Podcasts about kyc

For episode 695 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Alex Mirran, the Gradient Business Development team lead in North America onboarding key inference customers and developing strategic partnerships. Alex has spent over 8 years in distributed AI systems, fintech, and capital management executing go to market strategies and capital formation.

Victor Fang, CEO and Founder of Anchain AI, joins The Tech Trek for a timely conversation on crypto crime, AI driven fraud, and what financial institutions need to understand as digital assets move closer to the mainstream. This episode is worth your time if you care about cybersecurity, compliance, crypto risk, anti money laundering, or where agentic AI is starting to reshape investigation work.This conversation goes beyond headlines. Victor breaks down how bad actors are using generative AI for phishing, identity fraud, exploit development, and ransomware, then explains how defenders are using AI, graph intelligence, and agent workflows to fight back. It is a sharp look at the collision of crypto, cybersecurity, regulation, and AI infrastructure.In this episodeWhat crypto crime actually looks like today, from exchange hacks to romance scams and ransomwareWhy crypto risk now extends well beyond crypto native usersHow financial institutions, regulators, and compliance teams are adaptingWhere AI is helping attackers move faster, and where it is giving defenders an edgeWhy agentic workflows and MCP powered investigation tools could change this category fastTimestamped highlights00:00 Victor Fang on crypto crime, AI versus AI, and agentic AML00:53 What Anchain AI does and why blockchain investigation is becoming more important01:56 How generative AI is already being used in crypto crime and phishing06:30 What banks, regulators, and AML teams need to understand about crypto adoption10:44 Why Victor believes AI can give defenders the advantage16:17 How Anchain uses blockchain data, graph intelligence, and agent workflows to investigate faster22:04 Why the company's MCP server could extend beyond crypto into KYC and financial applications25:21 What the next wave of agent driven security and investigation might look likeOne standout idea from the conversation, crypto is much closer to you than you think.Practical takeawaysCrypto risk is no longer a niche issue, it is increasingly tied to broader fraud, ransomware, and financial crimeAI is accelerating both offense and defense, which raises the bar for security and compliance teamsAgentic investigation workflows could dramatically reduce manual work in AML, fraud, and cyber operationsCompanies building in regulated spaces need infrastructure that can handle both speed and scrutinyFollow The Tech Trek for more conversations with builders, operators, and technical leaders shaping what comes next.

For episode 694 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Trevor Harries-Jones, Board Director for Render Network, a decentralized GPU network powering some of the world's biggest visual and entertainment projects, including Las Vegas Sphere visuals, Super Bowl trailers, and Coachella stage shows. They are emerging as a counterweight to GPU consolidation and an alternative compute layer for AI and real-time rendering. 

For episode 693 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Dr. Hany Demian, a longevity and anti-aging specialist. Dr. Hany Demian is focused on the intersection of longevity medicine, systems-based care, and artificial intelligence.  

Is the Be Your Own Bank dream a nightmare for most people? While the Bitcoin community has preached self custody as the only path to freedom, many are terrified of losing savings to a single technical error. Obi Nwosu (@obi) argues we have hit a wall with traditional sovereignty. Unless we make Bitcoin as easy as a group chat, we will never see the mass adoption required to topple the legacy financial system.We are entering a dark economic era where holding Bitcoin is a physical risk. Obi breaks down why privacy is the ultimate superpower to protect families from a wrench attack. When wealth is transparent on a public ledger, you become a target. By utilizing e-cash protocols, users regain the anonymity of physical cash while maintaining digital hardness. It is the shift from public target to private sovereign.The true innovation is happening within the circular economies of the Global South. From Bitcoin Beach to Nigeria, people use the lightning network to bypass failing banks. Obi explains these communities lack financial privilege. They need tools that work today, even with intermittent internet, proving utility is highest where the old world is broken.Fedimint miniaturizes exchange security for local communities. This model uses e-cash so guardians cannot see your balance or spending. It bridges the gap between the friction of self custody and the danger of centralized exchanges.Fedi integrates money and identity through open standards like NOSTR. This removes technical barriers, allowing the lightning network to act as global glue. Sovereignty becomes a byproduct of design rather than a chore.—Bitcoin Beach TeamConnect and Learn more about Obi Nwosu:X: https://x.com/obiLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/obinwosuWeb: https://www.fedi.xyz/Web: https://fedimint.org/Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:00:00 Intro01:25 What can the West learn from Bitcoin circular economies?09:02 Why is the Global South front-running Western Bitcoin adoption?13:17 Why do major exchanges still lack Proof of Reserves?19:01 How to identify Bitcoin-only exchanges with ethical listing standards?37:24 Is Bitcoin self-custody too difficult for mass adoption?46:34 How to set up community-led Bitcoin custody with Fedimint?48:53 How does Chaumian e-cash provide total Bitcoin anonymity?1:12:38 How to execute peer-to-peer Bitcoin payments without internet?1:25:33 How to prevent wrench attacks using advanced Bitcoin OpSec?Live From Bitcoin Beach

Blockchain is about to be new rails for everything, but traditional finance is still struggling to go fully on-chain. While tokenisation has become one of the most talked-about innovations in capital markets, much of today's activity remains confined to permissioned environments, private chains, and heavy KYC barriers that limit the true potential of decentralised infrastructure.This is where CRYMBO enters the conversation.Eyal Daskal and team are building technology designed to unlock compliant, scalable, and truly interoperable tokenised finance without sacrificing the core advantages of blockchain. As institutions explore tokenisation of assets and Web3 adoption accelerates, infrastructure that connects TradFi requirements with decentralised systems has never been more critical.On this show we discuss: - Eyal's journey into Web3 - The founding vision behind CRYMBO, the market need, and the core mission driving its technology roadmap- The issue with TradFi tokenising assets on Blockchains today, and why no one is talking about the on-chain compliance issue- Live demo of the CRYMBO solution and how their customers are using the solution today- What more is needed in 2026 to see mainstream adoption of Blockchain, tokenisation and digital assets

For episode 692 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by MinChi Park, COO & Co-founder of Coinfello.CoinFello, the first AI agent capable of on-chain interactions with any smart contract, was introduced to ETHDenver attendees during the conference's opening ceremonies. Founded by former MetaMask operations lead JacobC.eth, CoinFello is launching as an EIP-8004 agent that can be called from other AI agents in Ethereum's growing agentic economy. As part of the launch, CoinFello created BuffiBot, ETHDenver's official AI assistant, which helps attendees navigate schedules, speakers, workshops, vendors, and side events via text or real-time voice inside the ETHDenver app. 

For episode 690 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Christian Nunez, Senior Partnerships Manager for Sumsub, where you control all your identity operations under one configurable platform. Tailored to your risk appetite, market demands, and use cases, it's powered by adaptive AI intelligence to support global scale while keeping your business compliant and future-ready.

For episode 691 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Amit Mahensaria, Co-Founder and CEO of PRED.Pred operates as a peer-to-peer sports prediction exchange built on Base blockchain. Unlike traditional sportsbooks that profit from your losses, Pred generates revenue through trading fees on matched orders. The key distinction: we don't take the other side of your trade, we just run the market.Amit Mahensaria has spent the last two decades building and scaling ventures that bridge technology with learning outcomes and employability. His career crosses startup building, corporate finance, and edtech product leadership  grounded in top Indian technical and business education. 

"If people are not ready for Bitcoin, just go use USDT as long as you can before dollar hyperinflation. It's like Noah's Ark: it's going to rain, we build the ark. We don't have to force people on board. Just wait there, and when you feel ready to swim, come aboard." ~ Giacomo Zucco Earlier this year at the Plan B conference in El Salvador, I managed to pull Giacomo Zucco aside to take a pulse on the current state of the Bitcoin world. In this Chat, we debate whether the classic four-year cycle is dead, or if we are simply stuck in the bargaining phase of grief where the world tries to fit old fiat models onto new money. We then discuss whether stablecoins constitute a necessary bridge - like methadone for a fiat junkie - or if they are just delaying the inevitable. Giacomo also breaks down his new Cypher Tank initiative and why he is funding the next generation of cypherpunk projects. At last, we pivot to the creeping dangers of the surveillance state and why KYC is fundamentally a regression to pre-civilization barter systems. Check out our awesome sponsors! HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF's Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter) OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/) Guest Links Giacomo on X (Link: https://twitter.com/giacomozucco) Giacomo's Website (Link: https://www.giacomozucco.com/) Plan B Network Website (Link: https://planb.network/) Host Links ⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney) ⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann) Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann) Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann) Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann) ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible) The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)

For episode 689 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Erik Balsbaugh of Open Frontier at ETHDenver.Open Frontier is on a mission to promote responsible financial innovation while ensuring strong regulatory guardrails, countering Wall Street and big tech, and stopping bad actors. Finance is evolving, and progressive voices need a seat at the table. 

For episode 688 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Viktor Ihnatiuk, Co-Founder and CEO of Utexo, a Bitcoin-native stablecoin settlement network backed by Tether. Utexo enables private, compliant USDT payments with fixed costs, powered by the Lightning Network and RGB.Viktor is a Bitcoin and Web3 engineer with over 12 years of experience building core infrastructure, protocol tooling, and privacy-preserving distributed systems. A serial entrepreneur, he has founded and scaled multiple successful ventures across the crypto industry. Previously, Viktor scaled Boosty Labs into the leading European Web3 development house, growing the team to 150+ engineers and partnering with major industry players including Coinbase, Ledger, Consensys, MoonPay, and Blockchain.com. Earlier in his career, he joined Storj Labs to help build decentralized cloud infrastructure, where he led the Growth team. He was responsible for expanding the distributed node network and shipping operator-facing tools that improved usability and long-term sustainability. Following this period of growth and infrastructure maturation, Storj achieved a successful exit after its acquisition. In parallel with these ventures, Viktor co-founded Astroid to support early BTCFi teams, helped launch the RGB Association, and contributed to Thunderstack—the primary infrastructure provider for RGB—built in collaboration with Tether and Fulgur. Across his work, Viktor focuses on expanding Bitcoin's utility and driving real-world adoption through scalable, privacy-first financial applications. 

Fraud doesn't wait for your roadmap. We sat down with Jess Kirkpatrick, VP of Risk and Fraud at Worldpay now part of Global Payments, to unpack how platforms can move beyond checkbox KYC and build a living risk program that protects growth, strengthens brand trust, and prepares for Payfac readiness. With experience spanning community banking, 17 years at PayPal, and global risk leadership, Jess brings a clear, practical lens to what proactive actually looks like.We start by challenging the biggest myth in payments: set it and forget it. Jess outlines four risk vectors (identity, intent, business model, and financial stability) and shows why continuous monitoring across all four beats a one-time screen. She explains how shared liability works in embedded payments, why payment providers still own card brand and regulatory obligations, and how true partnerships pair education, tooling, and joint governance.From there, we go deep on good friction: enhanced onboarding for higher-risk profiles, step-up checks on unusual behavior, and periodic reviews that are framed as protection, not punishment. Jess shares how clear communication turns compliance into service, preventing the “why are you asking this now?” backlash that costs you trust and churn. To close, Jess gives three high-impact moves for this quarter: modernize KYC/KYB and tighten onboarding, ramp up ongoing monitoring with alerts for sudden shifts, and train frontline teams while explaining controls to merchants. Measure success beyond loss rates by tracking retention of your best merchants and brand health around trust and safety. 

