Crypto Regulation Update! SEC & CFTC Provide Guidance as Clarity Act Vote Failed! | Katrina Paglia

Tony Edward (0:25)

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Katrina Paglia (2:09)

Thank you, Tony. Thank you for having me.

Tony Edward (2:12)

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation because I certainly want to get a legal perspective on what's happening with the Clarity Act, what the regulatory agencies are doing with their rulemaking and more. But since this is your first time on the podcast, I would love to start with your background. Tell us about where you're from and how did you get into crypto and all those things.

Katrina Paglia (2:33)

Sure. I'm originally from Maryland. Go Ravens. I made my way to New York for law school. I attended Brooklyn Law and graduated and started my career in various asset management roles in legal and compliance functions. I worked my way around the space.

At some point, largely after the pandemic, when everything was crazy and everybody was super stressed, I realized I wanted a new challenge. I'd been in this space for about 15 years at that point. It was great asset management is fun. I'd done a bunch of different versions of hedge, PE, credit. But I was looking for a new challenge. I was looking for something that was going to be different. I have a friend that I worked with at a prior asset manager at Coinbase. I reached out to her and I was like, I need to change. I'm looking for something that's a little bit different. I've been doing the same type of fund and corporate work for a while now. I remember when she went to Coinbase, I was like, you're crazy. You're at this huge institutional asset manager, super established, you're going to crypto, I don't understand. I reached out to her and she's like, you need to come here immediately. This place is awesome, crypto is awesome.

After a couple of conversations with the Coinbase legal team, I made the move and I was so crypto, not native, whatever the opposite of that is. I literally didn't even have a Coinbase wallet, which is really embarrassing. I'm like, oh my God, why are you guys hiring me? But so I joined and I ran the legal team that launched all the assets on the US exchange.

My feet went in a fintech environment for the first time, it was wildly different from asset management. And this was during the Gary Gensler era, so which was focused, his litigation and enforcement was focused on the US exchange. So my role quickly pivoted from how he analysis type stuff to working with policy and regulation, litigation, and dealing with kind of the SEC's inquiries and investigations at that time, which was frustrating, but it's a good experience to kind of go through that because it's, you're working with the regulator and you're trying to be productive and co-operative, and the reality is sometimes that just isn't what happens. So I was at Coinbase.

Someone reached out to me about the role at Pantera to join them as their general counsel and went back and forth a little bit, but ultimately decided Pantera's OG in the space, great reputation, and I could combine crypto and asset management and continue to do the stuff that I found really intellectually stimulating and just utilize my background a little bit more. And so then I made the move and I've been here about four years.