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Mike Selig is the 16th Chairman of the CFTC and a leading voice on the future of financial market regulation in an era defined by crypto, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets. In this conversation, we discuss how regulators are balancing innovation with investor protection, the evolving relationship between the SEC and CFTC, and why emerging technologies are reshaping how risk is taken and managed across global markets. We also explore the rise of decentralized finance, AI-driven trading, and new policy initiatives aimed at keeping the United States competitive in the next generation of financial infrastructure.
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slash podcast terms and conditions apply. But I do think that that has been a big
disservice to the American people that the regulators, especially in the last administration,
who never got to use this stuff. We're trying to kill it here in the United States. So creating
a framework where at least regulators can experiment with it, maybe use stable points,
things like that. You know, I think that's something that we should change in the country.
What's going on guys? Today we've got a very special conversation. We have the 16th chairman
of the CFTC Mike Celeg is here to join us. And in this conversation, we're going to talk about
the three most important technologies that are facing financial markets. We're going to talk about
artificial intelligence, prediction markets, and crypto. And how we are thinking about allowing
people to take risk in the market, but also how we can go and make sure that people don't break
through rules. One of the interesting things about regulators is that they have to encourage
innovation. They have to encourage the risk taking, but they also have to make sure that our markets
are safe and sound. And Mike's got a very unique view because he used to use these technologies
in the private sector before he joined his regulator. And so he's got a very interesting insight
into how they're thinking about this. And I think you're going to be very surprised by the
approach they're taking. Here's my conversation with Mike Celeg. All right, Chairman,
I thought a great place to start the conversation is obviously crypto has been in the crosshairs
of the SEC, the CFTC. There's been a ton of pressure on the industry over the last couple
of years. It seems like there's been a 180 now. CFTC and SEC not only are working together,
but also seem to be trying to encourage innovation in this space. Can you talk a little bit about just
the philosophy of these two organizations coming together? And then what do you guys hope to accomplish
by providing this tailwind to the industry? Well, for so many years, the agencies have not been
able to cooperate, coordinate work together. And so we've wound up with this patchwork of
rules and regulations that are often inconsistent. And we saw with the last administration, Gary
Gensler's SEC, let a war on crypto. They they brought enforcement actions against all sorts of
builders and innovative technology companies. And then the CFTC really did nothing about it.
It just kind of stood on the sidelines. And now Chairman Atkins and I are working together,
but we're collaborating. We're coordinating. We've launched project crypto as a joint initiative
between the agencies. And that's intended to harmonize definitions for crypto. It's intended to
harmonize our guidance, our interpretations, and our regulatory philosophies. And that's really
important. So you come into the SEC as a builder and you might face one sets of rules and regulations.
And then a different at the the CFTC in the past. But today we're working together to make
shorts consistent, whichever framework you wind up in. It's also important to note that we
have a memorandum of understanding now between the agencies. So we're coordinating our staff
efforts. And so you go and deal with one set of staff at an agency. And they're also talking to
the other agency to make sure things are consistent. They were surveilling the markets that are
becoming more and more interconnected with new technologies and products and all of that. So
it's really important, I think, as a country to make sure that our agencies are working together,
have the same guiding philosophies and are really ensuring that our markets are the best in the
world. Now what's interesting is you worked inside the SEC as part of a task force early in the
Trump administration, you know, the CFTC chairman. And when I saw the memorandum of understanding,
the first thing I thought was like, should these just be the same organization? Like, should you
just put them together and have like a regulatory body? Or do you still think that there's a lot of
value to having kind of two different groups that have different sets of rules and different parts
of the market to regulate? It's important to have both agencies. So the CFTC is a risk management
regulator. We regulate the derivatives markets, which to me are some of the most creative
financial instruments in the world. You can have a derivative on just about anything and everything.
The SEC is very focused, capital formation regulator. They regulate public offerings of
securities, they regulate those markets in the secondary. And so having the defined roles is
really important, but we need to work together, we need to coordinate. I've learned a lot at both
agencies and I think those learnings are critical and ensuring that we lead as a country, that we
have roles that make sense at both agencies, but very defined roles. And I think it's important
to keep them that way. Now, there really seems to be a couple of technologies that are all distinct
yet bleeding together. So we have artificial intelligence, we have prediction markets, we have crypto,
you know, all of this is very exciting. But how do you look at these technologies? Do you try to
fit them all into one set of rules? Or is there like a certain set of rules you guys look at when
it comes to artificial intelligence, certain set for prediction markets, certain set for crypto?
