Hello hi everyone hi eri how are you hi i'm great really great to be here thank you so much for having me nina great to have you with us uh everyone else in the chat room on youtube twitter and also balance live please send a message and say hi to usIt's great to have everyone globally here with us for this webinar session uh everyone and great to have you and nina xiang from the finance academy team finance academy's mission is to teach everyone about blockchain technology and we are one of the largest learning hubs in the industry so today we're veryHappy to have arie redford head of legal and government affairs at blockchain intelligence firm trm labs joining us for a very very timely discussion on how should we navigate legal risk when conducting crypto trades so eri um great to have you today and i want to ask you you know before weEven start today's session we are like day one after the ethereum merge so what did you do yesterday for the merge how did you celebrate today i love it nina no first of all thank you for having me super honored to be on andIt's fun to look even at the chat i mean senegal the philippines this is such an international group and it's look i mean guess that's the nature of crypto right it is this sort of cross-border um you know uh payments and financial system that we're all building togetherAnd it's fun to see sort of people from all corners of the world so no one invited me to a merge party and i i thought i was like a really fun guy i'm very deep into crypto you know so i definitely was not but i've been watching sort of really uhReally excited leaks i think it's a really important moment for the industry um but look sort of what we're so focused on at trm is really stopping bad actors from taking advantage of the overall crypto economy and whenever there is sort of a major event you knowThink of sort of the the nft uh you know drop fomo scenario right uh there's always sort of a lot of fraud and financial crime and we're following that very closely for clients um you know like finance uh for other sort of uh you know participants in the industry um weStood up a uh with with actually we've partnered with binance on a uh on a site called chain abuse where it's a way for people to crowdsource scams and frauds in the crypto community to really ensure that other people aren't affected and i can say that definitelyWithin the last 24 hours we've seen a number of ethereum sort of related uh scams and frauds you know token drops that aren't we know there's no token drop associated with this right but we've seen that so we're watching that very closely but at the same time reallyCelebrating with everyone else sort of about the excitement of the of this really important moment i i actually personally mean to at nft from one of the names that can be trusted uh but it was really interesting it's too late for us to stay up it was 2 a.m eastern u.s eastern timeI saw on twitter someone said it's uncultured to have an event in this hour for the uh usc uh yeah us eastern coast um well i think i think we're like we all i think you know we're like the old folks in the industry i'm sure there arePlenty of young people who are celebrating 2 a.m in the morning for sure yeah so uh okay so eri um can you maybe talk about more directly about how the merge actually impact your work you talked a little bit about you know uh catching uh scams related to this eventBut uh on the more broader perspective how does this impact your work yeah no it's a great question and i i promise you this is not a cop-out answer but i think a lot of this is to be seen like you know i think we're going to see inThe coming weeks and months really sort of what this means from a number of important perspectives one security right you know is this creating a more or less secure sort of blockchain environment and um i think there's interesting arguments on both sides right essentially just for those and iKnow this is a very crypto native audience but for those aren't super in the weeds on this essentially what's happening is ethereum is going through a software upgrade um and uh it's been sort of years in the making but really what that software upgrade is doing in simplest terms is changing the wayTransactions are validated on on the blockchain from what they call a proof of work which is essentially mining which is the way uh transactions are validated on the bitcoin blockchain to proof of stake which basically requires that um you know those who are validating transactions own uh ethereum are are essentially youKnow staking in that ecosystem so um it's a real shift and the real question is you know like so you know proof of the proof of work community many of whom you know sort of the bitcoin community are saying look you know what you're what you're doing is you're transitioning from the systemWhere anyone can mine bitcoin to a system in which you have to actually uh own the uh the asset in order to participate which essentially it argues that like you know it's it's less egalitarian in some respects but what proof of stake is is saying is look you don't now needSort of you know server farms you don't need these giant sort of you know mining apparatus um anyone who has an interest or a skin in the game right anyone who is invested now in ethereum or in eat the asset has a say in sort of how transactionsAre validated on that chain so i think you know you're seeing sort of different perspectives um and we'll see ultimately how it plays out from sort of like a trust and safety layer um but i think this has been a moment that's been building for some time in in theEcosystem and um we're gonna see sort of ultimately how it plays out or sort of what it means i'll take you back though like just for a moment sort of that i think that