00;00;03;28 - 00;00;31;27 Amanda Welcome to the podcast hosted by the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency, sponsored by Bracewell LLP. Graceful is a leading law and government relations firm whose award winning teams lead the market in cutting edge transactions and litigation, regulatory matters and government relations. You can learn more@bracewell.com. Today's topic is decrypting bank charters in crypto. Let's talk about the fundamentals, maybe some juicy details and some of the battles that have been had between the industry and the Federal Reserve. 00;00;32;00 - 00;00;51;09 Amanda The Association for Women in Cryptocurrency is a global, professional network of women and supportive allies around the world who advocate for the equitable inclusion of women in the future of digital finance, blockchain technology and Web3. The views of the speakers are their own and do not necessarily represent those of their employers. The association it sponsors for its board of Directors. 00;00;51;15 - 00;01;17;25 Amanda This podcast is our opportunity to showcase the incredible work being done by our members around the world and the crypto, blockchain and Web3 industries. I'm your host, Amanda Wick, founder and CEO of the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency, and I'm super excited to introduce my co-host today. Our new executive producer, Jody Chabot, a crypto compliance consultant and former financial crime investigator who shares my love for objectivity and having the tough and fascinating conversations about all things crypto. 00;01;17;27 - 00;01;42;26 Amanda I'm even more excited to introduce you to our fantastic guest today, Caitlin Long and Michelle Callan. Caitlin Long likely needs no introduction, but I'm excited to do it anyways. She's the founder and CEO of Custodian Bank, a 22 year Wall Street veteran. Miss long became involved with Bitcoin in 2012. She spent most of her career on Wall Street in New York and Zurich, where most recently she was a managing director in Morgan Stanley's Global Capital Markets Group. 00;01;43;03 - 00;02;13;13 Amanda Michelle Kallen is a partner at Jenner and Block's appellate practice. She has represented the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for innovation, Paradigm and Senator Cynthia Lummis, and some of the most important cases for the crypto industry. Michelle came to Jenner from government, where she served as Virginia's first female solicitor general. Caitlin. Michelle, it's truly an honor and pleasure to have you both on to discuss such a critical topic, especially during a presidential election year and the current state of legal confusion in crypto at both the state and federal levels. 00;02;13;15 - 00;02;24;26 Amanda Caitlin, let me just start with you, and you're really impressive background in digital assets. How did you get into crypto? And tell us about the work that you've been doing in the space, let alone the founding of custodian Bank? 00;02;24;28 - 00;02;53;00 Caitlin Gosh, my journey dates back to the 2008 financial crisis. I was on Wall Street and started to question the narrative about what really caused the 2008 financial crisis that caused me to go deep and broad in different schools of economic thought, that what we were being taught in school did not explain what happened in 2008, and it was through alternative schools of economic thought that I first started to come across Bitcoin in 2012, and took it a really deep dive into it in 2013. 00;02;53;00 - 00;02;54;16 Caitlin And here we are 11 years later. 00;02;54;17 - 00;03;07;12 Amanda Well, one of the incredible things is I think there's something that makes you a half percenter and that as the founder of custodian Bank, there's some ridiculously small number of actual banks owned by women in the U.S., isn't there? 00;03;07;18 - 00;03;16;19 Caitlin Yes, indeed. There are 18 out of I think it's 4236. This is definitely an old boys club banking. 00;03;16;22 - 00;03;36;28 Amanda Yeah, I think what I read that statistic, I was staggered and then I remember basically five for the last 100 years, and it was both sad and not surprising. Michelle, how about you? If you could tell us how you kind of got into crypto? I know you and I used to work together in our past lives, but I was so excited to see you go into this when you came out of government. 00;03;36;29 - 00;03;38;19 Amanda We'd love to hear you how you caught the bug. 00;03;38;20 - 00;04;16;05 Michelle Yeah, so I guess I caught the crypto bug after the US Supreme Court issued West Virginia v. EPA a couple terms ago, I attended a conference at a Chainalysis event because my best friend works there and was in between government and private practice jobs and thought attending a conference to support her would be fun. And as I heard discussion at the conference about crypto and the and blockchain and the industry as a whole, it seemed to me like it was just such a fascinating area that really required some congressional attention. 00;04;16;08 - 00;04;43;25 Michelle And once the Supreme Court issued West Virginia v. EPA and essentially adopted this idea of the major questions doctrine, the idea that on important issues in the United States Congress has to expressly provide agencies with certain powers. We're not going to read into antiquated statutes powers. That agency is the term that chief justice used, the powers that have been lurking there all along. 00;04;43;27 - 00;05;07;16 Michelle So we're hearing the major questions doctrine as a legal matter and then learning about the crypto industry. It seemed like the crypto industry, some of the arguments agencies were raising to assert power in this context seemed subject to major questions. Doctrine, challenges. And so as a constitutional, you know, appellate legal nerd, it just seemed very ripe for those sorts of legal arguments. 00;05;07;19 - 00;05;21;07 Amanda I will say, as a recovering lawyer, some of that still, I'm like, oh, that's rusty. I'm gonna have to dust that off and put my lawyer hat back on. So I'm probably going to ask you to explain some things that I might not have had to ask you. Back when I was lawyering. so I'm just going to ask you for some. 00;05;21;14 - 00;05;41;00 Amanda It's kind of like a lot of that sounded familiar, much like the way. But, like, Civ Pro seems familiar to me, but I haven't done civil law in a long time, so I'm definitely going to lean on you. I know we're going to talk about the case that you guys have been dealing with, between custodians and the Federal Reserve, and some people I know in the crypto community have been tracking it very closely. 00;05;41;02 - 00;05;59;21 Amanda Others might not know anything about it. And we try to kind of start from a place of assuming the latter instead of the former. But I think the thing that's fascinating to me that I'd love to talk with you guys about is I'm constantly amazed, both for myself and for others, how complex and opaque and not known the banking system is. 00;05;59;21 - 00;06;22;27 Amanda Like kind of like the, the, the how the plumbing works. And so I know one of the big issues in the case was the denial of a master account. And I would really love to start Caitlin with you. What is it? Why does it matter? And I know people have written entire books on this, but if you can give like banking 101 in a in a short summary, I hate to ask that, but I think it would be really helpful to kind of lay the groundwork of the, of the conversation. 00;06;22;28 - 00;06;55;22 Caitlin So when you send money on Venmo or Zelle, you have the experience of a traditional, you know, web2 tech forward user interface. And if you're splitting a dinner check with your friends, it's near instantaneous that it appears in their accounts. But that is a Ferrari front end on what is actually a horse and buggy back end. The money doesn't transfer from your account until likely next day, maybe even a couple of days later. 00;06;55;28 - 00;07;18;04 Caitlin And so what happens is what's transferring is IOUs that go through the banking system. And we have a central clearinghouse where those get settled and that central clearinghouse is the Federal Reserve. Many of you work in the securities industry. The same setup is basically there as well, where the central clearinghouse is called the Depository Trust Company, and all the broker dealers have accounts there. 00;07;18;07 - 00;07;56;18 Caitlin Well, all the banks have accounts at the fed. Up until very recently, the fed automatically gave accounts to every eligible depository institution. And that stems back to what's called the Monetary Control Act of 1980. But having an account at the fed enables the bank to bank directly at the clearinghouse. Only banks get accounts at the fed, and up until the 2015 case of a Colorado marijuana bank, every time a state chartered a new bank or credit union, the fed gave that new bank or credit union an account. 00;07;56;18 - 00;08;01;24 Caitlin It did not start picking and choosing winners until about a decade ago. 00;08;01;29 - 00;08;16;16 Amanda So let me ask this question, and it's going to sound dumb and maybe it's wrong, but I've heard it ask, so I'll ask it for those people and pretend like I'm not curious. But is this the difference between when people say payments and settlements payments are instant and settlements take time? 00;08;16;18 - 00;08;39;05 Caitlin Yes. Great summary Amanda. In the peer to peer world, if we if you and I did a bitcoin transaction together that the transaction is a settlement, it immediately appears on the Bitcoin blockchain, we might not consider it finally settled until six confirmations. Statistically, that's how most Bitcoin companies handle it. But we can see it at the speed of light. 