Q Day Is Closer Than You Think: Quantum, Crypto, and National Security with Sanjeev Bhasker

Ari Redbord (00:00):

I'm Ari Redbord and this is TRM Talks. I'm Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs. At TRM, 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, I 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.

(00:50):

On today's TRM Talks, I'm joined by former DOJ crypto lead, Sanjeev Bhasker. But first, Inside the Lab, where I share data-driven insights from our blockchain intelligence team.

(01:14):

On today's Inside the Lab, one global exchange has quietly become the financial lifeline connecting Iran's sanctioned crypto economy to the rest of the world. Over more than seven years and sixty-plus platforms, TRM traced over three point eight four billion dollars in flows between CoinEx and sanctioned Iranian crypto entities.

Patterns pointing to coordination, not organic adoption. The core relationship is with Nobitex, Iran's largest exchange. Two point seven billion dollars in flows since twenty eighteen. And by twenty-five, CoinEx made up sixteen point three percent of Nobitex's volume, its single largest counterparty, nine times the next closest exchange.

TRM also traced sixty-seven million dollars moving from the Central Bank of Iran through CoinEx between June 2025 and June 2026. Sanctioned actor exposure runs deeper still. Six million dollars tied to IRGC, plus links to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, all flowing through CoinEx.

The clearest proof came after OFAC sanctioned Nobitex and three other Iranian exchanges on June 2nd. CoinEx Iran volume, which had run in the hundreds of millions, collapsed to under a hundred and fifty thousand dollars almost overnight. That confirms CoinEx isn't a peripheral counterparty.

It functions as a critical liquidity infrastructure for Iran's sanctioned economy. And it even helped bail out Nobitex after a major hack. For compliance teams, exposure to CoinEx now warrants the same scrutiny as direct exposure to a sanctioned Iranian entity.

(03:07):

And now Sanjeev Bhasker. Today I am joined by my friend, former DOJ crypto lead, National Security Council, and now partner at K&L Gates, Sanjeev Bhasker. Sanjeev, thank you so much for joining TRM Talks.

Sanjeev Bhasker (03:33):

Thank you for having me, Ari. It's an honor to be back again, round two. So I'm excited to be here.

Ari Redbord (03:37):

Tell me a little bit about your career. As I mentioned, you were the digital assets lead at the department, but really much more than that. Tell me your origin story here.

Sanjeev Bhasker (03:46):

Know, for me, I was very blessed. Career prosecutor, state prosecutor, federal prosecutor, many US Attorneys offices. Just had the opportunity to come across digital assets early in my career, and I think like any lawyer, you want to learn. You want to learn, you want to engage. I like to say we didn't study this stuff in law school, right?

So at least my generation didn't. But we went ahead and we engaged and we learned, and we wanted to be good team players who worked together, and I think that created opportunities for me coming to Washington and then serving with a variety of colleagues as Digital Currency Council and, was a trial and appellate litigator by background.

I tried a lot of cases, almost 100 trials actually at the state and federal level in Ohio, in the Southern District of Texas, in North Carolina, in the Western District of North Carolina. And at some point, the investigations went from traditional crime or cybercrime or money laundering to digital asset related crimes where the funds were going abroad, the technology was different, and there was a necessity to learn the technology.

And I'm a big fan of awareness of technology before you can have adoption. And so I was, "Let me go ahead and be aware. Let me engage. Let me work these investigations with great law enforcement partners at a variety of agencies, the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, IRS." I don't want to miss anyone, postal inspector.

All of them are our friends. We worked together, as a former federal prosecutor, and we learned together. And I think the reality was the community was made safer. But I also learned the importance of working with industry because when it came to emerging technology, we needed to work with those who were developing the software to understand how to, one, to use it properly, but two, how to make sure there was some type of regulation in place that made sense to help keep people accountable when they abuse the technology.

And that to me came about organically just from working cases as an assistant US attorney. And, that opened up doors and, eventually you go from working investigations to being a subject matter expert trying to help others, which is a very rewarding process. It's not your case, but you're helping others in the country and in the world for that matter.

And, I think like one of the mindsets I kept was I wanted to be kind, I wanted to be available, I wanted to be responsive, and I wanted to learn. And that opened up a lot of doors, including traveling the world, speaking to a variety of government leaders and eventually to the White House.

