The Wolf Of All Streets - We Are Sitting On A Multi-Billion Dollar Opportunity | Caitlin Long

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

►► Discover Bitcoin Yield: https://archpublic.com/ In this episode of The Wolf Of All Streets, I sat down with Caitlin Long live in Las Vegas to break down how Custodia Bank is reshaping the future of finance. Caitlin shares how her partnership with Vantage Bank is using tokenized bank deposits to solve real-world problems like cross-border payments, fraud, and stablecoin compliance. If you care about banking, crypto, or financial freedom, you’ll want to hear what Caitlin has to say. Caitlin Long: https://x.com/CaitlinLong_ ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►► Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities! 👉https://archpublic.com/ ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. Use code '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://x.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #Investments The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

Just kidding. This morning, JD Vance gave the speech. It was a great speech, but I did have to call him out on something that I think he exaggerated when he said Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead. It's not dead yet, unfortunately. What, if anything, can be done to move those folks out of positions of power? He fired Gary Gensler and we're going to fire all the people just like him. And I thought, great, you know, why is it taking so long?

So do it. Yeah. Caitlin Long is the founder and CEO of Custodia Bank and one of the boldest voices in Bitcoin and crypto. She has long been an advocate for the industry, going as far as to sue the Fed to do what is right for crypto. She is convinced that Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is not over yet, but that we are on the right trajectory to finally end the government's oppression over our industry. But more importantly, she is building the tools of the future for crypto, including tokenized bank deposits, not exactly the same as stablecoins that are already being used for cross-border transactions. You don't want to miss this incredible in-person conversation with Kaitlin Long. We happen to have the Arch Public logo behind us, which reminds me that last time we talked

was probably two or three weeks ago on a Tuesday on my show that I do with them and you absolutely blew Tilman's mind. I said to you before that I've seen people orange pilled in real time where the light bulb goes on. But I've never seen somebody stablecoin or tokenized bank deposit pilled, which is what happened. And he can't stop talking about it. Yeah, he reached out to me and said

he thinks we're sitting on a multi-billion dollar opportunity. And I think that's right. We'll have to see how markets evolve. But the whole notion that you can put this stablecoin technology inside the banking system and capture some of the regular way ACH flows while reducing risk to the financial system is a pretty profound idea. But you've got to have a bank charter to be able to do it.

I don't wanna take for granted that people who watch the recording heard the show or have listened, so maybe just give the TLDR on what you did and what's happened since then. So Custodia and Vantage Bank partnered to do something we couldn't do without each other. They have access to a Fed Master account, Fedwire, ACH access,

and Custodia can issue a stablecoin, which they can't do because the Fed hasn't rescinded all of its anti-crypto guidance yet. So between the two of us, we can each do the thing that the other can't do. So we partnered to go ahead and just go now. We don't need to wait for the stablecoin bill. And what we talked about at the time

was the first cross-border issuance of a tokenized bank deposit that was used by a Mexican trucking company to move US dollars across the border into Mexico and back. Each one happened in the span of seconds. The max transaction cost was 10 cents. And the CEO of the company, DX Express, which is a Mexican trucking company, longtime customer advantage, said he's interested in this technology so that he can recruit drivers by having the truck drivers automatically paid when the geolocation pings that they've reached their

destination. So... How long would that normally take for them to get paid? Well, it's typically ACH or if it's a foreign exchange transaction, it's typically going through SWIFT. So you're talking about usually next day is the fastest. And the CEO said he wants to be able to pay his drivers within an hour. Now what's also interesting is Vantage's CEO, since you and I did that podcast, did a fireside

chat with American Banker and he disclosed some of the things we're working on, which is fun. So I'm not going to make news here, although admittedly to a different audience, it probably is news. We have a network of banks in Mexico that are working with us. And he also disclosed that we are in conversations with the stablecoin issuers for swap arrangements.

