REGULATION

Every time I see a new regulation, I think to myself: there goes another business opportunity.

FTX proved exactly why we spent years getting regulated. Trust isn't a feature you ship later.

We don't lobby for unclear rules. We lobby for clear rules. We'll follow any rules — we just need to know what they are.

We chose to be the regulated exchange when it was the hard path. Now it's the only path.

The banking license took three years. Every month I wanted to scream. But now we have it, and no one can take it away.

When CMS said health plans need to respond to prior auth requests in 72 hours, most plans panicked. We were the phone call they made the next morning.

The biggest risk isn't volatility. It's that the US falls behind because we can't get a clear regulatory framework. That would be a tragedy.

Regulation is not the enemy of innovation. It's actually required for mass adoption.

Regulation isn't the enemy of crypto — it's the thing that will bring institutions in at scale.

The FDA regulates based on intended use. We intended to give people information. That shouldn't require a prescription.

We process payments across 34 African countries. Do you know how many banking regulations that is? 34 different central banks, 34 sets of rules. That complexity is our moat.

The FDA doesn't regulate wellness devices the same way it regulates medical devices. That's our opening. We're not diagnosing diabetes. We're showing healthy people how food affects their biology.

We're not a bank. We partner with banks. That distinction matters legally, but to the customer it doesn't matter at all. They see Mercury. They trust Mercury. That's the product.

The hardest part of building a bank isn't the technology. It's the regulation. Getting a UK banking license took two years and more lawyers than engineers. But once you have it, nobody can take it from you.

We launched in 17 European countries simultaneously. Not one at a time. Seventeen at once. People said it was reckless. Europe's single banking passport said it was legal. We used the regulation as a growth hack.

We hit 8 million customers. Then BaFin — the German regulator — imposed growth limits on us. They said we were growing too fast for our compliance infrastructure. Growing too fast. As a punishment.

Open banking is inevitable. Consumers own their data. Banks hold it hostage. We're the locksmith. Every country is moving in this direction — the US is just slower than Europe. As usual.

We got a national bank charter. Do you know how hard that is? The OCC doesn't just hand those out. We're one of the only fintechs in America that is actually a bank, not just pretending to be one.

Texans fought us in court for years. The Texas Medical Board tried to ban telehealth entirely. We won. In court. Against the state of Texas. That legal fight defined the industry.

Regulators told us no 17 times before we got our license. Most founders would have quit after three. We just kept showing up with better arguments.

We got our banking license because we believe you cannot build a serious financial institution on top of someone else's license. You need to own the full stack.

The hardest part of fintech in Southeast Asia is not the technology. It is regulation. Every country has different rules, different licenses, different banking systems. You have to go country by country.

I built an exchange that did a trillion dollars in volume. Then the US government charged me with a crime. Then I paid a fine and came back. In crypto, that is a Tuesday.

I pleaded guilty. I paid the fine. I went to prison. I accept responsibility. But Binance is still the largest exchange in the world and crypto is still going to change finance forever.

Regulators don't understand crypto yet. That doesn't make them the enemy. But it does mean we have to educate while we comply, which is exhausting and expensive.

We built Gemini to be the most regulated exchange in the world because we knew that was the only way Wall Street would take crypto seriously. Trust is built by rules, not promises.

The SEC suing us over MetaMask is essentially suing the concept of a software wallet. If a wallet is a broker, then a web browser is a publisher. The legal theory doesn't hold up.

The SEC sued us in 2020 and we decided to fight instead of settling. Three years and millions in legal fees later, we got a ruling that XRP is not a security on exchanges. Some fights are worth fighting.

The US government is pushing crypto innovation overseas. While the SEC sues American companies, Singapore, the UAE, and the UK are rolling out red carpets. If America isn't careful, it will regulate itself out of the future.

Getting a UK banking license took five years. Five years of regulators, audits, compliance reviews, and paperwork. It nearly broke us. But now we can take deposits and lend money — we're a real bank now, not just an app.

Big Tech is the most effective tax avoidance scheme in history, disguised as innovation.

