Toward Harmonization: A Global Crypto Policy Perspective with Coinbase’s Tom Duff Gordon

Ari Redbord (00:02):

I am Ari Redbord and this is TRM Talks. I'm Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, we provide blockchain intelligence software to support law enforcement investigations and to help financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses mitigate financial crime risk within the emerging digital asset economy. Prior to joining TRM spent 15 years in the US federal government, first as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice, and then as a Treasury Department official where I worked to safeguard the financial system against terrorist financiers, weapons of mass destruction, proliferators, drug kingpins, and other rogue actors. On TRM Talks, I sit down with business leaders, policymakers, investigators, and friends from across the crypto ecosystem who are working to build a safer financial system. On today's TRM Talks, I sit down with Coinbase, Tom Duff Gordon, but first Inside the Lab where I share data-driven insights From our blockchain intelligence team.

(01:05):

On today's Inside the Lab, we unpack TRM's take on the Wolfberg Group's new guidance for providing banking services to stablecoin issuers. Our colleagues, Tom Armstrong and Luke Dufour do a great job breaking this down. Check out their video on our website at trmlabs/resources. The guidance clarifies that banks must treat stablecoin relationships just like any other bank to bank link, whether it's operating reserve or settlement accounts, the same financial crime risk principles apply. The guidance emphasizes that oversight should lean on the issuer's declared risk appetite with proportional on chain and off chain monitoring. Layered in blockchain intelligence isn't about chasing every token hop, it's about verifying that behavior matches expectation and surfacing anomalies. Very important guidance from a standard setter. For TRM, this is a signal stablecoin linked banking must build in visibility from day one. The tools, workflows and analytics we provide help financial institutions align with those expectations, managing innovation without sacrificing compliance. For more, check out Tom and Luke's video. Now I sit down with Tom Duff Gordon. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. I feel like you and I have spent time literally all over the world together running in Singapore and dinners with policymakers, so thank you for actually spending a little one-on-one time with me today to hopefully have a really fun conversation.

Tom Duff Gordon (02:48):

It's a delight to be here, Ari, with you, and whether we're in Brussels or in Singapore, love chatting and catching up with you. I think the work that you guys are doing at TRM is epic and incredibly valuable. So no, it's a privilege to be with you and look forward to the discussion.

Ari Redbord (03:02):

I would love to start eventually, I think we're going to talk about really what you've built with an amazing policy team at Coinbase, but I'd love to hear sort of how you ended up in this really unique role.

Tom Duff Gordon (03:12):

Yeah, happy to. I was in TradFi, so I was at Credit Suisse, so now UBS, but I was there for 15 plus years and I joined actually in 2006. So this was the time where, I mean, if you remember, it was very frothy. This was kind of like the bull market, and I joined as a young analyst in the investment banking strategy team. So all of those stories about investment banking analysts, working long hours, getting the late taxi home and then starting the next day. So I'd certainly had a little bit of that experience, but I do also remember just a year into the job, the failure of some of those Bear Stearns hedge funds, do you remember in June of 2007? And that was the first kind of glimpse of, oh, the global financial crisis or something bad is about to happen. And then I just had this incredible ringside seat through the reregulation of banks through that decade period.

(04:01):

But when I started, I was in the strategy team and the investment bank, which gave me an insight across different parts of the investment bank, which was really valuable. But when the crisis hit, obviously everything was not about building new businesses and M&A and those types of things, but more about how do we streamline, how do we get rid of people so less fun from my perspective, and it just occurred to me that where strategy was really going to happen was in the policy team. The funny thing is, is that policy wasn't a thing then in investment banks. I mean there were two or three people who did it, and I think Credit Suisse wasn't alone in having a few folks, but they were not really front and center. But guess what? When regulation is changing and the rule books are being torn up and put back together again, suddenly in those periods policy becomes a very strategic function.

(04:48):

And so I thought, do you know what? I'm just going to try and walk across the floor and knock on this person's door and see whether they'll take me. And I was super lucky and they did take me and it turned out to be a good move. And we then spent the next decade, as I said, trying to reregulate and make banks a little bit stronger and more resilient. And Credit Suisse actually invented one of the core concepts which has become global law in terms of bank recovery and resolution, which is around bail-ins, so this concept that banks shouldn't be bailed out by the state, but they should be bailed in by using their own balance sheet. And I was the junior person working with our Chief Risk Officer, a fantastic guy who was a mentor called Wilson Irvin, and we took this idea, which was his idea, and we tried to sell it kind of globally, and we were incredibly unpopular Ari like in the first few months of this because obviously this was an expensive and unpopular thing to do.