what we're really monitoring closely like any huge moment in crypto right this is like the super bowl for cryptoUm we want to make sure that scammers and fraudsters are not taking advantage of regular users or people who are now wanting to engage and that's something that we're focused on sort of in the very near term at trm labs i mean especially with what's happening with potentially ethwo forkI i think that just like by itself creates so many different complications and potential uh security risks yeah look i think that that you know that's very much sort of went in line with uh what we're gonna wait and see really over the next few days but maybeEven beyond as to whether or not you know there's new security risks created as we've sort of dealt with older ones and um and yeah i think it's very much a work in progress okay so before we go into today's formal discussion a reminder for everyone toFollow us on youtube twitter and other social media channels uh to stay tuned with upcoming webinars and other great educational content from us and also if anyone you know during the time of the discussion feel free to send your questions in and we will try to answer all of them uhAt the end and a quick disclaimer very importantly the opinions and statements made during this webinar are for general information and educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice or recommendations okay so arie we went into the ethereum merge without really giving you a properIntroduction and uh you know if you google aaron's name you're going to find a lot of his past experience and many of the past talks he's given but very just very briefly uh arie has been the head of legal and government affairs at trm labs and he works with law enforcementEnforcement regulators and financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses to help make cryptocurrencies safe for billions of people and before joining trm uh labs i re served as a senior advisor to the deputy secretary and the under secretary for the terrorism and financial intelligence at the united states department of treasuryAnd also as a senior assistant u.s attorney for the district of columbia so very impressive you know past experience whenever i hear anyone say it it's just a mouthful is what it is um is it like an only in government service kind of kind of titles but um reallyJust you know look at at the end of the day sort of my role was to work with teams from the u.s treasury department on illicit finance issues so with ofac which is the sanctions regulator fincen which is the financial intelligence unit the money laundering regulator to reallyEnsure that bad actors right were not taking advantage of the financial system so uh working with on sanctions anti-money laundering type of issues and i was before that i was a prosecutor for about 11 years and for the us department of justice really focusing on those same issues stopping cyber criminals andTerrorist financiers and others from sort of you know laundering funds in this new uh well in the traditional financial system and now at trm i get to do that uh you know in the crypto space as well yes great um so you know today's topic is aboutHow you know how do you handle regulatory or legal risks when you conduct crypto trades i think the reason why we wanted to have this section uh session was because of the our tornado cash uh sanction and there has been so much talk on this topic but today weReally want to maybe just take a step back and have a broader view of uh the legal risks risk of conducting crypto trades no matter where you are or no matter whether you are u.s persons or not so i guess first step um arie is maybe if youCan give us a very brief overview of the global cryptocurrency regulatory landscape um you know there it's there's so many different uh discrepancies and also uncertainties particularly you know in the us uh the the regulatory landscape is so complicated and uh fast fast moving so maybe you can give us this brief uhIntroduction first yeah neither your question makes me believe i need to come up with like a two or three minute answer to this question so i'm going to do my i'm going to this is just i'm going to make a shot at this this is going to be hopefully iCould use this um but but look you're you're right that there are so many different sort of regulatory actions and studies and things happening globally right now in the cryptocurrency space um we have key regulators in places like singapore and dubai um in the uk and in the eu umAnd certainly in the us really grappling with sort of how to build out a regulatory framework for digital assets um for example just this summer uh we saw an agreement reached on mika the markets and crypto assets legislation in europe which was a huge step forward and really created the first comprehensiveFramework for digital assets and when i say comprehensive i say that because look we've seen regulators deal with issue different issues within the crypto space right what are the environmental impacts of mining uh consumer protection related issues anti-money laundering stable coins uh cbdc's but really mikaWas the first sort of you know actual legislation to reach agreement where it took up it took a holistic approach to all of those different things uh we see legislation you know on capitol hill in the u.s that kind of mirrors that idea of a comprehensive framework um that isProbably some time from being passed um uh but but senators lummus and gillibrand put forth the bill over the summer that tried to also take sort of a more holistic approach in the u.s the real issue is who is going to regulate crypto is it the cftc which regulatesCommodities or is it the sec which regulates securities but but coming back to all of this for a moment one thing is