The State of Privacy and Decentralisation in Crypto - Live at Buidl Europe 2026

Transcript

in this world of evolving cipher punks to institutions and KYC and AML it's likely inevitable if we want more mainstream adoption of the space but then to maintain that freedom to say okay well it's not working for me I'm going to go here >> when we get privacy on on blockchains institutions and companies and sort of corporate world gets benefit from that but also individuals do because let's hope that individuals also get the benefit from it because we may also end up in a sort of two-tiered world where you know the powerful get their privacy but you know the weak or not. And so that would not be a great outcome.

>> This [music] is a spectrum. All of us care about privacy in some way, shape or form, but like I still use iMessage and I still use WhatsApp and I still like do Twitter DMs and stuff. >> I think sort of if you're looking more sort of the institutional side regarding [music] privacy, you know, they want the privacy on their clients, the privacy on the transactions while still being able to be auditable to a degree. people are slash should only be comfortable really sharing that information if if they have privacy. [music] >> Welcome to Epicenter, the show which talks about the technologies, projects and people driving decentralization and the blockchain revolution. Um we're here today at Bidd Europe. Hi guys, thanks

for joining me today. So we'll start with a a brief round of introductions for this panel on defiance and institutions. What happens to cipher punk values when institutions start buying our bags? Basically the idea here is you know is crypto at a sort of an existential point where uh institutional adoption of crypto leads uh a lot of the ethos and values and principles that have driven all this innovation uh for the last 15 years. Does it throw a lot of those uh principles out the window?

Uh but yeah, we'll start with brief introductions to my share of Wright. Hey guys, my name is Ben Lakeoff. I'm actually based here in Lisbon and I run Banklist Ventures which is an early stage venture fund in a crypto ecosystem. >> I'm Matthew Arrow. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Dark Forest. We advise on market micro structures and token liquidity to foundations and protocols within the crypto ecosystem. >> Uh hi everyone. I'm Aurora Oriana. I work for managing director at G20 strategies. Uh we support a lot of uh blockchain protocols uh with market making. Uh we do advisory and we support for a lot of OTC services and treasury management uh as well as asset asset

management. Thank you. >> Hi everyone. I'm Richard Murehead. Um I'm a managing partner of Fabric Ventures and we have been kicking around in the space since about 2012 back couple hundred different projects and seen a few crypto waves and seen a few ways over the last set of decades. I also have one other kind of small hat which is I'm on the board of sovereign SBRN which is spun out of the the kind of near ecosystem. It's where trying to keep my my sword sharp from an operational perspective because I could have from whence I came Yeah.

This episode is brought to you by Nosis, building the open internet one block at a time. Nosis was founded in 2015 and it's grown from one of Ethereum's earliest projects into a powerful ecosystem for open userowned finance. Nosis is also the team behind products that had become core to my business and that of so many others like Safe and Cow Swap. At the center is Nosis Chain. It's a low fee layer 1 with zero downtime in 7 years and secured by over 300,000 validators. It's the foundation for real world financial applications like Nosis Pay and circles. All this is governed by Nosis DAO, a communityrun organization where anyone with a GNO token can vote on updates, fund new projects, and even

run a validator from home. So, if you're building in web 3 or you're just curious about what financial freedom can look like, start exploring at Nosis.io. Before we start this this conversation, I think one um interesting question to perhaps get into is like what are the values that we actually want to defend as an industry as people have been building in the space for a long time who came into the industry with aspirations of a world where interactions would be mediated by systems where trust was minimized. um where people had financial freedom um where perhaps even things like regulation, sanctions uh could be skirted. What are the values that we

actually want to defend and want to sort of carry on into the next like 10 to 15 years of crypto adoption as institutions becoming increasingly uh involved in this space? >> Uh I can kick off. Um I think sort of self custody is um a key point being able to uh have the option to uh look after your own assets um and certain sort of guard rails as well where you can also uh exit a platform without permission and I think having uh proper um privacy and also uh visibility as well with the transactions um while also providing um secure networks. I think is a really core

thing. >> Yeah. Very important for fungibility as well. If you have assets on one platform that, you know, can only be traded or interacted with with, you know, platforms that are approved or vetted, then like fungeability sort of falls apart. Um, any other things that come to mind? >> I I think the big one for me is like per permissionlessness. Um, and uh, Eric Vorhees did a really good uh, keynote at uh, permissionless conference a few years ago, but it was like not having to ask permission to send money or deploy a smart contract or invest in different things. But I think that like ethos for me is like the biggest most important um, aspect for me within the crypto world.