(05:41):

But then it became kind of accepted and we were excited. And that whole process of developing a new rule book and a big idea, selling it and thinking that this is actually contributing to something bigger than just us and our business was something that I really enjoyed doing. And then I had the good fortune to go on and lead that team and run the Europe, Mid-East and Africa policy team at Credit Suisse had a bunch of really exciting kind of experiences because we've had a lot of crises between now and then global financial crisis, but then Brexit and COVID and Ukraine and the sovereign debt crisis, etc. And so working at a bank during that period with a ringside seat to some of those things was incredibly like a rich experience.

Ari Redbord (06:21):

It's amazing. But before I dig into your current role and how you ended up at Coinbase, did those experiences in your early days of banking lead to a feeling of there's got to be a better way? I think sort of a lot of the advocacy that you do at Coinbase today, right? I mean you lived through the financial crisis where banks in large part failed their customers in the global financial system. What role has that experience played in your current role?

Tom Duff Gordon (06:45):

Yeah, I love that question because I do sometimes remember that the genius block in Bitcoin had that excerpt with the Financial Times and the headline around the banks being bailed out. And then I think I spent so long trying to kind of work with others on how to avoid that ever happening again and how to create a better system. And then to your point, had to become quite familiar with post-trade, so ie: how capital markets and the plumbing of them really work and all of the different actors involved and the complexity of derivatives portfolios and what happens when there goes wrong and a web of intermediaries. And for sure when I started learning and thinking about crypto, which is kind of peer-to-peer and programmable and open source and transparent and traceable, all of those things resonated almost more deeply and more personally with me because of all of that experience that I'd had. Exactly as you suggest.

Ari Redbord (07:37):

Really extraordinary. So why did you do this crazy thing? You had a great career going in financial services policy, you'd found this really cool role. What was it about crypto, Coinbase in particular that caused you to make this move?

Tom Duff Gordon (07:50):

Well, I'd become a bit of a generalist, which was kind of a good thing in some senses, but I love, there's a little bit of me which is quite nerdy and I like going deep on things. And after a while I realized that the two big things happening in finance were green finance and digital finance. And I had a team member who was looking at MiCA and I was getting increasingly interested in it. And actually at the same time I was reading the book, The Hundred Year Life by Linda Gratton. It's super interesting. Kind of says, look, in the old days you used to be able to go to college, take one job and then retire. And that was kind of it. But now with life expectancy so much kind of longer, and if you want to live a healthy active life for a bit longer from a cognitive and health perspective, you've got to change it up from time to time.

(08:31):

And so that was kind of in the back of my mind. And then I got a phone call from actually someone who works in my team now at Coinbase saying, Tom, why aren't you responding to these headhunters? And I had COVID at the time, but because of that I went really deep on crypto. I'd been at surface level and been tinkering a bit, but then I went really deep into it for some of the reasons that we've just discussed, but also because of the opportunity for policy to play such a strategic role in getting this industry off the ground. I felt like this was just a superb challenge. And then Coinbase with a mission, I'm sure everyone talks about this, but economic freedom, Brian's vision and those types of things, and the caliber of people at Coinbase that I started to meet just convinced me that this was the job I could not take up. So those are the reasons.

Ari Redbord (09:17):

You mentioned sort of going deep when you were sort of looking at Coinbase, having those conversations eventually getting there. I do get asked all the time, how do you do that? What were some of the things that you did as you were either interviewing or as you sort of got there?

Tom Duff Gordon (09:31):

Yeah. Well, I have a bit of a barbell strategy. So the first thing is honestly, and I'm not sure I prescribed this to anybody, so it comes with a user warning, but I did go into YouTube was my first thing. And just a ton of videos that were super interesting, very accessible on YouTube. A lot of the actors and presenters super articulate made it very accessible to me. But then I did the barbell and went down for local bookshop and bought some of the big academic treaties. So it was a mixture of doing those two things. And then I think for everybody, it's a bit like if you go to the horse races, it's no fun unless you've got a bet on. I think you've got to open an account and you've got to dive in and do stuff. And that's really interesting because you and I talk a lot to policy makes and regulators and I do sometimes wonder to what extent they are allowed or do engage in some of the things that they're thinking and regulating because there's no real substitute for understanding this from actually getting your hands kind of dirty.

