Founders of Web 3 Podcast Series-Regulation and Innovation in Crypto, Peteris Zilgalvis of The European Commission

Founders of Web 3 is a podcast series hosted by Outlier Ventures Founder & CEO Jamie Burke where he introduces you to the entrepreneurs, their investors and the policy makers that are shaping Web 3.

Jamie talks to Peteris Zilgalvis, Head of Digital Single Market & Blockchain European Commission, and long time advocate for the potential of crypto and Web 3 about The Commission’s ‘innovation first’ approach to the space and the importance of these technologies to not just make The Web more secure and inclusive but also to decentralise the Data Economy and most importantly better distribute the benefits of AI. He discusses the Commission’s attitudes towards innovations like ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) and its pioneering €400M Blockchain & AI fund-of-funds mandate to support the local Web 3 ecosystem.

Peteris also discusses the Commission’s attitudes towards innovations like ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) and its pioneering €400M Blockchain & AI fund-of-funds mandate to support the local Web 3 ecosystem.

Listen to Peteris’ podcast on Apple podcast

Jamie: Welcome to the Founders of Web3 Series by Outlier Ventures and me your host Jamie Burke. Together we’re going to meet the entrepreneurs, that backers and the leading policy makers that are shaping Web3. Together we’re going to try to define what is Web3, explore its nuances and understand the mission and purpose the drive its founders. If you enjoy what you hear, please do subscribe, rate and share your feedback to help us reach as many people as possible with the important mission that is Web3.

I’m happy to welcome Peteris Zilgalvis. On to the podcast. I’m lucky to be able to say that I’ve known you for some time now. The last time I saw you in person was in Dubai back in the days when you could freely travel the world, looking forward to hopefully meeting again in person at some point, but it’s great to have you back on the show.

Peteris: Thank you for inviting me. Glad to be here.

Jamie: So by way of introduction, there’s quite a lot to pack in. So I probably need at least five minutes to read out all the titles but Head of Unit for Digital Innovation and Blockchain the blockchain bit was added in the last year digital single markets as head of unit digital single market Digi Connect cochair, or one half of the chair for the FinTech Task Force. You are Latvian born and originally trained as a barrister in California, but you also spent time as a visiting fellow in Oxford and the World Bank. So you have a unique blend of kind of political science, law, capital markets, did I get everything right?

Peteris: I think so. Sounds good.

Jamie: All right. So I’ve known you in the context of being you know, one of the more progressive I’m kind of open civil servants within Europe generally and within the European Commission, both to kind of talk to on a private level, but then also, you know, seeing you at conferences on stage and in social media and Twitter. So I guess that’s why you’ve earned the additional plus blockchain in your title last year. Did you ask for that, by the way, was it just given to you because you were de facto leader in the blockchain space?

Peteris: Well, within the European Commission, we obviously have different policy areas and we have different areas of expertise. And so for instance, in blockchain, we have the colleagues who are in charge of the programming the implementation of ICT and the so called Digi-digit, we have colleagues in the research part who do blue sky and applied research and blockchain, people in for instance, the transport area apply blockchain to transport, but where I am, we are the leaders in overall blockchain policy. We are the coordinators. I’m also the chair of a competence network that we have across the EU Commission on blockchain. So making sure that what we do we have a unified line to the outside world. I mean, we can have a lot of debates and experimentation internally, and that we don’t confuse or give, how to say mixed signals to to the outside. So this is why the blockchain policy is with me, though. I mean, this is drawing on all the competence in other parts of the European Commission, and obviously, in collaboration with the member states.

