Stephen: We just had the most amazing conversation. We had Olta Andoni on the podcast. She's the general counsel for Enclave Markets, which is one of the first fully encrypted exchanges. This is such a new concept. It's one of the only ones out there and we talk a lot about what's going on with blockchain, especially from a legal perspective IP, AI, US regulation. We talk about diversity and Web3, and what's it like being a woman in the crypto space? Much less the lawyer space. This conversation goes full circle. We talk everything about the early days of NFTs. When I first reached out to Olta, when she was at Nifty and the craze of the NF NFT market back at this time, this is one of the best conversations.

She's been in this space for so long and she has a wealth of knowledge. For anyone thinking about launching products, services, or anything to do with crypto, including what's happening into Chicago, where they're building something like the Bit license there, and she's part of an association that's at least trying to shed some light on a little bit more lenient structure when it comes to digital assets.

You are absolutely gonna love this episode, so fun. Let me know what you think. Reach out to me or Olta on LinkedIn or anywhere else where you can reach us. Talk soon.

Stephen: We have a very special episode with a very special friend of a pod longtime listener, I hope. First time guest Olta Andoni live from, you know, the us enclave Markets. You're the general counsel there. Let us know a little bit about yourself and then we're gonna dive into your background, how you got into Web3, crypto, all the good stuff on this episode of Around The Coin.

Olta: Thank you Stephen. I'm honored to be on this podcast. You know, not only I am a regular listener to your podcast, but I really appreciate everything that you put out there for the community, which is very much needed to have the right podcast and right. To have the right content as well, so very excited to to be here.

I'm general counsel of Enclave Markets, which is a subsidiary of Avalanche Aval, and I've been in the crypto industry. Probably since 2016, 2017, as majority of other attorneys as well. But I, I, I, I think I have sort of a interesting background as well as the way how I dived into the crypto and blockchain space.

I practiced law since 1998. And of course before blockchain existed, there were other areas of. Practicing law. So I concentrated a lot of intellectual property and on antitrust law as well. And then I jumped into the blockchain space that we can talk a little bit more on this podcast. And considering my many years of experience as attorney and also as representing many clients in the blockchain space I.

Went in-house, I was GC of nti. And then afterwards again, I joined Avalanche as a layer one protocol where they kind of assigned me this role to build the first fully encrypted exchange. So since they won, I, I joined Aval Labs. I worked closely with the CEO of enclave markets on South Mode at that time until, you know, we went live afterwards.

But it's been quite a very interesting career, especially representing startups in the crypto and blockchain space. It's been challenging, but it's been very fulfilling as well. And probably I'll start with my disclaimer that all the views I'm speaking today in my. Personal capacity and the views that I express are mine alone, and they do not reflect those of my employer or any affiliated organization.

And of course, nothing that I'm saying today should be taken as legal advice.

Stephen: I love it. You're a lawyer. You're just not our lawyer. You're a lawyer.

But you know what's interesting, I feel like, do you think that, you know, you focus so much on IP laws. Attorney what were some of the biggest IP concerns back in those days? You know, like 2012, what were some of the big, like elephants in the room when it comes to IP law?

Olta: That's a great question actually. I mean, I, as I said, I graduated from law school in 1998 and I think that this sort of segue into IP was very organic because when I was in law school, I had many internships. At the, we call it Department of Culture in Europe. So I was working with creators, I was working with artists, I was working with songwriters and everything, and I did see their challenges in, in the first.

Pl on, in the first place on kind of protecting their own creations and their own ip. And I think protecting intellectual property has always been one of the biggest challenges I have to say about the creators. But I think that now with everything, especially the artificial intelligence and artificial generated media, et cetera, and having all this global.

Platforms. I do think that there is a lot of more concentration on those issues or challenges that the creators face. So I was very, very much drawn into that space because I thought that, you know, it's, it not only representing them to protect their ip, but also to represent them in the long run in the sense that you kind of have to wear different hats as a ip.

Attorney, we usually call ourselves as jack of all trade. So it's not only about protecting copyright, it's not only about protecting trademarks and patents as well, or trade secrets. It's like when you think about this IP portfolio of of many, you know, companies or even personal or individuals, I think you really have to concentrate and shift the focus on many ways on how to.

Protected. Also when I did my master's in United States, I concentrated on geographical indications, which it's, it's such a interesting area, like geographical indications. I'm sure you, you know, Stephen is like about that wine that you, you, you drink, but the wine that is exactly the French wine, right?

So it's, it, it's. Pretty much a mark that is used on, on the products that have a specific geographical indication. And, and, and they also possess those qualities or kind of that reputation that is particularly related to that geographical indication. So that was my. Thesis. And I think it was about extending the benefits of geographical indications to to the developing countries, which I think is still a very interesting area.

