Jacob Robinson, Crypto Lawyer, on Crypto Taxation and Canadian Crypto Governance

In an exclusive interview with cryptonews.com, Jacob Robinson, Crypto Lawyer, talks about crypto enforcement in Canada, crypto governance, and the tension between crypto and the law. 

About Jacob Robinson

Jacob Robinson is the host of the Law of Code podcast, Director of Operations at the DAO Research Collective, and an incoming associate in the FinTech group at McCarthy Tétrault LLP.

Jacob Robinson gave a wide-ranging exclusive interview which you can see below, and we are happy for you to use it for publication provided there is a credit to www.cryptonews.com. 

Highlights Of The Interview

• Day-to-day of a Canadian crypto lawyer
• Regulators are concerned about one thing – investor protection
• History of Canadian corporate law
• History of securities in Canada – how stocks got their name
• Tension between crypto and the law – what’s next?

 

 

 

Full Transcript Of The Interview

Matt Zahab 
Ladies and gentlemen, epi 200. Absolute bananas. Thank you all for coming along for this crazy ride. I can’t believe it’s been 200 episodes of the Cryptonews Pod. I remember starting this back in Feb of 2021, here we are, Jan 2023, 200 episodes later. Can’t believe it. Thank you so much. I am so pumped to have my good friend Jacob Robinson come on for round number two. And episode 200. Jacob Robinson is the host of the Law of Code Podcast, former director of operations at the DAO Research Collective, and an associate at the Fintech Group of McCarthy Tétrault LLP. He is a crypto lawyer, not many of those kicking around pumped to have him on my boy, Jacob Robinson round two. How you doing? 

Jacob Robinson
Man, I’m doing great, man. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you thrilled to be part of episode 200. It’s crazy to think that you’ve done 200 of these. I really admire the persistence and looking forward to another fun calm looks. I really enjoyed the first time. 

Matt Zahab 
Thank you, man, appreciate the kind words, it has been quite the journey. And my last trip with you was just so much fun. And it was also it was weird hearing how much we have in common and knowing that like we probably walked by each other dozens of times in our lives and you know, like never said what up? 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah, definitely seen each other on Twitter, I’m sure at some point. 

Matt Zahab 
Hundred percent. So last time you came on, it was end of summer sort of thing. That was before the FTX collapse. That was after the LUNA collapse. A lot of craziness there. But let’s start with your job. At the time you were an incoming associate, you were being on boarded at one of the best law firms in Canada. McCarthy Tétrault. Now you are a legit crypto lawyer there, which is incredible congrats on that. And again, like how many crypto lawyers are there in Canada? Not a lot of them. You are one of them. That’s so sick, walk me through the day to day, like what exactly does a crypto lawyer do? 

Jacob Robinson 
Thanks, man. And it’s been a lot of fun. So far, I’m lucky to work with a really impressive team at McCarthy’s of experts not only in Digital Assets, but also in the legal side of it. And that’s the point that I try to learn from them. So I work with regulatory lawyers, and Lori Stein, payments specialists, and in a backdoor, and many other lawyers at the firm. So really, for me, it’s just trying to be a sponge and learn as much as I can. A lot of the day to day is working with exchanges and other intermediaries who want to offer products to Canadians. Whenever a exchange wants to move to Canada, there’s a process through registration that they have to do. We have 13 regulators in Canada, as opposed to the SEC, which is that one regulator in the US, so they would actually have to go through every province, or they can use the passport system to get sort of approval in Ontario. And then even though Ontario is not part of the passport system, sometimes they can get approval in one province and then work and all the others. So a lot of it is walking through what the product is at first how custody works with the exchange, what they offer, do they offer staking, what are their current terms and conditions, things like that, and then navigating that with the existing framework that the Ontario Securities Commission has set out and sort of aligning those two so that way they can offer the product to Canadians or particularly those in Ontario in a compliant manner that the government and the regulator agrees with. 

Matt Zahab 
Interesting, what are what are the regulators most sort of concerned about the moment like when you just mentioned staking, I see, you know, some of the biggest exchanges in Canada like Bitbuy for example, they just released staking. I know Wealthsimple also released staking, they’ve wanted through this for quite some time seems like it’s finally passed. Like besides staking what else are the regulators like really wishy washy about? 

Jacob Robinson 
So the biggest concern and something that, you know, took me a while to wrap my head around is really, you know, they’re concerned about investor protection. They’re not concerned about investor maximization of return or making tons of money quickly, right? 

Matt Zahab 
Of course. 

Jacob Robinson 
That’s why we have the 30k limit on some platforms where you can only buy up to 30,000 of non-specified crypto assets. So those that aren’t Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, or Ethereum. And don’t ask me why they did that. That was a crazy thing to see. But basically, they want to make sure that investors are going to be protected at the end of the day. And so that requires looking at the custody. So who is holding the crypto assets that you put on the exchange? Is that a third-party custodian? Is it the exchange itself? And then what are you doing on the back end and after what we’ve seen happen with this contagion, the risk with trading and prop trading on token platforms? The governments are really concerned with customers losing funds on exchanges that could be fraudulent, that could just not have full reserves. So they really want to make sure that everyone has the tokens that they are entitled to on the platform. In Canada, we’ve seen a bit of a different approach than what we’ve seen in the States where they’re going after Ripple, they’re going after LBRY. They’re going after a lot of token projects. And then Ontario, most of the orders and settlements have been with exchanges. So it’s more likely we’re not going to worry as much about the tokens themselves. We’re going to worry about the intermediaries that we can regulate. And we’re familiar with regulating exchanges. 

