Tell us a little about yourself and your firm.

Previously, I worked in public service, including Deputy Director & Acting Director of FinCEN (the U.S. Financial Intelligence Unit & administrator of the Bank Secrecy Act), head of Sanctions Compliance & Enforcement at Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a Deputy Chief in the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering Section, and a Director at the White House National Security Council.

In the private sector, I was the first in-house counsel at Chainalysis (blockchain analytics/investigations) and EspressoSystems (developing cross-chain composability & configurable privacy). I then co-founded Arktouros pllc law firm, and helped launch ex/ante, an early-stage fund investing in tools that advance human agency and democratic resilience.

Arktouros is a legal boutique of former senior officials (Justice, Treasury, State AG, and others) and in-house counsels, dedicated to financial integrity, emergent technology, and civil society. We leverage our experience in high-growth tech companies and high-stakes national security to provide technical, operational legal counsel to navigate complex landscapes.

What are the key areas your team focuses on within the evolving fintech landscape, particularly in crypto and blockchain?

Our overall focus is toward empowering risk management and positive-sum opportunity. We’re deeply involved in web3 infrastructure, DeFi, privacy/security tech, stablecoins, fintech-tradfi-defi integrations, as well as a broad range of global business and financial institutions that operate in dynamic environments. Our work covers the full life cycle of legal-related matters, including risk analysis and mitigation; product counseling; sanctions; AML; regulatory licensing, investigations, and enforcement; privacy/data protection and incident response; criminal defense; civil litigation; appellate; and human rights matters.

What do you see as a key trend or challenge that fintech companies will grapple with due to the new administration?

The likely reduced fixation on “regulation by enforcement” at the federal government level and move toward proactive guidance is likely to create a key challenge and opportunity:

In terms of challenge: the interim period before guidance creates reputation risk for projects that take too much of a risk-on approach, especially with respect to financial integrity, consumer protection, and commercial liability. While the SEC and CFTC might exercise a new level of strategic restraint during policy development, there are other federal and state regulators and prosecutors (e.g., all 50 State AG offices), as well as civil plaintiffs’ (incl. class action) attorneys, who believe there is sufficient authority to take action on foundational issues like fraud, consumer protection, illicit finance, and economic sanctions. Major incidents in any of those spaces could come with substantial consequences – legally and reputationally – both for any given entity and a backlash against the ecosystem, like post-FTX.

In terms of opportunity: this potential freedom from fixation on immediate “decentralization” at the exact moment of launching software creates renewed opportunity for people to shepherd through greater operational stability and risk management, just like any new software deployment. That has the potential for more reliable network infrastructure, which creates follow-on opportunities for the broader financial (and data coordination) system – given the accessibility, composability and efficiency provided by open infrastructure for which there is sufficient confidence around safety. That safety will be further expanded by anticipated developments in configurable privacy, which will also enable the payments space to bloom.

How can people get a hold of you?

The best is law@arktouros.co for general inquiries and fast response because it goes to multiple people, and mm@arktouros.co direct. 

One Personal Question: What did your grandparents do for a living?

Among my grandparents was a justice of the peace in a small steel and coal-mining town, with roots in Eastern Europe, who believed strongly that our democracy was founded and thrives upon the broadest enablement of opportunity and empowerment against exploitation.