And when I have more time, maybe I have to write more or expand on my graduation thesis. But yeah, I mean, to summarize, I. Think that IPO is very appealing to lawyers and I, especially to those lawyers who like to be proactive in the sense that that's what all IPO is about is and, and now especially with IPO and technology, you have for, or for the upcoming attorneys or for new attorneys trying to jump in or pra or maybe considering practicing ipil, I.

Think that is a great sort of marriage between IP transactional work also and I mean combining both IP law and technology.

Stephen: I love it. I feel like, you know, what are your thoughts, you know, about lawyers coming into this space? It felt like there wasn't, I, like, I think I could count the, the amount of blockchain. Lawyers, I think it was like you, Justin Wales, a couple people that may have wrote books. Tanya Evans, I believe is, you know, closely in this space.

I'm not sure if she's still an attorney or just a professor, but I'm wondering what is it now, like, are there a lot more lawyers getting into blockchain or are they jumping directly into like AI and IP in that manner?

Olta: That's a great question. I think like, I mean, I, the more we go through this ups and downs of the market, like, you know, when we have a bullish market, you have all these attorneys being. Super interested in the technology and blockchain and crypto, et cetera. And then when you have a parish market, you don't have much attention from the attorneys.

But jokes aside, I I, I, I do think that there is a lot of interest and I am glad that there is so much more interest. From the attorneys or younger attorneys trying to dive into blockchain and crypto and you probably have heard always my advice like, just do not consider blockchain and crypto as your main area of practice.

Not that that there is anything wrong with it. I think that when you practice blockchain and crypto, you definitely kind of intertwine this. Different practices low practices, right? So it's good to have the understanding, but I just do not like this connotation. Oh, tomorrow I'm gonna become a crypto attorney.

That's not the right term, right? And I can talk more how I dived into this industry, but my. Point is that this is not something that you learn overnight. Like no one can be like that expert overnight. And even now you're seeing like all these artificial intelligence experts, and it's like me saying that I'm an expert.

I would love to dive more into artificial intelligence and of course I'm following everything very closely, but as I said, you really have to put your time, your effort into understanding the technology first, and then, you know, being able to represent clients or working in a GC role for startups.

Stephen: You know how I met you is my infatuation with NFTs. You know, just before they got big from a compliance lens, I was looking at like how NFTs and the illicit activity that could be combined with them. That's. Actually, how I found Nifty is it was one of the few NFT companies out there, you, John Kreskey and others.

But you entered the space just before that in maybe around 2016. So tell me how you entered the Web3 space and what was it like being, you know, dead smack in one of the biggest or most well known NFT companies, right as the complete tsunami of hype came through the industry.

Olta: Yeah. I, I, I think that for me, at least the NFT space and how I jumped into that I mean truly I think was like the organic segue because considering the IP background, as I mentioned previously, of course I was following the NFT industry closely, but then you could see all these challenges.

That many NFT especially, I mean the NFT art creators who are facing, and I think like the biggest challenge was the misconception, to be honest about the ownership. So I was like, there is so much to do in this, but first before I jumped into NFTs. I, I, I was lecturing at Chicago Kent, and when I, of course I read the Bitcoin White paper like everybody else, but to be honest, I was a little bit very reluctant about, you know, the whole message and whether or not Bitcoin would become a.

Form payment, payment, uh uh, which I think like many face this question right now as well. So, when I was lecturing in China, I did have my own students kind of asking me about Bitcoin and, and I was like, there is so much more to this. So I came back to United States after I think I, I lectured for like three weeks in China.

At that time I came back to United States and then I. Said, I'm gonna learn a lot more. I'm gonna concentrate, connect with other attorneys. And that's what we did. My very first mentor and the attorney that I connected was Louis Cohan, which I'm sure you have heard his name in our industry. And then we created like this small groups, these small meetings and I think that's.

Still very important. Like we still have this sort of small groups and, and, and talking groups. I, I also have a telegram group with the attorneys in the space, which is very important to share from not only where we're coming from, but also the legal concerns when it comes to regulatory. So that's how I jumped into the blockchain space.

And later on, yes, I joined Nifti with Nifti. They have been, there were like many interesting. Projects at that time. And metrics was one of the was a very interesting project, to be honest. But I think like many NFT platforms at I, I don't think that they reached, you know, to be able to, to survive as startups considering many, many other factors, but I still think that there is a great potential about NFTs right now. And but considering now the challenges between NFTs and AI or artificial intelligence, I think that the ownership challenges are going to be definitely more impactful for the artificial intelligence domain, so to speak.

