A 360 View of Crypto Tax Policy with Sulolit “Raj” Mukherjee, CEO of Bodin Advisory

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Welcome to The Get Down.

Ola and welcome to the Get Down Beyond Bitcoin podcast.

I'm Richie P.

In this segment of all things butterscotch with CEO and managing editor of Butterscotch Media, Cleve Messador, we'll share some updates, and then later in the episode, I'll have a convo with Raj Mukherjee.

He is the founder and CEO of Bowden Advisory and former head of the IRS Office of Digital Assets.

We'll focus on the exciting 360 view of crypto tax policy.

So now, let's get into all things butterscotch with Clev Messador.

Hi, Clev, how are you?

Hey there, how are you?

I'm so disappointed that I don't get to interview Raj.

He's one of my favorite people, but I'm excited to hear your conversation.

A loss for you, but a win for me, because I get to have that conversation.

So, can you discuss your friendship and working relationship that you've had over the years with Raj?

Oh my God.

Raj is one of the oldest people I know in crypto.

You know, I know you'll get into it, but, you know, he, he previously worked with Consensus, Coinbase.

Finance US and then went to government, so Raj has been around and obviously I started working in the policy space in 2018 and and connected with Kristen Smith with the Block Chain Association.

Well, all of Raj's crypto companies were Blockchain Association member companies, so I would say I've been interacting and engaging with him probably since 2020.

And so, you know, he is just smart.

He's one of the few experts on.

Global tax policy when it comes to Web 3 and DeFI, but his 360 view of tax policy when it comes to having an understanding of traditional finance and also, you know, DFI is just mind blowing.

And so, you know, our friendship formed, you know, in terms of our interests in restaurants and travel and Yeah, so he tends to be my conference buddy where we tag team quite a bit, you know, he's, he's amazing and I'm excited that our audience will actually get to hear about the amazing work he continues to lead, right?

And it's going to be fantastic for you guys to tune in because he is a self-proclaimed tax nerd and like Clev says, with his vast experience on both sides, he has a very unique perspective.

So it's the end of Financial Education Month.

Why is that important from a crypto perspective?

Yeah, so many in the audience may not know April is what's been in the past called Financial Literacy Month and has been updated for Financial Education Month.

And you know, financial education is so important.

We've seen young people.

In high schools fight to have a financial education class be required to graduate from high school.

We've seen, you know, with the with the conversation around the passing of the stablecoin law and the many people we need to educate about stablecoins.

We need to educate small businesses, executives, bankers.

We need to entrepreneurs.

Startup founders, so there used to be this thing that financial literacy was something where there's a segment of working class people that need financial education, but let's be honest, most wealthy people, they have a welfare advisor that takes care of that stuff for them, and they couldn't pass a financial education test.

And you know, the data shows that financial illiteracy costs Americans upwards of 10,000 plus each year.

So in this age of digital finance, when we've had so much advancements in fintech and digital finance, when it comes to cryptocurrencies are just, just getting into the financial system.

You know, Financial Education month is particularly important for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.

We have to make sure we have to prioritize financial education.

We need government to invest in it, and we have to do more to talk about how we ensure people. where I first learned about Bitcoin in 2013, as I've shared with the audience, but I went down the rabbit hole in 2015.

But no, there was no FOMO.

No one cared.

I had to find the other people, find my tribe who actually cared, and so.

Now I would hate to be a person who's actually trying to learn about the crypto space in the space of FOMO, in the space of miseducation.

So Financial Education Month has been, you know, we're closing it out, but you know I'm trying to really make sure that we do as many crypto events there.

Which we did a few this year, you know, during this month as possible so that we can even our segment on trust media was an opportunity to talk about, you know, to talk to founders who are focused on digital finance and making sure they're sharing content for unique. and appreciated your voice and contributions to that conversation.

So we're closing out Financial Education Month, which is April, but next April we'll have a lot more fun things planned.

Exciting.

And you know you're all around as usual.

What were you doing in Dallas recently?

Yeah, a few weeks ago I was in Dallas talking to a small business group.

It's called the DFW Business Council.

So it's a, it's a business organization representing a lot of suppliers, a lot of SMEs, a lot of small businesses that are trying to figure out how do they innovate, right?

