Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / CLARITY Doomsday Approaches!🚨Hope Lost?🔥Kevin Wysocki INTERVIEW🏛️Anchorage Digital

Transcript

CLARITY Doomsday Approaches!🚨Hope Lost?🔥Kevin Wysocki INTERVIEW🏛️Anchorage Digital · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Clarity Act. Doomsday is up on us today.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: We're going to be breaking that down where the bullish
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: side is and where the bearish side is. You don't
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: want to miss it. Let's just jump right in. I
• 0:08
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  Speaker 2: hard wallet.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: So check it out. Use our link down below.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's going to give you a little bit of a
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: discount all right before we bring our guest in today,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: which is going to be a good one around the
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: possibility of Clarity getting through or not. I wanted to
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: go to the polymarket odds right here, and as you
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: can see on the six hour, we have seen some
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: pretty big dips all the way down to thirty six
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: percent and now holding it around forty six forty seven
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: percent on the possibility of the Clarity Act signing in
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to law in twenty twenty six. The problem is that
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: this is considerably down if you look at this over time.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: When you look at it over time, we've had high
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: percentages up as high as eighty two percent. We are
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: half of that, guys, almost, And this is the concern
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: right now I have as to whether or not it
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: is occurring. A couple of points I want to hit
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: on right here is the Bitcoin conference, which may be
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: indicative of what.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: The market is doing.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of events out there that were
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: not necessarily showing a lot of people coming. So this
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: is an issue. It's an indication I think that that
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the bubble. I don't know that I would say the
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: bubble is pop but definitely the bear market is here.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And of course the bear market is.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Going to be let out by one significant thing, and
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: that is going to be legislation. And the legislation that
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, of course, is the Clarity Act. I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: want to go to a clip by Senator Lummis talking
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: about that at the event.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Take a look.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: We are going to mark up the Clarity Act in May.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: We are going to get it to the finish line
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: with a lot of time and a lot of patience,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and I'm running out of both traditional banking opposing the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Clarity Act because they didn't like the Genius Act. So
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: we're having to relitigate the Genius Act while we move forward.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Ethics is another issue that we've encountered. That one we're
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: bringing to a close.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: What can people do to help?
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: How are we going to get it done?
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: Don't let them get away with are you allowed to
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: say bullshit arguments in those page that are totally false flags?
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: Our government appears incapable of getting anything done. My name's
• 2:41
  Speaker 6: Paul Greywall, and I am the chief legal officer at Coinbase.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: New legislation promises hope and indeed clarity, but the builders,
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: the ones making this all possible, are skeptical, weary, scared,
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: and frankly angry.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: All right, So you see some of the biggest players
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: out there in the industry, both from the legislative branch,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: but also in the sense that we're seeing the industry,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the leaders of the crypto industry that are concerned about
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: We wanted to get one of the people who maybe
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: looks at this in a different way, especially around the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: positive side of that and that is Kevin Wasaki, who
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: is the head of policy over at Anchorage Digital.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: How are you, Kevin.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: I'm doing well, Paul. Thanks for having me.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So I looked at your tweet here and I'm kind
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: of on the other side of this, but I wanted
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: you to kind of give us a framework of what
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: you were mentioning here. I'm growing more and more bullish
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: on the prospects of a market structure passing in twenty
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: twenty six. This of course was back in March. But
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: are you still in that sense right now? Is that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you're bullish on this position?
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: Definitely. We've already had the House pass the spill last year,
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: right we had about a third of the Democrats then
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: in all the Republicans. The bill is roughly ninety percent
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: similar to the Senate version of the bill. It's natural
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: for ebs and flows in the legislative process. There's a
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: lot going on right now, whether they're talking about world events,
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: economic events, and members are still focused on this in
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: the Senate Banking Committee. Uh, the ag Committee in the
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: Senate has already passed us and there are really like
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: two major issues that they need to iron out, and
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: I think they're making progress on both of them.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So I look at what Senator Lamas, who has been
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: one of the most outspoken Congress people on this issue,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and I think, really it's it's kind of put almost
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: her career stamp on the line. If this does not
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: go through, Is this going to be looking really bad
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: for her?