I think these are some of the most transformative technologies that we've seen.
They're really generational technologies. I'm excited to be at the forefront leading the
safety seat to help develop rules for them. And I don't think those rules should be uniform across
all these technologies. It's not one size fits all. We need purpose fit rules that make sense,
but they also need to be merit neutral. We can't be saying, you know, AI is fine, but crypto is not
our prediction markets don't make sense, but we like crypto. So we're trying to take an approach of
making sure that our rules are consistent, coherent, rational, but tailored to the technology.
And I do think that these technologies really are synergistic. So we've got blockchain
rails that are a response to some of the debanking, the operation choke point 2.0,
the tendency of government to take our assets. You know, we saw it with, you know, the gold in
the early days, right? The government was able to confiscate that. And so having the ability to
self custody or assets engage on chain freely, censorship resistant blockchain rails are terrific.
Prediction markets are a response to a lot of the gatekeepers in the media where they were
putting out fake polls, fake news reports. You can check that with the ability to put assets at
stake, skin in the game, and really take a position on a future outcome. And then AI and automation
in our markets are really critical. I think agents are going to be some of the most effective traders
in our markets, but also helping us be more productive as every day individuals and compute is a
real new commodity that's really exciting to us at the CFDC as well. I want to dig into each one
of these technologies a little bit. So let's start maybe with prediction markets. That one's been
in the headlines quite a bit. I think your position in correcting from wrong is, hey, this should be
federally kind of regulated. And there should be one set of rules across the country. States obviously
have a very different opinion. Some of them have gone after some of the prediction markets, both the
companies and the individuals, which I think is a little concerning to people in the industry. But at
the same time, there's then the overlap of like sports gambling and what is a sports gambling
just made me talk about like, how are you viewing the market and kind of what would your desired
outcome be here from regulation standpoint? So revatives are some of the most creative and
interesting financial instruments that we have. They can be offered on virtually any type of
underlying asset. Really what you're doing is taking a position on a future outcome in an event
or the price of an asset that can be traditional assets like agricultural products, metals, all
that crypto now is a new asset class, but also events like sports and politics and geopolitics.
And so it's really important that we have the ability to manage risks, but also speculate on
these things and the United States has always been the most free market country. You know,
Ronald Reagan said if we lose freedom here, we've got no place else and we need to protect our
markets for that reason as well. So having that innovation, I think, is great in our markets.
And the commodity exchange act are authorizing statute, the CFTC set up a federal regulatory
framework for derivatives, for derivatives on all types of commodities. And the definition of
commodity includes all of these things because we don't want gaps in our regulatory framework.
It doesn't matter if it's sports or politics or anything else. The prior administration really
tried to hold up a lot of these interesting products and sports and politics. And the court said
that was arbitrary and capricious. It struck that down. And so now we've got the floodgates open
with all these new products. Unfortunately, the prior administration was so busy suing everyone
that they didn't put rules in place to regulate the stuff. And so we're moving quickly to get the
right investor protections, customer protections and guardrails around the products and the exchanges.
And the exchanges have been great partners in that setting up their own insider trading programs
and so on and so forth. So we expect these markets to flourish here in the US. We're going to take
a free market approach and make sure that we're checking our news media on the fake polls and the
hoaxes and all of that here in the United States. When I look on the platforms, the various
contracts that they provide, there are some that I think would fall more in like an economic or
investor seat. So maybe you can go and speculate on will Tesla beat its delivery number or not for
cars, right? And I think that it's taking a macro thing that people are already doing and it's
boiling it down and trying to isolate a data point. I don't see a lot of people who are like,
hey, there's an issue there. I think there may be questions as to will that become popular or not,
but I think people generally understand that. Then I see markets that are, you know, whether they're
mentioned markets or betting on the color of a tie or the length of a conference meeting or
something. And those I think are where people are like, hey, this feels more gambling than it does,
you know, kind of a financial investment. How do you all from a regulator seat like do you start
to try to determine what is in bounds and out of bounds or is it more so the contract is the
contract structure we want to regulate that? And then what people are actually speculating on
within the contract structure is more for the individual companies to decide derivatives are
derivatives. So the underlying asset, even if it is the silly stuff about the tie that Andrew
Sorkin gave me a hard time about as well. But the reality is some of this stuff is readily susceptible
to manipulation and the exchanges are the first line of defense. They should not be listing
contracts under our statute. It's prohibited to list contracts that are readily susceptible
to manipulation. The exchanges review these contracts they self-certify them. We have the ability
to reject them. The issue has been and I don't want to be the guy that regulates by enforcement
that was Gary Gensler. What we want to do is put out clear guidelines and guardrails around
this stuff so that the exchanges can do their job. Unfortunately, the lawsuits and all of that really
some of these things got lost in translation. So we're making sure that the exchanges understand
their obligations. We put out guidance a few weeks ago that explains some of that. Certainly,
there's differences of opinion and we want to work through that with the exchanges and with
different stakeholders. We put out a request for comments on a potential rule proposal in this
space. So we're evaluating those comments and making sure we get things right. But the bottom
line is sure there are contracts that are derivatives contracts that can be manipulated and maybe
they shouldn't be in our markets then because the statute tells us they shouldn't be inciter trading.