Ari Redbord (10:21):

It's something that's just a consistent cry from I think folks in the industry to policy makers and regulators globally. And we've talked about this so much on TRM Talks over the years, I think in the US for years it's even been banned. Engaging with the technology essentially has been banned by US federal government employees, which is crazy. Talk a little bit about how the role was when you first got there and then how the policy role at Coinbase has grown and developed over the years.

Tom Duff Gordon (10:46):

So I look up something called international policy. So that's what we do outside of the US. So we have a fantastic team and operation in the US and Faryar Shirzad is our chief policy officer. My role is looking at everything outside and obviously our biggest sphere of operations right now is Europe, but we have activities across Asia, Latin America, kind of North America, and now the Middle East. So that's the job. That's what I do my average day. It's interesting. I will tell you there has not been in the three and a half years I've been at Coinbase two weeks where I've had the same work pattern much to my family and wife I have to tell you. But it's such fun and it's so dynamic and different because we may talk a bit about this later, but multiple jurisdictions and countries are all on their journey towards figuring out what to do with crypto policy, how much to lean into it.

(11:34):

And we know what all the steps are, different regions are at different phases of that progression, and we want to be involved and engaged in as many of those discussions as possible. So I tend to kind of start with Asia in the morning and I've got an amazing team in Singapore that cover that region. And then the classic thing is I kind of follow the sun and end up doing a bunch of meetings in London and Europe and a long day normally with San Francisco internal calls, but a huge amount of traveling, which is a real privilege, tiring, but a real privilege. And I get out and meet face-to-face with as many policymakers as I can to talk about crypto, to talk about the contribution that we think the industry can make to promoting economic freedom. And as I said, no two weeks the same. So we haven't settled into a pattern yet, but I think that is a reflection of just how dynamic and fast evolving the sector is.

Ari Redbord (12:23):

I think honestly, one of the reasons I'm just such a fan of you personally and professionally is just that I explain to people sometimes I've never worked harder and I've never had more fun. And as long as I can kind of keep that dynamic in some sort of balance and my marriage intact we're all winners. And to think about just the space that you cover, right? This idea of international being everything but the US, it's crazy. What does policy mean to you?

Tom Duff Gordon (12:46):

Yeah, it's a great question. I think the simplest way of framing it is what I want to be engaged in and what the team to be engaged in is the development of pro-crypto policy and regulatory frameworks throughout the world. So we don't get engaged in day-to-day supervision. So the relationship that our firm has with the regulators, for example, on a day-to-day basis that is a compliance and legal driven activity and topic, but from first principles, how do we regulate this industry? Is crypto different from financial services and financial products that we currently know and understand? How do we protect consumers when they need protecting? How do we make sure that this doesn't disrupt financial stability, impact market integrity, etc. But equally, how do we think about promoting an environment for innovation to drive growth in jobs if we think that blockchains are a better mechanism for value transfer than the current system?

(13:38):

And I think it's so interesting to note that evolution in the conversations that I'm having. I joined in 2022, so we then went through the two years of crypto winter, the very difficult FTX collapse, the Terra Luna, etc. And that was really hard. And it was the actors in the industry that were trying to be compliant first and trying to do things the right way had historically been moving slower than some of the other actors. I'm really hoping we've come out of that now. And it does feel like the conversations are less around does it work and is it all just full of scammers to actually a recognition. I think most people would agree with the premise that crypto is either part of the future of the financial system or is the future of the financial system. And so I think we are now starting the conversation in a different and more positive place.

