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Host Tedd Huff & Robert Musiala, co-leader of Baker Hostetler’s Web3 Digital Assets team, break down May 2025’s crypto developments.
May 2025 just changed a lot for crypto and Web3. Bitcoin hit $111,970, total crypto assets reached $136 billion, & ETF inflows topped $3.3 billion in a 1 month. The SEC clarified that proof-of-stake mining isn't a security, while the DOJ dropped charges against Ethereum hackers, signaling a major shift in regulatory approach.
Ethereum's Petra upgrade increased validator staking limits from 32 to 2,048 ETH, opening doors for massive institutional operations. Yield-bearing stablecoins crossed $9 billion, proving they're no longer experimental tokens. Courts in the US, UK, and EU approved using NFTs for legal service of process, creating new accountability in crypto disputes.
The dark side persists: $244 million was stolen in hacks, with $157 million recovered. A Solana report found 98.7% of tokens on pump.fun showed pump-and-dump characteristics. Physical security threats against crypto executives are escalating globally.
Institutional investors now represent 50% of trading volume. Circle launched real-time payment APIs, Ripple acquired Hidden Road for $1.25 billion. The convergence of regulatory clarity, institutional adoption, and technical improvements is creating perfect conditions for mainstream crypto adoption.
Takeaways
1️⃣ Track Validator Staking Changes
2️⃣ Research Before Token Investments
3️⃣ Explore Programmable Wallet Features
4️⃣ Consider Legal NFT Applications
5️⃣ Prepare for Staking Compliance
Links:
Guest:
Robert A. Musiala Jr. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-a-musiala-jr-esq-cfcs-b6534bb/
Company:
BakerHostetler: https://www.bakerlaw.com/
The Blockchain Monitor: https://www.theblockchainmonitor.com/
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About:
Guest: Robert Musiala has been working in the blockchain and digital assets market since 2012 and has led multiple digital asset investigations, including as the court-appointed receiver over cryptocurrency investment funds used in a major fraud. He advises on various regulatory compliance issues involving digital assets and has drafted/negotiated agreements for a wide range of transactions in the fintech, digital assets, Web3, and NFT markets. He is the inventor of two blockchain patents and co-leader of the Web3 and Digital Assets team at BakerHostetler.
Host: Tedd Huff is the founder of Voalyre and Diamond D3. He’s spent over 24 years helping fintechs grow by improving payments, user experience, and go-to-market strategies.
DD3 Media creates and produces content for Fintech Confidential.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tedd Huff (00:01):
Welcome to FinTech Confidential, bringing you the people,
tech and companies that change how you.
Robert Musiala (00:11):
We haven't dug into, so we, the first was mean coin and
then proof of work mining and nowproof of stake mining activities
are not gonna be considered.
Tedd Huff (00:19):
Talked about hacks still some, some other ways that
people are, are losing money.
Robert Musiala (00:25):
2025 rug pull report and analyzed pump and dump schemes.
Approximately 98.7% of tokenson the pump out fund marketplace
apparently exhibited characteristicsindicative of pump and dump schemes.
We are seeing a larger percentageof ultra high net worth individuals.
Invest in digital assets issueslike event in France, attempt to
(00:48):
kidnapping and stuff like that, or it'sallowing service of process via NFT.
Some real serious use cases for NFTs.
Upgraded the network now several times andevery time it's gone off without a hitch
Tedd Huff (00:59):
long time payment.
Folks ripple promotingreally, really heavily.
The tokenized payment flow,
Robert Musiala (01:07):
I'm first glance, don't appear to be related, but when you
really is probably affecting each other.
Last year, the DOJ brought chargesagainst these two brothers, and
just recently in this month ofMay, those charges were dropped.
Tedd Huff (01:18):
ETF inflows hit the $3.3 billion number.
The total crypto assets on ourmanagement reached $136 billion.
Bitcoin pushed well above $111,000.
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Welcome to Web3 with FTC.
If you're asking how blockchain,crypto ai, or even quantum
computing fits into your businessstrategy, this is built for you.
(03:09):
We talk about the builders anddecision makers who are doing the work.
You'll hear smart conversations,straight insights, and no
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Exact are just trying to stay ahead.
This is where the realtalk meets real tech.
It's powered by FinTech Confidential,and we keep it practical.
We cover the shifts that matter andyou'll get the signal, not the noise.
(03:33):
So let's get started.
We had to push this offfor a little bit, Rob.
Uh, due to some, some personal stuff.
Um, I actually, I'm recordingthis and the Clinton, Iowa
Chamber of Commerce podcast room.
I'm so grateful for them offering up thisspace for me to go ahead and record this.
And because of that, weare just a little bit late.
(03:55):
So we may slip in and, andgive a few pieces away.
The things that happened in June.
We might just have to repeat it,and they may have just made some
additional progress by the timewe released for June, but in May,
2025 it was anything but quiet.
Uh, we saw it.
ETF inflows hit the $3.3 billion number.
(04:18):
The total crypto assets on ourmanagement reached $136 billion.
Bitcoin pushed well above $111,000.
Ethereum broke 62 billion and tokenizedUS treasuries topped 22 billion.
(04:39):
Not only that, but the Genius Act clearedthe Senate for vote, the protocol.
Staking got a pass from the SEC Legalservice by NFT, got greenlit as well
and nearly a quarter billion was hackedwith over half of it being recovered.
I'm glad some of it got recovered, butI. Not only that, but Circle also dropped
(05:02):
a realtime payments network, whichis gonna be fun to talk about today.
Central banks have pushed ahead withstable coin pilots and real world asset
tokenization saw some major growth.
Now, I can't believe all of this happened.
We didn't even cover everything.
All of this happened in a single,in the single month of May.
And if you folks are wondering, I'm yourhost Ted Huff, and I am being joined today
(05:25):
by my co-host and confidential informant.
Robert Sala, the co-leader of the Web3Digital Assets team at Baker Hostetler,
a leading law firm and the lead authorof the Weekly blockchain monitor.
Block.
If you haven't checked itout, go over to the blockchain
monitor.com and check it out.
(05:46):
It has some great information.
They cover trends on legaldevelopments in crypto, and a whole
bunch of other really good stuff.
So today we're gonna be diving intothe biggest themes of for May, 2025.
So Rob, let's get into it.
And I'm curious what stood out to you?
This wave of May milestones, isthere any single development that you
(06:08):
think has bigger implementations thanwe're actually giving you credit for?
Robert Musiala (06:14):
So I, I think there are a lot of different notable
developments that, uh, on firstglance don't appear to be related,
but when you really analyze them, uh.
You realize that a lot of this stuff isinterrelated and is probably affecting
each other, uh, behind the scenes.
The Senate stablecoin bill, theGenius Act, advancing for Vote
(06:37):
to the Senate floor, one of thebiggest news items in my view.
But you combine that with, um, circlelaunching a payments network and circle.
And you know, this is developmentjust recently from now from early
June becoming a public company.
So those two things, seeminglyoperating separately, but really
converging, you know, in many respects.
(06:59):
Similarly, you've got, and we'll talkmore about these updates as well, you
know, the SEC guidance on staking,which is intended to, um, provide
more confidence for proof of stakenetworks like the Ethereum network,
which by the way is the main networkthat the USDC stablecoin resides on.
So another sort of.
Seemingly unrelated item thatactually is quite related.
(07:19):
We'll, we'll also get into what I liketo think is the most missed development,
which is the Ethereum Petra upgrade.
One of those upgrades actually, youknow, made it easier for institutional
staking by raising the staking limits.
So again, um, one of these updatesthat maybe people, a lot of people
missed, but that is driving moreinstitutional demand for things like
(07:39):
Ethereum, ETFs, and then also helpingto support the networks that some of
this, all this stuff re uh, relies on.
Tedd Huff (07:44):
We've.
Gone through these fits and spurts wheree gets a lot of traction and then it
switches over to Bitcoin and then back.
And obviously you've got Bitcoin,Bitcoin maxes that, that always
stay in the Bitcoin camp a lot.
But it's been interesting to watchit kind of flow back and forth.
And I, I attended the Bitcoin 2025event, uh, in Las Vegas last month.
(08:08):
It had.
A lot of energy, but just as muchcontroversy, uh, with not only the people
who spoke, but what they were speakingabout, the people that were attending.
You could definitelyfeel what was going on.
I mean, there was so manydebates walking through.
It actually got to a point at,during the conference that.
(08:32):
The host, uh, of one of the sessionsjust got up and walked off stage because
it really got, really got heated.
You know, some of us in,in the press and media.
Maybe we amplified a little bit of it,but, you know, it was all in in good fun.
So there was some really good stuffthat happened that not only while
all that is going on, you know, abunch of speculation mounted, uh, of
(08:55):
Hidden Road being acquired by Ripple.
Um, and they confirmed that at a,a. $1.25 billion and you know, it
was, it was really overshadowedby the event because if you take a
deeper look into it, it, it really.
Signals, a deeper involvementin the institutional finance and
(09:18):
market access, and a lot of the samepeople that are looking at that.
We're also looking at circle,expanding its role into the real
time payments area, and that is onethat I find kind of interesting then
myself, because I, I guess maybe Ilook at stable coins as a payment.
(09:38):
System a payment rail.
I've dug into it a littlebit, but it's still it.
It feels a little counterintuitive for me.
Robert Musiala (09:45):
This market has grown to the point where it is diverging in
multiple directions and is servicingthe needs and meeting the needs.
Of a wide variety of both professionalsand indi individuals and businesses.
Bitcoin remains in many respects, youknow, the preferred cryptocurrency
of anti, anti-institutional list typebusinesses, companies, individuals
(10:10):
at the same ti and you know, andBitcoin continues to, to grow both in
its market cap and also in its use.
