The Future of Institutional Crypto Adoption REVEALED! | Nathan McCauley

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Speaker 1: Internet companies don't exist anymore. Every company is an Internet company, 2 - > and in the same way, every bank is going to 3 - > become a crypto bank. The trends around stable coins where 4 - > every bank is going to want to figure out some 5 - > way to adopt stable coins. The dollar is the main 6 - > product of all banks cross country, and so a ten 7 - > times better dollar product must be adopted by banks in 8 - > some way, shape or form. 9 - >

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Speaker 1: Link will be in the description. 56 - >

Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm Tony Edward. 57 - >

Speaker 3: And I'm Amanda Wickcroft and. 58 - >

Speaker 2: Join me is Nathan McCauley, who is the co founder 59 - > and CEO of Anchorage Digital, which is a crypto platform 60 - > that enables institutions to participate in digital assets through custody, staking, trading, governance, settlement, 61 - > and the industry's leading security infrastructure. Nathan is great to 62 - > have you back on. 63 - >

Speaker 1: So happy to be here. Thanks for having me on again. 64 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, Nathan, Lots happening around Anchorage. You guys continue to 65 - > lead in many ways and building infrastructure for the crypto industry. 66 - > So Amanda and I have a lot of questions for 67 - > you about the latest and greatest. I would love to 68 - > kick it off with news that Anchorage Digital is participating 69 - > in a seed inst as a seed investor in the 70 - > new JP Morgan on Chain Liquidity Token money Market fund. 71 - > That's a mouthful. Tell us about this investment and how 72 - > you be supporting this fund. 73 - >

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. You know, we are big supporters of 74 - > tokenization generally, and there's a lot of different ways to 75 - > manifest that. We help support institutions with tokenization. We are 76 - > the largest crypto custodia right now of tokenized assets, and 77 - > so we look at any opportunity to both help assets 78 - > come on chain and to really be pioneers in that space. 79 - > And so one of the nice ways to be pioneers 80 - > of that is to understand it both from a product 81 - > perspective but also from a customer perspective. Why not yourself 82 - > try to hold the asset and use it yourselves. And 83 - > so in a lot of ways, we you know, some 84 - > places call it dog fooding. Dog fooding of a product 85 - > where you hold yourself so you can understand, say, accounting implications, 86 - > custom implications, trading implications, and so in many cases we 87 - > look at opportunities to do that. In this new fund 88 - > from JPM is no exception there. 89 - >

Speaker 2: And in regards to JP Morgan, are you seeing more 90 - > and more demand from players of this caliber, bangs, major institutions, 91 - > investment firms, and so forth. 92 - >

Speaker 1: I would say that tokenization is probably the number one 93 - > most requested conversation these days. I think I tweeted the 94 - > other day that we might be entering tokenization summer and 95 - > that it feels like it's one of the one of 96 - > the big meta mega themes that's going on within the industry. 97 - > So we see it across every asset manager, from those 98 - > that are already in cryptos to those that are say 99 - > looking to explore and start to get in. How do 100 - > they bring their funds on chain? How do they bring 101 - > their assets on chain? Ultimately for great use cases? You know, 102 - > the conversation previously used to be about how do we 103 - > take an I liquid asset and make it liquid? That's 104 - > no longer the main theme. The main theme these days 105 - > is how do we get more distribution or how do 106 - > we get our funds into DeFi protocols, And so going 107 - > that extra step to say, hey, this isn't just about 108 - > better rails, but better applications that can utilize the assets 109 - > that I'm bringing on chain. 110 - >

Speaker 3: Kevin Worrish as the new Federal Reserve chairman, how do 111 - > you believe this will affect financial marks? Gets an innovation? 112 - >