What are we trying to do here? We're trying to create a network of networks, a mesh network. Now, from the stablecoin issuers perspective, an AVID, which is our tokenized bank deposit, is a dollar. It's a bank deposit. And bank deposits are, of course, permitted reserves, even under the New York regime. And so if we can actually get into an arrangement

where we can provide swaps to each other, then we really do multiply the network exponentially. And the different users have different options. So Vantage will give bank accounts to, for example, the truck drivers in Mexico. This is typical, but US banks will give corporate accounts to the employees of non-US customers. And so that's one way that they could use the dollars. But of course, the end user is going to be interested in pesos. So what if they could put it into PayPal? What if they could swap it to Tether?

What if they could swap it to USDC? What if they could put it in a new bank account in Mexico that they may not currently have? All of those things are possible. All of those things are possible. All of those things are what we're working on. Okay, so two questions. They obviously have different banking laws in Mexico. Do they need such a complex arrangement for them to participate in this,

or can one bank do it in Mexico? You obviously had to partner with Vantage because of the Fed Master account. Right, and because they can't issue the stablecoin right now. So how does that work on their side? So that's a good question. I'm not an expert in Mexican banking law, but my philosophy, which is very much overlapping with Vantage's, we're very tech forward and we're also very interested in networks of

networks, tearing down walled gardens, maximum interoperability. It was fabulous to listen to a community bank CEO speaking to the American banker audience, which is mostly bankers, and preaching permissionless blockchains because of their interoperability and because of the network effects and the developer tooling that's been built up

around these systems. It's hilarious to listen to the big bank CEOs talking about their walled garden networks and how they all think that, you think that JPM coin or Citi coin or Wells Fargo coin are going to be the ones that are going to win and everybody else is going to join their networks. I think it's the opposite.

I think our technology is so much better and our network effects are so much greater. Do you think they think that because they have inside knowledge of what's coming from the stablecoin bill or contributing in crafting it or do you think they just think that's where the puck is headed? They think that's where the puck is headed. I will tell you they're not irrational because they are very concerned about the cudgel that

is used by the bank regulators around the Bank Secrecy Act. There's so much subjectivity around BSA AML compliance and enforcement actions. And that was, if you go look at the banks that service the crypto industry, that is how a lot of them ended up with enforcement actions. It was consent orders for problems in their BSA AML programs. And so I think probably it's kind of a Stockholm syndrome situation

where the banks are so afraid to go outside of the walled gardens. But by the way, this has happened so many times in banking history. It's when banks at first were willing to use intranets. First, they would only use direct connections with the actual cable. It wasn't even fiber back then. And then it was, oh, well, let's do intranet connections. And now it's tear down the wall gardens and use the internet and banks are now just now really moving to cloud, right? So we're kind of along that same, that same development transition timeline,

although it's accelerated timing wise, but that's what's ultimately going to happen with the banks. They're still most comfortable dealing with closed networks. But what's what's ultimately going to happen with the banks. They're still most comfortable dealing with closed networks. But what's great about what Vantage explained, and again, it's out there for anybody to watch the video. It's a 20 minute fireside chat, is you actually have a traditional bank CEO speaking our language. And that's just, it's not common. And I salute Vantage.

That's why they're leaders in the field. Your product is somewhat competitive with the traditional stablecoins, though, right? So when you say creating the swaps and interoperability, you're a competitor, but actually you're making their lives a lot easier by making them compliant and putting it within the banking system. Correct. And again, it's the concept of a mesh network.

It's a network of networks, right? People are going to transact with whoever they want to transact with, where they want to transact. And some people are still comfortable and want to have a physical bank branch and a person that they can go talk to. Others have never set foot in a bank branch or written a check, and everything is online.