Matt Zahab 
That per I know I’m going a little off topic here. It just hit me front of mind. We’ve seen a lot of scams priests, not recently Hackett’s there’s always tons of scams. We’ve seen the Logan Paul one recently. But why? Why is it the SEC in particular, why aren’t they going after like well-known people like the Logan Paul’s and the other influencers? Who have been part of these pretty big scams? It seems like they’re just going after like the average joe’s like you and I who aren’t paying their taxes? Like, is there a reason for that? Is it just easier to go after us? Like, what’s the deal with that? 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I’d love to ask Gary Gensler on that. I think, you know, what we’ve seen, I can’t speculate to his motivation. But what we’ve seen is a lot of videos that are good for PR going after Kim Kardashian with Ethereum Max, going after some more high-profile projects, but then all of a sudden, other ones don’t get touched right ones that like the Logan Paul, Coffeezilla did a good explanation of that on YouTube, which I watched a bit of. But then you have certain projects like LBRY was trying to do a token to democratize access to books and like, make it easier to move information through this token, and then they get sort of taken down almost by the SEC. And you know, they spent millions on legal fees and everything. So I think it’s really unfortunate in that we’re seeing regulation by enforcement, there’s no guidance on, here’s what you can do. Here’s some disclosure measures that we’ve created, so that you’re on an equal playing field with investors, because at the end of the day, that’s their mandate. It’s to protect investors to foster capital formation and fair and efficient markets. And to me, like what I think the biggest opportunity in crypto is to create a disclosure platform like we need some way to put investors in crypto on the same playing field that investors and traditional assets are on. Because if you do that, well, then the government can say, well, you know, even if it’s a security, regardless, they’re not on the same level of playing field when it comes to investors, and you get insider sales and things like that. So I think, you know, it’s really unfortunate that we’re seeing it progressed that way. And I hope that that’ll change. 

Matt Zahab 
How do we level the playing field? 

Jacob Robinson 
I think it really through self-regulatory organizations. And so you know, a lot of the research that I’ve done recently is just going back, especially in Canada is looking at how we developed our legal system, particularly when it comes to buying stocks and trades. And it was cool just to learn that stocks, even the word stock came from the stock of the tree, which was cut down and used to support the ship that was bought built in the harbor, because that was where the first sort of investing like we think of it in the modern sense came from where there were these voyages. It was colonialism, right? You its East India Trading Company wanted to raise money to produce these ships. So you would buy a stock, something that was used to hold up the boat while they were building it. And so obviously, it progressed to something like digital assets like we see today. But to give you an idea, you know, the one thing that I thought was really cool was that in the late 1800s, and the early 1900s, companies didn’t actually go through like regulatory frameworks for disclosure, they would just publish their information in newspapers. And I think with crypto we could get back to something like that, where projects through their foundations can say, hey, here’s our main team, here’s what we’re doing, here’s how much tokens we hold. And then hey, they’re on an equal playing field because that’s the only reason all this securities talk is important. So if we can fix that without having to go through the government I think it’ll be a way better situation for everybody. 

Matt Zahab 
Yes that’s such a cool story with the stock the literally just blew my mind there. I love a good like fun fact the day like you know, a journal in the morning and it’s like, what did I learn yesterday? Or you know, at night and I today I learned why stocks are called stocks. Bananas. Yeah. What a sound bite too, when did you learn that? 

Jacob Robinson 
You know, I’ve been spending the past couple months just like learning the history of Joint Stock Corporations because to me, that’s where DAOs sort of take the next step. So I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on books articles with and I found that and I same as you I was like, oh shit, that’s a that’s a really cool thing. Like I had never thought about where the word itself came from. 

Matt Zahab 
Gimme, I know you’re a bit of a history buff, walked me through some more like, you know, history of securities in Canada. I’m sure you got a couple more golden nuggets for our lovely listeners out there. 