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: No, No, I think she's she's done so much already
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: as a Senator. She's she's had a number of accomplishments.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: Obviously in the cryptosphere. She was metal and helping getting
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: the Genius Act pass last year, and that's that's another
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: kind of, uh, kind of positive thing. I actually think
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: for market structure, Genius was a huge onlock right the
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: fact that that was passed by in a bipartisan way
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: by Congress and the President signed it. We've now on
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: shore a number of companies back to the United States,
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: whether it's tethered with Anchorage Digital and issuing that stable coin.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: We've done that with Athena Labs. I think what market
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: structure really enables is for Tradify to get into this space.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: It enables more investment from international players to come to
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: the United States. So I think that it's going to
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: lead to a lot of innovation a lot of jobs,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: and I think everyone on the left and the right
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: understands that. And you've you've really seen that actually with
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: amount of support over the last like three years, that's
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: really grown among Democrats. I would say previously, maybe the
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: maybe the second or third year of the Biden st
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: you didn't see a lot of Democrats that were willing
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: to stick their neck out for crypto policies, are pro
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: crypto policies, and that changed. You saw that with the
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: SAT one twenty one vote and the Senate about twenty
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: percent of the Senators voted for that, the Democratic senators
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: that is. And then also in the House you had
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: market structure passed and the last year of the Biden administration,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: Trump comes in right, obviously, the agencies have done a
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: number of things. We get genius across the finish line,
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: and that momentum is going to continue to carry. I
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: think right now we're at a little bit of a standstill,
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: but in May where we're likely, like Lummis set in
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: that video, to have a vote at the Senate Banking
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: Community level. That still gives us June to pass it
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: at the full Senate level, and then in July we
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: can pass it in the House and the President can
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: sign it before the August recess.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: All right, Kevin, So to your point, I guess the
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: status and you hit on some deadlines here, because we'll
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: get to that in a second, because there are some
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: key times here that we need to kind of break down.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: But in terms of Clarity's status right now, what would
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: you say is the key thing holding it back from
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: moving forward?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Somewhat unanimously?
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: I think for the Senate Banking Committee markup in May,
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: they need to get to an agreement on stable coin yield.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: Senator Stillis and Senator also Brooke, along with white House
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: and a couple other key members have been working on
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: that agreement. They've been closed for a while, but they're
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: fine tuning that. I think they're going to get it
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: across the finish line soon. And the reason for that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: The reason for that is I believe the banks if
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: they really want to have rewards changed so they are
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: more limited. The last train leaving the station is this
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: market structure bill before Genius goes into effective January on
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: January twenty twenty seven, So I think there's a strong
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: incentive to come to an agreement on stable coin yield
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: before that so ironically, I think the banks are very
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: helped here on market structure legislation. I know it's not
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: talked about in that way, but I think that's actually true.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: So that's to get it to the Senate Banking Committee.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: I don't know that we're going to get a bipartisan
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: vote on that. We still might get a partisan vote
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: on that based on the fact that we still need
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: to do a little bit of work on the ethics policies,
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: and that's something that the Democrats have said that they
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: wanted an annow. Senator Tillis has said recently that he
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: wants as well. My understanding is at the committee level
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: that can't be resolved. But before there's a full committee vote,
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: it would need to be resolved, or excuse me, a
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: full Senate vote, it would need to be resolved. And
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of possibilities there. I don't
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: know exactly what will get enough Republicans and Democrats on board,
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: but there are things like CFTC commissioners. Right now there
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: are no Democrats CFTC commisioners. You can compromise on that.
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: Maybe there are some marketing restrictions on how you can
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: go about marketing's particular coins. If you are a policy maker,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: maybe there's a timeline right that can be adjusted on
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: like when this would go to an effect. So there
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: are a lot of levers there. I don't know which
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: ones will be pulled. I don't know which ones necessarily
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: like the White House is looking at, or what like
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: Senate Dems really want. But I think there's room for
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: an agreement there. And I think the reason for that
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: is enough people have bought into crypto. Whether you're on
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: the left or the right, you understand if you tokenize,
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: whether it's stocks or bonds or stable points, tokenizing the dollar,
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: it's an improved financial plumbing for our the American financial system.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: It helps with dollar dominance. It can make settlement atomics
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: so instantaneous, it can make it more affordable, you can
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: have better national security. So honestly, whether you're on the
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: left or the right, I don't know why you wouldn't
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: support this market structural legislation.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I do agree with that.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: What I don't agree with is that the banks are
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: even remotely assisting on this. I think in many cases
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: they put more and more roadblocks, doubled down on roadblocks,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: and then added roadbox behind the roadblocks, So that's a
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: concern I still have today. That kind of leans me
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: to the poly market, which is less than fifty percent
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: odds now, which is much lower than what I originally had.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: After I'd seen a lot of the antics that the
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: banks have done, and especially when you look at the
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: two reports that came out, one that came out of
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: the White House, then the pushback report from the Banking
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: the ABA, we have continued to see that now. Granted,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I think stable con yields may be a foregone conclusion
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: now in the sense that they are maybe something in
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: terms of a compromise between the industry and the banks.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: We'll see how it goes, because they haven't shown us
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the markup language and they're not going to from what
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: The other thing that I think is going to be.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: The biggest issue is the ethics redline, which is the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: one that even when I had Warren Davidson, I don't know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks ago, mister Davidson said
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: that very same thing, is that the ethics issue is
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: most likely going to be one of the big issues
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: facing this going forward. If that is the case, the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: ethics red line, what could possibly what could be a
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: possible compromise on the ethics. Is there anything that you've
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: heard on the street or in DC that might indicate
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: that this might be somewhat resolved.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of speculation as to how that could
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: be resolved. It could be something with CFTC commissioners making
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: democrats or making sure Democrats get some Democrat commissioners soon.
