WEBVTT - What Happens When Cops Seize Crypto and Bitcoin 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:06.360 I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News, 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.400 And this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I heard podcast. 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:27.080 It's Monday, August one. Picture this. You're the FBI trying 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.120 to track down the digital keys that will give you 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:33.440 access to illicit or stolen crypto. You're rifling through books, 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.360 paper stuffed in suitcases, You're tearing open gum wrappers. It's 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.600 like something out of a movie. But in the world 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.000 of crypto, these odd nooks and crannies have become totally 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:50.800 normal places for law enforcement to look for digital passwords alone. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.440 Cops in the U S and the UK sees billions 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.200 of dollars in crypto assets from various different criminal busts. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.920 With so much money on the line, enforced agencies around 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.120 the world have had to learn and learn quickly how 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.360 to spot these digital assets and seize them from accused criminals. Today, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.560 I'm joined by Bloomberg reporters Ellen Milligan. They are spending 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.040 all this taxpayer money to train these police officers in crypto, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.480 and then they're losing them. And David Vorriacos while the 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.160 crypto was in the possession of the US government stole 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.440 it from right under their noses. To discuss how the 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.560 seizures of digital assets are transforming policing policies and protocols 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:34.280 around the world. Ellen David, thank you so much for 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.800 joining us today. Thanks for having us. We're going to 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.400 talk about something kind of weird, which is how do 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:46.200 police officers sees imaginary money? And I don't just mean 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.559 imaginary in the sense of contested valuation. I mean imaginary 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.560 as in not cash, not physical, not things that you 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.920 can sort of wrap your head around. You know, people 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:57.800 are breaking down the door and they're like, freeze and 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.240 we're gonna take all your stuff. You have been writing 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.560 about what happens when cops sees crypto. Tell us more 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:10.160 about what that's like. Well, police traditionally have sees physical 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:16.919 items like jewelry, cash, cars, boats, planes, and with crypto, 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.160 they have to know that it's there, and they have 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.880 to be educated enough about the process to understand that 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.920 it has value and there are are unusual ways to 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.679 access it. And so that's what we wrote about. The 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.519 police around the world are educating themselves on what crypto 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.800 is and how to access it. Then once they get it, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.280 how they store it and how they sell it and 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.800 ellen what does that look like. Well, really, there's a 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.040 few different elements to this. Like David said, there's the 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.600 seizing of the crypto and discovering it, which is easier 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.280 said than done, because often there's not a physical element 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.520 to crypto. Sometimes there is like kind of hardware device 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.480 that crypto wallets kept on or something like that, but 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:12.880 often these are digital assets, and to discover them and 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.560 then to seize them, you need a seed phrase that 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.320 accesses the crypto wallet. So even if you're holding a 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.640 keep key device for example, police won't know how much 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.400 bitcoin or another cryptocurrency is held on there until they 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.440 can access it using this kind of password. And then 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.760 they're storing it once they've seized it. How do they 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.440 keep this asset safe often for years while you go 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.960 through a criminal trial and then a forfeiture order. Um, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.760 there's real security issues with hacks for example, but also 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.960 there's you know, in some cases there have been corrupt 0:03:53.000 --> 0:04:02.280 police officers who have taken it for themselves. Um. And 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:08.320 then the last element is how you release that that cryptocurrency, UM, 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.480 if you give it back to victims or what value 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.200 you give it back to victims if the state keeps it. 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:20.039 These are the questions that law enforcement has been grappling with. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.560 And what David and I really discovered is there's no 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.360 standardized procedure of the way that people do this. Everyone, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.719 as in any of the parts, like each one is 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.880 idiosyncratic exactly, and every different law agency around the world, 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.680 and different law agencies within the same countries do it differently. 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.080 And the police, like the rest of the world when 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:43.920 it comes to crypto, have had to learn this as 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.920 they go along, and inevitably mistakes have been made along 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.919 the way, and they're still grappling with this. So you 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.039 mentioned kind of three elements, each of which sounds hilariously complicated. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.679 So let's let's take one of each one in turn. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.400 First of all, is the the identify kitian, right, like, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.440 something suspicious is happening. We think that's a suspicious things 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.800 in crypto. We've figured out that that exists. What are 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.960 the steps involved in Okay, we think that this is suspicious. 