Jacob Robinson 
So yeah, it’s a really it’s a fascinating story. And I’ve got like 17 pages of notes on that. But basically, if you go back to the 12th century of France, and that’s where there was this “courratiers de change”, and they managed and regulated the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of banks, so it was these farming communities that would take out loans. And then the banks would help move the trade those loans essentially, 13th century go to Venice, bankers had government securities. So government would issue funds to raise protection for armies and buildings and things. It not until like the 16th century did stock markets start to emerge. And that was when really colonialism happened is when they discovered the New World, Christopher Columbus went over. And now all of a sudden, you needed this financing for a much bigger project that wasn’t necessarily undertaken by the government. And that was the first time in history that had really happened before that it was all government run projects. So now you had these people who created fleets of ships, like East India Trading Company would send hundreds of ships at a time because you sent one or two ships back then weren’t so good. So you’d have to raise all these funds, you buy the stocks, then you’d have these part owners. And so that’s where trading started to come from, because people would invest in these ships, Hey, your buddy down the road just came back. And he made like, 100x, his investment because a couple chips came back with silver and gold, right? So then they were like, well, I want to buy some of these. And so they would sell their stock. And then it would grow from there. So there weren’t really many rules at the time. And then can’t obviously Canada didn’t exist in the 1600s. But just looking quickly at Canada, you know, the first joint stock company in Canada was actually or the first exchange in Canada was incorporated in 1874. And, you know, it quickly failed, there were about 15 securities listed at the time, there wasn’t really any disclosure, and Canada, what I was actually shocked by was led the way in disclosure. So in 1907, it was this new legal innovation. It was like, Hey, we should tell stockholders, the balance sheet, you know, like three months before the date, we should tell them how much income and expenses we’ve had over that financial period, we should have an audited, and then we should also tell them just any other important information. And that was the first sort of modern disclosure system in the world. And it’s there. 

Matt Zahab 
This was in the newspaper. 

Jacob Robinson 
This was in 1907. So that was actually so this was mandated. But before that companies were actually publishing this in the newspaper. So this was the first time it was mandated. 

Matt Zahab 
Gotcha. That’s such a cool story, you know, the company name by any chance. 

Jacob Robinson 
So the first the, it’s funny, most people think, though first company in Canada was the Hudson’s Bay Company. And that’s what I always I always thought of it this time. But actually, about 50 years before the Hudson Bay Company, there was the Company of New France, also known as the Company of One Hundred Associates. And they were a French trading company that was chartered to expand New France at the time by trading and furs. And it’s cool just to think of the history of companies because it was a privilege that was granted through Royal Charter. So the government would say to you, Hey, you want to if you’d come to me, you beg for a company. I’ll give you a Royal Charter. So the Hudson Bay Company, they owned a third of what is modern day Canada. They had a monopoly there. They could enact any law they wanted at the time to govern that they could raise an army they had all these privileges as a royal chartered company, but the catch was you had to make sure you were still in good standing with the king at the time, King Charles. 

Matt Zahab 
Evolve. Wow, Hudson’s Bay, fumbled that bag a they owned a third of Canada and now they’re like, I don’t want to say struggling but like they’re, you know, they’re getting booted out of like, you know, Fairview Mall kind of thing. Yeah. Wow. 

Jacob Robinson 
The mighty have fallen. 

Matt Zahab 
Oh, Hudson’s Bay. That’s such a cool story. 

Jacob Robinson
Yeah, it’s a cool company. You know, like they transfer they ended up transferring their land rights in the 1870s. Through it was called the Deed of Surrender back to the government, where the government said, Hey, like you can own all our country, like, that’s kind of crazy. So I don’t know exactly what the consideration like what they got in exchange for that. But it was interesting just to see the history and even, you know, going through the history of stocks and stuff, it’s so analogous to crypto because we’re just seeing crypto compact into 10 years, everything that took 150 years in Canadian history into such a tight window. And that’s why we’re iterating so quickly. And really, that’s why I’m so bullish on the space because anything moving that quickly, we’ll figure out problems, you know, in the future and be pretty successful. 

Matt Zahab 
So this must be a big reason why you’re going back and you know, going through all the history just to see what similarities and you know, analogies you can take from the history of traditional finance good old TradFi and I’m sure there’s dozens of and like you said, we cram 10 years of mistakes and shit shows into 18 months. You know what you can put maybe a good thing maybe a bad thing, I guess probably a good thing at the end. Look at it. Craziness. Let’s go back to a bit of crypto enforcement in Canada right now, on the consumer side. Now, obviously, this is a fairly consumer facing part here, on the consumer side if you were to provide any alpha in regards to potentially new laws or regulations are and again, this is not financial advice. This is just you know, we are fortunate to have a crypto lawyer on the pod, who can shed some light on a lot of questions that people have, any advice that you’d give to Canadian crypto holders moving forward. Are any new sort of rules, regulations, taxations? Anything new is going to be placed upon us? 

Jacob Robinson
Yeah, that’s a good question. There’s quite a few answers there. And yeah, none of this is legal advice, or investment advice or anything. But, you know, most of the orders we’ve seen today go after the exchanges. And that’s where, you know, the OSC is seen much of the risk, and the regulators as well. We haven’t seen anything with respect, or we haven’t seen much, we’ve seen a few cases with respect to individuals offering tokens that were unregistered securities and deemed to be those typically involved fraud. So if you’re going to commit fraud and issue a token, that might not be that might be a security, maybe don’t do that. And I obviously wouldn’t recommend anyone issuing a token that could be considered a security, which is a really broad thing. So the tough part is what I’m seeing a lot of is people moving offshore. Like if you really wanted to issue a project that’s pretty novel, and sort of cuts toes the line between the law and illegality, we’ve seen people move offshore. But for the average crypto investor and crypto participant, I think the most important thing is just to take a common-sense approach. And that’s been my biggest takeaway of the law so far is just you take a common-sense approach. And hey, if you’ve received an Airdrop worth $50,000. If you think through that, that’s income, right? Like you’ve made some financial benefit from this, and you should declare it and because this is on the Blockchain, and maybe the Canadian government now doesn’t have the tools to check every individual as quickly as they might in the future. I think it’s worth being onside when it comes to the legal side. Because you don’t want that nagging feeling in the back of your head that Oh, I should have done this right the first time. Something that I think we all know internally. 

