Jacob Robinson

Jacob Robinson Verified account @JacobRobinsonJD · 3d

What might the U.S. midterms mean for tech policy? For crypto and AI specifically?

I asked Justin Slaughter (@JBSDC), one of the best follows for Democratic policy & tech who has spent years in the trenches. He believes the old playbook is gone.

This @LawofCodeFM episode also features @mikekatz29 and @KhurramDara.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
1:25 AI data centers and the exit polls
2:18 Tech’s unhedged political bet
3:28 Why a tech crackdown isn’t a given
5:01 A generational turnover
6:04 Realignment
9:00 How tech should approach Democrats now
10:25 Why startups have the advantage
13:52 Should crypto batten down the hatches?
16:32 Will Democrats listen?
19:30 What happens at the SEC and CFTC
22:42 Lessons from swaps and Dodd-Frank
25:02 What derailed CLARITY
27:53 Bubbles
29:00 Inside the Biden admin on crypto
32:29 The lesson of the long 2016
34:19 The state attorneys general shift

Nothing in this podcast is legal or investment advice.

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Jacob Robinson Verified account @JacobRobinsonJD · Oct 26

Can TradFi use permissionless blockchains, given the Bank Secrecy Act & sanctions laws?

This @LawofCodeFM episode is a deep dive into the BSA, crypto compliance and a paper by @RebeccaRettig, @malekanoms and @M_Mosier, which argues that TradFi can embrace blockchains while complying with existing law.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
3:24 Problems they see
5:39 The router principle
7:13 What permissionless systems get right
11:28 Lessons from the open internet
14:23 Credible neutrality
19:20 A brief history of the BSA
23:55 What OFAC enforcement looks for
26:16 Treasury, Iran and open networks
28:29 The SEC's innovation exemption
34:03 Compliance belongs at the app layer
37:04 "The government will never allow it"
39:39 The paper's nine-part framework
44:12 Network layer vs. transaction layer
46:28 The $50,000 canoe
48:02 Safety, soundness and final settlement
50:29 Why this matters for national security
51:27 Privacy
58:07 What this means for DeFi

Thank you to the presenting sponsor of this episode, @altitude.

Nothing in this podcast is legal or investment advice.

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Lucy Hargreaves Verified account @lucyhargreaves4 · Oct 30

This is a thoughtful piece.

I'm genuinely happy for Cohere that they're growing and scaling, but I will admit I've been asking myself a lot of bigger picture questions since this was announced, starting with: what problem does this solve?

Cohere isn't short of capital. Schwarz, Nvidia and Aramco invested. And the $1.68B announced comes after $240M in federal compute funding and stakes from PSP, EDC and BDC in earlier funding rounds.

So if it's not capital, what is the goal? The AI minister himself was quoted in a Betakit article saying the stake gives Ottawa "a seat at the table to control" this technology.

What does that mean? What are the terms of the deal? Is the intent here really for the Government of Canada to control the technology that Cohere is developing? I think Canadians deserve to know what kind of control is contemplated.

Beyond this specific deal, the bigger picture points to an evolving pattern in Canada’s industrial policy.

Equity stakes in private companies have historically only been taken by the Government of Canada in times of crisis to rescue strategically important companies. Most lost taxpayers money, e.g. GM, Trans Mountain, de Havilland. Cohere isn't in crisis, which makes this feel like a new policy direction, not a rescue.

$1.6B in Cohere. A $500M tech fund built to take equity in tech companies. A $1.75B government VC plan. A proposed sovereign wealth fund. Canada Growth Fund. On top of EDC and BDC and our pension funds which have a mandate to invest public dollars.

Ottawa is becoming the owner, the funder, the customer and the regulator of the same companies. That trend towards state-led capitalism is hard to reverse and Canadians should be asking questions abut the long term implications of that direction on our economic competitiveness.

Big picture: Canada wins when markets reward builders, not when ministers pick them.

The better path we might consider is focusing on making Canada the best place in the world to build and scale. Competitive taxes. Faster approvals. Real AI adoption.

We should be focusing on ensuring our most successful companies won't need a federal cheque to stay.

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