YouSaid · the spoken record

Katie Haun

lines on the record: 133
first: 2021-02-18
most recent: 2021-02-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah. Well, and I think it's also like an industry, you know, like Delaware is like the haven for corporate law in the US. Every company's at Delaware, you know, what to me, I wonder what jurisdiction is going to attract a lot of, frankly, economic development by being welcome and open to this. I think that'll be interesting. I'm curious to ask you, your listeners, what surprised you most in the response? Like you mentioned Venezuela, that's not a surprise Zimbabwe. Was there anyone, Tim, that stood out that surprised like you”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you mean the people or the government? Because I think that's different. I think the populace. Oh, interesting. Well, the populace, I think it's what you've mentioned. You mentioned Venezuela and Zimbabwe. And of course, any economy where there's been hyperinflation, people are searching for an alternative. I mean, I know exactly the trillion resilient dollar note you're talking about. I mean, I've seen them before. And Venezuela, you know, I've actually seen videos. You can pull this up on YouTube. People literally burn bags of cash because no value. And it takes up too much room. I mean, it's just really tragic. So I think any for the popular.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can't have access to certain products and services in the US that they want, U.S. consumers. Guess what? With an internet connection now and certain kinds of VPNs, they can just go to overseas. Platforms. And those are not as good, I think, by and large at providing consumer protection. So I just hate to see this activity kind of just moving offshore. And I think we really need to be careful because I'm starting to see the beginning of it happening already. And I'm trying to, of course, work to do whatever I can to make sure regulators understand how powerful this is and how powerful it is to the economy and to national security and not to lose this opportunity. I mean, can you imagine, Tim, if in the early days of the internet, like we had said, the internet's bad, we shouldn't have this, you know, and then think of all the entrepreneurs who moved to the US to build kind of companies and services we now have. That was like huge benefit to the US economy that they came here. And it was a huge benefit that we weren't passing laws or giving speeches saying that it's bad, that they wanted to stay here and build those companies.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so do I. I mean, I dedicated 12 years to being in national security and against money laundering and consumer protection. I devoted a large part of my career to it. But I do think that misses the forest for the trees because to me, Tim, the bigger national security threat or consumer protection threat, for that matter, is offshoring all of this activity. And let me tell you why. I mean, we already know that China has developed a digital version of its cryptocurrency and it wants to export that. to South America, to Africa. And so that's problematic if we have China starting to control, starting to threaten, and this is going far. I don't mean to suggest that we're going to have the US dollar being upset as the global reserve currency overnight, but you could see play this out a couple decades this happens. So that's a terrible national security threat. Also, consumer protection.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that the US starts to offshore and chill this technology if they continue along the path with kind of regulating by speech? And by the way, it's not even speeches. Sometimes I hear, oh, you know, so-and-so said this. And did you hear what the Treasury Secretary said? And then you go actually, that's the media reporting the speech, right? It's like you go. Read the actual speech and it doesn't say that. The problem is that's what crypto entrepreneurs in the US are hearing. And it is, I do think, starting to offshore. We run the risk of offshoring or chilling some of this activity. I mean, if you think about what regulators care about, they care about things like consumer protection. They care about money laundering. They care about national security.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think you're going to start seeing more and more countries creating their own versions of their own cryptocurrency pegged to their currency. So I would not be surprised to see that. I think, you know, look, I think there is some. Thought on the part of some in government that you know, oh, crypto, it's the Wild West, they don't want any regulations, they don't want any laws. I think that's not true. I think most in the crypto space, what is not wanted is regulatory uncertainty. They don't mind regulation. They just want to know what are the rules so that I know how to follow them because that's much easier than like, we have no idea what rules apply to us and therefore we have to like be like you just said Nostradamus. They just want more regulatory certainty. Tell us what the rules are so we can follow them. And I think the risk”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they might, but really, this allows Tim Coin, it can allow people who to connect directly with their fans. And, you know, you have a lot of fans and a lot of listeners already, but imagine a content creator just getting started. This enables fans who discover that content creator early on to share in the economic upside of that content creator in a way that's really cool. And then, you know, they're economically incentivized to kind of spread the word, if you will. But the bottom line is it gives this content creator and the fan the ability to share in the upside. instead of just giving a lot of upside to intermediaries. So I think that's another area that we're starting to see and that we're going to continue to see in the time range you gave me, because you gave me, I think, three to five years. So mobile payments.