is interestingly clear and is becoming more and more clear globally and that is sort of what regulation looks like in the anti-money laundering space in particular which we're talking about inSome respects today in the sanction space you know in the u.s um you know fincen which is part of the u.s treasury department has said if you are a cryptocurrency business if you're an exchange if you're a broker if you're a custodian right um then you know if you do business with u.sPersons or u.s entities you're required to have compliance controls in place just like any money service business so that means to have compliance officers to have policies and procedures to get a license with your regulator to file suspicious activity reports to use a transaction monitoring solution likeTrm to make sure that you're not transacting with illicit entities and that has very much been the approach in the uk in in singapore um certainly sort of you know moving towards that direction in the uae and a lot of it comes from the financial action task force which isFatif and uh fatif is not a regulator but it is a global standard setting body okay and um that has been their direction in many respects that crypto businesses should have compliance controls in place and that's really what we're seeing globally more and more we're seeing you knowCrypto businesses act as if they're financial institutions and have robust anti-money laundering sanction screening that that sort of thing so that was definitely more than my two minute answer but i hope it was like close to kind of like how we're seeing things today in the spaceSo basically you know the short answer is um everything is still um in development there's no definite framework where there potentially you know the uh the european region is uh maybe one step ahead of the us but still everything is still very much in uh shaping up i think that's right oneThing to point out that's really interesting that came out of mika in europe is this idea of a past portable license so if you're a crypto exchange and you have a license in greece or spain you're able to take that license and move it anywhere else in europe and that becomes very importantBecause as you know the most important thing to businesses in this space is like obviously regulation is important but regulatory clarity is arguably more important you just want to know what your obligations are so it's really nice to know that hey if i have a license from this regulator in france i knowThat i'll be able to use it in spain is very significant that's a big i think step forward when you talk about sort of the the regulatory frameworks that mika sort of brought to the table but i think your um your analysis was was terrific there in terms of like yeahWe're still working on clarity and um and it's coming i'm very optimistic but these things take time regulators do not move necessarily at the speed of the internet uh like like crypto does for sure uh what about from a user's perspective you know you talked about you know regulatory uh landscape forCrypto businesses for users there is currently potentially the risk of inadvertently breaking rules um maybe you know sometimes not by the user's own actions particularly from the technical cash uh section action yeah happy to talk through tornado cash because i think you're absolutely right and interestinglyUm yesterday ofac which is the office of foreign asset control the the sanctions entity within the u.s treasury actually came out with some faq some frequently asked questions which is essentially their way of putting out timely guidance and one of those faqs got to exactly what you're talking about it wasEssentially and i don't have it in front of me it was essentially hey um you know what is ofac's position towards someone who has been the victim of what they call a dusting attack right a small amount of cryptocurrency has been sent to you and uh you did not umYou did not ask for it you did not solicit it it was sent to you kind of inadvertently and what ofac has said i think they were very careful but they said look you know sanctions are strict liability um and if you have violated sanctions or if you have engaged with aSanctioned entity you need to report that but and this is an important but they said you know enforcement actions in this space will not be a priority for ofac and that is a way for ofac to say hey look on the one hand we're strict liability regime and you need to reportThis type of activity but what they're also saying is look we understand that this is not the group that we are trying to enforce sanctions on um this is obviously these are victims of of people who are trying to sort of make a statement or or sendFunds and um we want to be clear to those people that that they are not going to be targets of of ofac enforcement actions um so i think that that's it's their subtle way of saying hey look this is not going to be something we're going to prioritize it's probablyBut to really try to i think get to the heart of your answer let me sort of move back a little bit um and i know folks are probably tracking this very very closely but on august 8th uh the u.s treasury department ofac sanctioned a tornado cache which as youKnow is a decentralized uh mixing protocol on ethereum and essentially it sanctioned tornado cash because of its involvement in laundering what by trm's account is about a billion dollars in hacked or stolen funds by north korea and as we all know over the last you know couple of years really north koreaHas been targeting cryptocurrency businesses centralized exchanges and now much more often d5 protocols and bridges and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and you know there was a time where hacks uh were you know a fraud or financial crime