Compliance in Crypto: From 2025 Rules to 2026 Reality — Global Ledger’s Take
Crypto crime moves faster than compliance, and pretending otherwise is dangerous. In the first episode of Money Rewired, Global Ledger CEO Lex Fisun explains how hackers launder stolen funds in days, why regulators often misunderstand DeFi, and how compliance can reduce friction for honest users without making crime frictionless. This episode explores the uncomfortable truth: financial freedom also means being your own compliance officer.
We dig into how policymakers really see crypto today. From early misconceptions about “downloading money from the internet” to modern regulatory frameworks like MiCA, the gap between intention and technical reality remains wide — especially when it comes to DeFi. Lex breaks down why decentralized protocols can’t be regulated like centralized exchanges, and how misunderstanding that difference creates fragile rules that fail both users and regulators.
This episode also challenges one of crypto’s most celebrated ideas: be your own bank. Because in a transparent, irreversible financial system, freedom doesn’t just mean self-custody — it means being your own compliance officer, risk manager, and investigator. We explore how platforms decide when to block transactions, where false positives come from, and why explaining too much to users can actually make crime easier.
From sanctioned entities turning to crypto after being unbanked, to unexpected real-world adoption that creates hidden compliance risks, this conversation exposes the messy reality behind on-chain money. It’s not a story of good versus evil — it’s a story of incentives, speed, and systems struggling to keep up.
Money Rewired is a podcast about the new financial rails — not the hype around them, but the pressure points, the failures, and the hard choices that come with rebuilding money in public. And this episode sets the foundation: if crypto is going to scale, risk and compliance aren’t optional — they’re infrastructure.