Matt Zahab 
Yeah. Hundred percent. I mean, I’ve you know, me I’ve gotten a couple Airdrops that I haven’t sold. So it’s like, right, in that case, you wait until the year comes and when it comes you sell it now, do I wish I sold a couple of those Airdrops your freedom card turn? Right. I wish I still had a couple of those Airdrops I would rather you know, taking the 5k and paid 50 ticks on that instead of now that 5k is worth two bucks. Maybe so yeah. You know, it is what it is? 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah. Well, that, you know, the tax sometimes people get really screwed by the tax, I might be misremembering, but based on what I’ve learned in American Income Tax at school, if you sort of get sent an Airdrop that’s considered income at the time, you get scented. So say you get a token that’s traded at $10 token, you get 100 of them. Well, now all of a sudden, you get that’s $1,000 income that’s attributed to you, even if you don’t sell it. So then if you sell it a year later, your cost basis is said to be a thousand. So you could use that as a tax write off, but you wouldn’t be able to or but you’d have to pay tax on that initial amount you were Airdrops, so that’s obviously not the way it should be. And I don’t believe it’s the same way in Canada. But for any Americans listening, definitely recommend talking to a tax specialist. 

Matt Zahab 
That’s a really tough one too, because like, there really aren’t a lot of crypto accountant in Canada, you know, who like actually, again, it’s like the some of the pillars of life, your accountants, your doctors, your lawyers who, without you guys, society would crumble, like we need you for society to work. And it’s like, it’s still so new, that there’s so few of you, like, I think it’s gonna be really fun to participate in the ecosystem once there are actual rules. And once there are a lot more chiseled experts and vets in the space who can actually provide some, you know, some light at the end of the tunnel and help you move that needle. I’ve been looking all over. If there’s any crypto accounts listening to this, please slide my in my DMs, cha cha slide your weight in there, you will make my day I would absolutely love that. But it is a problem. You know what I mean? 

Jacob Robinson 
It’s a huge problem. And it’s a, I think, a problem that’s typical for an emerging industry. Like I’m sure there weren’t many automobile lawyers or trained lawyers or infrastructure lawyers, at some point, just like there weren’t internet lawyers, and then we saw them. And then it’s sort of crypto to me is so analogous to the internet in that it grew up like it blew up like crazy. There was a crash, people were skeptical. And I think after this bear market, we’re gonna start to see some real projects that people may not even think of as being crypto. Just like you don’t really think of the internet anymore. When you go on Amazon or something. You just think it’s a compliance go shopping, right? 

Matt Zahab 
Yeah, it’s a part of life.

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t you don’t think about the internet. It’s more just the logistics. And so I think crypto is going to build that out over the next couple of years. So I’m excited to see how that goes. Because it’s not a mature industry, right. Like people are still figuring out the rules and once we can get the framework, it’ll be so much easier to build raise funds, issue tokens, etc. 

Matt Zahab 
The floodgates will open. Folks got to take a quick break give a huge shout out to our sponsor the show that is PrimeXBT, we love the team at PrimeXBT. They’ve been longtime friends of Cryptonews, as they offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a vet, you can easily design and customize your layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. PrimeXBT is also running an exclusive promo for listeners of the Cryptonews Podcast. After making your first deposit, you get 50% of that first deposit credited back to your trading account. Again, that is CRYPTONEWS50. The promo code is CRYPTONEWS50, all one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account. And now back to the show with Jacob. On the personal side, not you know not crypto law, what areas of crypto are getting you going at the moment, you know, back and we chatted last I know you had a couple a couple of really good takes through right about a lot of them with you know is mostly focused on the legislations and the exchanges and a couple months later, we all know what happens. So you called it any crypto hot takes about first, potentially, any more dominoes that might fall? 