00;08;39;05 - 00;09;00;09 Caitlin The transfer of value itself happens at the speed of light, and it shows up in the next block within ten minutes. On the Bitcoin blockchain on average. But the US dollar doesn't work that way. That's exactly the point. The US dollar is a credit instrument. In fact, if you if you have a paper dollar in your wallet and you pull it out, it says it's an IOU. 00;09;00;09 - 00;09;20;25 Caitlin On the face of it, every single dollar is actually an IOU. And the mind bender is that because the dollar is itself not backed by any asset, it's backed by the full faith and credit, which is just a confidence game, that if we actually paid off all the debt in the United States, there would be no currency left because the currency itself is debt. 00;09;20;25 - 00;09;22;06 Caitlin There's your mind, Bender. 00;09;22;08 - 00;09;49;20 Amanda No, I know people have literally written really good long books about that, and I would point people to a couple of them. Basically, if you just Google like the joke that is money. How money is crazy. The insanity of debt. There's some there's there's there's a lot of really good books that have been written on that. I think the thing I'm wrapping my head around is, does that mean then that basically if you start a bank and you can't get one of those, you basically have to have an intermediary bank that does all your banking for you. 00;09;49;20 - 00;10;06;19 Amanda So it would add a layer and actually it would add a double layer. Right. Because the whole issue with banking is the intermediaries. And now without a master account you're adding an extra layer. So between a customer of the bank and the system there would be two intermediaries, right? 00;10;06;21 - 00;10;34;28 Caitlin That's correct. And the challenge with being a company that is engaging in crypto as it is now widely known that this current administration, there's a war going on within the Democratic Party over the war. And I who really hate us and don't want our industry to exist. and there is a very powerful faction inside the fed that multiple insiders have confirmed to me is in control right now. 00;10;34;29 - 00;10;52;20 Caitlin And they want all of us to bank at the central bank. They want basically private sector financial institutions to cease to exist. And every one of us would have an account directly at the fed. Elizabeth Warren herself has said this. This is not breaking news. But what's interesting is how far and deep it goes within the federal banking agency. 00;10;52;20 - 00;11;20;29 Caitlin So yeah, it's been interesting for custodians because we publicly disclosed in testimony a few weeks ago that the custodian itself has lost multiple bank partners, these intermediaries that you asked us about. We've had our bank accounts closed due to no fault of our own multiple times. And every time it happened, it's enormously disruptive. You don't just flip a switch and create an integration with a new bank. 00;11;21;02 - 00;11;49;21 Caitlin In one example, it impacted 1.5 million lines of our code. And so it is absolutely enormously disruptive, costly. And of course we know the fed is trying to kill us. And they're making progress every time the bank accounts get closed. As you know, behind the scenes, there is enormous power in the bank regulators to pressure banks to stop banking companies that are politically incorrect. 00;11;49;21 - 00;12;15;06 Caitlin And I'll give my hat off to Davis Polk for publishing an analysis of the district court opinion in our lawsuit that criticized it, in part by saying that we've now gotten to the point that the central banking agencies can behind the scenes, target. And by the way, this is both political parties. It's whoever is in control. There is this much unchecked power they can target politically incorrect customers. 00;12;15;08 - 00;12;40;04 Caitlin And the definition of politically incorrect is going to vary depending upon who's in charge. But one thing that Michelle and I very much agree on is that banking should not be politicized. And I think a lot of folks in the crypto industry think that very much. We don't want the underbanked to remain underbanked, and we don't want those targeted by these illegal and unethical banking to lose bank accounts. 00;12;40;04 - 00;12;48;29 Caitlin If we're going to fight out social issues, they should be fought out at the ballot box, not behind closed doors through whether you get to have a bank account or not. 00;12;49;02 - 00;13;06;11 Amanda Well, it's an interesting thing because, you know, and and you said it, it shouldn't be a Partizan issue. And I totally agree. I will say somebody who has far more experience in the parts of the executive branch had pointed out to me the other day, the revolving door between Treasury and the fed. 00;13;06;16 - 00;13;07;07 Caitlin Right. 00;13;07;10 - 00;13;23;01 Amanda Yeah, yeah. And I, I had never seen that and like went on like a name to name basis. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. And it's and it's also from what I understand, very particular to the Democrats because I tried to Google and find where it happened in the report. In fact, I challenged the other person. 00;13;23;01 - 00;13;42;21 Amanda We were like, googling, could we find it on the Republican side? And you didn't see it as much? and I don't know if it's a recent thing, but certainly I think in the last decade, the revolving door between the fed and the Department of Treasury on the Democrat side is, I think, something statistically significant, as people would say, like at a level that doesn't seem like it's an accident. 00;13;42;21 - 00;14;12;20 Amanda The other reason that I'm struck by that is because in some of the research work that I've been doing, I've been looking at financial illiteracy and the problems that it has wrought ever since we stopped providing it to the public in 1970. But there have been studies done about the financial illiteracy of politicians. And so you could say on one hand, like, you know, and I've talked to former congresspeople, some of whom I worked with, some of whom I worked for, and some of whom are a lot more candid now that they're no longer in Congress, and they will be the first ones to tell you that the financial illiteracy levels of many of the 00;14;12;20 - 00;14;40;07 Amanda people in Congress is terrifying, is absolutely probably a national security risk. Yeah, but you can plead ignorance only to a certain extent if you didn't used to work there. And so I think that it's kind of one of the things where the notable thing is, is if you're circling people in and out from the Treasury to the fed, in and out, in and out, it doesn't give you as much plausible deniability that you are working at Treasury, and you just don't know how the Federal Reserve works, or you're at the fed and you just are, you know, have no idea how Treasury works. 00;14;40;09 - 00;14;49;17 Amanda I think that's probably something for other people to research and dig deeper into. I think it's I think it's an interesting thing that somebody will probably write a book about it, won't it won't be me. 00;14;49;19 - 00;15;07;25 Caitlin Yeah. There's a one of the I'll leave his name out of it. But one of the prominent people in the industry joked that the fed has done a reverse takeover of the Treasury because so many of the senior fed people are, to your point, in the Treasury, it's not just the Treasury, it's also the FDIC. so the fed essentially controls it all. 00;15;07;25 - 00;15;28;00 Caitlin And it's because people as policy. Yeah. And this is how the Elizabeth Warren wing. I didn't mean to, by the way, imply that that there isn't an interesting war in the Republican Party over this topic, too. But the Democrats are in charge right now. And what's so interesting, I've talked about how insiders have come forward to us. These are moderate Democrats who are not supporting what the war. 00;15;28;00 - 00;15;50;24 Caitlin And I wing of the Democratic Party is doing. And, you know, there's definitely internecine warfare over this in the Republican Party as well. You know, the neocons, the Liz Cheney's not a fan of this technology, although it's interesting, the national security types have come full circle, and some of the biggest supporters of it within the Biden administration are the national security type, who are in the white House. 00;15;50;24 - 00;16;10;07 Caitlin So, you know, even within the the national security types, you cannot draw a generalization. This is an industry where there are a lot of strange bedfellows. But it is true that the insiders who came forward to tell us about what was going on, they did so because they didn't agree with what the Warren Eye Group was doing. And when I said personnel, people is personnel. 00;16;10;07 - 00;16;30;12 Caitlin When Elizabeth Warren got to control the financial services appointees in the Biden administration, that that was policy. That is policy. It still is. I just saw Ryan selling his tweet yesterday. There's yet another round of tea banking's happening, and it seems like there have been 4 or 5 of them since FCX. And apparently we're facing yet another one. 00;16;30;12 - 00;16;37;21 Caitlin We see that a custodian, when companies who have lost their bank accounts come running to us urgently needing to open a new one. 00;16;37;24 - 00;17;01;14 Amanda Well, and I guess that's, you know, one of the questions that you know, and let me dig, let me just dig out a little on the legal for a second because Michelle, you know, you you've been handling this case and I just kind of want to go back to kind of the basics. If you if you could just explain what was the case about fundamentally like what was the, you know, the I don't say the premise, but like and I don't really want to say the allegations because that's my old criminal hat popping out. 00;17;01;14 - 00;17;09;17 Amanda But like basically what was the suit? What was the claim in terms of what was custodial alleging that the fed had violated? If I could say it that way. 00;17;09;17 - 00;17;30;17 Michelle Sure. And I'll preface the conversation about the case with focus on what happened at the district court. I'm not going to talk about what the strategy on appeal or any of the course, any of that piece of it, but it's all public in terms of what the complaint looked like and what happened at the district court level. So that's going to inform what I say today. 