tl;dr
Marco Santori, former Chief Legal Officer at Kraken, has joined the WalletConnect Foundation as a Director to focus on self-custody in crypto. He emphasizes the importance of tools that showcase the practical and philosophical benefits of self-custody beyond speculation. WalletConnect, known for its...
Marco Santori has joined the WalletConnect Foundation as a Director, focusing on advancing self-custody in the crypto space beyond mere speculation. WalletConnect enables seamless and secure connections between millions of users and supports developers building self-custody tools.
Santori emphasizes the evolving global crypto regulatory landscape, highlighting Europe's progress with the MiCA framework and the U.S. development of stablecoin and market structure laws. Despite regulatory advancements, focus on self-custody and crypto's commercial use remains limited, presenting both challenges and opportunities.
Addressing the privacy versus compliance debate, Santori notes its complexity and points out that most crypto users do not prioritize financial privacy. He advocates for self-custody as a user choice, pushing for better functionality and user-friendly tools to promote wider adoption.
WalletConnect plays a pivotal role in enabling complex blockchain interactions and driving mainstream acceptance of self-custody solutions. The platform supports over 45 million users with 255 million secure connections across hundreds of wallets and thousands of apps. It recently launched its WCT token and a certification program to enhance wallet security and user experience.
Navigating regulatory shifts, Santori foresees ongoing interpretation and legal processes around Europe's MiCA rules and upcoming U.S. legislation on stablecoins and exchange market structures. He notes slower regulatory progress in the U.K. but considers the current lack of self-custody-specific laws somewhat beneficial, as regulators mostly react to speculative risks rather than commerce uses.
On the privacy front, Santori describes blockchain and self-custody as inherently political, shifting power from intermediaries to peer-to-peer systems. Yet, he challenges the notion that extensive government visibility over private transactions is necessary, emphasizing that few people actively seek financial privacy tools.
Regarding DeFi and asset management, Santori stresses that not all assets require self-custody, but users benefit from having that choice. He highlights the growing complexity of crypto interactions—engaging smart contracts, signing advanced transactions—and positions WalletConnect as essential software enabling these capabilities.
While self-custody is popular among experienced DeFi users, Santori recognizes the need to simplify these tools to attract mainstream “normie” adoption. WalletConnect aims to lead in developing the fundamental primitives for more convenient and fluid user experiences, making self-custody practical and widely accessible.