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by TRM Labs
Every other week, TRM’s Global Head of Policy, Ari Redbord, sits down with business leaders, policy makers, and investigators from across the globe to talk about the key crypto policy, regulatory and enforcement issues of the day. About TRM Labs TRM provides blockchain intelligence to help financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses and public sector agencies detect and investigate crypto-related fraud and financial crime.
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- 1 weeks ago33 min
EP. 112 | The Golden State of Crypto: Regulating Digital Assets with Brynly Llyr, California DFPI
Brynly Llyr has deep roots in fintech and blockchain — in-house at eBay, PayPal, and Ripple, where she served as one of the first general counsels in crypto, then founding team at Celo, then Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets at the World Economic Forum. Now she’s Deputy Commissioner for Digital Financial Assets at the California DFPI, leading the rollout of the Digital Financial Assets Law, which goes live July 1, 2026, covering exchanges, custodians, stablecoin issuers, and crypto kiosks across the world’s fourth-largest economy.Ari Redbord, TRM’s Global Head of Policy, sits down with Brynly to talk through what California is actually trying to solve. IC3 data puts the state at the top of the country for crypto-related fraud losses, with serious harm to elderly residents and teenagers under 17. Her thesis: licensed intermediaries that recognize fraud patterns are the most powerful lever a regulator has.They also dig into how blockchain’s public visibility changes what supervisors can see in real time — and what that means for every licensed business managing its own risk. The conversation covers AI’s role in regulation, what success looks like a year from now, and the universal experience of feeding teenage boys.
- 3 weeks ago35 min
EP. 111 | Compliance Built In, Not Bolted On: Inside Zodia Custody's Institutional Playbook with Sophie Bowler
Behind every laundered transaction is a real victim, a real crime, and a real reason to do this work well. That conviction has shaped Sophie Bowler's entire career — from her first job working on the EU's Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive as an intern in Brussels, to her current role as Global Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Zodia Custody.In this conversation with Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, Sophie traces her path from the European Parliament to leading risk and compliance across six jurisdictions.She unpacks what it really took to secure Zodia's MiCA license in Luxembourg in December 2024 and explains how the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has forced firms to rethink vendor risk, criticality assessments, and continuity from the ground up.Sophie shares why Zodia joined TRM's Beacon Network, how real-time information sharing across the industry has changed the speed at which illicit funds can be identified and interdicted, and why this kind of coordinated response is uniquely possible in crypto.
- May 6, 202634 min
EP. 110 | The Decentralization of Money: Building the Internet Capital Market on Solana with Catherine Gu
Catherine Gu has always been at the center of the shift toward the decentralization of money, a transformation that was once theoretical but is now actively reshaping global financial markets through stablecoins and on-chain infrastructure.Inspired in part by Hayek’s vision of competing private forms of money, Catherine’s work sits at the intersection of that idea and its real-world implementation. As Head of Product for Digital Assets at the Solana Foundation, she is helping build what is increasingly viewed as the internet capital market, where speed, scale, and global access redefine how value moves. Before joining Solana, she was one of the earliest members of Visa’s crypto team, where she spent years bridging traditional finance and blockchain and leading the development of tokenized asset infrastructure designed for financial institutions.In this conversation, Ari and Catherine trace that journey and explore what it means for the future of financial markets. We discuss why Solana has emerged as a critical platform for stablecoin activity, what it means to embed compliance and trust into infrastructure from the outset, and how performance, liquidity, and developer resilience are shaping the next phase of institutional adoption.This is no longer a debate about whether money will evolve. It is a conversation about how that evolution is being built in real time.
- Apr 22, 202635 min
EP. 109 | Building Institutional Rails On-chain — A Conversation with Canton Co-Founder Shaul Kfir
When the Bitcoin white paper landed in 2008, most people saw a payment system. Shaul Kfir saw a privacy problem — because he had spent years working on the zero-knowledge proof technology that would eventually make private transactions possible on blockchains.That instinct shaped everything that followed, including the Canton Network, the blockchain he co-founded that now moves trillions of dollars a month for some of the world's largest financial institutions.Shaul's path is unlike most in this space. He co-authored libsnark, the seminal zkSNARK library that helped bring zero-knowledge proofs to blockchains, studied under Turing Award winner Ron Rivest at MIT, and built one of Israel's first Bitcoin brokerages before turning his attention to the infrastructure problem that would define his career: how do you build a blockchain that institutions can actually use?In this episode, Ari sits down with Shaul to explore why privacy was a non-negotiable design principle from day one, why the industry is now at a genuine inflection point as institutions move from private to public blockchain environments, and what the beginning of institutional DeFi actually looks like in practice. They also dig into the tension between privacy and compliance and why regulators should focus on desired system properties rather than prescribing specific technologies.When he is not building financial infrastructure, Shaul is on the water — a former Israeli Navy Lieutenant Commander who still races sailboats, once captured a whale breach on his Ray-Ban Meta glasses mid-race, and finds the parallel between navigating a storm at sea and building in crypto surprisingly easy to draw.