How do they prepare themselves for the global innovation.

Future, but also the digital economy.

So it was a thrill to actually you know be the featured speaker for their, you know, quarterly luncheon.

There were a few 100 business leaders there.

We talked about enterprise blockchain, you know, people.

I work in the crypto native space and we believe in public blockchains.

Open source is very critical to this space, but we know companies, you know, private companies like Johnson and Johnson that are already in this space, even folks like FedEx that has recently joined Hadera's council, are looking at supply chain and value chain management that has to have some level of privacy to the blockchain.

And even when you look at identity verification.

You know you need some of that, so we talked specifically around the opportunities for private enterprises that need that level of privacy, and I shared that there's already so much going on there.

So you know, I really look forward to those opportunities to.

Talk to the institutions, the stakeholders, the constituents that are really going to commercialize the future of digital assets, the future of blockchain technology, and you know, make this thing real.

So it was a fun conversation.

Fantastic.

Speaking of all the things that you do and Butterscotch does, Butterscotch Media is growing and specifically talking about the amazing newsletter that you do.

Let's, let's talk about that.

How, how is it going with the, the, the Choos tip sheet?

Yeah, so, you know, the podcast is very popular.

Thank you again for being our host and our live events are great.

And but you know, the tip sheet, most people don't know, I actually started this weekly newsletter back in January 2018, and it has evolved over the years, and the audience for it has grown.

And then when we launched Butterscotch Media two years ago, folded that audience in here, so as the audience knows.

Reach, you know, over 10,000 and that number continues to grow and as our audience grows their needs, one of the beauties of niche media is you can, you know, you can really meet the needs of a small segment, but that also that also says they can talk back.

So while we've seen our subscriber base grow, we've seen.

You know, you know, responses, oh my God, this is a great issue.

Can you, can you tell me more about this?

You know, we've even had, as I've shared, a huge segment of our of our subscriber base is Capitol Hill staffers and Staff and regulatory agencies and some of them have reached out about specific issues and say, hey, do you have more information on this so it's become, you know, a trust media mechanism but you know, as the audience knows, you know, we're a small team, we don't have a lot of capacity, but you know the growth has been.

Encourage and welcome, you know, we, I do think that this is an opportunity that when we share information we're thrilled to see that people are talking back and that it is interactive and that, you know, our subscribers are getting value.

Right.

I was just at, uh, maybe last month I was at a networking and color event and met a gentleman, and I told him all about it.

He's like, I'm gonna subscribe.

Immediately when I told him about it, I was like, if you want to be in the know, subscribe to Choose.

Every Monday at 7:30 a.m., I don't know how old the audience is, but when I was growing up, there used to be a Dunkin' Donuts commercial where this guy wakes up at like 5 a.m. and he gets out of bed.

He's like, time to make the donuts, and he was essentially the guy who makes the donuts.

And so my God, I feel like that because every week I'm just like, wait, is it time to make the donuts again, you know, so the newsletter is intense, y'all.

It's a lot of work.

People think, you know, that it's just pulling some articles together, pulling some links together.

No.

So, oh my God, oh my God, I don't know what day it is now now that I think about it, but after, after this episode, I'm going to start having anxiety about, oh my God, time to make the donuts, time to make the donuts.

But I love it, but it's a lot of work.

Well, thank you for for doing that, Cleve, and, and thank you, Cleve, for everything that you do, and I look forward to our next discussion of all things butterscotch.

So let's welcome our butterscotch king, Raj McKerche.

He is a strategic leader with 18+ years of experience in public and private sectors, including as co-author of the US Treasury's digital asset Broker regulations and former head of the IRS Office of Digital Assets.

He brings bold insight, real-world experience, and deep regulatory expertise to support innovators at the intersection of finance, tax, and policy.

Raj is a member of the Forbes Business Council, a policy expert to Cambridge Digital Innovation for regulation, an ambassador at the Global Business Blockchain Council, and has been recognized by Forbes as the Asian-American crypto leader to watch and Butterscotch Media as defy a web 3 change maker to watch.

Thank you so much for joining us, Raj.

Cleve wanted to be the one to interview, but scheduling conflicts worked out in my favor.

