Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg Crypto that Daily Bloomberg I heard podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, July twenty nine. Those who are newer to
Speaker 1: the world of crypto might find themselves maybe intimidated by,
Speaker 1: maybe attracted by the volatility, complexity, and frantic pace of
Speaker 1: an asset class that quite literally never sleeps. There are
Speaker 1: those who believe crypto on the blockchain will redefine our
Speaker 1: collective futures and those who argue it's just a set
Speaker 1: of solutions in search of a problem. Our job is,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg editors, is to assess all of these perspectives, all
Speaker 1: of these headlines, all of these disagreements, and determine how
Speaker 1: and whether they become stories. Welcome to another edition of
Speaker 1: Friday in the Editor's Room, a conversation with Bloomberg's crypto
Speaker 1: editors from around the world. It's a win know into
Speaker 1: how we see crypto shaping markets and our culture. Joining
Speaker 1: me today Crypto senior editors Anna Irrera, who's based in London.
Speaker 1: I think maybe what we'll would shock me would be
Speaker 1: if Michael Sailor seals is the big points out that
Speaker 1: would be a shock. And Philip Lagerkranza, who's based in Zurich.
Speaker 1: One thing that really interests me right now is what
Speaker 1: the response from Singapore is going to be. Anna, phil
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: I know we are all supposed to be doing all
Speaker 1: sorts of other works, so I appreciate you taking the
Speaker 1: time to me in the studio today. And I want
Speaker 1: to start with you. You are our senior editor based
Speaker 1: in London. You have been in Bloomberg five minutes, yes,
Speaker 1: three weeks and five seconds, the almost fourth I think
Speaker 1: this is the fourth week. What is time? What are
Speaker 1: some of the big things you've seen in terms of
Speaker 1: coverage out of the UK since you joined, Because I
Speaker 1: believe the UK government fellow parts in like your first
Speaker 1: or second week here. It was the first week someone
Speaker 1: who was in training with me or was arrived the
Speaker 1: same day, was covering is covering the government. So I
Speaker 1: felt kind of privileged because at least I was in
Speaker 1: him because we were doing training at the same time,
Speaker 1: and he was like, sorry, I can't show up, and
Speaker 1: it felt like he had a good excuse. Um. So
Speaker 1: I also joined in crypto markets were not very calm.
Speaker 1: So I was worried because obviously I was not only
Speaker 1: somewhere else, but I was on Madley for a while
Speaker 1: that I would arrive and there would either be no
Speaker 1: market left or there would be so many things that
Speaker 1: I would need to catch up on. But obviously everything
Speaker 1: happened at once, and so I had to catch up
Speaker 1: in two days. And I feel like with crypto, because
Speaker 1: it's such a global story, you can sort of say,
Speaker 1: what's happening here, but it's the same that's happening in
Speaker 1: New York to ur in Singapore, it's the firms maybe
Speaker 1: based there, or in the Cayman Islands or in the
Speaker 1: Bahamas most likely, But you sort of don't really feel
Speaker 1: like there's a local story as much. So you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've we've had to catch up on what was
Speaker 1: going with Celsius in three a c. There's been facets
Speaker 1: of the story, the bigger stories everywhere, right, But obviously
Speaker 1: with with the UK, the big thing now is like
Speaker 1: what's going on with the government and what does that
Speaker 1: mean for crypto because the previous cabinet um was very
Speaker 1: much into regulating it or given but not in a
Speaker 1: negative way. Necessarily, but regulating and giving it a framework,
Speaker 1: um so that the sort of businesses can know what
Speaker 1: they can or cat too, and hopefully that would attract
Speaker 1: more crypto companies to the UK. This was the idea
Speaker 1: of having the UK be like the crypto technology capital
Speaker 1: of the world. Yes, famously was the States, and before
Speaker 1: that it was being the fintech capital of the world.
Speaker 1: So there's always the sort of flavor of the of
Speaker 1: the two years or yeah, yeah, nothing like Empire. So
Speaker 1: when the government collapsed, like, what in functional terms has
Speaker 1: that meant for crypto Like is it that the people
Speaker 1: who were in charge of creating that framework or that
Speaker 1: environments are no longer there? Is it that their staffs
Speaker 1: can't make any decision? Like what's the practical consequence of
Speaker 1: not having a prime I think obviously when there's a
Speaker 1: change of government and me being Italian, no, no, this
Speaker 1: very well because we never have a government that lasts
Speaker 1: more than five minutes. It means like you kind of
Speaker 1: have to start from scratch when you're in someone in
Speaker 1: industry in creating those relationships. So you know, people that
Speaker 1: take over need to kind of catch up on what's
Speaker 1: going on. If it's not something they've been familiar with.