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: It could be with marketing restrictions. There are a handful
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: of things being thrown out. I don't know exactly what
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: could be decided upon, but I think really though, like
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: one of the things you said about like the banks, right,
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: like there was this letter that came out urging a
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: delay or more time and extension on like some of
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: the comment for the implementation of Genius. You know what
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: Crypto actually asked for the exact same thing when that
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: the comment letter for excuse me, when the NPR from
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: the OCC first came out, right, So it's actually in
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: line with what Crypto originally had asked for. I get
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: that it's a tactic obviously to try to slow fares down,
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: but at the same time, it's it's not different from
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: what Crypto had asked for, and I ultimately don't think
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: it's going to have any teeth in the sense that
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: it's not I think the OCC and the other regulators
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: are going to stay with the timelines that they've already
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: put in place. At most maybe with the OCC you'll
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: get a fifteen day extension, but I think no extension
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: is most likely. So I don't think that tactic is
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: going to be successful. And there are a lot of
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: things that are done in Washington that don't really accomplish
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: a lot.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I get it, I get it. I don't
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: you know, with the tactics that are coming out of
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: the a BA and most of the banking side of it,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: we just we've just seen so much that have been
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: very strategic to kind of push this thing along, which
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: really to me gets us into a very high risk
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: proposal on not getting this done before the summer break,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: and to your point, that could be a big deal. Now,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: the ethics issue. Tom Tillis was on Twitter just yesterday
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: talking about this very issue, is that he felt that
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: this has got to be resolved. You look at some
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of the things that could happen on the world liberty
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: FI issue, because that's most likely going to be the
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: one here there's first of all, the WARLD Liberty five
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: is they're doing a token unlocked proposal, which would be
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: a possible track to possibly maybe aligning against this. My
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: question to you is do you think that the removal
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: because if you go over and look at just the
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Trump website on World Liberty five, this has been kind
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of the scenario that has happened where they had it
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: all the Trump's on there, then all of that was removed.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I just wonder was this being done.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a back room deal that's already been solidified
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: around the ethics issue, saying that you know, to your point,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: marketing has to be dropped, you have to go out
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: and pull your you know, your representation, all those kind
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: of thing.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's a possibility.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know anything about that. I just honestly,
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: from my time working on policy and crypto, what I've
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: experienced is just a dramatic increase in support among Democrats
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: and Republicans for the policies I remember when I was Tom.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Sorry to cut you off, but do you think Tom
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Tillis could stop this?