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is called Rally, and it allows creators and influencers to create and issue their own branded currency. And the unique thing here is that, I know I can already see your Tim Coyne.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remittance fees. And by the way, 20% I've actually seen some cross-border payments cost even 30%. And they're also slow. Anyone who's ever sent an international wire knows that takes a really long time. There are also, you know, you have to pay tremendous fees. The poorest and the people who can least afford them bear the brunt of those fees. In my long distance example, we were all paying the same long distance rates. That's not true with the underbanked and unbanked. So I think mobile payments is one area that we're very excited about at Andreess and Horitz for crypto. And it's not just CELO. There are lots of other projects that are doing that as well. And then the other one I would mention is because I think it's important for content creators and now we have you're running your own podcast. But as we have more and more content creators creating content and influencers, there's one of our portfolio projects.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you remember how you used to have to pay a long distance bill? Like, if you called anywhere? Well, now you have FaceTime or VoIP and all these things disrupted that. So now it's free. And that was really beneficial for consumers. I think that's going to happen also with mobile payments, where instead of paying sometimes 20%”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Venmo is a digital IOU. This would be like it's basically replacing you, Tim. Flying from Austin to me here in California and handing me cash. That's the only way we know we have the bearer instrument, right? That no one can ever disrupt or screw with. And this is how something like mobile payments in the crypto context, so like Cello works, is I'm actually, when I send you Cello, I am transferring you the bits and bytes. I'm transferring you the bearer instrument. And there's no central authority that can like freeze your account or shut it down. You actually have basically what's like cash. Once you get it. And again, here in the US, you know, we have Venmo, we have PayPal, we have bank accounts. I think a lot of people in the world don't have those things. And so we forget often here in our bubble that these products and services are really important to a lot of people in the world and are really societally beneficial. I think of it kind of like long distance. Remember, I think we're around the same age.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so with a Venmo for the world, if you can imagine it, on your phone with your cell phone number, in fact, Tim, if you want after the show, I can send you a couple dollars just so you can see how quick and instant it is. But here's the difference because you might tell me, because people do, well, who cares? That's just like Venmo. I have that. No, here's the difference.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And probably more than that, they're unbanked and they have smartphones. And transferring value is like a kind of basic human need, right? Everyone needs to transfer value. Like no matter who you are, you need to transfer value at some point to get something, right? Maybe you need to get food or shelter or whatever. You need to transfer value no matter where you are. Well, it's really hard, it turns out, for people who don't have bank accounts to get access to basic financial products and services like money transfer. So what do they have to do? A lot of them, they have to go pay platforms. You know, I'm not going to name names, but certain incumbents and those incumbents take a lot of fees.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“C-E-L-O, yep, and they just launched an app on top called Valora. And the best way I can describe this is Venmo for the developing world, or basically Venmo for the rest of the world also. It's basically a way to exchange value that's pegged to the dollar. So it's not pegged to other volatile assets. It uses an innovation called stablecoins, which we can put a pin in if you want and come back to. So the important thing is it doesn't, the value stays the same of this particular cryptocurrency. And you don't need a bank account to use it because it's a cryptocurrency. It's distributed and decentralized so it doesn't rely on a central authority. And all you need is a mobile phone. And why this is really powerful is because, you know, for us sitting here in the US, most of the US is banked, although there's a lot of people who are underbanked. But for $3 billion people in the world.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think the two that come to top of mind for me one is just mobile payments. And we have a company in our portfolio, so again, full disclosure. I'm not trying to plug, I'm just trying to give you an illustrative example. And it's called Cello. And they've built their own blockchain and they just launched.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this is the digital, digitally scarce version 2021 version of a rare collectible. And then you can trade them in all kinds of ways that are really neat. So like I say, who knows what is next? I just think that's another example of an NFT that people, including many of your listeners, might have heard about with this MBA top shots. And I don't know what sports could be next, but presumably.