And what an amazing line-up he have for this episode with two amazing guests, Lawrence Wintermeyer from Global Digital Finance and Martin Bartlam from DLA Piper.

Adult supervision

After initial introductions, Ahmed recalls with Lawrence the crypto panel that took place at the World Government Summit this time last year which comprised mostly of bitcoin maximalists. This is in complete contrast to this year’s crypto panel at the World Government Summit where panel members all comprised of regulators and lawyers. Interesting how much changes in one year!

Lawrence and Martin emphasise the aspect that the crypto market is reforming and it is a time of consolidation and building before another round of excitement will come to the market again.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Most commentators would ascertain that new regulation would need to be implemented before the industry would see mass adoption. Martin, however, disagrees putting forth the viewpoint that we already have an effective regulatory framework in place and instead the market would need new infrastructures such as regulated exchanges, effective KYC procedures and custody solutions to exist before we see real traction.

In an environment of seeing the next wave of infrastructure the two guests believe that regulators and lawyers are already up to speed with recent developments in the space and are preparing for the new wave of innovations coming in the next couple years.

Let’s have a new term for STOs

Ahmed takes a crack at killing the term security tokens and STOs and the guests have slightly mixed views about this. Check out the episode to hear more!

Conquer or Partner?

Ahmed moves the conversation to see whether or not the current incumbents are able to or will bypass the current innovators and use their mass resources to move to a truly digital platform.
The guests believe that the partnership model seems to be an approach that is common in the industry and that start-ups in the future will provide very niche services. Incumbents, they argue, have gone better in researching and collectively working together to find opportunities and actively contribute to the industry.

All the above and more was discussed in this week’s episode of Encrypted. But before the ending, the two guests talk about their biggest takeaways from the World Government Summit. So do make sure to check out this episode to hear their takeaways and what they have to say.

We really hope you enjoy this episode as we worked really hard to get this specific episode recorded and yes sorry about the echoes in this episode.

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Special Guests: Lawrence Wintermeyer and Martin Bartlam.