WATCH: 'Mother of Blockchains' Defends Facebook's Choice of Controversial Swiss Foundation

Joshua Ashley Klayman Kuzar sees Libra as a turning point in the march to mass adoption. "Facebook didn't come to congress," she said. "Congress came to Facebook."

AccessTimeIconJul 18, 2019 at 11:00 p.m. UTC
Updated Sep 13, 2021 at 11:12 a.m. UTC
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G2gcv0Uw04

Joshua Ashley Klayman Kuzar, founder and CEO, Klayman LLC and Inflection Point Blockchain Advisors, is one of the best known cryptocurrency lawyers. In her chat with CoinDesk Editor Pete Rizzo she talks about how uniquely odd and exciting this moment is for cryptocurrency as a whole.

"If you actually look at the companies involved I mean I think that's a huge differentiator," she said. "We've never seen congressional hearings about a start-up proposing a token sale in the manner that we're seeing this now. We haven't been seeing so much commentary from such high-level folks from across the world about individual projects."

In short, she said, Libra is making waves everywhere.

"Blockchain and crypto have captured the imagination of many," she said. "In fact right before this I was just over at the International Chamber of Commerce meeting with the secretary-general and hearing what they're planning with blockchain and potentially crypto. So I think broadly across the world and across all kinds of entities - public, private, nonprofit - governments and people are embracing this language and in many cases are thinking about it in terms of beneficial aspects."

"It's an exciting area. It's something people are interested in," she said.

Klayman also see's Facebook's decision to headquarter in Switzerland as another positive. Switzerland, she said, is ahead of the curve in terms of regulation.

"I mean you could say that Switzerland and FINMA - again I'm not a Swiss lawyer - but FINMA has really in many senses been at the forefront among some other jurisdictions ... about coming up with categories of tokens."

You can read our complete Libra coverage here and watch our CoinDesk LIVE interviews here.

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