Jamie: And so one of the things as you know, this series is founders of Web3. So we’re primarily speaking to entrepreneurs, and of course, some of the investors that back then in those early days, but the reason why I wanted you on is because I think it’s important to also look at start-ups as a form of innovation and that interplay with regulators and obviously, regulation has been, rightly or wrongly or to what degree the constraining factor in in blockchain and crypto and so I think it’s really important if you are an aspiring entrepreneur in this domain that you understand the perspective of regulators, I think, because I’ve had the good fortune of having slightly more direct relationships with a number of different regulators and policymakers. I also have found that there’s a lot of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of any one given jurisdictions attitude, sentiment or approach. So now hopefully, we can give a voice consistent, you know, viewpoint on this space, and also kind of get your perspective on what you think are kind of healthy dynamic between, you know, the entrepreneur and the regulator is, as well as I guess innovation from an enterprise perspective because of course, this isn’t all about just entrepreneurs, building things in a silo and and gaining consumers. But before I go into that, I just wanted to understand, as I said, I find you very progressive in your thoughts and good advocates I couldn’t think of a better advocate to have out there in the wild. And in a way, I think, as Hester Pierce is kind of looked at as crypto Mom, I would propose that you could be Europe’s crypto pop. So So why is that it for you as an individual? Is it, Is that on from your time in California and, you know, exposure to Silicon Valley and the innovation that comes there? Or is it something in your roots from the Baltics, as I said, You’re from Latvia and Latvia in places like Estonia are known as world leaders in kind of thinking about crypto and all the implications that has to sovereignty. So why are you doing what you do? What is that what is the mix of the influence that kind ofbring you to this role?

Peteris: Well, I mean, I have to say it’s unquestionably a mix. But overall, the attitude of the European Commission right now is very positive towards FinTech and towards blockchain, I mean, so pro innovation approach. Obviously, fraud is fraud in any domain. And that doesn’t mean we were happy with that. And obviously, things like anti money laundering or KYC in the FinTech area with blockchain need to be applied, but ideally, and not a burden some way. Now I have a new Commissioner that I’m directly working for but at home but who’s French in France is another country. It has a very progressive attitude towards central bank digital currencies right now. You see the experimentation they’ve launched on that. But the the other Commissioner responsible vice president Dombrovskis from Latvia from my country, who has an underlining appoach innovation. So this is Latvian. So you see the the Baltic link, we were caught A lot within the European Commission and I’m also going back to my time in the Latvian civil service with the with the Estonian neighbours from us, Henrik Elvis, the former President of Estonia, who is active I mean, even now in in the global hack, for instance, which my unit and start-up Europe is supporting on the Coronavirus is there. And then I mean, obviously, on all of us, or I mean, particularly me, I spent a lot of years in California, UCLA University of California, Los Angeles, where I got my bachelor’s degree, my first degree before my law doctor degree, Doctor of law degree was, you know, the place that the first email went from, to to Stanford Research Institute. So I mean, I’ve seen the internet museum there and gives away my age and had programming on punch cards, even though I was a political science major at that time. So I mean, I think it’s a mix but I would say it’s definitely the attitude of the European Commission. That is the is open is pro innovation. I’m flattered to hear that I’m maybe one of the people most exhibiting this kind of attitude. But I think an openness to the technology is something that we have to have and more than an openness I mean to really move forward with both the vision for it with the investment, the money, and also a regulatory framework that fits. And then I would just perhaps finish by saying that, though it’s still sometimes the image of it moves regulated. I mean, we’ve been looking closely at blockchain, perhaps the very beginning, but at least 2012 2013. And then it was along with FinTech, one of my major focuses when I went for a year to be a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford at St. Anthony’s college, and we have not moved to regulation until now. We’ve just closed the digital assets, public consultation and now are looking Obviously subject to what political leadership decides. But to see whether a directive or regulation is required on, you know, you could say the investment in tokens, payment tokens, utility tokens. I mean, this is going a little bit ahead of myself. We we haven’t made such final classifications yet. But I’m in on these questions whether we need to align and perhaps have a legal framework. So we’ve really been letting the market work seeing where there’s problems coming probably to the conclusion as a lot of people have that there’s a need for more legal clarity, but really letting the the market work and letting solutions be found, or whether or not found then only intervening to legislate.

