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Olta Andoni

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening to another podcast from Owl Explains I'm very happy to have here with me today Donna Redel and Thibault Schrepel I'm trying my best friends here. My name is Olta Andoni I'm general council in chief compliance officer of enclave markets the very first fully encrypted exchange I would like to introduce you to our speakers professor Redel. Ah, first of all I'm honored to have an amazing woman on this podcast. She's a professor of blockchain digital assets angel investor and also she was the managing director of the world economic forum the foremost and was the first woman to chair a Usa exchange the commodity exchange. She's an active participant in the startup community in United States especially with New York angels serving as their board members Ms Radell is a very well-known professor in the digital industry and she has developed in his ah and is been teaching actually for. Many years now at Fordham low school and warhartime courses on blockchain digital assets especially considering the legal and business issues in our industry and also other defied smart contracts I also have here with me today. Professor Thibault Schrepel. He's and he's an associate professor at the v a ah university of amsterdam and he is also a faculty affiliate at Stanford University I have started following professor schpelle since ah, my very very. Early stages in the academic ah space here in United States because I do also lecture in antitrust law so who was the very first one where I was reading about ah especially the connection between Blockchain and antitrust. His very First. Ah, he's ah the very first book I think was published in September Twenty Twenty one we're going to talk a little bit more at the end of this podcast and ah it's called Blockchain and antitrust and I highly recommend for every one of you ah listeners to check that book out. So we do have a great topic a very great topic but also a little bit controversial the topic it what the topic is what is the missing link in blockchain education. Why do I say this is a little bit of ah ah. Contradictory topic or is causing a little bit of more debate among professors professors and professionals academic professionals because you have some professors out there that think that ah blockchain and cryptocurrency courses are not ah ah, very much needed. And but at the same time you see that a lot of universities worldwide they're beginning to offer this cryptocurrency related courses and I think that this is a rising demand. First of all from the majority of the companies that are also I think are driving the demand for this course is but again, what. Do do ah Professor Adele and Professor Schpell what do you think is the missing link in the blockchain education right now. Do you think the universities are doing enough. Do you agree with these other academics who think that probably is not much needed for students to be exposed to Blockchain. Education. So I think that this would be a great first starting question donna professor adell I'll start with you.

Donna Redel
So I might be I might answer that in a contrarian way. Um I think that the you know least the universities that I teach at have been fantastic in offering students a new subject I started teaching ah the first course of Blockchain um regulatory business issues at Fordham law school. 18 now you know and now we have two courses and there are two courses that I teach and yet there are other professors that are also weaving it into one way or another into their into their curriculum and this year we had a debate between the professor. Ah that runs corporate law department. And also is head is head of ah professor bankruptcy and myself about ah crypto regulation. So I think that there's more and more um availability of courses and more and more interest and knowledge of the students coming into the courses from the onset.

Olta Andoni
I Ah Professor Schrepel.

Thibault Schrepel
Um, well first of all, very happy to to be on this ah podcast with with you too. Um I will I will give a similar answer I suppose. Um I've been also teaching blockchain related classes in law school since two southern and 18 um, so. Personally this has been a great experience now I could give you more than one of the missing link as you as you call it? Um I think students love the subjects right? and they generally want to to pass the hype and understand what's behind the technology. What I was very surprised to to realize is that they are absolutely fine with technical explanations I'm not saying that we do the math but to to some degree I can spend 1 or 2 classes explaining technically how it works. What's the governance. Which is not something I've experienced when teaching antitrust that you mentioned in the introduction right? when you start teaching about econoometrics law students will complain and tell me you know I didn't go to law school to learn about econoometrics. But when it comes to blockchain somehow they want to learn about the technical aspect. So. That's the good part now. What I. What I see being potentially a problem is that there are some law schools that are not offering anything Blockchain related I can think of several low and tech program and nlms without any blockchain courses or even classes. I would say it's probably a problem in Hiring. It's hard to find the people with with the Expertise. It's also I would guess a problem in term of incentives right? which kind of incentive. Do you give to your professors for them to Advance. Um, but the beauty of the world in which we live is that we do have online tools. And I could see no reason why we couldn't aggregate professors teaching those you know classes and potentially put together a common pool of ah resources so long story short if you are a student and if you are interested in a subject. My guess is that? ah. Without even having to leave your continent. You could probably find good courses for you to follow, but it doesn't mean that you could do that within your University. So I Guess Ah so so answer to your question.