So I'm excited to dive in, but before we explore your extensive crypto footprint, can you tell us about your journey into crypto?

What drew you to the space?

Yeah, thank you, Richie.

It's a pleasure being here and it's always wonderful to speak to you and thanks for the invite.

So to answer your question, honestly, it was not a straight line.

The entry point really was the regulatory work I did in my career in Trad F.

I grew up in the Big Four like a lot of other people, then spent time in investment banks in New York.

But midway through my career, digital assets kept surfacing as this persistent edge case that the existing frameworks simply were not built to handle.

So at first it felt like a technical nuisance to be.

Honest, but over time, it became clear that it was something much more structurally significant.

What drew me deeper was this genuine intellectual challenge of it.

This was not a situation where one could pull an existing playbook off the shelf, the questions being asked about identity, about intermediaries, about what a transaction even is in a trustless system. were foundational questions about how financial regulation works and what assumptions it rests on.

That kind of problem does not come along very often.

And then by the time I was deep in the crypto space, both in the private sector and later at the US Treasury, it was pretty clear that the people who would shape the space well were the ones who understood both technology and regulatory architecture and financial instruments, not just one or the other.

So there are not that many of those people and the gap felt like both a problem worth solving and an opportunity worth pursuing.

The last thing I would say is an important one, which is, I also saw blockchain and crypto as a novel and different idea to democratize finance.

It's a pathway for financial inclusion for those who have been left behind by the big banks.

So all of this put together is what essentially brought me to crypto.

I love that.

I love that you were honest, that you, you mentioned that you thought it was a nuisance, right?

I think a lot of people felt that way as well.

Um, so, to summarize, you are an attorney and tax policy expert who has been a senior executive at the biggest crypto companies.

I mean, your, your, you know, resume, your CV is extensive, Coinbase, Binance US, Consensus, that's quite an accomplishment.

Are there any key moments that stand out to you?

Sure, I mean, I think the chance I took to leave a really comfortable job at JPMorgan in New York and moved to San Francisco in 2018 on my own to work for Coinbase was a pivotal moment.

I had been to San Francisco before, but I'd lived in New York for 9 years at that time.

I considered myself a New Yorker, and really for a long time, I felt there was nothing outside of New York as most New Yorkers do, but to move to a brand new city, to go from traditional finance into a completely startup environment.

It was a really pivotal moment in my career.

Along with that being part of the IPO journey at Coinbase and the work we all put in for about 11 to 12 months nonstop, and then the resounding success at the end of the day of the Coinbase IPO was also another pivotal moment.

And then I know we're going to talk more about it, but The opportunity to join the Treasury Department and co-author these digital asset broker regs and bring much-needed clarity to cryptotaxation after years of confusion amongst users and the demand from industry also stands up.

Right?

So, you must like adventure because then you took, like you mentioned, the expertise to the US Department of Treasury to run the first IRS Office of Digital Assets to write the rules.

What was that experience like?

It must be said that such an opportunity to help define a regulatory roadmap for a new asset class is at best rare.

So when it came up as a lawyer and a practitioner, it was like Christmas morning to me, honestly.

I learned a lot during my tenure at the Treasury Department.

You know, the Treasury Department and the IRS have incredibly smart, talented, and dedicated public servants who, frankly, do not get the credit for the hard work they do tackling a whole array of issues.

So working together with them, co-authoring the 60 to 45 broker reporting rules, and being directly involved in the rulemaking process gave me a front row seat to how policies really translated into real durable obligations.

It was a unique experience for me to help shape these regulations that carry long term implications for Americans, US institutions, and the broader financial system within the crypto ecosystem.

Right.

So, as you mentioned, you co-authored the US Treasury's digital asset Broker regulations.

You essentially put in the framework for a lot of the tax policy work that's being debated today.

So, how have things evolved?

So it's been a fascinating few years to watch, to be honest.

When we were working through the rulemaking at Treasury, the core challenge was fitting a genuinely novel asset class into a reporting infrastructure that was really built for traditional financial assets, right?

So since Section 6045.

5 of the Internal Revenue Code was written for brokers in a world of custodied centralized intermediaries.

The question we kept running into was like, how do you transpose that obligation into an ecosystem that was specifically designed to reduce reliance on intermediaries?