Ari Redbord (05:56):

Do you recall whether there was one case or one investigation, that you saw technology, whether it is digital assets or something else, and you said, "Wow, this is really something interesting that I want to dig into here?"

Sanjeev Bhasker (06:11):

Yes. I think, look, any prosecutor will tell you they love problem-solving and try and identify where they can stop crime and protect the community. I worked a pretty large investigation in North Carolina when I was in the US Attorney's Office, where we had, unfortunately, a lot of crime occurring through the dark web, through cryptocurrency, where we had difficulty identifying the crime, whether it's drug trafficking or other types of ransomware violations just in the street.

We weren't catching criminals committing these specific crimes. But we realized using the resources we had, in this case, the Bank Secrecy Act SAR reporting, we could identify which crypto exchanges a variety of suspicious actors were using and then work backwards to still identify them.

And to me, it was sort of interesting. Like we won't follow the same iterations all the time to identify bad actors because they're not always doing the same method of operation every time either. And having the opportunity to work a couple investigations of that note and then ultimately learning, look, like some of the co-conspirators or the actors working were all over the world.

They weren't all in your city. And that was the reality that decentralized finance brought both good and bad to the marketplace. And I found that really engaging and rewarding to work with others in the community. I remember I went and spoke at a high school, in North Carolina trying to educate parents, I'm a parent, I know you're a parent, about the dangers of the dark web, not about cryptocurrency, but about the dark web and what is crypto and how this is accessible, and just the sentiment from the parents saying, "Thank you.

We didn't know, Sanjiv. We didn't study this in school." And my response is, "I didn't study it either, but we can work together, we can learn it, and there's definitely a good spot for the technology, but we must have awareness of how this works." And that to me was sort of how I got more into it and was more passionate about it.

Ari Redbord (07:56):

That actually speaks to a kind of an interesting point here, and that is, Sanjeev, you are a prosecutor, right, by training. That is, that is where you've spent your career. But really, you sort of shifted from like, obviously you always have worn that prosecutor hat, right, first.

But there's been sort of a policymaking aspect to, I think, certainly the last several years of your career. It's rare to have a prosecutor then sort of turn policymaker. Talk to me a little bit about, A, that transition, but then sort of like how you always would you wear your prosecutor hat in sort of thinking through these issues?

Sanjeev Bhasker (08:29):

Yeah, absolutely. So the transition comes about with the movement to Washington, ultimately a big policy shop here, as Digital Currency Council and Department of Justice, but also to the White House. And the reality was decentralized finance was touching every part of the world, and it still does, right?

Just like cyber touches everybody. So government leaders, whether they're in India, Latin America, United States, wanted to engage and be, educated on these topics, which involved policy. So we were working on the Congressional Hill on things like the CLARITY Act, like the GENIUS Act, to other cyber policy internationally with the FATF, with the Financial Action Task Force.

And I learned, having come from the field, having tried the cases, that brought more credibility to the policy discussion. Because it's easy to say, "I think the policy should be this way because I read it in a book." It's another thing to have been in the field, lived the investigations, worked the cases, seen the pros and cons, and been able to say, "We can have this law in effect, but how will we enforce it?"

Or, "This is something you should think about. These are the blind spots." And I found a lot of our world leaders honestly being very receptive because of the background of being in the field. And that's why I'm a big fan of people who work in the field, who've been there working these investigations before they enter the policy arena, because it adds a level of credibility and veracity that you cannot replicate just being in Washington, in my humble opinion.

Ari Redbord (09:46):

Talk to me a little bit about the White House, you're unique in many ways in sort of your role there. Working on digital assets, working on cyber, working on really emerging tech type of issues. You started in the Biden administration. You worked, well into the Trump's, the second Trump administration.

I've always argued that these are nonpartisan, bipartisan issues that we're dealing with around national security and technology. Talk to me a little bit about that experience.

Sanjeev Bhasker (10:13):

Yeah, absolutely. So I was very blessed to get asked to go to the Biden administration and worked in the Office of the National Cyber Director, which we did work in counselor with the NSC. We worked with everybody. We worked with the president and we worked with the entire White House and the executive branch, and the world for that matter, to be honest. But my initial role coming in there was to help, manage the cyber incident response portfolio, and work on, again, awareness and adoption of emerging technology.