Jacob Robinson 
I hope not I have no matter how much more I can take. But it’s, you know, I think that what really gets me excited is the accessibility that crypto brings, whether it’s for the average person to invest in something like bonds, like I’ve tried to buy bonds, and it’s so complicated you have to go through, you have to sort of ask around and you can’t just buy directly from the government. So like something like bonds or financial instruments where there’s no reason it can’t be tokenized stuff like that’ll stuff like that I’ll take, but really man, like, what gets me going is the disclosure side of crypto because I think it’s the biggest opportunity that nobody’s capitalized on. And you know, I’m trying to work on things here and there that I can do to help that. But it’s like, any one, there’s no reason that you and I for your podcast, or my podcast can say, hey, I’m starting a podcast, if anyone wants to invest in me, you know, here’s how much I’m selling tokens for you can own part of the podcast through this token offering. And now hey, you know, maybe you’re not raising millions, maybe raised 10 grand or something that can get you all the equipment you need, can give you opportunity to hire some people to grow. And I think we live in such an unfair system now where to do that, legally, you’d have to spend tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands on lawyers, you could only invest or only solicit funds from accredited investors. So people hit certain financial thresholds that completely skews the market in keeping wealthier people wealthy and there’s nothing wrong with wealthy people maintaining their wealth, but I think when you have unequal opportunity, that’s where I’m kind of like, well, is that really fair? Like does should someone be able to invest in something that I can’t just because they’ve been living for longer than me and they have a higher net worth? I don’t think so. And that, you know, that would have crushed Bitcoin, if that was in place at the time and they had recognized Bitcoin as some investment contract or security. And so I think the future is going to be quick raising, everyone will have their own company, like you’ll have a niche for everything. And token offerings will allow people to do that in a way that’s not possible anymore. Like MrBeast, for example, if someone saw him make 200 videos or something before he popped off, and it was sick, you know, I really liked this and now he has a token I’m gonna give him you know, 100 bucks or something. Now, you know, you can just invest in things you believe in rather than these companies who people aren’t reading balance sheets, people aren’t reading financial statements. They’re published on SEDAR or EDGAR in the States, which I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the site, but it’s horrific. It’s like going in a time machine. Back to the 1990s. 

Matt Zahab 
SEDAR is absurd. It is literally how do they not fix the UX? Like it is, Oh, my goodness, it You’re right. It’s 1990 Shit, I don’t get it. And for those that homes, you know, it’s SEDAR, it is literally where every single Canadian publicly traded company has to house all of their documents, you want to learn anything about a company, it’s all public, it’s all there. You’re not going to have fun using it. But it’s all on SEDAR. It’s crazy. The other thing that gets me going and this just sort of a caveat to what you said, is the tokenization of everything. Like I love your example about MrBeast because that’s again, who wouldn’t have wanted to invest in MrB’s couple years ago when he was just about to pop off. But I think it’ll also be a lot of fun to you know, to go to the grocery store and spend my now 100 bucks, which used to be 50 bucks on groceries, you know, get a couple steaks, maybe veggies, you know, maybe some salmon a little bit of chicken thighs and use a currency or even use a stock right? I’d love to pay with 100 bucks of a Tesla share which is almost I guess one full Tesla share now, instead of paying with cash all the time, that’ll be fun, as segue into this is CBDC Central Bank Digital Currencies. Australia two, three days ago, I want to say two days ago perhaps just said they’re coming out with a stable coin. It makes so much sense. But again, it’s scary because then every move is being tracked. What’s your take on those gold CBDCs? 

Jacob Robinson 
Scares the shit on me that it really scares me. Because humans are fundamentally flawed in that we’re all going to make mistakes at some point in our lives for others. And when you give small groups of people too much power, those mistakes can impact everyone. And we’ve seen that happen with world wars with communism with anything throughout the genocides, everything throughout history really has been sparked by small groups of people having too much power. And if you have a Central Bank Digital Currencies where, you know, it would be fine if it ran by itself, right, if there was no one who could turn off funds, if you’re doing something that they don’t agree with, if you voted for the other political party if you donate it to a cause that they didn’t deem to be favorable to them. So it depends on how they’re built, I guess, to use a legal term if it’s built with complete privacy and anonymity, something like cash. I’m all for that, because it’ll make it more efficient. 

Matt Zahab 
There’s zero chance. Why would that right? If your feet are in their shoes, would you? 

Jacob Robinson 
And in it’s not only that, but they also want to be in charge of the money supply because you want to be able to print, you want to have an inflationary currency, I think there is some benefit to having an inflationary currency. The problem is when they go above and beyond and print $2 trillion in a matter of years, where, you know, or they’re doing Treasury Buybacks. And whenever you just put too much money in the system, and too short of time, it’s a big problem. And so governments won’t give up control over the currency. That’s, you know, a no brainer. But I think the good thing is that something like Bitcoin and other tokens have come around to make it a competition. There’s no longer a monopoly over currency if I really don’t trust what the Venezuelan government is going to do. And I live there now I can hopefully buy some Bitcoin. 

Matt Zahab
It’s very true. On that note, the question I get asked all the time, when people find out that I do dabble in the crypto space is you know, there’ll be like so why do you believe in crypto when I give them my points just like, you know, one of the you just said what if I lived in Venezuela or Argentina and my currency went kaput, you know, again, you and I can go on for days you and I are you know, we’re bullish on the space. But they often ask well, what if they turn off? What if they flip the switch? And obviously you can’t flip the switch for Bitcoin to run all you need is internet and the Internet shut off you know, that’s not even World War 3 doomsday we’re done. You know, upgrade no one you love you, buddy. Smile. Yeah. 

Jacob Robinson 
Bullets and gold on that part. Bullets, gold and beans probably. 

Matt Zahab 
Well said bullets, gold and beans. But what would happen if like, what could they do? If they really wanted to? Like, what does what does crypto doomsday look like in regards to shutting off the big coins? The Bitcoins, the ETH, the Tether? What does that look like in your eyes? How could they cause pain if they wanted to? 