(14:28):

But policy for me is all about trying to fix difficult problems and policy is all about trade-offs. Politics is not easy, right? There's no quick and simple answer to any of this stuff. There's all sorts of offs and it can be very technical, but the fun part of it is trying to be a little bit the translator between what our product folks want to do in terms of building these amazing new products and services they want to unleash into the environment and try and extrapolate from that what the public policy benefits and also dis-benefits are, and to think about how would you address those in a structured conversation with policy makers. So it's huge fun actually to be involved in that and so much more innovation in this job than in some of my previous jobs because we have whole new actors, whole new products and services, new questions being asked the whole time, and it's very disruptive. And when you disrupt the status quo, then that also creates really interesting naughty public policy kind of questions to grapple with.

Ari Redbord (15:25):

Yeah, it's amazing. I think that you in particular, Coinbase has not just created a lot of that narrative around crypto is here to stay, but you also in large part have reinvented what policy means in some respects. Lemme give you an example. I was in a meeting this week with a policymaker on Capitol Hill and they asked me a question that I have no business answering, but it was something around why do you think the larger players in the space are always out advocating for more nascent, let's say decentralized finance players, early stage protocols, developers, builders? And my answer was something around, look, we're all early stage still like this entire industry. So I think there's a lot of comradery there, but it's also around ideology. But I would love to hear your answer to that because I think Coinbase oftentimes people say, wow, it's crazy that Coinbase is out there advocating for Defi. Talk me through that.

Tom Duff Gordon (16:15):

Yeah, happy to. I think a lot of this comes down from the top. I mean, Brian is just fantastic on this topic. I mean, I think his view is that Coinbase will continue to evolve and that DeFi is a big part of the future. And if that means that we have to decentralize ourselves and our products and services, then we will and we should. And so I think he sets the tone and we follow, I love what you were saying because we take the small companies and the DeFi protocols and stuff round to meet policymakers, not just in the US but also through Stand with Crypto and other platforms throughout the rest of the world. And do you know what Ari? Honestly, much as I think, well, obviously you do a stellar job and we think we do an okay job. The best advocates, the most powerful advocates for this industry, I think are sometimes the practitioners and the builders and the developers who've identified a problem.

(17:03):

They get out a new way of answering that and delivering a solution, but find themselves, find barriers to their ability to be able to scale that or raise finance or there's a regulatory issue or the compliance is too expensive. And you see the policymaker like nodding and taking notes in a really powerful way when they see that because ultimately this is about driving jobs and growth and SMEs. And if we can find better rails, better financial services, cheaper finance, quicker, faster finance and do that for the broader economy, I think that's what we all get out of bed for. And bringing those folks to explain that can be so interesting and powerful. There's a coffee shop in DC that pays for the coffee beans from El Salvador in Bitcoin and the way that they've disintermediated the supply chain saved a ton of money, pay the farmers quicker and better. And it's just a small story, but these anecdotes I think can be really powerful.

Ari Redbord (17:54):

I love that so much. You mentioned coffee in DC. I know that my favorite coffee place in DC is Compass, which has a bunch of different locations around town, and I know that Stand with Crypto has worked with Compass on USDC payments through your Coinbase account to buy coffee. I think I see behind you a can. Is it a soda can? What is Stand with Crypto and what is that can?

Tom Duff Gordon (18:16):

I love it that you see the Can that was good product placement. We were just in Liverpool, which is a town in the northwest of the UK this week where they had the Labor Party conference and Stan with crypto came along Stand with Crypto is a grassroots crypto advocacy body that Coinbase is effectively, we're big strong backers of it, but we have tons of partners and we want Stand with Crypto to basically talk for the industry, not just for Coinbase, but the idea and the philosophy behind it, again, driven a lot by Brian and his view that advocacy can be done at a number of different levels. You can do it at the corporate level and you can engage in very formal meetings on the Hill or in Westminster or in Brussels or in Singapore or wherever you happen to be. But there's a really powerful form of advocacy around building the base, energizing the base.

(18:58):

And people who use crypto who tend to skew demographically young, they tend to care about the technology, see the real potential for it. And we've just found it so powerful to bring that community together under this banner called Stand with Crypto. And in the UK for example, we just love shining a spotlight on the entrepreneurs, the developers that builders in the space who are just doing cool things up and down the country, and then using that as a platform to bring to policymakers to say, when you think as a policymaker, why should I care about prioritizing or promoting this industry through either regulation or legislation? I care because I can give you four examples of genuine kind of real economic activity which has been done better and more competitively using this technology. So that's what Stand with Crypto is. And I think Stand with Crypto has been actually really powerful in showing that there is a crypto voter and showing the salience of this issue. And the success we've had in the US with it is really helping to put a bit of a spotlight some attention on some of the initiatives we're doing internationally with it.