>> Yeah. And I I would just echo what both of you have said and um I I I think if we're talking about cipher punks, one one of the earliest cipher punks was probably Benjamin Franklin. Uh and and he had this this great saying that I love and he said um those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither. And I I think there's something there that can be applied to our space as well and how we manage this merge and evolve into a more uh institutional faced ecosystem and uh preserving the permissionless space and preserving the privacy and making sure we're not uh

compromising too far on those values that we started. >> Yeah. So, so I think you know if we go back to it the the core principles of being a cipher punker that you know definitely openness uh I don't I can maybe ask forgiveness not uh permission um I always think thought that maybe that would be a good title for a conference actually uh forgiveness but and um and that and privacy is a core part of that that sort of sovereignty over your your yourself and to be able to keep secrets and so forth. I think maybe tackling a head on, you know, this desire that was at the root from the romantic stages of this of our movement from web 3 to have um kind of

sovereignty over your your money, you know, self-custody for example and and from that it was related to a desire not to be subject to the uh devaluation of fiat for for example. I I think that, you know, some of that we just have to accept that as the kind of pendulum swings from, you know, purely supporting the desires of the individual to um dealing with the realities of institutions that we're going to have to compromise on that a bit and that um therefore, you know, we're going to have to have on ramps and offramps. We're going to have to deal with, you know, KYC and so forth. I think we all know I mean this is a tr this is a trope that is going well through throughout the industry already that we want to have

selective you know um revealing of information to make that possible but but I think that the the question of um having sort of sound money and being free from the grips of our kind of central banking overlords or whatever I think that can only come if there's actually we can get it with the movement we've got now but it doesn't come by forcing it it comes from competition between jurisdictions that if a jurisdiction is bad, manages its kind of fis monetary policy badly, if there's enough um uh fluidity between different ecosystems, borderlessness, you know, spanning nations, then you know that will get punished in a way that it wasn't before.

But we've already seen with some of the rules say around stable coins in the UK where they're restricting them out that you as an individual or as an institution can hold, you're going to end up with caps. it's hard um for governments to fight that instinct that they need to control you know money flow >> right I think like sovereignty is such a huge uh such an important part of the idea of of being a cipher punk uh and and many of the core values were sort of rooted in uh the idea of personal sovereignty and personal freedom personal liberties privacy etc as we all know you know much of our financial transactions are intermediated by entity entities that are regulated. Um those regulations in large part at least in

Europe and the developed world come from guidances that were issued by a shadowy group of people that uh sit in this organization called the FATF which you know if you don't know about the FATF look it up studied the FATF and and the FATF is accountable to no one is elected by no one um is effectively not even an organization. And it's just sort of like a group of people that got together and decided, hey, we're going to create these rules for the world and like people will abide by them because we're also going to um rate people by or rate countries by their uh degree to which that they agree to agree to these rules.

And so there's sort of a um a rackets happening here. Sorry, this is a really hot topic for me. Uh but um yeah in in that reality in the reality of the you know the FATF regulated world there's a tension between that the the desire to control to control financial flows to uh control financial flows for reasons that you know may or may not even arrive to the goals of of fighting terrorism and and money laundering. um I think in large part it doesn't and the individual freedom the individual liberties of people to transact freely without uh caps for instance in France you can't use cash for more than €3,000 you can't pay transactions uh for more than a few thousand euros so there's a tension