The Office of the National Cyber Director, which is a new office constructed at the end of the first Trump administration, is tasked with this by Congress. And so for us, emerging technology was crypto blockchain, which is my background, and then we learned artificial intelligence and quantum computing. And we were very successful in my mindset of being able to navigate an emerging technological arena, learn the technology for lawyers, and then go ahead and try to engage with industry.

As the Trump administration came into effect, I was very blessed for them to ask me to stay and serve as their assistant general counsel... Excuse me, their acting general counsel, and actually go ahead and navigate additional collateral areas of this portfolio, including serving on the President's Task Force for Digital Assets, where we were able to successfully get Genius Act across the finish line, working with a great group of individuals in the White House. The same thing on the front of the AI Action Plan or the Post-Quantum Cryptography Executive Order.

I'm happy to say we worked on all these things, right? And the technology's agnostic. It doesn't matter who is in leadership. One of the questions I often got is, "Sanjeev, like, how'd you survive? How'd you work both administrations?" And the reality is, just did our job. We tried to be kind in the sandbox, play with everybody, be available, competent. As I got promoted to the general counsel role, try to lead the team underneath you, be available for them, and ultimately make sure we were giving the best counsel possible, which included remaining engaged with law enforcement and remaining engaged with industry.

And those relationships were re-really rewarding in the sense that I got to learn too throughout the process. And I think that's one of the messages I'll share with the audience is we are all still learning. We are fortunate to get these titles, subject matter expert or general counsel at the White House for Biden and Trump, but the reality is we're all still learning and working together in these areas as we try to master what's really still being created and help guide society as we move forth here in these coming years.

Ari Redbord (12:29):

Super well said. I tell young lawyers all the time as they are sort of "How do I do this work? How do I get into technology, AI, quantum, blockchain?" And, I always say, "Look, you are writing the law books today." There are no true experts out there. They are being built today as we speak.

So I think really well said. Look, we have had a ton of people come on this show and talk about Genius and Clarity and sort of crypto regulation and policymaking. We have not had as many conversations around the AI Act, around quantum, around the future of that technology.

Would love to have that with you given your expertise here.

Sanjeev Bhasker (13:02):

On the AI front, I'll tell you one of the neat things is as time progresses, technology gets better. And so as we entered the Biden administration, this was something that we were definitely looking at and monitoring when it came to engagement with industry, putting up good parameters for safe use of AI.

As we moved forward in the Trump administration, and we got more acclimated with the technology, and ChatGPT wasn't a new word anymore, right? The reality was how could we bring AI to the executive branch? So I was part of a team of a select few of individuals working with GSA and in the White House to go ahead and negotiate what you may know as the $1 contracts with a variety of these AI companies that ultimately brought their resources and their LLM models to the executive branch.

And then we were tasked with meeting with the chief information officers or the chief information security officers, CIOs and CISOs accordingly, throughout the executive branch and say, "Treasury, your needs for AI are gonna be different than DOJ, than the Department of War, but this is how the technology works. These are the parameters you need to have in place when it comes to governance, making sure that the models that you're putting prompts into are not, betraying you and being leaked to third-party sources," 'cause some of these involve national security issues.

And we always thought this at the White House, and I think this is so true. Even though we were working with the intention of serving the administration and the federal government writ large, the public was looking, and industry was looking, and they were observing very, acutely with what type of governance policy was this administration gonna do, and would it be successful, and could they later adopt AI into their various platforms because it was so new.

And so for me, the mindset was we needed to have good governance policy, good terms and conditions regarding the AI implementation, and safeguards into effect to make sure the prompts or the questions we were putting in were not being leaked. Now, there's been various levels to this now as my colleagues at ONCD continue to take the mantle forward, and I'm proud of them, with Gold Eagle, which is the new, vulnerability clearinghouse they have in effect that came into play this July of 2026.

But we laid the platform and the foundation down, early last, really last fall, probably circa July or August, when we navigated this and thought, "How can we go forth doing this and memorialize this through an AI action plan with other colleagues that lays out the, not only the priorities of the administration, but says, 'If we wanna expand our tech stack abroad, here's opportunities how to, how to do so.'" And let me say one more thing.

This technology, it's not siloed. So AI is gonna overlap into data centers. It's gonna overlap into quantum. It's gonna overlap into digital assets, so on and so on. The whole strategic Bitcoin reserve, which I helped play a significant role in, that's connected to quantum too. So there is no mindset of only one person is doing this, and we had to figure that out quickly and try to become very conversant on the technology as we led the administration going forward under, of course, the president's leadership.

