Thania Charmani
712 posts
@ThaniaCh
Partner @winstonlaw blockchain, 🇬🇷, 🏋🏻♀️,📖
YES! It is deeply paternalistic to argue that US regulators should reach outside their jurisdictional boundaries because adults can't be trusted with their own informed choices and the government needs to save them from decisions they've affirmatively made after being warned. Regulation exists to protect people from information asymmetries and from harm they couldn't reasonably anticipate. It does not exist to override the choices of adults who have been told a platform isn't for them, warned off, IP-blocked, and who then deliberately defeat those controls to get in. The user made an informed choice. Respect it, or prosecute misconduct when it occurs (like here) but let's not pretend that arguing for more obligations on the platform is about investor welfare.
Last month, we published our enhanced market integrity rules to combat insider trading. When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation. Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today's arrest is proof the system works.
I’ve been crystal clear: anyone who engages in insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law. Today, the @CFTC took parallel action with @SDNYnews to charge an individual with insider trading involving event contracts. The @CFTC won’t tolerate insider trading in our markets, and our Division of Enforcement will continue to vigilantly police our markets for any illegal actions. Read more ⬇️ cftc.gov/PressRoom/Pres…
Agree KYC is worth its own conversation. I think your point is missing the jurisdictional piece though. U.S. regulators can prescribe onboarding and market-integrity rules for entities operating in the U.S. Polymarket US does comply with all these requirements. Extending that same prescriptive authority to non-U.S. platforms on the theory that Americans can VPN in is a significant reach and effectively eliminates the distinction between registered and unregistered venues.
Why are Americans trading on your global platform not registered to operate in the U.S.?
Today, @withAUSD filed its application for Agora National Trust Bank with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Securing this charter would enable Agora to operate in the United States under a unified federal framework and expand its product suite beyond stablecoin issuance. In a few months, Agora will hit its two year anniversary of operating its stablecoin issuance business. Recently, however, we've been heads down to prepare for launching a suite of feature-rich products that go beyond simply issuance. More on that soon. We've long believed that if you want to change the world you need to do the hard things and be the metal. That's why we started with our own stablecoin and it's why we're aiming to secure a bank charter. We recognize the importance of a direct relationship with regulators and management over the infrastructure. Without it, your ceiling is someone else's floor. We're determined to own the entirety of the rails, because you either are the metal, or you lose.
Our friends at the Bank Policy Institute just published a misleading report calling for "a Reckoning on AML and Crypto.” I'd suggest the reckoning needs to be a broader. @bankpolicy leads with @chainalysis's $154B illicit crypto figure from 2025. What they don't mention: the same Chainalysis report concludes illicit activity is <1% of total on-chain volume. @trmlabs puts it at 1.2%. Both firms note the share has stayed at or below these levels for years. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, however, estimates 2–5% of global GDP — $800B to $2T annually — is laundered through the traditional financial system, including the banks BPI represents. The @FBI, @UNODC, and @USTreasury have consistently identified cash and bank-based channels as the dominant vectors. The @USTreasury's 2024 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment noted, “The use of virtual assets for money laundering remains far below the scale of fiat currency... by volume and value of transactions.”
"You cannot make people become the users you wish you had, you have to build products the users wish they had." For some reason, the crypto industry seems to struggle with this simple principle.
The SEC took an important step on UIs - and now we’re asking them to lock it in. On April 13, 2026, the SEC published a staff statement with a thoughtful, practical approach for distinguishing non-custodial user interfaces from activities that constitute broker-dealer activity. DEF and 35 industry leaders are now requesting the SEC formalize the principles in the statement in notice-and-comment rulemaking, so we have durable regulatory clarity that lasts.
My conversation with Mike Katz (@mikekatz29) on legal privilege and AI. Anyone who uses Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. should understand what legal risk they're taking on. 0:00 Background 1:47 What is attorney-client privilege? 2:44 Policy reasons for narrowing privilege 3:30 Upjohn case (1981) 4:34 Privilege vs. work product 5:17 Three elements to establish privilege 7:23 Consumer AI terms of service 8:09 How you lose privilege 11:30 War stories 15:39 Vibe lawyering 19:09 Could Anthropic or OpenAI be liable? 22:48 Heppner case (2026) 26:26 Kovel doctrine (1961) 28:14 Incognito mode & deleted chats 30:59 Policy questions 34:00 This is not a new problem 37:05 Lawyers: coal or horses? Includes paid partnership with our sponsor, @DayOneLaw. Nothing in this podcast is legal or investment advice.