Because I, I, I mean, when we talked about NFTs was mostly about the misconception, but now it goes more deeper into who is the owner of this generated content. And I think the more I the more we consider other jurisdictions and other, and how these other jurisdictions are going to enforce intellectual I mean, mm.

Protection of IP for AI generated co content. I think the more challenges we're going to see, and, and especially, I mean how in, in many of the jurisdiction, copyright protection, for example, requires human authorship. And the question goes back like if if it requires human authorships, how. Are the companies that are going to rely on AI being able to create this product and also be able to, to, to, to enforce those IP rights?

Stephen: Do you think there's an advantage? Like obviously the conversation that happens right now and you don't have to comment it on, is like, Hey, you know, this trade war between China, you know, they don't respect a lot of the IP regulations and restrictions and, you know, they, they can go much faster than maybe the US because they don't have to follow so many, I guess it's not economical. They don't have to follow so much environmental laws when it comes to, you know, raw materials, et cetera, do you think there's gonna be a jurisdictions where there's a disadvantage and, you know, an advantage for certain countries when it comes to using AI within the regulatory system?

Olta: I, I, I mean, the way how I see this trade war, I trade wars actually, actually always existed, right? It's not like this is the first time that we're seeing trade trade wars among nations. I think that what we're seeing right now, especially the trade tensions between China and United States. I don't think it's just all about tariffs.

I don't think it's all about tech, right? I think we're diving deeper into this competing economic sort of, or, or potentially a realignment of power. I think that China IP theft has always been a, a, a, a concern or the accusations of the IP staff, especially about and I can talk. As more on antitrust side or antitrust, uh uh, yeah, law side as well, because I've seen a lot of four stack transfers even with my previous clients.

And there are a lot of claims about market man manipulation as well. My point is that we have to see that how this is going to progress. I'm not saying that this, I mean, China IP theft claims are not realistic, but I think it goes way more deeper than that. It, it, it, it, we're talking right now more, as I said, of realignment of power between the two countries.

Stephen: Now let's talk about enclave markets.

'cause this is interesting. I always saw that you were at Aval Labs and working on Avalanche, and then I. See enclave markets come outta nowhere, you know? Why did Val Labs seem, well not outta nowhere, but like, why did Val Labs feel like it necessary to spin out its own trading platform, especially one so unique as like a fully encrypted exchange.

Olta: I that, that's a great question. And as I said, when I joined Ava Labs I, I didn't know that, you know, I, I would be building this which is truly my baby enclave markets. So the idea came from the engineers. Of Aval Labs, and this was an idea pretty much or avalanche since the protocol layer one protocol was founded.

But they had this idea of creating the very first fully encrypted exchange, considering many what, what the users or especially institutional users we're looking for. So. Talking about our platform as a fully crypted exchange, it our, our platform is built within a secure enclave. And that secure enclave prevents any party, including of course, the exchange operators from reading that order activity.

So we concentrate a lot on this confidential trading. Users credentials. I mean, they're, they, they're used to generate the private key, but we also use the decentralized custody, meaning that we have testers and we have adjudicators that control, especially when it comes to the auditing or, or those technical changes that go into the into the exchange.

We have been building, I mean, we have. Built a lot since day one because there are many products. And actually the most recent product is the perpetual exchange, which is I mean, we are regulated. We have a SEMA license in in the Cayman, unfortunately. Yeah. Because of the regulatory concerns.

You can guess why we decided to be offshore. But also, I mean, because I just do not see much, uh uh, I, I don't see the path right now in United States, you know, to bring perps, crypto perps to, to retail users.

Stephen: How do you balance, you talk about institutional clients, how do you balance those institutional demands for like privacy? And then like the regulatory requirements, I'm sure you're the first person that everyone on the team reaches out to. Like, can we do this? How's this gonna impact regulations? And I'm sure you have like a compliance and regulatory team as well, but how do you get a balance, like privacy and like this has been the big dichotomy in the industry, whereas like, yes, you want payments from institutions that are making big mergers or acquisitions.

To be non-transparent to the public, but you also need to make sure that there's not market manipulation. There's not illicit activity or illicit players participating in these markets as well. How do you guys balance those two?

Olta: That's a great question, and considering yes, that we do have a lot of institutional users and, and, and, and I think probably would be a, a good sort of introduction for the, for the listener. Listeners, because on one side you have this institutions, especially like the large asset managers and hedge funds and ba and banks out there that they really want to protect.

Of course, they, their, their strategies, they wanna protect their order flows, right? So, leak in data. Including of course, front running and, and lost alpha, et cetera. I can talk for hours about this. Definitely. That's exactly what they have to protect. And then on the other side, you have the regulators that are asking us that, Hey, we're still I mean, we still need to see what's happening.