there that it feels unresolvable you know where do we land where where's the where's the is there a middle ground and how do we as an industry as people who believe in freedom and and personal liberties continue to fight against this uh this Goliath Well, I mean, I'll I'll try and connect it to my previous thought. I think if you if you can choose to be in within whichever platform or whichever nation you want and you can kind of, you know, rage quit from it when you want, you can move your assets or some, you know, privacy preserved memory of of what you've been doing and you can take it with you. It's portable. Your your value is portable, which is pretty easy these days, but your preferably your kind of identity and your sort of data exhaust is also

portable. If you can do that then that encourages competition. Um and and then I think I think the balance comes through competition between these different jurisdictions. That's how you square the circle. I mean if you ask any you know everybody individually where the balance should lie. Of course you'll get a good mill a million different answers and probably on a democratic basis probably not a very good a good answer. Um but uh but I think through competition you've got a chance that both people are keeld in jurisdictions are held in check because people can leave. Um but also you should get segmentation and diversity if you really don't like the way the balances have been struck in one one space you can go

to go to another one you know where there are fewer caps or it's more libertarian. Yeah, I was going to say I I think that's essential is just maintaining that freedom of movement and choice and uh you know it's like you you can please all the people half the time and half the people all the time and you're never going to do a good job at that and someone's never going to like the jurisdiction or the regulating body that they're living within or under and uh but to maintain that freedom to to move and say okay this is it doesn't suit me as a person this not doesn't not line up with my ethos I think that is uh you know in this world of evolving cipher punks to institutions and KYC and AML it's likely inevitable if we want uh

more mainstream adoption of the space but then to maintain that freedom to say okay well it's not working for me I'm going to go here and I think that's extremely valuable >> and we definitely observed a fabric over the years um across Europe Europe is all these incredible sort of old city states with academia and these pockets of innovation an embracing of a sort of libertarian middle way and and and quite a lot of revolt directed towards you know extreme forms of government typic typically in Europe that created an opportunity I think around our space around the web 3 and and movement for a long period of time and then governments competed to attract with n you know with benevolent sort of regulation everyone from Maltzer to you know Switzerland to

to France to the UK to whatever. I think we then squandered that lead a little bit because you know it's always possible for people to pole vault and through you could argue quite strong individual and statewide um economic self-interest the US just pole vaulted into the lead by saying we're just going to embrace this all super fast but that's good now as long as you know for Europe I guess as long as we wake up again uh and and become increasingly competitive >> and I I like that idea of competition and kind of voting with your feet and being able this portability. But I think that the the other thing to um be cognizant of is like this is a spectrum as well is like all of us care about

privacy in some way, shape or form, but like I still use iMessage and I still use WhatsApp and I still like do Twitter DMs and stuff and I'm not just pushing everybody to Signal and Proton Mail because of conveniences and stuff like that. So, I think everybody kind of has their line and what they're willing to sacrifice on this like scale um between cipher punk and convenience as as you'd kind of alluded to as well. >> I think as to your point, I think people value privacy differently as well where to some people it's uh it's everything and others they're they're willing to give it give a little bit of that away.

I think sort of if you're looking more sort of the institutional side regarding privacy, you know, they want the privacy on their clients, the privacy on the transactions while still being able to be auditable to a degree. All right? So everything's um monitored, but they will give on a need to know basis. Um, and so it's a bit of a a fine line between, I guess, the cipher punk, you know, pure privacy ethos and how the institutions are adapting and within their guardrails and what will what will eventuate uh, with that.

>> Yeah, I think privacy is like one of those things that's been proactively ignored and retroactively appreciated. And we we all have the benefit well most of us have the benefit of living in a society that uh we're not political dissident and we're not enemies of the state and uh you know for all intents and purposes we we don't have anything to hide but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't value our privacy and >> yeah it makes it makes sense but if you extend what you said it's the the classic like you know um it's only once the horse has bolted that you remember to kind of close the barn door from individuals in in particular tend to be like that and I was mentioning in the green room whatever we if there was some kind of singular mantra within fabric

for the last few years and I think this extends quite broadly within venture capital it's that it's quite hard to sell privacy to to anyone individual to get them to make that choice they tend to be complacent but but I have I mean reflecting on it a bit and we'll we'll see I guess what happens you know shortly in in in our industry but but possibly for three reasons that might change so one is the regulatory issue we're talking about here. You've got to have the on onoff ramps and like uh we're in a situation where the what do they call it like a D5 mullet, you know, kind of like you you got centralized at the front and sort of DeFi at the back and um I I think there's a lot of that makes sense because you know you you can operate in you know in a compatible way

