Puis ils vous combattent : de l’indifférence à l’opposition, où en est le Bitcoin | Bitcoin 2026

Hi everyone. Uh welcome to our panel. Today we are talking about then they fight you from being ignored to opposed uh where Bitcoin is today. And so I'm Haley Lennon. I've been an attorney in the space for many years. I worked with Chris at Silvergate Bank in the early days. Uh was in-house at Coinbase, Bitfly, and most recently Fold. And really excited for our panel today. So maybe we'll just go down the line and introduce ourselves and then we'll dive in. >> Hi, my name is Emily Kapoor. I co-chair the crypto practice at Quinn Emanuel. We're a litigationon law firm. Uh I've been doing litigation in this space since 2017. Uh from before the SEC was interested through many years in which they were very interested through crypto bankruptcies and a whole bunch of commercial disputes. Um we've had our hands in in a lot of different uh issues that that have come before the courts. Um, so I think about the issues we're talking about today in terms of how how judges think about them when when we have to show up in front of them in court. Um, one of our biggest uh successes in the space was we were the only firm to have a complete courtroom victory against the SEC in SECV hex uh which we were very proud of. Uh, and we've, as I'll talk about later, had had a big role in recovering a lot of assets for creditors in in the various crypto bankruptcies. >> My name is John Melton. I'm the head of lending at Unchained. Unchained was founded in 2016 and started lending in 2017. We are the longest running continuously operating Bitcoin back lender. Um I was on Wall Street for 13 years with Morgan Stanley in with a focus on foreign exchange and wealth management. also worked for Zappo, at one point the largest Bitcoin custodian and had the pleasure of working at Silvergate from 2020 until the voluntary windown in 2023 where I led their Bitcoin collateralized lending initiative. So, I'm Chris Lane, former chief technology officer for Silvergate Bank. Spent the um the better part of 10 years at Silvergate uh scaling both deposit operations and payments uh specifically for the digital asset space. I left Silvergate after we paid back our last depositor, wound down banking operations in 2023. I've spent the last uh three years consulting with um with banks around the country. Everything from operational risk management consulting to digital asset strategies which got a little bit more interesting the beginning part of last year and um just for the past three months now working for SoFi Bank uh at the intersection of commercial banking and digital assets. Once again I I do just want to mention that I'm here today as a Bitcoiner. Uh everything I say today uh is is really just my own opinion, not representative of SoFi. >> Awesome. So uh I wanted to start this panel with the title. Um it's from ignored to opposed. And when I first read that, I thought, are we still in an opposition phase under the current administration? Um is are we not in that phase in in the phase of acceptance and is that temporary? So, I'd just love to start kind of with your all's general thoughts on that. >> I think I think about this question from the perspective of how judges look at this when I appear in front of them in court and and what we see in decisions coming out of the courts. And I certainly think we've seen a sea change uh since I started working in this space in 2017. It it used to be that judges had never encountered the technology, didn't really know the space. They needed to have Bitcoin explained to them. Uh but to the extent that they'd heard about it, they thought that it was a thing that was for crime and fraud. And that has really changed. At this point, most of the judges that I encounter um in New York, California, Delaware, DC, Florida, they've had several Bitcoin or other crypto cases in advance of whichever one I'm I'm in front of them on. I don't have to draft complaints with 10 pages explaining what crypto is. when they write opinions, they don't spend a whole section of their opinion explaining the technology before getting to to the issues. And so that is a huge sea change. I I don't think it means that we've gone from opposition back to ignorance. But I think we have definitely matured into a world where this is another, you know, piece of the financial infrastructure and a piece that most folks including judges have have a lot of familiarity with and in overall a positive way. So, running a Bitcoin collateralized lending business, half my job is spending time in the capital markets with asset managers and banks to fund our lending activities and half my time is spent with Bitcoiners, corporates, and um individuals that are looking for financing around their Bitcoin. I hesitate to say that we're we're actively opposed anymore. And I think a good indicator of that is the number of conversations we have with um you know heavily regulated banks and name brand asset managers about the loans that we create. Um I think that you know that sort of admission that you know Bitcoin is not going away digital assets have an unprecedented level of institutional support is really meaningful. Um but while we're not opposed, I you know still wholeheartedly believe that um the overhang from the previous opposition is still with us because we aren't farther along. So when you think about what was created at Silvergate, you know, a billion half dollar um you know, lending business in a very regulated um environment, you know, last cycle was notable because it was really about the evolution and scaling of digital asset treasury companies and the securization of Bitcoin. was also notable for by the lack of participation in a meaningful way by banks. I think banks by their nature are conservative and you know take a very long um you know a long time horizon when they assess their strategic decisions and I think you know gatherings