Olta Andoni
You so that? Yeah yeah, go ahead Donnna yeah.

Donna Redel
I yeah but what we just just do let me follow up on that if you if I can alter. Um I think that one of the ways in in which to get the courses um into the law schools or other schools is students that manifest their ability to get jobs thereafter. Um, and so we've been doing that so we've had you know Ah, we've had um internships at the block ah chain association. We've had ah you know students go to the top ti old law firms um, etc. And so instead of telling me how well they did which I'm very pleased to to know I always tell them write the dean. And tell the dean that these new courses. The courses that focus on tech and other things really created opportunities for them and then you see how those those any resistances are are you know, kind of removed um and the barriers to entry start going down. Yes I think you are right. In 1 of the things that you absolutely ah underscored um is the ability to find professors that can teach the subject. Um, especially since we know that there's so many of the lawyers in the area are really stretched for time. Um and such a dynamic area that's constantly changing. And it takes so much work just to keep up with the reading the less the ability that imparted to students and.

Olta Andoni
I I agree with both of you actually, but I do like the fact that ah professor schpell you mentioned that even if the students kind of lack those technical abilities. You know this courses are made to introduce them to the. Principal definitions and I think that majority of universities are doing great job. Ah as a academic I think that this is also very important. All these courses are also very important. Not only to introduce our students to the. Ah, Blockchain industry and to better understand the technical aspect of blockchain. But I think that with discourses or via this courses we can also do a better job to to kind of educate the policymakers. Ah, how would you recommend policymakers to get started understanding our our technology. Do you think that this courses are kind of ah paving the path for the policymakers as well. Professor shape I'll start with you. Okay.

Thibault Schrepel
Sure, um, well in the United States you have actually a good example of the Antitrust division which a few years ago sent some of their employees actually actually all of the employees just willing to to take classes ah in in a technical university I won't name names. But ah 1 1 of the of the best 1 in the world is to actually learn about the functioning of Blockchain and you know to some degree some people and Dona and I are are you know part of the crowd have spent years compiling everything or everything at least the most that we can indeed consume. In a way that is easy to to digest which is not what I'm sure we had the same experience we had to do right when we started and invested the space we had to find relevant sources all self and often what we could find was was you know in contradiction with the thing. We just read a couple minutes before but now luckily. You can actually take those classes rely on the information that some professors will give you and you know an example that I give often to my students is the one of a smartphone. No one in the entire world can design a smartphone from scratch and yet as lawyers. We do understand what's the implication of a smartphone and an app on privacy competition tax.

Olta Andoni
So that's great analogy. Yeah.

Thibault Schrepel
And so on and so forth and so the same is true actually for blockchain right? You do not need to be able to create your own public permissionless blockchain from scratch what you need to be able to do is to reach the technical understanding that is necessary for you as a lawyer to ask yourself the right question and to answer those questions so I would say. There maybe books published in university presses is also a good idea and once you have this little layer of knowledge experiments and it's not hard I know it sounds scary and if you go sometimes to Youtube they will show you. You know the hardest way on on how to do everything in a decentralized way. It's perfectly fine to start with a centralized exchange right? So that you can acquire your first cryptocurrency or an app on on the iphone for you to ac query the first and Nft and then maybe you move on to more decentralized solution. But it's important to do it for yourself. It's fun. It's not that hard. It's not that technical.

Olta Andoni
Correct.