So the final regulations reflected a lot of that heart of that thinking on that question.

The centralized exchanges were the tractable part, I would say.

DFI and self custody were where the real conceptual fault lines were, and frankly those fault lines have only deepened since.

What has evolved is the political economy around all of this, the congressional scrutiny, the industry pushback, the DFI broker rules being vacated.

These are not just lobbying outcomes, right?

They reflect a genuine and unresolved tension between disclosure norms that serve tax compliance and privacy interests that are foundational to how these protocols operate.

What has also not evolved enough in this, I feel, is the international coordination piece.

So the OECD is crypto asset Reporting framework that has, I think, about 45 1st adopted adopted countries and another 40 to come next year.

That framework is doing some good work on cross-border reporting side, and the US is still not. formally to align with it.

So that gap matters, right?

Because sophisticated actors will always find the seam between the overlapping but non-harmonized regimes and essentially create regulatory arbitrage.

Right.

That's crazy.

The, the amount of experience you have because of your nonlinear career path is amazing.

Thank you so much.

And I realize your, your, your purview was not consumer tax policy, but do you have any thoughts on the new reporting requirements for exchanges which have caused some confusion?

Yeah, it's a fair question, and you're right, the confusion is real and predictable, to be honest, given how the rollout has folded.

So the reporting requirements on the broker regs, the infamous Form 1099 DA framework, it represents the first serious attempt to bring digital asset transactions into the same cost bases and gross process reporting infrastructure that applies to traditional financial assets.

In principle, I think that that is the right direction because taxpayers are used to getting a year-end form from their brokers or banks and whatnot, and then they use that.

Either with their CPA and then they know a copy of that goes to the IRS, so it's a familiar territory for US taxpayers.

So taxpayers should not have to navigate their digital asset tax obligations without the same type of information that exists for standard brokerage accounts.

The confusion though stems from a few things.

First, I think the regulations were finalized.

In a compressed timeline, and the transition relief notices came in waves which created genuine uncertainty about what exchanges were actually required to do and when firms were building compliance systems against a moving target.

Second, I think there's a deeper conceptual problem that the form itself surfaces.

Cost bases for digital assets are genuinely more complicated than for equities.

Wallet by wallet versus universal tracking, the treatment of transfers between self-hosted wallets, the question of what counts as a covered security, these are not easy issues to deal with, and they are substantive method-related questions that the regulations resolved in ways that not everybody agrees with and that many retail holders do not yet understand.

So I guess the charitable read is that this is the first generational implementation of a genuinely difficult reporting problem, and the transition period exists precisely to work through those rough edges.

The less charitable read is that the guidance has not really kept pace with the complexity it created, but both things can be true at the same time.

Well, thank you for giving us the, the different perspectives and, and for sure keeping it real.

From big crypto to government, you are now running your own shop.

What challenges are you taking on at Bowden Advisory?

So the through line across all of these roles has really been the same problem, right?

The rules were not written for this technology, and the people writing the rules and the people building the technology are often not in the same room.

So when I started my own practice, I, I wanted to sort of close that gap.

So I, I would say that the work that I do falls into a few buckets.

So there's the compliance architecture side, which is helping financial institutions and digital asset firms think through how things like travel rule obligations, AML program requirements, and tax reporting frameworks actually interact in practice, not just in theory.

Those 3 regimes were built in silos, and the firms and people that are are operationalizing them are also doing that in silos, which creates real risk.

There's a policy engagement side which is a lot of regulatory comment process moves really fast.

The submissions that actually move the needle are the ones that come in with technical depth and constructive framing, not just the opposition.

So that's something that benefits from having been on both sides of the table to understand how that works.

And then I would say the hardest challenge, honestly, is also the most interesting one, which is the international piece that I mentioned.

So FATF guidance, CA, MICA, transfer fund regulation, US domestic rulemaking, these frameworks were all developed on parallel tracks, and they do not map. onto each other.

So anyone operating across jurisdictions cannot just stack compliance programs.

It needs a unified architecture.

So building that architecture, helping regulators understand why harmonization matters is the core of what I've been focusing on.

Fantastic.

I'm sure that anyone that goes to you is in really great hands.

