Blockchain Intelligence is Protecting Crypto From Fraud & Crime! | TRM Labs Ari Redbord

**Ari Redbord** (0:00)
We have the largest database of fraud and financial crime in human history. Every transaction on a public ledger is logged and immutable, it's there forever. I think that we live in this really interesting moment where the private sector has all of the data, and the public sector has all of the authorities. And our job at TRM is to make sure that the public sector has the data that it needs. Clarity will pass. We will 100% have a crypto market structure bill.
We're going to get something, whether it's now or whether it's later.

**Tony Edward** (0:36)
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Hey folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm Tony Edward.

**Amanda Wickroft** (2:09)
I'm Amanda Wickroft.

**Tony Edward** (2:11)
Joining us is Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, which is a blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, crypto businesses, and government agencies detect and investigate crypto-related financial crime and fraud. Ari, great to have you.

**Ari Redbord** (2:28)
Hey Tony, Amanda, thank you so much for having me. Really looking forward to the conversation today.

**Tony Edward** (2:32)
Absolutely. We are excited to chat with you. I think it's very timely for us to be having this conversation with the backdrop of crypto legislation, about to make it through the Senate with the Clarity Act and much more. You have law enforcement agencies weighing in and giving their endorsement for the Clarity Act and much more. So, lots to talk about, but we love to kick it off with your background. Tell us about where you're from and how did you make it way into the government and then into crypto.

**Ari Redbord** (2:58)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, thanks for having me.
Prior to joining TRM, about six years ago, I spent about 11 years as a federal prosecutor. I spent much of that time in the intersection between money laundering and national security, what I call threat finance, essentially stopping bad actors from getting the money they need to do bad things. So I think terrorist financiers, sanctions, criminal prosecutions, export control, cyber, North Korea.
After the Department of Justice, I spent about two years at the US Treasury Department, working in the office that oversees the national security apparatus there. So OFAC, the Office of Foreign Asset Control, which is our sanctions regulator in the US, FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is our financial intelligence unit, and a whole bunch of other sort of components that really try to stop bad actors from accessing the global and certainly US financial systems. As I said, I joined TRM about six years ago, after, again, close to 15 years in the US government. We were about seven people at the time. We're about 450 today. Globally, it's been this just incredible journey. I've never worked harder. I've never had more fun, never felt like I've done more meaningful work even as a prosecutor. It's been a really extraordinary adventure in the crypto ecosystem.

**Tony Edward** (4:17)
With regards to the transition into crypto, did you see this technology?
I should say, at what point did you see this technology? What was your aha moment that you saw? Well, this looks like it's going to be the rails for the financial markets and things along those lines.