of of Bitcoiners and continued um you know adoption of Bitcoin as an asset is really important um you know to continue to to kind of you know ensure that Bitcoin is in in front of banks and is a is an option for them when they think about you know their loan portfolio. those are the services that um you know Chris helps them build on the you know the deposit and the payment side. >> So I think there's a couple of different ways to look at this question. I think if you want to talk about tokenization or um you know uh stable coins, tokenized deposits, tokenized real world assets more broadly, I think there's no doubt in my mind that we have moved past opposed and uh we're not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle and tokenization. Um what I like to say is um digital signaturebased assets are going to be part of the financial stack moving forward and that is net accreative for Bitcoin. um you know when when banks take control of their orchestration layer and understand how to custody digital signaturebased assets um to to settle in you know tokenized fiat that's the same plumbing that Bitcoin is ultimately going to ride into the banking system. Um so on the concept of just tokenization no doubt in my mind we've moved forward. I think the analysis gets a little bit more interesting if you're talking about Bitcoin proper. Um I I really think you end up having to do more of an incumbent by incumbent analysis looking at the existing financial system. And what do I mean by that? So when you consider the largest asset managers on the planet have uh Bitcoin backed ETFs again no question that we've moved past uh we've moved past opposed when it comes to Wall Street. Um contrast that with the you know you know what comes out of the World Economic Forum with Davos. I think what central bankers, what politicians like to kind of project about Bitcoin is that um you know, you can you can still more or less ignore it when it comes to you know, Bitcoin being a a ultimate, you know, reserve asset at some point in the future. I think the uh the reality is there's probably still a little bit of opposition uh behind the scenes and we're certainly going to see more direct opposition at some point in the future as Bitcoin starts to challenge uh challenge uh essentially central banks for that neutral reserve asset status. >> Yeah, I think that's a great point. Um you know, one of the ways I think that Bitcoin and the industry in general had has faced opposition is with banks in general. I mean, Chris, you and I worked at Silvergate Bank. Uh, John, I know you were there after me. Um, Silvergate became synonymous with crypto friendly banks when other banks really didn't want to touch this industry. Now, you fast forward a few years and the OC is starting to approve cryptocurrency companies for OC national charters. Um, that's due in part to the change of administration. But I think that we just continue to see um an undeniable aspect of Bitcoin being merged within the financial industry. So I'd love both of your thoughts just on how how you see this concept of crypto companies becoming banks eventually banks actually supporting Bitcoin or cryptocurrency balances or holding stable coins. Just this this world seems to have always been kind of back and forth melding as Bitcoin. We say we want to be our own bank, but these worlds just continue to overlap in certain ways. >> Yeah, I think Chris has a great framework on um digital based signatures and how Bitcoin sort of like gets gets in there and maybe maybe it's something you want to start off with and then I'll finish off. >> So on the topic of OC trust charters in particular, I think uh certainly net a creative OC is a great regulator. Um, I I think ultimately whether OC Trust Charters end up being, you know, helping Bitcoin get to where it is ultimately going to get is going to come down to whether the Fed the ultimately the position the Fed takes with regard to uh granting Fed master accounts to OC trust chartered banks. Uh, Bitcoin again ultimately is a a neutral reserve settlement asset. If you look at um if you look at the uh bank called CLS, ultimately what Bitcoin needs to do in order to continue to evolve is effectively uh effectively link settlement with central bank currencies. Uh the model to think of is CLS. uh for those that are familiar with um with how money moves globally, >> I I think from a from a lending perspective, the OCC trust charters are interesting, but you know, they're really not um not impactful on the on the lending side. I mean the ability for for a you know a current non-bank a fintech a bitcoin custodian to become uh you know a regulated trust company is is undoubtedly good and I think provides some you know regulatory um you know clarity on the custody and trading side um but I think it doesn't really change the landscape in terms of the ability to be a depository institution um and extend loans so I think that you know that part of the the banking um the commercial banking world has a long way to go in terms of embrace of of the credit opportunity around Bitcoin. >> Yeah. Um I I would agree with that and I think that as we you know as we see federal regulators come up with new approaches to this space, it does help bring some clarity to companies but there are you know obviously Unchained does Bitcoin back loans. I mean there there are things that companies in the industry will continue to thrive doing um you know as a financial institution. So, um, the time is flying by. To to change topics a little bit, um, obviously one of the the difficulties the industry went through a few years ago were were bankruptcies. And a lot of those bankruptcies, whether it be crypto companies, obviously FTX, BlockFi come to mind. Um, SVB, um, there, you know, some of those had overlap with lending products. And I think it's also reshaped how users think about um their own rights when it comes to bankruptcies um consumer