Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Crypto vs. Congress Vacation: Are We Too Late?🕒with Ron Hammond | Blockchain Association

Transcript

Crypto vs. Congress Vacation: Are We Too Late?🕒with Ron Hammond | Blockchain Association · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

0:07
All right, let's take a look at crypto and the regulatory alignment. What's
0:12
happening around, not only the next few months because we've got obviously an election
0:17
happening, but we'll break it all down for you today. We've got a
0:19
special guest for you as well. My name is Paul Baron, Welcome back
0:22
in the tech path. Joining me today is Ron Hammond, who is the
0:25
director of Government Affairs over at the Blockchain Association. Great to have you back.
0:29
Thanks, it's always to be back. Yeah, we always get a
0:32
chance to break down I think strategies. It seems like timing is always right
0:38
for us. Of course, bitcoin going on the move a little bit.
0:41
We've seen we'll see now with Trump and his vice president's election, obviously things
0:48
that have happened here in the last week, and then you've got the Bitcoin
0:51
conference happening eth ETF is now approved. Man. Just you know, everything's
0:55
aligning here, Ron, So we're gonna break it all down. First thing
0:58
I want to hit you with is this right here, and that is the
1:00
congressional calendar. So I'm looking here at the dates and I'm thinking, Ron,
1:07
tell me, how with everything that's going on, how we're going to
1:10
get anything past this year because you've got almost a whole month off in August
1:15
coming up, and then almost all of October, so really just a handful
1:19
of days in September, November, and December holiday ridden. So what what's
1:23
your opinion there? No, you're exactly right. You're looking at a lot
1:27
of the things that we're going to hear in DC, which is there's not
1:30
much time and every single time with the presidential election, you know, there's
1:33
major events in this year, especially massive major events. I have really altered
1:38
both of you know, the ployable calculus, but also just politics United States
1:42
as a whole. So you know, the question that happens a lot of
1:45
time in this calendar is very standard for an election year. They always have
1:49
October and August offer campaign, which you know, they obviously want to keep
1:53
their jobs and so they want to be back in the districts here. So
1:56
right now, what we're looking down the barrel aff is setate agriculture. They're
1:59
picking up Martra structure effort from the House. The fit twenty one bill Lee
2:04
conversion looks like, but they don't have much time to move that bill forward.
2:07
As you can see from the calendar here, we can potentially a vote
2:09
in that committee at the end of July, but even after then, it's
2:14
like September maybe at that of four votes. And then when you look at
2:16
Lame Duck and again that pital calculation, we have no idea and it all
2:20
depends on what happens in OME. So it's it's a very short time.
2:23
We've been here before two years ago stable coins, and we're trying to avoid
2:27
that again. Right. Well, I think the key here is as we
2:30
start to align is I think many people might look at this and say,
2:34
well, Okay, this is going to just end up in a twenty twenty
2:36
five calendar year, and this is going to be post election as things roll
2:40
out. But I'm kind of curious because you know, this isn't a slam
2:44
dunk for sure, and I know Elon Musk, I don't know if this
2:46
is confirmed, but estimates now saying that about forty five million a month to
2:51
pro trunk Trump election group, which is called the America Pack, And this
2:57
was kind of confirmed right here that Trumps pulled in about three and thirty one
3:00
million, three million of that coming in from crypto. Here's my question,
3:04
with this much money in the pipe, how does this translate down ballot,
3:08
because that to me is really the big question, especially in twenty twenty five,
3:14
is is how do we control the House? In the Senate would say
3:15
we crypto and blockchain as a lobbying effort. How do we stack up in
3:22
the House And does this make a difference. It makes a huge difference.
3:25
I used to run campaigns in Texas in the state Senate, and I know
3:28
that, you know, campaign money is the lifeline that you need to run
3:31
it a successful campaign. It's not you know, mantory by any means.
3:35
But Crypto has really stepped up to the play here from a lot of execs
3:38
giving off, to your point, a lot of money here. And also
3:40
the fair Shape pack is one of the largest packs in DC, and so
3:44
they've carried a lot of weight and they've also had a winning track record.
3:46
I think it's thirty three and two right now in Congress, and it's both
3:49
Republicans and Democrats in primary. So it's been a really awesome thing to see.
