Ten years in digital assets law before most law firms had even formed a practice group in the space. My next guest has advised on some of the most consequential transactions and regulatory matters in the industry. Joining me is Joshua Ashley Klayman Kuzar, Firm-Wide Co-Lead of Digital Assets, Blockchain and Custody at Ashurst Perkins Coie. Joshua, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. Really glad to be here.
You have been in this space since 2015. What is genuinely different about this moment compared to every previous cycle?
The credibility question has been answered. In 2015, 2017, even 2020, the fundamental question from institutions was whether any of this was real — whether it had staying power, whether regulators would ultimately shut it down, whether it was too reputationally risky to touch. That question is no longer on the table. The institutions are here. The sovereign wealth funds are here. The central banks are issuing guidance. The legislatures are passing laws. The debate has shifted from whether to engage with digital assets to how to do it correctly. That is a profound change — and it means the legal work is now much more sophisticated.
What legal questions are keeping you busiest right now?
Three areas. First, tokenisation — specifically the legal structuring required to make ownership of a tokenised asset genuinely enforceable. Minting a token is the easy part. Ensuring that the token holder has a legally recognised claim to the underlying asset, that the claim survives in insolvency, that it can be transferred across jurisdictions — that is where the serious legal work lives. Second, custody. Who holds digital assets, under what legal framework, what are their obligations, and critically — what happens if the custodian fails? The FTX collapse was a brutal education in why custody law matters. Third, cross-border compliance. A single transaction can touch five regulatory frameworks simultaneously, and each one may have a different answer to the same legal question. Navigating that complexity is a significant part of what we do.
You work across multiple jurisdictions. How are you seeing the regulatory competition between the UAE, the US, and Europe play out?
What is interesting is that the competition has shifted. It used to be about which jurisdiction would allow digital assets at all. Now it is about which jurisdiction has the clearest, most sophisticated, most investor-protective framework — and which one can execute on its promises. The UAE has been genuinely impressive on speed and specificity. The US has enormous capital markets depth but has taken longer to achieve legislative clarity. Europe's MiCA framework is comprehensive but comes with compliance complexity. The businesses I advise are increasingly making location decisions based on the quality of the regulatory framework, not just its existence. That is a meaningful shift.
On custody specifically — why is this still such a legally complex and contested area?
Because the fundamental question of what it means to own a digital asset has not been fully resolved in most legal systems. In traditional finance, ownership of a security is defined by a well-developed body of law. In digital assets, you have private keys, you have smart contracts, you have multi-signature arrangements — and the law in most jurisdictions is still catching up to what these things actually are. When a custodian holds assets on behalf of a client, the client needs to know: are these my assets or are they the custodian's assets with an obligation to return them? That distinction is everything in insolvency. We are making progress — the UK, the UAE, and a number of US states have made real advances. But it is still a live question in most of the world.
What is your advice to institutions that are moving into digital assets and trying to do it correctly?
Start with the legal structure, not the technology. I see institutions that get excited about the innovation and build the technology first — and then come to lawyers to clean up the legal questions afterwards. That is the wrong order. The legal structure determines whether your tokenised product is a security, a commodity, or something else. It determines your custody obligations. It determines your cross-border exposure. Get the legal architecture right first, and the technology sits on top of it cleanly. Do it the other way around and you are rebuilding the foundation while the house is already standing.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you. These are conversations that matter and I am glad the industry is having them.