All that's prohibited. A lot of the criticism you get and the concern is just a lack of education
and we're making sure that we get the right information out there. But certainly, there's
disagreements as to what's manipulative, what's not. We are working with the sports leagues,
working with different stakeholders to get that right. So I recently talked to one of the
Robinhood executives and he was talking about they don't list mention markets and I'm sure it's
because of this kind of manipulation component. If you then go and you say, okay, well, that is
manipulation. Well, where does the insider trading kind of rules lie? And one of the things that I
find interesting is if you go back to that Tesla example, if you work at let's say the people
providing the windshields and you see that every time we pump out a bunch more windshield,
somehow Tesla's deliveries are higher. It's almost like indirect knowledge or I think there was
this example recently of Jeff Bezos going to the Super Bowl, but he actually, but people knew he
wasn't and people were basically trading on a rumor. You're the expert, right? I have no clue what
the rule should be or should not be. And frankly, it gets I think kind of a slippery slope if you
start trying to regulate rumors versus like concrete evidence. And so is there like a general framework
for people who are actually participating in these markets who frankly, they may not have,
you know, general councils or compliance people, etc. They're obviously incentivized to make money.
How should they think about, you know, when they have inside information in these markets versus not?
The exchanges will be reviewing the contracts, as I mentioned. And my aim for that review is to be
consistent with the statute to make sure the exchanges understand their obligations. So when contracts
get listed, they're kind of filtered through that initial process of are these things readily
susceptible to manipulation. They're listed. They shouldn't be and investors should be able to
kind of appreciate that and respect that they're buying something that's not going to be manipulable
or easily manipulable rather. But of course, there's always a risk of insider trading manipulation,
even if something's not readily susceptible to it. And insider trading is a type of market manipulation
or fraud that's prohibited under our statute. But there's a range of kind of insider information,
not all of its material non-public information that's been misappropriated, that's prohibited in
our markets. So somebody could obtain insider non-public information that's just because they had
access to, you know, a facility or it's all something and hedging firms and hedge funds and
exchanges and other types of businesses are trading on that information on a regular basis,
right? Because they, for example, might have cameras that see what's going on in the Walmart
parking lot and that sort of thing, that's not the type of insider information that we're concerned
about or I wouldn't call it necessarily insider information. It's just information, right?
And our markets are efficient so that gets priced in very quickly. But when you take
information, you have a duty to, for example, your employer or your sports team or someone else
and you misappropriate that and trade on it, that's illegal. A good example is, you know,
the trainer for an athlete, they know someone's got an injury on the team and aren't going to play
in a game. So they go and trade on that. They have a duty to the team or to their hospital or
whoever is a physician, not to trade on that. So we're certainly monitoring for that. That's why
we've partnered with the Sports League to make sure we have access to the right information. We
communicate with them on a regular basis and then we're also making sure that the exchanges have
those relationships and are excluding participants that are likely to be able to trade on inside
information. If we now go from prediction markets, let's start bleeding over into crypto.
Obviously, somebody is going to launch a decentralized prediction market and they will claim,
oh, we can't control it. People are throwing this up, etc. That was something that came out of
the crypto world from an exchange perspective previously. How do you start to deal maybe not just
with prediction markets, but decentralization in general, right? And if you overlay even maybe AI
agents with decentralization, it does feel like maybe who you guys can go to for holding someone
accountable becomes a little bit harder in a world where these technologies start to get introduced.
Right. And on-chain certainly doesn't mean that regulations don't apply, but there's a range of
things, right? You're looking at whether there's an intermediate area, whether there's really someone
who's an actor centralized and kind of the person that would be regulated for the activity.
