In Early Podcast

S2E6 Scott Pounder, Prometheus Insights

This episode features Scott Pounder, Founder and CEO of Prometheus Insights https://prometheus-insights.com/About/
Formerly of the Met Police, Head of Investigations at Crystal Intelligence, then at FTI Consulting as a director, Scott now runs his own operation, providing expert reports for crypto investigations and blockchain analytics, asset recovery and insolvency support, as well as cybercrime intelligence and wealth verification.

S2E5 Rachel Wolcott, Compliance Corylated

This episode features Rachel Wolcott, a founding editor of Compliance Corylated, writing on financial fraud, market abuse, and of course cryptocurrency.
This episode covers both (i) the state of industry onboarding, including know-your-client and anti-money laundering checks and well as (ii) fraud repayment initiatives.
 
Matt and Rachel speak about:
 
👉 Why there are so many fines and bad practices including:
 
🚩 KuCoin’s fine of $297 million for unlicensed money transmission charges, amongst other things https://tinyurl.com/5b8er5f4;
 
🚩OKX’s fine of over $500million for AML violations, following facilitation of over five billion dollars’ worth of suspicious transactions and criminal proceeds https://tinyurl.com/mr2v2dda; and
 
🚩Last year’s judgment in D’Aloia which included “BitKub’s customer not only received laundered funds but also had some active involvement in the fraud, whether as a perpetrator of it or as a money mule who lent the use of her account to those behind the fraud” https://tinyurl.com/5x9a53xb;
 
👉 Rachel’s article from 22 January 2025 which notes that the FCA have relied on powers under the Money Laundering Regulations 45 times since 2020.
 
👉 Her Thomson Reuters article about a KYC provider, with links to the Russian government;
 
👉 The T3 Financial Crime Unit between Tether, TRON and TRM Labs, and why that might seem odd given TRM’s criticism of Tether https://tinyurl.com/2m7c3cpb and https://tinyurl.com/urc55sth
 
👉 Rachel’s views on Mercuryo and Baanx, offering Mastercard debit cards https://tinyurl.com/cyrwtzs4;
 
👉 The Authorised Push Payment reimbursement scheme, introduced in October 2024
 
 👉 The ACAMS Global AFC Threats Report 2025 considers “[o]rganised crime harnessing the power of technology” and nots “tools like social media, messaging apps, generative AI and crypto assets enable criminals to scale their operations and profits, while governments, law enforcement, and industry are struggling to keep up”.

S2E4 Dr Lisa Cameron, Founder of Global Legislators Forum in Digital Assets

This episode features Dr Lisa Cameron, a Member of Parliament between 2015 and 2024, and previous chair of the Crypto and Digital Assets All Parliamentary Group. Now the founder of Global Legislators Forum in Digital Assets, this episode explores:
- Dr Cameron’s tenure whilst an MP, including previous governments' appetite for promoting this sector and the comradely between those representing more regional seats;
- The creation of the APPG, and which parties and individuals were key contributors;
- Thoughts on the digital pound and the Bank of England’s trajectory;
- Whether Dr Cameron felt previous governments had met their promises to make the UK a digital assets hub, including:
“moves that will see stablecoins recognised as a valid form of payment as part of wider plans to make Britain a global hub for cryptoasset technology and investment”
"measures include legislating for a ‘financial market infrastructure sandbox’ to help firms innovate, an FCA-led ‘CryptoSprint’, working with the Royal Mint on an NFT, and an engagement group to work more closely with industry”
that “the UK will proactively explore the potentially transformative benefits of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in UK financial markets, which enables data to be synchronized and shared in a decentralised way to potentially achieve greater efficiency, transparency and resilience”
see announcement from April 2022: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plan-to-make-uk-a-global-cryptoasset-technology-hub
- Where the new-ish Labour government will head and some future gazing;
- More about the Legislators Forum, including why it was set up, its aims and how it hopes to achieve them; and
- Dr Cameron’s role in KobeLab, which deals with blockchain technology and real estate, including their recent award win.

