EP 20 — MoonPay's Doug Innocenti on The Gut Instinct Gap in AI Security Operations

What happens when you scale a crypto company across 160+ countries while maintaining the same security standards as Wells Fargo? At MoonPay, it meant rethinking how traditional banking security translates to high-velocity fintech environments. Doug Innocenti, CISO, breaks down how his team achieved PCI, SOC 2 Type 2, and regulatory licenses like BitLicense and MiCA without slowing product development. The secret is the ability to test multiple security tools in parallel and pivot quickly when something isn't working.

But velocity alone isn't enough, he cautions Jean. Doug's approach to AI in security reveals a critical insight: although AI-powered tools can dramatically reduce SOC response times and automate incident analysis, the "gut instinct gap" remains. His team uses AI to enable faster decisions, not replace human judgment — especially when patterns don't match what the algorithms expect to see. 

Topics discussed:

• Maintaining bank-level security posture while enabling startup velocity through security-first architecture and platform design principles.
• Scaling compliance across 160+ countries using pre-built infrastructure that accommodates PCI, SOC 2, BitLicense, and MiCA requirements.
• Implementing parallel security tool testing to accelerate vendor evaluation and avoid bureaucratic delays in enterprise environments.
• Adopting next-generation DLP solutions like DoControl that use AI-powered business intelligence for dynamic data boundary creation.
• Balancing insider threat monitoring with external threat defense through compensated controls and rapid reaction capabilities.
• Managing AI adoption risks while embracing acceleration benefits through defensive technology investment and vendor selection criteria.
• Using AI-enhanced SOC and SIEM operations to reduce incident response times while preserving human judgment for pattern recognition.
• Building transparent security culture where all employees become security professionals rather than maintaining background security operations.