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01:51 Spotlight on U.S. Crypto Regulation with Andrew Fei
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03:20 From EO to Institutional Onboarding: The SEC’s New Stance on Crypto
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14:58 Strategic Bitcoin Reserve: U.S. Policy Shift and Global Domino Effect
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22:22 Sovereign Reserves, Stablecoin Strategy, and the White House Summit
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27:14 Global Perspective and Political Influence with Henri Arslanian
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30:10 Trump’s Crypto Pivot: U.S. Bitcoin Reserve and Its Global Signal
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36:23 From Opposition to Opportunity: Trump’s Crypto Turn and the Power Behind It
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42:54 Favoritism, Front-Running, and Missed Strategy in U.S. Crypto Policy
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46:30 Crypto’s Coming of Age: Legitimacy, Leadership, and a Historic Moment
The U.S. Strategic Reserve and the Emerging Multipolar Crypto World + Recent Developments in US Virtual Asset Regulation
Ep #66 with Henri Arslanian (Nine Blocks Capital Management) and Andrew Fei (King & Wood Mallesons)
The overarching theme of this episode is US President Donald’s Trump’s recent announcement that the country would create a bitcoin reserve – a veritable Fort Knox-styled depository comprised of several select cryptocurrencies.
In our initial Spotlight segment, we’ll be chatting with Andrew Fei, a Hong Kong-based partner with the law firm King & Wood Mallesons on developments in digital asset regulations in the US, and what they mean for our region.
Following that, we will have a lengthier chat with the doyen of all things Bitcoin and FinTech, Henri Arslanian in Dubai on what the Trump administration’s actions towards virtual assets will mean for the Middle East and the world more broadly, from a markets and policy perspectives.
Henri Arslanian is the co-founder and managing partner of Nine Blocks Capital Management, one of the largest institutional-grade crypto hedge funds globally and the first crypto hedge fund to be licensed by Dubai's Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority. He is also the Host of The Future of Money podcast.
Henri is an author, speaker and educator – and arguably one of the foremost fintech experts and evangelists. He is a TEDx and global keynote speaker, a best-selling published author and is regularly featured in global media including Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and the Financial Times.
His first book “The Future of Finance: The Impact of FinTech, AI and Crypto on Financial Services” (2019) was published by Palgrave Macmillan and ranked among Amazon’s global top 10 bestsellers in financial services, in addition to being recognized as one of the “Best FinTech Books of All Time” by Bookauthority.
Henri is also an adjunct professor at HKU where he teaches the world’s first university-level FinTech course. He also advises many of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, investors, financial institutions and tech firms on their FinTech and crypto initiatives, as well numerous governments, regulators and central banks on Fintech and crypto regulatory and policy matters.
He was previously PwC’s crypto leader and partner and has the distinction of having been a former chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong. Prior to joining PwC, Henri was with a FinTech start-up and spent many years with UBS Investment Bank in Hong Kong. He started his career as a financial markets and funds lawyer in Canada and Hong Kong, and speaks five languages – English, French, Armenian, Spanish and Mandarin.
Andrew Fei has over 15 years of experience in the areas of financial regulation, digital assets, fintech, structured finance, syndicated loans and debt capital markets. Based in Hong Kong, he has been with the law firm of King & Wood Mallesons for a decade, where he is currently a partner.
Andrew has advised many major financial institutions, corporates and fintech companies on a wide range of innovative cross-border tokenisation and digital assets transactions, structured finance and derivatives transactions, close-out netting and collateral arrangements, syndicated financing transactions, Basel III regulatory capital instruments, securities financing transactions, financial regulatory matters as well as digital assets-related transactions and arrangements.
He has been quoted as an expert on various topics in the international press, including the Financial Times, New York Times, International Financial Law Review, Risk.net and South China Morning Post.
Andrew holds a master of laws degree from Harvard Law School and a double 1st class honors bachelor of laws degree from Cambridge University, where he was ranked second in his class. He is qualified to practice law in New York and Hong Kong. In addition to his full-time legal practice, Andrew teaches banking law at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law.
PODCAST DISCUSSION. The episode opens with Andrew Fei discussing recent US crypto regulatory developments. Then, Henri Arslanian, a leading voice in global crypto circles, shares his insights on the Trump administration’s decision to establish a cryptocurrency strategic reserve made up of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Cardano. “This really may start paving the way for other countries to look at potentially acquiring Bitcoin as part of their strategic… their own basket of reserves,” he said, referring to the ripple effect the U.S. reserve move could have on global sovereign crypto adoption.