At the same time, you know, we seeall these advancements with stable
coins that are, I think, more, uh,exemplary of institutional adoption
where you've got a new payment rail.
Specifically tied to the US dollar,specifically the subject of pending
(10:31):
legislation and even something that ithas been brought to market in an initial
public offering, you know, by a majorstable coin provider, and it doesn't get
too much more institutionalized in that.
Yeah, so you see the crypto market sort ofmeeting the needs of both sides of both.
Parts of this spectrum and probably,you know, we could probably, uh,
look at everywhere in between, youknow, where this market is growing,
(10:54):
um, for a wide variety of, of users.
Tedd Huff (10:58):
When you look at all these different pieces and the mature
maturation of, of the industry.
And it seems to be maturingat a record pace right now.
How, how do you see these kinds ofsituations shaping investor or policymaker
responses to, to what's going on?
Robert Musiala (11:20):
in the current environment, uh, we've really seen, uh,
regulators take a nuanced and, and sortof more free market approach overall.
I do think that that willcontinue, but I also think that.
We will see targetedinvolvement from US regulators.
And we've seen that in the month of May.
We'll talk about the staking guidance,I think from the SEC in just a little
(11:42):
bit, but that's a great example.
And we've also seen, at the sametime, clear examples of, uh,
enforcement agencies pulling back.
There's an interesting example fromthe DOJ that we'll talk about, I
think a little bit that shows that.
And so.
I think that,
Tedd Huff (11:59):
How would you summarize like all of those different things, right?
So you've got S-E-C-D-O-J,all these things.
Robert Musiala (12:04):
I think the environment has become more of a
surgical approach in recent monthsin particular where, uh, overall,
uh, there's more of a free market.
Uh, environment, but with some verytargeted, very surgical, very well
thought out actions that remind usthat you do need some, some smart
regulation in this marketplace.
Tedd Huff (12:25):
And it's interesting, you, you mentioned free market, right?
So the total crypto market cap reached$3.29 trillion in the month of May.
You know, I mentionedin the intro that the.
Intraday all time high duringthe month of May, and I'm, I'm
gonna read this very specifically.
It was $111,970.17 on the 22nd of May.
(12:54):
And then on the very last day ofMay at the I, I'm taking this as
Eastern standard time, or easterndaylight time, I should say.
It closed at $104,010.90 stillat close to an all time high.
And then, like you mentioned, we're, we'rein the middle of, of June and it, it's
(13:15):
been fluttering right around that area.
Not a whole lot of variation on it.
Not only that, but Ethereum,the TVL climb to $62.59 billion.
Uh, Solana and Caranoled a layer one growth.
It's, it's been really interestingwith that because they've, they've
continued to hit double digit gains.
(13:37):
Of course, I've got tomention a fun meme coin.
Um, so Doge held, steady it at a quarter,which is kind of interesting, especially
everything that that has been going on.
We start to dive in and as we, as youtouched on, is like something you thought
was really interesting when we kickedoff was the institutional activity.
It's representing about 50% ofall volume that happened in May.
(14:01):
You know, the US treasuriescontinue to grow.
You're starting to see platforms likeStellar and Ethereum really leading that
charge, creating an area where these ETFscan pull in $3.3 billion in a single week.
If you look at total assets.
(14:23):
Managed N ETFs, uh, uh, the number thatI was able to come up with and, and, and
I don't know if it's exactly perfect,right, but it's right around $136 billion.
You've got all these different players.
We talked about circle, I mean, metamask even expanded its solution as well.
(14:44):
I mean, there's just so manythings that are going on.
I wonder if where we're.
At right now is growth because we'regetting more comfortable, or is
this just more money coming in totry and figure out where it can go?
Um, I love to, like, what,what are you thinking?
(15:05):
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Robert Musiala (16:18):
Well, so I'll, I'll answer it from sort of the perspective
of an attorney working in this space.
And you know, I like to sayI'm not an expert on the price.
I'm an expert on the laws that relateto the industry, and, but from that
perspective, I will say having workedin this industry for 12 years now.
What I've observed over timeis slow and steady growth and
(16:39):
slow and steady integration ofcryptocurrencies and digital assets
into the mainstream financial system.
So I think we're continuing to seethat, which has always been happening.
We're also seeing, I think, researchand development plans be where
companies are pulling the triggeron plans that they maybe had.
Waiting in the wings, where now with thenew administration, they feel comfortable
(17:00):
enough with the US regulatory environmentto move forward with certain things that
may maybe they didn't feel comfortablemoving forward with a year or two ago.
And then the last thing I'll say iswith regard to the price is, you know,
not being an expert on the price, butjust observing that anytime the price
of of digital assets are is strong.
(17:21):
That allows companies to do a lot morethings because so many of these companies
hold a lot, most, if not all, of theirvalue in digital assets themselves.
And so when the price of those digitalassets is relatively high, companies
that have those treasuries, uh, feellike they can deploy more capital.
And then that kind of createsa cycle where more things
(17:42):
happen in the marketplace.
And that's another thing I'vesort of observed over the years.
Tedd Huff (17:46):
Digital assets and even more so, stablecoin was
looked at as kind of theoretical.
If, if you look at stables, I mean they,they've, they topped over $9 billion.
Yield bearing stable coinshave topped over $9 billion.
I need to be super specificin that right circle.
Launching their APIs for our B2B paymentsand treasury options, and figuring
(18:10):
out ways to enable faster settlement.
Um.
I, I, I kind of giggle a littlebit because I thought that
they were already doing that.
Uh, just I think what they've really doneby launching this network is just made
it a little bit more non crypto nativefriendly to really allow enterprise folks
(18:35):
to be able to leverage it versus just.
Techno geeks like myself, um, to getthese real time settlement features.
You know, and then, and then if youmove over to some of the other things
that have happened, I mean, AnchorageDigital has added more stable coining
strategies to their, to their offerings.
Their, their portfolios are continuingto grow in that space and supporting
(18:57):
a little bit more structure around it.
You know, the one that I lookedat as a, a long time payment.
Cross border across institutional,um, payment folks has been ripple and
they are now promoting really, reallyheavily the tokenized payment flows.
So it's not just using XRP, it'snot doing cross border, it's
(19:22):
not figuring out a way to managethrough the correspondent banking.
It, it's really just tokenizing theentire flow, which has been really neat.
I, I thought it was interesting alsothat inmate Madam Mass rolled out
their native support for Solana, reallysignaled that they have ambitions
(19:42):
about go about going multi chain and,and going well, well beyond Ethereum.
Um, and that, that's a,that's a big piece there.
And you mentioned it in the,in the opening that there was,
Ethereum had a new release.
Right.
And there was, there was some,something special about that.
What.
What did you find so specialabout the Petra release?
Robert Musiala (20:05):
Sure.
Well, a couple things.
Ethere, the Ethereum, uh, foundationhas upgraded the network now several
times, and every time it's gone offwithout a hitch, and that's a huge
accomplishment in and of itself.
So we've had that event occur once more,uh, in the month of May where the Petra
upgrade was successfully implemented.
There was a lot in that upgrade,but, um, really three pieces of
(20:27):
it that I find most interesting.
First, it's going to allow walletsto function with a lot of the
features of smart contracts.
On a, on the previous episode we talkedabout this concept of programmable money.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, the idea of allowing anEthereum wallet address to now operate
with similar features as a smartcontract, I think is moving us closer
(20:49):
to things like programmable money.
We'll probably enable things thatwe haven't even thought of yet.
Second, uh, the upgrade increased thevalidator staking limit from 32 E to 2048
E. So that's a huge difference there.
That's there difference.
Yeah.
And that I think really sets the stage formore institutionalized staking, which is
gonna help to support the network even,even better, and, uh, will also enable
(21:15):
more profitable business mo uh, models.
For institutional stakers.
And then lastly, um, taking some,the, the, uh, the Petra upgrade
took some steps to further lowerlayer two transaction costs.
And that's always been, you know,an issue that's top of mind for
anyone building on Ethereum.
So those are really the threekey highlights of Petra.
Um, and again, the fact that itwent off without a hitch, I think
(21:35):
is big news in and of itself.
Tedd Huff (21:37):
A lot of the discussions that, uh, I've been part of
, The conversation really has been trying to understand like how to manage yield
bearing stable coins and Mountain Protocolpushed really, really far into it.
And what it's telling me is that
the markets now have gonefrom let's experiment.
(22:02):
Let's figure out whatcan potentially work.
And now they're, they're making thatshift over to productization, to,
to start generating some revenue,to start finding some funds.
Do you think that this is going tochange or adjust any, the stable
coin movement that's going on, um,globally, and do you think that.
(22:26):
Regulatory perspective is, is gonnacontinue to be fragmented or are we gonna
start to see some convergence acrossthe different places around the globe?
Robert Musiala (22:37):
Two other jurisdictions that, you know, you and I were
talking about earlier, uh, ofinterest are Hong Kong, uh, and the
UK have also taken action on stablecoins, and we can get into that.
I think that you'll see thissmall group, uh, of jurisdictions
converge around stable coins.
That's absolutely already been happening.
In fact, you could argue itstarted happening, uh, the European
(22:58):
MICA regulation, which createda framework for stable coins.
to that end, I do, I do see someconvergence, um, specifically
around stablecoin products.
Tedd Huff (23:07):
And really what it's doing is it's setting up the
requirements for stablecoin reservesand audits and am ML controls.
Not only that, but the SEChas declared that the protocol
staking is not a security.
The Clarity Act was alsointroduced to define asset
(23:27):
classes a little bit more clearly.
The Department of Justicepulled earlier crypto guidance.
Um, you'd mentioned Micah andthey just finalized phase two.
I think the stablecoin licensing that'shappening in Singapore, Hong Kong
is really interesting, especially.