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So rare you gave an example of one. Another one that's in our portfolio that's been in the news a lot lately. So full disclosure were investors is Dapper Labs. And through a partnership, Dapper has done with the MBA, they've created this thing called NBA Top Shots. This is kind of like a big going on right now. It's like I said in the news a lot. A LeBron James video highlight just sold for $70,000. You could buy the Steph Curry three-pointer if you wanted to spend just over $25,000. Think of it as like a digital sports collectibles. So an NBA top shot basically captures a moment from a big game and it creates this unique virtual asset that has limited supply. And so it can increase in value. And I think the best way to think of it, Tim, is think of it like how people used to collect rare baseball cards.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goods would also start to move online, right? Like, and you might say, well, what do you mean? And I would tell you, well, you used to have books like they held in your hand, but now there are digital books. You used to have cassette tapes, but now we have Spotify and streaming and stuff. So I think that art and collectibles and other kinds of pieces of content are going to follow a similar trajectory. But to answer your question about making it more practical, do you follow sports? I don't personally follow a lot of sports, but do you follow sports like NBA?”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, so it's both, so you can display it. And in fact, there's a whole kind of industry that I suspect will grow up. And by the way, one of the interesting things is we know what the use cases are today. What I think is very interesting is we have no idea what the use cases are going to be tomorrow. Just like when the iPhone came out, who knew that the camera and GPS in your pocket would spawn things like Uber or Ridesharing and gig economy? I mean, I don't know what later use cases there might be with NFTs. I know that right now there's actually a company, I think it's in Florida where they sell NFT or digital art frames. So you can certainly display it. But like you said, you could also put it on a hardware wallet. The point is, it's yours. It's like a bearer instrument, but it's digital. And I think so much of our lives today are moving from the offline physical world to the online world. Think about how much time we all spend online now and connected. Doesn't it make sense that”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I wanted to sell you, and I'm not going to because I just acquired it, but if I wanted to sell you my NFT, my really cool NFT that I got from an artist in Spain, he created it and minted it. The really cool thing here is he gets a cut if I sell it to you. So the content creator, the artist, instead of, you know, it going to a bunch of middlemen actually gets a cut of all future transactions. And I think that's really cool.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, kind of serendipitous, we're talking about NFTs. First of all, the spaces, you know, as you know, very active right now. But I actually just acquired an NFT, my first one. And then someone also gave me an NFT. So I now actually own two digital works of art that are unique on the blockchain that can't be replicated that if I ever wanted to, I could sell. They're just like regular art, but they're digital and they're unique. And that's one of the things crypto does because people say, well, wait, can't you copy it? Whatever, with cryptographic principles. You have digital scarcity. So, whereas you could previously copy a photograph, this is digitally scarce. You can enforce digital scarcity. And that's a really big idea to get your head around. But the idea is that”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Words right that make it feel inaccessible to people. And I try to break that down. I did it in law too. It's like, you know, you use all these Latin terms in law. Like, what does that actually mean? So NFT is like that. And NFT stands for non-fungible token. And it's basically fancy crypto babble that just means it's a special kind of token. And by special, I mean unique. Because, you know, of course, fungible means not unique. And this is a non-fungible token. So it's a unique token that lives on a blockchain that tracks something unique like art or a collectible. But it's different from the usual kinds of tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum because, like I said, an NFT is not fungible. It's unique. It's one of a kind. So it could represent an image, a piece of music, a video. And in fact, Tim, it's a...”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, first of all, I hate calling them by acronyms. And I did it myself, I know. So I'm guilty. But NFTs, let me just break it down what that is because I think one of the problems today in crypto is it feels so inaccessible to people. They tell me I don't understand it. I can't like wrap my head around it. And I said, you know, okay, if I can learn it, you can learn it. And part of it is just, I think the industry needs to do an even better job. And we've already improved as an industry, but we still have work to do on being able to speak plain English in terms that normal people can understand. You know, it's just like there's all this fancy crypto babble. And that's true not just in crypto, by the way. That was certainly true in law and in government. Like each area or industry has its.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right Yes, or whatever, exactly. Well, I think one thing was, and I'm not, let's just even back take a step back and zoom out because I've encountered many people who are skeptical, like not just Paul Krugman, but as you can imagine, many, many people. And I think one thing I always emphasize is this is not just about currency. Well, first of all, it's not just about Bitcoin and speculation. And it's also not even just about currency. There's this whole world to crypto. And that's one of the reasons I've stayed in crypto is it really is so interesting to me and that it brings together so many different elements, Tim, of society and different verticals it brings to other economics, computer science, technology, but also as you just referenced, geopolitics, finance, and certainly law and policy. I mean, I could go on and on.