Nonetheless, on the subject of understanding the present second in crypto he’s roughly unmatched. Or, on the very least, he’s not afraid to be somewhat contrarian. At Consensus 2023, as an example, Qureshi argued that CertiK, an auditing agency with a less-than-stellar status, was making a mistake by providing to reimburse victims of Merlin, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Certik had just lately audited. “That is explicitly insurance coverage,” Qureshi mentioned, arguing that if this transfer is repeated it could push premiums for audits with out essentially bettering their accuracy as a result of companies would anticipate to must make payouts. CoinDesk caught up with Qureshi to speak concerning the state of crypto enterprise capital, the regulatory atmosphere and why Ponzi schemes will at all times collapse.