Jamie: Yeah, and I guess, you know, this is and this isn’t just unique to Europe, I guess where a regulator has, in their minds been fairly permissive by just letting the market do its thing. Within that it has often created a kind of a vacuum where there is perhaps a lack of clarity. And often I think that’s been interpreted as it negatively, rather than, as you say, being perceived as pro innovation, the idea that you’re kind of letting the market form observing to develop a better understanding about where it might be appropriate to legislate. So it’d be good maybe before we drill down into some of the specific initiatives that you mentioned, to help people understand in a European context anyway, to what extent are these decisions made and definitions made at a at a European level versus versus a nation state level? As you say, France has certainly been saying all the right things, but that often is seen to be very different to say, Portugal, which I think has done some interesting initiatives around more from a taxation perspective, versus the UK versus versus Germany. So could you just explain like very simply how that works, and then we can Perhaps get into the meat, some of the legislation itself.

Peteris: We’re going to very simply we have a treaty that the member states have chosen to pool their summer entity and several areas, not all the areas. And one of the areas that’s a major driver for European integration is the internal market. And in this case, if things are just flowing across borders, historically fine, there hasn’t been a need to regulate it. Things have been stopped across borders. And then you go into the jurisprudence. I mean, you have cases like Kathy Xiong, where a type of alcohol was being stopped at the border because it didn’t have a percentage. And instead of saying it needs to be labelled, it was just being stopped. So you had cases and this legislation enacted to say, Well, if this is beer in France, than this Beer also in in Germany, famous case German, German beer related to to that. So in the areas of the financial markets, this has been one of the areas where we have had some of the best successes for our startups, the so called unicorns, let’s say in payments with transfer wise Clark and others. Partially this has been dude that we have the past recording on payments across borders, also have a payment services directive to, to giving access to also some of the banking data that’s relevant, which was a first kind of pro competition item of legislation in this area, so that the union ensures that goods services capital can move across borders. This is kind of another area where we’re going to go to what’s called an impact assessment, which is internally were we justified that something needs to be done before we do it. It’s not just people Even when we decide with the political hierarchy that we should do something that we just do it and just happens, you have to show the justifications. And so in this case, for instance, we would be looking at whether the lack of legal clarity is impeding a business utilising digital assets working across borders and the 27 countries because of different definitions, different ways of registering, what is security, what is and what is the payment token what kind of payment regulation they come under or not the same for the utility tokens it’s just something under e commerce or is it also a security so this this is a little bit the the way that it works? And then finally, something it’s always good to underline though the civil servants do the analysis and you know, a lot of drafting it’s the political leadership who are politicians who take The decision whether to move with such a legislative proposal or not. So these are the commissioners and the Vice President’s advisor.

Jamie: And so this is where, I guess this is where the digital single market comes in, in terms of your function, so you’re looking at a properly functioning, flowing market in the context in the digital context. And whilst you have the FinTech component to your work, one of the things that I’ve been really impressed by both in terms of conversations I’ve had with you, but then also in the communications and activity at the European level is understanding blockchain and digital assets beyond just financial services and FinTech. So around data, data sovereignty and self sovereignty. So it’d be great to understand a little bit more about that kind of slightly more expansive understanding because, honestly, I mean, I’ve not seen that in any other jurisdiction? I’ve not seen it in the US. I’ve not seen it necessarily in parts of Asia. So it’d be good to understand a little bit more about that.