issue but when you have north korea involved it really becomes a national securityIssue because when they stole 620 million dollars from the ronin bridge that is funds that if they can launder them effectively they can use for weapons proliferation and other types of destabilizing activity so what we see here is treasury trying to figure out how to deal withUh the use of tornado cash for money laundering but tornado cash is exceptional because it's really the first time that ofac ever designated uh really not an entity or a person but in this case sort of decentralized software and on the one hand ofac wanted to stopNorth korea from being able to use tornado cash to launder funds but on the other hand it impacted a lot of regular users who had a reason to keep their transactions private and were using it for sort of the right reasons and what we then saw were peopleIndividuals i think to going back to your question who were affected by really ofac sanctions arguably for the first time you know up to the tornado cache designation ofac had always gone after you know really i'd say illicit actors within the overall crypto ecosystem you know darkNet mixers right that were that were being advertised to launder funds um dark net marketplaces like hydra and silk road and alpha bay they were going after um non-compliant exchanges that had no kyc controls mostly russia based like suex and chad x and guarantex but this was really different this wasThe first time that regular users were affected i think what we've seen over the last month since the designation are crypto businesses uh you know including d5 front ends and others and centralized exchanges uh and regulators and ofac trying to figure out how to balance this idea of going afterEnsuring that bad guys aren't using our services but not affecting regular users and i think that's been the interesting conversation that we've been having over the last month or so and i think it'll likely continue um you know first for some time and of course the the old flat sanctionIs being legally challenged right now so i guess that's also another um a good move towards uh i guess it's another positive move uh for users who want to uh protect their privacy yeah it's interesting i i think that ultimately um there'll be litigation likely and willKind of get a result which will which will be sort of you know some time from now i am i also like i'm optimistic that there are potentially technological solutions that can actually um do this because on the one hand look i get asked all the time by peopleKind of new to the space well why would you ever use a mixer unless you were trying to hide um you know transactions unless you're trying to launder funds and my answer is look you know as we move into a more and more open financial system people are going to have very goodReason to want more and more transaction privacy um you know for example you know we're going to be paid in crypto um you know i know you love binance but do you want binance to know exactly what you do with your paycheck right probably probably not or uh i think we may haveVery strict gun show internal concho very very strict uh policies you know if i'm sending funds directly to my wallet from my employer trm i don't want them to know about what i'm using those funds for right that's just like i don't want anyone to see my credit card transactions today there areUh and i think the other piece of this is that people don't realize like there are a lot of public figures whose whose crypto addresses are just out there you know they're on twitter they're dot eth and those people don't want the world watching you know what they're buyingYou know uh you know cars and diapers and you know the things that we all buy you know in life so i think i think the reality is that people have really good reason to keep their transactions private and um i think what we're go what we're going to do and thisIs something we've been really focused on at trm working really closely with clients to screen to ensure that we're screening for sanctioned entities you know like anyone on the list or um but but but to to find ways to take a more granular approach to ensure thatThose victims of dusting or others who have inadvertently transacted with this protocol are not ensnared in kind of a wider sanctions net and that's really like you know we've been heads down you know since this designation really working closely with clients to ensure that they're taking our data and thenSort of taking a granular approach to decide which addresses to block and which addresses not to block um i think you know you see most companies in the space are really you know saying we understand that we have an obligation to block the 45 addresses that are on the sanctions list right theQuestion gets more complicated when even tether who famously came out and said we're not going to block what they were saying is we're going to block those 45 addresses but we're not going to block necessarily those secondary addresses that have transacted with the 45 and but we're seeing different approaches by differentEntities within the crypto ecosystem and i think that there are all kinds of reasons to take different approaches and every business every crypto protocol has their own risk tolerance risk-based approach and that's what we're seeing implemented now which i think is which i think is a good thingSo another related news was a recently i think a couple of weeks ago nfts uh were used to funnel uh funds i i think for terror uh north korea north korea or some of uh terrorist organizations um so you know like nft is something i guess um i i'm not so sure howHow to comply with sanctions um and you know just ensure you stay within the legal bonds uh bonds when you transact nfts um you