with today's markets. You can on board the huge amount of assets that are not currently etc. So that's going to that's clearly you know forging ahead. Another one I think is around something that's a core part plank of our thesis again. So I keep talking about fabric but you know at fabric which is the role for web 3 in a sense is to organize the world's data from the bottom up to make it available to AI the menagerie of AI kind of agents and models and so forth to to make them better and we see that there's obvious this insatiable appetite for data. Um, people are slash should only be comfortable really sharing that information if if they have privacy. If privacy is is baked in. I was talking to a pretty illustrious, you know, pension

investor this week about it. You know, like if you if you're going to just default to letting your scales and your watch and everything give all of the data all the time and your genetics and the work the works, you want to tr trust that system and therefore know that there's some privacy. So, I think that's the second reason privacy might kick in. And the third is this um chat at the moan about how we all know that kind of block space is pretty commoditized in every sense. Um but that you can get you can get a moat if uh I think the phrase that Alli over at ACCZ uses that is that uh you know you you um you can export your value pretty quickly but but it's very hard to get of export the the secrets. Um so privacy can make a

difference to constructing a defensible competitive mode for the all the blockchains that exist today. So for so different stakeholders I think in the system now have a reason to start adopting privacy which I think could could mean that it that it really takes off but I hope we still get the balance in terms of um you know it doesn't swing too far in the wrong direction. >> Yeah. So you want to say something? Yeah. I mean I think like for privacy I think institutions and broadly you know um the corporate world values privacy differently than individuals do and I think uh the I think in large part you know maybe large but not a large part but in in some part blockchains have not been adopted by you know the majority of the world's businesses because there is

no privacy and and privacy is an essential component to I think you know capitalism because it is like arbitrage is what makes capitalism kind of work and and you get that by having uh um opacity information and like and um and so when when we get privacy on on blockchains institutions and companies and sort of corporate world gets benefit from that but also individuals do because well let's hope so let's hope that individuals also get the benefit from it because we may also end up in a sort of two-tiered world where you know uh the powerful get their privacy but you know the weak do not and so that would not be a great outcome but >> but again privacy means different things to different people and institutions and and like blockchains by design are public, transparent, and permanent. So

they're like the complete opposite of private by design. But like with an institution, I mean, it's like like you were saying, there's like a few key things that they're worried about. And it can be it can be not private to a few or a trusted party and it doesn't have to be completely obiscated all the way to like the cipher punk values. I >> I mean picking your point about how institutions behave I don't know how many people have spent time sort of selling to institutions. I we've all dealt with bureaucracy, but I always like to reflect it's like the individuals themselves could be, you know, very happy or in fact excited about adopting a new technology moving certain direction, but of course, you know, if you got a compliance department

or or some several departments and basically your bonus or your job depends on not screwing this up, >> it never happens. >> And so we've been at that stage for a long period of time and we're starting to see that now play out in a positive way. Um and and I and I do think that's if we can well regulation does that partly. If we can have privacy so that institutions can have arbit arbitrage and can protect some of their intellectual property for at least for a period of time so they can make money that's going to drive things. Uh but I do think it's an interesting point if you think about it. We rely on kind of social consensus on privacy with large organizations currently but whether it be Google, Meta, Bank of America, Barcies or whatever we're comfortable we

give up all of this information. the institutions have the ability to enforce a level of privacy although they don't always do a great job of it for themselves or or the customers but actually we have no privacy within those institutions and we do have an opportunity right now with the technologies that have been coaxed into the mainstream by by this you know our industry CK you know HMA etc you know and and long may the debates rage on Twitter as to which is the right thing for the right job but it's you know we have an opportunity to tap into those to also have privacy for the individual to strike that balance so I think I hope we get those competition so that that

