Electric Capital

Posted on Sep 28, 2022Read on Mirror.xyz

Emily Meyers: Joining Electric Capital as General Counsel

I’m thrilled to have joined Electric Capital as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Web3 regulatory policy is complex, in flux, and early decisions can have a huge impact on a company’s or protocol’s outcome. I will work primarily with founders to help them understand the regulations needed to make well-considered product decisions. In my role I will also work directly with policymakers and regulators as they shape the future of Web3 policy. 

For most of my career I have been part of fast-growing companies working at the intersection of law and innovation. I led the launch at Paxos for their de novo national trust for digital assets – a first for a crypto-native company. We worked closely with the US Department of Treasury to help them understand that digital asset custodians can meet the same standards as traditional banks. Prior to my work in the private sector, I was an attorney at the Federal Election Commission working on enforcement-side issues. My focus was on regulations and new technologies, such as how campaign fundraising laws applied to Twitter. I am excited to use my experience in the private and public sectors to help support founders in the Electric portfolio.  

In my work with policymakers, I lead Electric’s relationship with the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), the premier industry alliance for advancing Web3. Keeping with Electric’s engineering ethos, we bring data to the discussion in order to better inform policymakers and regulators. We have provided them with details from our annual Developer Report, and more recently we shared  trends showing web3 developer activity is moving outside the US. It’s also a huge pleasure to get to do this work alongside our recently announced Electric advisors, Jay Clayton and Kevin Warsh.

There is nowhere more exciting for a lawyer to be than Web3 today. Being successful requires harmonizing the law with new technologies and use cases. Some of the most interesting questions are around understanding NFT licensing and royalty mechanisms, how zero-knowledge technology can be used for privacy while staying compliant, the definition of decentralization and its application to US securities law, taxation of staked assets, and how the law intersects with today’s geopolitics. There are countless other interesting and open challenges for us to work through. 

We have a rare opportunity to help build products that revolutionize finance and culture, and along the way, we get to refine existing banking, payments, commodities, and securities laws to encourage innovation while protecting investors and consumers. I am grateful for the opportunity to work alongside the Electric Capital team, founders, policymakers, and other stakeholders to build the future of Web3.