Peteris: Okay, great. Well, I mean, it’s a little bit in the design of the way that we set up our, our structure. As I said, I’m in a part of the commission that’s responsible for for the digital single market, obviously, I mean, if you go back historically in ICT, the first mover in a lot of areas, not just with blockchain and so on, in adopting ICT has been the financial sector and going back to the 90s, the 80s, even even earlier. So I mean, the history of our Directorate General has been involved with the financial industry as a first mover, but we’re responsible for ICT policy for digital policy across all sectors. We’re not the programmers but the policy people the economists, lawyers and you know, some engineers and programmers too. Keep us down to earth and the actual, how to say practicalities of things. And then we’ve combined in the FinTech task force with a co chair coming from financial services so they have a focus and their mandate and their job more on applying these emerging technologies to the Financial Services, but then we have research transport environment, climate change and others in there as well obviously in a little bit less active position because this isn’t a daily thing for them. So as part of my job, I mean, I started with obviously started with the with the blockchain I mean the Bitcoin at the very beginning. So I mean, this is a financial or you know, a cryptocurrency focus, but then very quickly, we started thinking on the digital single market side, but how can this be applied to other things? Is this a useful technology? I mean, this is also with a decentralised AI, IoT etc. How can this be applied across across sectors? How what How can this be interesting for supply chain? How can it be interesting for data management? So that’s why I and we have this perspective. And I mean, I can also say very frankly, talking to people like you and others in the ecosystem. It’s also inspiring and I try to read a lot and talk to people a lot and see what the entrepreneurs what the investors, but also public sector innovators are doing across the union and across across the world.

Jamie: Yeah, I mean, as you know, we’ve been big advocates of what we call convergence for several years. Now, the idea that, you know, if you’re looking at trying to understand the implications of blockchain, you need to look at it in combination with IoT and AI, really kind of forming this new data market. And so it’s really interesting to see the announcement I’m trying to think was it towards the end of last year that the AI f was making available, I think it was 100 million euros as a cornerstone in France. $100 million, sorry euro fund, specifically for blockchain and AI.

Peteris: Exactly. And that was developed by my unit along with colleagues primarily responsible for, for AI. And it was exactly in the same philosophy that we see those two technologies. And as you mentioned, also with IoT, and possibly other emerging technologies coming together, both having a need for the data, for instance, Ai, but also being able to process data for societal challenges, the one we have right now on a pandemic, but also the climate and others. And we see them coming together both as an investment need in Europe, but also as something that should be looked at not always because of course, AI has aspects that go beyond the interaction with with blockchain or IoT. But all things should be looked at together and making sure that the legal frameworks we did Develop where necessary. I mentioned that we don’t rush into things, but that these are also future proofed. And so we don’t have a situation where we develop something that sounds good to today and we rush in and then a year later or two years later, it’s it’s obsolete. I mean, this is something we were, as I said, following the blockchain area, for instance, for years and years, you have things like the bitlicense in New York, which probably wasn’t a good move. I think almost almost everybody agrees agrees today. So sometimes being a first mover especially in legislation is not smart. It’s good to to watch and work with the market but at the same time, for for a civil service and major civil service. It’s good to try to to shape the market to make sure that it does have the societal needs like the climate like now pandemics, which I think many of us would say probably we were not aware of enough though it was always in a lot of a risk analysis framework. So that’s a little bit of our role.

Jamie: Yeah. And I think that’s what’s been really interesting to see how your app has been a leader looking at blockchain in the context of impact as well. So beyond that capital market component, so one of the ways I advocate for the approach taken within Europe and by the way, I still class myself as a as a European, even if it might be denied of me from a citizens perspective as a philosophically, I’m a European. And of course, our business operates across Europe, although we’re headquartered out of the UK, but one of the things I’ve always advocated for in your approach to this space, is that going going beyond your FinTech and crypto currency, and thinking about this as a, as a new stack of technologies, that it it offers almost a third way so rather than In it being Web3 in the context of an iteration of technologies, it could also be seen in the context of a third alternative to how how the web could function and how it could be better aligned with users and citizens rather than shareholder supremacy. So, you know, if you look at the web as it is today, it’s predominantly dominated by corporations from the originating, at least from the west coast, driven by a very kind of strong form of libertarianism and free market fundamentalism. And then if you look at the alternative that’s emerged in the east, which is kind of so so in, in in the West extreme. In America, it’s kind of surveillance capitalism as has now been termed. And in the east, you have something which isn’t servicing the supremacy of the the shareholder but the state so you have like a form of digital status and where everything is subordinated to the state. And I’ve always felt that in Europe, we have a potential for a third way, which is oriented more towards the citizen user. And I don’t know if that is something that is explicitly or implicitly communicated or discussed at the European level. But I mean, clearly there are other initiatives to correct some of the failings of the web around monopolies that have formed security privacy. So I’d be interested to know, you know, is it is that kind of framing relevance or am I just imagining it?

