Bermuda Premier David Burt Talks On-Chain Economy Initiative

**Scarlet Fu** (0:00)
If the US does get its regulation for crypto settled, what does that mean for other nations that have been pioneers in the space? Does it erode their advantage in any way?
One such territory is Bermuda. This past year at Davos, Bermuda announced plans to become the world's first on-chain economy. What does that mean? How does that work? We're pleased to welcome the Premier and Minister of Finance of Bermuda, the Honorable David E. Burt. Thank you so much for joining us, Premier, and it's so good to speak with you. We really appreciate you making the time. You know, when people think about Bermuda and its industry, reinsurance always comes up first. It's the biggest industry in Bermuda. The island serves as the base for many of the world's top insurers.
Just take a step back for a moment here and talk about why you began exploring blockchain as a positive for Bermuda's leadership in this industry rather than a threat, because I think that has a lot to do with the origin story of crypto and blockchain in Bermuda.

**David Burt** (0:53)
Well, absolutely, and it's great to be here to talk to you and your audience. Bermuda is known as the world's first capital.
We have amazing insurance companies that are here. But back in 2017, like how today the conversation is all about AI, back then it was all about blockchain. And blockchain would be something that could put our main industries at risk. So what we said is that we wanted to make sure that our regulated financial services companies could innovate here locally under a regulated regime, have that clarity, and be able to then go ahead and develop. And so that's where all of this came from, making sure that we could have innovation in financial services based on our insurance market.

**Tim Stenovec** (1:30)
Well, as we mentioned, you made this announcement at Davos earlier this year. Since then, you've airdropped USDC to residents, you've piloted government fee payments through the DMV, you've built a Bermuda digital dollar on Stellar. Give us an update on how it's going so far.

**David Burt** (1:45)
Well, I think what it is, it's a journey. And I should take you back because 2018 is when we passed our Digital Asset Business Act. That Digital Asset Business Act allows us to license digital finance companies that we see. And some of the major names globally, whether it's Coinbase or Kraken or Circle, etc. All have Bermuda operations and where they're doing a number of things. At the Davos announcement, this was more around how do we go from having the companies that are regulated to actually making sure that blockchain payments and these things are integrated fully inside our economy. That's why we came with the On-Chain Economy Initiative, having partners such as Stellar, such as Coinbase, such as Circle, and others that are working alongside with us to make sure that as we build out across, citizens have access to these tools, businesses have access to these tools, and we're actually making sure the government is accepting them and making sure we distribute them. So we've made, the Cabinet has approved changes to our acts where the government of Bermuda, we're able to accept stablecoin payments, manage stablecoin payments, and invest in certain digital assets. And we're looking forward to making sure that we keep our leadership in the global digital asset regulation space.

**Scarlet Fu** (2:50)
One thing that strikes me is that Bermuda is able to be so nimble and so innovative, in part because of its small population. You have 60,000 people and your size allows you to move and experiment quickly.
You compare that with the US, which is a giant, a battleship. A skeptic might say that this is a fascinating sandbox, but perhaps irrelevant at scale. How would you respond to that?

**David Burt** (3:13)
Oh, well, I would say that Bermuda is certainly not irrelevant at scale. If you just look for a restart on our insurance industry, we are known as the home of regulated international financial services companies that want to make sure to push the envelope of innovation. And our regulatory regime is second to none globally. And so we always know that people will say these things about Bermuda, but the reality is that companies that are operating in our space know what they get. They get clarity and they have the ability to serve customers all around the world. So yes, we are a good sandbox and we want to make sure we work with the United States. We have given testimony in Congress on numerous occasions. We have direct links with the SEC, with Treasury and others and we're sharing our information knowledge on regulating this. The government of the United States has certainly reached out to us because as the president has given his, I guess, push to make sure that the United States is able to have regulation around the digital asset industry. We are one of the people who have the most experience in doing it as we've been doing it successfully for eight years.