So, of course anti-money laundering and financial surveillance. Capabilities are very important. And I do expect, even though people think that everything is going wild now in United States, I do think that our regulators will continue concentrating a lot on the a ML especially and Bank Secrecy Act.

And I know Stephen, you, you, you've been talking about this as well, so my point is that. To, to kind of balance exactly what enclave market stands. That's why you focused a lot on this confidential computing or confidential trading. So, in, in, in all the trades that happen within this secure enclave. They, the aim or the goal is for the order flow to be encrypted and to be protected, but we also perform KYC for our regulated exchange. So we perform KYC inter monitoring for the users that are onboarding for the perpetuals product. Having said that, I think that. I mean, this is a struggle that will continue because as I said, institutions need the environments where their trades are pri private, but also they like for the trades to be compliant as well.

Right? So regulators, I don't think, they don't, they, they need to see anything in real time, so to speak, but they just need to be able to verify that those rules are being followed, and I think that that is exactly where we concentrate for enclave markets as well.

Stephen: That's a great point. They don't need to see anything for the most part in real time. They just need to be able to reach out to somebody if there is activity that they find to be, you know, elicit or connected in other ways to elicit activity. They just want to be able to find more information if that situation comes up.

Talk to me about front running and MEV. You know, gimme the basics for this audience. I know you probably saw a lot of it while at Nifty and working in the Web3 space. Like what is front running an MEB, and why is it such a huge issue in this industry?

Olta: I mean, definitely it's a huge issue. And I, I mean, front running is not only a issue in our industry. I mean, just to clarify that for the listeners, I think that front running even in traditional finance, I. I mean, it has always been a big issue. And just to summarize maybe for user for listen, listeners of your podcast of your podcast, front running is when you have I mean, when the insider user has the knowledge of.

A pending trade to jump ahead of that particular trade and, and profit. It is illegal in the regulated markets, of course, because it, it, it just gives more sort of. Privileged access to those users that have access to this information and going back or, or just summarizing for the crypto industry.

It's been interesting to see how much front running has impacted also the crypto trading. Stephen, I was reading this recent article. I think it's been a couple of months, to be honest, but I, I think the. MAV extraction. Actually they said that has exceeded pretty much 2 million per day, which to me, that is quite a big, big number.

And, and this is where this transparency is super important and opens the door to this new form of front running that we call I mean in the crypto industry, the maximal extractable value, the MAV. I'm sure your users should be familiar with this. So, MAV happens when the, the, the validators and miners and searchers, et cetera they send transactions within a block in order to, to extract their profit.

And this brings me to the point about enclave markets, and that's why we use. The Ts, which are trusted execution environment to pro, to process. The trades and the secure enclaves are super important because they encrypt the transaction data, they ensure that orders are not exposed to the public map pool, et cetera.

And exactly where this MEV bots, you know. Usually operate. So I think that the encryption feature for our exchange has been tremendously helpful. Yeah. Yeah. To phase the front running.

Stephen: And it's like one of those things that it comes with the territory of this industry. And you say other. Industry, so it's never gonna be at 0%. It's almost like one of those necessary evils. And to give people an example, like when I was trying to buy an NFT, if a miner can see that, hey, hundreds or thousands of people are all trying to buy this same NFT, they'd be like, Hey, this is obviously very popular, high in demand.

I'll put my transaction ahead of all of theirs to purchase that NFT. And then they would, you know, essentially get their transaction included in the block. Where it's bad for the average consumer is that even if I attempted to buy the NFT and I didn't win the opportunity to, I'm still paying those gas fees that went into attempting to buy the NFT.

I think I have it right. You let me know if I missed anything. I.

Olta: No, that's a great analogy. I fully agree with you

Stephen: I only know because it's happened to me, so

Olta: so many

times.

Stephen: can, I can only assume, you know, at least that's why I tell myself, to make myself feel better, that that's the reason why I did win. You know, a camo with a top hat, a picture of a. to me about the way that you're doing fully encrypted and exchange.

Is this now impacting centralization?

Is this more decentralized than an average exchange? Give us an idea of what happens by, you know, adding in this encryption with these transactions. I.

Olta: Well, we do have features of centralized exchange of, yeah, centralized exchanges. And decentralized exchanges, and for features, as I said, when it comes to compliance and regulatory, when it goes to the features of centralized exchange. That's exactly where the KYC and transaction monitoring is helpful, of course.

And now we're considering the idea of the permissionless exchange, decentralized exchange. But again, that idea has to be, I, I mean the structuring is super important as well for, for the decentralized exchange. When it comes to, to considering the compliance for both features, we do implement as I said, both KYC and transaction monitoring with actually, I, I, you know, and I've been public about this, we use TRM we have some help from chain analysis as well.