Peteris: I think that kind of framing is is very relevant. I mean, I won’t be pretending to be more technical than I am. But definitely in a in a policy vision. It’s something that we call a human centric internet a next generation internet one which in some ways coincides with the the earth Vision the early development of the internet, though the the ARPANET came out of the Department of the defence, then you had NSF net, you had actually a fairly more protocol rather than now, platforms RUN RUN internet. So both to have more competition for consumer choice. So just in choice, which is always good. I mean going to Schumpeter and economics of creative destruction that there’s a certain renewal of the coterie of companies of of those there, but also to have a wider range of viewpoints, more technological experimentation. And this is where we do see see the point also for development of artificial intelligence rather than having it very much centralised, having many different work networks working on a diverse set of quality data, you get away from some of the implicit biases that you just might have if the data is only English or Italian or Indian or Chinese etc. Because I mean different data sets or I mean even within within a country these might be all men nor many more women are many more younger people. So we see this decentralisation as something that can also drive the scientific development, the technological development, but also as possibly being a safety aspect for the artificial intelligence. Again, it’s not just centralised that you have different models competing, that there is again not a domination that if you do get a bad AI, right, over vulgar rising it now, but that you would have others that are run more Basically, or an unbiased data and so on, but also having cooperation with them. So a little bit that’s the, the policy vision that it’s centred for the individual. Obviously, we have platforms will have platforms, welcome platforms, but also this this protocol vision, that there’s a part of that that allows more new entrants. Also, as the start-ups people, obviously, we should be trying to make sure that new startups can still enter the market, that they can have access to data, which is a question again, here, ensuring that there’s not a x up is a barrier to entry on access to data that doesn’t allow new business models which might satisfy the consumer better, or might be more apt to finding a solution for a climate challenge with our pandemic challenge. So this this is the philosophy and the driver behind what we do.

Jamie: Yeah, I think that’s that’s the beauty. thing about this connection with blockchain and AI, because the problem that an AI startup passes that it can’t access data, therefore there is a barrier for it to enter the market. And that then leads to this over centralization over monopolisation within that competency, and so I think it’s great to hear, you know, you guys making that connection. So you’re the way that I look at crypto assets or digital commodities, I increasingly like to refer to them as digital commodities. Actually, if you’re taking that protocol perspective, versus platform perspective, how can you have something that can coordinate this, this new digital infrastructure? And you know, for me, I think looking at these things as coordination mechanisms, incentive mechanisms to allow for this bootstrapping of a bottom up alternative when paired with kind of a top down slowly interventionist approach and trying to break up or constrain platforms I think as a buyer, it promises to yield the yield the most results. And again, not something I could imagine happening anywhere else in the world.

Peteris: I shouldn’t say we’re trying to break up and restrain platforms we just be happy to see. See more competition. And exactly as you say, if you’re responsible for startups policy, you see that startups in the AI area, for instance, the access to data question is one, you have a lot of issues dealing with real implementation of privacy, or real implementation, for instance. So the general data protection regulation, where you have a data portability article, but which hasn’t really been functioning and hasn’t allowed real time models of people being able to move their data. For instance, again, I think all of us are preoccupied with the pandemic, but also with the climate challenge, which is one way we shouldn’t forget or simply to get a better a better service. So this is where very much We see that both the AI could provide processing and how to say a better result with the data. But blockchain or other decentralised methods could allow more control by the citizen and the consumer, which could be both good for the marketplace, but also good for people in general, because they can realise their autonomy better, get a better service have more choice, but something that has to always be underlined that it has to be easy for the individual. It can’t be people having to read 10s of pages of terms and conditions and going into many places and settings and checking them every day, which is a little bit the conundrum you get today that people say, Well, nobody cares about privacy, but then to actually try to control it. It is so burdensome and difficult to do. I mean with the tools that the marketplace has provided that this is really waiting For something like a smart contract for an ecosystem, where people can control what is done with data on their individual instruments or you know, in other parts of their lives. So this is something we see very interesting from a market perspective, and also from a policy perspective.