emerges >> well I don't know if you saw this uh this news recently where uh French tax someone within French tax authorities uh divulged information about so sort of like some crypto uh founder in France uh to criminal networks that end up either kidnapping him or something like that I mean yeah so like even within and trusted institutions. uh we we we don't have uh you know there are incentives that uh uh make it such that emerald privacy isn't protected sort of makes you um want to not pay your taxes but >> um for example >> not not financial advice or tax advice but um >> well it always reminds me of um Travis I mean maybe it's a process this point I

seem to remember I read it probably but when Travis Kanic from uh you know Uber was up there and accidentally switched into god mode on Uber you remember that when he could see where >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> He could see where everybody was traveling. Um, yes. Well, this this is a fear, right? Because I think you you you kind of nailed one of the points or or the crux of the problem is that institutions are extremely riskadverse. If there's something that's going to jeopardize somebody's end ofear bonus, they're not going to do it regardless of the benefit it could provide. And the status quo of all these institutions right now is anti-privacy. So just complete transparency as much as possible because this is how a lot of

the web 2 businesses have profited uh over the past couple decades is you know Google invented this model of uh surveillance capitalism and they just eat all the data they can and then sell this to others. Facebook then perfected it. >> Yeah. And then the fear is that this just kind of continues and grows and as you said then Uber has this god mode and uh you know what's where where does it go? >> Agree. The flip the flip side of that risk aversion that folks in companies have is that if they smell a profit or a small piece of their contribution to a profit which in itself may look not look totally evil they will do it but then 10 or 100 of them do it and in in total that can be quite evil as an outcome as

we as we as we know. I think that's interesting. I'm trying and I I think you know having it was I had this epiphany at one point that kind of like you want privacy so that you have in a sense and some people use this term your own backpack of of information and and money and so forth. Um and then you want that backpack to be portable so that you can take it some somewhere else. We were talking about that you know we want that fluidity and and I think that and for me the epiphany story I had was that portability is basically the flip side of the coin from composability. So it's not just important to the individual that you're able to flip around like that and create competition but it's also essential for innovation because you know in talking about the you know

what do we want to preserve as we find the correct blend between institutions and individuals one key part of it is is composability we want to you know for the developers to not have to ask permission for how they compose you know their applications from different existing uh components. So I think they all tie together like you know privacy backpack portability composability that's the thing that we want to get get right >> and I think this is where you might start seeing more sort of the DeFi infrastructure supporting institutions they're going to be taking the efficiencies but there'll be guard rails around the edges where there's the guardrails to tick the regulatory boxes but things going to

become more efficient for instance say atomic settlement a lot of the other things that defy has created and if it creates more efficiency and you know more money for the institutions then they'll they'll use those infrastructures um to their advantage. Well, I I'd like to maybe shift a little bit the conversation to to DeFi. We've talked a lot about privacy and freedom, which I think are super interesting. But on on the DeFi side, you know, if we look at volume broadly like uh across across crypto, most exchange volume is done on centralized exchanges um and and not on dexes, not on AMNS and most of the uh lending as well. And so leverage happens

on centralized exchanges. Um, is this an indicator that DeFi has failed to deliver that promise of efficiency? Uh, and and if not, I see you shaking your head. Then what is what what is the u what is the utility of DeFi and like what what efficiencies will institutions traditional finance institutions and sort of global finance take away from DeFi uh in order to provide more efficient better systems global systems permissionless etc. like all these things that were >> well I think sort of I alluded before these you know atomic settlements so instant settlement rails and sort of the speed as well and how the infrastructure can really support a lot of the uh new transactions that are taking place across the board obviously the volumes are not comparable with the centralized

exchanges and a lot of that is for regulatory requirements and the KYC component of it for the onboarding so I think it's a lot of the the tech stacks that will be implemented uh on the back end with the institutions I think that infrastructure continues to get better. UIUX continues to get better. And the these used to be bigger bigger bottlenecks, but if it's on a blockchain, it's censor censorship resistant and you can self-custody your assets and centralized exchanges work great until they don't. I mean, there's Roger Ve that used to say like treat centralized exchanges like a public restroom. get in, do business, try not to touch any anything and get out as quickly as possible. Um, but I think,