And also for KYC we have great, I mean, we used two two great companies as well.

Stephen: That's awesome. Rule number one on this podcast, we don't mention t RM labs. No, I'm trying. I'm just, I'm just playing. We love, we love all the blockchain analytics companies. We just lo we just love the ones that love us even more. And considering that we're trading partners for chain analysis and, you know, create their podcast, but we have love for everyone that's fighting crime and helping it make, you know, blockchains a lot safer.

How does this type of exchange change the way maybe exchanges? I remember, you know, while I was still consulting for exchanges, there was talks about, you know, traditional centralized exchanges adding Aex exchange onto their platform as well. Now, w with the rise of fully encrypted exchanges, do you think this is something that centralized exchanges might add on?

Are you gonna see more hybrids? What are your thoughts about, you know, this new way of approaching. You know, verify transactions, but more in a private setting for institutional to jump in.

Olta: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, personally, I would love to see a lot of more of more privacy focused exchanges and hybrid models as ours are very interested interesting as well. My point is that. The demand from the users, the demand from the traders, the demand also from institutional users actually is all focusing more a lot on privacy.

And I do think that I mean even myself I'm not usually that pattern girl to come up.

With those patent ideas, but since you, you know, sometimes you know exactly what the, the industry needs. I think hopefully those ideas are going to be focused a lot more on, on that privacy technology. And I think.

If we have more of these exchanges focused on privacy technology, definitely we, I think probably it's gonna impact the mass adoption as well, because when you kind of address that demand that is coming from, from the users, I mean, that's why the user feedback is. Super important. And in, if you build the right platform and try to build that product market that fits that platform.

I think that's how many exchanges have been progressing, I would say, I mean, Coinbase and, coin basis of the world and centralized exchanges, of course, that they have a different vision. But I mean, it would be interesting to see how this space develop e even for centralized exchanges.

Stephen: With the move with a lot of the activity and excitement that we're seeing in us and abroad.

Is there anything else coming out of AVA Labs that you're like really interested about, doesn't necessarily need to be your favorite project, but just a concept or some cool technology that you're like, oh, this is what we're probably gonna see over the next three years.

Gain some traction.

Olta: I mean, not particularly for Aval Labs or, or avalanche, I would say, but I think I mean we can all at least agree that considering where the blockchain is focusing, especially protecting that I mean being more authentic and, and especially protecting the providence, I think that we're definitely gonna see a lot of more expansion there.

And. I, I, I, I, I can't share much, but I do know projects that are cons. I mean, considering this this particular path, but I think it's important at the end of the day that I mean when it comes to Web3, at least we have to concentrate on, on, on those conversations that truly are going to, to move forward the innovation for the next decade or hopefully longer than that.

Stephen: You know, as an ambassador for the Association for Women in Crypto, you've been a very active voice pushing diversity into Web3. Any advice that you would give to, you know, women entering this space? Based on your experience over the last several years, I know it's hard enough to get lawyers to enter this space, but lawyers that you know are women might be even more rare.

What are your thoughts? It's funny, most of the women I've met in this space have actually come from a legal background, which is quite interesting. What are your thoughts that, or advice that you would give to those looking at this space as a, possibly a career change or they're just new to the industry and this is where they wanna start?

Olta: Well, it's interesting that you say that majority of the women that you've seen are coming from a legal background. I mean, it's great to hear, don't get me wrong. My point is that since I've been an ambassador with the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency and our leader, you know, our fearless leader.

Amanda has done a tremendous job to, to get this amazing group of women all together. But something that I'm seeing lately is that we are not all attorneys. I mean, there is a big group, especially compliance people as well, which I think is great to see. Look, I, I mean. I am a, a mother of two girls and probably I'm a little bit biased, but I, I, I fight with every day to bring a lot of more women, not only in our industry, but to help women in the, in the law industry.

And I, I really appreciate and I love lecturing as well, so, I always remind myself. Students reach out anytime for any help they might need in the industry. But my concern right now that is that, I mean, we're still seeing a lot of women being under appreciated or undervalued. And when it comes to this, I think what's really important in this diversity conversation, Stephen, is that.

You have to consider that this women especially successful women, that they have been ju, I mean, practicing law I mean, they got there on their merits of course, but at the same time, we have to face like this struggles about just being a woman in the space. I remember when I wanted to join a law firm, I was asked many, many years ago, I was asked about my gap.

My resume. And yes, I do have a gap in the resume because I decided to stay home for like four years or so to raise my daughters. And I'm not ashamed of saying that I, I feel like at the same time I didn't get the support from many other women who are practicing law and continue practicing law. But at that time, the question was like, oh, why did you have this gap in your resume?