Speaker 1: And you know, crypto is a big deal for us,
Speaker 1: but it probably isn't for the world at large at
Speaker 1: this point, still in for for government, so maybe the
Speaker 1: people just that are there in the Treasury need to
Speaker 1: catch up with what what's happening. But also you sort
Speaker 1: of need to figure out whether they do care and
Speaker 1: whether they have other priorities. And in particular, the previous
Speaker 1: government had someone at the head of the Treasury. She
Speaker 1: soon a who's now running to be potentially the next
Speaker 1: Prime minister, who was very active in this, and his
Speaker 1: sort of second hand man, John Glenn, also was very
Speaker 1: active in the crypto industry and they had all of
Speaker 1: these plans to attract more firms here. So we're waiting
Speaker 1: to see who will take over after Boris Johnson. It
Speaker 1: could be so neck and so then what does that
Speaker 1: mean for cryptop Maybe it's a good thing or maybe not,
Speaker 1: because he's now going to be focused on some something else.
Speaker 1: Um so in bigger problems of the UK exactly, yes,
Speaker 1: got it. And you know, Phil, you're in Switzerland, which
Speaker 1: I remember I was telling you, I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: who runs Switzerland. It seems so calm all the time,
Speaker 1: but you you know, you're kind of coming at this
Speaker 1: from what's happening in Europe, and also because of the
Speaker 1: time zone that you and Honor in you do have
Speaker 1: a lot more overlap with the a PACK time zone.
Speaker 1: To pick up on something that Anna said around you know,
Speaker 1: there are many elements of this that are a global
Speaker 1: story and there are a couple of elements that are
Speaker 1: a local story. What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: you're seeing kind of more locally right now? If you
Speaker 1: start with a PACK, which is you know, an area
Speaker 1: that that I'm also still very much Asia Pacific for
Speaker 1: the Asian indeed, apologies, yes you start with Asia Pacific,
Speaker 1: I think that you're seeing on most the tail end
Speaker 1: of the crypto contagion playing out there. It's quite interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, it started we had Celsius, I believe at
Speaker 1: the very start. Three a C obviously was was probably
Speaker 1: the early mover. And yes they are a sort of
Speaker 1: an Asian outfit. But it's come back now to companies.
Speaker 1: Many of them are based in the Singapore Vould for instance,
Speaker 1: and also the Thai company zip Mix. One thing that
Speaker 1: really interests me right now is the what the response
Speaker 1: from Singapore is going to be we had three a
Speaker 1: C that Capital, three Hours Capital that at least was
Speaker 1: registered there, and Vold which is based there. Terraform Labs
Speaker 1: UM is based in Singapore. They have come out to
Speaker 1: say already that look, we are going to be adding
Speaker 1: regulation UM to protect consumers. They've already got like a
Speaker 1: marketing band from January on crypto UM and and so
Speaker 1: to to to the extent that Singapore will really come
Speaker 1: down hard on this sector now UM, I think that
Speaker 1: is going to be a very interesting development. I think
Speaker 1: the indications from the Central Bank there is that if
Speaker 1: retail protectors, investors, apologies can't protect themselves, then the central
Speaker 1: Bank is going to do it for them. So the
Speaker 1: based on the people that you know, we have been
Speaker 1: speaking to an industry, the overriding concern here is that
Speaker 1: Singapore will take a turn in in the more more
Speaker 1: sort of closed off or strict on direction when it
Speaker 1: comes to regulations. And it's interesting, right because we're talking
Speaker 1: about jurisdictions that want to attract crypto, right, so how
Speaker 1: do you balance it out. Singapore was very much I
Speaker 1: remember in my golden age with fintech reporting was very
Speaker 1: much trying to attract fintech firms and position themselves as
Speaker 1: it is a great home for fintech because the theory
Speaker 1: is that then your financial sector remains competitive, right, so
Speaker 1: you can't attract them too much, or if you do
Speaker 1: attract them, you have to have safeguards in place. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see if they'll swing the other way.
Speaker 1: As Phil was saying, so, and I'm hearing from you that,
Speaker 1: you know, the potential for crypto regulation in the UK,
Speaker 1: which is something we've talked a lot about on the podcast,
Speaker 1: including with our colleague Emily Nicole, has been more of
Speaker 1: a shall we say positive framework in the sense of
Speaker 1: they're figuring out how to make crypto work and you know,
Speaker 1: set up set it up that way. Feel what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing from you that Singapore is less than impressed with
Speaker 1: some of the things that have gone down recently, either
Speaker 1: by companies that were registered in Singapore, domiciled in Singapore,
Speaker 1: or otherwise had like Singaporean exposure and customers and clients.