00;17;30;17 - 00;17;58;10 Michelle Basically, the complaint alleged that the Monetary Control Act, it has a provision that sets for the fee schedule for Fed services. And it says and here it's helpful to know the exact statutory language. But the language that Congress enacted said all Federal Reserve Bank services covered by the fed schedule set forth in that provision shall be available to nonmember depository institutions. 00;17;58;16 - 00;18;43;01 Michelle And so what Custodia argued in its complaint and its theory of this case is that this provision does not empower the fed to treat disfavored depository institutions, or any depository institutions, to deny them access to the services at issue, because Congress specifically said that they shall be provided, and that's mandatory. And there isn't the ability to decide whether or not to provide those services, and that the Fed can't create a new service or create a new provision that it calls a master account, that is the gateway that's necessary to access all of these services that Congress expressly said the fed must provide access to. 00;18;43;03 - 00;19;09;09 Amanda Let me play devil's advocate and ask a question, because I'm clearly ignorant of this area of law, and it does not fall under anything that a federal prosecutor probably would do. Or if if they do it, it certainly wasn't me that did it. But was there historically a gatekeeping function where you could interpret to say, oh, well, you have to meet these standards, and if you pass ABC and then you've got a master account, is that was that in existence before? 00;19;09;09 - 00;19;41;14 Michelle So what was in existence before an existence all along in order to get a master account, depository institutions would just fill out a specific form and that form would just ask for basic information. It was a form very similar to opening a bank account. Like any one of us walking into a bank, opening a bank account, you put your name, you put basic identifying information, and then that's what gives you access to the account, the place where there's kind of that idea of vetting of, are you eligible to be able to have access to this account? 00;19;41;17 - 00;20;07;01 Michelle It happens at the chartering level. And so our system of banking is built off what's called the dual banking system. And it's a system that allows a depository institution to choose whether it's going to be a state chartered institution or a federally chartered institution. And if it's a state chartered institution, states passed various chartering laws. And Custodia is a Wyoming chartered institution. 00;20;07;02 - 00;20;32;07 Michelle And states have been kind of at the forefront of financial innovation. And they'll set forth different chartering laws that will enable chartering of banks in all kinds of circumstances. And so Wyoming here has a special depository institution law that allows for chartering of crypto banks or banks that that engage with digital assets. And so custodial is chartered through Wyoming. 00;20;32;11 - 00;20;52;07 Michelle And so the idea is that institutions can either be state chartered or federally chartered. And it's that chartering process. That is where there's this vetting of risk and other ideas of is does this institution meet the baseline requirement to be eligible to participate in other federally available avenues? 00;20;52;07 - 00;21;11;05 Amanda But I think the interesting thing about that is I always got the impression either when I was at DOJ or even during like my brief minute at FinCEN, the when you talked about like the federalism system, right. And the things that we wanted states to have control over, yes, there was going to be some overlap where you'd probably have state laws and federal laws. 00;21;11;05 - 00;21;35;07 Amanda And if a federal law existed, you know, it would preempt the state law. But a lot of times, especially for regulations, you really wanted the federal government to set a floor below which states wouldn't fall, but the states would then have the ability to say, okay, we're either at or above that floor. And so if the state said, this is what we're comfortable with, the idea that the feds would then come in and say, well, that's not sufficient, that's not good enough, right? 00;21;35;07 - 00;21;41;00 Amanda That that's actually not the norm. That's the exception, not the rule, I think, is that do you think that's fair? 00;21;41;03 - 00;22;04;00 Michelle I think so, I mean, it exists in other settings, right? If you're going to enter a federal building, often you can use your state issued driver's license to enter a federal building. And the fact that you're using a state driver's license isn't an invitation for that federal entity to double check what the process is for granting a state issued driver's license. 00;22;04;00 - 00;22;25;04 Michelle And so our dual system, our federalism system has all kinds of infrastructure that respects certain either charters or IDs or other documents that that we receive from states. The federal entities respect that. I think that's all the more true and important in the context of the banking system, where the respect for states is it's really towards its apex. 00;22;25;08 - 00;22;48;01 Michelle There was actually a decision that the Supreme Court issued, I think it was just a couple weeks ago that highlighted the importance of the dual banking system and the idea that even the idea of federal preemption is pretty narrow when it comes to the context of banking, precisely because of the dual banking system and because states roles in the dual banking system are to be respected. 00;22;48;03 - 00;23;12;23 Amanda Well and just. I mean, let me geek out a little bit further, because if you want to go deeper into it, we definitely can. So essentially, the fed denied custodian, a master account custodian, sued, and the district court dismissed the case, basically allowing the fed to deny the master account and tell me if I have that right. And then I know it would probably take a lot longer than we have. 00;23;12;23 - 00;23;16;28 Amanda But if you can give like the general gist of the basis, I think that would be helpful for people to understand. 00;23;17;04 - 00;23;38;20 Michelle There were a number of things that the district court said, but the district court disagreed with our reading of the Monetary Control Act. What's really interesting, too, though, beyond just the plain statutory language, which is pretty clear in terms of saying “shall” and says that it shall apply to all depository institutions. The district court took issue with the policy underlying it. 00;23;38;20 - 00;24;18;11 Michelle The district court said that reading the statute as mandatory would create a race to the bottom by states to have very weak chartering laws. And so the district court itself classified that as a policy disagreement with that reading of the statute. So that was one basis for the district court's decision was expressed. Policy disagreement. The district court also held that the language of the provision in the Monetary Control Act applied to the Board, but did not apply to the Reserve Banks, and so, because the denial letter to custodial came from the Reserve Bank, then the board wasn't a proper defendant here. 00;24;18;11 - 00;24;42;11 Michelle And the statute that we pointed to in the Monetary Control Act wasn't the operative language, because that applies to the Board, but not to the Reserve Banks. So that was one another reason. And then a third reason I'll point to there were other reasons as well, but I'll highlight three. The third is that the district court found persuasive an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. 00;24;42;13 - 00;25;19;01 Michelle it was an amendment drafted by then Senator Toomey, which required the Federal Reserve Board to create and maintain a searchable database, which includes a list of every entity that submitted an access request for a master account, and to list all of the requests that were either approved, rejected, pending, or withdrawn. And the district court reasoned that that language in this Toomey amendment basically confirmed that there is the ability to reject a master account, that because this amendment says will record, create a list of what's been rejected. 00;25;19;02 - 00;25;29;27 Michelle Clearly, that means there's the authority to reject master accounts. What's fascinating there is Senator Toomey actually filed an amicus brief supporting custodial in this case. I mean. 00;25;29;27 - 00;25;56;29 Amanda I wish, like, people aren't going to be able to see my head, like, violently jerking back because I wasn't Toomey's concern that they were illegitimately rejecting applications. So the amendment was to prevent the very thing that was happening. So there's like a sick irony that the court then used an amendment that was to prevent the affront going on in the case as proof that we could have the affront going on in the case. 00;25;56;29 - 00;25;58;16 Amanda Do I do I have that right? 00;25;58;17 - 00;25;59;04 Michelle You do. 00;25;59;04 - 00;26;15;28 Amanda That seems very, very strange. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've seen some crazy stuff. I was a criminal lawyer in federal court for nearly a decade. Trust me, between Michelle and I, we've seen we've seen some stuff. But that does seem that's that's not I'm not gonna lie. That's up there, because that seems like a very weird argument. 00;26;15;28 - 00;26;40;06 Amanda There were a couple other things in there that also kind of very strange, especially the policy argument about the race to the bottom of the state in the sense that isn't that. Then you would then pass a regulation saying that we want this floor. You would have a clarity saying, then state charters should have exact or you would say Wyoming's state charter system is insufficient, or clearly it didn't, did. 00;26;40;10 - 00;26;45;02 Amanda Is that what their position was? That Wyoming state charter process is somehow legally insufficient? 00;26;45;03 - 00;27;20;18 Michelle They suggested that during litigation. I mean, it's interesting because the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was involved in the process of drafting the Wyoming Speedy Charter and made no suggestion that it was inadequate at that time. So but yeah, so over the course of this litigation, one of the things that the defendants have emphasized is that, oh, well, you really need our federal involvement here in order to make sure that these states who are passing these inadequate chartering laws, that the banks that are chartered under these laws don't get access to nostro accounts without our oversight. 00;27;20;20 - 00;27;23;10 Michelle And that's just antithetical to the dual banking system. 00;27;23;15 - 00;27;47;12 Amanda It also seems like it would be really problematic because I'm thinking, and maybe it's like a slightly unrelated tangent, but I'm thinking about if tomorrow FinCEN turned around the like, conference of state Bank supervisors and said our unit of five examiners over for over mSRP is going to really need to look at everything that all of you are doing to ensure that you are, in fact, supervising your money services businesses. 00;27;47;14 - 00;28;09;25 Amanda Like it's not. That's not how the system was built. Like you have 50 states, they're supposed to monitor their own yards, and if something really rises to the level of concern, then it goes to the federal government. It was never meant to be that the federal government would be so big, so that it would supervise and monitor what's happening in the regulatory agencies, or basically the yards of, what, the 50s. 00;28;09;26 - 00;28;24;11 Amanda I mean, at a certain level, yes, but that just seems like a wildly I mean, good work, I will tell you, for for a former federal government employee to be saying that, it feels like it's kind of like at a level of obviousness that I don't know, for, for me, that that seems a little disingenuous. But yeah. 00;28;24;13 - 00;28;44;03 Michelle I think here part of it is a question of it's not even just federal government versus state, it's a question of a federal agency, because Congress can enact laws that say that state charters are insufficient, or here are the requirement that a state charter has to have in order to be within the ambit of the Monetary Control Act. 00;28;44;03 - 00;29;04;01 Michelle But far from pulling back on the dual banking system, Congress has time and again reaffirmed the dual banking system. So the question here is that given that Congress has continually reaffirmed the dual banking system, and in fact, we had an amicus brief in the district court by members of Congress supporting our position and our interpretation of the Monetary Control Act. 00;29;04;05 - 00;29;28;15 Michelle But the question is, given what Congress put in the Monetary Control Act does the Fed, does this federal agency now have the power to say that we think that state charters are insufficient, such that they require this additional agency scrutiny from us? So beyond just the division of state versus federal, it's really the question of how far does a federal agency power extend here? 00;29;28;16 - 00;29;55;05 Amanda Well, and, you know, you just alluded to something that I kind of want to pick up because I learned about this definitely in our prep call. But it came up recently in another conversation where somebody I was talking to said, you know, most people are gobsmacked. They do not understand the Fed's structure in that, yes, it's a federal agency, but it's also kind of this weird public private structure that it's a private corporation kind of operating within the government. 00;29;55;05 - 00;30;12;01 Amanda And then when you tell people that they're like, I'm sorry, what? And so I kind of want to dig into that. And Caitlin, I don't know if that's a you question, but I think the best way to maybe ask that is because you alluded to this earlier or what have you talked about the difference between the board and the fed and the federal banks? 00;30;12;04 - 00;30;38;24 Amanda I've even heard that there's differences where the Federal Reserve of New York is even far different. And in some ways, I don't know if you guys have probably heard there's a Southern District of New York in the Department of Justice. It's called CNY. And because it's rich in it, it has a little bit of reputation. If you watch billions, you probably have heard the reference that was actually from real life, which was people used to call it the Sovereign District of New York because it kind of acted, we'll say other different from other jurisdictions. 00;30;38;27 - 00;30;54;13 Amanda But when somebody was explaining the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to me and kind of like the, we'll say, leeway that they take or their expanded jurisdiction or the role that they play, I was like, well, that figures, because they're in the Sovereign District of New York. But I do think it's worth talking about that, because I really don't think most people know. 00;30;54;13 - 00;31;08;11 Amanda And frankly, I literally was googling it the other day after somebody was talking with me about it, because I don't think most people, sometimes, even in the government, know the weird structure of the fed and the public private aspect. So can you, Caitlin, can you kind of explain that? 00;31;08;11 - 00;31;30;05 Caitlin Sure. It's unconstitutional. And the fed likes to play hide the ball because, for example, Bloomberg actually took a lawsuit over a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit all the way up to the Supreme Court during the 2008 financial crisis because they wanted to get the list of Tarp borrowers. Tarp was one of the programs, the emergency lending programs that the fed created in the 2008 financial crisis. 00;31;30;05 - 00;31;48;15 Caitlin And the fed said, no, that's private information. Bloomberg went all the way up to the Supreme Court on whether the Freedom of Information Act applies to the New York Fed, and ultimately Congress overrode it. So it kind of muted the question. But what happens is the fed likes to stuff things in the 12 regional reserve banks because they're private entities. 00;31;48;15 - 00;32;11;09 Caitlin The Freedom of Information Act doesn't apply to them. And so the board likes to stick things in the private entities. And then when it behooves them to have the private entity, rather than, say, the APA applying to the agency, which is the board of governors in D.C., then they'll play hide that ball too. So what they try to do is to create a situation where there is literally no check and balance, and there is no judicial review. 00;32;11;10 - 00;32;13;09 Caitlin Stop and think about that. Yeah, no, that's. 00;32;13;09 - 00;32;42;02 Amanda Definitely not my understanding of how it's supposed to work. But I guess how does that work that you're saying that the Federal Reserve Banks are privately operated? Are they the board of governors? Do they sit and supervise and tell a bunch of private people what to do and how to do it? I mean, it's a it's a strange idea that at the central bank, the banks themselves that are running are essentially monetary system are private entities that aren't subject to, oh boy, like they're not even government employees. 00;32;42;03 - 00;33;09;12 Caitlin You open a can of worms here. Yes. This is why the banking industry is frequently and rightfully accused of privatizing profits and socializing losses. The way the fed is set up is the Board of governors in D.C. is an agency. The 12 regional reserve banks are private corporations. They're private nonprofit corporations. Now, the presidents of the reserve Bank and the boards of the Reserve Banks are privately appointed, and they are not Senate confirmed. 00;33;09;19 - 00;33;29;24 Caitlin Okay. So there is definitely a I'm going to stop, and not go a little bit further. There's definitely a question as to whether that structure is constitutional at all, because you have reserve Bank presidents who are not Senate confirmed and who the president cannot fire making what is agency decisions judicial. 00;33;29;27 - 00;33;38;01 Amanda I I'm looking at judicial space as my eyebrows are climbing to the back of my head and her eyebrows are climbing and Tunisia. I feel like you have questions. Yeah. 00;33;38;01 - 00;33;52;25 Amanda And all of this sounds like check is like a public private partnership. It seems very convenient. And I, I just saw something very interesting at the Board of Governors on the fed. They serve a 14 year term. Is that right? 00;33;53;02 - 00;34;12;25 Caitlin That's correct. But you know, what's interesting is most governors don't serve out their terms. So it's so interesting because the Federal Reserve Board, the governors that we see on TV, they're the ones who vote on the FOMC. And again, remember the there's a rotation on the FOMC of these private reserve Bank presidents who are not Senate confirmed okay. 00;34;12;25 - 00;34;29;10 Caitlin And Amanda your your earlier point about the New York Fed being you know the first among equals is correct because the New York Fed is the only regional reserve bank of the 12 that has a permanent seat on the FOMC. So they vote on monetary policy, but they're not Senate confirmed. Okay. These are private individuals. 