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.080 We have, you know, good cause we have all the paperwork, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.240 etcetera that's required. How do they even get those passwords 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.839 in the first place. Well, in identifying the suspicious crypto, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.920 they can see the movement of crypto on the blockchain. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.679 That is a public ledger ledger that they can see, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.839 and they can. What they must first do is trace 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.120 it to criminal activity UH. And once they've traced it 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.760 to criminal activity, they can then get a court order 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:46.479 two seize wallets that are associated with UM, say stolen crypto. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.719 At that point they can They cannot actually access those 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.960 wallets without the seed recovery phrases, and they can come 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.240 in different ways. They may be written on slips of paper, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.600 They may get it from UM inside writers who are 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.120 familiar with it. But if they do not have those 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.799 seed recovery phrases, they can't. The police cannot access the crypto, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.839 so they can't say compel and exchange to have that 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.040 crypto over to them. There's a case UM that's pending 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:20.159 in federal court in Washington in which UM, a guy 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:25.719 named Gary Harmon from Akron, Ohio, UM is alleged to 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.479 have stolen crypto right from out under the noses of 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.760 the Internal Revenue Service, which had seized crypto from Gary's 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:39.400 brother Larry Harmon, who pleaded guilty UM two charges associated 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.520 with running a crypto mixer and helping to obscure the 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:49.160 identity of crypto, and the federal government alleges that Gary Harmon, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.719 while the crypto was in the possession of the U. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.359 S Government, stole it from right under their noses and 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:01.440 has a value of many millions of dollars m. He's 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.200 scheduled to go to trial early next year, but there 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.000 have been negotiations that have been spelled out in court 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:12.440 papers in which uh, the federal government just wants the 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.480 seed recovery phrase so they can have the crypto, and 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.440 Gary Harmon's lawyers say that's essentially tantamount to him admitting 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:25.560 he committed the crime. Interesting, so all of the big 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.400 parts of jurisprudence that people might be familiar with now 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.920 being applied to the slightly more chaotic entities involved in crypto. 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:37.040 That sounds like fun. Ellen, you mentioned that that the 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.120 second part of this complex thing around storage. This seems 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.360 to be part of the problem the David is describing 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.000 if if another entity can just be like, nope, that's 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.160 mine and take it once that crypto has been seized 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.080 by the government or by the police, Like, what's going 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:55.920 on there? What are those fail safes? Exactly? And um, 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.240 a lot of these cases have come out of like 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:03.480 the teen time where there was kind of the last 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:10.360 big spike in crypto and then crashed before before spike UM, 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.720 and a lot of those cases came out of hacks, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.000 and that just shows you even if the police are 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.360 holding it um and storing this crypto in their own 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.560 internal system or outsource system, there's still a danger that 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.480 that could be hacked. And when you've got cases like 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.760 the bit for next case that that David spoke about, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.480 I mean, the whole world knows how much UM that 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.839 this law enforcement agency has ceased, and it becomes very vulnerable, 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.400 vulnerable because of that. I spoke to a small police 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.439 force in southern England for this story. They stumbled across 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.679 crypto for the first time accidentally really in twenty seventeen. 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.080 So this was a kidnapping case UM where a guy 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.000 was kidnapped. Turned out his house was a cannabis farm. 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.560 So they did some digging around and they found this 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.280 key key device which had a notepad attached to it 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.520 with two seed phrases and it had nine hundred grand 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:14.160 in bitcoin I think on it. And so what police 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.520 did is that there was no precedent for this. They 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.880 had no idea what to do. Most of them didn't 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.680 really know what crypto was. They bought their own keep 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:26.520 key device and they transferred UM the bitcoin from his 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.280 wallet to their wallet, their crypto wallet, and then they 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.240 kept this keep key device and the seed phrases in 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.400 a safe and only to hang on like a physical 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.000 a physical safe in the police station. And I need 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:45.240 two policemen had access to the to the safe. And 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:50.160 that's because in the silk Row case that David referred to, UM, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.199 there two police officers ran off in that case in 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.319 the US with some of the money that they were 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.160 storing UM, and so there was a you the police 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.040 were very worried about corrupt police officers, but also about 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.360 losing losing the money. So that's how they did it. 