In the Spotlight segment, Andrew discusses with Regulatory Ramblings host, Ajay Shamdasani, the implications of recent US regulatory developments for Asia, the Mideast, the rest of the world such as the GENIUS Act and the recent White House Crypto Summit in Washington, DC. Henri then shares his thoughts on the Trump administration’s decision to create a reserve composed of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Cardano. While acknowledging it is a significant step forward for crypto, he said the move is not without criticism because it begs the question why certain virtual assets were chosen for the reserve and not others. Reflecting on the 2024 US Presidential Election, Henri stressed that concerns over which party would be friendlier to the industry was partly why the recent US presential election swung in Donald Trump’s favor because for many single-issue voters, the future of digital currencies was their paramount concern. In that sense, it could be said that 2024 was the election that the crypto bros bought. Henri also shares his thoughts on what it means for the rest of the world if the US creates its own crypto reserve, stating the entry of institutional and sovereign players hints at a more distributed global adoption trend. While the idea of a strategic reserve for critical assets or commodities is not new, it is curious as to why President Trump did so now when he was vehemently against crypto during his first term (2017-21). The popular press has suggested that Silicon Valley power players such as Peter Theil, Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk helped Trump change his mind and brought him around to the cause. As Henri himself wrote in a recent piece on LinkedIn: “We should expect criticism—rightly so—regarding how the included coins were selected for this reserve. Bitcoin makes complete sense. One could also argue for ETH and perhaps SOL. However, the inclusion of XRP and ADA will likely be questioned.” Additionally, Solana and Ethereum are two platforms used by many American firms including important companies like Visa and Blackrock. As Henri noted in his recent article, the presidential action prohibited the purchase of additional crypto without a specific executive or legislative action. Simply put: “the U.S. is not going to buy new Bitcoin but rather keep the 200,000 BTC it already holds mainly via the seizure of Silk Road assets and the recovery of the Bitfinex hack.” Moreover, mainland China purportedly holds around 190,000 Bitcoin, primarily acquired through its 2019 seizure from the PlusToken ponzi scheme, and the UK allegedly owns 60,000 seized Bitcoin.
Regulatory Ramblings podcasts is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong - Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-SCF Fintech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in Fintech, with support from the HKU Faculty of Law.
Useful links in this episode:
You might also be interested in:
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Must have book by Ross Buckley, Douglas Arner & Dirk Zetzsche - FinTech: Finance, Technology & Regulation
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Building Better Financial Systems: FinTech Sustainability - Research
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HKU-SCF Fintech Academy - website
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Asia Global Institute - website
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Most sought after Fintech course on edX - Introduction to Fintech
Regulatory Ramblings Podcasts List
Regulatory Ramblings Podcast
Welcome to Regulatory Ramblings, a new podcast from a team at The University of Hong Kong on the intersection of all things pertaining to finance, technology, law and regulation. Hosted by the HKU Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-Standard Chartered FinTech Academy and the HKU-edX Professional Certificate in FinTech, join us as we hear from luminaries across multiple fields and professions as they share their candid thoughts in a stress-free environment - rather than the soundbites one typically hears from the mainstream press.
Regulatory Ramblings is a forum for those that appreciate long-form conversation. While it is something that may be regarded as lost art of an older time, it is nonetheless sorely needed in an age when glibness and flippancy pass for analysis in conventional journalism.
Having said that, we are grateful to be able to avail ourselves of modern technological resources to bring you chats with people you are probably not going to hear from elsewhere.
Ajay Shamdasani is a veteran writer, editor and researcher based in Hong Kong. He holds an AB in history and government from Ripon College, JD and MIPCT degrees from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce Law School, and an LLM in financial regulation from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law.
His 15-year long career as a financial and legal journalist began as deputy editor of A Plus magazine – the journal of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. From there, he assumed the helm of Macau Business magazine as its editor-in-chief, and later, joined Asialaw magazine as its deputy editor. More recently, he spent close to seven years as a senior correspondent with Thomson Reuters’ subscription-based trade-wire service Regulatory Intelligence/Compliance Complete (previously called Complinet) in Hong Kong. While there, he covered regulatory developments in that city, as well as Singapore, India and South Korea.