Ari Redbord (15:53):

Extraordinary. Let's dig in here. Where are things today as you're sort of now slightly on the outside looking in, watching sort of what's being built? But also, where do you see this headed?, I think we both probably agree that nothing has moved faster in our lifetime, and quite frankly, nothing may shape the rest of our lifetime than this conversation over safety, security, and AI. Where do you see things headed right now?

Sanjeev Bhasker (16:19):

So on the AI front, there's a lot going on there. One of the things that we tell people at K&L Gates, where I'll just plug for a second, I'm working now in our public policy group leading our quantum and AI and digital asset practices, are we need to make sure that if we're utilizing AI, let's say in the investment field, we are disclosing to our investors we are using it. We call it AI washing, making sure we're being very clear with the parameters set by the SEC and a variety of regulators when it amounts to AI governance and AI disclosures.

I think also the reality is a lot of companies are still trying to adopt AI to scale, and they are concerned about pr-potential litigation, right? When and if information can get leaked regarding their trade secrets. And so what we're trying to do now is address that from the industry perspective, because it's so important to know we have individuals who have navigated the policy at the White House, who've written the policy and are now trying to effectively implement it with industry where that's, we have our largest customer base.

So I think that's one of the big issues. On the cybersecurity front, That's another issue. We have Q-day is coming. Quantum readiness is the thing, and a lot of chief information security officers are gonna say, "Ari, Sanjeev, we get it, but how can we get in front of our board to make sure our boards get it?

More importantly, how can we protect our customers, our consumers, from future litigation, from loss of data?" And none of this is siloed. And again, as you look at specific presidential memorandas or executive orders, you start to see the overlap and you start to see the responsibility that the president's placed on the executive branch to engage with industry in these areas.

Because often, industry is a first line of defense when it comes to identifying the errors or the solutions and then ultimately sharing it with government.

Ari Redbord (17:59):

Yeah, let's dive right into the quantum piece then, 'cause I think that makes perfect sense here. And I actually love your framing 'cause I really agree it's sort of the age of technology as opposed to sort of one very siloed or specific technology here. So yeah, let's talk quantum.

You've thought about this a ton. To the extent that, like, before you really sort of dive into the tech and sort of what we need to prepare for, give a little background. Talk me through sort of what, when you're talking about Hieu Dang, when you're talking about quantum from a government perspective or from that private sector perspective where you're advising CISOs, talk to me a little bit about what you mean when you talk about quantum.

Sanjeev Bhasker (18:32):

Sure. So quantum computing for the, for the audience writ large, it's really, it's an advanced technology that uses the rules of quantum mechanics to solve sophisticated, complex problems with quantum computers quicker than you would with traditional classical computers. In essence, we have computers that are using, what we call as qubits or quantum bits instead of classical bits, and they are superpositioned in multiple places at once trying to solve these equations, and that brings efficiency, hope, optimization.

I like to give this anecdote. Let's say you had an individual who was, your neighbor knocking on the doors on the street asking for sugar, not knowing which neighbor had the sugar. They would knock on every door until ultimately they come across the Redfords, and you give them the sugar, and we're very thankful.

But with quantum computing, essent-essentially, you can send out waves to a variety of houses to identify perhaps this house has or sugar, perhaps this one doesn't, and that will, in essence, cancel out the noise for where you shouldn't be going and optimize your decision-making process. Almost like you wear like on an airport, an airplane, for example.

And that's important to note because this promotes opportunity, what we call quantum advantage. It is a, I believe $2.7 trillion industry is that last number I've seen by 2031, in which companies such as pharma trying to, God willing, come up with a cure for cancer. Can you imagine that, how awesome that would be through quantum computing?

Or financial transactions or optimization of logistics, chemical research, things of the like. Being able to do multiple tasks at the same point in time and try to identify in good faith the best solution is something that quantum computing allows us to have. The reality is, with quantum advantage, quantum computers exist now.

There are major computers and companies in the industry that have on-site or on-premise, on-prem they call, computers, but there are also computers that will rent you space on the cloud, that will let you utilize this for your industry. And this is something we're seeing more and more of being promoted from not only from the administration but from the science industry writ large and we at the firm are navigating this with clients now, helping them position themselves, no pun intended, to be in a superposition state where they can actually utilize the computing and make good business decisions to come up for a cure for cancer, to help them with their logistical concerns, and understand the technology. 'Cause again, I'll keep coming back to this, awareness is needed before we have adoption, and we wanna help you get through that and navigate that in your business model with your board.

