Most people think blockchain means Bitcoin. That misunderstanding has real consequences for regulators, developers building on it, and for the 1.3 billion people worldwide who still don’t have a bank account.
Candace Kelly spent nearly two decades as a federal prosecutor at the DOJ and FBI before becoming Chief Legal Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation.
In this episode, she breaks down how post-9/11 AML legislation inadvertently locked entire communities out of the banking system, and why financial exclusion is, in her view, a national security issue.
For developers building in this space, the episode lands on the areas where the real work is still happening: privacy-preserving transactions via zero-knowledge proofs, agentic commerce with dispute resolution baked into smart contracts, and the challenge of harmonizing compliance frameworks across jurisdictions that don’t move at the same pace as the technology.
Topics Covered
00:00 - Introducing Candace Kelly: DOJ, FBI, and the Stellar Development Foundation
02:15 - What blockchain actually is
03:15 - Rules still apply: why blockchain doesn’t create a lawless financial system
05:00 - Blockchain vs. cryptocurrency: the internet analogy and why conflating them matters
07:30 - What runs on Stellar: stablecoins, real-world assets, and tokenized securities
11:40 - Delivering US dollar aid to internally displaced Ukrainians via mobile wallets
13:00 - How the disbursement platform was built, tested, and open-sourced
15:30 - Haiti: 89% unbanked, cash insecurity, and a local merchant network accepting digital assets
17:00 - Why there is friction in moving from digital funds to fiat funds.
18:00 - How post-9/11 AML legislation excluded low-income communities, immigrants, and charities
22:00 - How blockchain addresses the compliance vs. access tradeoff, and its limitations
25:20 - Transparency vs. privacy: the challenge of open ledgers and user-controlled data
26:15 - Zero-knowledge proofs: proving facts without revealing identity
28:30 - Blockchain as the foundation for privacy features, not a barrier to them
30:05 - Real-world blockchain applications already in the wild
33:30 - Agentic commerce: smart contracts, micropayments, and baked-in dispute resolution
34:50 - Non-financial use cases for blockchain
36:30 - Supply chain fraud and why an immutable ledger changes export enforcement
37:30 - What makes Candace most hopeful: regulators, traditional finance, and proactive detection
About Candace Kelly
Candace Kelly is the Chief Legal and Policy Officer of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization focused on working with and supporting changemakers to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. She leads SDF’s legal team, that is responsible for all of SDF’s legal affairs and the policy team that is focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors and fostering dialogue with global regulators and policymakers.
Prior to joining SDF, Candace worked for Uber Technologies, Inc., where she held a variety of positions, helping to navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advising on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection, and law enforcement response.
Candace brings many years of legal experience to SDF, most notably her 17 year career at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), where she held positions as a legal and policy advisor on national security, criminal, and civil rights issues in leadership offices in Washington D.C. and as a prosecutor in the Northern District of California. During her time with DOJ, she also served as Special Counsel for National Security for the Director of the FBI. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Williams College and a Juris Doctor from University of California (UC), Hastings College of the Law.
Candace is a member of the Janet Reno Endowment Advisory Committee at the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, and an Advisory Board Member for the UC Hastings Center for Business Law.
Connect with our guest, Candace Kelly: LinkedIn