00;34;29;11 - 00;34;36;06 Amanda Caitlin, can you do me a favor? Yes. Some people aren't going to know what FOMC is. Can you tell them what that acronym is and what it means. 00;34;36;06 - 00;35;04;18 Caitlin Yes. This is the federal Open Market Committee that sets monetary policy and set interest rate targets, which is then implemented by the New York Fed. So again, the New York Fed does to your earlier point is the first among equals. But if we go back and ask how did we end up with this very convoluted structure where the fed uses it to its own power because it plays hide the ball to try to minimize any check and balance over its power. 00;35;04;21 - 00;35;25;10 Caitlin And the fact that the governors have a 14 year terms, but they don't typically serve them. What does that mean? It means there's undue power at the staff level. And I've been told this by multiple insiders. The governors are not the most powerful people at the fed, with the exception of the fed chair. It's actually the permanent staff that's the most powerful. 00;35;25;17 - 00;35;45;23 Caitlin And the governors, they strive to have unanimity in the voting. What's so interesting is the structure, if you think about it, is not that different than the Supreme Court. That's a marine corp. Well, we don't have unanimity on pretty much anything anymore at the Supreme Court. So how is it that the fed, which also has very long terms, 14 year terms, it's not lifetime, but it's 14 years. 00;35;45;23 - 00;36;11;29 Caitlin That's a long time. How is it that the fed is so different than the Supreme Court when it's designed to be independent of presidential politics because of these 14 year terms, and that is the function of the organizational structure. And I am aware that if Biden is not reelected and one of the other two candidates who is vying to become president, if either one of them is elected, there's going to be a major push for fed reform. 00;36;11;29 - 00;36;37;01 Caitlin And I think that's a fabulous idea because this is a very screwed up and, frankly, unconstitutional agency structure. And those of us who have applied for master accounts and not then granted them, in spite of what we argue is the clear law that we are entitled to them. There have been many of us, by the way. There are, I think, something like 28 of us with pending applications. 00;36;37;01 - 00;36;45;01 Caitlin So it's not just custodial by any stretch, and it's not just crypto, it's anybody doing anything different. And there are ten different states involved in this fight. 00;36;45;04 - 00;36;50;13 Amanda Yeah. And you alluded earlier to the first denials. Weren't even crypto. Was it marijuana. The banking that. 00;36;50;13 - 00;37;15;10 Caitlin Applied. There was a marijuana bank and they actually went to the fed and said, we won't bank the growers. We'll just bank the industry trade associations and the and the service providers to the growers who will not violate the Controlled Substances Act. And the fed even still denied it. So, again, even though they weren't breaking federal law, the fed still denied it. 00;37;15;10 - 00;37;37;06 Caitlin And then there was a Connecticut bank that was going to do something with the with the money markets. And then there's an Idaho bank that is a tech forward bank that wants to use APIs to try to speed up international supply chain. So when goods clear customs, there'd be an API call and then there'd be an automated invoice. 00;37;37;06 - 00;38;01;06 Caitlin So you can speed up the payment on supply chain. Again, really good idea. And the fed is denying all of these. And many of us have applied for FDIC insurance. There's a broader industry issue as well which is anti innovation and protection of incumbents. And unfortunately the federal banking agencies have taken the tack. They don't want innovation in the banking industry. 00;38;01;09 - 00;38;15;10 Caitlin Again I mentioned this earlier. There's a big group of people in the federal banking agencies who just don't want private financial services companies to exist and want us all to have direct accounts at the central bank via a central bank, digital currency. 00;38;15;12 - 00;38;33;06 Amanda Yeah, I will say that comes up a lot because I was a DOJ for a decade. And Michelle, I don't know if you tell people this, but where we were at, I say was Hill, Jason because it wasn't really real hill. It was like a very anomalous experience. But I find it very interesting because I frequently have to ask people about some of these things. 00;38;33;06 - 00;38;55;05 Amanda And I asked a friend who was a dem staffer for years and I just said, you know, explain to me how some people who have said they were all for the democratization of finance, that they were all for, you know, reducing the power of the banks are kind of like crapping on the single technology that would actually do the thing that they've been kind of talking about for a decade, because I just couldn't wrap my head around that. 00;38;55;06 - 00;39;25;25 Amanda And what he said was kind of enlightening was it's the idea that apparently, historically, many in the Democratic Party have attached the word predatory in front of innovation, that the presumption is that all innovation, especially in financial services, is predatory. And there's this very kind of like paternalistic. We have to protect everybody from the financial system unless they're rich, accredited investors, and then they can do whatever they want, because we kind of give the people the benefit of the doubt that they have a level of intelligence because they managed to make that much money. 00;39;26;03 - 00;39;42;14 Amanda I won't touch that with the ten foot pole, but I say that to say that it's a it's a very strange thing. And I guess I'm curious, like, was there any basis given in the denial of the master account? Does the fed have to explain its reasoning? Do they provide that or did they have to provide that to you? 00;39;42;14 - 00;39;59;14 Amanda Did they provide that to you? I mean, obviously before the court case where they were brought into court to explain themselves is what I'm talking about, not when they were basically sued and then had to come explain themselves. But was there anything before the court case, or do you just get a letter saying thank you for your application, but no. 00;39;59;14 - 00;40;22;00 Amanda Or do they they don't go to you to day. That would be the absolute or they have to send you something. Right? It just be it would just be. It would just be so poetic if the fed just somehow operated like Bumble and you just never got a response and nobody ever said anything, and you just wait. But I'm hoping that they at least send you a letter saying we're just not interested in what you have to offer. 00;40;22;02 - 00;40;30;18 Caitlin Well, they did to the first applicant in Connecticut six and a half years later. Amanda. Oh, yes. Six. I had a you. 00;40;30;18 - 00;40;46;19 Amanda Text me six and a half years later and was like, this does not count. Let's be clear. Whatever 12 step program you're in that this is a men's. I am not giving it to you, but that is just offensive. Six and a half years. Are you serious? 00;40;46;19 - 00;40;54;15 Michelle And that's in the context of an application document that says on its face that it will take 5 to 7 days to decide. 00;40;54;18 - 00;41;13;06 Amanda I'm rubbing my face. I feel like I have to I feel like I have to say that just because, like, there's a there's a lot about this. And but don't get me wrong, I, I certainly am not the banking lawyer. And and Michelle, you've been neck deep in this and it just strikes me that if people were looking at this, there's just a there's just a lot about it that just doesn't seem fair. 00;41;13;06 - 00;41;46;27 Amanda Right. And I think whether you agree with crypto or disagree with crypto, I think that's the concern. Right. And I hear this a lot from people who are following this. I mean, if you talk to Australians post-Covid, if you talk to Canadians, post the trucker convoy, there's a lot of concern about the government and banking and just kind of like the unilateral ability to decide who gets paint, who gets accounts, who gets to operate and and look, don't get me wrong, like I from a from a law enforcement national security perspective from terrorist financing, they're absolutely priorities that we should protect. 00;41;46;28 - 00;42;05;15 Amanda I'm not quite sure we're safety and marijuana banking and crypto get close to those. And to that I mean I can understand when people are kind of ignorant about the actual amount of illicit financing crypto. And if ignorance is the basis for your decision, we can we could have an entire discussion about that. And there's probably some of that right? 00;42;05;20 - 00;42;29;11 Amanda Caitlin, going back to your point before I, I totally understand and you're certainly talking to people I know way more than I am. But I think sometimes when I talk with people, the sad part is, is it is a lot of ignorance. I, I'm sure you're seeing some of the intentionality, but I also think that blended in with that intentionality is an a is a a ton of bias and ignorance, whether it's unconscious bias or whether it's conscious bias. 00;42;29;11 - 00;42;50;00 Amanda Right. You kind of have to like speak to individuals to know. I think that's the thing that hurts my heart is the question of this seems like a really important thing to get. Right? Right. I mean, and I will just say, even for the marijuana banking aspect, not to get it off crypto. But I remember when the Cole memo came out and, you know, we were getting calls from bankers and I was a financial crime team leader. 