Ari Redbord (19:59):

It's truly extraordinary. I moderated a panel with Fayar who you mentioned several months ago, and I asked around this question of, "Hey, policy means different things to different people," to you over the last year or so, it's been building a crypto army essentially to show policymakers globally that this crypto voter does in fact exist. That is very different than a lot of the probably one-on-one policy engagement that maybe you're used to having done previously in your career and even in the early days of Coinbase. I mean, this is a very different type of policy role. Let's get a little nuts and bolts. So we've talked about, I think the role and what you do and stand with crypto. Talk me through where you're excited about what's happening. I feel like the UK and Europe is an interesting moment, slightly different. APAC is always accelerating it feels like in this space. Talk me through though what you're seeing on the ground and the impact that you're having.

Tom Duff Gordon (20:46):

Happy to, as I said before, I had to kind of zoom out and I feel like the journey is stage one for most countries is they normally think about AML and taxation. If you're going to do something, you do something in those spaces. And then the next big step is what do we do around centralized actors and platforms, CASPs or VASPs as we call them. And then stablecoins tends to be part of that second step. And then the third one is DeFi and tokenization, etc. So it feels like that's the journey and what has happened in the US recently, the passing of GENIUS, but even before that with the kind of Project Crypto and those types of things has led to I think just generally a perspective that I see across multiple jurisdictions whereby if there was already a crypto framework in place, then there's suddenly a new desire to kind of just go up a gear and put your foot on the gas and try and make the most of that advantage.

(21:34):

But what it's really done is focused the minds of some of those jurisdictions where there kind of wasn't something or they were just cycling through kind of analysis and not getting around to it. So there's a real acceleration that's happening now, and a lot of that has to do with developments in the US. It also has to do I think with institutional adoption, which has been really powerful and grown really steadily, but just between now and the end of this year, we're going to have a lot of things happening. So in Canada, we're hoping to get something on stablecoins in the budget, and I think that would be kind of welcome, long time coming. In Australia, we are hoping to get something on stablecoins. We've just had that CAS regime drop, so that's good. Singapore, again, on stablecoins, Switzerland, stablecoins, and Casper rules the UK on stablecoins, the EU at the end of this year on DLT pilot regime and tokenization, Middle East is always doing lots of interesting stuff. So it's kind of an ongoing kind of cycle and everybody's moving forward. But it does feel like the theme a bit at the moment is stablecoins and tokenization, and particularly in the UK and the EU, we're beginning to kind of dive quite deep into those areas.

Ari Redbord (22:37):

Policymakers in the EU, France, and some other countries a couple of weeks ago said, Hey, look, we're working on MiCA implementation, but it's harder than expected, which I think you and I and other folks knew this was going to be hard when you have 37 member states with completely different political systems and resources and all the problems that you has always had with the eu. But tell me where you feel like things are right now just given sort of your closeness to the situation in Europe.

Tom Duff Gordon (23:02):

Yeah, it's a great question. And just to kind of start out, I will say that Coinbase, we've always been positive about MiCA because the EU did move very early. I mean, as you said, with 27 member states to get anything done takes four years. So they started this 2018, 2017.

Ari Redbord (23:15):

And you were very early in being MiCA compliant and getting your license and working through all those issues. So it's very cool.

Tom Duff Gordon (23:23):

Yeah, we're MiCA licensed in Luxembourg, and so we're delighted about that, but it opens up this market of 400, 500 million kind of people and provides regulatory clarity, which is great. But as you say, there are always questions around how does it get implemented. MiCA said that national competent authorities, so each of the supervisors in the 27 member states have responsibility for the actors in their jurisdiction, but they can passport across the whole of the region rather than having a single centralized supervior authority. And I think there was some papers out recently and Europe is beginning to question whether that was the right decision to kind of decentralize supervision or not. Look, I mean, that's going to be a tricky question, a very political question, and we'll see how that plays out. I mean, for us to be honest, the kind of naughty technical questions now that we see in Europe revolve a bit more around stablecoins, tokenization and payment services.