Because I decided to not. Stay home with my kids. But these are personal choices, right? If we really want to empower women, it doesn't matter about that quote, it doesn't matter about that gap that you have on, on, on your resume. You just have to be, you know, supportive and at least supportive to, to bring this women and, and especially considering the talent that you are which sometimes I think is overlooked. So yes, I'm seeing more women, but definitely we have to do a lot more in, in, not only in the crypto industry to be honest, but in the low practice as well. I. And rather, I, I would say that rather than pushing any sort of approach, I think the, the, the main question should be how do we create this sort of environment?

You know, when you, where you have this exceptional people, you know, depend, regardless of their background on how they can work together, how they can perform and continue building together.

Stephen: It makes sense and I see it from a lot of different angles. You know, as a speaker, there's a lot of times. Is an all male panel and it's not like one or two people. There's like seven people on the panel. I'm like, you guys couldn't find anyone diverse to add to this conversation. I think the argument is like, Hey, we shouldn't force diversity, and people have to make it there on their merits, but we can see, I think a lot of Web3, there's been a lot of pictures taken with a lot of leaders in the industry with very little diversity, and there's no way that truly shows the real picture of what's going on in this industry based on the conversations that you're having at many of the events.

To your credit, you, you don't have like girls, like they're women. You have two young women. One's in BioHealth, the other's in investment banking. So that career break obviously looks a a lot better when you, you know, raise. What I think from my perspective in the little interactions I've had watching your daughters grow up, is that they're respectful, they're intelligent, and they're ambitious.

So congratulations on that.

Where do you think they're gonna interact? Maybe the investment banking daughter would probably interact more with digital assets, but over the next decade, how would you prepare them to like, think about digital assets, especially in their careers?

Olta: First, thank you so much. Like that's a great compliment. I mean, raising daughters has been tremendously I mean, not only fulfilling, but I'm glad. At the path that they have selected. I think for my oldest who is at Goldman Sachs, I think she is already been, you know, working and dealing and actually she was one of the founders of the Cornell FinTech when she was at Cornell two years ago.

Or so, time flies. But I think that Goldman Sachs has already been, actively integrating digital assets into the investment banking. Right. I know that they have several projects. I think they continue actually positioning theirselves at the forefront of the integrating with blockchain technology.

You know, with investment banking. But I think for my youngest daughter who is considering pursuing medicine definitely. And I always mention to her that there is gonna be a point that, or, or the potential for the health industry to be integrated as. Especially with the need to control your health data, right?

You have to be as, as patients, we have to be in control of the data. We have to decide who sees the data. We have to decide for how long and, and, and for under what terms that data is going to be. You know, protect it. And we can even potentially yes, monetize on the data as well, but we have to make the choice.

And that's where I see that definitely blockchain is gonna be integrating. And, and I'm sure that there are many companies working on this right now to integrate blockchain with protection of data health data. Yeah.

Stephen: As an IP lawyer, do you think now with the advent of AI and deep fakes, we can barely tell what's true and what's not true in the video, much less a picture. Do you think it's time that we move most things onto the blockchain to identify authenticity provenance? Is that the kind of route we're going where we have to put things on the blockchain to be, to be able to believe them anymore?

Olta: I, I definitely think that Stephen, I definitely think that that shift is is going to happen and is I mean, it's a high priority actually not going to happen because the more content we are creating online, especially as I said, with this explosion of the AI generated data, definitely it's becoming, harder, you know, to tell or to kind of distinguish what is real, what is not real, et cetera. So I think that blockchain is gonna play a very important role in, in, in kind of having this. Temporal, creating this temper proof layer, you know, to those facts. And I, I do see that on chain probably on chain metadata might not scale, especially for large, you know, media files, privacy, guest fees might be issues as well.

I mean, just to, to, to play the devil's advocate here, but I think that the need for the chain on chain custody is. Incredibly ne powerful and needed right now.

Stephen: In your chat groups or even maybe people reaching out to you saying, Hey, I need a lawyer that does this. Are there any white spaces you see? I remember when I was a paralegal, like e-Discovery was like gonna be the next big thing, like 15 or. So years ago, you obviously jump in at the right time on the, you know, convergence of NFTs and you know, IP law.

Do you see any white spaces now where people are like, okay, we're gonna need more lawyers in this area?

Olta: That's a great question. I think that what I'm seeing, right, I mean definitely Web3 will continue to be sort of the, the much needed area where the, the attorneys should concentrate. But I think that the future for lawyers in Web3. Or where they should concentrate. It is just about how they're going to, to think about their practices.

