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Penny Crossman (00:10):
Hi, I'm Penny Crossman at American Banker, and I'm here with Rachel Anderika, Global Head of Operations at Anchorage Digital. Welcome, Rachel.
Rachel Anderika (00:19):
Hi, Penny. Great to be here.
Penny Crossman (00:21):
When you think about everything that's going on in on-chain finance, what are you most bullish about?
Rachel Anderika (00:28):
I think what I'm most bullish about is the infrastructure we're able to provide. The whole idea behind Anchorage Digital from the outset was really: how do we provide regulated infrastructure to support institutional use cases?
It wasn't a popular opinion. A lot of people said, "Why are you trying to do this? Why are you trying to build in this space?" At the time, it was largely retail-driven.
What we're seeing now is banking applications beginning to emerge. So what I'm most bullish about is the idea that you can bring all of this into a regulatory perimeter, innovate within that space, move money faster, and have more predictable and faster settlement windows.
There are still a lot of things to figure out, but what excites me most is the ability to innovate.
Penny Crossman (01:24):
For traditional banks, what do you think will be the biggest challenges and obstacles to getting involved in all of this?
Rachel Anderika (01:33):
I'm going to give you a really technical answer.
A lot of people are saying downstairs during this conference, "Regulatory clarity." But I think what they're really saying is they're getting mixed messages around certain laws, rules, and regulations.
For example, capital treatment. How should banks think about the capital they need to hold around digital assets in various forms?
The agencies are trying to be very clear about how to treat tokenized securities, for example. We're also trying to gain more clarity around stablecoins through the notice of proposed rulemaking and the accompanying comment letters.
But I think really nailing down the operational details is a very big deal when you're talking about a bank that's regulated on multiple federal levels.
Penny Crossman (02:29):
If you had to make one prediction about the digital asset ecosystem and on-chain finance, what would it be?
Rachel Anderika (02:37):
We were laughing about this before because I'm terrible at making predictions—I'm always wrong.
I would say that, much like other technological changes, what seems difficult today will eventually become second nature.
For context, I'm a bit of a Luddite. I never thought I'd have banking apps on my phone. I remember how long it took me to deposit my first check using my phone because I kept wondering, "How is this going to work?"
I think what feels challenging today is eventually going to become simple, intuitive, and part of everyday life.
Penny Crossman (03:08):
Rachel Anderika, thank you so much.
Rachel Anderika:
Thank you.
Penny Crossman:
And thanks for watching.