(23:50):
Thailand has banned any andall unregistered exchanges.
So that, that's another piecewhere you're starting to see the
regulation get a little bit, alittle bit, um, more focused.
And before I hand it over, Rob,with the DOJ and dieting, tornado
caches Roman Storm, at least sofar, they found about $263 million.
(24:16):
A fraud ring that is tied to nfsthat was leveraging tornado cash.
So that's gonna be a lot of fun tosee that kind of come to a close.
What are you.
Seeing with all of these pieces, I'dlike to dive maybe a little bit deeper
into, um, the DOJ piece or, or even,um, genius Act, SECI know you and
(24:42):
I talked before we, we got started.
We, we have a, a really good feeling that,that we might actually have the Genius
Act voted for, and very, my opinion,very likely pass in the month of June.
What do you, what do you think this,what may marked for coordination,
(25:05):
um, around all of these?
Robert Musiala (25:07):
Three things come to mind in terms of updates that happened
in May of significance, you know.
First obviously is the GeniusAct going to, uh, a vote on the
Senate floor and it'll be reallyinteresting to see what we have to
talk about next month on this podcast.
And, you know, very good chancethat that act will be passed or
close to passed out of the Senate.
(25:28):
That's a huge update, but related to that,you know, two updates that maybe didn't
get as much attention Also in May, um,Hong Kong actually beat us to the punch.
Hong Kong passed their stable coinsbill and created a, a licensing
regime for issuers of fiatback stable coins in Hong Kong.
And so they are, you know, hopefullythe US will be number two in, in, uh,
(25:50):
passing stablecoin legislation this year.
But Hong Kong is number one.
And as we discussed, you know,the Europeans, uh, passed it.
Last year.
So we are seeing a convergencearound stable coins.
And then lastly, the United Kingdom inthe month of May released a consultation
paper related to stable coins.
And so they seem to be well on theirway, uh, towards stablecoin legislation.
Um, turning attention to, um.
(26:13):
The Department of Justice.
You know, you mentionedthe tornado ca cash case.
Another interesting update, uh,coming onto DOJ in the month of May,
DOJ dropped charges, uh, that ithad brought last year against two
brothers who had hacked the Ethereumblockchain, uh, in a very novel fashion,
and were able to steal $25 million.
By hacking the Ethereum blockchainitself in a way that, um, as far as we
(26:36):
can tell has never been done before.
Last year, the DOJ brought chargesagainst these two brothers, and
just recently in this month of May,2025, those charges were dropped.
And this seems to be an example ofsome of the, uh, philosophy that was
articulated in what's known as theBlanche memo, where, um, prosecutors
were instructed to avoid, um, imposingregulatory frameworks on digital assets.
(26:59):
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, wesee an example of that.
In those charges being dropped.
And then lastly, uh, the SEC publishedits guidance on staking and happy to
get into that, but I, I think I'll justpause here for a moment to see if you
have any reaction or other kind of,uh, guidance for the conversation here.
Tedd Huff (27:15):
I think it was really interesting how you, you know, the, the
actions by the DOJ that I'd mentioned.
I mean, you put a lot of, uh, alot of extra details into that.
It's interesting to see that we've got.
Some things being more heavily focusedon to, to solve for starting to see where
(27:36):
if you haven't spent time in the, inthe space, it could be very confusing.
They're starting to treat cryptocrimes like regular crimes.
They're starting to treat digitalassets like real, real assets They're
trying to treat, starting to treat.
Cryptocurrency, like fiat currency, it'slike, it, it may look confusing from
(28:01):
the outside with all of these decisionsbeing made that may look contradictory.
But I think it's just becausewe're starting to look at these
things as digital versions ofthe, of the physical thing.
So we, we might be in our, um, inthe des I'll use design terminology.
We may be still in the skew morphic level.
(28:21):
All of these different things,and we haven't fully gone digital.
We're still in that skew morphic phase.
We're trying to figure out what, whatin the physical world it looks like.
And I think, I think that's whatyou're starting to see with all of
these different things happening.
Robert Musiala (28:35):
Yeah.
And you know, the, the DOJ uh, chargesbeing dropped against the hackers.
That hacked the Ethereum network.
Last May reminds me a little bit, thevery first Ethereum Fork, which you
know, was based off of a hack and wayback in, you know, 2015 or whatever
it was, you know, someone hackedthe Ethereum network, department of
Justice, didn't get involved in that.
(28:56):
And instead what happened, the Ethereumdevelopers who developed that network
collectively and the miners collectivelydecided to roll a network back and
restart it and erase that hack.
I'm not saying that's what shouldhappen here, but I think it's
an interesting, it comes to mindbecause here maybe the implicit
message is your network got hacked.
(29:17):
There isn't necessarily, um, a crime therein that someone, uh, exploited your code.
And maybe it's not up tothe DOJ to fix that problem.
Tedd Huff (29:27):
You know, last month we talked about the sheer volume of,
of stolen assets in May estimatedto be $244 million in hacks.
The really cool part that I thoughtwas interesting is the CDI protocol
recovered $157 million and it'slike one of the biggest clawbacks.
(29:52):
Not only of this year, but in general,I thought it was really so, and I'm
gonna go, I'm gonna go to Bitcoin 2025.
At the event, I had friends that were highprofile speakers and because of crypto
execs having physical threats and being.
(30:15):
Abducted in some cases.
Uh, there, there's a lot ofsecurity around that, which we,
we all kind of giggled about.
But then we realized, ohcrap, this is really serious.
France is taking it super serious, andthey've rolled out additional protections
for physical threats, not just.
(30:36):
The normal pieces, right?
It's like, it, it's almost like a cyberbullying for a crypto execs type thing.
Uh, that, that has comeoff of that piece of it.
How does that change the way thatpeople who have a large or, or have
a substantial, I shouldn't evencall it large, a substantial amount
(30:57):
of net worth tied up in crypto?
How are, how are you?
How are you seeing that impact stuff?
Robert Musiala (31:03):
We are seeing a larger percentage of ultra high net worth
individuals invest in digital assets,serious concerns about some of the
issues that you just talked about andyou know, issues like the in event in
France, you know, the kidnapping and orattempted kidnapping and stuff like that.
You know.
Those are not new.
(31:24):
They've absolutely beenhappening, um, over the years.
Targeted usually, um, at foreignbased non-US ultra high net
worth holders of digital assets.
But now that digital assets are becomingmore and more of an asset class that
more ultra high net worth individuals areinterested in, um, I think these incidents
(31:45):
are occurring a little bit more frequentlyand hitting the press a little bit more.
I will say from an attorney'sperspective, there's a whole host.
You know, I've been advisingultra high net worth holders of
digital assets for years now.
I've been through several incidents,varying, varying types, and there's
a whole, um, playbook of strategies.
(32:06):
Apply to, you know, an ultra highnet worth holder of digital assets
that, you know, folks like you andme, just, we just don't have to
think about these things, you know?
Um, and, and there are strategies thatare tailored to some of the specific
nuances of, of crypto, and that could beanything from defending against sort of
security, physical security type incidentsto defending against technical type.
(32:30):
Security incidents to things like, um,legacy and estate type planning issues
in terms of like if there's, you know,an unfortunate event and how do you make
sure that your crypto is accessible andis able to be, uh, you know, passed on,
uh, appropriately and things like that.
So these strategies have been outthere for a long time, but I think
they are now becoming a little bit,these issues are, the issue is becoming
(32:52):
a lot more mainstream again, thereare more, uh, ultra high net worth in
individuals that are now investing.
Tedd Huff (32:59):
You know, as I think through the legal process, you
know, judges in the us, the uk, andthe EU, have approved using an on
chain legal service leveraging NFTs.
You know, we talked aboutprogrammable money in the past.
I talk about it quite a bit, but now thisopens up workflows for smart contracts
(33:20):
on chain that really have nothing.
As of right now to do with money movement,which I thought was really interesting.
You know, there's, there's moreto legal things than, than just
tracking and getting things done andhaving those conversations for you.
Um, when we start looking atleveraging these NFT based legal
(33:44):
delivery services and what.
We'll start there.
We'll start there and I'll, I'll not,'cause I got a couple other questions
I wanna ask you, but we'll start there.
Hey, Ted Huff here.
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Robert Musiala (34:24):
So from a legal, kind of a legal geek perspective, I
think, you know, this is pretty cool.
Um, you know, there was a report earlierthis year that was claiming NFTs are
dead and, you know, published a lotof statistics about the dwindling.
NFT market.
But you know, these examples that youpointed out of courts allowing service of
(34:45):
process via NFT is a fantastic example ofsome real serious use cases for NFTs way
beyond things like art and digital media.
And these are instances where a potentialparty to a lawsuit, but that party,
uh, as an example, may be, um, hacked.
Digital asset funds from a prospectiveplaintiff and that, you know, the
(35:07):
plaintiff is trying to trace thosefunds and has traced them maybe to
a specific wallet so they know wheretheir digital assets went, but they
don't know who owns that wallet.
They don't know who perpetuated the hack.
And so if you want to try to bring acourt case, uh, you're gonna, you run
into this issue of service, a process.
How do you serve someone, uh,in a lawsuit when you don't know
(35:28):
who they are or where they are?
Interestingly, judges in a couple nowinstances now have approved service a
process via NFT, where the plaintiffcreates an NFT and instead of some
kind of digital media, uh, on theNFT, it's actually service papers
as a PDF or otherwise, uh, attachedto that NFT and the NFT is sent.
(35:51):
To the wallet where the stolenfunds or disputed funds reside.
Oh, that's
Tedd Huff (35:55):
super cool.
Robert Musiala (35:56):
And, uh, a couple courts now, both in the US and outside
the US has have approved this asa, an effective and, um, approved.