- Apr 8, 202632 min
EP. 108 | Policing in the Age of Technology with Det. Anoop “Snoop” Dattani, West Midlands Police
Crypto investigations are becoming a core part of modern policing. From ransomware and darknet markets to fraud and organized crime, digital assets increasingly appear in criminal investigations.Det. Anoop “Snoop” Dattani of the Regional Organized Crime Unit at West Midlands Police joins Ari to discuss how investigators are adapting. Drawing on nearly two decades in policing and extensive cyber investigative experience, Snoop explains how crypto cases often move in two directions: reactive investigations that begin with a wallet address or victim report, and proactive investigations that start with a small intelligence lead and grow into broader criminal networks.The conversation explores why blockchain evidence can be so powerful, how crypto fits into wider criminal typologies, and why training across frontline policing is increasingly important. Snoop also highlights the importance of protecting the legitimate crypto ecosystem — and shares a bit about his own interest in the growing gaming ecosystem on Solana.A practical conversation about how law enforcement is adapting to technology — and where crypto investigations are headed next.
- Mar 25, 202632 min
EP. 107 | Building a Bank with a Heart: Inside DBS’s Approach to Crypto, Compliance, and AI with Chee Kin Lam
Chee Kin Lam, Head of Legal and Compliance at DBS Bank — one of the world's first major banks to receive a digital payment token license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore — joins Ari on this episode of TRM Talks.Chee Kin shares a career spanning 30-plus years across JP Morgan, Standard Chartered, and DBS Bank, and what he learned along the way about people, culture, and getting things done across continents. He walks through DBS Bank's digital-first roots dating back to 2013–2014, how the bank thinks about blockchain as both an emerging asset class and the future of financial infrastructure, and how his own thinking on crypto risk evolved from early conversations about "poison tokens" and coin purity to today's more mature, technology-augmented risk management landscape.The conversation covers the growing scams and fraud epidemic — including the critical shift from unauthorized to authorized scams that exploit human psychology — and why Chee Kin believes every stakeholder in the digital economy, from telcos to social media platforms to device manufacturers, shares a corresponding duty to protect it. He also shares how DBS Bank is deploying generative AI to write suspicious transaction reports at scale, why framing AI as an employee value proposition matters, and what it means in practice to be an "AI-enabled bank with a heart."Plus: balut in the Philippines, life-changing homemade adobo, fast cars, computer games, and a compliance lawyer who would have been a rock star in another life.
- Mar 11, 202630 min
EP. 106 | Freestyling on Stablecoins, Privacy, and National Security with Yaya Fanusie
Privacy and transparency sit at the heart of the digital asset ecosystem. As blockchain technology continues to reshape global finance, policymakers and builders face a critical question: How can financial systems preserve privacy while still protecting against illicit activity?In this episode, Yaya Fanusie, Global Head of Policy at Aleo, join's Ari to explore the evolving intersection of privacy, national security, and blockchain innovation. Yaya brings a uniquely multidisciplinary background to the conversation. Before working in crypto policy, he spent seven years at the CIA as an economic and counterterrorism analyst, briefing senior US military leaders and White House officials on national security threats. After government service, he led research on sanctions evasion and the illicit use of digital assets at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where his work helped surface some of the earliest cases of terrorist crypto crowdfunding.The conversation explores how those early days shaped Yaya's perspective on blockchain technology and its broader implications for the financial system.Key topics include:How early terrorist crypto fundraising campaigns revealed the transparency of blockchain networksWhy nation-states are exploring blockchain infrastructure as an alternative financial architectureThe role of privacy-preserving technologies such as zero-knowledge proofsHow stablecoins and regulatory frameworks may reshape the future of digital financeYaya also reflects on his unconventional career path—from teaching high school math to intelligence analysis to crypto policy leadership—and how creativity continues to influence his work today. As digital finance evolves, understanding the balance between privacy, security, and innovation will be essential. This episode offers a thoughtful, and freestyling look, at how that balance might take shape.
- Feb 25, 202632 min
EP. 105 | Tracing a Romance Scam: A Survivor’s Story and the Investigation Behind It
Romance and “investment” scams are not random. They are engineered — built on trust, pressure, and highly scripted manipulation. And while crypto is often the payment rail, the underlying crime is familiar: fraud that targets everyday people and drains life savings.In this episode, Detective Matt Hogan of the Connecticut State Police and scam survivor Jackie Crenshaw join Ari to walk through how these schemes unfold, how investigators trace funds once they move on chain, and why faster reporting and better education can make a real difference.Jackie shares her story of meeting someone on a dating platform and gradually being pulled into an investment narrative that felt credible — complete with convincing documentation, coaching, and escalating requests. She also describes the warning signs she tried to validate, and what it was like to seek help before realizing the full scope of the scam.Det. Hogan breaks down what it takes to investigate cases like this at the state and local level — including the operational and legal hurdles that can prevent recovery once funds move through wallets and exchanges. He also explains why many scams blend multiple typologies, from crypto transfers to gift cards, and how victims can be supported through the process.This episode is a candid look at modern fraud — and a roadmap for how the ecosystem can respond.
About TRM Talks
Every other week, TRM’s Global Head of Policy, Ari Redbord, sits down with business leaders, policy makers, and investigators from across the globe to talk about the key crypto policy, regulatory and enforcement issues of the day. About TRM Labs TRM provides blockchain intelligence to help financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses and public sector agencies detect and investigate crypto-related fraud and financial crime.
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