S2E3: Token Recovery

This week Matt speaks to both Marcin Zarakowski and Roman Bieda, of Token Recovery, a Swiss outfit specialising in "combining technical expertise, legal proficiency and a swift, discreet, end-to-end process devised to get your property back”.
Matt asks them about their backgrounds at BSV and Coinfirm respectively, and more about the operation, how Token Recovery take on victims of fraud where crypto assets are lost following a hack or scam, and how they work with lawyers, like me, law enforcement, and blockchain analytic services like Global Ledger to navigate the recovery process.

S2E2: Prof Sarah Green, Law Commission and D2 Legal Technology

This episode features Professor Sarah Green who has just finished a four year tenure as Law Commissioner for Common and Commercial Law.
During that time Sarah’s law reform work included the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, Advice to the Government on Smart Contracts, updating the Arbitration Act 1996, scoping reforms to the law of Intermediated Securities and drafting guidance and a bill to ensure that English Law is well suited to accommodate Digital Assets.
We speak about the journey of crypto assets becoming property at common law and why that was important, to where we are now, with legislation looking to define "things" as property, using a negative definition proposed by the Judiciary. 
Sarah is now the head of Digital Assets and Trade Finance at D2 Legal Technology, and a Professor of Law at Bristol University.

S2E1: Marco Morazzoni, Semoto

This episode features Marco Morazzoni, the Founder and CEO of Semoto, a market place for service providers in blockchain, from natives and tokenisation experts, to more traditional services like law, insurance, banking and consulting, looking to service this nascent industry.
Previously a sales director at Elliptic, a leader in blockchain analytics, and with experience at Britannia Global Markets, IBP Markets and Valbury Capital, Marco has been working in the blockchain technology industry for a number of years, setting up Semoto to ensure the industry’s growth is facilitated by legitimate and proven experts in a simple and cross border eco-sphere.

S1E22: Rob Moore, Arrowsgate

This week Matt speaks to Rob Moore, the director and founder of blockchain and open source investigations firm Arrowsgate.
Rob, previously of the British army, talks about his move from jumping out of planes into open battlefields to chasing criminals laundering money through blockchain analytics and helping victims of fraud get their money back.
They speak about the state of play including the sad instances of human trafficking, and modern slavery, the roles crypto exchanges may play in the movement of money as well as considering how the sector can clean up its act.

S1E21: Jennifer Zegel of STEP

ORIGINALLY RELEASED 10/12/23 This week I speak to Jennifer Zegel a trust and estate practitioner, member of STEP’s Digital Assets Special Interest Group’s Steering Committee, an attorney at Kleinbard LLC, author of “Digital Asset Entanglement: Unraveling the Intersection of Estate Laws & Technology” and creator and host of the Digital Planning Podcast. We speak about digital assets beyond merely crypto and the role STEP is playing to educate and drive policy worldwide., how they do it and what the market looks like as the technology continues to be vital infrastructure.

S1E20: Bob Williams from Lockton

ORIGINALLY RELEASED 31/10/23
This episode features Bob Williams, the Vice President for Fintech, Digital Assets and Blockchain Technologies at Lockton, the world’s largest independent insurance brokerage.
We speak about how to insure crypto assets, the types of coverage needed to cover all bases, the LEAP team's development of a custody policy and what role that plays in the wider market, and why insuring tokenised real world assets has its own unique challenges.
We also look at the biggest risks in dealing in crypto, as well as global trends and how the insurance market has had to cater to trad-fi clients looking to play catch up, amongst other things.

S1E19: Jonny Fry from Digital Bytes

ORIGINALLY RELEASED 13/09/23
Episode 19 features Jonny Fry, the Crypto AM Influencer of the year 2022.
With a wealth of knowledge in this sector, Jonny runs Digital Bytes, which creates and distributes a weekly roundup of the biggest stories in the world of digital assets and is the CEO of Team Blockchain.
Matt and Jonny speak about a huge array of topics, from how the technology helps regulated markets with transparency and security, how a digitised and DLT led funds market might benefit from assuring accuracy of price and speed of transacting, alternative use cases for the metaverse, his view on the declining global use of the US dollar and what might replace it, CBDCs and their role in inter banking transactions, as well as the Digital Bytes brand as a research and publishing outfit, via digital media content and podcasting and much more.