I mean, when I started practicing in 1998, which is now almost, I dunno, 27 years ago, which is crazy,

Stephen: Yeah. Most people are wondering how you started practicing a lot like eight years old is, I think

Olta: exactly,

Stephen: everyone's doing. That's a calculation. I, I'm like, don't you mean 2008, 1998? Seems quite a bit ago

Olta: I, now that I think, yeah, 27 years ago, definitely I would've not been thinking about, you know, the way, how to practice law. But I think for lus in the Web3 they have to consider theirselves or think of themselves mostly as. Builders, like I didn't consider myself in 1998 as a builder because not many startups were out there.

You know, not many entrepreneurs were there. But I think now in Web3, definitely you are going to, to, or what you're gonna be needed mostly as a lawyer, is to design the rules. Of, of this, of, of this system. You know, you're building a startup, you're working with founders, with co-founders, you are working with different, so you're working with NFT or you are working with a dao with the layer one.

With the layer to whatever. It's definitely you have to be more concentrating on the opportunity to be proactive. Also to be a architect of that particular protocol. So you have to wear those many hats, even though we say the GCs wear many hats, but now I think with Web3 attorneys will need to wear those many hats as well.

Stephen: When your attorneys are like in the group chat and they see new regulation come in or propose regulation, do they kinda laugh and giggle? Like, you know, regulation's just gonna be decided in court anyway? Right. Is there a feeling that most of these regulations, especially in the us. Have to go through that court process before they come effective?

Or is that something that we see maybe as outsiders looking in at some of these regulations?

Olta: That's a great question. And I actually, I have real hand experience in this because I am the owner of a telegram group with truly the most esteem and remarkable attorneys, and I appreciate my friends in this group. And we, we have seen it all. Stephen. We have seen it like I mean especially from the previous administration with.

So many enforcement actions. And it's interesting that the moment that that enforcement action happens, which I mean for some of the attorneys who are litigators, probably they, they already are representing those clients, et cetera. My point is that it's been interesting to see our reaction and it's not like we're being aggressive, but I think during the previous administrations.

Administration. Pardon? We're very frustrated. I think that, yeah, frustration is the right word to use. So we are very frustrated about this enforcement actions, especially enforcement action addressing or toward actors that really should not have been pre this enforcement actions and something that we're seeing now.

Is completely different. I mean, I am sure gonna see a lot of more enforcement actions, especially coming from state, mostly from fed federal regulators, because I think that the federal regulators are warming up to crypto. Of course. My my point is that. I think that would've been very helpful for us as attorneys to see some of these cases to, to go to the court.

I mean, you know, that some of the enforcement actions are not going to proceed and, but I, I think that it would've been interesting, for example, especially for staking, let's say I, as an attorney, I would've loved to see a core decision on, on this. But having said that, I'm very optimistic about the industry.

I'm very optimistic. We have two pending bills and actually. Just last week I learned that the stablecoin bill has a very good chance to actually go to pass. I mean, hopefully soon and next week they're gonna represent, you know, the, the stablecoin bill. I think market structure bill is still in pending.

The goal is for market structure build potentially, I mean, to, to pass before August, which I would love to see that. So definitely I'm optimistic and I, I would love to see like startups like myself to be able to come in United States. I don't think that is going to particularly happen for crypto perps for retail users, but we'll see

Stephen: It's always hard, right? And people are like, well, if it's decided in court, what's the big deal? Well, you can't play on the sidelines for three or four

Olta: years.

Exactly.

Stephen: business is really on hold. You're in a regulatory limbo before something happens. And within that time, the administration changes the sentiment.

The momentum changes, so it's very tough for American businesses, especially over the last seven years that I've been in the industry and seeing what they've had to go through. I think the US and many other jurisdictions are lucky. They still have institutions. To regulate here versus them going all going abroad.

Any last thoughts about enclave? I know you can't say what's coming up or anything that you're really focused on. Even if it's not a new announcement, there's something that you've released and you're like, Hey, it's all hands on deck. This is really a feature that we want people to, or our customers to get in their hands.

Olta: Yeah, I mean, I'm very excited about what we're building and continue building. It's not that we have like a new product coming out that I'm hiding, but my cons our concentration is going to be, of course, institutional users and concerning and considering their concerns and what they're looking for, you know, for their trading.

Platforms. And we do have very, very important partnerships. One of them is with HRP, which I'm sure you, you saw that was recently acquired from Ripple. And, and then also concentrating on the feedback from retail users and what they're aiming for. You know, this hybrid platforms that include both centralized and decentralized.

Features but I am more bullish about the whole industry. As I said, it's gonna be a very interesting upcoming. Two or three years. I don't think we have much time to, to, to make legislation happen. So that's why I hope we, we get some legislation soon, which are, I think is going to, to be tremendously, tremendously helpful, you know, to push innovation forward and as I said, for many other businesses which are located offshore, to be able to, to, to, to come back to United States.