Jacob Robinson 
I think a good example is just to see what they did in China, where they started off by banning financial institutions to hold it, then it went for people to hold it, then it went to mining. And you know, now there’s barely any activity in China. But crypto survived, it ended up thriving and other countries, it just opened the door to more acceptable areas. So I think, you know, they can try to do that. And that would be on a case-by-case basis. And it would survive, just like the internet would survive despite China’s firewall, I think there’s a lot we can learn just from the way the worlds worked out today. And there will always be areas that value freedom over dictatorships, let’s just call them like, where people have more freedom, because people are gonna move there and people vote with their feet at the end of the day. And we’re seeing that a lot in Canada. We have founders in crypto related projects, moving to the Caymans moving down south, even to the States, just to get to regime where they can offer the product that they want. And I think as long as people can vote with their feet, that will continue to happen and freedom will prosper, the danger will be and we saw this in the 90s when Clinton created the Exit tax in the States is where they make it harder for people to leave the country leave their current residency, because hey, not well, like think about that how crazy it is, you can’t leave the US without paying all taxes sort of realizing capital gains on everything you own. And so they’re I think governments are going to start to be, you know, the ones that are more, you know, want to control their citizens and stuff. That’s my danger. Like that’s my worry is where they start to make it harder for people to leave. And when that happens, then you end up like they had in communism in the 80s and 90s, where people try to leave and it gets pretty dangerous there. So hopefully we don’t get back to that point. But I think as long as people can vote with their feet, something like crypto will survive, especially things like Bitcoin, where you can reach a certain critical mass to remain sort of immune to attacks by governments. 

Matt Zahab 
Yeah, that’s, I mean, I’d love for that to happen. How far out do you think we are from going to the store and paying for something in Bitcoin or instead of you know, me sending you an e-transfer for dinner or whatever the case may be where it’s just a quick, you know, I tap your phone kind of thing. How far thanks. 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah, I don’t think we’re far at all, because like we kind of already do, like, I never bring cash with me anywhere. When I go to the office, I bring my phone, which has like my PRESTO Card, which probably should be on my phone at this point anyways, and my ID, and all those things, and my Visa. So those should all be on my phone, and my Visa is right. So I think it’ll just turn into a world of smartphones. You know, the sad thing will be like, the people don’t have smartphones, like homeless people, how will they survive, it’ll be handouts of food and things like that, where you won’t have cash and change. But I think like going forward. To me though, it should only be a couple years, because I pay with my Visa I tap, it doesn’t matter to me whether I’m paying from Visa by credit, my debit or crypto. And if I happen to have a lot of crypto and they accept crypto, and I think the on ramps will be much easier. Like I’ve already seen with law firms, what some do is they accept crypto, you send them the crypto, it automatically gets exchanged for Fiat at the time it’s sent. And so now all of a sudden, they’re not really taking any risk. It just gives the purchaser of the client of the services more ways to pay. 

Matt Zahab 
I always have too much fun chat with you, man. Let’s I think we’ve any other crypto things you want to cover before we get into some non-crypto stuff. 

Jacob Robinson 
I’m good to talk non-crypto stuff, man I yeah, I don’t think there’s any other crypto things like what’s your take on CBDCs? Do you do see them finding success in that like, do you think that’s the future? 

Matt Zahab 
I don’t think it’s the future I’m even iron the exact same yet. I think it can be incredibly powerful if used the correct way. But the chance of being used the correct way is you know, if I were to put that in, if I were sports book, and I were to write some odds that would be plus 20,000. Like it’s just such an underdog it’s not even funny. I think it’ll just be that getting that word even I cannot pronounce those. Authoritarian. but you know, that’s gonna Brock baby. We’re very, we believe that what I’m Brock was walking and talking. But no, that’s I, I’d love for it to be. It’d be cool. It’d be nice. But again, I can’t see it happening. We I think we have the payment rails; we have the systems; we have all the infrastructure in place. But it’ll be interesting to see how you know, countries like Australia, how it works, and their use cases, what we can learn from them. I’m not surprised that they’re starting. That’s a pretty, you know, controlled country nowadays. But yeah, I’d love to see it happen in a good way. But again, like I said, I can’t say there’s no chat. 

Jacob Robinson 
No. And one other thing I guess I’ll just touch on your point is like, it’s crazy. Having gone back through the history of securities regulation, and even just companies in general, it’s always taken a bad event for things to change for the status quo to change. And in my opinion, the most likely culprit there. If we’re thinking about, you know, the change from the sort of central bank system that we have even just the banking infrastructure in Canada, where there’s the big banks, and then everybody else could come by way of a commercial real estate, you know, something where people don’t want to go back to the offices, the mortgages don’t get renewed, or the mortgages can’t get paid back and then you see cascading effects, but I do think it will take some big negative aspects or something so new that we need to build laws, like when railroads were created that sort of spurred the invention of the limited liability company because now there was no way for a small group of people to take personal liability if you’re going to build out this railroad across the country. Right so like that’s how it used to be. It used to be if I was going to build a railroad and say you and I are in partnership and we build this business and then someone gets killed or we break some law in one state now all of a sudden they can go after our house at anything we own so then they created these companies to make it possible to build railroads and systems that were infrastructure roads highways, etc. so I think in the future we got a lot to do but regulation will be a big part of it. 