know is it safe to uh just stay with uh the more the biggest nft marketplace is that uh you know something that you can do toMinimize risk there or you know what other extra legal risks do you see there when you try and try and you know transfer or receive nfts no that's a great question and just backing you up a little bit um first of all i can't wait to see your merge nft you mentionedYou get to see that on the show or maybe maybe later oh i i still haven't even like uh opened it yeah it's just in my wallet i'll see all right and you'll share that with us so um you know it's it's such a cool space andIt's such a merging technology that i think it's just so important to kind of understand sort of what the regulatory frameworks are today one thing kind of backing you up a second so trm did an investigation um about a week or so ago where we identified an nft that wasCreated by an isis supporter and i think that's what you're referring to right and um it's really important to make the distinction that we we do not know if this is isis itself or isis even knew about this but this was a supporter who created a series of nftsActually that were sort of you know isis propaganda and um really it it seems like a one-off to some extent right but what it does tell us kind of an interesting story about a world in which um you know illicit actors terrorist financiers may be moving more into this decentralizedSpace that we're all building together and we i think have to ensure that that that they don't right that bad actors don't um and uh really what happened was um you know look in the age of the internet you had intermediaries you know twitter and facebook and you know companies thatWould de-platform this type of content um but in the age of crypto or nfts or blockchains we're living in this decentralized world where things are hashed to a immutable ledger you know it's forever and i think what this person in particular this supporter understood was that like when you put something whenYou create an nft it's there forever no one can take it down now if it's on a major marketplace you know then obviously that that marketplace can take it down because that's the intermediary but the reality is no matter what it's always going to be there on thatBlockchain and i think that's so so i think it's like just starting to think more about what which ways illicit actors are going to use emerging technology um this is not at all to say there's some huge problem in the nft ecosystem with terrorist financing but i think it's sort of theFirst time that we saw at least um the use of nfts um in this way um from sort of like a regulatory perspective because i think you ask a really good question i think it's one of those issues you talked about sort of clarity that regulators are definitely grappling with umI think that there's analogies you can draw from sort of crypto regulation today which is a lot more um built out i think regulators are still really starting to talk about nfts but i think the concern for regulators with nfts at least in the sort of money launderingSanctions illicit finance space is that look you can move them at the speed of the internet right cross-border value transfer you can use them for payments for um investment for to to transfer value and i think that's why you're going to see some sort of compliance controls in place and you seeAlready today the leading nft marketplaces exchanges that offer nfts to to clients are already using uh you know tools like trm to do transaction monitoring on the addresses that they're sending nfts to so it's really i think there's a lot of good analogies to makeToday i think that um you know at trm you know we cover ethereum we cover solana so we we have a pretty good sense of most of the nft activity out there and are able to sort of provide you know data to allow our clients to make thoseDecisions um but it's a growing space there's no question and we're seeing regulators really just like for example i mentioned mika you know mika doesn't really address nfts uh and i think intentionally wanting to sort of like follow up with more study and really tryTo understand it in sort of a mika ii type of context so i think it's an issue we're still seeing regulators grapple with we've seen the us treasury talk a little bit about it three or four pages in a much larger white paper on the use of artHigh value art to launder funds but we're going to see a lot more from from treasury we're going to see a lot more from uk regulators and you know singapore the fat f has talked a little bit about nfts so it's definitely it's an emerging space from a technology standpoint and alsoFrom a regulatory standpoint um i'm sorry i may miss the the point but i mean there has been a lot of i guess speculation that people do say a lot of the high value nfts are used for money laundry purposes but what do you say to thatYeah no look i think that like yeah i mean sure um you know i think what you're seeing now is and like if you want to launder funds in crypto uh you know high value blue chip nfts is a great place to move funds right um andThen sort of move those funds again sort of laundering the money um so i think it's definitely a typology we're seeing um you know i think at the start of the the show i mentioned this kind of you know things around the merge that we're seeing potentially but things like nftRug pulls right we've seen a lot of you know typologies around people pump essentially pump and dump in the nft space uh we've seen wash trading of nfts uh we've seen discord hacks um you know of sort of nft discord um there's there's so many different sortOf typologies we're seeing in the space but i think so much of it goes to this this sort of fomo idea right nfts and do so much fear of missing out amongst