Haun: Criminals serve as early adopters and beta testers for tech innovations
Katie Haun · a16z Podcast | The Regulatory Landscape for Crypto · Jan 2, 2019 · at 5:35
Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun explains how illicit actors are historically among the first groups to stress-test emerging tech tools.
0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I mean, they're the best beta testers of new technologies in many ways. And that's been true, not just of cryptocurrencies, right? That's been true of all kinds of things. If you think of cell phones, if you think of email, social media, the internet, and just various applications, criminals are often early adopters.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Katie Haun
Katie Haun admits the majority of ICOs are frauds or scams
“Look, initial coin offerings or ICOs, I'll be the first to tell you, there is a tremendous amount the majority of them are, seem to be, Frauds or scams.”
Haun: U.S. government is not actively trying to trap ICO projects
“I do want to dispel the notion that the government is sitting there trying to trap, you know, an ICO project or a cryptocurrency project and saying, aha, we got you. That's just not the case. The fact of the matter is the government doesn't hurt for business w…”
Haun: Blockchain technology itself has never been hacked, unlike crypto exchanges
“And we, blockchain's never been hacked. Some of the cryptocurrency exchanges have been hacked. You know, Mt. Gox, Coincheck more recently, Bitfinex, and others. But the blockchain itself has never yet been hacked.”
Haun prosecuted Wells Fargo executives for stealing from deceased customers
“When I was a prosecutor, I prosecuted Wells Fargo's executives for taking dead people's accounts and draining them of money. They basically found out who hadn't used their account for, you know, many years, and then they would drain the money to their own pers…”
Haun: Moving offshore will not protect crypto startups serving US consumers
“Well, I don't think they should wait, but I think they should have common sense and good judgment, and one of the red flags I see sometimes is, you know, and they'll publicly state, oh, we're moving offshore so that we don't have to comply with these laws that…”