Matt Zahab 
Well said. I had a blast with you in the hot take factory last time, you have any new ones for me any and again but with this episode will drop end of Jan, any hot takes 2023 hot takes hot off the press. 

Jacob Robinson 
I think DAOs are gonna be the next big thing like it’s been sort of the crypto it’s been toke it had ERC-20 tokens and you had the NFTs and you had the ICOs NFTs and I think now we’re gonna see a lot of DAOs like it seems like everyone I talked to potential clients they’re all just building a cool DAO thing so I think we’re gonna see people, like minded people organize in a manner that’s incentivized through tokens to build pretty epic things. I don’t think that’s ever been before possible in history. 

Matt Zahab 
It’s a good slogan. 

Jacob Robinson 
Where huge lowering with people across the world face. 

Matt Zahab 
Where the head is, I put that on a wall. That’s pretty darn good. You know, when you want, you know, when you walk into someone’s house sometimes and they have to like live laugh, love. Yeah. Gotta get that in the same person. 

Jacob Robinson 
We’re gonna DAOs enable people to work in tokenized incentivized ways. Yeah. 

Matt Zahab 
Build cool shit. No doubt that would be a transition. 

Jacob Robinson 
Anytime. You know, like, even just having conversations like this, like I always learn a lot from talking with you. And I think the more we can get like-minded people together in rooms, whether it’s virtually or not, the better the world’s gonna be. 

Matt Zahab
Well said. Very well said. How’s your pod treating you right now? 

Jacob Robinson  
It’s good buddy. I’m enjoying it. I’m trying to add on a bit more like Crypto-focused episodes. So like the one we’re working on this month, and I’ve got some researchers with LexDAO, like Legal Engineering Guild, and then some other friends to help him be on his like, DAO member liability. So if you’re part of a DAO, what potential legal exposure could you have? What are some things you should think about? So that way, when people listen to it, they can just see, okay, I’m part of a DAO, you know, what am I going to what potential issues could I run into? So it’s been fun, and that extends, bringing some sponsors on to I know, you’ve had them for a while, but I’m just catching up to that. So that’ll be nice as well. 

Matt Zahab 
It’s, the podcasting is so interesting, because it’s like, I have friends all the time that like, oh, you know, Matt, how do I start a podcast? And like, it is so it’s daunting, but it’s so easy, you know? Like, it’s really, you know, you and I are using Riverside right now, we tried her mics, obviously, you’re at home. I’m abroad right now. So I don’t have my good setup. But like, spend a couple 100 on a mic. You don’t even really need an audio mixer. You get a program like Riverside, which is what 30 bucks a month get a host like Buzzsprout, you’re done. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, the editing, that’s could be a little difficult, but you can outsource that get someone on Fiverr I have an incredible editor. Shout out Justas. But you know, it’s like, and this is another segue that I think that perhaps on a hot take, because it’s already happening. But I feel like every person will almost become a media company. Just like how people are so infatuated and in love with MrBeast and Logan Paul’s and the Kylie Jenner’s where it’s like, you know, I go on Twitter, for all my news, I legit cannot remember the last time I watched CNN, or Fox or CNBC or even BNN, or anything, it I get on Twitter from singular people, or corporate accounts, it’s like, we are all our own news outlets. And mainstream media is tripping balls, because they’re starting to realize that like, the only I feel like the only thing that people watch on TV now is like sports and shows and even shows, it’s like, Now this shows just going straight to the platforms like Netflix, or the Hulu’s or the, you know, HBO, like, it’s just we’re having this influx, and then just to, again, throw it back to your point with the tokenization of everything, it would be great to, it’d be great for people to be able to invest in the Cryptonews Podcast, you know what I mean, or the Law of Code Podcast that just be lovely to contribute to things that you’re passionate about. And again, I’m, you’re my boy, I love you, you do great work, I learned a shit ton from you, every time we speak. It’s like, I could throw a couple 100 at you. And I wouldn’t care to see how many downloads you get and how profitable you are. It’s just like, if I have some money that I don’t mind losing, I’d love to throw it out a friend and see them do good. And I’d love to do that in a frictionless way that I think that would add a lot of good to life. 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah man. Hundred percent. And your point about individual creators taken over the world is a good one. And that sort of ties in with what I was. And I’m glad you sort of brought that connection together. Because I’ve been thinking about that a lot. It’s like, why do I prefer listening or reading Tweets from say you like from Matt, versus reading The Globe and Mail or something. And it’s because individuals have accountability. Like if you start saying a bunch of shit, that’s not true, people aren’t gonna listen to you anymore. Media companies have been doing that for years. And, you know, they blame the writers, they make edits, they just they pump out so much that there’s not as much accountability. But I think it’s starting to shift because people are realizing that. Whereas if Joe Rogan started, you know, he has his own brand, and people know what to expect with him. And he doesn’t deviate from that. I think creators are going to be you know, the next big thing and like you said, anyone can be creator, like you went and started this podcast, I started my own podcast, you can build from there share, like you mentioned some things you’re working on the side. If I was like, hey, you know, Matt, I’d love to give you some money to help you work through that. Not only does that give you some funds to do it, but it also helps when other people believe in the projects that you’re doing. Yeah, it would just be such a net positive for everybody. And, you know, maybe it would lead to some lawsuits and things because projects don’t always work out. And it’s a lot harder to build things than most people realize, like, as I’m sure you’ve experienced. So I think you know, the future is exciting. But it’s going to be a future of individuals. There’s going to be the best in the world at every particular category there is and tokens I think are going to be a big part of that. 