the community that people are sort of more likely to click here uh and maybe that'sNot the right site or maybe that's gonna drain your wallet and um quite frankly that's why with i think it's finance us we started chain abuse in order to have a place where people could um you know really you know report and investigate um these types of fraud and and andScams and a lot of it happens to be in the nft space today um because the nft space honestly is this sort of new and emerging nascent industry nascent space where we're building but that allows for some vulnerabilities and we've seen that and the the fomo factory is real forSure and you see so many drops oh yeah i have two i have two young boys and we collect nba top shot together right oh yeah i'll click on anything like i'm just like a minute i'm like you know come on like i want thatNba finals this year um you know so uh so yeah so i we i totally get it i think the space is so cool and so interesting but yeah any kind of new space or big event leads to that kind of fomo which is catnip for um for fraudsters and scammersSo back to the nft isis connection you mentioned before i when you were talking about that it just brought back all my memory while i listened to your previous talks so that's exactly that i was referring to but uh but i listened to so many of your previous thoughtsI'm like i'm embarrassed i yeah yes this is like part of the research i do like always for for all of the webinars so um but i think another interesting point you raised before was like uh trm actually you know doesn't block addresses uh i i think for this umClarification is is quite important that you're just the intelligence data provider um and it's on the crypto businesses that uh does the blocking action no i mean you said that quite frankly as succinct as i could possibly say it but no uh that's uh that's exactly right look at the end ofThe day we're providing data to clients whether they're large centralized exchanges or t5 front ends uh that make determinations as to how to use that data and um so we provide data on hey look these addresses are on the sdn list they are sanctioned and then that the uhThe the crypto entity decides the crypto business decides whether or not to block those addresses same with addresses that have sanctions exposure because they've transacted with those addresses um just just to kind of like dig in a little bit on this because it's really interesting look you know sanctions actually has always beenPretty easy certainly compared to anti-money laundering which is it really different people tie them together all the time we talk about sanctions and aml but the reality is they are very different and you know really to date um the addresses on ofac's sanctions list uh have have really been associated withTerrorist financing today ofac added literally a couple hours ago a number of addresses associated with russia paramilitary group uh that is that is in ukraine uh and um and and added those addresses but the the the issue there is that you know if you're on if if you're aTerrorist financier or sort of one of these types of groups um you know crypto platforms don't watch you on their platform they want to keep you off right like you know no one wants to transact with a terrorist financier and you even take that a step further if you're transacting with a terroristFinancier i probably don't want to transact with you either right so you can automate the process you could say that if you're if if you have a sanctions label or or trm is saying you're associated with sanctions then you can automatically block those addresses but tornado cache was soDifferent because it was the first time that you had regular users who could potentially have been associated with sanctions exposure yeah exactly why and that's why so like trm is providing that data um to allow crypto businesses now to kind of take a more granular approach to say hey noIt's it might not just be enough that it's associated with some sanctions exposure maybe we need to know more and this is data that trm provides you know is it inflows or outflows what is the timing what is the amount and the amount becomes really important right when it's just dustingYou're able to tell that or have a much better sense so what we're seeing is really in the last three or four weeks even um you know crypto businesses take a more granular approach to this and i think that when i talk about sort of technological solutions umI think that's what what i'm so excited about because i think there are ways to solve this problem um with technology as opposed to over regulation uh did you talk about those technological solutions before uh yeah yeah no absolutely happy to and really just kind of like echoing umLook i think that um you know what we allow is when we're providing data to clients you know they're able to make pretty granular determinations as to whether or not this is an entity that they want to engage with okay that's what's unique and i think as opposed to sort of youKnow having regulation that says you can or you can't it's like there are now entities that are really that are or that that have really good data to make these types of determinations and we might not need regulators necessarily saying you can't can't it's there's technology solutions to this which iThink we all want right like as a community as what we're building we want to ensure that we can sort of self-police some of this using tools and technology i see so i don't see any questions from the chat room so i guess everybody is very much you know umCaught up with the legal report or they're looking at the light off my bald head or something i don't know they're all enlightened yes so if you have any questions remember to send it in this is your