you know, now these like more trusted institutions that are publicly traded, etc., but they're still centralized. Um, and I think that there's like a blending of the two, like Richard had mentioned the DeFi mullet. So there could be this like centralized front end with decentralized backend. For example, like Coinbase with the Morpho integration. This has been live since April 2025. So they launched this if you have Bitcoin on Coinbase Bitcoin sitting on Bitcoin network presumably, but like you click a button and it's wrapped on Ethereum as CBTC and then you borrow against it on Morpho completely under the hood. But like people don't know what's happening

and try to do that on your own even with the UX and wallet uh advances that we have today. That would be a very arduous process and you'd probably lose it in the pro in the process. Um but you can borrow against your Bitcoin at 6%. Which is super um competitive with uh any centralized provider lending against your Bitcoin. Uh so things like this that are kind of blending the both but it's it's really this DeFi mullet with um DeFi underneath the >> so centralized exchanges capit or the institutions capitulated onto the centralized exchanges because they have the order book that they know and love these clubs and it's it's just because centralized exchanges are not familiar

with AMMs and going back to this risk adverseness of institutions or the institutions aren't familiar with with the AMM models and since they're they're riskadverse they're they're naturally going to uh keep the distance and I think as you're saying uh with with these hybrid dexes that have the clob on the on the on the front end and onchain settlement on the back end this is going to be uh the first introduction of institutions to dexes and then it's only a matter of time until the institutions start to understand the efficiencies of operating on a DEX versus a centralized exchange and then evolution over time and more and more order flow And we're living in the hion days of centralized exchanges, but uh I think within five

years that this this flips and and we we we see Dexes taking the the lion share of the the volume and the liquidity of the crypto markets. But outside of crypto, would you like would would this 5-year uh timeline also apply to say like London Stock Exchange and other uh the big market venues like >> everything? Maybe six years. Maybe we'll push it to six years. I mean like you hear Brian Armstrong talking about being the everything exchange at Coinbase and you know I think Coinbase and others coming from different directions are competing to provide that very important intuitive onboarding for individuals and then others in for institutions as well.

I think that front of the mullet um it's got to be easy to use. It's got to satisfy governments and then I think it's not just about uh the efficiencies at the back end. I think it's clear that obviously you know stable grown settlements that's just gonna it's going to happen it's going to be baked in everywhere as a as a stack and it's clear that all the kind of deposits and and other assets are going to be tokenized and then it's clear that those are going to be rehypothecated into all sorts of different other instruments and so it's efficiency or but it's also capability and in that context I'm wanting to bring back too much to privacy again but your but you've got to I think trust implicitly at a kind of protocol level, if you were

to basically you're unleashing the machines to to do great work with your finances, you got there's there's almost kind of no halfway house because once you let them go do it, they're going to go and do it. And so you better trust that the information you've shared a keeps government happy, but b you know doesn't embarrass you. >> What do you think are the biggest blockers to institutional adoption of DeFi tech? And I'm not just talking about crypto institutions. I'm talking about tried institutions, you know, like Black Rocks, Fidelity, etc. I mean, >> I think a big component of that quite often is legacy um systems. So, a lot of the big institutions um have a lot of legacy systems. It's even hard to upgrade Windows for instance. Quite

often this is how um internally there's the tech stacks are just not up to date with the current technologies. Um, and I think there's going to be internal push how to adopt these blockchain technologies or potentially have sort of add-ons on the side where they're not able to add on to their existing stacks and they'll have to do something on the side to accommodate and to keep up with competition. And it's kind of like can you get that first mover advantage? You'd mentioned sort of the tokenized deposits. Well, that you know, City sort of did the the token um tokenized deposits um as an initial they're talking about stable coins, but it's sort of still under consideration.

Um so the banks are, you know, are heavily looking into it, but there's a lot of incumbent problems uh to face and it's a matter of time before they will when they see there's a financial opportunity and they're going to be losing business to competitors. Um but it takes time. Wells Fargo's logo is still a horse and buggy and a lot of the trify institutions still are working on uh decommissioning mainframes. So I think there's a long way to go, >> but maybe not six years, maybe more like seven >> for some of the other institutions. I I think um I I think you start to see it though. Yeah.