Matt Zahab 
Let the shiner, shine. We’ll wrap up with some football because we are getting tight for time here. Again, by the time this episode airs, it’ll be Jan 30. We are currently what we have eight teams left. Yep, eight team’s left who do got? 

Jacob Robinson 
Bengals baby Bengals. Fan since I was 12 years old, and it’s been a rough couple years, but we got the experience we needed last year. We you know, I feel like you’re a Buffalo guy. I don’t know why just get that though. 

Matt Zahab 
Dolpins fan, dolphins. 

Jacob Robinson 
Are you? Oh, man that was tough one to one down again this year.

Matt Zahab 
So you think you’re gonna take a buff, then you’re going to take OKC and then you’re going to probably take out? Honestly, I think whoever wins San Fran Dallas is going to the ball. 

Jacob Robinson 
Fair. But you know, I think that’s a really good take. I think San Fran you know, one of those teams where it’s like, if rock pretty, you know, could live up to it, then they will. And he’s done that so far. There’s no reason to think otherwise. They’ve got such a good offense. Great defense too. But the thing the Bengals is like, we’ve got a tough road. But if we can get through the bills, I think he sees easier like then OKC’s tough. And then it’s almost like the Super Bowl shouldn’t be too hard. But we just got to get to the Super Bowl this time because we did I mean, we did it last year right? We beat the Chiefs we’re down to two TD’s I don’t know. 

Matt Zahab 
Joey B. The “gat” man. 

Jacob Robinson 
Again, man against Joe franchise. 

Matt Zahab
He’s the guy love his dance. You know what he does the cut the gat. He’s Oh, he’s the best. He’s I think he is the hottest commodity in like I haven’t seen in North America. I think he’s the most sought-after professional athlete, like girls are losing their shit over him. No. And again, you’re looking at the swag. He’s got the brains on him. Like, you know, I feel like he doesn’t get into trouble. Like he’s just he’s a good poster boy. 

Jacob Robinson 
He is and I heard a good story about him. Like apparently before games and stuff. He plays chess against himself in the change room. So he’ll just be sitting there and then sometimes a couple guys tried to play against them and he just smoked them. So he’s got the brains he’s got the brawn he’s got the looks like he’s the total package. I love Joe B. 

Matt Zahab 
Yeah, though. Imagine being imagine a day in the life that Joe B. 

Jacob Robinson 
I can’t man. Okay. 

Matt Zahab 
Jacob, always so much fun. truly honored to have you on four epi 200. Big two double zero. Honeys. I love that. Thank you so much, man. Before you go, can you please let our listeners know where they can find you and all of your endeavors online and on socials. 

Jacob Robinson 
Thanks, buddy. And great work good on you. Like 200 episodes is not easy to do. And I think a lot of people, you know, you hear someone’s doing a podcast and it’s like, okay, you know, like, that’s easy. Just get on the mic and record, but I know how much work goes into it on the front end, the back end. So congrats on 200. And thanks for having me on. And then people can reach out @JacobRobinsonJD on Twitter. That’s probably the best spot to reach out to me there. So thanks for having me, buddy. Always enjoyed the chats. 

Matt Zahab
What about Law of Code? And McCarthy Tétrault? Yeah, plug those. 

Jacob Robinson 
Yeah, so Law of Code. You can find that lawofcode.io, or just on Apple Spotify search Law of Code. If you’re interested in the legal side of crypto, I really recommend it. And then for works things. Yeah. DM me on Twitter. That’d be a good place to start. 

Matt Zahab
Love it. Jacob, my boy. Appreciate you man. And when I’m back in the city cannot wait to have a couple and have a proper catch up. 

Jacob Robinson 
Yes, sir. That’d be great. Thanks, Matt. 

Matt Zahab 
Folks what an episode with Jacob Robinson always have so much fun chatting with this gentleman, the host of the Law of Code Podcast and associates at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. If you guys enjoyed this one I hope you did please do subscribe. It would mean the world to my team and I to the team I’d love you guys. Justas my amazing sound editor. You’re the GOAT appreciate you could not do this without you. 200 episodes Wow. And to listeners, guys. 200 big ones. Absolutely incredible. Love you all. Thank you so much. Keep on growing those bags and keep on staying healthy, wealthy and happy. Bye for now and we’ll talk soon.