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: I think I think, honestly he's going to get to
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: yes on this legislation, right there are two different key votes. Right,
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: so you have the Senate Banking Committee vote. He's been
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: pretty adamant about stable point yield there. I don't know
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: that it's and this is what I've seen. I don't
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I don't think the Democrats have said that they would
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: not excuse me. I think we can get a passing
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: vote in the Senate Banking Committee without ethics language. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: I think that and that will likely in May. I
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: think from May to June. Right, sometime in June, you'd
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: like to have the full Senate vote on that. You
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: by yourself time if you pass the Senate Banking Committee
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: in May, and then continue to work on that issue.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: And that's similar to what happened in the Agriculture Committee.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: They all said, all the Democrats that we've been working
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: really closely with the Republicans as bill as terrific, all
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: these things. Unfortunately we can't vote for it today, but
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: we support this legislation. I think you might get something
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: similar in May, and then you're going to work until
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: June to pass it in the full Senate.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: All right, So I'm looking at a statement from the
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Republican Senator Tom Tillis and says there has to be
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: ethnic ethics language in the bill before it leaves the Senate,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: or I will go from one of the people working
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: on negotiating it to voting against it. This is coming
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: out of Politico, So he seems to put the line
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: in the sand right now that this is going to
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: be an issue.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's consistent with them saying what I'm saying
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: with the timeline in May. At the committee level, you
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: can still pass that and then you get it through
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: the committee and you continue to work in a bipartisan
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: way to come to a resolution on the ethics issues.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: All right, good enough, Okay, so let's take a look
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: at I want to go to the Patrick Wit clip
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: real quick because this is another thing that I'm kind
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: of curious about. What if it doesn't pass. I wanted
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you to take a look at this real quick.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: Well, obviously, here at the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas,
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: you know, an intense focus on bitcoin as an asset overall.
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: The presidents signed the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Executive Order last year.
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: So in the next few weeks we'll be making a
• 16:42
  Speaker 7: big announcement. I think we have a bit of a
• 16:44
  Speaker 7: breakthrough there, and obviously that needs to be followed up
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: with legislation. Senator Lummas is Bitcoin Act over in the House,
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: Representative Begoch has talked about the Armor Act that he
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: has put together, so we need to codify it. But
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: in the meantime, we do believe to be able to
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: take a big step forward from the executive brand side
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: of the next few weeks.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: That's huge news, all right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So this was broke just today out of the Bitcoin
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: conference talking about this strategic reserve possibly in the next
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: few weeks. My question is, do you think that Patrick
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Witt is laying the groundwork for giving the industry something
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: because Clarity may not make it through, and this would
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: be another alternative to kind of appease the industry as
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: a whole.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: No, I think they're mutually exclusive. I think you can
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: get both. Obviously, the executive order the administration has been
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: working roughly the last year to make the strategic Bitcoin
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: Reserve and also the crypto stockpile of reality. I think
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: we can get those and we can get market structure legislation,
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: and I think both are very bullish obviously for this industry,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: but again also kind of point to the fact that
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: like crypto has really arrived. When when I was a
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: staffer for Tom Memer, I remember going to some of
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: the initial meetings for the Blockchain Caucus in the House
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: and there were like three other members that would show up.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: We were just starting to learn the basics about bitcoin,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: and that was roughly ten years ago. Now now we're
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: passing major legislation. Now we're having major rule making at
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: the sec CFTC OCC. Now we have a FED chairman,
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: are likely to have a FED chairman that knows the
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: technology right, these are these are huge changes and welcome
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: developments and if we're going to yeah, I would.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Agree with all those very very positive for sure.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And you're lining up a lot of the things that
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: have to be in place, with exception of one, which
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: is the Clarity Act. And if this doesn't go through,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: essentially we're putting it in the hands of most likely
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: a Democratic House and Senate.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: What would be the possibility if this.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Does not go through in the summer of this even
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: being put into action after the midterms.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Well, I think the nice thing is is that the
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: agencies have led so much on many of these things, right,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: A lot of what we're trying to achieve in market
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: structure can be accomplished through agency action. Some of it
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: we've already seen, whether it's like tokenization of securities, things
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: like that. I view this approach is almost like the
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: agencies are the belt, the legislation as the suspenders. Right,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: it's better to have both, but you can do a lot.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: And yes, the next Congress might be challenging to move
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: market structure legislation, but we don't know what the next
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: presidential and next Congress after that will look like. And
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't necessarily count out this next congress either. For
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: all the reasons that we've already talked about the merits
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: and crypto, I think it makes a lot of sense
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: to get a federal regulatory umbrella for the crypto industry,
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: whether you want consumer protections, national security on showing all
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: the those things are more likely to happen with federal legislation.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Do you guys have a line on how many Democrats
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: you would need we would need as an industry to
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: get this through before the break?
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so the numbers are roughly I think last time
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: on Genius in the Senate, you had two Republicans that
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: didn't vote for that bill and the rest did so
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: I think you're going to need probably somewhere between nine
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: and eleven Democrats to come on board.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, yep, wow, Okay, Well, I want to see how
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: we pull that one off, because I'm just not seeing
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: that kind of support at least right now based on
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: what I'm hearing. Again, a lot of this will be
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: boiling down to many of the negotiations that are either
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: have already taken place or are taking place around yield.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: But more importantly, I think the red line is going
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: to be in this ethic side of things. Real quick,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I want to play another component because actually I want
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: to go to this clip real quick, because this is
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: a good one from Perry An.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Let's go to that one.