00;42;50;00 - 00;43;04;09 Amanda So I worked with a lot of BSA, AML folks and nobody knew. So you're not going to prosecute them for money long? Does that mean we can bank them? But the law still says this could be money laundering. But these people now have legal businesses in states. What are they going to do with their money? They're putting it in. 00;43;04;09 - 00;43;28;26 Amanda What do you call those? the armed armored vehicles. And it was just a huge safety issue. And we still haven't really figured out the marijuana banking system in. And how many states now have that legal right? Just purely legal. That's straight up growers. That's not even the tertiary service providers who aren't even touching it. So the fact that we're still struggling with tertiary service providers, I think is kind of staggering. 00;43;28;28 - 00;43;35;16 Amanda And then the idea that just crypto custody, that that's going to just be cracked out because we don't want it. 00;43;35;18 - 00;44;00;21 Caitlin It goes back to to the Davis Polk comment, and I wish I had it in front of me because it was so great, because it just hits the entirety of the spectrum of, do you really want so much power in a federal banking agency to say that banks can't bank LGBTQ plus entities or firearms entities, or oil and gas, or freedom of religion or freedom from religion groups? 00;44;00;21 - 00;44;12;29 Caitlin Right. You can see how this will be abused regardless of who's in power. Why are we creating so much power that's not traditionally reviewable in the hands of agencies that operate behind closed doors? 00;44;13;03 - 00;44;31;28 Amanda I think that is 100% a problem. But I will tell you, the part that I can't wrap my head around is that do we really want a federal agency to say that a state can't allow that? Because essentially, that would have been the equivalent of a federal agency being able to say to a bunch of states, you can't legalize marijuana, you can't do this, right? 00;44;31;28 - 00;44;51;29 Amanda Like in a way that's a very like and the strange thing is, is the government does have that somewhat in the Controlled Substances Act. Right? So we have this like very weird tension, I think. And I just find it very strange because you're not wrong. Like that is 100% awful, but it seems like a special layer of awful because there was a state charter system, correct? 00;44;51;29 - 00;44;52;07 Caitlin Yeah. 00;44;52;07 - 00;45;21;00 Michelle And it was a state charter system in the context of the dual banking system that Congress has time and again affirmed. And so even if there are situations where Congress disagrees with the states and Congress wants to pass laws to say that such and such is illegal nationally, or trigger or federal preemption in in some context, this is not that context, because the context of banking is designed around equal roles between the state and federal entities. 00;45;21;00 - 00;45;52;10 Michelle And so Congress has been clear, both in the Monetary Control Act and consistently reaffirming the dual banking system. The issue here is we have an agency that wants to say what states are doing is insufficient. And so even if Congress can enact a law to say that state chartered banks need to meet whatever requirements we think should be set, well, whether or not Congress has that power is separate and apart from the question of whether an agency can come in and say no, we want to essentially veto state charters. 00;45;52;15 - 00;45;55;14 Caitlin Especially if the law doesn't really give them the authority to do that. 00;45;55;17 - 00;46;03;23 Amanda Well, and that's the thing, right? And I'm assuming I don't know if you can talk about I know you mentioned you couldn't talk about the appeal. You can talk about that. There is an appeal. 00;46;03;23 - 00;46;09;26 Michelle There is an appeal noted on the docket. We have a case number. So that is all public. 00;46;09;27 - 00;46;33;04 Amanda And I guess that's not the only path though, right. Theoretically Congress could step in. And Katelyn, I think you gave an example of this in the past where Congress basically stepped in and muted the situation by fixing the statute, and they could theoretically do that. I think generally, I think people have low hopes for Congress doing anything, and that was actually just a period after anything, my voice went up. 00;46;33;04 - 00;46;55;29 Caitlin But, well, there's nothing to fix here. We would argue there's nothing to fix here. I mean, the law was the law and was respected by the fed for 40 years, and it was only when you started to see some innovation happen at the state, at the same time as the FDIC started to become very anti innovation, then this started to bubble up and it's been a problem only in the last decade. 00;46;55;29 - 00;47;05;11 Caitlin And again, I think there are ten different states that have applicants that have not been able to get FDIC insurance with said master account applications pending. 00;47;05;12 - 00;47;28;23 Amanda I think the thing that really kind of bothers me and scares me is that if you look at kind of like the last, we'll say 8 to 12 years, maybe there's this gradual slide in the rule of law and consistency in the sense of if you have something, then it has that function for both sides, right? Like if you have a law, if you have a rag, it's supposed to work that way. 00;47;28;23 - 00;47;45;23 Amanda You don't just get to kind of like pull the rug out and say, well, but it's not going to apply to you this way, in the sense that I think it's really and you see this kind of over and over and over where one side just wants to win, and they're just so focused on. And I don't mean even like in a political sense. 00;47;45;23 - 00;48;06;28 Amanda Right. Like this could be the agencies. I remember when FinCEN was doing the Nprm in Christmas of 2020, and we were just like, there were things in it that were terrifying that we were like, this, this is not what you want to do on your way out in an administration. You really don't want to create a requirement to disclose $10,000 transaction in a report on a publicly viewable blockchain. 00;48;06;28 - 00;48;25;13 Amanda That's literally the definition of idiocy, like things about it that were just so staggering. You think you're like, I don't know who wrote this, but someday I'm going to find them and be like, you should really be embarrassed, because things in here just reflected a complete lack of understanding of anything you were dealing with. Yeah, and I'm not saying all of it, but there were parts of it that I was like, holy. 00;48;25;13 - 00;48;45;12 Amanda How? Like, did somebody just, like, write this in 24 hours on their way out as they were boxing up their stuff? Right. But like, those are the things that you're kind of like, I don't think people think about the ramifications of, if you do this, what happens if when it's the next party, like what happens when you basically erode the rule of law and you say, well, it's okay, as long as we win, right? 00;48;45;12 - 00;48;59;10 Amanda As long as we maintain the status quo. And then when it's not you, are you ready for the other side? Because they will use it, because the eradication and the erosion of the rule of law is such that it's a race for both sides of any argument to the bottom. 00;48;59;10 - 00;49;00;14 Caitlin Yes. Well said. Yeah. 00;49;00;15 - 00;49;21;01 Amanda Unfortunately, I think the risk of that comes from both sides. And I think the thing that we're seeing that's a little disturbing is that if you push this out and you don't grant master accounts because of some unfounded fear of crypto, right, then it's going to go somewhere else. And Caitlin, during our prep, I think you mentioned sign ups, and that is an example of where it could go. 00;49;21;03 - 00;49;22;05 Amanda Tell me a little bit more about that. 00;49;22;06 - 00;49;44;24 Caitlin Well, that's a fintech that was completely unregulated. It was what was called a middleware where provider, and I made the analogy early in the call about the Ferrari front end and the horse and buggy back end. What creates the integration between those two very different systems is somebody like a middleware provider? Usually that's a regulated entity. But in the case of synapse and several others, it's just a tech provider. 00;49;44;24 - 00;50;17;20 Caitlin And it turns out that there are allegations flying back and forth. There's an $85 million hole, and it has impact at 100 different fintechs. If we zero out at a high level, what's really going on here? That innovation found a pathway. It's like water finds a pathway. And if the federal bank regulators are afraid of the innovation and are just blocking it at all costs, and for the last ten years they've been doing this, that gap between where the banks are allowed to innovate and where the technology is just keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger. 00;50;17;22 - 00;50;40;27 Caitlin And it and just like water, that innovation finds a way and it ended up in an unregulated fintech. And I don't know if there was fraud I don't know if it was negligence. But there are allegations flying all back and forth. What we do know factually is there's an $85 million hole, and there are allegations that the fintech and the bank were never reconciling their accounts dating back to 2017. 00;50;41;00 - 00;50;41;11 Caitlin Well, it's. 00;50;41;11 - 00;50;50;11 Amanda Interesting you said innovation finds a way. It flows like water. But do you know what federal prosecutors always say? They actually say that exact same thing. But crime. 00;50;50;14 - 00;50;51;04 Caitlin Or fraud? 