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't want to say he said it was compelling. He just said I did the best defense. I don't want to get some, you know, angry”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Course, if crypto projects feel like the government's just kind of out to shut them down, they're not going to be willing to provide that two-way street. So I think it's really win-win to have these conversations. I don't want to be naive or Pollyanna-ish about it. I'm not saying like one, the crypto industry and the government should team up and spend every day together. Nothing like that. But I do think this kind of ongoing dialogue is really important.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's not just Bitstamp or Coinbase. I think a lot of companies, especially over the last several years, have tried to proactively engage with regulators. But I've also, like I said, I think just as important is that government also, for its part, keep in touch with the crypto industry. And why do I say that? One key reason is because this technology is changing so fast. And I think like when I talk to my old government colleagues, they're like, God, we just kind of finally had mastered Bitcoin. And then we have ETH and now we have these other, you know, dozen. And now, of course, we have over a thousand crypto assets. It's really hard for government employees with kind of the training available to keep up with this technology. Frankly, it's not just government plays. It's hard for any of us, even those of us in the space, to keep up with how fast moving this is. So I think there's also just like an important education and training component that benefits the government to have these more open dialogues.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just meet me offshore, guys. I'm really not trying to set you up. But anyway, long story short, we ended up meeting in Slovenia. I hope we didn't violate any sovereignty or anything there, but we ended up meeting. And that was early days. And, you know, I think they ended up seeing what we were trying to do and realizing it was actually good for the space. Ended up providing us with the records we needed.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember meeting him actually. I remember exactly what you're talking about because I remember meeting him and I've kept in touch with him since that time. But I even remember Bitstamp, which was an early crypto exchange, which was in Slovenia. They featured in our Silk Road Twist case we talked about earlier. And I remember I needed their cooperation for some records and I remember them thinking this US prosecutors are coming. We think it's a trap, you know. And I didn't, the State Department told me, you can't violate the sovereignty of Slovenia. We can't have you meet on Slovenian ground unless this, this, and this are followed. And I said, what? I'm going to lose the evidence. The guys are willing to meet with me now. And they said, well, we did just seize a yacht in a DEA case off the coast of Croatia. Maybe we could arrange the meeting there in International Waters. I said, okay, if they didn't think I was coming to, if we convinced them I was not coming to trap them, if I suggest a DEAC's yacht to meet on, I'm pretty.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not like they're cozying up to the government either, but I think it's every kind of pragmatic and good business leader thinks, why would you want a bunch of nefarious activity on your platform, especially if you're trying to build a business to kind of change the world? So I think you might be right, though, in the early days, but fundamentally, after they saw some of the bridge building that we in the government in those early days started trying to do, and we did things like we hosted a summit where we was invite only, but we invited some of the early folks in the space. I did this with a number of different agencies. And then the agencies would come in and talk about what their equities were. And I think that kind of two-way street and dialogue is really important because what you want is you want, you know, you mentioned Zuko. I want Zuko to hear, you know, what are some of the consequences of privacy coins? And I want people in the government to hear what are some of the real benefits of privacy coins. And I think it's really important.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Turns out. And then once you actually start making the connections and meeting people, they realize you're not so bad. Like it doesn't seem like you want to, you know, close everything. We thought that you just wanted to close down everything. It turns out that maybe you just want to keep bad actors off X, Y, or Z platform and, you know, turns out we want that too, right? A great example of this is Coinbase, and you know I'm on the board of directors of Coinbase now fast forward several years, Coinbase did a great job of this in the early days. I don't think it was about keeping me an enemy away. I think it was more about it's not good for their business to have criminal activity on the platform. I mean, they don't, you know”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's the first I thought of it, but it's an interesting way to think about it, but keep your enemies close. I think”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I bought Bitcoin earlier than anyone I know. Unfortunately, it was undercover in the government, so I never kept any. And I, of course, never bought any when I was in the government, which is probably a shame because, you know, I don't need to tell you what the price was back then.