protection, transparency, custody. So maybe you could um sort of share just your experience with with how that actually worked through the bankruptcies and what what was sort of the your takeaways from that. Um, and then I'd love anyone else's thoughts on sort of what what the industry has taken away or what users are now looking for when it comes to those sort of lending uh products. >> Before I uh became a litigator, I actually did an economics PhD and I my research was on the financial crisis and and how bankruptcy operated in connection with the financial crisis. And the big concern coming out of the financial crisis was, you know, we need mechanisms that don't involve taxpayer bailouts and also don't involve the instigation of financial crisis across the economy. And and one thing that I think we should be really proud of overall as as a nation is how well the US legal system worked in in the big picture sense when it came to the crypto bankruptcies. By and large, we didn't have bailouts and by and large we didn't have financial contagion across the whole financial sector. And when you look at what the recoveries have been coming out of the US bankruptcies, they've been relatively quick and they've been remarkably high as compared to so many other bankruptcies and so many other industries. You know, there's a complicating issue of course is dollarization. And this has come up in all the bankruptcies and and also in in bankruptcies offshore. And this question about, you know, do people actually get their assets back if you have a Bitcoin denominated obligation or do you get back dollars or or something else with a claim dollarized as of the time of the bankruptcy? And obviously, the US crypto bankruptcies um occurred at a time when prices were at an all-time low. By and large, there was dollarization. But even so when we look at recoveries they've been remarkable. FTX is looking at you know 150%. Genesis which has mostly been inind returns is even at 65%. And these are so much higher than if you look at and this is within a couple years. If you look at Mount Gaus it's they're still trying to get out from under that. It's been over 10 years and the claims there were dollar were yenified. I'm not quite sure what the what the equivalent is of dollarization, but but claims were denominated in in Bitcoin yen prices as of 2014 and people still recovered 20%. So, you know, the US Chapter 11 system with the crypto bankruptcies worked incredibly well. All the tools that were available to the estates allowed creditors to recover a remarkable amount and and that's something that that I think we should be proud of. The banking issues I think you guys can speak to, are maybe more complicated. I think there was a sense that um that maybe Silvergate was treated differently from SVB perhaps because of crypto issues. Um but but even there recoveries have been quite high overall. So, so I guess I'll just add I I agree and I think that some users still had a had a wakeup call from the process because even when we look to just how bankruptcies progress, you know, there are the legal fees that are pulled out, the the you know, pockets of money that the bankruptcy courts are looking for. Um, and I think it was a wakeup call for a lot of users because all of a sudden they're unsecured creditors. um and they hadn't really understood that maybe some of the lending was like with rehypothecation things like that. So, you know, I'm just curious, you know, if if Unchained is seeing a different level of maybe interest in transparency or or full understanding of how some of these projects work and just what Unchained is doing to, you know, actually provide a a a great product to the industry. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, I'd say out of out of the last cycle, there was definitely a recognition and and heightened awareness um and scrutiny of, you know, understanding where your Bitcoin is being held. And, you know, there were folks in the last cycle, a lot of the leverage and and credit was supplied by um fintech, some of which you you named, and nearly all of them are are in in in bankruptcy. um where you know depositing Bitcoin at a place like like Celsius and then not having a clear understanding that that Bitcoin might be taken and lent um somewhere else for the benefit not of you the Bitcoin holder but for the you know benefit of the of the company of of you know place like Celsius generating interest. So that is clearly rehypothecation. um that word gets thrown around a lot in the industry and I think that um lending out for interest specifically is something that has now become anathema to a lot of Bitcoiners and recognize that it's a risky practice. So I say that that generally is is is not happening and and um is is trying to be avoided. What I still do see is there's some you know it's it's fairly opaque in the in the market. it's not uniform that um you know lenders are really clear about you know their their sources of capital and where Bitcoin is being held. At Unchained we pri try try to encourage our borrowers to think of of a couple questions. Number one, who's holding your Bitcoin when it's posted as collateral? And number two, what's the custody environment that's securing your Bitcoin? Um we have a couple different products at Unchained. One is a collaborative custody product where our borrowers actually hold a key and they can verify, you know, six months after their loan or a week after their loan that the Bitcoin they posted is still in that address on the blockchain. It hasn't been sent anywhere. We have an institutional product with Fidelity where the Bitcoin is held in a triparty arrangement um that is in a segregated account with full visibility at all times. So I think providing that level of you know as assurance, risk management, transparency um for you know discerning borrowers um and there are a lot of them um you know in this industry giving something something as