So, you are a thought leader and regularly publish on pressing policy topics.

Are there any research efforts on the horizon for you?

Yeah, look, I mean, for me, publishing thought leadership artifacts is really an extension of the advisory work I do, and I enjoy that part.

It's a, it's how one stress tests arguments and puts ideas into the broader policy conversation.

So I've been working on a few things recently that sort of reflect where the debate is heading both within the United States and abroad.

So I wrote a deep dive for tax notes that came out about a week and a half ago on the structural gaps in the digital asset tax policy, like basis tracking.

Evaluation methodologies and policy questions that the 6045 regs left open and the Congress has not resolved.

I will say it's a fairly technical piece, but those details matter for how firms actually build compliance systems.

Uh, I am a tax nerd after all.

Um, I also co-authored an op ed for a Global magazine on something that's really.

Right now, but not a lot of people fully understand it.

That is prediction markets, and that'll be published at the end of this month.

Prediction markets, as you may know, has moved into mainstream very quickly, and the regulatory treatment has not kept pace.

On the research side, I'm also collaborating with a think tank abroad on the question of embedded compliance.

So, Essentially how taxation logic can be built directly into blockchain infrastructure rather than layered on top after the fact.

So this is a genuinely growing area of interest for governments that are looking to modernize both their compliance architecture and their revenue gathering process, and the technology is finally at a point where that conversation can be a practical action rather than just theoretical.

Wow, that's fascinating and I can't wait to read your paper on prediction markets.

Yes, it's definitely hot topic right now in the circles that I belong to.

So, I have to ask you about the global compliance circle that you are a part of.

You recently hosted a briefing in DC back in January.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that work?

Sure, Compliance Circle is a practitioner-led network, the idea being that people closest to these implementation challenges are often the ones least represented in the rooms where the policies get made.

So the ambassador role is really about bridging that gap and bringing practitioners into conversations earlier and more substantively than the traditional comment letter process allows.

So the January briefing in Washington was a good example of what it looked like in practice.

We brought together Hill staff, compliance and policy professionals, and regulatory practitioners to discuss through some of the live questions in the digital asset space.

What makes this is uh unique to me is sort of the format.

It's not like a conference panel or a lobbying session.

It's more structured, a substantive exchange where people can be candid about where the frameworks are.

It's usually under Chatham House rules.

And so they can be more open about what's working and what's breaking down, uh, and, and, and the sort of direct engagement. produces, I think, better policy than some of the other mechanisms I've seen.

Um, actually, some of the thought leadership pieces I mentioned earlier grew out directly from these conversations.

Uh, when practitioners, as you can appreciate, are in the room flagging the same sort of structural ambiguity from different angles, um, that's a signal that something needs to be written down and put into public record.

That sounds wonderful.

Like, it's, it's building a community in a sense, and like you said, it's a safe space where they can really Really see where all the connections lie.

So Cleve tells me that you are a world traveler.

In fact, you just came off a world tour where you spoke at several global conferences.

Where did you go and what was your message?

Yeah, Cleve's not wrong.

It's been a bit of a crazy busy travel season.

So I think if I can remember it all correctly, I think I went to, I went to Singapore, Mumbai, Tokyo, and Sydney, and the conferences spanned.

The range from practitioner focused compliance gatherings to more formal policy forums.

So I think what I generally found that the message was pretty consistent across all of them, which I think says something by itself.

I think the core argument is that these international frameworks that I mentioned, the FATF travel rule, the CARV, etc. they are serious, well constructed efforts.

But the reality is that they were developed on parallel tracks by bodies with different mandates, and the friction points are where the compliance programs break down in practice.

So what I find when speaking to audiences in different jurisdictions is that everyone is experiencing a version of the same problem.

From a different angle.

So for example, like a firm in Singapore is navigating FAA alignment while watching the US rulemaking move in a different direction, right?

A European cast is building towards some decade reporting.

Well, the US counterparts are still working through the Form 1099 DA requirements.

These are not separate problems.

They're the same problem wearing like different clothing, right?

So they ask wherever I went was for more deliberate coordination at the intergovernmental level before these frameworks are put together.

The window for harmonization is open, but it will not stay open indefinitely.