There is a storm coming with the challenges of navigating the TRUSTEE CRISIS. It is one of the biggest blind spots in the “GREAT WEALTH TRANSFER” and will be the source of mountains of litigation for the unwary, https://youtu.be/hwQev88A03M Summary In this conversation, Frazer Rice and Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey discuss the current crisis in trusteeship, highlighting the shortage of qualified trustees amidst a significant wealth transfer. They explore the importance of modern trust planning, the challenges faced by individual trustees, and the need for better education and training in the field. The discussion also covers the emotional and interpersonal aspects of trusteeship, the functions and responsibilities of trustees, and the necessity of managing risk effectively. They emphasize the importance of building a pipeline for future trustees and improving the perception of the profession, while also identifying opportunities within the trust industry. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4qpkrVdaUa2AfDxgl7j3yN?si=XVgG3jE_Qpqq2JTqi8XLXQ Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠) Takeaways The coming crisis in trusteeship is already here. There is a significant shortage of qualified trustees. Trusteeship requires strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Managing risk is a fundamental aspect of trusteeship. Trustees critically need education and training. The role of a trustee is evolving with increasing complexity. Beneficiaries need to understand their rights and the trustee’s role. Custodial responsibilities are essential for asset protection. There are many opportunities for growth in the trust industry. Trust law and investment management are distinct fields. This Episode is for . . . Anyone that has an estate plan with a trust in it and doesn't know what a trustee does Any advisor who works w/ multi-generational situations (that’s everybody in wealth management) Any RIA looking to sell Financial types worried about compliance world Fiduciary litigators Chapters of “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges” 00:00 The Coming Crisis in Trusteeship 02:06 Importance of Modern Trust Planning 04:11 Challenges with Individual Trustees 08:03 The Dwindling Pool of Qualified Trustees 10:06 Functions and Responsibilities of a Trustee 12:20 The Emotional and Interpersonal Aspects of Trusteeship 16:05 Managing Risk in Trusteeship 19:07 Building a Pipeline for Future Trustees 22:10 The Role of Education in Trusteeship 25:07 Improving the Perception of Trusteeship 28:19 The Need for Better Trust Education 30:39 Bifurcation of Trustee Functions 33:26 Distribution Functions and Beneficiary Relations 36:52 Custodial Responsibilities in Trusteeship 40:19 Consequences of Poor Asset Management 46:41 Curriculum for Trustee Education 52:13 Opportunities in the Trust Industry Transcript of “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges” Frazer Rice (00:01.068)Welcome aboard, Jennifer. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (00:02.723)Thanks Frazer, how are you today? Frazer Rice (00:04.782)I am doing great. We’re going to dive into a topic that is near and dear to both of our hearts. And that is what I’m describing as the coming crisis in trusteeship, but I think it’s already here. Which is the concept of qualified trustees being in short supply, right in the face of a gigantic wealth transfer. And first of all, before we get into that, just describe what you do on a day to day basis first. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (00:33.445)Sure, I actually wear a bunch of hats. Day to day, right now, I’m a full-time practicing trust and estate attorney. I’m also an individual trustee for a variety of trusts that need either somebody here physically located in Delaware for a short period of time or even a successor trustee. But I’ve also spent many, many years building programs in trust management and trust administration. Because there is this crisis of human capital that just does not exist. I built multiple programs. They’re housed out of the University of Delaware. So I act as a trust and estate attorney, do planning, administration, I teach in the area, I build programs in the area, and I serve as a trustee. PEAK TRUST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATE Frazer Rice (01:23.182)A full plate to be sure. To me, I came out of Wilmington Trust and another trust company served an individual trustee too. I’ve seen all these different flavors of trusteeship. My general sort of bon mot around that is that the individual trustees. I’d say 95 % or higher don’t really have an appreciation of the risk and responsibility that they’re taking on. And then the corporates have their own issues, which we’ll get into in a little bit. If we pull back even further, modern trust planning in wealth management, why is this so important? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (02:06.275)That’s massively important. It’s not just for the mass affluent or the ultra high net worth. It’s for everybody. We have all of these assets that we have this hyperfocus on building and increasing our wealth. Making sure that we have the ability to sustain ourselves throughout our entire lives. But if we don’t do this type of planning, if we don’t have structures and implementation for when we die, then our assets that we’ve planned so diligently for will fall off of a cliff. We lose the ability to control ultimately what happens to those assets. Layered on top of that, of course, is the tax component for ultra high net worth folks who are trying to really focus and direct their assets to make and create generational wealth transfers. Without this type of functionality and wealth planning and estate planning long-term, people lose control of what they’ve spent so much time building. Frazer Rice (03:13.338)One of the things I tell people as far as trusts are concerned is that, you know, we’re putting these structures together. They’re durable enough to withstand taxation or creditors or other asset protection features, create some guidelines around distributing the assets to the next generation or other constituencies. But also have some flexibility to be able to deal with the things we can’t look into the crystal ball and figure out over time. And that those three things just putting a document together that tries to do all that is hard enough, but then to put it in the hands of somebody or something to administer and to exercise discretion around it. That’s where the real art and science kind of stitched together and create this issue. You know, as we think about that too, the idea, the history of these types of scenarios kind of goes back to, you know, you’d put a structure in place and then you’d go hire a bank and they’d take care of everything. How do you look at that and say, all right, we’ve gone well past banks to individuals and then to dedicated institutions. What is the problem there? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (04:22.956)Now the problem, there’s two problems. In my opinion, what I see is that, you know, your individual trustee by and large is Uncle Joe, right? He’s the guy that everybody goes to in the family. The responsible one. He’s the smart one. The wealthy one who, great, doesn’t know what the fiduciary duties are. He doesn’t know that he has a duty of impartiality. He doesn’t know that… Frazer Rice (04:32.419)Right. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (04:48.475)He can’t self deal unless the instrument says so. Doesn’t understand how the instrument works. He doesn’t understand the nuance and the legalese written into the instrument. But he’s flying by the seat of his pants and everybody looks to him as the respected one in the family. No one knows that they have the ability to challenge him. So with your individual run of the mill trustee named in the instrument, they just don’t have the expertise, they don’t have the technical knowledge. Don’t know what they don’t know. They can get into trouble in that way. The other problem that you have with professional individual trustees oftentimes is that they are not formally trained. They may be an attorney who is working in that area, who’s doing plans for people who may or may not know what the full scope of being a trustee is. They may not realize, I have to get a special insurance policy because my malpractice insurance policy doesn’t actually cover this type of fiduciary engagement. There’s a lot of landmines that individuals can run into when they’re doing this type of work. On the corporate side, the problems that we run into is that there’s just a complete and utter lack. Frazer Rice (05:50.061)Hmm. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (06:12.059)Of available educational programs to teach people the proper way to be able to understand trusteeship. It has always been, and it just has developed over time through, you know, oh, we’ll give it to the bank, the bank will do it. This apprenticeship model, and that just does not scale well because if you learn improperly at the edge of a desk from somebody that learned improperly at the edge of the desk. Then the person that you’re teaching now at the edge of the desk is learning what you learned improperly. So anecdotally, I did karate for a long, long time. And the man who taught me karate, I’m almost a secondary black belt to like, was serious in karate. And the man who taught me karate said, you practice, it makes permanent. Don’t practice wrong. Because when you’re practicing wrong, you’re making permanent wrong things. And that’s what the apprenticeship model has the risk of lending itself to. It’s not that every trustee that learns at the edge of the desk learns wrong, but the risk is too high because the fiduciary responsibilities and the duties are too high to run that risk. The other problem is that we have a dwindling pool of really qualified senior trust officers because of just the nature of the job. You’re a human being, you’re an individual, you age, you retire. And it’s not something that people go to school and say, when I grow up, I want to be a trustee. They fall into it sideways. And unless there are academic programs that are out there that people are aware of and that they can get some formal training, some formal education to enter into the field. Frazer Rice (07:49.742)Yeah Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (08:03.82)Separate and distinct from, I’m in the field and now I want to get a CTFA. I want to earn my certification to really show that I have the chops in this area. We have this shrinking pool of expertise. We have a lack of knowledge, a lack of formal education, and an apprenticeship model that doesn’t scale. On top of, with the individual side and the corporate side, this massive wealth transfer and an explosion of trust complexity that’s all taking place at the same time. Frazer Rice (08:31.918)One of the issues at the corporate level too is that as you say that the impregnance model is not necessarily the best way to do it. They’re cutting back on training programs. The business model around being a trustee or even a specific trustee does not make the big money. And so the ability for those types of institutions to develop the people.who ultimately are now in a very sort of pro-employee environment where there’s such a demand for trustees that they can kind of switch around and get a 10 or 20 % bump each time they go because people are desperate to have them. There’s a real cavern there to try to create the permanence that you’re looking for in a structure that really rewards consistency over time, especially as it relates to discretion and process of decision-making. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (09:23.15)Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that leads to this revolving door in the industry, because people are just trying to make more money and they’re going and bouncing to different trust companies. And there isn’t that backfill. Just because it’s a trust company and there’s policies and procedures, trusteeship is about relationships that you make with your beneficiaries, the relationships that you develop with multiple generations in a family. And when you have somebody that’s acting and serving in that and they move, they leave, they’re no longer acting and serving in that capacity, a new personality comes into the mix and it can really be disruptive. So having that consistency and minimizing the attrition is so valuable. Frazer Rice (10:06.766)The other thing I try to bring up, especially to individual trustees, is that the thing that you’re signing up for is probably going to look a lot different in five or 10 or 15 years when people are aged on, they remarry, they have kids, etc. That the conditions are a lot different than what they were before. And it’s going to be difficult to take on a structure that has eight people when before there were two. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (10:37.517)Yes, and that’s that complexity, that increased sophistication and complexity of trust structures that are available now to people. With the increase in the exemption, these trust structures, they’re not necessarily changed. For example, qualified personal residence trust, if people really need that anymore, but there’s a ton of them sitting around there. Are trustees properly administering it? Did you actually transfer the real estate into the trust at the time? So there’s all kinds of sophisticated structures that the trustees may or may not have the right skills. But they’re saddled with having to do it. Frazer Rice (11:19.47)Let’s take a step back and just talk about the functions of a trustee for a second. I break them down basically into three. Which is the first one. You have to administer the trust, meaning you have to dot the I’s, cross the T’s, make sure things get executed, tax returns are filed, statements get sent out to the extent that that happens, and that the administration of a structure like that occurs. Then I talk about the concept that the investments have to be made monitored moved around decided and that they’re appropriate for all classes of beneficiary that are in there and then the distribution function which is The assets have to be distributed according to the law. First the trust then maybe the intent or the law if everything is silent and that those three things are very different components and that it’s tough to find somebody who’s great at all three housed within one brain. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (12:20.217)Yeah, I agree with that 100%. It is a three legged stool. It’s the investments, the administration and the distributions. And in that administration umbrella in and of itself, there’s a tremendous amount of work that sort of goes unsung. know, it’s not the sexy stuff where you’re investing and making a bunch of money for your income beneficiaries and managing to preserve the corpus for your principal or your remainder beneficiaries. And it’s certainly not the personal interaction that you’re doing with your beneficiary day to day. Making distributions, helping them, seeing the product of that help. It’s the making sure you file ax returns are properly. Understanding how to read that tax return. Even if you’re not preparing it, making a proper selection on the accountant that you’re using to prepare those tax returns if you’re not preparing it. Make sure to set up statements properly, make sure that in this world of silent trust documents that you’re not sending a statement to somebody who’s not supposed to have it. Communicating with beneficiaries on an even keel. Making sure that you’re not inadvertently violating your duty of impartiality because it’s more than just a substantive duty, there’s a procedural duty as well. That’s really, really challenging to find within one human being, let alone add on top of it somebody who’s financially savvy enough to understand investments and all of the different complex investment tools that are out there, as well as having the personality and the interpersonal skills to keep beneficiaries engaged and happy. Frazer Rice (13:56.426)Just on top of that, the EQ, the bedside manner, and the ability to simplify the complex, et cetera. At the same time, that dedicated note taker that is able to document everything that happens within a decision. Whether distribution or investment or otherwise, that it’s just two different people most times. I find that something falls apart as time goes on. Ultimately if things aren’t laid out correctly, that’s when conflict starts to simmer. Then you know if there is something that’s wrong. That’s allowed to compound that’s where you get into a huge problem later on. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (14:36.922)It’s all that feeling. People are behaving in ways that they may or may not be able to articulate their emotional proximity to. When you’re talking with beneficiaries. There’s something simmering under the surface that you inherited because you’re a trustee. You may not even be aware of it because the beneficiaries may not even be able to articulate it. You have to have a certain sense. A gut check of feelings of rntuitively being able to read what’s going on under the surface. To pull it out of people in a very balanced and even keel way. It’s not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. On top of financial literacy and personal liability and executive functioning skills, being detail oriented, making sure your documentation is not overly explicit. isn’t, you know, scarce. You’re now wondering how and why did you make those decisions? People don’t think about the decisions that they make on a day to day basis. We don’t think in a way to articulate why I made this decision. Why I exercised this type of judgment. And that’s what we’re being asked to do as trustees is to document what is my decision making process? Why am I making the decision? What are my factors involved in making that decision in a way that’s defensible. If we ever need to defend it. Frazer Rice (16:05.292)Well, in favoring one class of people over another is usually where the rubber hits the road on this. People who are used to seeing the income from a trust and don’t want that touched come hell or high water. Then future beneficiaries who’d like to see the trust go from X to 2X to 5X. So that they have something larger to enjoy. You have a natural tension that you have to manage. It’s just not easy. If you don’t document the hows and whys of what you’re doing, you set yourself up for a problem. From one class or another looking at you saying, you you should have done it differently. To go back to that liability component. You’re the only one who sits in the chair of having made that decision. You’re the one with the bullseye on your back when it’s called to account. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (16:53.093)That’s right, that is exactly right. And now add on top of it, you’re just named because you’re Uncle Joe and everybody goes to Uncle Joe. You have no technical background and you just don’t know the landmines that are there. You don’t know what you don’t know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were able to create a pipeline of really sophisticated entry level employees or folks that are, you know sophisticated in financial literacy that now want to take the job to become trustees, that we were able to give them this technical roadmap for what the job actually is and then have them get the ability to apprentice on all of those policies and procedures. What does this corporation do? How do we document things? When you’re trying to learn it all at one time, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. Let’s give people the ability to really have a chance at doing it successfully. Frazer Rice (17:53.048)So let’s dive into that pipeline issue for a second. We already diagnosed that the, let’s call it the trust companies or the banks are, they’re just not resourced enough. They can’t run people through an internal school to do it quote unquote correctly. The apprentice model really kicks in. Which means you’re at the sort of mercy of what people are good at, not good at, et cetera. People turn over quickly so that apprenticeship doesn’t even work anymore. The RIAs I think are the worst place to learn about this type of thing. They have a completely different modus operandi as far as keeping clients happy. The word fiduciary means something so different to them than it does to an actual trustee. I wouldn’t feel good about the training on that front to sort of create trustees And then so law schools. They’re they’re just trying to create people the trust in the states vertical as a general matter. Let alone trying to delineate into a trustee situation. You’re putting the pipeline together and you put these programs together. How do you stitch together the needs and what does that manifest itself into? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (19:07.642)So that’s a really, really good question. I think that the very first place that we start with answering that question is advising on a trust as an attorney. It’s different from the administration of a trust and the skills that you need for that. So when you create a program like this where you’re trying to teach about trust management. You have to start with the technical skill. The legal side of what is it that we’re even doing? What is a trust? What are the fiduciary duties? Where do they come from? Then we have to, after we teach or create a structure or foundation on what the legality is. Now we go into how does this translate into administration? So when I created the programs, I looked at what’s the law they need to know? What is the level of sophistication of the student? And what do I need to, from a foundational perspective, teach first? What are the building blocks? And then how do I translate that into administration? The one thing that I have found is trust law does not equal investment management. So if people are coming along… Frazer Rice (20:26.254)No question. I’m nodding audibly at that comment. I like that. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (20:31.226)Your fiduciary duties as a trustee are fundamentally different than those of an RIA, where some RIAs are not even fiduciaries by law. They’re not. So being able to delineate and explain where that line is, what makes you a fiduciary, what are those duties, after you know the legal basics. And taught to you at a level that you can understand. I don’t expect everybody to be a lawyer. And people have asked me time and time again, do I need to be a lawyer to know this? No, you don’t need to be a lawyer because you’re not advising on the law. You’re advising on the administration of a legal structure and how that administration affects the fiduciary duties that are inherent in the relationship. Then how those fiduciary duties are translated out to the beneficiary. That’s the way that I’ve always built these programs. Where do I start? Start with the law. Where do I go from there? Start with how the administration translates the law. And then how does that administration get heard by the beneficiary? Where does the RIA come into the mix? The RIA should not be dabbling in advising on trusts. They should know that they need to bring in somebody who has this particular skill. And if they’re not doing that, they’re doing the client a disservice by trying to give one-stop shop advice. Frazer Rice (22:06.85)Yep, no question about it. One of the things that…we delve into the world of trusts and their function, et cetera, is that you’re dealing with an ecosystem from client to outside advisor, whether RIA or even accountant, et cetera, that they’re looking for certainty and airtight. quality to these structures that you put them in place and then everything runs like a clock going forward. When in actuality, I think there is a bandwidth of risk around everything. And so it’s the poor trust officer or individual trustee who sometimes has to be the bearer of bad news to say, yeah, you know, I think this is going to work 98 % of the time, but there’s a 2 % problem here or we’ve got this to fix or something like that and everybody else sort of sighs with disappointment and gets mad at the administrative function when in actuality they’re really doing their job and trying to, you know, keep a lot of things that are spinning out of control kind of within view. How do you get a trust officer or that administrative function or even the full trustee function to be comfortable with that risk and everything that’s involved with that? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (23:20.504)You have to start with explaining that there is risk and we’re not our job is not as a trustee to eliminate risk. Our job is to manage and identify risk. It is inherent in the job. There is going to be risk. No matter what you do, you cannot divorce risk from trusteeship. It’s a matter of identifying perceived risk and actual risk. And if you can teach that, if you can teach These are the things that are going to trigger a likely outcome. They’re gonna trigger a likely risk. Then you can essentially, you can’t foresee everything. I mean, there are things that are just gonna happen. But in a trust instrument, you’ve got contingency plan upon contingency plan upon contingency plan. That’s what the flexibility of those structures are building. We need to, as trustees, be able to recognize What is the risk with contingency plan A? The risk with B? What is the risk with C? How can we minimize the risk? And how can we make sure that we’re managing perception of risk versus actual risk? Frazer Rice (24:29.31)as someone who’s been in trust companies, advised trust companies, advised trustees, and advised clients, the lack of appreciation for the management of that risk and that that as the intersection of the business model of trusteeship and risk management and use of discretion and making hard decisions and even kind of an insurance quality around these structures, how do you fix that, where people place a level of respect on the job that I think is completely lacking in the wealth management ecosystem? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (25:09.089)Absolutely. It’s a tough one to answer. How do you fix it? First and foremost, I think that it’s a top-down fix, especially at a corporate trust company, a bank, and even an independent trust company that’s not affiliated with a bank. The management has to… really understand the function of the trust company. For so long, it’s been just an extra service that we provide and and we’ll do this, the back office trust company. It’s really, really important that the management recognizes what the functionality of the trust company is and stops treating it as sort of a back office stepchild. From the corporate level, I think that’s the very first place we start. Frazer Rice (25:38.478)Mm-hmm. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (25:57.818)The second place we start is investing in our trust officers, investing in the team, giving them the education that they need, continuing to give them education, providing training programs, whether they be in-house, external, bring in trainers. None of this is set it and forget it. At the individual level, I think it’s really, really important to have functions like the Individual Trustee Alliance, groups like that, where you have an ability to talk to other professionals that are doing what you’re doing. That’s another way to impress upon people that we have to manage the risk and we can’t do it all alone. Nobody knows everything. You really have to, you have to talk to other people. You have to engage. have to, what is it called when we were practicing law and we’re a little bit outside of our comfort zone, we have to consult with other people who know more than we do. It’s our obligation as lawyers. It’s the same thing with a trust company, with a trustee, whether you’re an individual or you’re not. Widen that circle. Frazer Rice (27:08.474)I think this is my idea for the day that there’s got to be a bit of a public relations campaign sort of describing what’s going on here because I think especially when we go into the family members that sort of occupy these roles, they have no earthly idea what they’re doing. They’re usually doing it for free. Everything’s hunky dory up until a point and everyone hopes that everyone is not going to sue each other if something goes wrong. But the level of wealth that’s being transferred now is now so significant that everyone sort of talks about, AI is going to get rid of lawyers. Nope, not in fiduciary litigation. I think that’s a medium term growth industry, especially around insurance, around ILITs, around revocable trusts, around elder care. But this is my advertisement for people who are in law school looking for a productive way to go. I think that one is going to be, I think that one’s recession proof, at least for a while until I retire anyway. So my thought is that awareness over these things, and it’s probably going to take a very difficult case or a class action suit, something like that, where somebody really gets hurt in order for that awareness to come up. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (28:24.922)Yeah, I would agree. think that some of the solutions would include better trust education, you know, whether it be for RIAs, lawyers. Trust in the states is a throwaway class in law school. And there are so many law schools that are essentially rolling it back because bar exams aren’t testing it anymore in a variety of states. And ACTEC is definitely working with the law schools to try and increase trust in the states being taught and certainly being tested. So education for lawyers coming out of law school, education for RIAs that are advising on trusts, education for trust officers, for trust administrators, trust professionals in general, clear role delineation. What is the role of the RIA? The role of the trust officer? What is the role of the trustee if they’re an individual trustee? And then creating a culture of collaboration on what we’re doing as a team for the beneficiary, not substitution, but collaboration with the advisors and the trustees. Frazer Rice (29:32.59)Let’s go into the role delineation for a second. About 20 or 30 years ago, the concept of bifurcating or sort of cordoning off the different functions I described before the investment, the administration and the distribution has come into vogue. I think that came out of frustration with bank trust companies where you got one set of advice for every trust that they had as far as investments and distributions and administration and a lot of modern larger families wanted something a little bit more specific to their needs. And that’s really turned, it’s exploded as an industry for increasing sophistication and size of wealth. Along those different functions, where maybe the administration goes to a professional trust company or a trust officer in the state that you want, Then there’s some intersection maybe in the distribution committee. And then the investment side of it is a bit of a free for all, think, depending on what you’re, dealing with. How do you educate the, that continued the delineation, but the coordination within those types of structures. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (30:41.275)Yeah, I think it’s really important. And I’m a Delaware lawyer. I’m licensed in multiple states, but Delaware is my home. It’s where I learned how to be a lawyer. It’s where I grew up as a lawyer. So this directed trust model that you’re describing, where you’re bifurcating, truly bifurcating these particular functionalities of a trustee, it originated in Delaware. sort of, we didn’t, I mean, we invented it, right? We codified it. It was being done, but we codified it. The idea of making sure that everybody understands what their function is and knowing that there’s a limit of liability that’s built into the instrument and communicating what that means to the RIA that is named in the document. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard companies, heard trust companies say, we’re advisor friendly. And I’m like, not unless you’re directed, you’re not. Frazer Rice (31:37.528) “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges”Yeah. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (31:40.439)If you are directed, you are 100 % advisor friendly because there’s no chance that that trustee is going to try and take the investment management. They’re not a portfolio manager. Not a clerical administrator. They’re not a passive rule follower. We need to identify what does that trustee actually do when they are an administrative or directed trustee. Clarify that role so that people who are engaged in this bifurcation, this structure where we’ve got a distribution committee, maybe it’s individuals who are close to the family, close to the beneficiaries, where you don’t have somebody who’s objectively uninvolved with the family members making decisions as to whether or not there’s a distribution that should be made. But also advising those rolls those advisors that your administrative trustee is not just a pencil put a paper pusher. Not just checking boxes. They really do add value to the role that they provide and making sure that everybody understands what each other are doing, having regular meetings amongst the team instead of operating in a vacuum or operating in a silo. And taking the approach of it’s not my job, misunderstanding trustee powers and the advisor’s authority. So when that’s delineated, when that’s really understood, not just by the advisors, but also by the beneficiaries, there are so many beneficiaries out there, Frazer, that have absolutely no idea that they actually hold all the cards. They don’t know. Frazer Rice (33:25.87)Along that line, so in the administrative, we just walked through pretty nicely. The distribution function is one that, let’s talk a little bit for a second about what it means to ask a trustee for a distribution and maybe the difference between income and principal and why having a steady hand at the wheel within that function, whether it’s a corporate trust company of qualified individual or family input in that function, why real good thought needs to go into how that’s staffed. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (34:04.73)Yeah, absolutely. 100%. In a corporate trustee ship or a corporate trust company structure, there’s always going to be distribution committees, right? So if you are the trustee, you’re going to have to go through a committee that’s looking at what your reasoning is for making that distribution. They’re asking questions about what have been the prior distributions? Have they come from principal? Have they come from income? What is the spend rate on that trust? How is this going to affect long-term spend rate? Is this an aberration? Is this something that’s gonna become a habit? Really understanding what the distribution, the guidelines are in the trust. What is the distribution standard? Making that decision? What are our factors? And how many people are at the table? Who’s communicating that to the beneficiary? Does the beneficiary know that the trust officer alone does not have the ability to say yes or no? That when they’re in this ecosystem of a corporate trust company, they have their checks and balances to make sure that that risk is being managed. So when you’re looking at corporate trust companies, are a lot of layers behind understanding what the distribution standard is, whether it’s hems or if it’s purely discretionary. The other thing that you need to look at when it’s not a corporate trustee and it’s an individual trustee is, how is that individual trustee making that decision? Are they doing it in a vacuum? Alone? Are they favoring one beneficiary over another because they like them more, you need to have some communication to the beneficiaries so that they understand what they are, what their interest is, what they are entitled to, if anything, and why the trustee stands in that position as the gatekeeper. And I really think in my heart of hearts, we need to make a shift from a gatekeeper trustee Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (36:16.708)to a beneficiary enhancement trustee, where the beneficiary is really taking on the understanding that the trustee is there to facilitate enhancing the beneficiary’s life. That even though the trust may have started at the outset as a tax strategy or something that the grantor decided they needed to do with the advice of counsel. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t have been named as the beneficiary if there wasn’t some sense of love or obligation even, that it’s for your benefit. It’s in the name. Beneficiary. Trustees need to understand that and beneficiaries need to be taught. Frazer Rice (36:54.958)Right. Frazer Rice (37:00.646)And it goes to the circle back to the notion of making sure that you write down the whys of the decision because ultimately if the concepts of favoritism or you didn’t communicate this or anything, the idea of having the beneficiary submit a budget but having them understand why they are submitting a budget and then if there is some discretion that’s happening around that decision that the data points that are informing that discretion, that’s gonna keep everybody safe a lot later on. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (37:32.666)Absolutely. I break it down into a couple of different factors. It’s fiduciary decision making. How is that fiduciary making the decisions they’re making? Why are they making those decisions? And who is being affected by the decisions? Document interpretation. Do you understand the document that you’re administering? If you don’t understand the document you’re administering, hopefully best case scenario, you know what you don’t know and you ask. But if you don’t understand the document and you don’t even have the wherewithal to say, hey, I need help to understand the document, it’s really problematic. The third part, balancing beneficiary interests. Really taking on board this idea of the principal income problem that all the assets in the trust are not the same. That some of it doesn’t at all in any way affect a certain class of beneficiaries. And at the same time, it’s inextricably intertwined in the way that it affects another class of beneficiaries. And then risk management and governance. How is this being governed? How are we managing perceived and actual risk as a trustee? Frazer Rice (38:40.13)The investment function, which I alluded to before, I see storm clouds on that horizon, not really at the RIA level, because I think there’s sort of a default mode that investment policy statements are in place. Diversification is a true commodity at this point. And I never really worry about an RIA sort of understanding how to invest to get to a certain expected return and deal with the risks and drawdown and all that stuff. The storm cloud I see is when individuals sit in that role and they are being tasked with, let’s call it quote unquote, overseeing concentration, meaning that trust is holding a building, farmland, a nuclear reactor, crypto, all of these different things that sometimes can be, A, they have their own different maintenance responsibilities that are not just looking at a fidelity statement, but that they also have their own volatility And, you know, in the case of a building, you got to make sure it’s managed correctly. are they going to get sued or the windows kept up, all of that stuff, and that there’s a whole different component there. And I’m waiting for the shoe to drop on some fact pattern there where somebody is sitting in the role of an investment advisor. It doesn’t say trustee in the document, so they don’t really think that they have trustee liability. But. they sit in that role and all of a sudden somebody finds 10 55 gallon drums of green fluid in the basement of a building and all of a sudden the trust has a big set of red brackets that say minus $100 million that you owe to the federal government and the EPA. How do you think about that? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (40:21.454)Hmm. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (40:25.242)That’s a heavy question. so the Delaware stock answer, obviously, direct it, right? It’s just to get the trust, cut off the liability. At the first, at the inception of your hypothetical is bad drafting, right? So if there’s no statement as to whether or not your investment advisor is acting as a fiduciary or not, Frazer Rice (40:35.042)Right. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (40:52.836)What does your statute say? Does your statute impose that they are as a default a fiduciary or not? So that’s the very first step. That’s bad drafting. We need to know. But if it’s silent, let’s say it’s just a lousy document, there’s, God knows. Anybody who’s seen trust documents knows that, you’ve seen them all, right? And everything in between. Some are good, some are bad. If this is a bad one. Frazer Rice (41:13.08)Seen good and you’ve seen bad. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (41:20.079)Then we need to document the statute. If we can correct it, modify the document, let’s modify it. But if all of that can’t happen, then I would say the best way to handle it, make sure you have adequate insurance. mean, over-insure that, over-insure it. Make sure that there’s regular checks on the actual… Assets that are in the trust, if you have a concentration and that concentration is real estate, get the advice of counsel, put that bad boy into an LLC, get yourself some distance from the actual asset itself being held in the trust, hold an interest, hold a financial interest, push it down to the corporate level. But if you can’t do all of that and you’ve got those 500 gallon drums of green fluid and now you’re… Frazer Rice (42:14.286)You Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (42:15.371)You you’ve got a super fun site. What do you do? You don’t shy away from it. Have to address it head on. You got to take the accountability. You got to communicate and document, communicate and document some more. Talk to your beneficiaries. Make sure that they’re aware of where it went wrong, why it went wrong. Because I have found in my exposure in the industry over time and in reading case law, it’s when you’re trying to cover stuff up. Frazer Rice (42:43.913)Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (42:44.027)You’re just making more problems. Bad news doesn’t age well. It doesn’t get better over time. You have to approach it head on and make sure that there’s communication and documentation. Meet with your beneficiaries. If there’s a trusteeship where you are appointed as a trustee individually and you’re not having at least quarterly meetings with your beneficiaries, If you’re not going out and seeing the asset, if you’re not going out and making sure that the asset is properly custodyed, you’re not, you’re violating your fiduciary duty. You are not doing what you’re supposed to do. Frazer Rice (43:21.804)You brought up an interesting word there, custody, which is the administrative function, whether held corporately or individually, one of the major things you have to do is to safeguard the assets. And that’s a big two syllable word that carries a lot of weight with it. That custodial function, how do you teach the trust officers or the individual trustees where that starts and stops? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (43:48.579)Yeah, mean, custody is super, it’s a really touchy, touchy subject, especially with the dynamic way that trusts have developed in the current climate from tangibles. You know, I’ve got artwork and my beneficiary wants to hang the artwork in their house. Well, do you have custody? Has it been assigned to the trustee and how do you maintain that asset? Make sure nothing’s happening to it. Do make an appointment, go over to the, visit your artwork? What if it’s prize horses, you know? What if it’s, you know, a stud that, you know, we’re gonna need to breed and it’s gonna be the next Triple Crown winner? How do you make sure that the barn is properly safeguarded? It’s a really touchy subject, especially with things like tangibles and things like assets held away when you technically custody the asset, but you don’t have control over the asset. I think in the education part for custodying, what I do in my programs and when I teach this is I make sure that we talk about different types of asset classes. And what the risks, again, what are the risks that you run with these asset classes? How can we manage the actual and the perceived risk of holding that asset? Even if you have custody and name only, but you don’t have physical custody, how do you maintain your control over that asset? Because it’s really the C’s, right? The custody and control. Just because you don’t have custody doesn’t mean you don’t have control. So we have to make sure that there’s an education that’s provided about the different asset classes, whether it’s tangibles, intangibles, assets held away, if it’s a concentration of stock, if it’s crypto, and most trust companies are not taking crypto. I think that there’s like a circuitous way that they’re getting in right now, but it all boils down to education, isolating what the issue is and educating people on it. Frazer Rice (45:59.586)I’ll give you a third C, it’s consequences, which is what happens when you don’t understand these functions. on the crypto side of things, Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (46:01.786)Uhhh Frazer Rice (46:11.544)Holds the key to get to the crypto. What happens if that trust officer quits and walks away with the key and they’re like, well, multi-sigil figure this out. I’m like, okay, that’s not that. That doesn’t make me feel great at the moment. And now there have been some advances, which is good, but traps for the unwary to be sure. the good news too for crypto is for people who want exposure, the spot ETFs take away 90 % of the problems with that. But as we start to think about winding down here, because I have a feeling we could probably talk for four or five hours on this subject, when putting your programs together, what does a curriculum look like? And we don’t have to go through it bit by bit, but how does that work when someone comes to your program? How much time does it take? What’s the commitment? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (46:47.172)Yeah, I think so. Frazer Rice (46:54.851)Mm-hmm. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (47:06.33)So the program that I created that’s really available anywhere across the country is called the Peak Trust Management Certificate Program. Peak Trust Company, may be familiar with it. They have name rights because they gave the donation to the University of Delaware for me to build the program. So it’s housed at the Lerner College at the University of Delaware, but bears the name of Peak Trust Company. I look at five different things. The first thing is trust law and administration. So like I said previously when we were talking, you lay that foundation of what is the legal component of this? What is the baseline that people have to know? And then what is the administration? The second component is, and it’s inextricably intertwined as taxation. What is the income tax? What are the deductions? And now let’s take all of that income tax knowledge, individual income tax knowledge, and build on it with fiduciary income tax. What is DNI? What is FAI? How does it go out to the beneficiary? What’s the character of the distribution? How do we manage that? What are we deducting in the trust? So teaching taxation and not because trustees necessarily are tax preparers, but because the trustees obligation is to be able to understand and read that tax return, they need to know how to spot problems. So from my perspective, teaching fiduciary income tax is a critical component. It also helps. Yeah. Frazer Rice (48:38.828)No, no, I was gonna say no question about that. And there are elections to make, just because it doesn’t just go on autopilot, there are choices to be made so that if you’re the trustee, you may not have to prepare the tax return, but you may have to make a choice on the tax return and you’ve got to be informed because that can be an issue. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (48:58.651)65 day elections, perfect example, right? You just, you need to understand what your role is and how it overlaps with that of the CPA. The third part, of course, investments. Investments are inextricably intertwined, whether you’re doing it yourself as the trustee or you’re directed or even delegated, which is like the hairy scaries of every trusteeship known to man, because you’re not actually in control, but you’re responsible. So it’s the gray. When I build a program, because of the, you know, the directed trusteeship being so popular in today’s day and age, we have to talk about not just investments of, you know, marketable securities, not just the custody of tangibles, but also subscription documents, because so many alternatives are held in trust right now. unique assets, need to know how the trustee is actually carrying out their fiduciary duty when it comes to engaging in an investment that is an alternative investment. The fourth component is of course compliance. We cannot ever get away from compliance and I think we could do a whole nother podcast on compliance in trusteeship but. You know, it’s a regulated entity. And even if you’re an individual trustee and you’re not using what those compliance frameworks are, what the guidelines are by OCC, Reg 9, FDIC, if you’re not looking at that and using that as a guideline, don’t do the job. understanding KYC, BSA, AML, all of those compliance components that have tentacles. That’s the fourth part. And then for the fifth part of this program, because it’s specifically geared toward trustee education in trust companies, although it can be applicable, very applicable to individuals, is operations. I was very fortunate that I was able to partner with SCI on building the operations component. So we license their platform called Plato. It’s essentially their training platform. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (51:12.888)so that trustees can see how fees are set up, fees, that’s a whole other podcast, fees, statements, distributions, how are we doing this? How are we documenting everything? What are the logistics of the day-to-day operations? So that’s how I built the program and it’s available anywhere in the country. It’s 10 weeks, how long does it take? I would say from three to five hours a week of an investment that you’re making at a bare minimum. Obviously there’s a whole lot more of depth that you can go into. The resources are built in. But I would say 10 weeks, about 50 hours of time where you’re actually engaging with the material. And then I bring in guest lecturers on each different area of expertise for lack of a better description. And they get a certificate at the end, they get a digital badge, and now they really have something where they can add value day one in a trust company or as a trustee. Frazer Rice (52:17.902)With Delaware being, you one of the real gold standards as far as trust jurisdiction, I assume that everything that comes out of this program is pretty transportable to the other useful jurisdictions, let’s call it, within the country. know, the Tennessee’s, the South Dakota’s, the Nevada’s, the Alaska’s, Wyoming’s, New Hampshire’s, et cetera. Obviously, there are hairs to split with different foibles in their law, but everything that you’re describing sounds like works everywhere else. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (52:47.928)And I’ve always taken the approach, you’re 100 % correct, I’ve always taken the approach of UTC. I base everything off of UTC and if there’s something different or unique based upon the jurisdiction that you’re in, I always encourage people you have to look at your statute, you have to look at the jurisdiction that you’re actually practicing this in and administering in. I use Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska as examples quite often when we’re talking about the directed stuff, but By and large, it’s UTC. Frazer Rice (53:20.966)It just a weird subset. So special needs trusts and islets, which are two types of trusts, very specific. One holds life insurance. The other is designed to really take care of people who can’t take care of themselves. And they are types of trusts that a lot of trust companies don’t like to take on because the liability is harder or the profit margin is less. For those individuals who get the opportunity to participate in those and I put that in air quotes. How would you advise people to get ready for those types of situations? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (53:58.308)People who are in need of those types of trusts. Frazer Rice (54:02.122)Well, maybe both. The people who need those trusts, you know, they’re going to, they, you know, it’s almost like they get set up and then the staffing gets kind of figured out later, barely. And then, you know, the, for the people who end up taking on that role, they really have no idea of what they’re in for in a sense. Is there sort of like a mini, I’m not going to say a full course like you’re describing, but a crash course in, in what’s going on here and what can I do to keep myself safe? Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (54:30.271)Unfortunately, no, I don’t know of one. and there isn’t much built in. there’s, we talk about a little bit in the program that I built, but, those are specialized and eyelets we talk about a little bit more there, you eyelets had their day and sort of they has done ish. but special needs trust. It’s a whole other ball game because It really incorporates state law and social security and Medicaid, all of those government benefits that I think you would need something more specialized than my program that I developed. And I don’t have a great answer for that, I’m sorry. Frazer Rice (55:12.482)No, there’s not a great answer for it because it’s tough. it’s a, all of which is to say for someone who’s involved with those things and feels confused by what’s going on, that’s one where it’s worth it to spend the money to lean on a dedicated Medicaid elder care, special needs type of lawyer on that front because there are traps for the unwary. Okay, now we’re starting to butt up against an hour here of. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (55:29.764)Yes . . . Frazer Rice (55:38.827)Four hours. No, I’m kidding listeners. We’re not going to talk for four hours, but How do people find your program and and then I’ll ask a bonus question at the end Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (55:49.339)So the program is on the University of Delaware’s website. You just type in peak trust management certificate and it’ll pop up. My name will be there. I think my picture might be there. It’s all over my LinkedIn. So if you look me up, you’re going to see the peak trust management certificate program. You can always email me, jennifer at zeldenlaw.com. Happy to push people into it. start, I’m in the new cohort right now. We’re two weeks into a 10 week program. But we have a new cohort starting in May. I think it’s May 4th. So may the fourth be with you. Frazer Rice (56:24.622)Terrific. So the final question here is really more of a crystal ball question. In this trust industry, trustee industry, what are the real, I’m going to say opportunities out there, and we’ve sort of painted a picture of doom and gloom and its low profit margin and things like that. Where can someone who is thinking from a business perspective about this find something? Once they’re properly educated about it and being able to participate in it. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (56:57.582)There are so many opportunities. There is an absolute need for good trustees everywhere. Trust companies from coast to coast, individual trustee alliance. People really, really need trustees. There’s tremendous opportunity with Heritage Institute, not the Heritage Foundation, but the Heritage Institute. There’s opportunities with…various family offices and various trust companies for education, for beneficiary education. So many opportunities out there. Trust companies are just clamoring for people. So if people are interested in becoming a trustee, getting that education, you will not have a hard time finding a job. Like you said, it’s basically recession proof. This wealth is going to transfer. We need sophisticated, knowledgeable trustees. on the receiving end of that transfer so that it happens correctly. Frazer Rice (57:56.578)I’d go so far as to say financial advisors. I just gotta say, a CFP is useful, CFA is on your investment side, but something like this, you know so much more about how intergenerational wealth works than what’s happening in those particular situations that I think it helps people stand out when I see something like that on a resume. Jennifer Zelvin McCloskey (58:00.302) “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges”That’s all the podcast. I hear you. I hear you. Frazer Rice (58:24.386) “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges”All right, with that, Jennifer, it’s great to catch up and I will have all of your information on the show notes and I will either see you at the ITA conference in Dallas or what I’m down in Delaware next. More Around “THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges” BUILDING A TRUST COMPANY TENNESSEE AS A JURISDICTION DIRECTED TRUSTEES DELAWARE WELL BEING TRUST THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/ Keywords for THE TRUSTEE CRISIS: Navigating the Challenges trusteeship, wealth transfer, trust management, fiduciary duties, trust education, estate planning, risk management, trust administration, individual trustees, trust companies, the trustee crisis, navigating the challenges, the great wealth transfer,