Donna Redel
And yeah, if you think about just nut taking taking slightly um, ah, ah, different ah angle from that you know you have now universities as well as businesses seeing with how are they going to grapple with ai um and and you know to push it away and say.

Olta Andoni
I Ah professor them.

Donna Redel
You know it's it's it's too scary. It's going to take jobs ah or students might you know get papers from there doesn't really incorporate it because it's going to be part of like and so incorporating whether it's Ai or blockchain or digital assets into a curriculum gives students the ability to think ahead. Of where we're going and we see how technology is shifting so many different kinds of things for example, just take so that most people didn't understand they didn't understand how easy it was to create an online run on the bank and you saw that in Silicon Valley Bank so when when there are technologies. Lawyers and the business people need to extrapolate and say what are the what are the additional risks that come with this How do we do that risk management. How do we think about creating laws and other kinds of structures that can it can cannot swoosh the the the innovation but can. Put it forth in a different package that fits with society as we go forward? Um, because now everybody's mobile and these are technologies that enhance that and build upon it and.

Olta Andoni
Ah, so when both of you teach blockchain technology in this blockchain courses I'm sure that a good angle. Ah for for all the courses that you've been teaching is also to consider the legal challenges that you foresee in the blockchain space and blockchain industry. professor schpell as I mentioned you've been a big advocate especially when it comes to blockchain and interest for the regulators also and the way how they should approach blockchain and interest antitrust from ah and and especially from a more coppering angle. I think that you always mentioned that both blockchain and attachtrust not only seek to decentralize the economic opportunities but there are some challenges that I would like for you to to touch upon a little bit for for this podcast when it comes to ah antitrust and blockchain. And ah then I'll I have another question for Professor Adele

Thibault Schrepel
Of course. Ah I'm ah happy to do so ah, what I want to mention first is that you know as a lawyer. Um because I was trained in law school. My first intuition was to actually tackle problems or challenges as you call them. And that's why I've written papers. You know first explaining how you can use blockchain to abuse dominant position how you can use smart contract track to collude within the blockchain or in the so-called real space and so on and so forth and eventually I realized wait wait a minute I kind of think this is a good technology. I'm not saying it will necessarily produce good but it could be used to improve the common. Good. So let me write a book in which I explain that the way by which we tackle all of those challenges of course should be done and done properly but also in a way to as Donna mentioned you know maintain innovation and. Maintain the survival of the technology and maybe technology will disappear if it's not good enough but I don't want the law to actually decide whether or not the technologies should survive so that being said more than happy to answer your question I see a couple of ah of trends um, pretty much across the world and that. Touches upon anti-trust but marginally speaking the law of Blockchain. Whatever that means the first is um I think innovation the concept of innovation first or pro- innovation policy is in danger. Um the Uk just released.

Thibault Schrepel
A good white paper when it comes to ai and I am yet to see a policy guidelines coming from a government telling me well we want at you know the top priorities for us to maintain innovation in the space and then of course you address the challenges. So I would say overall the space is becoming more. Confrontational and you see that governments are less and less attracted to the id to create a good ecosystem for the blockchain and more to tackle the issues. That's one the second one I would say regulation is coming now at the technology itself a good example of that is the data act. Ah currently being discussed in the eu. That tells you article 30 that every smart contract has to have a kill switch function which is again a way of regulating the actual technology as opposed to regulating use cases and users which is something I will prefer and third and final. I think an issue we're going to see emerging real soon is the one of the complexity of the legal rules that are coming from all over the world right? Not a single day without a new regulation being announced or at least addressed in the media and at some point I wouldn't be surprised if those rules and standards. We'll start creating some sort of conflicting. Ah you know, dynamics and or to to contradict what the others are saying which will be extremely complicated to to navigate. So those are the 3 legal changes that I see emerging.