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Instead ended up happening was prosecuting some of the nefarious uses of cryptocurrency, just like we prosecuted, like I said, like I prosecuted a 25 count indictment for mortgage fraud conspiracy. And they used cash and they used wires. So too here were some cases, like we talked about Mt. Gox, we talked about the Silk Road twist. There was also the BTCE case. There was criminal use of cryptocurrency. So we prosecuted some nefarious use cases of it. And in the course of that, I ended up starting to get to know some of the early players in the crypto space, Tim. I also started realizing more and more what I had kind of realized early on, which is this doesn't seem all criminal. It seems like there are actually a lot of people trying to build some really important products and services that can be used for good. And so that was kind of how I frankly got into the space early days. Now, I was in the government. I always joke like,”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was the first time I ever heard of it, was 2012. So I feel like I was kind of late to the party. I mean, it was the Satoshi White Paper was in 2008. This is four years later, and I had never heard of it. And my husband told me, you might want to, you know, learn what it is before you go around talking about how you're going to prosecute it because it sounds a little foolish. And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, look at this wiki page and tell me if you think, you know, you could prosecute it after. And the more I learned about it, I pretty quickly realized it would be like saying, I'm going to prosecute cash or I'm going to prosecute, you know, the internet or something like that. Like it's not possible. Number one. And it's also not desirable. But what...”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was right after that Mongols Biker murder trial I told you about with the Hells Angels ended and that had been a couple months before. And you know, after that, I had just really done a lot of violent crime cases over the course of a decade. And I remember thinking, I'm ready to switch to something else. Like maybe I'll leave. I didn't really know what I would do, but maybe I'll do something else. And my boss came to me and said, you know, let's have you put some of these investigative skills you've brought to use against criminal enterprises to technology and cybercrime. And I said, okay, great. You know, we're here in the northern district of California. Seems like sensible to do some cybercrime. And he said, well, here's what we want you to do. We want you to investigate Bitcoin. And Bitcoin is this kind of criminal technology and we need to kind of stop it, basically. And I remember, and so that was round 2012. And I remember going home and talking to my husband who knew way more about Bitcoin than I did. I had not heard of it at all.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I don't really want to get into it because I call it opsec, Tim. Let's just say I've taken measures and I won't really say much more than that. You know, you mentioned I have a CCW. It's not because I'm a gun nut or I'm passionate about guns. It's just because, you know, you want to make sure you can always protect yourself. And I've taken other measures as well. And I obviously, I'm not going to get into them here. But I think, like I said, it's really just in the moment of that case, you just feel like your job. And I felt like my job. Was to actually as cheesy or cliche as it sounds pursue justice. And what kind of message would that send if I just like walked off the case or walked away? And certainly a lot of people I worked with felt that way too. It wasn't just me bringing these cases. There are a whole lot of other people.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of the game. So it's not a personal thing. And the thing I try to do is to just treat the defendants with respect, treat all the subjects with respect, and not make it personal. And we ended up flipping a kind of key witness in that case, a guy Who is now in the witness protection program, so I won't say too much about him, but he did end up testifying so I can tell you that because it's all public record. He was an Westernia enforcer and he was a hulking huge guy with tattoos who came in and out of my office for weeks and as we tried to flip him. And he eventually came around to testify. But, you know, most of them, I mean, it's kind of violates, I think, an oath to the gang that you would never testify. That is the worst thing you could do in the gang's eyes.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of those individuals sometimes think this is the cost of doing business. Like, I'm going to get, you know, hooked up”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think we indicted over a dozen. Most ended up pleading guilty. Some did go to trial. But, you know, you think, oh, well, those are going to be the scariest of the scary. But, you know, again, like I told you earlier, it's really a human thing. And different people, even if they're in a really violent prison gang, react differently to things. Now, a lot of, and I think a lot of the listeners also myself, I would include myself and probably you in this, like we think, oh, it'd be the worst thing in the world to go to prison. Like, we don't want to go to prison. The interesting thing is a lot of the people involved in these prison gangs don't necessarily think that way, Tim. It's like, it's not really a threat to say I'm going to put you in prison. That's kind of like where they shine sometimes. And so talk about trying to deter criminal activity against that backdrop. But I think because of that,”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're worldwide. I mean, you know, like in the case of MS13 or Nuestra familia, I mean, it's not just in the US, but they're certainly in every city. I mean, you're talking about thousands and thousands, if not tens of thousands of individuals affiliated with these. But I prosecuted Nuestra Familia. I indicted that case. This was before that Silk Road case. This is in my violent crime days still.