I I'd also add like the the reduction in career risk for like proposing these things and adopting these things has decreased dramat dramatically like the you don't get fired for buying IBM sort of situation but like everybody was talking about stable coins and how much more efficient they are and they're going to eat eat the world all of this. Um but it wasn't until like the genius bill was passed that all the big major players started launching stable coins. So there was this bit of like uh career risk as as well as like the regulatory risk and as these things like get a little bit more clear um then more people are open to adopting these things uh but it'll be slow

>> and I I think also another one is the reputational risk right these institutions have been around a long time and reputation is everything and quite often they might make investments into these other projects uh or exchanges >> um but not have their brand name uh on the actual products. I was just going to agree with you like 100% the per you know how you're perceived if you propose thing is totally changed. It was like a whole bunch of decentralization and blockchain theater until about 12 months ago. >> Larry economist talking about tokenization of everything today.

>> But you you were I think at Abu Dhabi Finance Week which I think actually should have been called Abu Dhabi crypto AI you know. I mean really I mean finance is almost sort of the sideshow. Um maybe it should be sideshow but um and >> I mean it's to your point right like crypto and I are eating finances. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and and so I think the well sparers of the world they're held back by the and their logo and their pace of innovation and you know if I ask the horses they tell me to get different riders or whatever the phrase was you know what I mean. if um uh and they're held up by kind of bad systems and I'm sadly I've wrestled with some of those in my kind of my past but I think right now you've got because of how things

have fallen into place and the catalyst that are that have fallen into place you've got everyone from Ave to Robin Hood to Coinbase to know to Kraken to you know to Bank of America probably JP Morgan all you know there are a few segments to be addressed but to to be doing onchain banking charge for you know individuals wealthy individuals enterprises governments whatever and and I think it's just a tsunami of competition that's hopefully that's good for us >> so final question here basically like we're here it's beginning of 2026 our industry has changed tremendously in the last year and with acceleration and stable coin adoption and uh I mean

regulatory clarity also has you know really been propelled over the last 12 months which we wanted and now it's here right what does it mean to be a cipher punk in 2026 like what what are the you know as an industry how should be we be interacting with instit should we be interacting with institutions it's like perhaps a question some people are asking themselves but like what does it mean to be a cyber punk in 2026 >> I think is agency just having a high degree of agency maintaining that and presenting that and acting upon that and being flexible and malleable but um not compromising on certain points that are uh valuable to your personal philosophies in life, but uh exhibiting a high degree of agency I would say is

I'd second that. I I think the agency is key. Um and you know, for the ones that want to maintain their privacy, >> I think it depends who you talk to. If you're talking to like a true cipher punk, they'd say it means exactly what it always has meant. But um maybe more to your second question of like uh how should we interact with institutions? I mean I think we'll continue to have more traditional finance institutional players enter into the space. I mean Morgan Stanley just launched Bitcoin and ETF ETFs yesterday like more and more people that this career risk has gone down. Uh they want to get involved bigly. So um adhering to kind of what

what started this space and like kind of the ethos that was very important early on but like also accepting that it's evolving um and we have new players that have entered the arena. >> Yeah. at the heart of the cipher punk movement actually I think is philosophically a romanticism and uh I think I don't want to kind of call it kind of the end of history but I think well maybe we hope it is there's this sort of struggle between institutions and individual that's been taking taking place or indeed between left and right-wing kind of politics and the cipher punk was wanting to kind of take a kind of a a more central path of sort of a third way and preserve the rights of the individual I'm hoping that what

was rolling out now and I think the genie is out of the bottle in terms of the tokenization of everything and hypertokenization whatever you want to call it I I'm hoping that in a sense that's been addressed but given that the the whole point was you know holding romantic ideals a loft that the cipher punk will find something else that needs to be addressed. It doesn't need to be yeses battles. >> Thank you so much and thanks to all of you for listening in and uh yeah enjoy the rest of the evening. Cheers. [music]