Olta Andoni
I. Ah, thank you professor schappell and Professor Adell ah here in United States we have been facing many legal challenges especially from a regulatory perspective when it comes to crypto industry and. Blockchain industry which I always like to sort of divide the two because I feel like we we tend to come mingle. Ah, all the time Blockchain and crypto. Ah what are some of the main legal challenges you foresee, especially for the rest of 2023 and I probably in. Shouldn't be applicable only to 2023 but what are some main challenges legal challenges that you foresee for our industry.

Donna Redel
And well I mean yeah, yeah, I'm wondering. He's preaching to the choir here I mean for all of the times that I've started a semester it starts with the same refra that we don't have a comprehensive regulatory framework in the United States for digital assets. Um, and that we talk about the bills that might arrive et cetera and in the end of the day what we spend most of the time talking about is 1 regulation by enforcement why regulation and by enforcement isn't necessarily helpful and some increasingly some of the very um hostile type of attitudes. That chair Gensler has taken um in and many of them being unreasonable um from from many perspectives and points of view. So I think that this theme is continuing I do think that in just as there have been more students that have graduated learning ah more about blockchain and digital assets. People on Capitol Hill and in the agencies have learned more over the last you know I'll say five years but it's been obviously longer than that and it is clear that they come to approaching legislation with a more sent not all of them but many of them with the more sensible and ah attitude. And one that's based on knowledge and not and not fear or or or or some kind of rumor about what is going on in in the whole digital asset space. So I think that's a ah long answer but I would I'm doubtful that in this year which has seen congress be very you know. Inactive in being able to pass even a debt ceiling bill that we will get though there are some very good senators and representatives that are pushing for some um overall comprehensive regulation I'm not sure that we're going to see what the industry was hoping for in terms of ah, an over and you know an overriding. Um, set of set of rules and regulations that they have input into um and as well was well organized and well thought out.

Olta Andoni
Ah, professor chapel. Do you see the same from european regulators and I'm glad that you mentioned article 30 from the data act because to me it shows that not only our industry is maturing but the same time we have better, especially regulators have a better understanding but. Even going back to article 30 you you remember that there were like so many other sort of feedback from companies that they were expecting for data act to be amended in order to apply to permission smart contract-based systems owned and operated by an enterprise I think this was sort of the main complaint at the time. But. Are you seeing sort of the same ah approach from the european regulators there or do you think with mica or or Mika now in place. Ah we are already walking on a a more established path especially in Europe.

Thibault Schrepel
Of yeah to some degree so you know what I've seen and the transformation is quite interesting to me is that when this book came out about the brussels effect by Annie Bradford this was something which was quite.

Olta Andoni
A regulatory path I meant yes I.

Thibault Schrepel
Shameful to to most of the members of the parliament in Europe right? So they were not proud of the fact to regulate first and some people started to say well. The United States will innovate and Europe will regulate I mean it's a bit too simplistic, but this was pretty much the idea what I've seen in recent months is that now they actually put videos of themselves members of the parliament when they pass a new regulation including Mika and you know to some degraded data act The Ai Act gma the dsa I mean everything is in act now and they actually say well we are the Brussels effects and we do it first because we know that we're going to force companies. And ecosystem to comply with our rules and it's extremely hard to design a business model that is compliant for europe and a different one for the United States so you know all in all, it. It is actually a way of regulating the entire world. So this is a desire and this is something that they do on purpose. Not all of them of course. But for that reason I'm I'm afraid that we have a different dynamics in Europe where you know being first is is actually what we want to achieve as opposed sometimes to the quality of what we do in term of regulation.

Olta Andoni
So well being first is always great but something that I hope to see especially I mean ah, um, a among in between our regulators is to see a lot of more global cooperation being you, you. You said that perfectly being first is is sort of the principle for european regulators but at the same time I think that we just cannot fully adopt those especially regulatory principles here in United States as they are already. So I think that hopefully. This is more of a corporation. Ah sort of mission between european regulators and United States regulators ah so going back since. Good.

