DeFi Needs Clear Regulation; Or Does it? Feat. PaperImperium

A lobbyist, educating Congress and regulators about MakerDAO.

Listen or watch all the new CoinDesk podcast episodes wherever you want.

ABOUT

This week, “Opinionated” hosts Ben Schiller, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson are talking to PaperImperium, the first and only pseudonymous crypto advocate, lobbying on behalf of MakerDAO in the corridors of power.

PaperImperium, or Paper, or Chris (his real name, but he’s not keen to publicize his full name), is advocating for a clear regulation for DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organisations.

DAOs are a brainchild of the crypto-anarchist culture, and the concept implies that communities can make decisions and solve problems by common voting, using their crypto tokens as voting mandates.

Interestingly, Chris is not a huge fan of this idea itself, and he’s still on the fence on whether the concept is viable. Also, not everybody shares a belief that decentralized finance (DeFi) needs regulation at all, and recently the DAO members voted down the proposal to compensate Chris for his work.

Why then is he so passionate about educating congressmen and regulators about MakerDAO and everything around it? What got him into crypto in the first place, and why is he so excited about Maker?

Listen to Anna, Ben and Danny talk to Chris about his observations about the moods towards crypto in Washington, D.C., his hopes for DeFi and other things.

PaperImperium’s handle on Twitter is @ImperiumPaper.

Mentioned in this podcast:

Meet the DeFi Delegate Knocking on the Doors of Congress

What Is a DAO?

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso. Our theme song is by Elision.

HOSTS

Dan Ilett

Dan Ilett writes on tech, money and energy. He advises business on digital strategy and technology messaging for large deals. He is founder of Erbut - an advisory company - and Greenbang - a smart technology research company.

Anna Baydakova

Anna writes about blockchain projects and regulation with a special focus on Eastern Europe and Russia. She is especially excited about stories on privacy, cybercrime, sanctions policies and censorship resistance of decentralized technologies.
She graduated from the Saint Petersburg State University and the Higher School of Economics in Russia and got her Master's degree at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.
She joined CoinDesk after years of writing for various Russian media, including the leading political outlet Novaya Gazeta.
Anna owns BTC and an NFT of sentimental value.

Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk's managing editor for Data & Tokens. He formerly ran investigations for the Tufts Daily. At CoinDesk, his beats include (but are not limited to): federal policy, regulation, securities law, exchanges, the Solana ecosystem, smart money doing dumb things, dumb money doing smart things and tungsten cubes. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL tokens, as well as the LinksDAO NFT.

Benjamin Schiller

Benjamin Schiller is CoinDesk's managing editor for features and opinion. Previously, he was editor-in-chief at BREAKER Magazine and a staff writer at Fast Company. He holds some ETH, BTC and LINK.

Danny Bradbury

Danny Bradbury has been a professional writer since 1989, and has worked freelance since 1994. He covers technology for publications such as the Guardian.

EPISODES