Crypto: the need to harmonise European and US regulations

Elise Soucie Watts is the Executive Director at Global Digital Finance (GDF), a nonprofit industry body promoting best practices and conduct standards for the digital asset industry, where she also serves as a board member. In her role, she runs GDF's policy and regulatory programme, leading active policy working groups covering EU, UK, APAC, and MENA regions. Her work spans consultation responses, industry working groups, and outreach to policymakers, central bankers, and government departments across multiple jurisdictions, including Washington DC, Westminster, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. Specific policy contributions include co-authoring a Smart Contract Primer used by MAS' Project Guardian, leading on core recommendations from the Digital Finance APPG report adopted by the UK government on Gilts, and contributing to the clarification that staking does not constitute a collective investment scheme under UK FSMA. She also serves as a Policy Advisory Board Member at Mesh and co-hosts The Outside Context podcast.

Prior to GDF, Watts was an Associate Director at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), where she led Digital Assets and Data Strategy work, focusing on the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation and the European Commission's targeted consultation on open finance and data sharing. Before that, she worked at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) across their Technology, Resilience and Cyber Division and International Division, where she pioneered the FCA's International Digital Assets strategy in 2022 and led technical policy dialogue on DLT, consumer risks, CBDCs, and DeFi. She was named Next Generation Leader of the Year at the 2022 Women in Finance Awards UK and was included in the Innovate Finance Standout 45 on the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2024 as a Regulatory and Policy Expert.