(24:16):

On stablecoins there's a big question around multi issuance. So we have US dollar stablecoins, which are 99% of the market, but a few of them, or at least USDC is regulated in both the US and in the EU. There's a question about how do we make sure that we can have fungibility across the two regions? And as you and I know stablecoins, one of their biggest value drivers and factors is cross-border, right? I mean, that's what they're designed for. That's what they do best. They do lots of good things, but cutting out that system of cross-border correspondent banks and the peer to peer cross border is a big value prop for stablecoins. And so I think working through how to make sure that you don't have a disbalance or an unbalanced reserve framework versus circulating currency in either jurisdiction, making sure that GENIUS and the EU rules can talk to each other, having rebalancing mechanisms, having transparency.

(25:10):

I think that's really important that Europe figures that out because I think what we're all trying to avoid is that we have this great breakthrough on cross-border payments, and then we find ourselves not able to fulfill that promise by effectively duplicating and asking for issuance to be fragmented across different regimes and lacking in interoperability or fungibility between them. So I think that's a big topic in Europe. The other one we're excited about and we think they're well positioned is on tokenization. They have the DLT pilot regime. I think the commission in particular recognizes the power of tokenization, not just for cash like stablecoins, but real world assets, so funds and ultimately debt instruments and equity instruments, and how to update the DLT pilot regime that they have in the EU in order to try and bootstrap tokenization in Europe, I think is a very current question that they have right now. And how to make sure that Europe can keep pace with the US. I think what the US is doing on tokenization is incredibly ambitious and very leapfrogging, and I think the UK, the EU and other financial centers around the world should be figuring out, I think are figuring out how to track some of those developments as we think about doing amazing things like moving gigantic portions potentially over time of our capital markets, off traditional rails and putting them onchain. It's like a really exciting, but really complicated proposition.

Ari Redbord (26:35):

Incredible answer. Let's talk really quick about teams. I have an amazing team that I'm super proud of, people like Isabella Chase and Angela Ang, but honestly, when I look around the space, you just have this really extraordinary team, not just of true subject matter experts, but really, really cool, nice, humble people. How do you build a team like that?

Tom Duff Gordon (26:54):

Well, thank you for asking that. And I think that the way you are so effusive and complimentary about your team is such a lesson for all of us in management, and I see you do that really publicly and I love that. But yes, but I'm very lucky. We have an incredible team here that we've kind of built, and it's a mixture of athletes who are not just technically extremely competent, but also very good at the people side and the networking, because you need that kind of mixture in our world, right, of knowing who to talk to and when, but equally being able to be substantive and try and dig into the argument. And Katie Harry's in Europe, I have Roland in Brussels, Katie Mitchell and David Mens in Singapore. I want to almost give them all a big shout out because they're just,

Ari Redbord (27:32):

You absolutely should. And they're all amazing people that I have gotten to know personally and professionally over the years. It's really extraordinary and it's not easy, and they've all been with you and together for a really long time now, which is I think pretty amazing and speaks a lot to your leadership.

Tom Duff Gordon (27:45):

Yeah, I hope it stays like that. And Artie Kani, I can't forget that. Otherwise they won't stick together if I don't mention it. But no, it is extraordinary set of individuals, and I will say across the US team and under Fayar as well, we see the incredible work that they're doing in the US and that galvanizes us to match and try and do more on the international side, but it comes down to also a set of people who want to advocate not just for the firm, but for the broader industry and for something bigger than just who we are at Coinbase. And I think that mission that we have, which is just a bigger one that motivates people a lot and gets people out of bed, and I like to just give teams leadership and runway to do things. There's such a big space, there are so many problems to be addressed here. I'm just delighted to have a group of folks who really want to dig in and really want to take some ownership and really push ahead.

Ari Redbord (28:35):

It's awesome. I've learned so much from what you guys have done. On that note, last question here, you are traveling constantly, really all over the world, and it makes so much sense given your remit. What do you do to sort of relax a little bit?