chance to ask the expert in the fieldAnd i think lastly eric if you can maybe give some advice to regular users it doesn't matter you know if you have hundred dollars or or a big uh portfolio uh what are some you know recommended uh safety uh best practices you know maybe potentially do not use mixer services orI don't know all right what would those be no it certainly wouldn't be that right like i think that there's such an important place for mixers in the ecosystem um i think it's just trying to figure out sort of how to stop uh bad actors from using mixers um and i thinkThat to some extent um that's really sort of that that's got to be where we kind of thread that needle but you know for regular users i think it's sort of most importantly it's it's staying vigilant um from for for purposes of like fraud and financial crime um andIt's being vigilant in other ways it's being vigilant on chain right trying to really understand the entities that you're transacting with whether it's an exchange or whether it's another self-hosted wallet i think to really kind of understand who you're transacting with um is important and not necessarily the name but like you knowMake sure that they have a legitimate web presence if you're dealing with an nft project right make sure that like you do some due diligence because it's like anything else nina right like i'm not walking down the street handing my wallet to like a random person you wantTo just ensure like you know i might not know who i'm transacting with all the time and that's not that should not be expected in crypto but what should be expected is that like you actually have a sense that the person you're transacting with is legit and i thinkDoing some due diligence there you know really becomes important i think going to like an nft you know drop with just enough money in your wallet to buy that nft you want is a great idea because what we're seeing now more and more is these sort of wallet draining techniques right whereThey're stealing all the funds out of your wallet and it's terrible to lose anything um but i'd rather lose whatever amount i was going to spend on nft than what's you know than the entirety of my wallet so like that's like like tips andTricks like but a lot of it is just goes back to sort of this bigger picture of like really remaining vigilant and that's kind of like and there's so much more to that on chain but it's really also being smart off chain uh you know having good operational security i'mSorry before you go into the option uh stuff like i would almost definitely you know use a different uh mobile phone or hardware if i want to interact with you know less established brand names and also use a different email um so definitely don't want to use the samePhone i keep all my you know other financial holdings with one that i decide to go you know maybe potentially a little bit more riskier uh entities uh to interact with you you nailed it i think actually you did you just went where i was going umThat's where the the option stuff is oh yeah you're like what is i'm sorry oh you're totally fine i should just like i should just shut up because i uh i i think that uh you know it is sort of that operational security you know like you know to avoid being sim-swapped orHaving your accounts hacked or having people get access to your passwords and usernames for your you know binance account or um you know whatever it's it's i think part of it is like you know yes these exchanges and and d5 protocols and bridges are being hacked butThe actual much easier one is for us individually to be taken advantage of in some way so i think it's that just same opsec that you would just bring to kind of your daily life you should just ensure and it's not just you um right it's your family membersIt's your children and it's it's look i mean we're in a scary world right now i mean like every day i get some text that says hey arie long time no see no see everything knows your backgrounds where you went to school really like it's like oh yeah and it's it'sReally detailed and you know there was a time where i would always respond who's this i think i must not have you in my phone well that's a scammer you know who's basically gonna try to then um you know take advantage in some one of these sort of umYou know you know groom you in one of these pig butchering scenarios where they get a bunch of money from you uh in crypto and then and then ultimately steal it um you just have to be like you know i think our our spidey sense should be tingling all the timeAnd no one wants to walk around that way but i think the reality is as we move into the digital world these are the new threats they're the um you know the robberies that we've dealt with on you know subway systems and on city streets we now have to be just asVigilant you know uh you know you put your wallet in your front pocket when you're walking you know through a big square in europe or something i think we have to do that now on blockchains and um it's just it's just smart but believe meYou know it's hard to do all the time to stay that vigilant but i think you you really nailed it the way you described it well thank you so much eri and we have no question from the audience today and i want to remind everyone that wePreviously had a session with uh finance uh compliance department so we introduced all the different kinds of scams and phishing attacks you may encounter so make sure you watch that one as well so eric thank you so much for today's enlightening i mean you know highly insightful uh sessions and adviceAnd it's great to see you and talk to you finally so i hope we can meet someday in person i would love that nina thank you so much for taking the time and really all right thank you thank you bye everyone in the