novel and and volatile as Bitcoin is something we you know really try to stick to our guns and and principles at um at Unchained >> and I I think that's so crucial and the the lessons that people have learned coming out of the bankruptcies are are critical to a well functioning marketplace And you know, peop consumers need to be aware of what their rights are and and buy into products that reflect risk profiles that that are aligned with what they think that they're buying. And you know, in some respects, a a crisis can be a good inflection point for people to to uh reinvigorate their their efforts to actually understand what their rights are. >> I agree. >> Welcome to predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct, your prediction, your edge. Dual bits. Predict where everything is a market. I think to that point when we talk about the title again of where bit where is bitcoin now what I see a lot is you know individuals have bought and held over the years they're looking for optionality of how to use their bitcoin either as for a bitcoin back loan um credit to earn bitcoin rewards passively um and so I just think that the industry is you know really thinking about what those business models need to look like and then what the regulatory framework needs to look like. Um Chris, I know you've talked a bit about um this idea of tokenized assets and stable coins and how that's sort of um segueing in banks to be using more sort of onchain uh currency. Um, I guess I'm curious like your thoughts on how Bitcoin should be integrated into banks in general or what you think might that might look like in the future. >> So, I'm going to let John speak to the lending side of that. I'm going to speak specifically to um I guess custody crosses over a little bit between lending and um and payments. Um, but in particular on the on the payments front. So, I actually wrote a paper with uh a Bitcoin VC firm called Epoch based out of Denver uh last year. Um title of the paper is um is basically um gosh, what is the title? It's uh it's it's basically uh >> decentral banking maybe. >> So, that's the the first 20 pages is an essay um titled decentral banking. I think the title of the paper is basically the future of of banking in bitcoin and the framework to understand bitcoin when it comes to commercial banking. Um I don't know how many people here are familiar with the concept of two-tier banking that we have here in the US. Um but basically up at the top you have central banks. Um the the middle layer where silvergate was is um is commercial banking and then we have down at the bottom you essentially break the rule. It's not even two tiers, it's three. you have fintexs and you can really think of uh of commercial banks and fintexs as central bank hyperscalers. Um so the right way if if you walk on the street uh walk around this conference frankly and ask people where Bitcoin is on that two-tier banking system again central banks commercial banks and fintech a lot of people will assume Bitcoin is down here at this third layer like down here as a essentially like a fintech some sort of retail payment system and there's a lot of interesting projects we certainly could see a scaled use case for for retail payments in Bitcoin but the correct framework for understanding where Bitcoin is is actually up at the top the top level. Um I I think of Bitcoin as a globally distributed um central bank and what that means the way ultimately commercial banks and and fintexs um probably be commercial banks there are going to interact with Bitcoin is very similar to the correspondent banking model where you essentially have commercial banks that latch on to that that central bank. And one of the reasons I I I think this is the right framework, if you look at Bitcoin layer 1, a lot of people will throw shade at Bitcoin layer 1 and they'll they'll, you know, talk about how it doesn't scale. What a central bank provides. Um, one of the foundational things that that fiat central banks provide is interbank settlement. The ability to um to move money, move central bank money. The primary tool for that for in the US is Fedwire. Fedwire is a real-time gross settlement system provided by the central bank. Bitcoin layer 1 processes on an annual basis the same transaction throughput as Fedwire. Fedwire powers the global reserve currency. I don't I don't see a lot of people suggesting that Fed Wire can't scale. Um, so ultimately the uh I think the framework that we're going to see play out at least on the on the deposit side and interbank settlement side is commercial banks continuing to integrate directly with Bitcoin. Again, writing those uh stable coin and tokenized deposit rails that are being built. John, I don't know if you have anything to add on the lending side. >> Lending is really interesting, but I I strongly recommend everybody read Chris's Chris's essay. If you have a checking account, you'll understand how banking works better. It's an incred fiat banking is incredibly complicated. um and taking something as novel and technologically unique as Bitcoin and placing it in the context in a really clear manner um is a really is really excellent report. I I highly suggest I think you know on on the Bitcoin back lending side I think you know we live in a world where Bitcoin is in the process of being monetized and that's incredibly unique. It's unlike any stock or investment or or commodity um in some in some very real ways and it's like nothing we've seen in our lifetime. So in a world where all of our liabilities and corporate liabilities are denominated in fiat and you have an asset that is still being adopted and is in the process of being better understood by investors and and companies and individuals, there will be a demand for for credit. these two systems, the fiat world and the and the Bitcoin world, you know, will, you know, will coexist and you need trading services. You need the ability to sell your