Jamie: So I’ve seen you’ve been doing a lot of work around self sovereign identity and SSI. And obviously, there is a kind of linkage there between GDPR you know, some, some people are struggling to understand how you can how you can have certain things happen in a decentralised manner, versus centralised manner around around data in the context of GDPR. And perhaps that GDPR was designed at a time that couldn’t take into account blockchains I don’t know if you have a perspective on that, I think but maybe just to close off. I really like this possibility piece because I think, you know, for me, when we’re talking about Web3 that the building blocks for that is what I call sovereign software. Something that restores maintains the sovereignty of the US a US citizen, or extends it actually. But that all starts with that portability, the idea that if I can, can take control of my identity, and then its associated assets, starting with data, but that could be anything, any other digital asset. And I can easily move it around that that fundamentally breaks the model of today’s web, and many of the things that you don’t necessarily like to see.

Peteris: And I can only agree with you and this is why in the European blockchain services infrastructure, which is something that the 29 European countries are building together, which is going to start really launching this year, not piloting, but I think with the audit documents public publication, it’ll launch this year. One of the other use cases which probably won’t launch full rollout this year, because it’s more common replicated is a self sovereign identity. And it really is the key to users digital autonomy, self determination, management of the data. And so it’s something we see is is necessary. And also to have a conception of identity which is probably more appropriate for the times we live in. This is not simply This is me. So I have the right to register for this public service as you do with or to cross a border. But this is me in a broad sense, this is my my CV, this is my sporting experiences or climate footprint, other things that I need to bring together health health records, again, valid, very relevant and relevant today. So I mean, there’s full full agreement on this that this is, this is the key and ideally it also fits with our phones. Philosophy of empowering the individual, which is also a very much a fundamental part of EU law that already since the times of some of the most famous court cases of I’m getting in lose and others on the individual was able to go and enforce the EU law in his or her national national courts. And this was the second level of enforcement. So I mean, it’s also philosophically built into the system. And then you mentioned GDPR, which I mean, it is, I would say, a challenge for us because it was and this is us, the whole community as well as the policymakers. Because it was adopted during a time where more people were looking about the platforms and the siloed sources of data. But I think it’s too pessimistic to look at the law as not being able especially where it’s principle basically to progress and be applied to new new paradigms. So in these areas, I mean, we had a report of the blockchain observed between forum which is also a think tank working for us and for our unit, which has a lot of interesting reports and workshops online, which people can look into. But we had one on GDPR. And there they were saying, I mean, there’s not a blockchain that is or is not GDPR compliant as such, just as there’s a platform. It’s not by its nature, GDPR compliant. It’s the applications running on it, what is done with the data, what kinds of data so I mean, we’re very much convinced that you can have a GDPR compliant blockchain in terms of implementing the principles. It’s a little bit difficult but I mean, this has happened in the past when you know, there was a move from horses to cars now will move to electric cars, they’ll move to autonomous cars, which require perhaps some changes in the legislation. But it’s never been the case that all the legislation in the countries or, you know, as we move into modern times the European level has had to be thrown out. So the lock in progress, it’s also the role of the courts. I mean, more creatively open in the common law countries than in the civil law countries. But there still is an interpretation, interpretation aspect.