Method for, for serving process, uh, ona, on a defendant in a civil lawsuit.
Uh, and I think that has fanreally great implications for,
the private civil side of this marketwhere, you know, people wanna step up
(36:19):
and defend their own rights and nowhave a better mechanism to do so, uh,
in a pseudo anonymous marketplace.
Tedd Huff (36:27):
I love that the pseudo, that, that was a big
conversation that we had at.
Uh, almost every conversationat at Bitcoin 2025.
The, the, the anonymity was alwayssuper important to everybody, just
about everybody that I talked to, um,which you can imagine, K-Y-C-A-M-L
(36:48):
was, was seen as not so much fun.
Being able to do those thingssemi anonymously is really cool.
We talked about hacks, um, butduring our, our pre-prep call.
You had mentioned that there, there's,there's still some, some other
ways that people are, are losingmoney in the digital asset space.
Robert Musiala (37:10):
There was a really interesting report published in May.
By Solidus Labs and it was entitledthe 2025 Rug Pull Report and analyzed
pump and dump schemes on the SolanaBlockchain and found that, uh, according
to the report, approximately 98.7%of tokens on the pump.fun marketplace
(37:31):
apparently exhibited characteristics.
Indicative of pump and dump schemes.
And so that shows that it, it's an exampleof how beyond the threat of hacks, there's
still quite a bit of a threat of, um,other illicit activities, including things
like pump and dumps, um, and includingon, you know, marketplaces that maybe
(37:51):
are lower value or maybe, you know, um,folks aren't paying as much attention
to, or maybe don't sort of provide thenews shock, uh, on an individual level.
Sometimes does, but this is an areawhere, you know, collectively, uh,
98.7%, that's a high percentage.
Tedd Huff (38:08):
Do your own research has almost become a mantra for so, so many things.
Um, this is one of those places where youhave to do it, you have to look at it.
And I was talking to, to friends andfamily and everybody's like, oh, well I
don't get, get why there are so many coinsand so many of this, and so many of that.
And yeah, we've got Bitcoin, we've got.
(38:29):
Other coins.
We've got alt coins, we've got memecoins, we've got shit coins, we've got
coins coming out everywhere, right?
And you just have to look at whyare you buying, buying it and does
it have a history of doing whatyou're wanting it to do for buying?
That is not meant to be advice,that is meant to be a perspective,
(38:49):
uh, that I have for myself.
So, as always, do your own research.
Um, 'cause I'm not here to give any sortof, uh, financial or investment advice.
But with that being said, youknow, Robinhood, uh, went ahead
and acquired Wondery, um, becausethey needed some help in Canada.
And I, I think that was a big one.
(39:10):
I think also that, um, pre-searchlaunched their decentralized web
indexing engine or the XSGD to expandstable coins on the XRP ledger.
A lot of NFTs volume.
Um, you know, I still remember.
I actually got to meet one ofthe guys from Bored Apes, um,
(39:32):
yacht club at Bitcoin 2025.
He was at a dinner that somebody hosted.
We both gotta attend.
Um, and
, we were kind of talking abouthow much the NFT trading volumes,
like how was from boom to bust.
And, and it was really interesting as Iwas doing the research for this, that it
is down 93%, 93% from the all time highs.
(39:58):
So that's been a really, really bigthing, uh, that, that I found that
these, you know, these are some notablementions, uh, that, that I figured
I would, I would throw in based onsome of the conversations that I had,
Robert Musiala (40:09):
a small startup, uh, based in Dubai, not in
the United States called mesh.
Announced an integration with a, a majorpayments app provider, global payments app
provider where they were gonna help allowthat payments app to accept payment in
a variety of different cryptocurrencies.
Uh, and then also allow the merchant onthe other end to receive payment in either
(40:33):
the same crypto or a different crypto.
Or Fiat.
And so it's, you know, that was areally interesting example to me.
The need for new tech integrations andsolutions that are targeted at giving
both the consumer and the merchant, uh,the choice between crypto and fiat, and
then also on the, on the crypto side.
(40:55):
The choice between different typesof digital assets, from stable
coins to more obscure coins.
Uh, I thought that wasa really notable item.
Tedd Huff (41:02):
It's, it's been really interesting, you know, with my, my
advisory practice, the idea of leveragingdigital assets and stable coins, and I,
I know I'm separating like crypto stablecoins, the ability to leverage NFTs as
a, as a means to track and do automation.
All of these things are conversationsthat are continuing to come up,
(41:23):
and I'm starting to see a lot of,a lot of traction around that.
Looking back at May, I mean, therewere so many major moves on regulation,
payments, the market structure, I.I'm looking forward to us getting more
regulatory clarity here in the us.
Um, and maybe catching up a littlebit to the licensing frameworks that
(41:46):
Asia and the EU have put in place.
I'm, I'm wondering if like, ETFsare gonna start to slow down.
They just seem like they just keepgoing and keep going and keep going.
How would you sum up may.
Robert Musiala (41:59):
You know, I think May was a continuation of what we've
seen all year, which is combinationsof new regulatory developments, uh,
combined with businesses becoming moreand more interested in integration
activities that behind the scenes make.
Digital assets easier for people touse, and also interested in things
(42:22):
like acquisitions and other kind of bigticket moves, deploying plans that they
probably had, uh, for quite a whileand find that this is the right time.
Uh, to move forward with them.
So, you know, we've seenthat in previous months.
This year.
I think we've seen itprobably the most this may.
Will it slow down?
Will the pace continue to accelerate?
It?
It, it's hard to say.
(42:42):
Looking back at the month of May andnow having five months to look back over
the year, um, you know, I, I do see.
Some very steady, uh, progress for theindustry here in the us both from the
market perspective, from the technicalperspective, from things like, uh, the
Petra upgrade on the Ethereum networkand also from the regulatory perspective.
(43:04):
Uh, and you know, we haven't dug into.
SEC staking guidance too deeply.
But I will say,
it's now the fourth set of guidancethat we've seen from the SEC. So we,
the first was meme coins, um, statingthat, you know, meme coins that
meet certain characteristics are notsecurities, the second stable coins.
And so if you think about it,those are kind of the two were
probably the two least risky.
(43:25):
Digital assets from a securitieslaw perspective, and we've
gotten clarity on both of them.
And then the third, uh,was proof of work mining.
So the Bitcoin mining network and nowin May proof of stake mining, you know,
where they said, uh, proof of workmining and now proof of stake mining
activities are not gonna be consideredoffers and sales of securities.
And so you kind of take a step backand look at that and what really what
(43:48):
we've seen now is the two sort of.
Digital assets, meme coins, and stablecoins are probably the least risky from a
securities law perspective to begin with.
Have, you know, been given, um, someadditional clarity from the SEC and then.
The two types of network activities,proof of work, and proof of stake.
Underpinning the two biggest blockchainnetworks, Bitcoin and Ethereum have been
(44:11):
given additional guidance from the SECsaying that in generally these activities
are not gonna be considered securitiesand the SEC will not be scrutinizing them.
You know, that's a, that's a hugeupdate for May, but it caps off,
you know, I think, uh, a spectrumof updates that began, uh, you know,
really in January of this year.
Tedd Huff (44:30):
If you're tracking the shape of Web3 and this month had like all
of the signals, governments, financialfirms, new products, new infrastructure,
they all started to take fruit.
Everything from Ripple's m and acircles B2B APIs, the Solana usage
metrics, I mean, everything isflashing green for Web3 maturity.
(44:52):
Whether you're a founder, a policymaker,a fund manager, the regulatory.
The infrastructure plays,all the bank line protocols.
I mean, everything is being definedfor the next phase of what we
call Web3, and they're showingabsolutely no signs of slowing down.
So Rob, what do you, what do youthink this means for builders
(45:18):
as they start to look into Q3?
Of 2025.
You
Robert Musiala (45:22):
know, I think it's still a very good environment.
It's a, it's a good timeto, you know, deploy.
As you mentioned earlier, you know,builders go through sort of the
design phase, the testing phase,redesign, and eventually deploy.
Well, I think for builders who are readyto deploy, we're getting ready to deploy.
Still a very good environmentat the same time, uh.
(45:45):
A lot is gonna happen and, you know,things are moving very quickly.
You know, we'll probably see moredevelopments on the stablecoin
and SEC front, uh, that we we'llhave to talk about next month.
And it's gonna look, um, you know,hopefully in a positive direction,
but no matter what, it's gonna lookvery different and significantly
different, uh, than this month.
(46:05):
And so you still have to sort ofkeep on top of, um, the changes
because the changes are happeningquickly and, and arguably, uh.
The pace of change is acceleratingover past, uh, months and years.
So it's a good environment to deployfor builders, uh, but it's one where
you still have to sort of keep youreye on, um, current developments.
(46:26):
Uh, and then also, like we notedwith report about pump and dump
scheme schemes on Solana, there'sstill a lot of froth out there.
And so you've gotta watch out and not getcaught up in that froth, whether that be,
um, fraud schemes, hacks, uh, or just um.
Ideas and business modelsthat don't have real value.
Tedd Huff (46:44):
I think it's important for those folks who are in
payments, compliance, productstrategy, whatever it is.
If you've been thinking about stablecoins being the side project, um, now
is the time to really dive into thatinfrastructure because it can't be
a side project anymore, especiallywith, with Singapore and the eu,
(47:06):
as we've mentioned numerous times.
You've gotta get your framework alignednow, or you're gonna risk falling behind.
Do you agree?
Do you feel like stable coins havefinally crossed into that critical
infrastructure for, for finance?
Robert Musiala (47:22):
I, I, I think we're sort of, uh, in the process of crossing
the Rubicon, so to speak right now.
I don't think we've completelycrossed it yet to where there's a,
we're at a point of no return, butI think we are on, on the way there.
