Cryptocurrency continues to dominate the headlines, from starting the year at a high with major TV ads to questions in recent weeks about the stability of the market. In this episode of In the Public Interest, co-host and Partner John Walsh is joined by fellow Partners Tiffany Smith and Zachary Goldman to explore the world of Web3 with Jai Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy is the Chief Legal Officer at Andreessen Horowitz—otherwise known as “A16Z,” an ode to the practice of shortening long words used repeatedly in code by taking the first and last letter of a word and the number of letters in between.

Prior to joining A16Z, Ramaswamy served as the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at cLabs. He has over a decade of experience at the Justice Department, first serving as a prosecutor focused on white collar crime and cybercrime in the Southern District of New York and later as Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. Ramaswamy also worked in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the Justice Department. Smith and Goldman regularly advise clients on regulatory issues related to cryptocurrency and the broader FinTech sector. Both write frequently on regulatory developments affecting the Web3 space, including cryptocurrency and stablecoins.

Smith, Goldman and Ramaswamy probe the many applications of decentralized systems in Web3, from cryptocurrency to NFTs and beyond. Ramaswamy shares why he believes regulatory concerns—not technology issues—will be the principal roadblock in this new decentralized ecosystem. The episode also touches on the delicate balancing act of promoting innovation while mitigating the emerging risks associated with decentralized computing.