Why Crypto's Biggest Hacks Come Down to Bad Ops, Not Bad Code: DEX in the City

Summary

Ari Redbord interviews Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le, the trio behind DEX in the City. They share their journeys from SEC enforcement, DOJ prosecution, and law-firm defense into crypto, then tackle the SEC's regulatory pivot, the CFTC's new prominence with onshore perpetual futures and prediction markets, why recent DeFi hacks are really operational failures, the commercial need for privacy tech, and why the U.S. should go on the offensive against North Korea's crypto theft.

• The SEC is shifting from regulation by enforcement to providing clearer rules of the road for crypto.
• CFTC‑registered DCMs are becoming the hottest venue for onshore perpetual futures and prediction markets.
• Most recent high‑profile DeFi hacks exploited operational‑security failures, not smart‑contract bugs.
• Privacy technology is seen as commercially necessary for onchain markets to scale without losing compliance.
• The U.S. should adopt offensive national‑security tactics to combat North Korea's crypto theft that funds its weapons programs.
• Stablecoins are framed as the money layer, tokenized real‑world assets as the asset layer, and DeFi as the transaction layer of the future.
• Institutional inertia and legacy settlement rails remain the biggest headwind to Ethereum and broader crypto adoption.