00;50;51;10 - 00;51;06;12 Amanda Crime finds a way and flows like what? A fraud finds a way or flows like water. We say this all the time because you want to shut off crypto. Fine. It'll just go back to, you know. Well, to the extent it ever left banks, which I question but decent that it did, it'll go back to GPS, it'll go back to her wallet. 00;51;06;18 - 00;51;30;22 Amanda It'll go back to the places that it went to before technology involved, because they're not going to quit climbing. They're just going to go back to how they were moving the money before. But I think the thing that really bothers me, and then I know this could be the topic of a whole podcast, but you just alluded to something that the issue with those middleware companies, the issue with a lot of these tech providers, I don't know if you saw there was an article, I don't know, it was weeks ago or months ago at this point, cause I've lost track of time. 00;51;30;22 - 00;51;49;04 Amanda But the issue with Eventbrite, like there's a lot of these companies that provide services, they have relationships with payment processors. There's these exemptions right from the filing requirements. And the problem is, is if you're an actual prosecutor who's trying to get records and you're actually trying to go back, none of these records are actually tied to each other. 00;51;49;11 - 00;52;06;28 Amanda The myth that is an effective AML process, I know I think Europe's doing something called the Cuban or the AI bond or something where they're creating like basically a common transaction code so that you can, in fact. So all of these providers would have to use like a transaction ID, right, so that you can, in fact follow the flow. 00;52;06;28 - 00;52;21;27 Amanda Because the entire premise of AML was you'd be able to track a transaction back from the start of it through. And the six sick irony is that, you know, where you can actually do that. And it sure as hell isn't trad fight. It's crypto. Yes, yes. And I'm like. 00;52;22;02 - 00;52;23;23 Caitlin This is the part where I. 00;52;23;23 - 00;52;45;10 Amanda Tend to lose my mind because going back to something you said earlier, sometimes it is intentional, sometimes it is an individual or a politician and frankly, my experience with politicians, even the best ones, it will always be about them. The nature of the broken system is that on some level it is always about them. Sometimes it's about their constituents, sometimes it's about the right thing to do. 00;52;45;10 - 00;53;03;17 Amanda Sometimes it's actually about their beliefs and they take a position or take a stance. But I see a lot, unfortunately, is it's a lot of ignorance. And to your point, what I didn't understand until I went to the Hill was that our country is, in fact run by 22 year olds, maybe 24 year olds. But something you said earlier about like people not understanding the power of Stafford. 00;53;03;19 - 00;53;28;11 Amanda I feel like the moment that a bunch of 70 and 80 year old white men were quoting Taylor Swift lyrics in committee hearings, people really should have understood who was running our country. And, and, and I think they don't realize that when they watch C-Span, if they ever turn on C-Span, the children sitting behind the 7080 year old people are are the ones doing all the work and writing all of our laws. 00;53;28;11 - 00;53;45;29 Amanda And I say that as somebody who could have birthed many of them at this point. But I think that you've touched on, like so many things. And, you know, I talked to I've talked with a lot of people, and frankly, I think most of them feel that this election won't even have an impact because because the brokenness is so broad that the election of a of a president wouldn't do it. 00;53;45;29 - 00;54;07;15 Amanda You'd really have to you you'd have to have a third party. You'd have to have a third party who comes and literally strips everything down, takes out all these people, starts out right. Who no offense actually drains this form, right? Like that kind of thing. I just I don't know if it will happen, but but I will say I love that you guys are appealing this in the sense that I believe things should be fair, and I don't think it should be a political issue. 00;54;07;15 - 00;54;24;15 Amanda I just think that something should be fair and predictable and notice, and the rule of law should matter. I feel like a lot of us that are either lawyers or prosecutors, that's why I went into justice, because I believe in justice. I didn't come to believe in justice because I worked at justice. And I think when you look at this case, there's a lot about it that just doesn't feel fair. 00;54;24;15 - 00;54;43;07 Amanda And I think at the end of the day, it's sometimes just that simple. You know, as humans, we just want fairness. I could go into stoicism, which I got into a couple of years ago, and somewhere out there, out just like up there it is. She got she all spent an hour without mentioning it, but I couldn't. But like a fundamental premise is we just want little justice. 00;54;43;07 - 00;55;05;21 Amanda Like humans need to believe that there is a way. If we're going to have a social contract, it needs to apply fairly. It can't apply to some people one way and other people a different way. And I think that is at its core, what we're seeing now at a level, taking away the parties, like when both parties do it, there's a large swath of people in the middle who look to the left and who look to the right, and who say that that just isn't right, that just isn't fair. 00;55;05;21 - 00;55;22;28 Amanda And that's I think that's a problem. But I don't want to end on a side note, I actually want to end on a really, really happy motivational note, which is nearly where we started at the beginning, which is that Caitlin, you are one of 18 women in America to own a bank. And you, Nisha, who is a researcher of incredible talents. 00;55;23;01 - 00;55;38;24 Amanda She looked up and she found that Debra Powers was the first woman and the oldest one at 87 years old, who chartered a bank in 1877. And 147 years later, there are only 18 women, very few of whom are in fact women of color, which is you know, something else that we. 00;55;38;24 - 00;55;44;04 Caitlin Need to work. There are any women of color, as I looked at the list, any women of color who own banks? 00;55;44;05 - 00;56;00;12 Amanda Yeah. And so just just take us through for a minute. What was that like? Like just your journey as a founder? Because I know that the founders journey for women is very difficult, but I have to believe that 18 out of 4000 is is is is is a next level difficulty. 00;56;00;13 - 00;56;30;16 Caitlin Well, you can even see it in what the fed said publicly where it talked about the experience of our management team. Okay, I was a managing director running businesses. I've started three different businesses on Wall Street. And for the fed to criticize our team as having insufficient experience, that that it struck me as the same kind of things that the whites only country club said in the 1970s about applicants that were different then tried to get into the country club. 00;56;30;20 - 00;57;00;03 Caitlin Insufficient experience. And I actually wrote that in a complaint to the Fed's inspector general. They have in their mandate diversity, equity and inclusion. And yet this is happening at the Federal Reserve. And they're saying this. Do they realize that by saying this about a woman owned woman executive team who came 22 years when I was made a managing director on Wall Street, it was very fast in my career, and there were very many of us. 00;57;00;03 - 00;57;05;26 Caitlin And one applies to charter a bank, and they say that the experience level is insufficient. 00;57;06;00 - 00;57;25;10 Amanda Come on. I hate to say how trite that is in the world of most common thing that we hear for women in the sense of especially we talk to conferences and organizers. And I've actually had situations where I've put a woman forward to speak, and the conference organizer has said, well, she just looks she just looks very young. 00;57;25;10 - 00;57;44;11 Amanda And I don't know that she has the experience. And I'm like, she actually has the same title as that dude. I don't think people should be blamed for quality skin care and good genetics. And literally when I said, but you put their CEO on and he looks 12, so you clearly don't have any problems with title when man children are up on stage speaking. 00;57;44;11 - 00;58;19;04 Amanda And this is this is literally a guy who just has like perfect skin. But when it's a man who looks young, it's, wow, look at you, you little prodigy. Right? And when it's a woman who looks young, it's just it's just not enough. And this is the ones that. Look, if this is not even getting to the insult, that is women who clearly look, you know, women where you don't have the excuse of saying, oh, well, you look inexperienced because, Caitlin, I'm looking at you and you have fantastic skin, but you look like somebody who has worked in the bank like it's an it's an insulting, derogatory thing to say when somebody has a two, 00;58;19;07 - 00;58;42;03 Amanda three, probably four. If I had spaced it correctly, page resume behind them of accolades and experience in the banking industry. And I think, you know, someday when HBS looks at, you know, the Dei studies of like gross gender discrimination, I just don't think people realize that when you look at a woman, when you say it well, they don't have sufficient experience. 