TikTok is a platform for creativity, learning, and joy. 170 million Americans use it. Banning it would silence those voices.

I was arrested in France for what my users posted. That is like arresting the postal service for what someone mails.

The two-year app ban cost us millions of users. Rebuilding that trust and market position is the hardest thing we have ever done.

We beat Uber in China. That should have been the biggest victory in ride-hailing history. Instead, it was a footnote before the regulatory storm.

We went public in New York. Days later, Beijing removed us from app stores. The lesson: in China, the government is your biggest stakeholder whether you like it or not.

The JOBS Act changed everything. Before 2012 you had to be rich to invest in private real estate. Now you need ten dollars.

SoftBank valued us at 4.8 billion. The DEA valued us as a problem. Both were making a point.

The FAA will decide if we fly. That is the only approval that matters. Everything else is noise.

The FAA process was harder than building the drone. Regulation is the real engineering challenge.

Fantasy sports is a game of skill. The courts agree. That distinction is everything for our business.

One regulatory decision in one state can affect millions of users. We live with that risk every day.

The CFPB wants to classify us as a lender. We're not lending. We're helping people avoid overdraft fees.

We're the first consumer fintech with a national bank charter. That's a massive competitive advantage.

Governments that embrace Bitcoin will thrive. Those that don't will be left behind.

France banned us after testing our products. That was the wake-up call.

India banned PUBG Mobile — our largest mobile market — and we survived. Adaptability is everything.

ISAs sound simple: pay when you earn. Collecting across 50 states with 50 different regulations is a nightmare.

Singapore approved lab-grown chicken before any other country. The future of food started in Asia.

USDA and FDA approved. We're not asking for permission anymore — we're asking for orders.

Every city has different building codes. Customizing factory panels for each jurisdiction killed our margins.

Each property is its own SEC-qualified offering. The compliance is expensive, but it's also our moat.

The FDA told us to stop selling our product. Instead of giving up, we spent two years proving them wrong.

The RBI action was painful but we will come back stronger. Regulation doesn't kill good companies. Bad compliance does.

The markets have the capacity to do things that regulators cannot anticipate. Sometimes that is a feature. Sometimes it is a catastrophic bug.

Every government in the region told us no at some point. We did not fight governments — we partnered with them. That is the only way to build in this region.

When the government changes the rules in the middle of the game, there’s no hedge for that.

Regulated industries scare most investors. That is exactly why the returns are so good.

We got FAA Air Carrier Certification. The same certification FedEx has. That took years of work and it's a moat no competitor has crossed.

During my five years as Superintendent of Banking, not one New York bank failed. That is the record I am most proud of.

If you wait for perfect regulatory clarity in India, you will wait forever. You build, you adjust, and you stay honest. That is the only formula that works.

We need to reduce taxes, reduce regulation, and let business do what it does best — create jobs and prosperity.

We didn't settle with the SEC early because we believed we were right. Walking away from that fight would have set a terrible precedent for the entire crypto industry.

Companies that try to dodge regulators don't build lasting businesses. The ones that engage — even when it is painful — build moats.

USDC is not a bet against the dollar. It is the dollar running on a better protocol. America wins if this succeeds.

The regulatory environment in the US is increasingly hostile to crypto. We've been considering what a Kraken without US customers might look like.

The pipeline business is built on trust — with shippers, with communities, with regulators. You break that trust once and you spend a decade repairing it.

Quality is not negotiable. The market punishes you for it eventually.

Ultimately, in order for us to see less fraud in the market, there needs to be real repercussion to engaging in fraud.

That to me seems to be pretty American when we're out there protecting investors.

We are strong believers that regulation is necessary and we just have to have smart regulation.

Had there been rules of the road in place, there would have been a framework, clear rules for what is a security, what is a commodity, and what are the consumer protections around that.

Operation Choke Point 2.0 is a coordinated effort by regulators to marginalize the crypto industry by cutting off its banking access.

Some members of the government believe that, if they want, they can snap their fingers and turn off Bitcoin. They have no idea how the technology works.