And, you know, I'm really interested tosee what we have to talk about next month
on this topic, because I have a feeling,you know, there are gonna be some major
developments like major players, uh,launching stable coins, maybe, maybe a
(47:45):
bank, you know, having either launchingor having plans to launch a stable coin.
Um, and I think that's where this is allheaded, whether it's next month or, or a
little bit farther down the line in 2025.
Tedd Huff (47:56):
Well, I love you hedging your bets with what happens in June
and really strengthening your positionaround the US regulatory market.
So I totally get whereyou're coming from, man.
Uh, I'm, I'm a little bit more bullishwhen it comes to stables, I think.
I think now's the time, and if you waittoo long, it's gonna be too late, folks.
(48:17):
That is it for today'sepisode of Web3 with FTC.
If this discussion about Web3 caught yourattention today, that's great because
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(48:37):
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(49:00):
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I keep moving forward aswe wrap up today's episode.
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(50:17):
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Robert Musiala (00:11):
We haven't dug into, so we, the first was mean coin and
then proof of work mining and nowproof of stake mining activities
are not gonna be considered.
Tedd Huff (00:19):
Talked about hacks still some, some other ways that
people are, are losing money.
Robert Musiala (00:25):
2025 rug pull report and analyzed pump and dump schemes.
Approximately 98.7% of tokenson the pump out fund marketplace
apparently exhibited characteristicsindicative of pump and dump schemes.
We are seeing a larger percentageof ultra high net worth individuals.
Invest in digital assets issueslike event in France, attempt to
(00:48):
kidnapping and stuff like that, or it'sallowing service of process via NFT.
Some real serious use cases for NFTs.
Upgraded the network now several times andevery time it's gone off without a hitch
Tedd Huff (00:59):
long time payment.
Folks ripple promotingreally, really heavily.
The tokenized payment flow,
Robert Musiala (01:07):
I'm first glance, don't appear to be related, but when you
really is probably affecting each other.
Last year, the DOJ brought chargesagainst these two brothers, and
just recently in this month ofMay, those charges were dropped.
Tedd Huff (01:18):
ETF inflows hit the $3.3 billion number.
The total crypto assets on ourmanagement reached $136 billion.
Bitcoin pushed well above $111,000.
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We talk about the builders anddecision makers who are doing the work.
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(03:33):
So let's get started.
We had to push this offfor a little bit, Rob.
Uh, due to some, some personal stuff.
Um, I actually, I'm recordingthis and the Clinton, Iowa
Chamber of Commerce podcast room.
I'm so grateful for them offering up thisspace for me to go ahead and record this.
And because of that, weare just a little bit late.
(03:55):
So we may slip in and, andgive a few pieces away.
The things that happened in June.
We might just have to repeat it,and they may have just made some
additional progress by the timewe released for June, but in May,
2025 it was anything but quiet.
Uh, we saw it.
ETF inflows hit the $3.3 billion number.
(04:18):
The total crypto assets on ourmanagement reached $136 billion.
Bitcoin pushed well above $111,000.
Ethereum broke 62 billion and tokenizedUS treasuries topped 22 billion.
(04:39):
Not only that, but the Genius Act clearedthe Senate for vote, the protocol.
Staking got a pass from the SEC Legalservice by NFT, got greenlit as well
and nearly a quarter billion was hackedwith over half of it being recovered.
I'm glad some of it got recovered, butI. Not only that, but Circle also dropped
(05:02):
a realtime payments network, whichis gonna be fun to talk about today.
Central banks have pushed ahead withstable coin pilots and real world asset
tokenization saw some major growth.
Now, I can't believe all of this happened.
We didn't even cover everything.
All of this happened in a single,in the single month of May.
And if you folks are wondering, I'm yourhost Ted Huff, and I am being joined today
(05:25):
by my co-host and confidential informant.
Robert Sala, the co-leader of the Web3Digital Assets team at Baker Hostetler,
a leading law firm and the lead authorof the Weekly blockchain monitor.
Block.
If you haven't checked itout, go over to the blockchain
monitor.com and check it out.
(05:46):
It has some great information.
They cover trends on legaldevelopments in crypto, and a whole
bunch of other really good stuff.
So today we're gonna be diving intothe biggest themes of for May, 2025.
So Rob, let's get into it.
And I'm curious what stood out to you?
This wave of May milestones, isthere any single development that you
(06:08):
think has bigger implementations thanwe're actually giving you credit for?
Robert Musiala (06:14):
So I, I think there are a lot of different notable
developments that, uh, on firstglance don't appear to be related,
but when you really analyze them, uh.
You realize that a lot of this stuff isinterrelated and is probably affecting
each other, uh, behind the scenes.
The Senate stablecoin bill, theGenius Act, advancing for Vote
(06:37):
to the Senate floor, one of thebiggest news items in my view.
But you combine that with, um, circlelaunching a payments network and circle.
And you know, this is developmentjust recently from now from early
June becoming a public company.
So those two things, seeminglyoperating separately, but really
converging, you know, in many respects.
(06:59):
Similarly, you've got, and we'll talkmore about these updates as well, you
know, the SEC guidance on staking,which is intended to, um, provide
more confidence for proof of stakenetworks like the Ethereum network,
which by the way is the main networkthat the USDC stablecoin resides on.
So another sort of.
Seemingly unrelated item thatactually is quite related.
(07:19):
We'll, we'll also get into what I liketo think is the most missed development,
which is the Ethereum Petra upgrade.
One of those upgrades actually, youknow, made it easier for institutional
staking by raising the staking limits.
So again, um, one of these updatesthat maybe people, a lot of people
missed, but that is driving moreinstitutional demand for things like
(07:39):
Ethereum, ETFs, and then also helpingto support the networks that some of
this, all this stuff re uh, relies on.
Tedd Huff (07:44):
We've.
Gone through these fits and spurts wheree gets a lot of traction and then it
switches over to Bitcoin and then back.
And obviously you've got Bitcoin,Bitcoin maxes that, that always
stay in the Bitcoin camp a lot.
But it's been interesting to watchit kind of flow back and forth.
And I, I attended the Bitcoin 2025event, uh, in Las Vegas last month.
(08:08):
It had.
A lot of energy, but just as muchcontroversy, uh, with not only the people
who spoke, but what they were speakingabout, the people that were attending.
You could definitelyfeel what was going on.
I mean, there was so manydebates walking through.
It actually got to a point at,during the conference that.
(08:32):
The host, uh, of one of the sessionsjust got up and walked off stage because
it really got, really got heated.
You know, some of us in,in the press and media.
Maybe we amplified a little bit of it,but, you know, it was all in in good fun.
So there was some really good stuffthat happened that not only while
all that is going on, you know, abunch of speculation mounted, uh, of
(08:55):
Hidden Road being acquired by Ripple.
Um, and they confirmed that at a,a. $1.25 billion and you know, it
was, it was really overshadowedby the event because if you take a
deeper look into it, it, it really.
Signals, a deeper involvementin the institutional finance and
(09:18):
market access, and a lot of the samepeople that are looking at that.
We're also looking at circle,expanding its role into the real
time payments area, and that is onethat I find kind of interesting then
myself, because I, I guess maybe Ilook at stable coins as a payment.
(09:38):
System a payment rail.
I've dug into it a littlebit, but it's still it.
It feels a little counterintuitive for me.
Robert Musiala (09:45):
This market has grown to the point where it is diverging in
multiple directions and is servicingthe needs and meeting the needs.
Of a wide variety of both professionalsand indi individuals and businesses.
Bitcoin remains in many respects, youknow, the preferred cryptocurrency
of anti, anti-institutional list typebusinesses, companies, individuals
(10:10):
at the same ti and you know, andBitcoin continues to, to grow both in
its market cap and also in its use.
At the same time, you know, we seeall these advancements with stable
coins that are, I think, more, uh,exemplary of institutional adoption
where you've got a new payment rail.
Specifically tied to the US dollar,specifically the subject of pending
(10:31):
legislation and even something that ithas been brought to market in an initial
public offering, you know, by a majorstable coin provider, and it doesn't get
too much more institutionalized in that.
Yeah, so you see the crypto market sort ofmeeting the needs of both sides of both.
Parts of this spectrum and probably,you know, we could probably, uh,
look at everywhere in between, youknow, where this market is growing,
(10:54):
um, for a wide variety of, of users.
Tedd Huff (10:58):
When you look at all these different pieces and the mature
maturation of, of the industry.
And it seems to be maturingat a record pace right now.
How, how do you see these kinds ofsituations shaping investor or policymaker
responses to, to what's going on?
Robert Musiala (11:20):
in the current environment, uh, we've really seen, uh,
regulators take a nuanced and, and sortof more free market approach overall.
I do think that that willcontinue, but I also think that.
We will see targetedinvolvement from US regulators.
And we've seen that in the month of May.
We'll talk about the staking guidance,I think from the SEC in just a little
(11:42):
bit, but that's a great example.
And we've also seen, at the sametime, clear examples of, uh,
enforcement agencies pulling back.
There's an interesting example fromthe DOJ that we'll talk about, I
think a little bit that shows that.
And so.
I think that,
Tedd Huff (11:59):
How would you summarize like all of those different things, right?
So you've got S-E-C-D-O-J,all these things.
Robert Musiala (12:04):
I think the environment has become more of a
surgical approach in recent monthsin particular where, uh, overall,
uh, there's more of a free market.
Uh, environment, but with some verytargeted, very surgical, very well
thought out actions that remind usthat you do need some, some smart
regulation in this marketplace.
Tedd Huff (12:25):
And it's interesting, you, you mentioned free market, right?
So the total crypto market cap reached$3.29 trillion in the month of May.
You know, I mentionedin the intro that the.