Stephen: That's awesome. And yeah, the months go by quickly, you know,

Olta: I know. Yeah. It's

Stephen: in a four year term.

Where can people find you? I know you're active on LinkedIn. I'm not sure if you want us to include your Instagram in the show notes, or is that just for me to follow your life and,

Olta: I,

I, Vic fiercely through all the amazing places you travel to.

I, I am very active on LinkedIn. I'm not as active on Twitter as I used to be before. I dunno, I feel like Twitter platform has been changing a little bit, so, but for people who'd like to reach out to me, yes. I'm Olta and Dony on LinkedIn and I just dislike and just to be very open. I just dislike those.

Messages. Do you have 30 minutes for a call? Like you cannot have

Stephen: I probably message you when I first found out about Nifty. I'm sure that's the message. Hey, I'm looking to

Olta: No. Now changing

so much

Stephen: to you about Nifty. I'm sure I'm gonna go back and check if that was my message, but I'm, I'm pretty sure I was like struggling to get any Alpha about NFTs

Olta: You actually should include this in one of your podcasts because there are so many, and as I said, I love helping people, especially marketing people and you know, bds, et cetera, but you do just do not expect a person to have like 30 minutes. Of her or his time out of nowhere. Like, it's like me asking, Hey, do you wanna jump?

But you're my friend. Of course I have, I have the confidentiality to to reach out to you about that. But my point is like, you get all these messages, these people who would like to do marketing, they have to do it the right way. Just like you

do, Stephen, I mean those

Stephen: They're expecting like help tomorrow.

Olta: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen: build a relationship. Widen d me a little like say hello. Saying hello will go a long way. Not just sending me your resume. Olta, you're an absolute glass. We love having you on the podcast. We finally got you on the podcast. I've been reaching out to you since I started as the host and we finally got

Olta: Invite me back.

Stephen: yeah, we definitely, I think we should have you and Nick back in like a joint episode for Ava Labs. That would be a lot of fun. Where are you the ambassador for Association for Women in crypto or you know, where do you like to travel to that you see that you're usually present at their events because I know they do a lot of breakfast events.

Olta: The, I mean, there are so many, there are so many events and I mean now it's been tremendously busy, which I'm grateful, especially, I mean, for speaking opportunities, et cetera. But hopefully, I don't know. I mean, I would love to, I I was hoping to go to consensus. As I mentioned to you, unfortunately, I can't make it there, but hopefully we're gonna have like more events.

To, to, to meet more women in the space. I'm also now a board member of the Illinois Blockchain Association, which probably I'll take only two minutes to kind of raise some awareness

Stephen: Yeah, for

Olta: Asset and Consumer Protection Act. That is tremendously concerning now in Illinois. And I have been working with the board members and of course with our chair to.

Hopefully be able to stop the bill, but I don't think it's gonna happen. But at least we're trying to push some Aman amendments. And for the listeners who have businesses in in Illinois, I think this is very concerning, bill, and they should get themselves. Involved because this is sort of a bid license model, which I'm sure, I mean, Stephen, you know, how or the struggles of those businesses trying to comply with the bid license for many, many years.

But this is even further because it kind of impacts not only those financial businesses, but even non-financial businesses activate. So pretty much the moment that you touch crypto, whatever that structure is. You have to be licensed in Illinois. So I just wanted to bring some awareness about digital Asset and Consumer Protection Act in Illinois. So thank you.

Stephen: For those of you that don't know about the Bit License, you can go back and listen to the episode. That would probably be proceeding.

Olta: I know you had a great episode on Bit License

Stephen: Yeah, we had, we just had, we just recorded Andrew with eToro us

as

Olta: an amazing.

Stephen: he, he, I think he's still sweating from the registration process that they did at eToro.

There's only like, and the Bit license only give out. They've only given out 30 of those licenses in like, probably like the last 12 years. It's, it's,

Olta: it's insane.

Stephen: extremely one. Thank you for bringing that awareness. I had no idea. I thought we'd be getting further and further away from that process and more.

You know of a sandbox approach, but he did mention there are states that are very much aligned and it makes sense. You know, New York and Chicago are the two biggest financial hubs, I believe, in the us. I could be wrong, but probably the most prominent. So thank you so much for raising that awareness.

Thank you for joining the podcast, and keep us posted. Hopefully you got at least some amendment to those acts, even if it's one or two things.

Olta: Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me and best of luck to you. You are amazing. Thank you for everything you do in our space.

Stephen: I appreciate you. I appreciate, thank you so much for responding to me when I bothered you about getting in, about getting into NFTs and asking for a 30 minute call, even though you did take the 30 minute call. We finally have an hour call seven years later. Awesome.

Olta: Thank you, Stephen.

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