Donna Redel
It alter. But it's not butalta. It's not only. It's not only in Europe and we've seen the benefits of regulation. Um in let's say Japan I mean they had their early days they had their early disasters but then they made a comprehensive way of approaching exchanges.

Olta Andoni
Jupa. Absolutely.

Donna Redel
And from my understanding the customers of ftx japan have already begun to be able to withdraw their assets because those assets came under the japanese regulatory regime and were quote protected in ways that um you know they they were you know, not in other countries. From the alleged problems that happened.

Thibault Schrepel
I mean.

Olta Andoni
I no I love seeing everything that's happening in in Japan. Yes, yes, go ahead Professor Schpe yeah

Thibault Schrepel
Yeah, just just to make it clear. You know I'm a professor of law and I don't want to give the impression that I'm anti-regulation by default and in fact, I've written a paper with Vitalic Butterin Precisely on the fact that you may be a crypto anarchist or you want code is the law. Maybe maybe not I would say this is the case. But code is insufficient that is a reality blockchain does not exist in a vacuum you may decentralize your ecosystem or you want you will still end of the day need to access digital infrastructures that are being governed by a centralized players and those players because of that may abuse their power against your blockchain project. So You do need good laws good regulations and I just wanted to make that very clear because I think we actually shared that in common with a donut.

Olta Andoni
Yep, Absolutely and I shared that with you as well. So We do not mean for this industry to be unregulated and I think that this is the biggest sort of difficulty or obstacle that we've been facing because majority still sort of defined this industry as. Not only being unregulated but being that wild west that we keep always referring to our industry as such going back to the education because I would love for the students who are listening to this podcast. Do you have any. Any advice for Them. How can they be a little bit more involved in the blockchain industry if they would like to learn and and especially what are some ah readings that you'd recommend or maybe some podcast for them to watch in order to start learning about blockchain industry.

Thibault Schrepel
Who should go first. But ah yeah.

Olta Andoni
Ah, Professor Rodell he covers.

Donna Redel
On reading. Well I think one of the things that they should do ah you know and I know a couple of our friends are updating their books. Um, but I do think they should start following some people on Twitter and they should look at some of the ah ah like lex underscore dow. Places in which there are lawyers that aggregate and congregate and discuss these issues. Um, but Twitter is a really good place to do it. There's lots of very good. You know they have to follow what the cases are um, the the high profile cases in the United States and other places if you are. Interested of course and going further than just a you know, kind of ah ah, superficial superficial understanding looking at what's going on in the eu and start to look at other countries is very helpful. Um in order to be able to understand the contrast. And the different ways that that ah regulators and industry are defining assets and trying to create regulation. Ah so there's just there's just as we all know so much reading that happens all the time. Um I do think there's certain people that like my course the students are supposed to read coindesk. Um, because it gives you a very good overview of what's happening they read ah Matt Levine who has a fantastic column on bloomberg. Um, and if they can you know the defiant which usually they can get free and they still be able to look at the block the block as well.

Olta Andoni
So professor sharppell. Yeah so super helpful. Thanks so much professor Adele professor sharppell any advice for students.

Donna Redel
Like just a kind of schmorga sport of things.

Thibault Schrepel
Sure, um, so I would say it depends on which resources you have access to um if you are a law student in the United States um you will get access to at least one of those mlex or law 3 60 and there. It's very easy for you to set up an alarm with some keywords if you do set up an alarm on the court decisions because this is most of what we have so far with you know the the keywords blockchain or cryptocurrencies. Well you get quite a quite a few cases but no more than you know one day I mean that's already plenty enough. But. You won't be overwhelmed that you could just you know screen with or not. It's in the field of law that interests you so that will be 1 way if you have access to those if you don't I'm actually and here I'm going to be shame shameless ah and and make some self-advertisement but try my best to make a lot of resources open source. Um, I do have a list on the network law review in which I have ah put together the books and articles that I think should be read if you want to invest the space from a legal perspective. Um I would say um, you could also do some. Ah, or follow some good newsletters. Um, if you do follow the network law review every month I put together the best articles in my in my view of course on the subject of Blockcha and Ai about you know 10 press or academy articles that I that I put together. Ah, but there are other newsletters that I think are fantastic.