Ari Redbord (21:02):

Incredible. Today, should we be thinking about this right now?

Sanjeev Bhasker (21:06):

Absolutely. Right, and like, so I look at quantum as a couple buckets. One is quantum advantage. One is, look, 2031's not that far along if you're looking at, Making a better bang for your buck when it comes to your business model, understanding the technology, and trying to help society.

But there is another matter in our, my three buckets, and that is post-quantum cryptography, if I may, quantum readiness. The reality that at some point in time, quantum computing will exist to scale, and just like my examples as a federal prosecutor working crypto and blockchain, there might be some bad actors that try to use quantum to do bad.

And, the phrase post-quantum cryptography or PQC is a term you'll hear often regarding taking our current cryptography that we have right now, the coding, whether it be in our chat today or HIPAA records, and updating it so it's resistant to quantum computers. And we often have seen discussions from NIST, from Commerce Department regarding the National Institute of Standards and Technology, three current PQC standards that exist that are sufficient to withstand attacks from quantum computing.

We shouldn't walk in fear of quantum computers, but we should be prepared and ready, to withstand any attacks from nefarious actors who use these type of computers to do bad. So what we've done here in we-- in our practice, I said, "Look, let's walk through a playbook of have you updated your cryptography?

What is the information that is the most sensitive right now?" Now, you might remember as a crypto guy, the phrase HODL, hold on for dear life for Bitcoin, right? For price appreciation. For quantum, it's HNDL, harvest now, decrypt later. What does that mean? There are some nefarious actors and nation-states that are actually stealing our data right now.

This has been public by both administrations, both Biden and Trump, I can tell you 'cause I served with both publicly, where they stated information correctly has been stolen by certain actors with hopes of decrypting it later once they have a quantum computer to scale. And what that means for us, if we're a general counsel or on a board, is we need to itemize and audit our information to see what type of cryptography needs to be updated now, because we can't wait for quantum computing to exist to scale for the actual decryption to happen.

And another anecdote I'll share with you is the phrase Y2K back in the day. Remember Y2K? At the start of 2000, I remember I was in college, not to date myself, but, what was gonna happen? Are lights gonna go off? Is it gonna be not a happy new year? Ultimately, we survived. The phrase Q-day is not as necessarily certain on a specific date.

We believe, based on both administrations on the low side, 2029 is what we're estimating right now. Sometime by 2029, perhaps sooner, there will be large-scale quantum computing that can decrypt and defeat our current cryptography. And unlike Y2K, where we had a specific date, we don't know when in 2029 it's gonna happen.

And more importantly, we don't know which company or which country is gonna have it first. And they're most likely not gonna disclose they have it, right? And next thing The information will be stolen, whether it's medical records, whether it's military orders telling someone to go left instead of going right, so on and so on.

And that's the prompting with the two executive orders that have come out in this administration. One, I was fortunate to work on the PQC executive order with many people at the start of last year, where the discussion is how can we get the executive branch updating cryptography by a certain time period?

And additionally, making sure they are working with others in industry where if they procure and purchase stuff from private sector, it is PQC compliant. And more into that, we can talk more of that if you like, but this is a real thing. We are not waiting. Harvest Now Decrypt Later is a real thing right now.

And if I'm a general counsel and I'm sitting at a company, it's less about the sophistication of the cryptography because the standards are in place. We know there's three PQC standards at NIST right now at the Department of Commerce that are public, and more to come by the way, more to come, but that are accessible and usable.

It's more so what's the governance policy regarding how we're gonna protect our information? How are we doing it? What are we trying to protect? And what's our safeguard if things go wrong? And that's what we provide at the firm. We walk you through that. We talk about litigation risk.

We help you come up with a hierarchy for what you need to protect because you cannot make the upgrade overnight like a snap of the finger. So these are some of the things that we're talking about in bucket two, the quantum readiness discussion that everyone needs to care about not just pharma, chemical companies, material science, all the things I mentioned.

It's every company right now 'cause we all work in this type of data, whether it be again, TRM, Department of Justice, the White House, and we need to do a good job of bringing awareness to this topic so others can have adoption.