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.080 And then UM they eventually sold it to a trusted exchange. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.240 Now they don't do that anymore, not surprisingly because it 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.120 is very dangerous to keep such millions of dollars in 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:23.199 cryptus in a mini like small police station in southern England. 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.240 It's ridiculous now, UM, but these are the kinds of 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.560 ways that they would do it as they were learning 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.360 on the job. And I mean now what they do 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.760 and what most UK law enforcement agencies do, which is 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.720 they have a UM they outsource it to a company 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:46.559 called Comani, which is backed by a Ledger and others, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.839 and it's they've got their own secure, high tech like 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.840 system of doing what they say. You know, I guess 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.080 time will time will tell. We'll be right back with 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.439 more from Bloomberg reporters David vore Yachos and Ellen Milligan 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:03.839 on how law enforcement is keeping up with this new 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:13.240 digital to mention of financial crime. I want to push 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.679 on something that you're saying here about. You know, they 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.600 tried some stuff, the stuff didn't necessarily work. Now they 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.680 may be getting better at it. How are they getting better? 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.160 Like where are they finding people? You've mentioned outsourcing, but 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:30.520 they obviously need police officers who are themselves trained in 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:32.720 knowing what to do. What has that process been like? 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.480 So in the UK UM the police lobbied the government, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.000 the Home Office UM for funding to train about two 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.760 fifty officers around the country in how to investigate sees 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.959 and realize the value of these assets. They were dubbed 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:58.000 crypto tactical advisors and I think one or two from 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.240 every force around the country was trained in this and 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.520 that really helped them, and then they did a public 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.719 procurement process UM to outsource this, and I know that 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.920 that's been done in the US less successfully UM, which 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.640 David can tell you about. But actually the trouble that 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.360 they're having now is UM they've lost a number of 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:24.160 these crypto tactical advisors to coin based chain analysts, these 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.160 firms who can triple their pay. So that's something they're 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.400 really struggling with is they are spending all this taxpayer 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.960 money to train these police officers in crypto and then 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.880 they're losing them to these firms who can pay them 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.480 far more. So let me just make sure I'm understanding this. 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.040 I a US taxpayer, have nominally contributed to somebody working 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:48.440 for coin base right now essentially potentially I as a 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:54.000 UK taxpayer definitely UM. In the US I mean, the 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:59.720 FBI and the Internal Revenue Service have some extremely talented investigators. 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.080 They have a very large databases at their access which 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.080 are able to they're able to use to triangulate to 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.480 figure out who owns a wallet because they can follow 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.319 the movement of crypto across the blockchain in ways that 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.679 people can't do it UM who have only public access, 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.640 and they also work with firms like ch Analysis, which 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:28.640 um Ellen had mentioned, to help them put together who owns, 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.720 you know, disputed wallets. And I would also say that 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.040 the government is looking to privatize the storage and sale 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.480 of seized crypto assets. The Justice Department, through the marshals 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.000 has had sort of mixed success with that. Marshals used 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.560 to auction crypto themselves and they stopped in They were 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.320 trying to hire an outside firm and the two firms 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.520 that they had settled on both were disqualified because they 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.800 were too big under the the regulations, And so the 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.680 martials are doing it themselves, but they're looking for a 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:08.240 firm outside to do it for them. And Ellen this 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.040 is related to the third part of that complex tree, right, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.520 which is the distribution once some sort of judgment has 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.200 been rendered on on either the crypto or the alleged 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.840 criminal involved. Yeah, this is almost the most complicated part 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:26.360 because there was no legal precedent for for this. And 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:31.480 what a court does when, for example, it finds someone guilty, 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:36.600 there's a forfeiture proceeding UM that happens later on and 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.640 often this happens years after UM. And what's the forfeiture 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:46.080 proceeding UM. In the UK you have the Proceeds of 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.760 Crime Act, and this is a twenty year old act. 