Thibault Schrepel
Ah, decrypt I think is ah is a good website. There is one that I that I like very much is the T L D R Newsletter Um, they will send you a short email every day and here again aggregate a few links from all over the Press. So I would say start there. And don't be afraid you know there are lots of things that you could find open access and you don't necessarily have to to pay to get access to what is necessary for you to get started.

Donna Redel
I I want to just add ah 2 points to that if it can 1 um law students eyes get very tired but maybe they can listen to things when they're at the gym. There are tons of podcasts like a podcast we're doing now but there are tons of podcasts with really fantastic people. That are available and you know maybe in your show notes. Also you can put some but obviously Unchainedpt um, um, encrypted economy law um laws code I think it's called code of Law. Um and a bunch of other ones of of course the the bank list ones. Um, and and you know lots of different special ones along the way. But I think those are really helpful because you can listen to them and fantastic lawyers are on there and have been able to do that so I would say podcast as well. The other thing I would also caution people. Is to like in any know these are not law review articles and so often you just need to understand who your source is and understand whether or not they're really you know, quoable then and what kind of point of view. They come out ah from in order to be able to judge whether or not in fact.

Thibault Schrepel
Um, so.

Donna Redel
What they're saying is based on you know, um hype a little bit um or is but is grounded in reality. So I do think that's very important to.

Olta Andoni
I I Yes, go ahead.

Thibault Schrepel
Um, on can I yeah I'll be very brief but since you know get me started on podcast and then I go crazy. Ah, and I very much agree with the idea that you need to to be aware of what are the stakes in the game when people talk to you. But podcast that I like very much is the one of a 16 z now they do have twenty billion usd being invested out there. So of course they have an interest in you know, pushing the narrative I think it's a great podcast. Ah but you know that's good to be aware of of ah of what's there for them another one though that I will recommend um is. Acquired. It's a podcast not just about blockchain what they do is a very long episode of ah 3 to 5 hours so if you travel a lot That's the one for you and they will go through the history of a company or a project and read all the books ever published on the subject and summarize. Condense all that in those 3 to 5 hours they've done episodes about ethereum bitcoin and a few others and that's an absolutely fantastic resource for you to get started.

Olta Andoni
Absolutely and thank you so much something that I would like to add this are all amazing. Suggestion is is our ol podcast. We created this whole campaign just with intention to to sort of break ah break that gap when it comes. To to ah the understanding and to better navigate the world of web 3 we have created the tree of wisdom that I would highly recommend for all the listeners to go and check it out. Our tree of wisdom includes 5 principles first and the first one and the main one is to understand the technology and of course be aware of misconceptions and we talk about classifying tokens sensibly which is. A main principle or one of the main principles for the whole industry and of course the last one is think global I think these are all very very important principles. I highly recommend. Ah, the newsletter that Professor Shapell mentioned ah all the sources that professor adele mentioned there is so much out there for especially for the students listening to this podcast. You just need to have.

Olta Andoni
The passion and you just need to have the desire to learn more about the benefits of this technology and of course always being open-minded and trying to differentiate between Blockchain and crypto. I think it's also important to check all these new courses that ah universities are are offering right now which I think is a great opportunity, especially for for low students and also other colleges as well. Ah, professor Adele professor schbel this has been a real pleasure to have you on on this podcast I hope we're going to have more podcasts like this but I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge. And also everything advice related for for our students I hope to see you in another podcast. Thank you so much to our listeners for listening to this podcast.

Thibault Schrepel
Thank you very much.

Donna Redel
I Thank you very much bye-bye.