BREAKDOWN: Caitlin Long on Coronavirus, Crypto Custody and Building a Bank
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2020
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An incredible amount of work has gone into convincing institutional investors that bitcoin and crypto should be on their radar. Now that many are convinced, however, they face some significant limitations in the infrastructure.
A new crypto bank out of Wyoming is designed to address those problems. Founded by Caitlin Long, Avanti is apply for a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter and already has 8 products in its pipeline not currently available to US investors.
In this interview, Caitlin and @nlw discuss:
- Why Avanti is needed
- Why Avanti will have 100% of assets in reserve at all times
- Why the right model for crypto custody is more akin to valeting a car than current financial market models
- Why building a crypto bank is important in the context of macro market turmoil
- How Coronavirus is exposing pre-existing problems in the global economy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond, with your host, NLW. |
| 0:15.0 | The Breakdown is distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 0:20.2 | Welcome back to The Breakdown. |
| 0:22.6 | It is Monday, February 24th, and today we have an interview with Caitlin Long. |
| 0:29.3 | Caitlin is one of the best-known commentators on Bitcoin and Crypto, particularly as it |
| 0:33.6 | relates to traditional markets. |
| 0:35.7 | She has a background on Wall Street that expands decades |
| 0:38.6 | and is one of the most cogent thinkers at the intersection of traditional markets and Bitcoin, |
| 0:44.4 | and in particular what Bitcoin and crypto assets can do to address some of the problems |
| 0:49.5 | that we're facing in the macro markets. Well, today it was announced that Caitlin is building a crypto bank in Wyoming. |
| 0:57.9 | The bank is called Avanti, and it's focused on providing payment custody and security and |
| 1:03.9 | commodity activities for institutional customers using digital assets. |
| 1:08.9 | They currently have eight products in their pipeline that are not available |
| 1:13.5 | in the U.S. market based on regulatory requirements. And the interesting thing about Caitlin's thesis, |
| 1:19.8 | as you can hear in this interview, is that we've reached the point where for many institutions, |
| 1:24.7 | the question isn't whether they're interested in being involved with |
| 1:27.5 | crypto assets, but what the actual infrastructure allows them to do. The interview focuses in large |
| 1:34.1 | part on what makes Avanti different in terms of its vision for how it interacts with its customers' assets. |
| 1:41.1 | This is not the same type of relationship that you might see with commercial banks, |
| 1:45.0 | but involves much, much stricter requirements such as full reserve assets at all times. |
| 1:52.0 | One thing that I find so interesting about this is that in a world where institutionalization |
| 1:58.0 | of Bitcoin and crypto assets is inevitable, a lot of the type of work being done |
... |
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