#22 - Pioneering Crypto Law

Marco Santori joins the pod to discuss Kraken and his career in crypto law.

Marco Santori (@msantoriESQ) is the Chief Legal Officer of Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. Known as the "Dean of Digital Currency Lawyers," Marco is a recognized authority in the law and policy of blockchain technologies. Prior to his move to Kraken, Marco was the Chief Legal Officer of Blockchain.com, as well as a Partner at both Cooley LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop, where he counseled banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, digital wallets, payment providers, and other companies making new and exciting uses of distributed ledger technology.

Marco is an author of the SAFT Project Whitepaper, a self-regulatory effort to curb Initial Coin Offerings. He is an advisor to the International Monetary Fund, the Blockchain Ambassador to the State of Delaware, and was the Chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Committee of the Bitcoin Foundation. He has been quoted by the Congressional Research Service, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Coindesk, Washington Post, The New Yorker, Wired, Entrepreneur.com and Crain's New York Business. We also discuss the below tweet.

Marco Santori @msantoriESQ

🚨🚨🚨*BREAKING*🚨🚨🚨 @krakenfx just won approval to create America’s first crypto bank. World, please meet Kraken Financial. Kraken Financial, world. Wait, a what? Kraken is a BANK?! How did this even happen?! Allow me to threadeth. 👇

In this interview, Marco shares his journey from litigator to crypto lawyer, the importance & downside of big law, and the future of NFTs & DAOs with respect to the fourth prong of the Howey test.

Show highlights:

[2:15] Marco's introduction to crypto (& subsequent rug pull)

[11:35] Making great decisions

[18:40] Marco's journey to Kraken

[21:13] Building in crypto law

[26:40] Environmental misconceptions

[34:20] Building a crypto bank: Bank Charter Application

[39:10] Convincing regulators with examples

[44:00] DAOs & the "efforts of others"

[53:11] Stoicism 

Links:

Marco's website marcosantori.com

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- Jacob Robinson