• 21:00
  Speaker 8: A list of tokens that the SEC clearly stated are
• 21:06
  Speaker 8: digital commodities. What we've seen is the market has reacted
• 21:11
  Speaker 8: to that, and now those tokens are trading at a premium,
• 21:13
  Speaker 8: particularly in Asian markets. What comments do you have for
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: market participants about getting additional clarity and just addressing the list.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: We gave a lot of examples and these are all illustrations.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: It wasn't meant to be like a firm or immutable
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: sort of list.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: All right, So it was Atkins and Perry im boring
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: talking about the potential of market expansion, meaning market's going
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to go up if we do get clarity aligned. I mean,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: do you feel that that is the case right now?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Do you think the market will respond kindly to this?
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it would be really positive news. Again,
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: though there's already been so much positive news. We do
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: have the agency approach, which has been helpful, but yeah,
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: I think it would really make it clear that the
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: agencies have authorizations to do all the things that they're doing.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: It would mean that they're more permanent, it would be
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: harder to undo in the future, and it's very meaningful
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: to have like demonstrated bipartisan support in the House and
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: Senate going forward. The other thing I would say is,
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: I think too, like we've seen imagination at the kind
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: of like presidential level of where crypto stands. I would say,
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: in the last race, like obviously Trump was very pro crypto,
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: I think the future candidates, whether on the left or
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: the or right, are more likely to be pro crypto.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: So that's another reason for a kind of a bullish
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: like outlook on all this. Even if market structure doesn't
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: get across the finish line, I think we're going to
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: see a lot more policy makers over the coming years
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: that are pro crypto. It's hard to fathom the world
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: in which they can't say yes to faster, safer payments,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: to a stronger dollar, right, all these different things. So
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: either way, regardless of what happens in the short term,
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: even though I still think we're likely to get it
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: before the August recess, I still think there's there are
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: many reasons to be very positive about the outlook of
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: the regulatory environment for crypto for years to come.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: In DC, all right, I like, first of all, the
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: fact that you're so bullish is amazing because I like it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: But I'm just not there yet.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I think the issue still is faced with at least
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: right now, with what's going on with the Trump administration
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: and crypto that it really puts a bit of a
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: damper on this being able to get through just because
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: of this red line that I think Tillis is drawing out.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And he's not the first. I mean it's been you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Davidson had already talked about this. It's been thrown around
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: DC quite a bit. So they're either clearing something to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: get ready for and it's possible. World Liberty FI is
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: making a lot of these moves. We've seen deleted tweets,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: a website restructure completely now, tokein burn all kinds of
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: proposals out there to maybe accommodate for this.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So I am concerned.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I want to go over to this last point real quick,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: which is where the SEC.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Lands on this.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: And you see this right here from Plume talking about
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: the SEC formalizing the situation around DeFi rules. If the
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: SEC locks this in and they get it done, what,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: first of all, could this be future proofed against new
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: administrations that may not be as crypto friendly or would
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: they be able to simply tear out, tear down all
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: the policy because this is more policy than it is
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: law right now of what the SEC is doing.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts?
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the longer it's in effect and the
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: more companies are leaning on it for their businesses, it's
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: harder to entirely rip it out. Changes Again, though, I
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: think you're going to see future policymakers, whether on the
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: left and the right, be more pro crypto. So I
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: think that's foolish.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: For all this, Why hasn't it happened already?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Why why I think we've seen Well, then why would
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you need nine Democrats to pass this?
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: Well, I think these things are complicated. We're going to
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: make sure we get them right. And the fact is
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: in the in the House just a year ago, without
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: ethics language, you got the Clarity Act to pass with
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: over a third of them supporting it. Right, and they
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: they had similar concerns, but they still voted for it.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: Then you know what has changed? A few things have.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Changed, Well, a lot has changed.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: A lot has changed where Liberty five has changed Milennia token.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: We've seen all sorts of activities coming out of the
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: de iminonstration that I think has put crypto in a
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: bad position strategically to get this through DC because it
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: just because of the political temperature that is in DC
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: But we've also seen increased business like use cases for
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: crypto right the stable, I've gone up like one hundred
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: million in circular or excuse me, one hundred billion in circulation.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: Tokenization is really taking off. You see tradifi companies announcing
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: crypto projects all the time. This is becoming mainstream. In fact,
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: like the banks, even though they're often opposed to yield,
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: there they themselves are launching a number of stable coin
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: products or they want to issue themselves. Everyone knows this
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: is the future. So overriding all the politics is I
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: think that the products worked and they're better for the
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: American people.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about crypto taxes for a second.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: You've got this day.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: We're right here from Chair Johnson Smith or Jason Smith
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: saying crypto tax package coming very soon. They're at the
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: one yard line right now on the tax bill. Do
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: you think that has a possibility of needing clarity or
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: do you think this is a completely separate scenario that's
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: going to play out.