Intraday all time high duringthe month of May, and I'm, I'm
gonna read this very specifically.
It was $111,970.17 on the 22nd of May.
(12:54):
And then on the very last day ofMay at the I, I'm taking this as
Eastern standard time, or easterndaylight time, I should say.
It closed at $104,010.90 stillat close to an all time high.
And then, like you mentioned, we're, we'rein the middle of, of June and it, it's
(13:15):
been fluttering right around that area.
Not a whole lot of variation on it.
Not only that, but Ethereum,the TVL climb to $62.59 billion.
Uh, Solana and Caranoled a layer one growth.
It's, it's been really interestingwith that because they've, they've
continued to hit double digit gains.
(13:37):
Of course, I've got tomention a fun meme coin.
Um, so Doge held, steady it at a quarter,which is kind of interesting, especially
everything that that has been going on.
We start to dive in and as we, as youtouched on, is like something you thought
was really interesting when we kickedoff was the institutional activity.
It's representing about 50% ofall volume that happened in May.
(14:01):
You know, the US treasuriescontinue to grow.
You're starting to see platforms likeStellar and Ethereum really leading that
charge, creating an area where these ETFscan pull in $3.3 billion in a single week.
If you look at total assets.
(14:23):
Managed N ETFs, uh, uh, the number thatI was able to come up with and, and, and
I don't know if it's exactly perfect,right, but it's right around $136 billion.
You've got all these different players.
We talked about circle, I mean, metamask even expanded its solution as well.
(14:44):
I mean, there's just so manythings that are going on.
I wonder if where we're.
At right now is growth because we'regetting more comfortable, or is
this just more money coming in totry and figure out where it can go?
Um, I love to, like, what,what are you thinking?
(15:05):
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Robert Musiala (16:18):
Well, so I'll, I'll answer it from sort of the perspective
of an attorney working in this space.
And you know, I like to sayI'm not an expert on the price.
I'm an expert on the laws that relateto the industry, and, but from that
perspective, I will say having workedin this industry for 12 years now.
What I've observed over timeis slow and steady growth and
(16:39):
slow and steady integration ofcryptocurrencies and digital assets
into the mainstream financial system.
So I think we're continuing to seethat, which has always been happening.
We're also seeing, I think, researchand development plans be where
companies are pulling the triggeron plans that they maybe had.
Waiting in the wings, where now with thenew administration, they feel comfortable
(17:00):
enough with the US regulatory environmentto move forward with certain things that
may maybe they didn't feel comfortablemoving forward with a year or two ago.
And then the last thing I'll say iswith regard to the price is, you know,
not being an expert on the price, butjust observing that anytime the price
of of digital assets are is strong.
(17:21):
That allows companies to do a lot morethings because so many of these companies
hold a lot, most, if not all, of theirvalue in digital assets themselves.
And so when the price of those digitalassets is relatively high, companies
that have those treasuries, uh, feellike they can deploy more capital.
And then that kind of createsa cycle where more things
(17:42):
happen in the marketplace.
And that's another thing I'vesort of observed over the years.
Tedd Huff (17:46):
Digital assets and even more so, stablecoin was
looked at as kind of theoretical.
If, if you look at stables, I mean they,they've, they topped over $9 billion.
Yield bearing stable coinshave topped over $9 billion.
I need to be super specificin that right circle.
Launching their APIs for our B2B paymentsand treasury options, and figuring
(18:10):
out ways to enable faster settlement.
Um.
I, I, I kind of giggle a littlebit because I thought that
they were already doing that.
Uh, just I think what they've really doneby launching this network is just made
it a little bit more non crypto nativefriendly to really allow enterprise folks
(18:35):
to be able to leverage it versus just.
Techno geeks like myself, um, to getthese real time settlement features.
You know, and then, and then if youmove over to some of the other things
that have happened, I mean, AnchorageDigital has added more stable coining
strategies to their, to their offerings.
Their, their portfolios are continuingto grow in that space and supporting
(18:57):
a little bit more structure around it.
You know, the one that I lookedat as a, a long time payment.
Cross border across institutional,um, payment folks has been ripple and
they are now promoting really, reallyheavily the tokenized payment flows.
So it's not just using XRP, it'snot doing cross border, it's
(19:22):
not figuring out a way to managethrough the correspondent banking.
It, it's really just tokenizing theentire flow, which has been really neat.
I, I thought it was interesting alsothat inmate Madam Mass rolled out
their native support for Solana, reallysignaled that they have ambitions
(19:42):
about go about going multi chain and,and going well, well beyond Ethereum.
Um, and that, that's a,that's a big piece there.
And you mentioned it in the,in the opening that there was,
Ethereum had a new release.
Right.
And there was, there was some,something special about that.
What.
What did you find so specialabout the Petra release?
Robert Musiala (20:05):
Sure.
Well, a couple things.
Ethere, the Ethereum, uh, foundationhas upgraded the network now several
times, and every time it's gone offwithout a hitch, and that's a huge
accomplishment in and of itself.
So we've had that event occur once more,uh, in the month of May where the Petra
upgrade was successfully implemented.
There was a lot in that upgrade,but, um, really three pieces of
(20:27):
it that I find most interesting.
First, it's going to allow walletsto function with a lot of the
features of smart contracts.
On a, on the previous episode we talkedabout this concept of programmable money.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, the idea of allowing anEthereum wallet address to now operate
with similar features as a smartcontract, I think is moving us closer
(20:49):
to things like programmable money.
We'll probably enable things thatwe haven't even thought of yet.
Second, uh, the upgrade increased thevalidator staking limit from 32 E to 2048
E. So that's a huge difference there.
That's there difference.
Yeah.
And that I think really sets the stage formore institutionalized staking, which is
gonna help to support the network even,even better, and, uh, will also enable
(21:15):
more profitable business mo uh, models.
For institutional stakers.
And then lastly, um, taking some,the, the, uh, the Petra upgrade
took some steps to further lowerlayer two transaction costs.
And that's always been, you know,an issue that's top of mind for
anyone building on Ethereum.
So those are really the threekey highlights of Petra.
Um, and again, the fact that itwent off without a hitch, I think
(21:35):
is big news in and of itself.
Tedd Huff (21:37):
A lot of the discussions that, uh, I've been part of
, The conversation really has been trying to understand like how to manage yield
bearing stable coins and Mountain Protocolpushed really, really far into it.
And what it's telling me is that
the markets now have gonefrom let's experiment.
(22:02):
Let's figure out whatcan potentially work.
And now they're, they're making thatshift over to productization, to,
to start generating some revenue,to start finding some funds.
Do you think that this is going tochange or adjust any, the stable
coin movement that's going on, um,globally, and do you think that.
(22:26):
Regulatory perspective is, is gonnacontinue to be fragmented or are we gonna
start to see some convergence acrossthe different places around the globe?
Robert Musiala (22:37):
Two other jurisdictions that, you know, you and I were
talking about earlier, uh, ofinterest are Hong Kong, uh, and the
UK have also taken action on stablecoins, and we can get into that.
I think that you'll see thissmall group, uh, of jurisdictions
converge around stable coins.
That's absolutely already been happening.
In fact, you could argue itstarted happening, uh, the European
(22:58):
MICA regulation, which createda framework for stable coins.
to that end, I do, I do see someconvergence, um, specifically
around stablecoin products.
Tedd Huff (23:07):
And really what it's doing is it's setting up the
requirements for stablecoin reservesand audits and am ML controls.
Not only that, but the SEChas declared that the protocol
staking is not a security.
The Clarity Act was alsointroduced to define asset
(23:27):
classes a little bit more clearly.
The Department of Justicepulled earlier crypto guidance.
Um, you'd mentioned Micah andthey just finalized phase two.
I think the stablecoin licensing that'shappening in Singapore, Hong Kong
is really interesting, especially.
(23:50):
Thailand has banned any andall unregistered exchanges.
So that, that's another piecewhere you're starting to see the
regulation get a little bit, alittle bit, um, more focused.
And before I hand it over, Rob,with the DOJ and dieting, tornado
caches Roman Storm, at least sofar, they found about $263 million.
(24:16):
A fraud ring that is tied to nfsthat was leveraging tornado cash.
So that's gonna be a lot of fun tosee that kind of come to a close.
What are you.
Seeing with all of these pieces, I'dlike to dive maybe a little bit deeper
into, um, the DOJ piece or, or even,um, genius Act, SECI know you and
(24:42):
I talked before we, we got started.
We, we have a, a really good feeling that,that we might actually have the Genius
Act voted for, and very, my opinion,very likely pass in the month of June.
What do you, what do you think this,what may marked for coordination,
(25:05):
um, around all of these?
Robert Musiala (25:07):
Three things come to mind in terms of updates that happened
in May of significance, you know.
First obviously is the GeniusAct going to, uh, a vote on the
Senate floor and it'll be reallyinteresting to see what we have to
talk about next month on this podcast.
And, you know, very good chancethat that act will be passed or
close to passed out of the Senate.
(25:28):
That's a huge update, but related to that,you know, two updates that maybe didn't
get as much attention Also in May, um,Hong Kong actually beat us to the punch.
Hong Kong passed their stable coinsbill and created a, a licensing
regime for issuers of fiatback stable coins in Hong Kong.
And so they are, you know, hopefullythe US will be number two in, in, uh,
(25:50):
passing stablecoin legislation this year.
But Hong Kong is number one.
And as we discussed, you know,the Europeans, uh, passed it.
Last year.
So we are seeing a convergencearound stable coins.
And then lastly, the United Kingdom inthe month of May released a consultation
paper related to stable coins.
And so they seem to be well on theirway, uh, towards stablecoin legislation.
Um, turning attention to, um.
(26:13):
The Department of Justice.
You know, you mentionedthe tornado ca cash case.