And I think the industry needs more coordination between governments that can think more globally because crypto by nature is peer to peer and it's cross jurisdiction.

Right.

Very, very good point.

So I have to ask you about your 2026 crypto policy outlook.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, look, I mean this is a very consequential year.

I think it's one of the most consequential since the post-FTX regulatory acceleration of 2022 and 2020203.

On the legislative side, obviously the Genius Act is the one to watch.

The stablecoins are becoming the payment infrastructure globally, and how Congress resolves the issuer requirements, reserve standards, regulatory jurisdictions, etc. will have downstream effects on.

AML tax, consumer protection framework, you know, you name it.

This is uh one of those moments where like one piece of legislation really touches every compliance there at once.

The other one, obviously, that everybody has talked about is the Clarity Act, uh, which is the other major piece, right?

It takes direct aim at foundational market structure questions after years of, of jurisdictional friction between the SEC and CFTC.

Uh, we'll see where that goes.

Uh, I think.

There's a long way for clarity to be clear on the tax side.

I think the unfinished business from 6045 broker reporting regs is still very much alive.

The D5 broker rule being vacated, created a gap, and really there has been no congressional movement to address that.

Implementation is moving forward in the OECD member jurisdictions.

The US still does not have a formal position on whether they want to join CARF.

This is a structural problem and it becomes.

More visible as reporting obligations start because many of the companies are global.

If you look at the biggest exchanges, they're all global, right?

Crypto.com, Binance, Finbase, and they need to build at the moment, completely dissected and disparate compliance programs for these different regulations, which are really, really expensive.

And then finally, I think the annual picture is also shifting, right?

The FinCE's proposed rulemaking on Convertible merchant currency, broader question of how the Bank Secrecy Act applies to D5 protocols.

These are not, not resolved.

So I think the through line for 2026 is that it's a, it's a time of regulatory ambiguity as the business strategy is closing.

So frameworks are hardening, firms and jurisdictions that have invested early in compliance architecture will have an advantage.

And then, you know, those who are waiting to see.

You know, what comes off of it are going to find the catch-up costs to be quite significant, I feel.

This is amazing that we're getting this insight from you, a self-proclaimed tax nerd, and that you're out there in the world, you know, talking to the people, getting that data so that you can implement and you can, you know, write these papers and, and, and close that gap.

So, any last thoughts before we wrap up with a few closing questions?

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I think there's a bunch of things that are coming up that I'm, I'm speaking.

So next month, I'm actually going to be speaking on the US tax reporting framework at consensus in Miami.

There's a panel there that I'm, I'm participating in.

Immediately following that, I'm going to Bermuda.

As, as you may know, Bermuda has been at the forefront of the Caribbean in terms of digital asset framework, and they just announced their whole digital, um, digital governance project.

So the Bermuda Digital Forum is in May, so I'm doing that.

And, um, I'm also speaking at Point0 Forum, which is in Zurich, uh, in June.

Uh, which is sort of the premier European conference outside of, of Davos that happens in Switzerland.

And then in the middle of all of that, I'm actually moving to Madrid, Spain.

So good luck to me.

Good luck to.

Well, you have something happening every month all around the world and then you're doing a global move.

That's crazy.

OK, so let's get into a, a fun question.

Could you tell us a fun fact that maybe people don't know about you?

Right.

Besides, I guess moving to Spain.

Yeah, well, that's a fun fact.

Uh, you know, the one that always gets people is, uh, before I went to law school, I used to be quite artistic, right?

And I was musically inclined.

So I actually grew up classically trained, like vocally to sing.

And then when I was in college, Um, I actually sang in a gospel choir for 3 years, so that is a fact that most people find kind of shocking or strange because I don't really, I don't really sing anymore.

I think the last time I sang was at my sister's wedding, but, um, but yeah, so I used to do that quite frequently growing up.

And then, yeah, the gospel choir was a fascinating.

Experience because, you know, I spent my childhood, this is the other thing people most people don't know about me.

I spent my childhood in Europe, in the UK, and then I moved to the United States when I was in my early teenage years.

So I always felt that, you know, gospel music was something just as a musical style that was, that was very interesting to me, but obviously I didn't really understand or really recognize.