You meet the customers where they are, and that's where we're focused. I love the idea that custodian bandage are very aligned on that concept of we don't want walled gardens. We're actually very focused. We've talked a lot about the go-to-market strategy and it would be easy for us to go

do some of the same things that others have done which is bring in intermediaries, right? And have the intermediaries just gum up the system and take their cut. But Jeff Sinon and I are very aligned. We don't want that. That's just the old system. Exactly. We want to try to cut out the intermediaries. And then you ask the question about the traditional stable coins. Are we competing with them? First of all, we don't think so. This particular market nobody's serving. This is the traditional regular way ACH payment flow. That's not where the stablecoin issuers are. So this is not a market, frankly,

that already has this technology. We view it as a green field, which is why I think Tillman was so excited because he understood there is such an enormous flow of traditional ACH regular way business and traditional Swift business that has not yet had the ability to take in this technology. Most businesses that have auditors and that care about you know filing GAAP financial statements or

IFRS financial statements as the case may be, they're not going to touch stablecoins because of the adverse accounting. Right now stablecoins have adverse tax. This is why when you trade with a stablecoin, you're going to get 1099 at the end of the year and it's going to keep track out to eight decimal points when you transact with a stablecoin because technically you're paying a capital gains tax or loss out to eight decimal points every time you use a stablecoin. Those issues are what gum up the system that traditional stable

coins can't break into the real big money flow regular way banking business, but that's where custodia and vantage want to play. We're not interested in competing with the existing stable coins, the crypto market, they're doing great. Most of the banks, by the way, don't have the ability to serve the high frequency, fast settling crypto trades anyway. So it's the regular way business that we're very focused on. There's an awful lot of fraud. And believe it or not, one of the things that we believe is that when we approach traditional

banks, this is not a, hey, join this new technology because there's a big revenue opportunity as much as it is. If we can help you solve your fraud problem, then join our network and you'll have lower fraud losses. That's profound. Lower fraud, better, faster, cheaper, too. Correct. So all the things of the blockchain promise

plus anti-fraud. You said something in passing that I want to touch on. Yeah. You said the Fed, which has not changed its anti-crypto stance or regulations. I think there's the idea that everything is peachy now that we have the Trump administration. We've seen by and large contentious regulators replaced with regulators who understand or are more likely to be favorable towards the industry.

The Fed maybe not so much. Yeah. Is that accurate? That is accurate. In fact, just this morning, JD Vance gave a speech. I was upstairs at a breakfast and watched the replay. It was a great speech, but I did have to call him out on something that I think he exaggerated

when he said Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead and that he was here to give the obituary for it. It's not dead yet, unfortunately, because the tools that were used to target our industry are still in place, and as Senator Lummis correctly pointed out, the people who did it, for the most part, are still in place at the federal banking agencies as well. How do they fix that?

I mean, is that something that can wave the magic presidential wand and it changes, or is it sort of systemic? Well, it's interesting because there are a number of very high ranking political folks here, senators, congresspeople, from the administration, vice presidents, et cetera. And they all want to know who are the people.

And it's so funny because yet again, I sent the list. So it's funny, I was talking to one of our attorneys who was saying to me there are several people that are constructing the list. So it's no secret who did all this. But the interesting question is, what if anything can be done to move those folks out of positions of power? And Trump hasn't gotten his people in yet, to be fair.

The Senate confirmation process for OCC, FDIC, and even Fed vice chair for supervision has been slow. We do have nominees for two of those roles, but they're sitting, waiting for Senate confirmation. So we'll see how fast they're able to get in. But one of the other truths about the federal agencies is the senior career people have been there in some cases 30, 40 years,

and they're just used to every four years a new political appointee comes in. But I watched this even when we were in Wyoming passing the bills back in 2018. The senior career staff, they've outlasted seven or eight bosses in their careers. And they're where the real power is. And I wouldn't have known that had I not

seen it from the inside. Will that change with the people who are currently nominated, assuming they're appointed? I hope. That's what I was calling the vice president out. I'm old enough to remember when we thought Gary Gensler was going to be a great SEC chair. Right, right. Well, JD Vance even said, you know, we fired Gary Gensler and we're going to fire all the people just like him.

And I thought, great, you know, why mean, I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point.

And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point.

And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. governor's perspective is institutionally different for historical reasons. This was in the case where some of the Democratic appointees to independent agency boards that have been fired by Trump were challenging whether he had the power to do that. So we'll see.