Bitcoin for dollars and there's always going to be an appetite for a borrowing against Bitcoin, which also happens to be excellent, excellent collateral. So, I do think there is a, you know, going back to my comments about sort of the last cycle, commercial banks, you know, sort of sat that cycle out. It wasn't about lending. It wasn't really about leverage. Maybe that's why Bitcoin didn't go higher than it than it the $126,000 it did. There is a a a rich, you know, roadmap and and engagement, you know, and conversation for for Bitcoiners and companies, originators of Bitcoin back assets like Unchained to have with banks. And that's um you know some of the most interesting you know work that I get to do is you know speaking with you know large pools of of fiat capital and helping them understand you know how Bitcoin back loan assets stack up against other you know balance sheet assets and loans that that they make and it's it's often quite favorable. >> Um so we have about five minutes. Um, another topic I wanted to raise because I think it is a very good example of maybe less opposition as an industry is the change um under the SEC of the regulatory through enforcement actions. Um, as a Bitcoiner, when when that shift happened, I thought, you know, this is great for the industry in a lot of ways, especially altcoin projects because they now likely um face a little less scrutiny by the SEC. But we've also seen it be a very positive thing for Bitcoin in terms of the ETFs and even some of the um, you know, cases that the SEC had against companies for some lending projects. So, um, you know, I'd love to hear just your the whole panel's thoughts on that shift and how that's maybe impacted how your companies or you think about risk and then also um from the more dispute side of things, how I mean problems don't go away. So, when regulatory enforcement actions decrease, I would think that there's other places that issues are resolved. And so I just wondered if you've if you've seen that trend now that that the that that administration is uh and that that organization is is regulating differently. >> Do you guys want to start and I'll No, you want me to go? All right. >> Um I mean it's been a you know it's been an enormous shift. The the litigation against the SEC was a huge part of the litigation that we saw uh in the courts and relating to crypto. Um, and they were targeting, you know, pretty much everyone. If you if you weren't a direct target, you were an indirect target. Um, and it has all disappeared and and that is just a a total sea change. Um, and I think it's made, you know, a really big difference. Um, not not only for the litigators, but on the business side. I mean, even even projects who weren't targeted, it was a it was a cloud hanging over everyone. and that um you know we were constantly bring being brought into boardrooms and asked like well well if we do it this way will we be safe and we had to say no I mean nobody's safe. Um so that that tenor has certainly changed. Uh of course the states are still out there. Um there are certain states that are very interested in in taking a different approach uh than than the federal government. Um, I think a a really interesting case is the new case by the CFTC against New York saying, "Hey, this is our this is our playground. You guys can't mess around in here." And so we'll we'll be interested in watching what happens there. Um, but that you know, of course, this does not mean that disputes are gone and um, you know, everybody kind of had a common enemy in the SEC and now we see the industry really maturing uh into the same kinds of disputes that we see everywhere. they see busted deals uh you know people people falling apart in terms of acquisitions and and those issues are getting litigated um with all the crypto treasury companies there's a lot more public company litigation in the crypto space securities class actions you know other shareholder disputes um all the the typical things that we would see in any financial sector um which I think is a a really encouraging sign it doesn't mean there won't be disputes in this space but but it means that everybody's kind of uh playing on an on an even playing field. Um, and the courts themselves, the judges, I I think have shifted along with the administration. It, you know, it shouldn't, it shouldn't really be the case that the change in the administration's view would change how judges are independently thinking about the issues, but but it really has. And and I've talked to some district court judges about this and asked like, you know, why why is that? like you guys are supposed to be making up your own minds and they say well you know I mean we we defer a lot to the SEC and if the SEC feels like you know a whole sector is is rampant with with crime and fraud then like you know we probably don't look at it quite as closely and and don't make up our minds quite as much and and I think now that that shadow has been removed you see judges actually taking taking these issues on on their own terms and that's very encouraging >> I just say further regulatory clar institutional sponsor orship is is great. Bitcoin's properties have haven't changed. You know, some of the larger players have come into the space and that just means that, you know, doors remain open for people to learn about Bitcoin. And as Bitcoin, you know, keeps being, you know, really a truly novel, miraculous monetary asset worthy of um, you know, all sorts of, you know, credit activities that are um, prudent. Um, you know, that's that's good for Bitcoin. And that's that's the difference. The doors remain open. It's untenable to say that Bitcoin is doesn't have a bright future anymore. >> Well, it sounds like we're ending on an an optimistic, positive note about Bitcoin and happy uh to have spoken with you all today. Thank you for your time and thanks you all for joining. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.