Speaker 1: And then here in the US, it's also been a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting week in terms of what regulators are appearing
Speaker 1: to take action on. So one of the big headlines
Speaker 1: of the past several days has been around coin base,
Speaker 1: whether that's in the terms of their decline and their
Speaker 1: share price earlier this week, whether that's in terms of
Speaker 1: Cathy Wood, who is you know, kind of a famous
Speaker 1: stock pick up, finally starting to shed holdings of coin
Speaker 1: based stock from her a r K E t F.
Speaker 1: But why is that happening. It's happening because the U S.
Speaker 1: Securities and Exchange Commission here is now taking a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting approach to appearing to regulate the crypto industry through enforcement.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a little bit different from what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from you, I know, where it's not so
Speaker 1: much we're shutting you down story. It's a we're going
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make this work. And Phil
Speaker 1: Singapore is like, we'll see if there's an enforcement action.
Speaker 1: But in the US, people are getting arrested, and I
Speaker 1: think that took a lot of people by surprise. It
Speaker 1: certainly didn't didn't help the bitcoin price when the SEC,
Speaker 1: working with various other enforcement partners, issued an action against
Speaker 1: a four coin based employee for an allegation of insider trading. Now,
Speaker 1: going after insider trading is absolutely what the SEC does.
Speaker 1: Going after insider trading in crypto tokens freaked people out
Speaker 1: because what that suggested is the SEC was starting to
Speaker 1: define at least a limited number of those tokens as
Speaker 1: securities for the purposes of enforcement. And pretty much like
Speaker 1: every good crypto lawyer, this week has been like, you know,
Speaker 1: writing statements calling clients, being called by clients that the
Speaker 1: chief legal officer at coin base, you know, spun up
Speaker 1: a blog post in record timing like this is why, um,
Speaker 1: we don't think that these things are securities. We don't
Speaker 1: list on registered securities on our plota where coin based
Speaker 1: trades a lot more than Bitcoin. They can fact more
Speaker 1: than a hundred and fifty different tokens are traded, and
Speaker 1: they're asking the SEC for clarity around the rules, even
Speaker 1: as they make clear that they don't think they did
Speaker 1: anything wrong here. If they were found to have traded
Speaker 1: security use, then the company may well have to file
Speaker 1: register with the SEC as in exchange. So around the world,
Speaker 1: the regulation story does seem to be the one that
Speaker 1: is going to continue to dominate our coverage, at least
Speaker 1: for a minute. Yeah, I think I think what's really
Speaker 1: interesting about the us IS and the SEC is that
Speaker 1: they've been warning that some of these things or securities
Speaker 1: for a very long time, at least since the last crash, right, so,
Speaker 1: I think people had lost hope that they would actually
Speaker 1: come in and enforce in a way that was significant
Speaker 1: around this, and they were sort of asking the industry
Speaker 1: was asking sec please give us a list of what
Speaker 1: is a token or what is it that way we
Speaker 1: know for sure, and they didn't, and so now they're
Speaker 1: starting to come in. The question I have is which
Speaker 1: is which is You know, coin base was allowed to
Speaker 1: list and a lot of these assets were on their platform,
Speaker 1: so some people were maybe expecting that that was sort
Speaker 1: of a okay, then everything is fine with coin base,
Speaker 1: because it's not a public company, and so it means
Speaker 1: that the things it listed had received a sort of
Speaker 1: task it approval or there wasn't anything you know there
Speaker 1: that was was a security but didn't have the proper registration.
Speaker 1: So it's quite surprising that they did come in, and
Speaker 1: I wonder whether they will go after more firms or
Speaker 1: if you know, it will take a lot of money
Speaker 1: to fight coin bas because coin bases, i mean, their
Speaker 1: share price has fallen, but they do have a lot
Speaker 1: of resources, and so it's interesting that they decided to
Speaker 1: pick a fight with with coin based um if you
Speaker 1: can call it picking a fight, but you know it
Speaker 1: will it will definitely be a sort of court battle
Speaker 1: to watch, right. Yeah. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that we're certainly gearing up for, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of this is going into courts. It's very similar
Speaker 1: to what we've also talked about on the podcast with
Speaker 1: Gray Scale being really clear that they are going to
Speaker 1: take the sec to court because they disagree with the
Speaker 1: regulator's decision to continue to not allow them to convert
Speaker 1: their you know, bitcoin trust, one of the biggest in
Speaker 1: the world, into an exchange traded fund. Certainly fun times
Speaker 1: for regulation reporters at Bloomberg and every else. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with some more of the crypto trends that
Speaker 1: we're watching as we head into the coming week. You'll
Speaker 1: be hearing from Anna and Phil, two of our senior
Speaker 1: editors for Bloomberg Crypto. Just as a kind of a
Speaker 1: closing question or closing thought. I always get asked, what
Speaker 1: do you think is going to happen next? And my
Speaker 1: default answer is I genuinely have new idea because I
Speaker 1: feel like every week, every day we wake up and
Speaker 1: there's like well, here's a headline that we weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: expecting to see. So I'll ask you a slightly different question.
