Money 2020 Middle East from Riyadh is brought to you by GFT Ethos DeFi, and Avrio.
Money 2020 Middle East is underway at the Riyadh exhibition and Convention Center.
It is the largest FinTech gathering ever held in the region.
Now the event is drawing over 45,000 participants with more than 450 FinTech brands, over 350 speakers, and more than 400 investors.
Now let's welcome FinTech TV's CEO and founder Vince Molinari, who can tell us more about Money 2020.
Good morning, Vince.
Well, Remi, amazing to be here and having this ability to cross borders boundaries, the other side of the world with our partners Money 2020 and of course New York Stock Exchange and Cheddar bringing content around the world that is so relevant that we really have this insatiable appetite to tell stories, to have them consumed, and a great privilege today to have acting chair of the CFTC, Caroline Pham joining us all the way from Saudi Arabia.
So I want to jump right into that.
Susan.
Chair Pham, so good to have you with us today.
CFTC moving and shaking from the US all the way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Thank you for joining us today.
Thank you, Vince.
It's so great to be back on the show.
Well, always our pleasure, and I know we have a short sprint here today.
That's my segue lead in.
I want to jump right in.
Tell us what you're implementing around the president's working group on digital assets.
You started off here in August with the crypto Sprint.
Share with us what's going on and what the agenda is, please.
I'd be so happy to, Vince.
Well, again, if you might remember the last time I was on the show, I was talking about how the administration was getting ready to unveil its crypto roadmap.
We've done that and now we're delivering on the promise to make America the crypto capital of the world.
That's.
Why I'm here in Riyadh, because here in the Middle East you have so many investors.
There are so many asset allocators that are here looking to deploy those assets, looking to deploy that capital, and you know what we are saying in this administration is that America is back.
We're back.
We are ready.
We have the regulatory clarity.
We want to welcome back innovators and entrepreneurs and investors to invest, hire, and build in America.
So key to that, of course, is having regulatory clarity for digital asset market structure.
That's why I've been so pleased to partner with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, who I've known for 15 years, and we're delivering on this promise with the SEC's Project Crypto and with the CFTC's Crypto Sprint.
The turf war is over.
You heard it here, and with the CFTC's crypto Sprint, we first announced that we were doing a consultation on listed spot.
Crypto that's to be traded on exchanges and then just recently the SEC and the CFTC Chairman Atkinson and I released a joint statement signaling that we're going to be working closely together.
We're looking together at having a collaborative environment where we are.
Partners and we're going to be hosting an upcoming roundtable on September 29th on regulatory harmonization.
So it is truly a new day here in the United States.
It's a new day for the SEC and the CFTC.
So what we think is so important in order to implement the directive in the crypto report that.
So Bring crypto inside existing regulatory perimeter onto our registered futures exchanges onto our registered securities exchanges because they have been proven for almost 100 years to be unparalleled in the depth of liquidity, market efficiency, and investor protection.
What better place to start trading crypto in the United States at the federal level?
Well, absolutely wonderful, Chair.
I have to just expand on a couple of things.
I love starting out with the title of the Crypto Sprint, right?
It is our time as the United States to close that gap where we've been lagging or preventing, and what better way to do that than start out sprinting.
And I have a huge shout out to you.
The CFTC, of course, Chair Atkins and the SEC for this embracing collaboration, really that desperate need that market practitioners have been asking for both on TADFI and DFI for regulatory clarity, and I think that regulatory clarity that you're spearheading is really Going to open the floodgates, if you will, for the innovation, the activation, and everything that should be happening and should have been happening here in the United States as you continue to advance the United States to the crypto capital of the world.
So thank you and the CFTC and the entire teams for moving this sprint forward.
Yes, and that's why we're moving into, right?
So not only are we saying that America is back and we're welcoming everybody to come here to invest, hire, and build, but there are US firms that had to go offshore because there was just no clarity here in the United States.
As a matter of fact, it was regulation by enforcement.
It was lawfare, and so we want those US firms to come back home.
That's one of the things that's so important about why I've issued an advisory to recognize our existing framework for non-US exchanges since the 1990s.
We call those foreign ports of trade, and it's a way for them to be recognized for being highly regulated home countries, but at the same time having a safe pathway to register with the CFTC and have access to US market participants.
I always think it's much faster to start with what you've got than to try to do something completely new and so that's why we started with this tried and shrewd framework from the 1990s for those non-US exchanges so that US firms that want to come home can Come home now.
Not only that, but I've been trying to ensure that we follow a regime of mutual recognition, passporting, and substituted compliance, which is the other reason why it's so important for me to be carrying this message outside of Washington DC and New York City.
And so here I'm wanting to find a way to potentially explore, looking at other jurisdictions that have implemented crypto asset specific regulations, for example, the EU's MIA.
Is there a way for the FCC to recognize that robust regulation which has got strict requirements around market market conduct, custody, segregation of assets, conflicts of interest.
Recognize that and give them a package for registration in.
I think that speed is of the essence because it's.
We're 6 years behind the rest of the world, so we can't even wait 6 months.
Well, Chair Pham, huge kudos to you again.
The messaging here, the US is open for business.
Come back home, build, let's lead global collaboration.
I absolutely applaud the connectivity to global regulatory frameworks together, modernization of regulation.
You're covering it all.
I appreciate the road trips you do to bring this message around the world.
Thank you again for coming on today and look forward to having you back in studio here in New York.
Thank you.
