Robert Musiala has been working in the blockchain and digital assets market since 2012 and has led multiple digital asset investigations, including as the court appointed receiver over cryptocurrency investment funds used in a major fraud. Robert also advises on a variety of regulatory compliance issues involving digital assets and has drafted/negotiated agreements for a wide range of transactions in the fintech, digital assets, Web3 and NFT markets. The inventor of two blockchain patents, he works directly with tech teams to build solutions that are compliant by design. Robert is co-leader of the Web3 and Digital Assets team at BakerHostetler.
Robert has 20 years of experience working in regulatory compliance and investigations. He is a seasoned digital asset investigator, having led investigations into a fraudulent crypto fund, initial coin offering, mining company theft, crypto exchange hack, NFT hack and crypto phishing scheme, as well as having managed investigation teams on major anti-money laundering lookbacks and for a U.S. National Security Community client.
Robert’s experience includes advising digital asset and Web3 clients on compliance with the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), regulations issued by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), state money transmission laws, consumer financial protection laws, and laws and regulations applicable to digital assets in the areas of custody, data management, privacy, marketing/advertising, securities and commodities. Robert has deep experience drafting and negotiating agreements in the digital asset, Web3 and fintech space, including technology development and licensing, payment processing, prepaid access, digital asset custody, mining/data center hosting, layer-2 node providers, cloud outsourcing and agreements supporting nonfungible token (NFT) mints, NFT marketplaces and ecosystem development.
Robert has also designed technical architecture for digital asset payment systems, including for a patented P2P micropayment system underpinned by the Bitcoin Lightning Network and a patented blockchain-based system for managing public funds and aid distribution. He has advised multiple Web3 clients on technical architecture and smart contract functionality for layer-2 platforms involving micropayments, distributed virtual private networks, distributed proxy re-encryption, asset-backed digital assets and layer-1 staking.