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.920 And at the end of the case, when someone's found 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.840 guilty and sent to jail within a year, there's usually 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.040 court hearing where judge will decide the seat what to 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.200 do with the seized assets, whether the criminal can keep 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:10.000 some of them, whether they forfeit them um and also 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.160 how whether they stay with the state, whether they have 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:18.080 to be distributed to victims. For example, the trouble that 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.200 this police force had in the case I was talking 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.880 about earlier was this law was twenty years old when 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.600 crypto didn't exist, so they had to go to a 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:32.240 judge and convince them that this is an asset. The 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.120 most valuable asset in the case it was. They came 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:41.359 across cash about two hundred grand in cash, watches, artwork, gold, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.600 but the crypto was the most valuable asset. The other complication, 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.760 and we've seen that even more so, is that crypto 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:50.960 will be a much different price than it was when 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.200 they seized it. And and and the good thing that 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.920 police have had up until this year was it ballooned 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:01.120 in price, so either the state or victim got quite 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.160 a good deal out of it. And I think what 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.360 police are now really grappling with is actually that that 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.840 crypto that they've been storing for so long has actually 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.680 fallen in price now quite a lot, what actually quite 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.560 a lot? And at what point do they sell it? 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.200 They're confined by the law, but at what point do 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.440 they convert that? Do they convert it before and they forfeit? 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:29.640 It's it's really complicated, and it's really those kinds of 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.400 questions are actually outside the law, and it's about instinct 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.560 or mist and David, is it similar in the US? 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.760 In the US, assets can be forfeited when someone is 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:45.280 convicted of a crime, but they're seized before someone is 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.440 convicted of a crime, so they may sit there for 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.280 a year or two, three four years while someone is 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:56.960 going through the judicial process, and the government cannot sell 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:01.200 those crypto assets until after as an order from the 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.320 judge saying it's okay to um to liquidate this. I 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.800 was going to say, there's an interesting case in San 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:14.280 Francisco where someone stole sixty thousand, three hundred seventy bitcoin 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.800 from the Silk Road site in November of It was 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.120 worth a billion dollars that then went up a great 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.080 deal more than that, and it's fallen since then. But 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.080 there's someone referred to only as individual X who agreed 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.720 to forfeit it, and so he's not he or she 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.240 is not contesting ownership. Um. But there are a bunch 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.520 of other people who are putting claims in saying well, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.399 they had some of the crypto that was in dispute 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:48.560 and um. So the judge in San Francisco is ruling 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:53.280 on that dispute and he's hearing testimony and reading reports 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.359 from experts on both sides, and in every case so 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.719 far he's ruled for the government. And a couple of 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.560 the people who say that, um, some of the crypto 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.480 is there's have appealed it and the so it has 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.679 to be adjudicated at the district court level and the 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.200 appellate court level before they can go ahead and sell 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.600 all of the crypto, which is very valuable. And it 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.360 sounds like it's going to take a long time. It 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.560 has taken almost two years so far. It probably take 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.800 I would guess another year or so, but then I 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.760 assume they're going to go ahead and sell it. Wow. Well, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:35.720 thank you both for joining us on this. Frankly, fascinating episode. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.240 I really appreciate you both taking the time. Thank you 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.359 so much. Thank you Ellen, and thank you David. You 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.760 can find more of their reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.480 on Bloomberg dot com, and on Twitter. Ellen is at 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.879 Ellen A. Milligan That's m I L L I G 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.719 A N. And David is at David Voiacos That's David 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:03.320 V O R E A c O s. On the 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.840 next episode of Bloomberg Crypto, one of the most interesting 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.439 conversations in crypto right now is all about definitions, and 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.240 especially the definition of a so called security Who betters 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.199 to tackle this from Bloomberg ompinion columnist Matt Levine, a 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.160 former practicing lawyer and investment banker who has written extensively 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.800 about securities, securities law, inside of trading, all the things 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.520 that are very much topical right now. You'll also hear 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.520 highlights from Matt's interview Sam bankmun Freed at the recent 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:39.960 Bloomberg Crypto Suwhach in New York. This is Bloomberg Crypto, 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.480 a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.800 more shows from I Heart Radio, visit the i heart 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.560 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.920 Send us your comments, questions or suggestions for the show 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.359 to Crypto at bloomberg dot net or find us on Twitter. 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:03.679 We're at Crypto m. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.960 is Vicky ver Galina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.280 Our producer is Sharon Burriro. Our associate producers of Sanam 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.880 Siddiki and Moses and m Desta wonder At is our engineer. 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:21.280 Original music by Leo Sidron. I'm Stacy Marie Schmal. We'll 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:22.000 be back tomorrow.