Ari Redbord (25:49):

Really well said. And I think what you're really getting to here is the private sector preparedness piece. When, how fast, what needs to happen to get ready, the types of advice and guidance you're giving to clients right now. There's sort of another piece to this, and again, you've worked really closely on this as well, and that is sort of the policymaking side of the house. What do we need to have in place from not just a readiness perspective, but a national security, global security perspective as you've sort of been in those conversations at the White House and Department of Justice?

Sanjeev Bhasker (26:20):

So we definitely have a national quantum strategy in effect right now. So we know that two executive orders came through this June of 2026. One, trying to establish a nationally scientific quantum computer for the federal government that can do all of the above when it comes to quantum advantage and trying to solve cures and so on and so on, which is great.

The second executive order, which myself and many colleagues at ONCD worked on, is our post-quantum cryptography executive order. There's a lot of policy wrapped in these two executive orders, but more importantly, Ari, is there's deadlines that are in place regarding engagement with industry, RFIs, RFPs that will result in more to come, including language being inserted in the NDAA before the end of this year for a national quantum initiative. What I'm hearing a lot from, in my engagement still with the White House and throughout the executive branch as well as with industry, is the push to engage with one Commerce Department and Department of Energy on the Genesis mission, which is a big mission in effect to establish these national quantum computers.

There's a lot of grant money, over nine hundred million dollars being designated just for that right now, which affects policy as well, in addition to the CHIPS, initiative regarding this as well. And I think these are the areas where we're gonna partner with industry and say, "What is the right type of quantum computer?

What is the future? How can we, again, establish one here in the federal government, but also at a scale promote the cryptography needed so that if someone were to use these computers to do bad, our data would be protected?" We will see more of that going forth. There's been a lot of engagements now at bar association level, definitely at the White House, through ONCD and the National Security Council, but also internationally, because this is not a US-only issue.

And I know this audience is international, and you and I have mentioned about our travels internationally and how much engagement we've done in the digital asset arena. Well, I'm going on the road now to talk about quantum. And the reality is these international leaders want to engage and know this because it affects their country's data as well.

And people will offer co-concepts and thoughts regarding energy use, regarding types of models, whether it's an annealing or a gateway model, But these are the discussions we're having right now, and it's gonna continue to involve both government and industry alike.

Ari Redbord (28:28):

If a cyber criminal today could commit 5,000 ransomware attacks, AI enables them to conduct 500,000, where you're taking down entire hospitals across the world, where you're taking down power plants and water sanitation facilities, right, at scale. That's not a national security threat.

That is a civilization-level threat, right? Do we solve this? From you've seen the conversations between the public and private sector. Not only do we solve this, but do we harness this technology for good and stop bad actors from using it?

Sanjeev Bhasker (28:59):

The answer is yes, the cup is half full. The reality is we must be aware of our surroundings, right? And we must, as a parent, tell our kids, "Be aware of your surroundings and what's taking place," but look at the good in society. And on the quantum front, there is so much good happening with quantum advantage and using these computers to do good.

Again, I keep coming back to this trying to solve a cure for cancer. How amazing is that, right? That in and of itself is worth a cup of coffee and a further discussion. But when it comes to the post-quantum cryptography and the awareness of potentially being attacked, we can address that 'cause we have a solution.

There are PQC standards, right? They exist right now, and we just need to update our cryptography. Some companies are already doing that in the product they sell, and God bless them. We need to address others that are not as familiar. And look, the engagement with the administration and the executive branch, both domestically and abroad, when money is being provided for research and development and opportunities to grow is a good thing.

So I think in no aspect are we walking in fear other than to say it's a quantum now moment. This is not something like perhaps crypto, I don't know, feel like crypto's forever going to happen. When crypto first happened, maybe we'll wait and see what happens. Quantum is fully here.

It is fully baked. Whether you're a hedge fund manager, working at a hospital, working at a small business here in the local community, you must be aware of this for all the aforementioned reasons. And to your point, it's not siloed. AI does touch this, right? And let me say this on the whole strategic Bitcoin reserve, which is a big discussion we had at the White House where as part of where we came up with the solution at the behest of the president to go ahead and, store a variety of digital assets, The challenge with this is the coders who make the coins, the Bitcoin, the Ripple, so on and so on, to name a few, they must update their coding to be protected against quantum computing too.