The Fed is a different animal, as we know, and it is asserting its independence. But we've also seen the Treasury Secretary say that the Fed should not be in the business of supervision and regulation of banks. They should just be in the monetary policy business. And it's the supervision and regulation of banks that got very, very politicized. And I was just sharing at a, we just had a training session with very senior congressional staff.

There are a lot of them here that are here to learn. And I was just sharing with them that, you know, some of the war stories about what happened with us. And I'm aware that several of the senior people at the Fed are Warrenites. And in one case, one of the Fed officials told me that a senior Fed official always quotes Rousseau or very left-wing philosophers at the end of his emails.

Right? Well, that tells you where the philosophy is of the person in that role. And that's a career staffer. So in a position of extraordinary power. If it's not the Fed's job, then I assume they're saying it's the FDIC and the OCC? Well, the Treasury Secretary said two things. He said, one, that the federal, we

have too many banking agencies and that supervision and regulation needs to be consolidated. He did not specify whether it would be at the OCC or the FDIC. And those agencies have been fighting with each other. We have three federal banking agencies in the US, and they all fight with each other for jurisdiction. The other thing he said that I think a lot of folks haven't really keyed in on, though,

is he talked about a program of radical privatization. And he's never said this, but I actually think he's very focused on potentially privatizing the payment system. Privatize Fedwire, privatize ACH. said this, but I actually think he's very focused on potentially privatizing the payment system. Privatize Fedwire, privatize ACH. Why is this run by a fiefdom that is politically unaccountable and weaponized

its power against an industry and, in the case of the Trump family, and religious organizations that it didn't like because it was so left wing in its philosophy and its approach. And again, Senator Lummis is out there warning, these tools have not been torn down. So I thought it was premature of the vice president this morning to say that he had written the obituary for Operation Showpoint 2.0. So interesting.

I know that you have to run momentarily, but what's next for custodia, specifically with Vantage, I guess we talked about that. But for custodia as a whole, you're still trying to get a master account, obviously. You're still litigating with the Fed. Yep, yep, yep. Waiting for the lawsuit decision. Oral argument was January 21st.

If you look at the 10th Circuit, the median period of time between oral argument and a decision is 4.2 months. So 4.2 months from January 21st is right about now, Scott. Yeah, here we are. So we'll see. I mean, I'm hitting refresh on the website months, so 4.2 months from January 21st, is right about now, Scott. So we'll see. I'm hitting refresh on the website several times a day to see if the decision has come up. Well, you know they'll go to the last possible moment

to keep you in suspense. We'll see. When the district court decision came out, it came out on the afternoon of a holiday weekend, Friday. And by the way, there was a decision that came out in a related case the next day of a holiday weekend Friday, right? So sometimes, and by the way, there was a decision that came out in a related case the next day of a three-day holiday weekend on a Saturday. So you just never know when the decisions come out. We're anxiously awaiting it.

And then the stablecoin bill. This is a big deal. And just the amount of opposition that has been garnered from the stablecoin bill tells you a lot about the way the power structure of the United States works. I was just at this congressional lunch laying out one of the best things.

The community banks, I think, in general are afraid because there's an irrational fear. I think it is irrational that this technology is going to threaten them. Frankly, we want them all to join us. Let's bring this new, better technology to the system so they can keep deposits in the system. But I was laying out some of the alternatives

that are much more meaningful to community banks that if there's anything we can do to help the community banks because that is where the vast majority of credit for small businesses, in particular in rural parts of this country, come from, which is why historically Congress has been so focused on helping the community banks. And I laid out a list of things that could be done to help the community banks

and allay the fears that they have of this technology. But again, I will underscore Vantage is a community bank. And there are several very tech forward community banks. They're the ones I think that are that are going to win in the marketplace. And we are trying to bring this technology to other banks, believe it or not. I can't wait to see it. Thank you so much. I know you have to.

It's always a pleasure. Great to see you again, as always. Thank you. This incredible conversation was recorded live in the ArchPublic Lounge at Bitcoin Las Vegas. To dollar cost average into Bitcoin efficiently and to check out all the other algorithms, go to archpublic.com.