Before I moved to the United States, sort of the historical and the cultural kind of power behind it.

So being part of a diverse gospel choir in college was an incredible experience.

Raj, that's amazing.

I hope that there's videos somewhere out there of your gospel choir days.

Please share that.

That would be amazing.

And then I don't know, you know, you're doing a bunch of stuff.

Maybe Raj, you come out with an EP or something.

Hey.

In my spare your gift with the world.

You're giving us the tax nerd gift and then also give us the musical gift.

That's amazing.

OK, so bringing it back.

Is there anything you want to compel the audience to consider in this conversation?

Yeah, I think, I think there are a few things that I'd like to point out, right, that firstly, you know, digital assets is not a niche conversation anymore.

It has a lot of people still find it a cryptic thing to think about.

There's so many people that still tell me, well, I don't understand crypto, right?

And, and, and they have to understand that they are probably more involved in digital assets, whether they know it or not, because I've talked to people that have said, Oh, I don't do anything with digital assets.

And then I usually ask them, Well, does someone manage your financial portfolio?

And they say, Yeah, I have someone that manages it.

And I say, Well, have you asked them if any of your financial portfolio actually has investments in digital assets?

They usually go, Huh.

I don't know.

I should ask.

And I'm like, you should, because there is a question on your tax return every year that says, do you, did you have any digital asset transactions?

And remember, you're signing your tax return under penalties of perjury.

But anyway.

So the point being digital assets are really embedded in payment systems, retirement portfolios, you know, and government infrastructure projects, right?

So as we've discussed, the regulatory frameworks are being built right now, and that'll govern the activity at a scale that most people haven't haven't internalized.

I think this, this is important because what the quality of the rulemaking and the policy is should be everybody's concern, not just the industries.

I think the second is a pushback on the framing that regulation and innovation are inherently intention.

I think the jurisdictions that are pulling ahead in this space are not the ones with the least amount of regulation.

I feel they're the ones with the clearest or the most sensible regulation, right?

Certainty is an asset.

Ambiguity is a cost, and I think the goal should be frameworks that are rigorous and workable, but not just frameworks that are simply light.

And then the third thing I would say, particularly for anyone that is in compliance with policy or legal practice, is that the window to shape these frameworks is narrowing.

The notice and comment process, the intergovernmental working groups, the consultations are happening in multiple jurisdictions, and these are not just formalities.

They're genuinely consequential, and the quality of the participation matters.

So prac practitioners who have Like actual knowledge of how this works, have an obligation to put that knowledge into public record and participate in this discourse.

Right.

You mentioned a few things that I think everyone's going to be calling their brokers and finding out if they know, because we're coming up on tax time.

So that is definitely.

And then that line that you said about clarity and ambiguity, could you repeat that one more time?

I always maintained that you can't have a sophisticated financial system with no regulations in place, and the, the, the, the beef between industry and government here has always been in the digital asset ecosystem when I say here, is that regulation necessarily kills innovation.

I don't believe that to be true.

I think What we need is sensible, reasonable, clear regulations because when you look at any financial instrument or any process where you're asking the public to invest, whether it's from a retail perspective or from a corporate investment perspective, certainty is something and predictability is something that consumers. demand, right?

Ambiguity is always looked on as a cost and an uncertain ROI.

So I think when folks are thinking about frameworks, I think they should look at what, what are sensible and workable and not really just say that lack of regulation equals innovation in the digital asset ecosystem.

Thank you for for expounding on that because I think that's very important for a lot of us to hear and hear it clearly because I think, yeah, people are thinking that it kills innovation and I don't think so.

We need some type of guardrails for everything that we do.

So let the audience know what are the best ways to contact you.

Yeah, um, you know, You can go to my website, which is www.boden-advisory.com, which is B O D I N-advisory.com, or they can email me at Raj@boden advisory.io or cast me in one of, I don't know, 40 conferences that I speak at every year.

World tour continues.

I know.

Well, thank you so much, Raj, for joining us and, and sharing your wisdom and your experience.

Good luck on the move.

Special thanks to our butterscotch queens and kings out there for joining this conversation.

And be sure to check out all of the Get Down Beyond Bitcoin season one episodes on your favorite platform.

Until next time.

Thank you so much.