Tom Duff Gordon (28:48):

Well, I definitely packed my running shoes. I think if you do as much traveling as I do, you have to do that. I've yet to find a compact squashable set of running shoes that you can kind of get into the suitcase. So I would love your tips, but it's the best way of beating jet lag. And I'm lucky I don't get jet lag very much. I mean, my wife is always kind of amazed, why aren't you asleep the whole weekend? But I seem to be okay. And one of the reasons is by getting out and doing some running. So I run, the other thing I love is tennis, which is just a huge sport that I'm big into and my kids are now, we can now rally together as a family and stuff like that, which is just super fun. And then the third thing is I'm a complete wannabe DJ.

Ari Redbord (29:28):

Oh, amazing.

Tom Duff Gordon (29:29):

I'm at that very sad stage of at a party wanting to be the guy who's choosing the music on Spotify, but I need to upgrade that into decks and all of that stuff. My wife bought me a course to learn DJing, but I have had the time to do it, but that's on my bucket list too.

Ari Redbord (29:43):

Oh my goodness, I love this. It's my favorite question to ask in these things, and I get you really learn so much about folks. What's so funny is now I check a bag almost everywhere I go. I bring 50 hats with me for the TRM Run Club, so I'm always, now people think somehow marketing teams get these things placed, come on. So yeah, I'm almost always so I can take all the shoes I need, which I quite frankly always do. Have a lot of shoes. Best city run in one of your travels from your policy role or favorite runs?

Tom Duff Gordon (30:11):

Good question. I think in Washington, depending on where you're staying, if you're in Georgetown and you can run up the river, which I've done a few times from there, I was just like, that was just so beautiful. I love doing that. Running in Singapore, just round the bay with Marina Bay Sands kind of in the background is

Ari Redbord (30:26):

Almost always hot, but amazing.

Tom Duff Gordon (30:27):

Yes,

Ari Redbord (30:28):

That's a great

Tom Duff Gordon (30:29):

One. Exactly. Melbourne and up the river and then through the Botanic garden, the tan, as they call it down there. That's been a highlight. But yeah, I mean, you and I should riff on this actually. We should maybe have a kind, a book we should best

Ari Redbord (30:39):

Runs. It's ironic, my favorite run of the world is in dc, but I love running in London, which is so interesting that you didn't say that, right? I love running along the Thames. I love running up through Buckingham Palace through the park. I mean, it's just, there's so much you can see. And honestly, for me, a lot of it is tourism. It's the way I see stuff, especially when you're locked in meetings and some conference or something. It's like the one hour you have maybe in a day or two to do this stuff. So it's awesome. Well, I'm excited to run with you many more places in the world. Tom, thank you so much for joining TRM Talks. Really just keep up the great work. It's so fun to watch you do your thing out there.

Tom Duff Gordon (31:13):

I love partnering with you guys well at TRM. So yeah, same to you. And this was fun. Thank you for having me.

Ari Redbord (31:24):

It's so interesting. I was invited on to a friend's podcast recently. Caroline, Malcolm and Caroline asked me a lot of questions. The whole idea of the podcast was what is policy? And the conversation I loved having with Tom is the way that his role and the way Coinbase role in the broader ecosystem from a policy perspective has really evolved and really what they've done withstand with crypto to really build this crypto army to go out there and advocate for a really nascent space is just so unique. And my favorite part of the conversation was he referenced the book where it talked about reinventing yourself. And it's so clear that Tradify to Defi and the work that Coinbase is doing has really allowed Tom to reinvent himself, quite frankly, in a way that I really related to personal as well, having been in the government for so long, and then having this really crazy fun role at TRM.

(32:14):

So I think when I think to myself, well, what is policy? In many ways it is top. It is the true subject matter expert, but also who's a leader in the space, who's built this amazing team of experts in these different key regions and out there advocating not just for Coinbase, which is just so cool, but for the broader ecosystem, small defi protocols and builders, and then one of the largest, most important centralized crypto businesses in the world. So what is policy? I think policies in large part exactly what Tom Duff Gordon is doing at Coinbase, and that's why this was such a cool conversation. Next time on TRM Talks, I sit down with IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco. If you love the show, leave a review wherever you're listening to it and follow us on LinkedIn to get the latest news on crypto regulation, compliance, and investigations.

TRM Labs (33:10):

TRM Talks is brought to you by TRM Labs, the leading provider of blockchain intelligence and anti-money laundering software. This episode was produced in partnership with Voltage Productions. The music for this show was provided by iKOLIKS.

Ari Redbord (33:27):

Now let's get back to building.

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