Another interesting update, uh,coming onto DOJ in the month of May,
DOJ dropped charges, uh, that ithad brought last year against two
brothers who had hacked the Ethereumblockchain, uh, in a very novel fashion,
and were able to steal $25 million.
By hacking the Ethereum blockchainitself in a way that, um, as far as we
(26:36):
can tell has never been done before.
Last year, the DOJ brought chargesagainst these two brothers, and
just recently in this month of May,2025, those charges were dropped.
And this seems to be an example ofsome of the, uh, philosophy that was
articulated in what's known as theBlanche memo, where, um, prosecutors
were instructed to avoid, um, imposingregulatory frameworks on digital assets.
(26:59):
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, wesee an example of that.
In those charges being dropped.
And then lastly, uh, the SEC publishedits guidance on staking and happy to
get into that, but I, I think I'll justpause here for a moment to see if you
have any reaction or other kind of,uh, guidance for the conversation here.
Tedd Huff (27:15):
I think it was really interesting how you, you know, the, the
actions by the DOJ that I'd mentioned.
I mean, you put a lot of, uh, alot of extra details into that.
It's interesting to see that we've got.
Some things being more heavily focusedon to, to solve for starting to see where
(27:36):
if you haven't spent time in the, inthe space, it could be very confusing.
They're starting to treat cryptocrimes like regular crimes.
They're starting to treat digitalassets like real, real assets They're
trying to treat, starting to treat.
Cryptocurrency, like fiat currency, it'slike, it, it may look confusing from
(28:01):
the outside with all of these decisionsbeing made that may look contradictory.
But I think it's just becausewe're starting to look at these
things as digital versions ofthe, of the physical thing.
So we, we might be in our, um, inthe des I'll use design terminology.
We may be still in the skew morphic level.
(28:21):
All of these different things,and we haven't fully gone digital.
We're still in that skew morphic phase.
We're trying to figure out what, whatin the physical world it looks like.
And I think, I think that's whatyou're starting to see with all of
these different things happening.
Robert Musiala (28:35):
Yeah.
And you know, the, the DOJ uh, chargesbeing dropped against the hackers.
That hacked the Ethereum network.
Last May reminds me a little bit, thevery first Ethereum Fork, which you
know, was based off of a hack and wayback in, you know, 2015 or whatever
it was, you know, someone hackedthe Ethereum network, department of
Justice, didn't get involved in that.
(28:56):
And instead what happened, the Ethereumdevelopers who developed that network
collectively and the miners collectivelydecided to roll a network back and
restart it and erase that hack.
I'm not saying that's what shouldhappen here, but I think it's
an interesting, it comes to mindbecause here maybe the implicit
message is your network got hacked.
(29:17):
There isn't necessarily, um, a crime therein that someone, uh, exploited your code.
And maybe it's not up tothe DOJ to fix that problem.
Tedd Huff (29:27):
You know, last month we talked about the sheer volume of,
of stolen assets in May estimatedto be $244 million in hacks.
The really cool part that I thoughtwas interesting is the CDI protocol
recovered $157 million and it'slike one of the biggest clawbacks.
(29:52):
Not only of this year, but in general,I thought it was really so, and I'm
gonna go, I'm gonna go to Bitcoin 2025.
At the event, I had friends that were highprofile speakers and because of crypto
execs having physical threats and being.
(30:15):
Abducted in some cases.
Uh, there, there's a lot ofsecurity around that, which we,
we all kind of giggled about.
But then we realized, ohcrap, this is really serious.
France is taking it super serious, andthey've rolled out additional protections
for physical threats, not just.
(30:36):
The normal pieces, right?
It's like, it, it's almost like a cyberbullying for a crypto execs type thing.
Uh, that, that has comeoff of that piece of it.
How does that change the way thatpeople who have a large or, or have
a substantial, I shouldn't evencall it large, a substantial amount
(30:57):
of net worth tied up in crypto?
How are, how are you?
How are you seeing that impact stuff?
Robert Musiala (31:03):
We are seeing a larger percentage of ultra high net worth
individuals invest in digital assets,serious concerns about some of the
issues that you just talked about andyou know, issues like the in event in
France, you know, the kidnapping and orattempted kidnapping and stuff like that.
You know.
Those are not new.
(31:24):
They've absolutely beenhappening, um, over the years.
Targeted usually, um, at foreignbased non-US ultra high net
worth holders of digital assets.
But now that digital assets are becomingmore and more of an asset class that
more ultra high net worth individuals areinterested in, um, I think these incidents
(31:45):
are occurring a little bit more frequentlyand hitting the press a little bit more.
I will say from an attorney'sperspective, there's a whole host.
You know, I've been advisingultra high net worth holders of
digital assets for years now.
I've been through several incidents,varying, varying types, and there's
a whole, um, playbook of strategies.
(32:06):
Apply to, you know, an ultra highnet worth holder of digital assets
that, you know, folks like you andme, just, we just don't have to
think about these things, you know?
Um, and, and there are strategies thatare tailored to some of the specific
nuances of, of crypto, and that could beanything from defending against sort of
security, physical security type incidentsto defending against technical type.
(32:30):
Security incidents to things like, um,legacy and estate type planning issues
in terms of like if there's, you know,an unfortunate event and how do you make
sure that your crypto is accessible andis able to be, uh, you know, passed on,
uh, appropriately and things like that.
So these strategies have been outthere for a long time, but I think
they are now becoming a little bit,these issues are, the issue is becoming
(32:52):
a lot more mainstream again, thereare more, uh, ultra high net worth in
individuals that are now investing.
Tedd Huff (32:59):
You know, as I think through the legal process, you
know, judges in the us, the uk, andthe EU, have approved using an on
chain legal service leveraging NFTs.
You know, we talked aboutprogrammable money in the past.
I talk about it quite a bit, but now thisopens up workflows for smart contracts
(33:20):
on chain that really have nothing.
As of right now to do with money movement,which I thought was really interesting.
You know, there's, there's moreto legal things than, than just
tracking and getting things done andhaving those conversations for you.
Um, when we start looking atleveraging these NFT based legal
(33:44):
delivery services and what.
We'll start there.
We'll start there and I'll, I'll not,'cause I got a couple other questions
I wanna ask you, but we'll start there.
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Robert Musiala (34:24):
So from a legal, kind of a legal geek perspective, I
think, you know, this is pretty cool.
Um, you know, there was a report earlierthis year that was claiming NFTs are
dead and, you know, published a lotof statistics about the dwindling.
NFT market.
But you know, these examples that youpointed out of courts allowing service of
(34:45):
process via NFT is a fantastic example ofsome real serious use cases for NFTs way
beyond things like art and digital media.
And these are instances where a potentialparty to a lawsuit, but that party,
uh, as an example, may be, um, hacked.
Digital asset funds from a prospectiveplaintiff and that, you know, the
(35:07):
plaintiff is trying to trace thosefunds and has traced them maybe to
a specific wallet so they know wheretheir digital assets went, but they
don't know who owns that wallet.
They don't know who perpetuated the hack.
And so if you want to try to bring acourt case, uh, you're gonna, you run
into this issue of service, a process.
How do you serve someone, uh,in a lawsuit when you don't know
(35:28):
who they are or where they are?
Interestingly, judges in a couple nowinstances now have approved service a
process via NFT, where the plaintiffcreates an NFT and instead of some
kind of digital media, uh, on theNFT, it's actually service papers
as a PDF or otherwise, uh, attachedto that NFT and the NFT is sent.
(35:51):
To the wallet where the stolenfunds or disputed funds reside.
Oh, that's
Tedd Huff (35:55):
super cool.
Robert Musiala (35:56):
And, uh, a couple courts now, both in the US and outside
the US has have approved this asa, an effective and, um, approved.
Method for, for serving process, uh, ona, on a defendant in a civil lawsuit.
Uh, and I think that has fanreally great implications for,
the private civil side of this marketwhere, you know, people wanna step up
(36:19):
and defend their own rights and nowhave a better mechanism to do so, uh,
in a pseudo anonymous marketplace.
Tedd Huff (36:27):
I love that the pseudo, that, that was a big
conversation that we had at.
Uh, almost every conversationat at Bitcoin 2025.
The, the, the anonymity was alwayssuper important to everybody, just
about everybody that I talked to, um,which you can imagine, K-Y-C-A-M-L
(36:48):
was, was seen as not so much fun.
Being able to do those thingssemi anonymously is really cool.
We talked about hacks, um, butduring our, our pre-prep call.
You had mentioned that there, there's,there's still some, some other
ways that people are, are losingmoney in the digital asset space.
Robert Musiala (37:10):
There was a really interesting report published in May.
By Solidus Labs and it was entitledthe 2025 Rug Pull Report and analyzed
pump and dump schemes on the SolanaBlockchain and found that, uh, according
to the report, approximately 98.7%of tokens on the pump.fun marketplace
(37:31):
apparently exhibited characteristics.
Indicative of pump and dump schemes.
And so that shows that it, it's an exampleof how beyond the threat of hacks, there's
still quite a bit of a threat of, um,other illicit activities, including things
like pump and dumps, um, and includingon, you know, marketplaces that maybe
(37:51):
are lower value or maybe, you know, um,folks aren't paying as much attention
to, or maybe don't sort of provide thenews shock, uh, on an individual level.
Sometimes does, but this is an areawhere, you know, collectively, uh,
98.7%, that's a high percentage.
Tedd Huff (38:08):
Do your own research has almost become a mantra for so, so many things.
Um, this is one of those places where youhave to do it, you have to look at it.
And I was talking to, to friends andfamily and everybody's like, oh, well I
don't get, get why there are so many coinsand so many of this, and so many of that.
And yeah, we've got Bitcoin, we've got.
(38:29):
Other coins.