Jamie: Yeah. So that’s interesting in that it can accommodate new paradigms. And of course, you know, technology is only going to accelerate as it as it comes to us. So its ability to evolve and as you say, in some instances, interpret intent a little bit more strongly than exactly any one particular implementation. And what is the current thinking around dows decentralised autonomous organisations, this is this is an area which to be honest with you I I stopped thinking about for some Time, it’s always felt too distant and slightly introspective. You know, it’s a thing that only only people in crypto think that they need. But increasingly, it’s caught my attention again, I’ve been revisiting the technology stacks that have now been built. And also some efforts to marry what happens on chain with or embed or bridge into some jurisdictions. So I think Recently, there was something called allow, which was a Wyoming based, as far as I can remember, entity. So, you know, is this on the radar at the moment when you got a lot on? Is it something that’s being actively explored, you know, the idea that there could be a an entity that is that exists on chain where people can presumably pool value. I don’t want to say assets necessarily, but value could be data, they could own that data, and they could That’s that value and they could set the terms for its usage is this something’s themed around?

Peteris: Oh no, it’s something we’ve been following since the first Tao and like with other things in the blockchain in the decentralised digital area, we haven’t seen the need to to rush in. I think the first problem with with the first famous DOW was also something that I think was interesting for all of us to to learn from. We have a positive attitude to them again, innovation, along with the the same maybe just semi decentralised multi level EU governance blockchain that I mentioned, the blockchain services infrastructure. We’re also interested in enabling the very decentralised at individual level blockchains in Europe so they can they can take off That it’s an area that can be an area of European innovation. In the case of the Dow’s it’s been seen again as being too early to rush in and put a legal framework on it. And in fact, we’ve had a lot of discussion with legal experts coming from from the different member states. And I mean, I don’t want to pronounce because we don’t have a official legal opinion. But a lot of the thinking is that at least as a legal construct, this is not so new. It’s actually something that you could say it’s a it’s a partnership, which some people don’t like because of the possibility of maybe unlimited liability in a partnership again, depending the way that it’s set up. So you can also set up a partnership in other ways.

Yeah, so I mean, also so you do have a lot of thinking. And these are people who are familiar with the technology, I mean, legal experts who we talk to that, okay. I mean, this is simply a partnership. I mean, maybe at some point, there is something that is specific enough. And if we want to enable something specifically in the market, there could be a justification for specific legislation. But it’s, it’s not a corporation, unless, again, it’s set up as one and you go, you jump through those legal hoops, but seemingly the ones that would be just set up with a group of people who could be defined as partners, it would be, it would be a partnership, again, not any official legal opinion. But this is the direction that a lot of the legal thinking is going. So if people in the community think differently and think either for reasons of dows taking off In order to achieve such and such a industrial policy goal, you would need a specific legal personality. I mean, this is something we’re always open to here. And of course, it has to be justified. As I mentioned, with the digital assets, we have to go through something that’s called an impact assessment, we have to show that this really is a problem that these things are not able to take off across borders in Europe, because of such and such impediments. So they’re we’re we’re at a definitely a time where thinking about it, it’s positive thoughts towards this type of body of Adele. But there is not a move to to legislate on this. Yes. And this is this may be taken as positive or negative, depending on where the listener is.

Jamie: Well, I mean, I think people will just be reassured that you’re thinking about it. You have been thinking about it for a long time. And you know, as you said, at the very beginning, this idea That you are you’re pro innovation. So look, I mean, I could talk to you for hours. Hopefully I will get to see you again in person at some point. It’s soon. Maybe I’ll get you back on again later in the year, but it was great to chat to you again. Thank you for all the good work you’re doing there. And I’m gonna try and get crypto pop trending on Twitter after.

If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please make sure you subscribe, rate and share your feedback to help us reach as many people as possible with the important mission of Web 3.

Listen to more Founders of Web 3 episodes on below platforms:

Apple Podcast, Podbean, Spotify or Stitcher .