But some of our laws and regulations actually apply regardless of whether there's an
intermediary. So certain types of financial instruments like derivatives can't be offered,
for example, to retail participants off of regulated exchange. So just because something is on
a blockchain doesn't mean it's safe and not subject to our regulation. But that said, I think it's
important to create a space for these technologies in our financial markets. And so we are evaluating
things like innovation exemptions to allow for on-chain markets to flourish here in the US,
even though some of our statutes really are focused on pushing that onto centralized gatekeepers
and exchanges. But it's important to have the right investor protections, have customer
protections there. And so even if someone's able to take their assets in self-custody,
perhaps we're regulating certain points of the flow of the transaction.
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Now, artificial intelligence agents are obviously going to become very big and some people are
using things internally to automate their operations or their actions, whatever. But you mentioned
the AI bots may become some of the best traders in the market. I think there's a difference
between automation and autonomous. When it is just pure automation, obviously it's very
clear who set those rules, parameters, put the agent in business. When it's autonomous,
do you hold the person who gets the economic benefit? Can you not regulate the AI agent?
Is it the model provide? It gets super complicated very quick and I don't expect you to have all
the answers, but how are you guys just at least thinking about this right now?
Well, it's such groundbreaking technology that we really have to make sure we get it right.
I am concerned that we over-regulate and strangle some of the technology here in the United
States and so I'm taking a very much minimum effective dose of regulation approach where we're
looking at what's happening in terms of the models and how they're being deployed and used
and making sure that we're regulating the actors, the persons that are engaging in the
regulated activity and not just software developers. The software developers are the ones
building the tools, but they're not actually engaging in the financial transactions or using it
to engage in regulated activity. There was a great court case that dealt with, actually
Uniswap, the decentralized exchange protocol, talking about how you don't go after Tesla for
the self-driving car that is used to rob a bank, you're going after the bank robbers. We're
certainly looking to make sure we're regulating the traders, the persons that are using them.
For example, if you use a software tool to help you engage in trading activity,
the trading activity is still regulated, but you're using a tool just like you're using your personal
device or your computer. We're trying to get that regulation right and there are a lot of
considerations as we're doing it, but one area that I find fascinating is these autonomous
agents that are engaging in their own trading activity, potentially for their own benefits. You
could put a bunch of funds in a smart contract and let the smart contract run on its own. That
might actually be attached to a very sophisticated AI and it's able to make better predictions
on outcomes than anybody else. That's going to help us generate better data. I think we're
going to see a lot of competition between these different AI models on the financial scale
in the prediction markets in other areas and that's where I think you see the marriage of
blockchain, prediction markets and AI and it's really a fascinating place to be for a regulator.
It does become even more interesting. I think it's one thing if I like create an AI agent,
even if it's autonomous and I say, you know, here's some money, go make me money. It's very clear
like it's for my economic benefit. I think that now there's a lot of talk of, well, what if the AI
agent spends up its own like sub agents who then have a wallet who then are like making money
for itself as an like, I mean, you can get very meta in this, you know, quickly, but it does
feel like maybe there is, you know, there's robo advising, there's high frequency trading, like
there are some components that you guys can put here. And it also I think depends on if it's
institutional investors who kind of have certain guardrails compliance, you know, they're holding
their data all that versus like the retail, you know, quote, unquote in the mom's basement who
expends this stuff up and is a little bit more like wild, wild west. I don't know, I don't envy you
trying to figure this stuff out. Yeah. And if you think about it, for example, you know, you're
in exchange that's regulated by us, do you allow some of these AIs to participate? So maybe that's
like the first line of defense, right? I think I'm hearing it's like that the exchanges with
their prediction markets, other places like really that's where you guys think that you can kind
of put some rules to the road and limit what people can do so they stay within rules.
Right. And who are we protecting regulating the software itself? We regulate intermediaries
in our markets and registrants. So it's important to make sure we stick to our mandate as a regulator
not creep into software or into other asset classes that are beyond our scope. But we're certainly
thinking about all of that as we're approaching our regulation of, for example, trading advisors,
are they using AI? Well, we regulate the advisors where we can regulate their use of the AI,
but to the extent the AI is just operating in the ether, we don't necessarily regulate that.
Since we're making a habit of talking about all the hardest problems you probably are thinking
through on a day-to-day basis, image generation is another one that I think is very weird and
unusual. So we have seen the use of memes in the public stock market, not to manipulate the market,
but obviously roaring kitty, you know, it's kind of the lean forward meme, things like that.