We've got alt coins, we've got memecoins, we've got shit coins, we've got
coins coming out everywhere, right?
And you just have to look at whyare you buying, buying it and does
it have a history of doing whatyou're wanting it to do for buying?
That is not meant to be advice,that is meant to be a perspective,
(38:49):
uh, that I have for myself.
So, as always, do your own research.
Um, 'cause I'm not here to give any sortof, uh, financial or investment advice.
But with that being said, youknow, Robinhood, uh, went ahead
and acquired Wondery, um, becausethey needed some help in Canada.
And I, I think that was a big one.
(39:10):
I think also that, um, pre-searchlaunched their decentralized web
indexing engine or the XSGD to expandstable coins on the XRP ledger.
A lot of NFTs volume.
Um, you know, I still remember.
I actually got to meet one ofthe guys from Bored Apes, um,
(39:32):
yacht club at Bitcoin 2025.
He was at a dinner that somebody hosted.
We both gotta attend.
Um, and
, we were kind of talking abouthow much the NFT trading volumes,
like how was from boom to bust.
And, and it was really interesting as Iwas doing the research for this, that it
is down 93%, 93% from the all time highs.
(39:58):
So that's been a really, really bigthing, uh, that, that I found that
these, you know, these are some notablementions, uh, that, that I figured
I would, I would throw in based onsome of the conversations that I had,
Robert Musiala (40:09):
a small startup, uh, based in Dubai, not in
the United States called mesh.
Announced an integration with a, a majorpayments app provider, global payments app
provider where they were gonna help allowthat payments app to accept payment in
a variety of different cryptocurrencies.
Uh, and then also allow the merchant onthe other end to receive payment in either
(40:33):
the same crypto or a different crypto.
Or Fiat.
And so it's, you know, that was areally interesting example to me.
The need for new tech integrations andsolutions that are targeted at giving
both the consumer and the merchant, uh,the choice between crypto and fiat, and
then also on the, on the crypto side.
(40:55):
The choice between different typesof digital assets, from stable
coins to more obscure coins.
Uh, I thought that wasa really notable item.
Tedd Huff (41:02):
It's, it's been really interesting, you know, with my, my
advisory practice, the idea of leveragingdigital assets and stable coins, and I,
I know I'm separating like crypto stablecoins, the ability to leverage NFTs as
a, as a means to track and do automation.
All of these things are conversationsthat are continuing to come up,
(41:23):
and I'm starting to see a lot of,a lot of traction around that.
Looking back at May, I mean, therewere so many major moves on regulation,
payments, the market structure, I.I'm looking forward to us getting more
regulatory clarity here in the us.
Um, and maybe catching up a littlebit to the licensing frameworks that
(41:46):
Asia and the EU have put in place.
I'm, I'm wondering if like, ETFsare gonna start to slow down.
They just seem like they just keepgoing and keep going and keep going.
How would you sum up may.
Robert Musiala (41:59):
You know, I think May was a continuation of what we've
seen all year, which is combinationsof new regulatory developments, uh,
combined with businesses becoming moreand more interested in integration
activities that behind the scenes make.
Digital assets easier for people touse, and also interested in things
(42:22):
like acquisitions and other kind of bigticket moves, deploying plans that they
probably had, uh, for quite a whileand find that this is the right time.
Uh, to move forward with them.
So, you know, we've seenthat in previous months.
This year.
I think we've seen itprobably the most this may.
Will it slow down?
Will the pace continue to accelerate?
It?
It, it's hard to say.
(42:42):
Looking back at the month of May andnow having five months to look back over
the year, um, you know, I, I do see.
Some very steady, uh, progress for theindustry here in the us both from the
market perspective, from the technicalperspective, from things like, uh, the
Petra upgrade on the Ethereum networkand also from the regulatory perspective.
(43:04):
Uh, and you know, we haven't dug into.
SEC staking guidance too deeply.
But I will say,
it's now the fourth set of guidancethat we've seen from the SEC. So we,
the first was meme coins, um, statingthat, you know, meme coins that
meet certain characteristics are notsecurities, the second stable coins.
And so if you think about it,those are kind of the two were
probably the two least risky.
(43:25):
Digital assets from a securitieslaw perspective, and we've
gotten clarity on both of them.
And then the third, uh,was proof of work mining.
So the Bitcoin mining network and nowin May proof of stake mining, you know,
where they said, uh, proof of workmining and now proof of stake mining
activities are not gonna be consideredoffers and sales of securities.
And so you kind of take a step backand look at that and what really what
(43:48):
we've seen now is the two sort of.
Digital assets, meme coins, and stablecoins are probably the least risky from a
securities law perspective to begin with.
Have, you know, been given, um, someadditional clarity from the SEC and then.
The two types of network activities,proof of work, and proof of stake.
Underpinning the two biggest blockchainnetworks, Bitcoin and Ethereum have been
(44:11):
given additional guidance from the SECsaying that in generally these activities
are not gonna be considered securitiesand the SEC will not be scrutinizing them.
You know, that's a, that's a hugeupdate for May, but it caps off,
you know, I think, uh, a spectrumof updates that began, uh, you know,
really in January of this year.
Tedd Huff (44:30):
If you're tracking the shape of Web3 and this month had like all
of the signals, governments, financialfirms, new products, new infrastructure,
they all started to take fruit.
Everything from Ripple's m and acircles B2B APIs, the Solana usage
metrics, I mean, everything isflashing green for Web3 maturity.
(44:52):
Whether you're a founder, a policymaker,a fund manager, the regulatory.
The infrastructure plays,all the bank line protocols.
I mean, everything is being definedfor the next phase of what we
call Web3, and they're showingabsolutely no signs of slowing down.
So Rob, what do you, what do youthink this means for builders
(45:18):
as they start to look into Q3?
Of 2025.
You
Robert Musiala (45:22):
know, I think it's still a very good environment.
It's a, it's a good timeto, you know, deploy.
As you mentioned earlier, you know,builders go through sort of the
design phase, the testing phase,redesign, and eventually deploy.
Well, I think for builders who are readyto deploy, we're getting ready to deploy.
Still a very good environmentat the same time, uh.
(45:45):
A lot is gonna happen and, you know,things are moving very quickly.
You know, we'll probably see moredevelopments on the stablecoin
and SEC front, uh, that we we'llhave to talk about next month.
And it's gonna look, um, you know,hopefully in a positive direction,
but no matter what, it's gonna lookvery different and significantly
different, uh, than this month.
(46:05):
And so you still have to sort ofkeep on top of, um, the changes
because the changes are happeningquickly and, and arguably, uh.
The pace of change is acceleratingover past, uh, months and years.
So it's a good environment to deployfor builders, uh, but it's one where
you still have to sort of keep youreye on, um, current developments.
(46:26):
Uh, and then also, like we notedwith report about pump and dump
scheme schemes on Solana, there'sstill a lot of froth out there.
And so you've gotta watch out and not getcaught up in that froth, whether that be,
um, fraud schemes, hacks, uh, or just um.
Ideas and business modelsthat don't have real value.
Tedd Huff (46:44):
I think it's important for those folks who are in
payments, compliance, productstrategy, whatever it is.
If you've been thinking about stablecoins being the side project, um, now
is the time to really dive into thatinfrastructure because it can't be
a side project anymore, especiallywith, with Singapore and the eu,
(47:06):
as we've mentioned numerous times.
You've gotta get your framework alignednow, or you're gonna risk falling behind.
Do you agree?
Do you feel like stable coins havefinally crossed into that critical
infrastructure for, for finance?
Robert Musiala (47:22):
I, I, I think we're sort of, uh, in the process of crossing
the Rubicon, so to speak right now.
I don't think we've completelycrossed it yet to where there's a,
we're at a point of no return, butI think we are on, on the way there.
And, you know, I'm really interested tosee what we have to talk about next month
on this topic, because I have a feeling,you know, there are gonna be some major
developments like major players, uh,launching stable coins, maybe, maybe a
(47:45):
bank, you know, having either launchingor having plans to launch a stable coin.
Um, and I think that's where this is allheaded, whether it's next month or, or a
little bit farther down the line in 2025.
Tedd Huff (47:56):
Well, I love you hedging your bets with what happens in June
and really strengthening your positionaround the US regulatory market.
So I totally get whereyou're coming from, man.
Uh, I'm, I'm a little bit more bullishwhen it comes to stables, I think.
I think now's the time, and if you waittoo long, it's gonna be too late, folks.
(48:17):
That is it for today'sepisode of Web3 with FTC.
If this discussion about Web3 caught yourattention today, that's great because
there's a lot more where this came from.
You go ahead, head over to YouTube,Spotify, apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen and hit that follow button.
I. And if you wanna stay plugged intoeverything that we're working and doing
(48:37):
over here tracking, go ahead and head overto FinTech confidential.com and sign up.
That's where we drop all the deepdives as well as the future episodes.
You'll be able to learn a lot morethere and be able, be sure to share
this with someone who's seriousabout where FinTech is going.
And if you haven't already, head over.
(49:00):
The blockchain monitor.com and sign up tosee what Rob puts out every single week.
And as always.
I keep moving forward aswe wrap up today's episode.
I've got one last thing for you.
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know it's a complex battlefield.
That's where hawk's AI toolsfor real-time payment screening
(49:23):
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(49:44):
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Lily Eleven (49:56):
This has been a production of DD three Media
with all rights reserved.
This is provided forinformational purposes only.
It is not offered or intended tobe used as legal, tax, investment,
financial, or other advice.
We strive to provide accurate andup-to-date information, but will
not be responsible for any missingfacts or inaccurate information.
You comply and understand thatyou should use any of this
(50:17):
information at your own risk.
Cryptocurrencies are highly volatilefinancial assets, so research and
make your own financial decisions.
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