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the street. And then, like I said, there's a whole tax system. Some of the street gangs will pay into tax essentially, into the inside the Carnaes inside so that if they ever get hooked up. And put in prison, then they're protected within prison. But one thing I think that you might think, oh, these dangers.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're not able to get contraband in prison. They're running the prisons sometimes. And so this case you mentioned Nostra familia was a really large gang. It was they affiliate on the outside with the Norte ⁇ os.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That goes into taxing criminal activity on the outside in exchange for protection on the inside. And the people who are running these gangs, frankly, a lot of them could be running businesses, I sometimes think, if circumstances were different, their hustlers, their dedicated, you know, they have a lot of passion. I'm not trying to make it sound glamorous at all because it is criminal. I'm just saying that they're very organized. They have a whole system for getting messages outside. I remember once a judge said to me, what do you mean that defendant is, you know, under the influence of whatever drug it was, they're in prison and I thought, oh, your honor. Like it's so naive to think that.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, dismiss it because it's certainly something that I've thought about. But I also knew that in those moments there was something really wrong going on and someone had to step in and do something about it, you know, and it wasn't just me. It was like I said, a lot of really brave men and women, law enforcement personnel and other prosecutors. And by the way, judges and even juries. You know, jury, there are plenty of instances of jury intimidation. But it's critical for our system to work because obviously we can't just be running amok with no laws and, you know, violence. I think in the case of noestra familiar, you mentioned a prison gang. This is an entire world people don't realize. I mean, and you think, oh, they're in prison. So therefore, then they're locked up. But the truth of the matter is, and there's actually a great 60 minutes episode on this, it's called Operation Black Widow, by the way. Running criminal enterprises from prison is pretty common. You know, there's a whole system.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think you might if you see some of the victims' families and you might if you kind of saw some of the witnesses that were intimidated or some of the consequences if you didn't. I mean, I completely hear what you're saying, Tim, and I don't.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's definitely a tool in a prosecutor or an agent's toolkit to kind of wrap up an organization, like you said, if otherwise the individual might not have been on the hook for actually like a murderer. Maybe they just commissioned it, for example. Now, there are other laws that you can do, Tim. You don't only need Rico. There are conspiracy laws, but Rico is just kind of another tool that one might use. And it also enables you at trial to get in what are known as like a, I just mentioned predicate acts. So, you know, at the Hells Angels and the Mongols trial, we included predicate acts like there's, I don't know if you remember the Laughlin River Run riot and a series of other murders and a whole host of other criminal conduct that then the jury heard. And we think, you know, not we, but the Congress who passed the law, because of course prosecutors don't make the law. They just enforce the law. And so Congress passed this law.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And corrupt organizations. And it's basically a federal statute where it just creates a class of crimes that are more serious if you've done certain predicate crimes. So for example, it often involves cases involving conspiracies and then you allege several predicate acts. So in furtherance of the conspiracy, maybe there was some gun trafficking. Maybe there was money laundering. Maybe there was fraud. And so I did a number of Rico. There's also, I'm not going to bore you with acronyms, but there's VICAR. Those are kind of this class of cases. Again, where you're talking about a corrupt organization that's the CO in Rico, R-I-C-O. And what it means is basically an organized criminal enterprise. And you have to prove they were organized. You have to prove they were serving a common goal. You have to prove they did certain things in furtherance of that organization or conspiracy is basically what Rico is.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know if that's related It is. See, you got it right there. Racketeering. It's the racketeering and organized cropped, I think, institutions. Racketeering.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why should we do that? Where the victim's family is relying on us to bring the best case and the best case involves those records. And we're not going to just stand back because it's Google, you know, calling up and suggesting we undo this motion. So we stuck to it. And that was a case where Will and another boss might have said, you know, let's kind of figure out a way to broker a great settlement here and make this go away. And he said, I don't care who they are. You know, he really just didn't care. So he was fearless. And also he was egoist. Like I said, he let me often kind of, when he knew I was ready to lead, he would let me first chair a case. So that really stands out to me.”
2021-02-18 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #499: Katie Haun on the Dark Web, Gangs, Investigating Bitcoin, and The New Magic of "Nifties" (NFTs) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT