking about you know what do we need to bring to the table to be

to be relevant to those companies and then you know one of your other questions was specifically Roscoe said something um I think that well firstly what how can we start to get a carrying crypto because a lot of the people who today work in crypto they started in traditional financial services at some point they moved into crypto um I think they will soon be the first generation of young professional but really start their career in crypto which is something quite new um some of the large crypto firms like coinbase binance Kraken Etc they do offer internships or higher Trolls but it's still fairly uncommon in the crypto industry and I think something else that is important to note instead of it's a

growing industry it's growing fast maybe not so much recently but it's been growing fast uh since it's uh since uh it started but it's still very very small compared to traditional financial services and especially in the number of jobs um so you know there will be specific skills needed if you wanna if you want to join but uh an alternative way could also be to just start in Trend file um where you can allow you can join large financial institutions benefit from well structured graduate programs and there are some large financial institutions that are really interested in crypto like bny melon Fidelity Etc in in the USA and then you know once you've built this experience and this kind of new team you can progressively shift from transphy to the world of

crypto whether it's an internal shift within your current employer or an external ship that doesn't really matter because you would have acquired this sort of experience in this uh capability to make that move into the crypto space successfully and I guess the last part of your question was on the future of the crypto uh industry I think your Frozen uh Phillip so can you hear me yeah yeah okay so so the the your last question was about the future right of the yeah the future yeah and also geography you can just talk talk one a little about geography geographical regions which are useful so I mean I think in terms of you know uh functionally I think adoption of

crypto you know it's a social Trend and probably in five to ten years from now you will have more stuff investors retail or institutional investors they will have a small proportion of their portfolio investment people so this well at least I firmly believe into this and it's good news there are other things that might have an impact um such as regulation for instance and you know the origins of the world where the regulatory Frameworks are much more crypto friendly to Switzerland anyway uh very good examples and they're becoming big crypto hubs and other regions where things are getting a bit more complicated and I think well sorry to say that but really in the U.S uh you know things are getting implicated um and this massively drives Talent

flows meaning you know which of the regions of the world where you know big crypto companies will expand and invest and this you know has a one-to-one relationship with job creation uh in uh in those in those specific reasons something else to keep in mind I think is a fundraising activity because it's a great proxy of of uh for job creation and uh over the last two years obviously it's not been as great as 2021 but you know the right firms still managed to raise funds successfully at reasonable valuation even in the current market I mean in Switzerland we have tons of examples like those ones but like recently uh Boris in the digital security Space

Storage raised 65 million for their series B um but it's not defending around but but like uh yesterday uh Ripple announced that it just bought metaco in the people marketing space there has been some huge fundraise of filling rounds from Q Rock and Portofino Russia so you know I think understanding well which are the areas of the crypto world where these running rounds are still happening and targeting those companies as potential employers is also probably quite a smart way to uh to to approach it so basically what makes sense is targeting the regions of the world that are crypto friendly and targeting the crypto companies that have

raised them you know substantial funds and therefore are the most likely to be hiring yeah I think that makes a lot of sense okay great uh we'll have time for our last person which is uh station and we'll probably have to to close it let me see if there's any other questions uh um well uh that we can go to so um Stacy if you could please uh respond yeah I think there's a little bit I'd like to add to that because I know our panel is kind of geared towards the Regulatory and the financial aspects but I think there's a tremendous opportunity for nft designers and web3 designers I think it um it opens up just a tremendous amount of opportunity for a designer to own

their own stuff right and to monetize that because part of what's so fantastic about the blockchain is the peer-to-peer interaction that it allows for as well as for each person to own their own design or their photography or things like that so I think there's just a huge um opportunity for entrepreneurs who are are creatives um and I think that's worth mentioning because I think this is going to allow for musicians and artists and and like I said photographers and so forth to really get out there and to monetize their work and to keep control over the IP of their work which has never been seen before so that's worth a mention um I didn't know if you had an

additional other than that we always need blockchain developers um I you know we spend a tremendous in the last six years um I know everybody on my team has spent a tremendous amount of effort trying to educate as many people as possible because it's a big disrupter it's going to disrupt every industry and as much as you'd like to say like go ahead and pursue the traditional route I don't know in college a four-year time spans a lot you know I I think that this space is progressing quicker than people realize I think there's a ton of people that you know it's an infrastructure so we've all been building for six and seven years and by the time adoption happens you know it's it's a it's a

massive disruption happening quickly to the average person so I would highly encourage everybody to take advantage of you know the certificates that are out there at the universities like right now the University of Cincinnati which I am super proud of um I am an alumni of there my son goes there um and I've encouraged him to take that certification there's a blockchain certification and I think that you know regardless of whatever career path you choose and degree that you're seeking uh there's a lot of options for those certificates popping up and I know for the University of Cincinnati they've really got um a diverse coursework that per it's in like you know a class in the legal

aspect a class in the the technology aspect you know it really gives a large overview by the time you get done with just that little certificate to be able to apply how your degree whatever that is and even for my daughter she wants to be a lawyer I'm like look you better start thinking about the blockchain you better start thinking about you know Ai and these things because you know AI is going to disrupt law firms right and and just even on that topic because I know we touched on this briefly you know AI is coming and people think that Ai and blockchain are not very related but here's the thing coming from assistant systems integration and automation background you know I was used to working

um primarily in manufacturing where widgets were going across a bunch of different types of systems a conveyor system a vision system these different systems and they were early adopters and tying those systems together to allow for them to communicate but at the end of the day it would dump data in one big giant thing and so I know we've all heard this word data science right Big Data well it's big data because you have these you know individualized systems that may be able to just dump data into what they call a data Lake and then there's science that has to be applied to that to even make sense of it to make algorithms or any type of automation but in the future with even like what we're doing at 10xts it's an infrastructure

right it consolidates the data into a block right and and it and it organizes data in a different way whether it's the security or a supply chain you know from raw materials to to the point of sale if you can organize that data in an infrastructure and it it it it cuts out the the long data science and the data Lake dumping and and it takes AI quicker and faster to the point to make decisions so you know even in this in the sense of Traders using you know data it's it's it's really a game changer I I think I heard in some article that you know between the blockchain and AI it's

like two industrial revolutions at once right and it's happening quick um so I don't know where you were going with the question but I do want to throw those things in after everybody else had something to say because I think from a college person's perspective that you know everybody needs to be learning about this it is going to disrupt every industry from supply chain all the way to the financial industry and um it's worth learning about from a tech perspective yeah absolutely and I think um I I just saw one question uh I just wanted to respond to that the questioner asked are experienced professionals you know is there a space for them in this industry um you know how would you respond to that you know what kind of experience

professionals could get into this space I mean I know where I started right I just wandered out and showed up to like a blockchain thing and it was like five people okay seven years ago eight years ago there was like a bunch of dorks showing off tech people and I was a business person and systems integration automation not that I don't understand Tech but I had a thirst to learn and understand and um you know I know my son's the same way at 22 he's trading crypto he's doing D5 he shows me things uh you know about web3 that's coming that AI tools I mean all of that is out there you just have to just step out on the ledge and and start learning and I think our children are self-learners you

know I mean we're you know we had I used to have to go next door to get an encyclopedia um to get information right so like now I'm showing my age but at the end of the day um these these young kids have access to information and they've grown up with access to information they YouTube everything they have no problem learning and so I would just educate you know I would encourage people to really step out on the ledge and self-learn the opportunity is unlimited I mean it is so unlimited there there is a way to become an expert no one's an expert right now right the space is maturing the information is available you know throw yourself into the information start learning connect with people in the

community and I think that you know you'll see the job opportunities come to life right because I think what we need are people that are excited about learning because the space is going to continue to grow and evolve and change and adapt so that's a core feature of what we need and somebody that that is going to step into the space um I know that's me no I I think that's a very uh I think it's actually a very optimization there are areas of the crypto space that really require specifically experience professionals that come from Fred fi and where people that have always worked in crypto will never be a fit uh and I'm specifically thinking about the risk and

compliance area um I've been working with a number of clients that wanted to um that move from not having a banking license to trying to get a banking license and in that specific case if you're trying to put in front of a regulator you know a guy that has always been in crypto with a very different culture from better for regulator Etc It's Not Gonna Fly and typically if you if you if you miss your first try at getting a banking license the second one is how the the third one is harder and the fourth one forget about it so you know especially in those kind of positions getting someone so a senior Banker that has been working in risk and compliance for a big chunk

of their car has existing relationship with The Regulators Etc makes a lot of sense so they are and it's just one example but there are many possible Bridges uh between uh transfy and uh crypto for experience professionals our banking team came from HSBC at least some of them from Regulatory and compliance so very fast do uh um Samantha or uh uh Brandon have any last words so we'll wrap up in a minute here I of course believe I mean I can't I came from

regulation [Music] so um there's definitely a place to Bridge Over uh and speak really kind of bring the two uh sides together I found to be like an honest broker or like to be able to translate to The Regulators this is what crypto is saying and this is what's special about it and this is what's unclear in our current regulations how they don't really match right but on the other side I'm able to say here's what Regulators are concerned about this is why regulations exist for you know having it safe for consumers Financial

stability whatever the regulatory policy is behind um the long long laws and regulations uh there's like a very simple explanation for why those things exist and being able to translate that back and forth on to both sides is incredibly um useful and empowering actually to the person that's able to take that unique position so again I think it's um important to as others have said on this call be curious you know teach yourself um ask questions and uh you learn keep up with the new

stuff but you know there are some very tried and true um skills to learn from your traditional path as well great thank you Brandon anything uh last minute or so do you want to add before we wrap up just a brief comment and I think the theme was diversification of a young a young person's life uh Samantha Mission you know her her son in college and I'm certainly dealing that with that with teenagers and we talk about diversification and just getting a broad range following following your passions um and then once you get your foot in the door with with a a company or a space or an agency then you can start to to look at where the opportunities are

and and follow those those pathsways from there but it certainly starts with curiosity initiative and just uh just a desire to be in this technical space okay wonderful well thank you everybody thanks to the audience uh for being with us thanks crypto Valley uh suzish for help us organize this and thank you to the panelists for very engaging discussion so hopefully we'll see you uh next time at one of these thank you we'll wrap it up here thanks for having us all right bye-bye bye