Speaker 1: Phil will start with you, is there anything that didn't
Speaker 1: surprise you this week where you're like, yeah, totally saw
Speaker 1: that coming. No. Look, I think the South Korean investigation
Speaker 1: into Terraform Labs and it's co founder Do Kwan and
Speaker 1: its other co founder now Danlian Shin as well, they
Speaker 1: had telegraphed that, you know, something was coming on that,
Speaker 1: and we saw them rating various ex changes and home
Speaker 1: this week to collect evidence. I guess you could call
Speaker 1: it UM. I think that was telegraphed. I I was
Speaker 1: surprised that the width and the scope of what they did.
Speaker 1: Other than that, I think there was a rough expectation
Speaker 1: that the contagion wasn't quite over. And so when when
Speaker 1: zip Mix came out and said that, you know, they
Speaker 1: had frozen withdrawals, the name to me was surprising. It
Speaker 1: wasn't aware the name that I was keenly aware of,
Speaker 1: but that there were entities out there that were nursing
Speaker 1: heavy losses from the contagion UM wasn't a huge surprise
Speaker 1: to me. But other than that, pretty much everything is
Speaker 1: always a surprise, makes it fun. What about you, Anna,
Speaker 1: I'm a little more jaded. I'm like the grandmother of
Speaker 1: some crypto reporting at this point. I feel I'm not
Speaker 1: ever like, oh, shocked, but it's like, wow, this is
Speaker 1: evolving like we might have expected had we followed a
Speaker 1: bit more attention. People are paid more attention. I think
Speaker 1: maybe what we would shock me would be if Michael
Speaker 1: Sailor cells the big coins out. That would be a
Speaker 1: shock at this point. But to be honest that the
Speaker 1: the the sec fight as I will continue to call
Speaker 1: it with with coin based sort of was surprising because
Speaker 1: it is a big step. And I just said, like
Speaker 1: arresting people. You know, I remember with the with the
Speaker 1: I c O boom, people are like, people are going
Speaker 1: to get arrested, and like, you know, it's not going
Speaker 1: to go well, You're you're issuing on registered securities in
Speaker 1: a very bombastic fashion, raising hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: with retail investors and then literally no one really of
Speaker 1: any significance did go to jail for that. So you know,
Speaker 1: it is always quite shocking when when when they take
Speaker 1: that sort of step from the digital world into the
Speaker 1: real world, of you know, handcuffs. Well, to your point,
Speaker 1: there's a big there's a big gap between these initial
Speaker 1: arrests and these allegations and anything that will actually happen
Speaker 1: in courts, right, like we don't know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen to the sex coin based employee. The headlining, the
Speaker 1: immediate headlining stuff is always like the thing has happened,
Speaker 1: and then there's months and years of people in courts
Speaker 1: and paperwork filed and yeah, we're still RP sorry for
Speaker 1: ripple exactly. Yeah. So you know, well, the good news
Speaker 1: is we will be here to cover it and we
Speaker 1: will all carry on talking about it in the future.
Speaker 1: But thank you both for joining me here today and
Speaker 1: you know you'll be back on the pod maybe next week.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. You heard from senior editor Anna
Speaker 1: Arera and senior editor of Philip Lagerkranza. You can find
Speaker 1: all of our work in the Bloomberg terminal on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com and we're all on Twitter. Anna is that
Speaker 1: at Anna Arera, that's I R R E R A.
Speaker 1: And Phil is at Lagerkranza Elite member of the Last
Speaker 1: Name Club. On the next episode of Bloomberg Cryptoe Alone,
Speaker 1: cops in the US and UK sees billions of dollars
Speaker 1: of crypto assets from various different criminal busts. With so
Speaker 1: much money on the line and stakes only getting higher,
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies around the world have had to learn quickly
Speaker 1: how to spot these digital assets and take them out
Speaker 1: of the hands of finals. Bloomberg reports, Ellen Milligan and
Speaker 1: David Variakos will join me to discuss how the seizures
Speaker 1: of digital assets are transforming policing, both in terms of
Speaker 1: policy and protocol around the world. This is Bloomberg Crypto,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more shows from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
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Speaker 1: Send us your comments, questions, or suggestions for the show
Speaker 1: to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net or find us on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We're at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is
Speaker 1: Vicky very Galina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Sharon Barriro. Our producer is Mohammed Farup. Our
Speaker 1: associate producers are Zena Sudiki and Thaie Butler. Desta wonder
Speaker 1: At is our engineer original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Stacy,
Speaker 1: Marie Ishmael. Have a great weekend. M