I think that the world's richest man one time said he'd rather be a meme dealer than he would
be a billionaire, easy to say when you're a billionaire. But now if you can easily create images
that are not true, right? Or there, you know, some sort of kind of concocted image,
that feels again like, is it malicious? Is it not like how much of it is like intent versus,
do you have to at some point just say like, hey, you cannot use AI, you know, generated images
if you're an investor or if you're participating in the market, like how do you regulate that stuff?
Well, I think the the private markets have solutions, you're blockchain technologies are great
one, right? If you can timestamp things and make sure there's an identifier for each meme or
artificial intelligence generated post, you can verify if it's real or if it's generated by AI,
et cetera. And so I think that's really important. Having these technologies here in the US is
critical. A lot of the stuff about this stuff being all hot air and, you know, ICOs and scams
and this and that is completely false. And that's why as regulators were working to make sure
that the United States is the crypto capital of the world. And I think it is today. But the
technology is really important here in the US. You can't have AI without blockchain. I think
blockchain is a key check on that. One thing that I always find fascinating as I've met more people
kind of in these different regulatory posts, I always like to ask like, these technologies,
it's very hard to regulate them if you don't use them yourself. But there's obviously limitations
in your role. And so like, I don't know what you've been able to disclose in terms of like,
do you own crypto? Do you not? Do you use the prediction markets? Do you get like a demo account?
And they're like, hey, we actually want you to try to use this stuff. Just talk maybe about the
different technologies and like how you think about, you know, using them, but also that the
fiduciary duties and, you know, disclosures you have to make. Well, I'm one of the rare few that
got to use it before going into government. So I fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole back in 2011
and got to really test the technology. But today, of course, I've divested what we cannot hold
digital assets, especially if we're regulating it. So there are some exceptions for certain people,
but we're bound by very strict ethics requirements. So I don't own any of the assets today. But of
course, our staff, unfortunately, have similarly not been able to participate in these markets. But
we've been working to get demos in place and make sure they understand it. But I do think that
that has been a big disservice to the American people that the regulators, especially in the
last administration, who never got to use this stuff. We're trying to kill it here in the United
States. So creating a framework where at least the regulars can experiment with it, maybe use
stable coins, things like that is very important. It's silly. You can't hold a crypto kitty or,
you know, a cromi squiggle or an NFT or that sort of thing because they view them as financial assets.
You know, I think that's something that we should change in the country.
I just won the mentioned market of you saying crypto kitty, but not played.
But I do think it could even be like a diminimous amount. If you go on the prediction market,
I don't think anyone's got a problem with $100. I think it's different when they see politicians
or something going and making millions of millions of dollars. Then obviously a little bit
different severity standpoint. You guys have an innovation task force that you recently announced.
Talk about what this is and kind of what your goal with it is.
Well, I was lucky to get to serve at the SEC on the SEC's crypto task force together with
Commissioner Perse who led up the task force. And I found it to be just an incredible experience
and an integrate initiative within the SEC because you had so many of these technologists,
builders, creators, as well as the larger financial institutions who for so many years had no
place to go. They'd come in and try to get a meeting with Mr. Gensler and walk out with
a subpoena. And that's no longer the case of the SEC. Thanks, Commissioner Perse's vision.
And I wanted to do something similar at the CFTC. So we have a little bit of a different take on it.
We're going to be focused on crypto, but also prediction markets in AI. Because as I mentioned,
I think these all really go hand in hand in their critical technologies that we have to get the
right policy here in the United States for. So we're announcing that recently here in the United
States and looking to get the builders and innovators and financial firms coming into the office
to meet with us. We're also going to use the task force to develop purpose fit rules and regulations
and policy. So it's both a vehicle for folks to come in and talk to us, but also to work together
with the different divisions within the agency. Who as I mentioned, they really haven't used crypto
technology. So we're bringing in some great folks from the outside who have worked at law firms
and technologists and data scientists to join the team, but also bringing on some of the staff
from within the divisions. So we've really got a great group of individuals who are going to lead
on this front and develop some purpose fit rules. And we've also got this innovation advisory
committee, which is comprised of some of the leading CEOs at both crypto firms, people like Brian
Armstrong, but then also people at the traditional large exchanges like Terry Duffy and Jeff
Sprecker and Adina Friedman. And then some of the new entrants in prediction markets like Shane
Copeland and Tark Monsor. So it's really a great coalition. And we've also got some great academics
and industry groups on the team. And that's going to be I think another vehicle to get input from
the public and from the outside to make sure we're not just regulating from an ivory tower and
telling everyone what to do. We're figuring out what the markets want to do and setting the right
rules of the road for them. I think where maybe some innovation is meeting regulation is on clarity
and a lot of stablecoin yield stuff, et cetera. And I've heard both sides argument like in pretty
in depth in private meetings. And what I've told both sides is your both, right? Right? Like,
you know, like they they both have a hint of truth to what they're saying and that's why they're
digging their heels in. How can regulators serve as a little bit, you know, I think people think
of you generally is like a referee almost. But also the regulars that I've talked with in the
past who felt like they really, you know, did a service to the market was like they also helped
to bridge the gap sometimes when you have people on different sides of issues. And yeah, you've
got to be the referee, but you also kind of have to be the the mediator a little bit and get these
groups to come together. Talk a little bit about that. Well, the regulators are subject matter experts.