Otherwise, the crypto and cryptocurrency goes away, right? And these are the discussions that are engaging, they're important, but if we bring awareness to others, they can come up with a solution, and it makes society better.

Ari Redbord (31:02):

Amazing. We spent most of the time I was hearing about your new role at Gates and the work you're doing, in the sort of technology practice. I was a little taken back. I was like, "Is this guy really joining big law? Or is like, is he or is he going to like, play professional sports?"

Like, you were so stoked about this opportunity and the firm. Tell me sort of about this moment for you career-wise, right? It's been the public sector for a long time, civil servant. This is new.

Sanjeev Bhasker (31:27):

Well, I have been very blessed. Like they say, you make plans, the Lord directs your path. Who would have thought over 20 years in government and 100 trials, almost 100 trials, not quite, but almost, and two White Houses. For me, it was an opportunity to go ahead and grow and work with industry in areas that I'm passionate about to help people and to say, "Look, we're available to engage with you regardless of the portfolio of a certain administration or a certain executive branch agency."

And Canalgates is a great place. I've been very thankful to them. They have a great public policy group, great asset management. I can go on around IP, energy, so on and so on. And ultimately, the mindset is let's go ahead and engage with clients, but let's take the message to industry in a way to help them.

And that includes discussions like this. And I think we work together. There's a lot of synergy that we have, with others throughout the marketplace. And I've been very thankful with the group, very happy, no complaints whatsoever. And look, now we can actually help industry directly when it comes to solving these problems, whether it's digital assets or tokenization.

Ari Redbord (32:27):

Love it. And you can come on TRM Talks and you don't have to clear every point, all of a sudden this guy can talk about stuff. I love it. Look, new job, young family. I know there's not a lot of time for other things, but, when you are not thinking about work, what are you passionate about?

Hobbies, interests?

Sanjeev Bhasker (32:45):

No, I think what a great question. I'm a big runner. I like to stay in shape.

Ari Redbord (32:48):

We have run together.

Sanjeev Bhasker (32:50):

We've run in Tokyo together. We've run a couple places, run a CRM, run with the White House, run with DOJ. Glad to do so. Try to stay in shape. I think healthiness is godliness. You need that to be able to run around and do this position, especially as a parent. But passionate about staying in shape, working out, trying to go ahead and travel.

And honestly, I'm a big fan of too, when we go, when we do these engagements for work, trying to get to know the people, really get to know them as people, their cultures, their mindsets, and learn from them. That to me is a hobby that's developed organically while doing the job.

And then ultimately try to be a better person for all these mindsets. And look, we take the thoughts, share it with the president, now we're gonna share it with our clients as we work with them.

Ari Redbord (33:27):

Love it. Awesome. Sanjiv, thank you so much for joining TRM Talks.," for all the conversations we've had in private. It's so fun to be able to have some of that type of conversation, publicly as well.

Sanjeev Bhasker (33:37):

Thank you for, thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Ari Redbord (33:39):

I think the real extraordinary thing about this conversation today, and it mirrored a little bit our TRM Talks with Rebecca Rettig and Michael Mosier when Rebecca talked about just the importance of leaning into the tech as a lawyer. I think we really saw that today, from Sanjeev, who really walked us through, quantum advantage, really digging into the technology.

He went into Q-Day and really what it means for the industry, how he's advising general counsels today. And then finally on the policy, what can the White House, what can Congress do, what can global policymakers do when it comes to quantum and quantum readiness? So I think that was one huge takeaway is this is an individual that has clearly, as a lawyer, leaned into the technology piece.

And two, it's the optimism. As I mentioned, I've known Sanjeev for years. He's been on TRM Talks. We've had coffee many times talking about all these issues, been on runs. And to me, if you ask me sort of what is one trait, it's that positivity. It's that energy. And, I love the fact that he's like, "Look, sure there are risks.

Sure, bad guys are going to look to leverage quantum, AI, blockchain. But at the end of the day, it's also gonna be used to cure cancer, and there are tools that we can put in place that can mitigate those risks." really fabulous conversation on the technology, and really, safety and security.

(34:45):

On the next TRM Talks, I sit down with US Customs and Border Protection leaders Susan Thomas and Jorge Comas.

(35:01):

If you love the show, leave a review wherever you're listening to it. Follow us on LinkedIn to get the latest news on crypto regulation, compliance, and investigations.

TRM Labs (35:15):

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 (35:31):

Now let's get back to building.