00;58;42;03 - 00;59;01;15 Amanda And I will give credit. You know, that conference organizer, when I pointed that out to him, he actually was horrified and paused and said, oh my God, you're right. And he invited her the next day to be on the panel. And ever since, he's been one of our greatest allies. Because if you're open to it, if you're open to acknowledging that all humans have unconscious bias, that's why it's called unconscious bias. 00;59;01;15 - 00;59;16;26 Amanda You start to see it in everything that you do. But if you're allowed to do it every day, if nobody corrects you, if you're a agency with no governor like nobody's above you to stop you from doing it, you will continue to do that. And women will never be able to get into that. That is the problem. 00;59;16;27 - 00;59;36;14 Michelle So I just want to jump in with like a little bit of a feel good. Bring it around to the topic of this podcast. We're in the topic of this podcast, but make it a little more personal too. So I'm relatively new to private practice. Amanda. As you know, we were in government together, and really, this is the one of the first major appeals for that. 00;59;36;14 - 00;59;59;13 Michelle I played a key role in in bringing into the firm, thanks to Caitlin and the idea that Caitlin has played such a significant role in the women in banking world. And I'm practicing in women in the appellate law world. And to put a little bit of background on that, we have a female solicitor general who is absolutely brilliant. 00;59;59;16 - 01;00;43;08 Michelle She's argued seven cases last term, she argued seven cases before the Supreme Court. And notwithstanding her seven arguments, only 18% of oral arguments that term were done by women. So the prevalence of women in leadership roles in the appellate world is not as bad as banking, but it's up there. And so the idea of serving as counsel to Custodia and working with Caitlin on this particular appeal in the context of banking, representing a woman owned bank in the context of banking in the crypto industry, and as an appellate lawyer, and there are so many women involved in this process, is just really inspiring to me. 01;00;43;08 - 01;00;50;27 Michelle And I can't think of a more exciting opportunity and more exciting client to be able to represent in the context of an appeal. 01;00;51;00 - 01;01;13;29 Amanda Well, and I will say this and I think you just said it without saying it, I'll just say it a little bit more bluntly. Caitlin, you're a unicorn because every day I see clients go to old white men who worked at the government, who have the titles, who have the relationships, who play the golf. And these guys say, I lead our crypto practice. 01;01;13;29 - 01;01;37;25 Amanda I'm in our crypto practice. I could do crypto. I could do anything. They know nothing about it. They've hung a shingle. They've they five, ten years ago denied associates that wanted to bring crypto practices, who read the writing on the wall. And now they're capitalizing on things that they poo pooed 7 to 10 years ago and said this was all criminal money, and they will get clients because they're old white men with titles, and that's how the system works. 01;01;37;25 - 01;02;04;25 Amanda But I will say, we hear from women all the time around the world that our events, believe it or not, culturally, a common theme is that for a lot of women, their worst professional experiences are actually usually senior women, and their best professional experiences are usually men and so when a accomplished senior woman reaches out and says, I'm going to give you this case because you are competent, qualified, and the best for the job. 01;02;05;01 - 01;02;23;25 Amanda It's actually such an amazing thing. And Michelle is alluding to that, but it really deserves a foot stomp because you could have gone the route and I'm not and I'm not going to say, but you can look at some of the pleadings in crypto blockchain and you can see some of where it happens. But there are some phenomenal women lawyers who have been doing this work have been silent. 01;02;23;25 - 01;02;47;17 Amanda Soldiers like working on these cases, and they lose business every day to people who are wildly less qualified, usually older white men and for you to go to Michelle and for Michelle to crush this and get the chance to work on this amazing case, I, I second what Michelle said. It is 100% women supporting other women. And one of our regional ambassadors, Angela Ong, who works at M lab. 01;02;47;17 - 01;03;18;22 Amanda She gave an interview the other day and she's talking about our man on your panel program. But she also called out this Madeleine Albright quote, and she said, there's a special level in hell for women that don't support other women. But I actually think if I could add, God bless her, if I could just add to Madeleine's quote a little bit, I love to think that if there's a hell, there's a heaven, and there should be a special place in heaven for women who reach out and help other women, especially junior women, because it takes time, it takes energy, it takes heart, it takes a lot. 01;03;18;22 - 01;03;35;04 Amanda And so I just want to say thank you. As somebody who senior women not I will tell you, I see senior women all the time do the thing to other women. I just don't think you have enough experience. And you know what? It's because they're learning faster. They're doing faster, they're digitally native and they're moving up the ladder quicker. 01;03;35;04 - 01;03;51;06 Amanda And it really takes, unfortunately, a lot of empathy and ego to look at all these fabulous younger women than us and say, that's what we wanted. That was the goal. That means we're winning. Yes, it's it was harder for me, but if it's easier for you, then we're doing something right. But so many of them don't see it that way. 01;03;51;06 - 01;03;56;27 Amanda So for you to do this for Michelle, I'm just going to gush a little bit more and say on so many levels, we need more. 01;03;56;27 - 01;04;23;06 Caitlin Caitlin longs in the world. Oh gosh, can I get a little bit more? Because in your introduction about Michelle, she was chosen by her peers two years in a row as having the best appellate brief in the appellate court system. So those awards that she got speak volumes and stand for herself. So and that mattered a lot to us when we were choosing who to represent us on the appeal. 01;04;23;06 - 01;04;41;00 Caitlin And I'm giving the virtual fist bump because Michelle really does believe in our case. And, you know, it was interesting. Amanda, we haven't talked about this, but just watching you, we're on video right now, even though it's an audio only podcast, just watching your reactions as Michelle was walking through the case, you just can't believe we are where we are. 01;04;41;00 - 01;04;50;06 Caitlin And I'm this has been fun for me to watch as somebody who's, you know, you're being walked through this and realizing just how unjust and unfair the situation is. 01;04;50;08 - 01;05;08;26 Amanda Yeah. I mean, I there's a part of me that when I left DOJ, it was partially because my heart had been broken, because when you see, it's hard to want to do justice and see a system that's kind of broken, not doing justice. And I really respect and appreciate all my colleagues who have stayed and fought and have continued to fight the good fight. 01;05;08;26 - 01;05;29;15 Amanda I think when you get to the point where you just have to tap out for a little bit, you should leave before your bitter, before you don't have the energy. I respect what they do every day, but at the same time I do. And I don't want to end on a, on a on a on a down note, I, I think those fights need to be fought and I, I look at, you know, I have friends at the SEC who are women and they need more women there. 01;05;29;15 - 01;05;45;05 Amanda They need more women in fraud section. They just need more women everywhere. But what that means is you need senior women to pull up women. You need male allies to pull up women. And so whenever there's a woman that pulls win, whenever there's a person who pulls up another woman because it's just not that easy to climb on your own. 01;05;45;05 - 01;06;01;02 Amanda And like when somebody puts a slippery wet wall as the option, it's just it's a magical thing. And so I love what Michelle said, because the reality is, is you could have picked a lot of other people based on form, and you went with substance. And I think that's a magical, magical thing. So I will say thank you for that. 01;06;01;02 - 01;06;02;11 Caitlin I have a ton too. 01;06;02;14 - 01;06;18;07 Amanda I know, I know, when I watch the tape, you'll see it. I know when I watch the journey, the dynamic, I don't I don't like to use this word often, but it's adorable and it's wonderful and it's just like I thought of A League of Their Own. If I could title this episode something creative, I would call it A League of Their Own. 01;06;18;07 - 01;06;39;21 Amanda So I just want to say thank you to both of you for fighting what sounds really like a fight that needs to be fought. And I really respect when people fight that fight, because the truth is, it's very easy to not fight those fights in every day. People don't fight those fights. And I want to say a huge thank you to all of you, to our sponsor, Bracewell LLP, to Emily Brodsky, for her invaluable technical support and everyone listening. 01;06;39;21 - 01;07;02;05 Amanda We really appreciate every time you tune in positive or negative. We welcome your feedback and we hope you'll rate us online and let us know if you have comments, questions or thoughts for future podcasts. For anyone who's interested in learning more about the Association or global events, or the initiatives are working on to increase inclusion, check out our public LinkedIn page, our Twitter or Instagram pages at a global or our webpage at Dot. 01;07;02;09 - 01;07;12;17 Amanda Women in crypto.org, which is also where you can sign up and join Michelle, Caitlin, Jenny, Sean, I had a fantastic time. Thank you so much. Thanks again for tuning in. We hope you have a wonderful week and we hope to see you next time.