Speaker 1: So Kevin was an advisor to us pretty early on 113 - > at Anchorage, and so I know him personally, and I 114 - > think he's always been a incredible mind and a thoughtful 115 - > partner in many different areas. So I think he's going 116 - > to do great overseeing the FED. I can't say I 117 - > have any particular point of view on what his monetary 118 - > policy will be. I know that he is he is 119 - > a pro crypto in a sense he thinks the technology 120 - > is great. Here. I actually had a conversation with him 121 - > once where I talked a little bit about the Bitcoin 122 - > White Paper and what it meant to the industry. And 123 - > then the follow up to the Bitcoin White Paper was 124 - > the Bitcoin Genesis block. And in the Genesis block there's 125 - > this note about the bank bailouts. Kevin, of course oversaw 126 - > a lot of the activity going on at Treasury during 127 - > the original financial crisis, and so when I told a 128 - > little bit about that, I think it struck a nerve 129 - > and then some some bells went off. I think even 130 - > even mentioned it in a follow up op ed that 131 - > he wrote to a few months later. And so I 132 - > think we have a a forward thinking FED share that 133 - > is going to be thinking a lot about how to 134 - > make sure that the FED achieves its mission. But then 135 - > it's also optimistic about technology and what it can bring 136 - > to the to the landscape. 137 - >

Speaker 2: Nathan, you know, Anchorage was the first to get the 138 - > occ bank charter trust. If I'm not mistaken, you guys 139 - > were certainly ahead of the curve, and you're leading in 140 - > many ways. How do you see these crypto native firms 141 - > such as Anchorage, You know, with the banking license and 142 - > infrastructure meshing with the traditional banking system. Is it all 143 - > going to connect via blockchain? 144 - >

Speaker 1: The way I see this as there used to be 145 - > such a thing as an Internet company. Internet companies don't 146 - > exist anymore. Every company is an Internet company, and in 147 - > the same way, every bank is going to become a 148 - > crypto bank. And so while Anchorage Digital Bank may have 149 - > been the first bank to work with digital assets, to 150 - > work with bitcoin, ethereum, Solana, hyper liquid. We will just 151 - > be the first of five thousand and So what's going 152 - > to happen here is every single financial institution will adopt 153 - > digital assets to the point that it'll no longer be 154 - > such a thing as a crypto bank. And that's clear 155 - > in that the trends around stable coins where every bank 156 - > is going to want to figure out some way to 157 - > adopt stable coins. You know, the dollar is the main 158 - > product of all banks cross country, and so a ten 159 - > dimes better dollar product must be adopted by banks in 160 - > some way, shape or form. And it's some similar story 161 - > with tokenization. As we start to see all the stocks, bonds, 162 - > and equities come on chain, every financial institution, every bank 163 - > in the country will want to stay ahead of that 164 - > curve as well and will want to integrate the digital 165 - > act ecosystem that comes from that. So at least on 166 - > stable coins and tokenization, we have a thesis around which 167 - > we can suggest that every single bank will adopt digital assets. 168 - > A one step further and say, hey, what about bitcoin, 169 - > what about ethereum, what about the decentralized assets and those 170 - > providing a you know, investment opportunity for various banks, whether 171 - > it's allowing your clients to lend against it or to 172 - > borrow against it, or taking assets on chain, or integrating 173 - > some of those DeFi apps that many of the asset 174 - > managers are looking to utilize. Now, yeah, I think we're 175 - > this initial crop with us at the lead, is just 176 - > the first of many that will adopt digital assets as 177 - > a core part of their banking infrastructure. 178 - >

Speaker 2: Pardon the interruption. Hi, I'm Tony. I'm the host of 179 - > the Thinking Crypto podcast. I wanted to ask you if 180 - > you can please support the podcast by hitting the like 181 - > button subscribing. If you haven't as yet, you can leave 182 - > a comment below as well. And if you're listening on 183 - > a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or wherever you 184 - > get your podcasts, please be sure to follow and hit 185 - > the five star rating. I'll let you get back to 186 - > the content. Thank you so much, and well. Firms like 187 - > yours and others, you know, talking about five thousand of 188 - > them all integrate with the Treasury and to FED. You know, 189 - > we just talked about Kevin worsh But kind of the 190 - > traditional banking folks, you get a master account and things 191 - > like that. 192 - >

Speaker 1: I think some digital acid firms will pursue FED charters 193 - > or FED payment access rails, but a lot of this 194 - > will actually happen from the juditional banks. Traditional banks who 195 - > already have the FED rails will go ahead and add 196 - > crypto rails as part of their offering as well. So 197 - > I think it'll be mutual. I think it'll be existing 198 - > financial institutions adopting the crypto forward or crypto native rails, 199 - > and crypto institutions like ours starting to adopt FED rails 200 - > and other more traditional ways of moving money to the 201 - > point where we'll see a real convergence of this where 202 - > they'll they'll no longer be some sort of tradified DeFi 203 - > distinction in any way, shape or form, And so I 204 - > think that's I think that's promising. 205 - >

Speaker 2: I think the. 206 - >

Speaker 1: White House has been very supportive of access to the 207 - > payment rails for some of the crypto focused firms, and frankly, 208 - > in many ways, in many other many other countries, it's 209 - > more natural process to get access to the base rails 210 - > for FinTechs, and so I think the US, as part 211 - > of our desire at least within this administration to lead 212 - > in financial infrastructure, will take a really hard look at 213 - > that and I think it's I think it's going to 214 - > be ultimately great for the consumer to open up those 215 - > rails and allow more innovation to happen in that area. 216 - >

Speaker 3: Speaking of innovation, I want to talk about the Transparency 217 - > Alliance that was launched by block Works. You mentioned a 218 - > real step forward for this industry. So what is it 219 - > and why is Anchorage behind it? 220 - >

Speaker 1: Sure? So the general purpose here is that we need 221 - > something that is equivalent to, I don't want to say 222 - > a ratings agency, but it gives you kind of like 223 - > the background information on some of the some of the 224 - > projects that are in the space. I think the clearest 225 - > way I could talk about it is in very basic sense, 226 - > the Motion Picture Association of America assigns ratings to movies, 227 - > and these they don't tell you if the movie is 228 - > good or not, but they give you a sense of 229 - > the content and the sense of the appropriateness of the content. 230 - > And that is It's an imperfect analogy, but it's it's 231 - > a close analog to what blocks work. What block Works 232 - > is thinking about doing with the transparency in line where 233 - > they're looking at, Hey, let's get to a baseline set 234 - > of standards about how we can start to compare protocols, 235 - > how do we standardize access to that data? And I 236 - > think there's probably a number of these that can be 237 - > built within the industry. For example, Anchorage was one of 238 - > the founding members of the Blockchain Security Standards Council that 239 - > looked not necessarily at the same kinds of things that 240 - > the Transparancy project is ron block we're just looking at, 241 - > but on the security aspects, how are people holding assets, 242 - > are they doing that correctly? What are the security procedures 243 - > that are available within a particular blockchain? And so standardizing 244 - > a number of these utilities and building kind of consensus 245 - > and consortium style dynamics really helps push the industry forward 246 - > to the degree we can agree on them and start 247 - > to have a common parlance about how to compare and 248 - > contrast various projects. 249 - >

Speaker 3: So is there like public forum on the platform that 250 - > everybody can come almost like a reddit for lack of 251 - > a better comparison, that people are able to see or 252 - > it's just more at your discretion, people are able to 253 - > off to see the data and then discuss amongst themselves. 254 - >

Speaker 1: I think the at least with the Transparency Alignment Alliance, 255 - > my understanding is that it's a lot of it is 256 - > reported by the protocols themselves, and so they come together 257 - > and they will be reporting on those statistics. Of course, 258 - > BlockWorks has a set of platform tools that help make 259 - > some of that even more easily available, but at least 260 - > my understanding so far is that it's sourced from the 261 - > projects themselves. 262 - >

Speaker 2: Nathan, there's been a lot of at its support on 263 - > anchorages front for different token stable coins and much more. 264 - > I wanted to double click on some of these. So 265 - > first you anchorage line support for Slana DeFi on Porto. 266 - >

Speaker 1: Can you tell us about that? Yeah, So, we increasingly 267 - > want people, particularly institutions that are using the anchored platform, 268 - > to not just be able to hold assets, not just 269 - > be able to trade them, but to actually actively participate 270 - > in the protocols and what their function might be, whether 271 - > it's a lending protocol, trading protocol, who knows. There's been 272 - > a trendous amount of innovation within the DeFi ecosystem for 273 - > the last five to seven years. We want to make 274 - > that available. We think that a lot of the rise 275 - > of tokenized assets will drive a lot more volume into 276 - > defied protocols, and we want to be an enabler of that. 277 - > Part of being enabler of that is allowing all that 278 - > to happen directly from your custody account, so that you 279 - > can say, take some assets that are held with the 280 - > anchor serture Big, so we move those into Porto and 281 - > then do activities on chain. In the general sense, this 282 - > is what blockchains are about. If they were just purely 283 - > inert assets, we had great technology for that for the 284 - > last a couple decades, and so enabling active use of 285 - > the assets is and in any ways the raisondetra for 286 - > the way the anchorage custody system was built allowing that 287 - > flexibility of use cases. So been really excited to see 288 - > this Solona set of features roll out within Porto. We 289 - > expect to continue to invest their more across various ecosystems, 290 - > continuing to build out the support on Ethereum Solano is mentioned, 291 - > and then even looking at some of the use cases 292 - > within the hyper liquid ecosystem is another area that we 293 - > are really excited about. 294 - >

Speaker 2: Quick follow up on that as it relates to DeFi. 295 - > There we still see exploits and some of these things 296 - > still happening. How are institutions viewing these situations? Are they 297 - > more confident in DeFi or just looking at you know, 298 - > those little segments and exploits as things that still need 299 - > to be fine tuned, but they're sticking to maybe the 300 - > major chains, like you said, Salon and a theorem. 301 - >

Speaker 1: So there's there's certainly a need for maturity that's going 302 - > on there with the within the DeFi ecosystem, and so 303 - > I think as institutions look into it, a lot of 304 - > times their primary concern is how do I custody the assets? 305 - > There are certain DeFi configurations where the use of the 306 - > DeFi app requires you to take the assets and lock 307 - > it into a smart contract. Increasingly, what we're hearing from 308 - > institutions is they'd rather keep those assets within qualified custody, 309 - > or maybe they even have a legal mandate to hold 310 - > them in qualified custody, but still be able to get 311 - > access to the functionality that's available within the DeFi apps. 312 - > And so through our at list system, we have been 313 - > building out a lot of those integrations so that you 314 - > can keep assets in the anchorage platform but still get 315 - > access to whether it's borrowing or participating on chain trading 316 - > on hyper liquid with your the stake that you have 317 - > within your anchorage account. So I expect even more of 318 - > these use cases to develop and just another example where 319 - > you see this blurring of trad FI, centralized custodian and 320 - > the mix and integration with the DeFi ecosystem. 321 - >

Speaker 2: So is this the model moving forward, Nathan de Tradfi 322 - > or what you guys are doing not so much the 323 - > smart contracts but the mix of the qualified custodian. 324 - >

Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm ready to say it's the model. 325 - > It's certainly it's certainly working and is getting a lot 326 - > of traction in the market now, and so I would 327 - > I would humbly, humbly say that I think our clients 328 - > are finding a lot of utility and a lot of 329 - > value in it, and if that continues to grow, then wonderful. 330 - > But the key theme in this space is, you know, 331 - > innovation and evolution, and so our meta level at Anchorage 332 - > is to stay ahead of those things. Will whatever clients 333 - > are looking to do, however we're able to enable their 334 - > use cases. That's where we want to stay a kind 335 - > of at that bleeding edge of what's the most secure, 336 - > compliant and institutionally ready. 337 - >

Speaker 3: Falcon Finances new US dollar payment stable coin issued by 338 - > Anchorage Digital Bank f USD. Could you talk to us 339 - > a little bit about that. 340 - >

Speaker 1: Yeah, so really excited about this project. I think that 341 - > it really shows a lot of traction with our stable 342 - > coin issuance platform, and really humbled that Falcon Finance chose 343 - > to partner with us there. This is our fifth stable 344 - > coin that we've launched through Anchorage Digital Bank, and I 345 - > think Falcon looked at Falcon Finance, looked at coming to us, 346 - > and said, hey, we want a genius compliance stable coin. 347 - > We want the ability to hold the reserves in Anchorage 348 - > Digital Bank, which is federally regulated, and so just the 349 - > mix of their innovative spirit with our regulated back end 350 - > was really nice. Nice match. And so that I know 351 - > the teams are getting along really well, and I'm really 352 - > looking forward to not only like the launch, but seeing 353 - > the product grow as the ecosystem grows. On the Falcon 354 - > Finance side and. 355 - >

Speaker 2: Nathan Crypto has made a lot of progress, We got 356 - > the Genius Act past. The Clarity Act is currently in 357 - > the Senate, and there are some who are still fighting, 358 - > such as Elizabeth Warren. Recently she's going after the OCC 359 - > for approving certain firms like Coinbase, you know, giving them 360 - > the respective banking chartered license. Do you feel that Anchorage 361 - > is any any danger of losing its respective license from 362 - > the OCC given you know, to push them Elizabeth Warren 363 - > and others. 364 - >

Speaker 1: It's a it's a fun question actually, So a little 365 - > bit of a history lesson here. The OCC was created 366 - > by Abraham Lincoln, and since Abraham Lincoln created the OCC, 367 - > a charter has never been revoked, so if it was 368 - > to happen, it would be a historic of and so 369 - > I'm not I'm not concerned about something like that happening. 370 - > In fact, even during last administration, Michael Sue published a 371 - > little bit of a letter on what happens to charters 372 - > if they are having trouble, and the truth is the 373 - > charters are absorbed by other banks or maybe you'd see 374 - > like a structured wine down or something like that, but 375 - > like a revocation or something like that would never happen. 376 - > The particular senator in question that you mentioned, I think 377 - > wrote several letters about our charter when we were originally chartered. 378 - > So it's it's not at all surprising, you know, I 379 - > think we're we live in a democracy. There's a variety 380 - > of views here, and it's it's totally fine to have 381 - > a variety of views, and I think that's you know, 382 - > it's it's up to agencies to do with that feedback 383 - > what they will, and you know, adjust accordingly if they 384 - > if they need to. But I sense in the in 385 - > the current administration a real desire to be forwardlooking to 386 - > make sure that the crypto industry gets built here within 387 - > the US. And frankly, if you look at the level 388 - > of regulatory rigor that comes out of an OCC charter, 389 - > there's nothing else like it in America. And so in 390 - > a in a real sense, I would say that to 391 - > the underlying consumers or the underlying institutions utilizing any of 392 - > these entities, it is certainly an upgrade for any of 393 - > them to have the oversight from the OCC than from 394 - > basically whatever the other version of oversight was that they had. 395 - > Now that's not to say that there aren't incredible regulators 396 - > all across the country, but the I can I can 397 - > tell you firsthand the level of rigor that comes from 398 - > the OCC is unmatched. And you know, all of these 399 - > firms to the degree they can get through the licensing 400 - > process and get through the examination process at the OCC, 401 - > it's really a rigorous, rigorous process. 402 - >

Speaker 3: Just so curious why did Abraham Lincoln started it? You know, 403 - > specifically what for. 404 - >

Speaker 1: So uh, you know, the the idea here was there 405 - > were many banks throughout the country and there was a 406 - > bit of a sense in which those banks were creating 407 - > their own commercial paper that was being used as currency. 408 - > And so what Lincoln wanted to do was kind of 409 - > standardize currency in a bigger sense across the country. And 410 - > so some people call it the area era of wildcat banking, 411 - > where different kinds of currency were propagating within the US 412 - > and they wanted to bring that into a bit more 413 - > of standardization. And so previously banks have been overseen at 414 - > the state level. Occ created the ability for banks to 415 - > be overseen them at the federal level. The attentive listener 416 - > will hear echoes of what we're currently thinking about with 417 - > stable coins. When we have a proliferation of stable coins 418 - > within the United States, it might even start to look 419 - > a little bit like that. And so as more stable 420 - > coins get issued under the Genius Act, I expect that 421 - > something like stable coin clearing is going to be more 422 - > and more necessary in the same way that we have 423 - > check clearing. You know, anybody can write a check, and 424 - > despite the fact that there are five thousand check issuers 425 - > in the United States, anybody that accepts checks check accepts 426 - > from all of them. Why do they do that. It's 427 - > because there's a check clearing system that allows standardization of 428 - > that flow. So I think we're going to need a 429 - > similar thing for stable coin. That's going to need to 430 - > become into existence, and there's a there's probably a good 431 - > business opportunity there for whoever goes and builds that stable 432 - > coin clearing system. 433 - >

Speaker 2: That's so fascinating. Nathan, thank you for that negative information. 434 - > I'm gonna have to use that in my rebuttals against 435 - > Elizabeth Warren, So thank you for that. You're fighting against 436 - > Abraham Lincoln, the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. But Nathan, I 437 - > want to ask you about AI and how ancourages leveraging 438 - > AI on its platform, and how are you preparing for 439 - > the Augentic economy and are you seeing any demand? 440 - >

Speaker 1: So sure, so there's a there's a bunch of ways 441 - > that we're using AI. I think, first of all, I 442 - > think the more that you adopt AI, the more that 443 - > you spend time in AI, the more that you get impressed. 444 - > And I don't I don't think anybody well, either people 445 - > believe me or they're not deep enough in AI. So far, 446 - > and so I find it to be pretty impressive how 447 - > quickly things are going and pretty interesting what that means 448 - > for their implications really kind of across the board. One 449 - > of them that we see as being maybe the most 450 - > interesting for us is that we think that agents and 451 - > their successors, which are going to be called robots, are 452 - > going to need bank accounts. And so what we've launched 453 - > over the past few months is what I view as 454 - > the next evolution in being on the banking frontier, which 455 - > is agentic banking. We have set up a system where 456 - > agents are allowed to get bank accounts at anchorage, and 457 - > so they are able to get access to cash, crypto 458 - > and card rails and both as send and receive capacity. 459 - > So these agents aren't just spending. They're also able to 460 - > get paid. And they're able to get paid because they 461 - > can receive wires, they can send out achs, they can 462 - > pay with cards, they have a crypto so they can 463 - > send and receive stable coins. And what they need is 464 - > they really need all of those mediums at the same time. 465 - > They need all the rails, and they need a very simple, 466 - > easy way to access that. We're in pilot now with 467 - > about a half dozen clients or so I don't know 468 - > the exact account right now, but so we have we 469 - > have some institutions starting to adopt that and trying out 470 - > the use cases, trying out the interfaces and just to 471 - > just to see how that's going to work. Pretty excited 472 - > about this. We don't exactly know which way the industry 473 - > is going to go, but to me, it's more and 474 - > more obvious that there is going to be a set 475 - > of agents running around with responsibilities and tasks that are 476 - > going to need both spending authority and the ability to 477 - > get paid, and so almost no matter what they're doing, 478 - > those two core primitives are something that they're going to need, 479 - > and we want to allow people to be spin those 480 - > up and then you know, set spending control. Nobody wants 481 - > their agent to have gone wild and spend all their money, 482 - > but we do want to allow the guardrails to allow 483 - > people to do that, and also to do it in 484 - > a budget conscious and regulatory compliant way, and so really exciting. 485 - > I'll probably have more to say in a couple of 486 - > months on that as we see how things develop, but 487 - > exciting initial launch for us, and it should be interesting 488 - > to see how everython plays out. 489 - >

Speaker 2: How are you handling KYCML for agents, and is it 490 - > through to institution that's launching them. 491 - >

Speaker 1: Sure, So we're thinking about in two ways. The first 492 - > way is that we are treating the agent as if 493 - > it is a first class thing. I don't want to 494 - > say person because that's a step too far, but we 495 - > are treating the agent as if it is an entity 496 - > that has behavioral analysis, that has historical context, that has 497 - > a spending pattern, and things like that. Maybe even something 498 - > that could be underwritten in terms of credit a longer term, 499 - > but at least for now, all of those agents need 500 - > to be attached to a human or an organization. And 501 - > so you've got the what I just described we call 502 - > the KYA process Know your Agent that all the agents 503 - > go through. And then there's a secondary process which is 504 - > KYC or I guess you could invert them really because 505 - > the KYC process from the client or the company is 506 - > a needed for kind of regulatory setup right now, at 507 - > least right now, we have no notion of AI agent personhood. 508 - > It wouldn't surprise me if eventually people create some sort 509 - > of like a corporate structure for their agent, and you 510 - > could imagine an LLC per agent or something like this. 511 - > I don't know exactly how it'll play out, but at 512 - > least for now, the agents are attached to human individuals 513 - > or corporate individuals, and then banking services are on their behalf. 514 - >

Speaker 3: Will these agents be able to have a credits and 515 - > build a credit score. 516 - >

Speaker 1: It seems inevitable, right. It seems that like over time, 517 - > they will be able to build up some notion of 518 - > historical preference, historical activity that you could in some sense 519 - > underwrite again not dis similar to our notion that like 520 - > humans can get credit, but corporations can get credit to 521 - > and corporations can get credit based on their historical activity. 522 - > And so the idea of an agent as a one 523 - > person corporation or a zero person corporation, but that has history, 524 - > it doesn't It doesn't take too much to imagine that 525 - > we could eventually get there now recourse on that and 526 - > those kinds of questions are still to be worked out. 527 - > I don't think anybody quite understands what's going to happen there. 528 - > But we've got a good mental model for what it 529 - > means for a self driving car at this point, and 530 - > that it's taken us maybe a decade to get to 531 - > that notion of what are the guardrails? For this, How 532 - > does this how does this play out? And I assume 533 - > that we'll get there with agents and then their successors 534 - > robots as this more propagates into society. 535 - >

Speaker 2: And Nathan on the quantum front kind of similar questions 536 - > to AI, uh, do you view this as an immediate 537 - > threat to crypto and what's your quantum resistance strategy? Sure, 538 - > we're spending we're spending a lot of time on quantum. 539 - > We are repletely releasing some well white papers on it, 540 - > speaking at some of the conferences, trying to stay engaged 541 - > with the community. It's one of the things that you 542 - > absolutely need to be ahead of, and you need to 543 - > you need to be kind of clear, sober minded about 544 - > the development and the quantum area and what it means 545 - > for any of the blockchain networks that you need custody for. 546 - > And so you know, across our dozens of chains and 547 - > hundreds of assets that we support, we need to be 548 - > thoughtful about which chains are working on quantum resistance, how 549 - > do we need to upgrade our systems in order to 550 - > be ready for them? And then to the degree there 551 - > are communities where. 552 - >

Speaker 1: Funding might be needed or community engagement might be that 553 - > might be needed to what degree can we help in 554 - > those communities as well? We had anchorage. We don't make 555 - > any of the protocols. We aren't ourselves developers on any 556 - > of the any of the protocol chains, and so we 557 - > want to be a resource and help to the community 558 - > as much as we can so that we're collectively as 559 - > a industry ready for quantum developments as they come forward. 560 - >

Speaker 3: I want to pivot in our last subject to wrap 561 - > this up, Clarity Act. I'd love to know your thoughts 562 - > on this passing in the Senate Banking Committee. It sounds 563 - > like it's a crowded floor competing with other bills. Do 564 - > you think this bill will pass this year? 565 - >

Speaker 1: I believe in markets generally, so I think that the 566 - > markets kind of have an intuitive sense on where things 567 - > will go. And so if you want a prediction from 568 - > me on this, I would say, whatever the Calshi and 569 - > polymarket odds are today, either today when we're recording or 570 - > today when you're listening to this, those are probably the 571 - > right odds. Bills passing through Congress are miracles. It is 572 - > a miracle that the Genius Act passed, and it was awesome. 573 - > It is incredible. I got to be there for the 574 - > signing of the Genius Act. I hope to get to 575 - > be there for the signing of the Clarity Act, and 576 - > I think that'll be just tremendous for the industry. I 577 - > think it'll be a tremendous for institutional adoption, tremendous for 578 - > that notion I was talking about earlier about five thousand 579 - > banks starting to adopt crypto. The Clarity Act will help 580 - > them decide to invest for the long term there. But 581 - > it's it's a it's a it's a real thing with 582 - > a lot of points of view. Like you talked about earlier, 583 - > we lived in a democracy. These things happen as a 584 - > result of the process that we put together in DC, 585 - > and I think it's a it's a process that leads 586 - > to leads to good outcomes and I'm I'm looking forward 587 - > to seeing that that bill go through and I'm I'm 588 - > hopeful that it does pass. 589 - >

Speaker 2: Any thoughts on recent comments by JP Morgan's CEO, Jamie Diamond. Obviously, 590 - > you're essentially a competitor to JP Morgan being uh, you know, 591 - > a young firm getting these licenses and much more, and 592 - > he's trying to stop the ability for you know, folks 593 - > like yourself to be able to give yield, not to mention. 594 - > It seems like you're trying to slow the entire bill 595 - > down to the rest of the banking or traditional banking 596 - > industry can catch up. What are your thoughts around that? 597 - >

Speaker 1: Oh, you know, let's a it's a fascinating topic. The 598 - > way I look at it is there are various views 599 - > on on stable coins. We have, like I mentioned five 600 - > different stable coins that were issuing. Some of them want 601 - > to share yields, some of them don't. And so the 602 - > issue of yield on stable coins is one where we 603 - > are I would say, aggressively fundamentally neutral, and so we 604 - > don't take a particular opinion on that one and looking 605 - > forward to seeing how everything plays out there. 606 - >

Speaker 2: Man, I was going to ask you, Yeah, you wanted 607 - > to ask A Nathan about his roadmap? 608 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, Nathan, if you just want to let us know 609 - > what's on the roadmap, what's coming up for Anchorage? 610 - >

Speaker 1: Sure, So our big focus right now is on this 611 - > infrastructure theme. How do we make sure that as all 612 - > of America's financial institutions ready to adopt digital assets, how 613 - > are we ready to be an enabling force for them? 614 - > How can we help them with their crypto build out, 615 - > their stable coin build out. They're tokenized the positive build out, 616 - > their crypto backed lending build out to any and all 617 - > of those areas are ones that are active areas of 618 - > go to market for US and active areas of development 619 - > within Anchorage, and so expect most of our roadmap and 620 - > you know, announcements moving forward to be in and around 621 - > that area. 622 - >

Speaker 2: Well. 623 - >

Speaker 3: Nathan, thank you so much for joining us. Always always 624 - > a pleasure to listen to you on x LinkedIn and 625 - > we can't wait to see what you continue to do. 626 - >

Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank 627 - > you so much for tuning in. Please hit the like 628 - > button subscribe if you haven't as yet. If you're listening 629 - > on a podcast platform such as Spotify or Apple, please 630 - > follow and leave a five star rating. Thank you so 631 - > much