Huginn Ai code, BTC batched outbound, ADR 24, v3.16 upgrade, new hire and much more from Chad!Swap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that lets users swap assets directly between blockchains without wrapping or using centralized exchanges. Its app layer ecosystem means developers can build decentralized apps that tap directly into liquidity across chains. Unlike most platforms, it offers real ownership of your assets, deep liquidity, and fast swaps in one seamless network.To learn more about THORChain, check out more videos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMbeCjNJ5Eohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_4N9-3ZUohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHXrsaWT-wSwap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!

Swap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that lets users swap assets directly between blockchains without wrapping or using centralized exchanges. Its app layer ecosystem means developers can build decentralized apps that tap directly into liquidity across chains. Unlike most platforms, it offers real ownership of your assets, deep liquidity, and fast swaps in one seamless network.To learn more about THORChain, check out more videos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMbeCjNJ5Eohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_4N9-3ZUohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHXrsaWT-wSwap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!

For episode 687 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Yuannan Yang, Security Engineer at CertiK, the largest Web3 security services provider. CertiK offers a wide range of products and services to support the Web3 industry, project teams, and users alike. CertiK's products and services span the entire lifecycle of project development, from incubation and early stages, to growth and maturity. CertiK is one of the most globally recognized companies in the Web3 industry, serving users across 150 countries/regions.Yuannan Yang, based in Washington, DC, US, is currently a Security Engineer at CertiK. Yuannan Yang brings experience from previous roles at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, Tsinghua University and Red Hat. Yuannan Yang holds a 2019 - 2020 Master's degree in information security @ Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering.

Worth it pa ba mag-invest sa Philippine market? Mula sa inflation at pagtaas ng bilihin, economic slowdown, foreign investor pullouts, political noise, hanggang sa epekto ng AI at global competition, this in-depth conversation breaks down what's really happening behind the headlines, and kung saan pa rin may opportunities para sa long-term investors.

For episode 686 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Blue, Founder & CEO of Levr Bet, the world's first decentralized leveraged sports betting exchange. It operates on blockchain technology (primarily Monad and Avalanche) to offer a transparent, on-chain, and high-frequency betting experience without intermediaries.

Applying for a merchant account online doesn't have to take weeks. Most delays happen because applications are incomplete, inconsistent, or unprepared.In this episode, Maria explains how to apply for a merchant account the right way, especially if you run a high risk business. She breaks down exactly what you need to prepare before applying—required documents, matching business information, website readiness, and common mistakes that slow down approval when underwriters request follow-ups.If you're a high risk business applying for a merchant account, this step-by-step guide will help you avoid delays and get approved in as little as 48–72 hours.____________________________________________

Evan Cheng co-founded SUI after leading Facebook's Libra project -  then threw away everything they built because it wasn't good enough. THE SHIFT NEWSLETTER

For episode 685 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Muriel Médard, CEO of Optimum, where they are building the fastest decentralized internet protocol for Web3, starting with a high-throughput, low-latency networking protocol that permissionlessly integrates with any blockchain. Optimum is building infrastructure that helps crypto networks and communities operate at peak efficiency. By aligning incentives, streamlining participation, and optimizing on chain activity, Optimum aims to create smarter, more sustainable ecosystems across decentralized networks. As blockchain adoption accelerates, fragmented participation and misaligned incentives continue to slow growth. Optimum tackles this head on by providing tools and systems that empower builders, validators, and communities to coordinate more effectively and unlock long term value.

In this episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:* Block's plan to sell access to its proprietary Cash App credit score* So-called “no KYC” crypto cards* Stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge's apparent derisking* The brewing internecine fights over regulating prediction markets* And, as always, what Alex and I just can't let go of Get full access to Fintech Business Weekly at fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We kick things off with Block's move into credit scoring. Block stitched together data across Cash App and Afterpay into a proprietary score it's now surfacing to consumers and selling to other lenders, claiming auto lenders could approve 30% more borrowers at identical loss rates using the Cash App score. We dig into adverse selection when consumers choose what to share, where this fits in lender workflows, and the FCRA wrinkle that “transactions and experiences” data can fall outside the definition of a consumer report… Then, we dive into stablecoins. Jason walks through the rebirth of “no KYC” crypto-funded spending cards, including testing several of these services himself (tune in to discover the pattern!). The core mechanic Jason flags is a corporate card loophole: KYB the company, then issue incremental “employee” cards with no legal or regulatory requirement to verify the person behind each card. From there, we zoom out to Bridge, Stripe's stablecoin infrastructure subsidiary. Bridge got conditional OCC approval to form a national trust bank and moved jurisdictions (which include Russia, Belarus, Gaza, South Sudan, and Venezuela) from “controlled” to “prohibited,” while still defining “prohibited” with an “extraordinary situations” carveout. Plus, in our Can't Let It Go corner: prediction markets.  CFTC Chair Mike Sig told the Senate during his nomination hearing that he'd defer to the courts on sports betting and prediction markets. But early this year, he reversed course, asserting the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction and filing amicus briefs against state prohibitions aimed at sports betting. Kalshi and Polymarket loved it, and I'm sure that's unrelated to the fact that Sig's boss's son is an advisor to both. We close with Substack's new partnership with Polymarket to embed prediction markets into journalism, set against a real-world example of the incentive problem: Israeli authorities investigated and arrested military reservists and a civilian for allegedly using classified information to place bets on Polymarket. This episode is brought to you by Plaid.  Most lenders see the value of cash flow data. The hard part is getting started—and knowing what to do with it once you have it. Plaid makes it easy to access real-time cash flow and behavioral insights in seconds, through a familiar experience borrowers already trust. No heavy lift. No added friction. Learn more at www.plaid.com/ftt Sign up for Alex's Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/  And for more exclusive insider content, don't forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

For episode 684 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Hoolie Tejwani, Head of Coinbase Ventures.Coinbase Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of the major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, launched in 2018 to invest in early-stage crypto and Web3 startups. Its mission is to support "exceptional founders" building the foundation of an open financial system, aligning with Coinbase's overarching goal of increasing economic freedom in the world.  The firm has backed over 600 companies and operates with a highly collaborative approach, offering portfolio companies operational guidance, strategic partnerships, and access to the wider Coinbase ecosystem. 