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, completely separate, And I would say that taxes are
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: a harder lift than clarity right now. We have to
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: find pay for us for that. I think the committees
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: of jurisdiction are like so the ways and means in
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: the Senate Finance Committee are getting more comfortable with digital assets,
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: whereas the communities of jurisdiction for market structure, whether it's
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: agg whether it's financial services, whether it's banking, they're much
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: more in tune with what's going on in the industry already.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: So I think the tax stuff is going to be
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: a little bit slower to arrive, and I think market
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: structure hopefully will happen before.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so a lot depends on these packs
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: that are in DC that kind of dictate where this
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: money is being spent to help promote these events. I'm
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: looking at one of your tweets right here. You guys
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: put some corporate resources between are around the Blockchain Leadership Fund.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: So with that, is this essentially just fair Shake rebranding
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: or is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: This a completely new entity?
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: Tell me about this completely new The idea is to
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: push for a pro crypto policy. It doesn't matter if
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: you're on the left or the right. We want good
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: outcomes on pro crypto policy. So that obviously means supporting
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: the Clarity Act, but it means, like what you just
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: pointed out with tax policy, we need some enhancements there.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: And I'm sure there are going to be other things
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: that come up in the future. Maybe we'll see a
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: tokenization build down the road. All those different things, we
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: want to see really good policy outcomes on those, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: I think the packs are a useful tool to be
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: able to network with folks, to talk with people and
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: continue to push for good policy.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Kevin, I'm looking at something that to me is a
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: horror story about ready to happen because we've lived through
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: this before, and that is Gary Gensler making it very
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: clear that he does not like this prediction market thing.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: So he's hovering around still making statements here, and he
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: basically says that congres didn't have this in mind when
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: they dictated this out to the CFTC. If he's joining
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: kind of an anti prediction army out there right now,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the statements like this, what's the possibility of having another
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: you know, bureaucrat, legislator or shouldn't say legislator, bureaucrat and
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: rule maker essence like him back in these administrations.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: I would like to think that you're going to have
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: going forward, really pro innovation leaders, regardless of which administration
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: it is. I think if you look at some of
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: the front runners that are out there for the next
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: presidential whether it's the governor from California or the vice
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: president or the Secretary of State, I think they've all
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: had said some pretty favorable things about crypto in the past.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: They might not be perfect, but I think we're gonna
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: be in a world in the future where it's more
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: obvious to everyone in these administrations, that they need to
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: be on the side of innovation and they're going to
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: help push things along. Some obviously might not be as
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: pro say, crypto, as others, but I think we're going
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: to leave that era behind and going forward it's going
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: to be very positive for our industry.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Well, Kevin, I hope you're right, because the things that
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: we are seeing all the research, we continue to see
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: sid speak happening, meaning they go one way and then
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: they talk out over on this side. They tell us
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: one thing, they go this way. I mean, you even
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: had Gensler. This is in January of twenty five when
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: he was pro Calshie and now all of a sudden
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: he's out there putting out stuff like this. This is
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: the kind of problem that I think American businesses we
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: won't even talk about crypto. I'm just business in general
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: have with the administrations that we have seen in DC
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: continuously putting more regulatory frameworks around us, and now with crypto,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: we're getting to see this front and center. So I'm
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: still very very skeptical as this gets through. Just too
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: many big players putting too many big potholes in the way.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: But maybe you have risen my positivity up one percent today.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: So as I say, one percent better every day is
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: better than going backwards, right, definitely. All right, listen, it's
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: been good having you on. Thanks for coming in today.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: We do appreciate it. We're going to cover this in
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: much more. Good luck to you guys over at Anchorage Digital.
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Bob. Have a good one.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: If you like this video, like and subscribe, drop a
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: comment down below, and also join our free private member group.
• 31:40
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