You know, we spend all day working on the same statute, the commodity exchange act at the CFTC.
And then all the rules and regulations that were constantly developing and have developed over
the years. So we're subject matter experts. We really understand how our rules work, how our
statute works, how to implement. And then the staff are really narrowly focused. So they might
be focused on a single provision or a single area within our statute. And we provide technical
assistance to the Hill. So we're working with the legislators to make sure they get things right.
But it's really important that we're at the table and helping to drive policy. So the Hill uses
us as a resource, which I think is great. But sometimes people get so lost in the big picture.
And it really derails things. I think it's important that we remain focused and make sure that we
get the right policy in place. So we're glad to be at the table on that. You know, I think some of
these issues around yield and so on and so forth. You're losing the real core aim here. We need to
make sure that we have future proof legislation in place to protect the industry here in the US.
And some of these little details, things like yield. I'd prefer for that to be worked out with
the regulators. You know, we've got great potential regulators in the OCC and in the FDIC and the
Treasury and others. So I'd like to hopefully have legislation that's bigger picture and let the
regulators work out some of the details. One area that the crypto folks are very excited about. Now
I think tradfa is getting more excited as perps and kind of bringing those to the United States.
Talk a little bit about where we are on that front. We're getting very close. Everyone loves to
talk about perps, but it's really unfortunate that perps have flooded offshore. You know, around
2017, 2018, these took off and for some reason our markets for so averse to it. And I think we're
for the same reason we're concerned about crypto in the early days. But the product's really
interesting. It allows for kind of a unique exposure to really any asset class, but we're focused
at the CFTC on studying with crypto. I know a lot of other asset classes may not work for and
may kind of take liquidity from our traditional markets. So we're going to start with crypto. We're
getting very close. The biggest issue with perps has been how do we characterize them under our
statute? So the history of our statute is before we had the Dodd-Frank Act, which amended our
act under after the financial crisis, we start off with just futures contracts and options.
And so it was very clear what a product was was either an option or a futures contract. But now we
have swaps, which are much broader in their definition. And so there's been questions as to
are these truly contracts for future delivery? If there's a perpetual existence, and what we got
as a result of this was these long dated futures contracts. So Coinbase and others have launched
kind of these quasi perps where it's a 50 year time horizon to settlement. And that looks a little
bit like a perp, but it's not perpetual. And so we're going to fix that. We're going to make sure
that it's possible to launch perpetuals here in the U.S. Hopefully in the next handful of weeks,
to a month, hopefully. So we're getting very close. And I think that's going to be a great win
for the industry and for the American people. And we're going to make sure there's the right
guardrails around it and all of that. So it's well regulated. In a weird way, you are like the
chief risk officer of the finance industry, right? Like you're supposed to help people take risk,
but also make sure that they don't go too crazy or break rules. Is that fair?
Well, our statute requires us to regulate the markets. And that's what we're going to do.
I grew up as a lawyer. That's my former role before entering the private sector. And I very much
take that role seriously where I'm looking to the statute. I'm looking to our rules and regulations
to make sure that we're fulfilling our mission as an agency and no more. My view is that we need
the minimum of those minimum effective dose of regulation, no more, no less. We're not going to
overregulate and kind of strangle industries or be paternalistic and merit-based as we've seen
in the past. And that's where I think the concern comes from, hey, this agency is trying to drive
my industry offshore. Why is that? That's not our role. Our role as a regulator is to set the
rules and then let the markets decide, let people engage in the transactions they want to engage in,
use the technologies they want to engage in, just making sure we don't take the risks that
our statute requires us to regulate. We're not here to potentially regulate the markets,
but we're here to make sure that there are investor protections in place.
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. We're doing it in the future.
Thank you.