For episode 683 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Rob Tökölyi, CEO of WeChange, a global noncustodial fiat-to-crypto on-ramp designed to make crypto access simpler, more transparent, and more affordable. They support local bank transfers worldwide and prioritize user self-custody, allowing users to buy and sell crypto without unnecessary complexity or excessive fees.WeChange announced the official launch of its noncustodial fiat-to-crypto on-ramp, designed to simplify how everyday users buy and sell digital assets while maintaining full control of their funds. The platform went live globally on January 30, supporting bank transfer methods across more than 190 countries. 

In this episode, we discuss how Liquify supports THORChain infrastructure.Swap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that lets users swap assets directly between blockchains without wrapping or using centralized exchanges. Its app layer ecosystem means developers can build decentralized apps that tap directly into liquidity across chains. Unlike most platforms, it offers real ownership of your assets, deep liquidity, and fast swaps in one seamless network.To learn more about THORChain, check out more videos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMbeCjNJ5Eohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_4N9-3ZUohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHXrsaWT-wSwap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!

What happens when AI makes intelligence essentially free — and unlimited energy plus humanoid robots make physical labour free too? The economic models we've built our entire civilisation on stop working. In this episode I sit down with Cern Basher — a CFA charterholder, CIO of Brilliant Advice, and one of the sharpest minds at the intersection of AI, Bitcoin, and macroeconomics. Originally from New Zealand, Cern has built a massive following for his work connecting the dots between exponential technology and the future of money. We go deep on his thesis that AI and Bitcoin are two sides of the same coin — AI collapses the cost of intelligence (deflationary), and Bitcoin provides a monetary system that can't be inflated away. We explore Jason Lowery's Softwar thesis (which the US Department of Defence placed under security review), why AI agents will naturally adopt Bitcoin for autonomous transactions, and Cern's provocative argument that infinite output multiplied by zero price equals zero GDP — making our most fundamental economic metric meaningless. If you've ever wondered what the economy actually looks like when abundance replaces scarcity, this is the conversation. In this episode we discuss: Why AI and Bitcoin are "two sides of the same coin" Jason Lowery's Softwar thesis and why the DoD took notice How AI is already contributing more to US GDP growth than consumer spending Why AI agents need Bitcoin — permissionless, no KYC, no intermediaries Cern's "death of GDP" thesis — infinite supply × zero price = zero GDP The dematerialisation of physical products (cameras, maps, books, money) What this means for New Zealand and small economies How abundance economics breaks traditional supply and demand Links mentioned: Cern Basher on X: https://x.com/CernBasher Brilliant Advice: https://www.brilliantadvice.net Cern's GDP post: https://x.com/CernBasher/status/1913993658572984440 Jason Lowery's Softwar thesis: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/153030

Marketing update, token logos, Solana is live, Huginn AI code review, THORChain hiring, when XMR?Swap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that lets users swap assets directly between blockchains without wrapping or using centralized exchanges. Its app layer ecosystem means developers can build decentralized apps that tap directly into liquidity across chains. Unlike most platforms, it offers real ownership of your assets, deep liquidity, and fast swaps in one seamless network.TL;DRHuginn AI generated 40+ merge requests in the latest release, now accounting for nearly half of all code changes on THORChainSolana launched on mainnet but was quickly paused due to a minor chain client bug (an $8 double spend); patch expected within daysNew $RUNE and $TCY logos proposed with unified branding, moving away from black backgrounds to white for a more trustworthy appearanceChad is close to hiring 1-2 new developers, with interviews ongoing this weekXMR integration remains a 2026 priority but is the most technically complex chain to add due to ring signatures and multi-sig challengesYou can find Rayyyk's full write-up on X:https://x.com/raynalytics/status/2027401585924727162?s=20To learn more about THORChain, check out more videos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMbeCjNJ5Eohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_4N9-3ZUohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHXrsaWT-wSwap now on THORChain https://swap.thorchain.org/ without KYC or limits!

Dans cet épisode de Finscale, je reçois Chloé Mayenobe, Deputy CEO de Thunes, acteur mondial des paiements transfrontaliers, pour une plongée au cœur d'une infrastructure invisible mais essentielle : celle qui permet d'envoyer de l'argent instantanément, partout dans le monde.Nous avons parlé :De son parcours avant Thunes, notamment son expérience chez Ingenico au sein de comités exécutifs, et de la manière dont cette immersion dans un grand groupe technologique mondial a façonné sa vision du leadership, de la gouvernance et du rôle du manager.De la création et du positionnement de Thunes comme réseau mondial de paiements cross-border, conçu pour connecter directement des acteurs locaux (banques, wallets, opérateurs) plutôt que de s'appuyer uniquement sur les circuits bancaires traditionnels.De la complexité structurelle des paiements transfrontaliers, notamment en matière de conformité, de change, de gestion de liquidité et d'interopérabilité entre systèmes hétérogènes.De l'importance stratégique des wallets mobiles dans de nombreux marchés émergents, où ils constituent un canal majeur d'inclusion financière et un point d'entrée clé pour les flux internationaux.De la culture d'entreprise chez Thunes, pensée comme globale dès l'origine, avec des équipes réparties sur plusieurs continents, une forte exigence d'exécution et un cadre commun permettant d'opérer dans un environnement régulé et multiculturel.Des enjeux de gestion du risque et de conformité (KYC, AML, sanctions) intégrés au cœur de l'infrastructure technologique, et considérés comme un élément structurant du modèle plutôt qu'une simple contrainte réglementaire.De la place des “stablecoins” dans les réflexions actuelles sur les paiements internationaux, abordés comme une évolution technologique potentiellement utile pour améliorer la rapidité et l'efficacité des flux, à condition d'être intégrés dans un cadre opérationnel maîtrisé et conforme.Un échange éclairant sur ce que signifie réellement le paiement “instantané” à l'échelle mondiale, et sur la manière dont des acteurs comme Thunes redessinent les rails de la finance internationale: un regard sur les coulisses d'un secteur en pleine transformation, entre temps réel, conformité et expansion mondiale. Recommandation de Chloé:“Noise” d'Olivier Sibony: https://oliviersibony.fr/livres/noise/Liens utiles:Chloé Mayenobe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-mayenobe/Thunes: https://www.thunes.com/***************************Finscale, c'est bien plus qu'un podcast. C'est un écosystème qui connecte les acteurs clés du secteur financier à travers du Networking, du coaching et des partenariats.

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Kalshi has detected and banned two accounts for insider trading Is Polymarket going to have to add KYC? Is there a tradeoff between informational efficiency and market fairness The OCC de facto bans stablecoin yield in its rulemaking around GENIUS Meta is considering partnering with a stablecoin issuer Stripe is bullish in their annual report ZachXBT determines that Axiom employees have been abusing the platform Terraform labs accuses Jane Street of insider trading WSJ reports that Binance overlooked Iranian sanctions violations Justin Drake unveils a post-quantum roadmap for Ethereum Matt Corallo says Nic is wrong about Bitcoin and quantum Content mentioned: Larry Cermak: How Crypto Actually Works: The Missing Manual  

For episode 682 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Sydney Huang, Founder of HumanAPI at ETHDenver. Sydney Huang is the Founder of Human API and CEO of Eclipse, where she leads product and strategy for AI-native infrastructure. She launched Turbo Tap, scaling it to 300K users, 50K DAU, and 22B+ in-game transactions, and has held product roles across Web3 projects including DeGods, y00ts, and Unstoppable Domains. Previously, she worked in M&A and Venture Capital at Dell Technologies and is a Babson College graduate.

Starting with a mini celebration: Dave defends his ski racing crown, before Sam declares software dead and capitalism broken. Even among GPs at Upfront Summit, the mood is uncertain: nobody knows whether to invest in software anymore, and many are quietly struggling to raise.The debate heats up over whether AI will democratize software creation or just accelerate capitalism's race to zero margins. Sam argues that when intelligence becomes abundant, it becomes worthless, making the entire AI industry, and by extension Silicon Valley, "pretty bad business." Dave counters that we're about to see a Cambrian explosion of software creators, finally giving billions of people agency over their digital lives.Plus: whether Stripe should buy PayPal during this opportunistic Trump-administration window, Gen Z panic-buying original iPods, Sam's shitposting-to-funding pipeline, and whether OnlyFans has the best KYC in fintechChapters:We're also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessYouTube: https://youtu.be/Ff4-vkt5rYQConnect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

Show Notes - https://forum.closednetwork.io/t/episode-52-opsec-fail-epstein-files-why-decentralized-systems-are-a-threat-to-power-networks-age-verify-is-coming-to-everything/177Website / Donations / Support - https://closednetwork.io/support/BTC Lightning Donations - closednetwork@getalby.com / simon@primal.netThank You Patreons! - https://www.patreon.com/closednetworkMichael Bates - Privacy Bad AssDavid - Privacy Bad AssInferno Potato - Privacy Bad AssTK - Privacy Bad AssDavid - Privacy Bad AssVO - Privacy Bad AssMrMilkMustache - Privacy SupporterHutch - Privacy AdvocateTOP LIGHTNING BOOSTERS !!!! THANK YOU !!!@bon@sn@x@fireflygowartime@unkown@anonymousBBB - Buy Me. A Coffee - $30.00Thank You To Our Moderators:Unintelligentseven - Follow on NOSTR primal.net/p/npub15rp9gyw346fmcxgdlgp2y9a2xua9ujdk9nzumflshkwjsc7wepwqnh354dMaddestMax - Follow on NOSTR primal.net/p/npub133yzwsqfgvsuxd4clvkgupshzhjn52v837dlud6gjk4tu2c7grqq3sxavtJoin Our CommunityClosed Network Forum - https://forum.closednetwork.ioJoin Our Matrix Channels!Main - https://matrix.to/#/#closedntwrk:matrix.orgOff Topic - https://matrix.to/#/#closednetworkofftopic:matrix.orgSimpleX Group Chat - https://smp9.simplex.im/g#SRBJK7JhuMWa1jgxfmnOfHz7Bl5KjnKUFL5zy-Jn-j0Join Our Mastodon server!https://closednetwork.socialFollow Simon On The SocialsMastodon - https://closednetwork.social/@simonNOSTR - Public Address - npub186l3994gark0fhknh9zp27q38wv3uy042appcpx93cack5q2n03qte2lu2 - primal.net/simonTwitter / X - @ClosedNtwrkInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/closednetworkpodcast/YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@closednetworkEmail - simon@closednetwork.ioApple rolls out age-verification tools worldwide to comply with growing web of child safety lawshttps://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/apple-rolls-out-age-verification-tools-worldwide-to-comply-with-growing-web-of-child-safety-laws/iOS 26.3—Update Now Warning Issued To All iPhone Usershttps://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2026/02/13/ios-263-update-now-warning-issued-to-all-iphone-users/Using the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20700, an attacker could execute arbitrary code. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26,” Apple said on its support page.iOS 26.4 Beta - End-To-End RCS Encryption For Messageshttps://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-26-4-beta-features/#:~:text=End%2Dto%2DEnd%20RCS%20Encryption%20for%20MessagesPopular password managers fall short of “zero-knowledge” claimshttps://cyberinsider.com/popular-password-managers-fall-short-of-zero-knowledge-claims/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLJ_sLr72-gWatch Out: Your Friends Might Be Sharing Your Number With ChatGPThttps://www.pcmag.com/news/watch-out-your-friends-might-be-sharing-your-number-with-chatgpt?test_uuid=04IpBmWGZleS0I0J3epvMrC&test_variant=ABitLocker, the FBI, and the Illusion of Controlhttps://cryptomator.org/blog/2026/02/15/bitlocker-fbi-and-the-illusion-of-control/Google patches first Chrome zero-day exploited in attacks this yearhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-patches-first-chrome-zero-day-exploited-in-attacks-this-year/the watchers: how openai, the US government, and persona built an identity surveillance machine that files reports on you to the fedshttps://vmfunc.re/blog/personaTL;DR: discord's KYC provider (persona) is very naked, very poorly secured federal intelligence outfit, and also a siphon for openai data for them and their partners like worldcoinThe most interesting part (for me) is that it legit crosschecks a discord ID check (actually involves checking your face, IP, device signature, etc....) against chainanlysis dossiers for any partial matches to devices/people/accounts/names involved with tracked crypto addresses.So, if chainalysis gets a device signature, and then you verify your discord on the same device (yielding the same signature), both FinCEN, Chainalysis, OpenAI, and basically everyone now knows your crypto tx your device sig your real identityBill Summary: SB26-051 – Age Attestation on Computing DevicesPurpose:SB26-051 requires operating system providers (such as mobile device platforms) to implement an age attestation system that signals a user's age bracket to apps in order to enhance protections for minors.What the Bill Requires1. Operating System Providers Must:Provide an accessible interface at account setup requiring the account holder to enter the user's birth date or age.Generate an “age signal” that communicates the user's age bracket (not exact age) to applications in a covered app store.Provide developers access to this age signal through a real-time API.Share only the minimum amount of information necessary to comply.Not share the age signal with third parties except as required by the bill.2. Application Developers Must:Request the age signal when the app is downloaded and launched.Treat the age signal as knowledge of the user's age range across all platforms and access points.If they have clear and convincing evidence that a user's age differs from the signal, they must rely on that updated information.Not request more information than necessary.Not share the age signal with third parties except as required by the bill.Enforcement & PenaltiesIf violated:Up to $2,500 per minor per negligent violationUp to $7,500 per minor per intentional violationEnforced through civil action by the Colorado Attorney GeneralIn Simple TermsThe bill creates a standardized age-verification signal built into device operating systems. Instead of each app independently collecting age data, the operating system provides an age bracket to apps — while limiting unnecessary data sharing.The goal is to:Strengthen protections for minorsLimit excessive data collectionCreate a consistent age-verification framework across apps

Tuwing may bonus, biglang feeling “one-day millionaire” — waldas dito, upgrade doon, tapos tipid mode ulit kinabukasan. Sa video na 'to, pag-uusapan natin paano iiwasan ang bonus burnout at kung paano gawing stepping stone ang extra pera para sa long-term goals mo imbes na panandaliang luho. Matututuhan mo ang simple pero realistic na paraan ng pag-divide ng bonus, paano mag-enjoy nang hindi nagsisisi, at paano gawing mas matibay ang financial future mo gamit ang tamang diskarte.

For episode 681 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Catherine Daly, CMO for Space and Time, a decentralized data warehouse designed to connect on-chain blockchain data with off-chain enterprise data to support AI, smart contracts, and Web3 applications.

Yesterday the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published a 376 page document outlining rulemaking proposals for the implementation of the GENIUS Act for stablecoins. The rulemaking expands on the GENIUS Act interest ban, including certain indirect interest payment pathways.~This episode is sponsored by BTCC~BTCC 10% Deposit Bonus! ➜ https://bit.ly/PBNBTCC00:00 Intro00:20 Sponsor: BTCC00:40 ASAP01:00 Odds Surge01:30 Pump coming?01:50 Jonathan Gould02:30 Cody all in03:15 Banks Clear Winner03:45 Metamask x Master Card04:00 Bullish for coinbase?05:00 What it means?06:40 Fight over?07:15 SBF should STFU08:00 Over reach08:50 De-banking proposal (anti-crypto)09:20 Mr.Beast: Finance for everyone11:30 Kalshi exposed13:15 KYC on BTC14:20 End of March15:00 Get Ready#crypto #bitcoin #ethereum~Stablecoin Yields BANNED Before CLARITY Act!!?

Altri clamorosi data breach espongono i dati personali e sensibili di centinaia di milioni di persone in tutto il mondo. Stavolta sono proprio alcune delle società incaricate di fare KYC ad essere le responsabili. Se le aziende e gli Stati non sono in grado di custodire i nostri dati, è lecito che ce li possano chiedere?Inoltre: l'AI arriva sul lightning network, Deblock integra bitcoin LN sulla sua app, e nonostante il bear market un nuovo report fotografa positivamente lo stato dell'adozione nel mondo.It's showtime!

For episode 680 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Jay Kurahashi-Sofue, CMO of Eco at ETHDenver.Eco is a blockchain-based, full-stack infrastructure protocol designed to unify stablecoin liquidity across different blockchains and make onchain payments, transfers, and app interactions as fast, cheap, and simple as possible. It is not a new stablecoin itself, but rather a "Stablecoin Economy" layer—often referred to as a "stablelayer"—that helps developers and users move, manage, and spend stablecoins (like USDC or USDT) across various chains without dealing with fragmented networks, manual bridging, or gas fees in native tokens. 

For episode 679 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe.OKX is an innovative cryptocurrency exchange with advanced financial services. They rely on blockchain technology to provide everything you need for wise trading and investment. 

Edoardo Ribichesu, CEO at Homepay, joins Harvey and Simon for a conversation around why he is building the next generation of financial infrastructure for real estate transactions in Europe (and potentially beyond).00:00 Introduction to HomePay and the Real Estate Sector02:47 Understanding HomePay's Financial Infrastructure06:05 The Process of Real Estate Transactions in Southern Europe11:50 Revenue Model and Future Services15:05 Expansion Plans and Market Opportunities21:06 KYC and AML Compliance in Real Estate Transactions25:29 Feedback from Private Beta Testing28:16 Strategic Market Expansion Plans30:25 Key Performance Indicators for Success40:57 Utilizing Investment for Growth

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Jake Hamilton, founder of Groundwire and Nockbox, to explore zero-knowledge proofs, Bitcoin identity systems, and the intersection of privacy-preserving cryptography with AI and blockchain technology. They discuss how ZK proofs could offer an alternative to invasive identity verification systems being rolled out by governments worldwide, the potential for continual learning AI models to shift the balance between centralized and open-source development, and why building secure, auditable computing infrastructure on platforms like Urbit matters more than ever as we face an explosion of AI agents and automated systems. Jake also explains Nockchain's approach to creating a global repository of cryptographically verified facts that can power trustless programmable systems, and how these technologies might converge to solve problems around supply chain security, personal data sovereignty, and resistance to censorship.Timestamps00:00 Introduction to Groundwire and Knockbox02:48 Understanding Zero-Knowledge Proofs06:04 Government Adoption of ZK Proofs08:55 The Future of Identity Verification11:52 AI and ZK Proofs: A New Era14:54 The Role of Urbit in Technology18:03 The Impact of COVID on Trust20:51 The Evolution of AI and Data Privacy23:47 The Future of AI Models26:54 The Need for Local AI Solutions29:51 Interoperability of Knockchain and BitcoinKey Insights1. Zero-Knowledge Proofs Enable Privacy-Preserving Verification: Jake explains that ZK proofs allow you to prove computational outcomes without revealing the underlying data. For example, you could prove you're over 18 without exposing your full identity or driver's license information. The proof demonstrates that a specific program ran through certain steps and reached a particular conclusion, and validating this proof is fast and compact. This technology has profound implications for age verification, identity systems, and protecting privacy while maintaining necessary compliance, potentially offering a middle path between surveillance states and complete anonymity.2. Government Adoption of Privacy Technology Remains Uncertain: There are three competing motivations driving government identity verification systems: genuine surveillance desires, bureaucratic efficiency seeking, and legitimate child protection concerns. Jake believes these groups can be separated, with some officials potentially supporting ZK-based solutions if positioned correctly. He notes the EU is exploring ZK identity verification, and UK officials have shown interest. The key is framing privacy-preserving technology as protection against "the swamp" rather than just abstract privacy benefits, which could resonate with certain political constituencies.3. The COVID Era Destroyed Institutional Trust at Unprecedented Scale: The conversation identifies COVID as potentially the largest institutional trust-burning event in human history, with numerous institutions simultaneously losing credibility with large portions of the population. This represents a dramatic shift from the boomer generation's default trust in authority figures and mainstream media. This collapse is compounded by the incoming AI revolution, creating a perfect storm where established bureaucracies cannot adapt quickly enough to manage rapidly evolving technology, leaving society in fundamentally unmanageable territory.4. Centralized AI Models Create Dangerous Dependencies: Both speakers acknowledge growing dependence on centralized AI services like Claude, with some users spending thousands monthly on tokens. This dependency creates vulnerability to price increases and service disruptions. Jake advocates for local AI deployment using models like DeepSeek R1, running on personal hardware to maintain control and privacy. The shift toward continuous learning models will fundamentally change the AI landscape, making personal data harvesting even more valuable and raising urgent questions about compensation and consent for training data contribution.5. High-Quality Training Data Is Becoming the Primary AI Bottleneck: Stewart argues that AI development is now limited more by high-quality training data than by compute power. The industry has exhausted easily accessible internet data and body-shop-style data labeling. Companies are now using specialized boutique services with techniques like head-mounted cameras for live-streaming world model training. This scarcity is subtly driving price increases across AI services and will fundamentally reshape the economics of AI development, with implications for who controls these increasingly powerful systems.6. Urbit Offers a Foundation for Trustworthy Computing: Jake positions Urbit as essential infrastructure for the AI age because its 30,000-line codebase (versus Unix's three million lines) can be understood by individual humans. Its deterministic, purely functional, and strictly typed design aims for eventual ossification—software that doesn't require constant security patches. This "tiny and diamond perfect" approach addresses the fundamental insecurity of systems requiring monthly vulnerability patches. In an era of AI agents and potential prompt injection attacks, having verifiable, comprehensible computing infrastructure becomes existentially important rather than merely desirable.7. Nockchain Creates a Global Repository of Provable Truth: Jake's vision for Nockchain combines ZK proofs with blockchain technology to create a globally available "truth repository" where verified facts can be programmatically accessed together. This enables smart contracts or programs gated on combinations of proven facts—such as temperature readings from secure devices, supply chain events, and payment confirmations. By using Nock's abstract, simple design optimized for ZK proof generation, the system can validate complex real-world conditions without exposing underlying data, creating infrastructure for coordinating action based on verifiable private information at global scale.

THORChain's Kenton and Denny have a conversation with Vik from Cake Wallet, one of the founding members of an AMAZING crypto wallet which were the OGs to add XMR support to a wallet that could be used within your phone. Cake Wallet has been growing extremely quickly and is setting the standard on great UX and exhibiting the ethos of no-KYC, permissionless and decentralization!

For episode 678 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Micky Watkins, Founder and CEO of World Mobile, a blockchain-enabled 5G network, has just crossed over 2 million users in its mission to connect everyone, everywhere, while returning control of data and connectivity to the people.Micky is a telecom entrepreneur challenging the monopoly of Big Wireless. He previously founded Yallo, one of the first internet-calling platforms, and over his career has raised millions from global backers including Deutsche Telekom and Carmel Ventures. Today, he leads World Mobile in building the world's first decentralized, community-owned mobile network, with a mission to connect everyone, everywhere, while returning control of data and value to the people. 

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicts an 80% chance the CLARITY Act will clear Congress by the end of April, marking a potential turning point for U.S. crypto regulation. ~This episode is sponsored by Tangem~Tangem ➜ https://bit.ly/TangemPBNUse Code: "PBN" for Additional Discounts!Guest: Miller Whitehouse-Levine - Founder & CEO of Solana Policy InstituteSolana Policy Institute website ➜ https://www.solanapolicyinstitute.org/00:00 Intro00:10 Sponsor: Tangem00:50 Bernie Moreno defends Stablecoin Yields03:10 CLARITY Act Odds skyrockets04:50 Will Trump publicly back stablecoin yields?05:50 Another bank vs crypto meeting07:00 Banks pretending to compromise?08:30 March 1st10:00 DeFi affected if banks win on banning yields?12:00 Synthetic tokens on solana forced to KYC?15:30 Will SEC target Pre-stocks?18:45 States attempt to ban prediction markets?20:15 What matters will pertain to Solana?22:30 Credit card routing24:40 LIGHTNING ROUND#Crypto #Solana #Ethereum~CLARITY Act Odds Skyrocket!

For episode 677 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Parth Kapadia, Co-founder and CEO of OpenVPP.OVPP is Building The Internet of Energy by Providing Regulated Digital Asset Rails for Power & Utility Providers. OpenVPP is led by Co-Founder & CEO, Parth Kapadia. Parth brings a wealth of experience from the electric utility industry, including roles at Exelon Corp and AutoGrid (acquired by Uplight, a Schneider Electric company), where he served as Director of Technical Product Management.

Fraud hasn't disappeared - it got smarter. Organized rings now aim upstream at SaaS platforms and ISVs that embed payments, where a single gap in onboarding, transaction logic, or refund flows can be scaled into thousands of attacks overnight. We sit down with Brian Rust, SVP and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer at Worldpay, to map the real fraud journey (entry, action, exit) and the concrete moves product and security leaders can make right now to protect merchants and brand trust.We start with the why: platforms offer leverage. Brian explains how bots and AI generate convincing synthetic businesses that pass weak KYC, and what early signals still break the spell - impossible form completion times, IP and address mismatches, and brand-new domains claiming long histories. From there, we dive into the middle of the kill chain: card testing. You'll hear how velocity spikes, elevated decline rates, and geo anomalies betray large-scale testing and how adaptive limits for new merchants can contain losses and prevent network penalties. Then we confront refund abuse, where attackers exploit trust by refunding to different instruments or flooding high-value returns. The fix isn't blanket friction - it's precision: refund-to-original-card only, refund velocity caps, and targeted reviews that slow bad actors while keeping good customers moving.Brian lays out the layers that matter now: device fingerprinting, behavioral analytics, and transaction monitoring that can halt suspect money movement before funds leave your orbit. He also makes the case for a fraud-cyber fusion model, aligning teams and intelligence using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK to anticipate tactics as cyber and financial motives blend. Finally, we close with three actions you can ship this quarter: audit onboarding with bot controls and threat modeling, enforce velocity controls that adapt as trust grows, and tap your processor's data and filters (AVS, CVV) to harden defaults.If you lead product, risk, or engineering for a payments-enabled platform, this conversation gives you a practical blueprint to raise attacker costs, protect your merchants, and guard your reputation. 

We were minutes away from shutting down our Matrix server when the Discord news hit. Now we're not just keeping it, we're doubling down. Can open source seize this moment?Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

Justin Moon leads the open source ai initiative at the Human Rights Foundation.Justin on Nostr: https://primal.net/justinmoonHuman Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/Easy Open Claw Deployment: https://clawi.ai/EPISODE: 191BLOCK: 936962PRICE: 1473 sats per dollar(00:01:35) Justin Moon and early show memories(00:03:52) OpenClaw(00:04:16) Agents change how we use computers(00:07:07) OpenClaws light bulb moment(00:09:25) Agents as UX glue for Freedom Tech(00:10:00) HRF AI work, self-hosting breakthrough, and running your own stack(00:12:50) AI simplifies hard Bitcoin UX: coin control, backups, photos(00:14:22) OpenClaw + OpenAI: does it matter?(00:16:01) AI leverage for builders: open protocols win(00:19:22) Positive feedback loop: agents and open protocols(00:20:14) Costs vs privacy: local models, token spend, and KYC walls(00:23:15) Local hardware economics and historical parallels(00:27:20) Will capability gaps narrow? Mobile and on-device futures(00:29:56) Cutting-edge vs private setups; data lock-in and training moats(00:31:53) Competition, regulation risks, and hidden capabilities(00:34:05) Chinas open models: incentives, biases, and global adoption(00:38:56) American and European open models; Big Tech dynamics(00:40:56) Apple, hardware positioning, and agent UX form factors(00:42:48) Googles advantage: data, integration, and vertical stack(00:44:32) Acceleration ahead: productivity leaps and societal shifts(00:45:21) Jobs, layoffs, and disruptive labor realignment(00:47:55) From global commons to gated neighborhoods: bots and slop(00:50:21) Nostr as local internet: webs of trust and bot filters(00:51:57) Cancel culture contagion and shrinking public square(00:54:59) Demographic decentralization and small-town resilience(00:55:00) Lean platforms: X/Twitter staffing as canary(00:56:59) Universal high income: incentives and realism(00:58:48) Prepare your household: seize tools, avoid flat feet(01:01:01) Marmot DMs over Nostr: agents need open messaging(01:03:11) Building Pika: encrypted chat and voice over Marmot(01:07:00) Generative UI and real-time media over Nostr(01:10:07) APIs, bans, and why open protocols become the convenient path(01:14:02) Future gates: Bitcoin paywalls, webs of trust, or dystopian KYC(01:17:19) Getting started: try OpenClaw safely and learn by play(01:22:14) Agents, Cashu, and Lightning UX: bots as channel managers(01:25:10) Federations run by machines? Enclaves and AI guardians(01:27:50) Maple, Vora, and bringing self-sovereign AI to mainstream(01:29:00) Security kudos and caveats; Coinbase and cold storage(01:30:02) Justins education plan and upcoming streamsmore info on the show: https://citadeldispatch.comlearn more about me: https://odell.xyz

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Lars van der Zande, founder and CEO/technical architect of Inkwell Finance, for what Lars describes as his first-ever podcast appearance. The conversation covers a wide range of blockchain infrastructure topics, including Lars's work with Sui and Solana blockchains, the innovative capabilities of Ika's programmatic wallets and blockchain of signatures, and how Inkwell Finance is building revenue-based financing solutions for on-chain entities—from AI agents to protocols. They explore the evolving landscape of crypto regulation, the merging of traditional finance with blockchain technology, the future of decentralized legal systems, and how the user experience barrier is being lowered through technologies that eliminate constant transaction signing. Lars also discusses Inkwell's embedded financing approach and their pre-seed fundraising round.Links mentioned:- Inkwell's website: inkwell.finance- Inkwell on Twitter: @__inkwell- Lars on Twitter: @LMVDZandeTimestamps00:00 Introduction to Inkwell Finance and Technical Architecture02:06 Understanding Sui and Solana: Blockchain Dynamics05:55 The Role of Ika in Inkwell Finance11:51 Leviathan: Revenue Generation and Financing in Crypto17:38 The Future of AI Agents and Programmatic Wallets23:23 Smart Contracts: Legal Implications and Future Directions25:06 The Future of Inqvil Finance25:42 Decentralization and Its Evolution27:32 The Merging of Traditional and Crypto Systems29:33 Global Financial Dynamics and Market Reactions31:48 The Collapse of Traditional Financial Systems32:46 Jurisdictional Shifts in the Crypto World33:59 Legal Systems and Blockchain Integration35:57 On-Chain Credit and Financial Opportunities39:29 The Role of AI in Finance41:30 Learning from Peer-to-Peer Lending History43:14 Disruption in Insurance and Risk Management44:54 On-Chain vs Off-Chain Data46:54 The Evolution of the Internet and Blockchain49:12 Future Subscription Models in BlockchainKey Insights1. Ika's Revolutionary Blockchain Signature Technology: Lars discovered Ika, a blockchain of signatures built on Sui that enables any blockchain transaction to be signed without revealing the underlying message. Using patented 2PC MPC technology, Ika splits key shares across validators and encrypts them in transit, performing complex cryptographic operations that allow smart contracts on Sui to generate signatures for transactions on any other blockchain. This eliminates the need to build separate smart contracts on each blockchain, fundamentally changing how cross-chain interactions work and opening possibilities for truly interoperable decentralized applications.2. Programmatic Wallets vs Traditional Wallets: Traditional wallets like MetaMask require manual user approval for every transaction through a front-end interface, but Ika's D-wallet introduces programmatic wallets with policy-based controls embedded in smart contracts. These wallets can execute transactions based on predetermined conditions checked against on-chain data like Oracle prices, without requiring individual user signatures. For example, a Bitcoin D-wallet can hold native Bitcoin without wrapping or bridging to a custodian, and smart contract policies determine when and how that Bitcoin can be transferred, creating unprecedented security and automation possibilities for decentralized finance.3. Inkwell's Revenue-Based Financing Model: Inkwell Finance is building Leviathan, a revenue-based financing platform for on-chain entities including protocols, AI agents, and individual traders with verifiable track records. Borrowers receive capital based on their on-chain performance metrics like sharp ratio and drawdown, with loan repayment automatically deducted from their revenue stream. The profit split structure allocates approximately 60% to borrowers, 30% to lenders, and 10% split between Inkwell and integrating platforms. This creates a sustainable lending model where flight risk is minimized through D-wallet policy controls that restrict how borrowed capital can be used.4. Wallet-as-a-Protocol and the Future of User Experience: The crypto industry is moving toward embedded wallet solutions that eliminate the friction of traditional wallet management, with Wallet-as-a-Protocol representing the next evolution beyond services like Privy and Dynamic. Unlike current embedded wallets that lock users into specific applications, Wallet-as-a-Protocol enables single sign-on across multiple applications while users maintain control of their keys. Combined with app-sponsored gas fees, this approach allows non-crypto-native users to interact with blockchain applications without knowing they're using crypto, removing the biggest barrier to mainstream adoption and creating web2-like user experiences on web3 infrastructure.5. AI Agents as Financial Entities: AI agents are emerging as revenue-generating entities with on-chain transaction histories that create verifiable track records for creditworthiness assessment. Inkwell Finance is specifically targeting this market, recognizing that AI agents will need wallets and capital to operate effectively. The programmatic nature of D-wallets pairs perfectly with AI agents, as policy controls can restrict agent behavior to specific smart contract interactions, preventing unauthorized fund transfers while allowing automated trading or revenue generation. This creates a new category of borrower that operates 24/7 with completely transparent performance metrics, fundamentally different from traditional loan recipients.6. Cross-Chain Liquidity Without Asset Transfer: Ika's technology enables users to take loans against revenue generated on one blockchain and deploy that capital on entirely different blockchains without moving their original liquidity positions. For instance, someone earning yield on Sui's Fusol protocol could borrow against that revenue stream and deploy capital on Solana opportunities, effectively creating multiple on-chain businesses that generate their own credit scores and revenue to service debt. This ability to read state across different blockchains from within smart contracts opens possibilities for multi-chain strategies that don't require withdrawing capital from productive positions, maximizing capital efficiency across the entire crypto ecosystem.7. The Convergence of Traditional Finance and Crypto Infrastructure: The regulatory landscape is rapidly evolving with initiatives like the Genius Act and Clarity Act creating frameworks where traditional financial systems merge with crypto infrastructure through mechanisms like stablecoins backed by US treasuries. Companies are increasingly establishing entities in the United States to access capital networks and Delaware's established legal framework while issuing tokens through jurisdictions like Switzerland. This hybrid approach, combined with emerging concepts like Gabriel Shapiro's "cybernetic agreements" that make smart contract parameters legally enforceable in traditional courts, suggests the future isn't pure decentralization but rather a sophisticated integration of on-chain and off-chain legal and financial systems.