Florian Glatz: The European Crypto Initiative – Why Europe Needs a Regulatory Shift to Avoid Crypto Irrelevance

Florian Glatz, blockchain.lawyer, is one of the most knowledgeable OG's at the intersection of crypto and law. He was last on the show 6 years ago when we talked in great detail about smart contracts and the DAO. We welcomed him back to discuss the regulatory environment, with a focus on Europe. We covered key topics like the recently floated Proof of Work ban, Travel of Funds Regulation (TFR), and Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA) regulation. We also discussed the European Crypto Initiative, a new lobby organization that Florian co-founded, which is advocating for crypto-friendly regulation on a European level.

Topics covered in this episode:

• What Florian got wrong about DAOs when he was on the show in 2016
• The story of the Geman blockchain association Bundesblock that Florian co-founded and was president of
• The European Crypto Initiative - Why a European-level organization is needed
• The most important regulatory questions facing crypto today
• Why crypto taxation is a particularly challenging issue
• How will competition between different nation states play out?
• Whether we will see the rise of new nation states or digital nations

Episode links:

• Episode 125 - Defining a Legal Framework for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO)
• The Sovereign individual
• blockchain.lawyer
• Florian on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
• ParaSwap: ParaSwap aggregates all major DEXs and makes sure you beat the market price at every single swap and with the lowest slippage - paraswap.io/epicenter

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/422