The Money and Banking Law Podcast with Joe Silvia

Joe Silvia briefly recaps Consensus Miami 2026, the year's premier crypto event and influential gathering across digital finance, blockchain and AI. At Consensus, Duane Morris LLP and Merkle Science hosted the Merkle Meet, a full day of panels, workshops and networking. Our program brought together leaders in the digital assets and blockchain community, highlighting legal and compliance with panels focusing on stablecoins, the regulatory environment and prediction markets that will impact the market in 2026 and beyond.

In this episode, Joe Silvia explains the overall U.S. regulatory structure for financial institutions, the general themes and goals of banking regulations and the dual banking system in the United States.

Joe Silvia provides an overview of the regulatory landscape for implementing the GENIUS Act, including the proposed rules from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) , Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Recently, Duane Morris and Merkle Science held an event at our New York office to discuss policy, market structure issues and expectations for digital assets in 2026. Joe Silvia spoke on a panel about what needs to be in place for crypto currency to gain wider, mainstream adoption, and Mauro Wolfe, lead partner for Duane Morris’ Digital Assets and Blockchain Group, served as MC for the event.

Joe Silvia shares highlights and takeaways from the recent Banking Regulations Under Trump event at the Union League of New York, featuring remarks from current Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould and former Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting.

On this episode, Joe Silvia talks with Terry Mendez, CEO of Safe Harbor Financial and Michael Schwamm, Duane Morris partner in the Corporate and Cannabis practices, about the specific requirements and challenges of providing financial services for the cannabis industry.

In this episode, Joe Silvia speaks with Jon Petrakis, a partner and one of the leaders of Duane Morris' Banking and Finance Practice, about his practice and his advice for creating and building commercial banking relationships.

Jennifer Walker, Director, Sales & Client Relations at ALM First, describes her role and approach as "I'm here to make asset and liability management fun." Beyond helping financial institutions with asset and liability management and ALCO meetings, Jennifer talks about how ALM First strives to partner with banks and "make their lives easier" through deep dives into their balance sheets to find efficiencies and opportunities to strengthen performance. Jennifer believes that "liquidity clarity equals confidence" and the insights ALM First provides is "how we turn community institutions' balance sheet risk into sustainable profitability."

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Joe Silvia talks with Matt Shields, Managing Director, Head of FIG Capital Markets at Performance Trust Capital Partners to understand how financial institutions raise capital. Matt also shares his thoughts and expectations for the capital markets in 2026.

Joe Silvia reviews and analyzes Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman's opening remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta 2026 Banking Outlook Conference: The Next Horizon in Banking on February 19, 2026.