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[ INTERVIEW ]
Jason Weinstein: The proactive blockchain industry
ACAMS Today spoke with Jason Weinstein of Steptoe to discuss the formation of the Blockchain Alliance (BA), the BA’s overall goals and its role in the blockchain community.
ACAMS Today: Tell us about BA and what led to its formation?
Jason Weinstein: The Blockchain Alliance is a nonprofit cofounded in 2015 by the Chamber of Digital Commerce and Coin Center. Alan Cohn and I lead the Alliance and our firm, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, serves as its counsel as a service to the blockchain industry.
The Blockchain Alliance provides a public-private forum for engagement and dialogue between the blockchain industry, law enforcement, as well as regulatory agencies in the U.S. and around the world. It is inspired by an effort in the mid-1990s, during the early days of commercial use of the internet, where the FBI sought assistance from tech companies in understanding how the internet worked so U.S. law enforcement could improve its capacity to go after criminals who were already misusing that technology to facilitate criminal activity. Within a few short years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was teaching agents and prosecutors how to use the internet as an investigative tool. There have been other successful examples of these types of public-private partnerships, including the U.S. Secret Service’s Electronic Crimes Task Force program and the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance.
60 [ JUNE-AUGUST 2021 ]