3:53
But you know, at least when it comes to at least the dollars
3:58
to be involved in the campaign side here. The one thing I've noticed,
4:00
especially from the White House recently, but also a lot of Democrats and those
4:02
in Congress is there's a voting block here, and actually that voting block significant
4:06
poll after poll after poll that they could actually influence this election, even if
4:11
it's minor in some way here and there, that could be the deciding factor
4:14
for states like Ohio or states like Virginia now potentially Pennsylvania. So that these
4:17
are major events to be watching. But also crypto is a major voter base,
4:23
and a lot of folks, myself included, were kind of shocked by
4:26
the sheer numbers of it. But it does there's seam at least to be
4:29
playing pretty well, and DC's woken up. I will say that I was
4:32
looking at our own crypto political tracker. Trump continues to climb, actually took
4:38
a nice jump right here. Over the last week. Biden has really fallen
4:42
off. He was stabilizing a little bit here compared to RFK, but it
4:47
has really fallen off here a little bit. I want to jump to an
4:50
interview that was done by Lester Hole. We have a clip from it.
4:55
I know we're not listen, guys, I promise you this is not elder.
4:58
I just want to make sure we have a framework of what we're dealing
5:00
with her in terms of our presidency. Let's go to that clip real quick.
5:05
Your allies, James Clyburn Nancy Pelosi have kind of put it out there
5:09
that they're waiting for your decision, giving you time to make your decision.
5:13
What I hear from you is that you made your decision. Are you still
5:16
comfortable in that decision? Has anything changed in the last several days? No,
5:20
what happens if you have another episode like we saw during the debate.
5:27
What happened? Yeah, what happened? What happens if you have another performance
5:31
on that part on that level, I don't plan to have a lot for
5:36
us. All Right, mister president. It's always good to talk to you,
5:41
man. I just this just keeps happening. What is the likelihood of
5:46
Biden actually being the nominee? Here's the election forecast currently right now. This
5:51
is just on the forecast for the presidency. Obviously Trump is pretty much a
5:57
landslide. But if you look at kind of the alignment here, even if
6:01
you did a swap, this is looking at polymarket, which I don't know
6:03
if you've been tracking this poll market is looking at you know, what's it's
6:08
very intriguing. I mean, it's a lot like the old Nate Silver poles,
6:12
you know, ten years ago. But it seems to be the hot
6:15
the hot pole of the day. But Kamala, of course, looks like
6:18
she could actually be in a better position here. Is there any any indication
6:24
that this might change before November or at least before the DNC, at least
6:29
right now in the conversations I'm having with a lot of Democrats here in DC,
6:31
it does not seem to be changing anytime soon. And again, I
6:33
know there's been a lost story dot Kamala, you know, rising the poles
6:36
here or at least pulling better potentially than Joe Biden. But at the end
6:41
of the day, President Biden, it's his call. You know. Folks
6:44
in Congress can complain or assid step down, but it is his call at
6:46
the end of the day. And I think after the events that happened over
6:49
the weekend, you know, there is this looming feeling for some folks here
6:53
in DC on the Democrat side that therefrogu to lose the White House Senate was
6:58
already likely going to be really tough for them to maintain anyway, but the
7:00
House now but could be in jeopardy where Democrats are feeling more confident about the
7:04
House and now it seems like it could be a clean sleep on the Republican
7:06
side. But I want to preface that we have four months, so we
7:10
have a long time in this election, and this just short amount of time.
7:13
Look at what's happened, so yeah, we'll see it's a big one.
7:16
If you look at polymarket, here's the Senate eighty percent right now,
7:19
looks like it's going to be a landslide over there as well for that.
7:23
But to your point, on the House side could really play into this.
7:27
I mean, this really plays into a very positive narrative for at least the
7:31
next four years. If this does happen come November, if we get a
7:34
sweep on both the House and the Senate and the presidency, we haven't seen
7:40
that before in a very long time. So is this would this really give
7:44
us the chance to get a lot of legislation through or do you feel like
7:48
there'd be enough resistance from the counter parties out there that would still slow it
7:53
down. That's the thing, you know, when I'm talking to a lot
7:56
of folks in the industry, they're saying, you know, we're all on
7:58
the Trump train, or we're all the Democrats side here, and you know,
8:01
it's very binary choices sometimes. But what I'm telling them is, hey,
8:03
look, even if it's a clean sweep on the Republican side, you're
8:05
going to have to deal with Democrat centers. You know, there are sixty
8:07
vote thresholds several times that you're going to have to cross, and you're going
8:11
to need to be across the aisle for that. So I think, you
8:13
know, it's represent a really good job of having by Parson wins here on
8:18
the campaign side and building by Parson base. And again we saw rokinda leaning
8:20
that roundtable last week at the White next to the White House, and then
8:24
again it's an effort to show, hey, the Democrats have been kind of
8:26
giving up this issue. The Republicans see this as a new policy ground here.
8:31
They can really differentiate themselves from the Democrats here and potentially capture a lot
8:35
of the youth vote. And it seems to be working really well in their
8:39
favor. And that's where you know, we're seeing it now in the Republican
8:41
Party platform, which is incredible to see because you know, self custody,
8:45
for example, was in there for the Republican Party, and it was back
8:48
in twenty nineteen President Trump, which trying to really go screw over self custody
8:52
the Treasury for that midnight rule making. So it's funny see Republican Party,
8:56
but also Trump have really changed your opinion over time. And the last thing
9:00
I want to say is the poly market. I think from a lot of
9:01
sources. I'm here on the Trump side, you know, that really got
9:05
him into the crypto ideas with poly market poles, and actually here in Capitol
9:09
Hill, I've had a lot of conversations in the past week just about poly
9:13
market. A lot of folks are excited and it's it's kind of bringing this
9:15
whole predicted style again with the little crypto flair with politics, and so you
9:20
know, it's it's a very interesting thing to see. But we'll be seeing
9:24
how the effects are in Congress. But we really do need that bypards support
9:28
and we do tend to keep that for quite a couple of point. A
9:30
couple of points here. I want to hit on you. You kind of
9:31
mentioned there first. I want to go back to your topic about the crypto
9:35
roundtable. Do you feel like that was more of a waste of time because
9:39
there was no real ranking member there outside of Rocana, and definitely nobody from
9:45
the administration. I get that, you know, the administrative staff was there,
9:50
but obviously not the vice president, not the president there on this crypto
9:54
round table. Was it waste of time? So I talked about a half
9:58
a dozen folks who were there, both in the state side as well as
10:00
those participants, including our CEO is a blockche association. Chris Smith was there,
10:03
Mark Cuban was there. I talked to folks at Kraken Coin base Block
10:09
Jim and I. You know, they all said very very positive things abou
10:11
the whole situation and started Joe nine galaxy. And again it's you know,
10:16
there's a lot of this whole idea. It was a BS meeting, and
10:18
I don't think it was everyone did say, look, we were stripped with
10:22
them, and really stern saying this has been a problem for quite some time.
10:24
Yes, hec is not obviously not here, but they are a major
10:28
problem for us, and the White House has been laying this happen. And
10:31
again I want to stress this is the craziest week for President Bien. Last
10:35
week and of course before the asassinations. Yeah, and they sent a top
10:37
five policy staffer. And again view of Joe Biden as as you will,
10:41
but the staff do have a lot of power and it's important that they send
10:46
a top five person to be at this event. So again I didn't think
10:48
it was a thing, and everyone I've been talking to who was there says
10:52
it was all positive. But again, maybe it's a little a little too
10:56
late, So we'll see what happens, you know, if there's an effectory
10:58
on the policy side. But yeah, it doesn't look like it doesn't look
11:01
like from at least the polymarket side. What we've done on our own crypto
11:05
tracker in terms of and these are crypto voters that are looking at leaning in
11:11
and Trump is clearly a landslide winner right now. You and going back to
11:15
the other topic that you meant or that you talked about, and that is
11:18
winning over some of these senators. Obviously, we saw Senator Fetterman. He
11:22
kind of seems to have shifted sides here a little bit with some of his
11:26
comments. How many more are like that, maybe set to turn with more
11:33
education, because I think that's what happened in the Trump camp and with a
11:37
lot of Republicans is they were just getting to get educated. You know.
11:39
It wasn't that they didn't like it, it was just they didn't know.
11:41
You know. So what about now? We are we close to turning some
11:46
senators maybe to where we could really coil up for twenty twenty five definitely,
11:50
And I think Senator Fetnerman that clip is actually really important because it does show,
11:54
you know, during a line of question he had regarding moss by ancing
11:58
with potentially crypto, the witness actually pushed back on that. And we've seen
12:03
that now, you know, culminating to that interview where he says, hey,
12:05
look, I've learned. I've had a pre assumption that it was crypto.
12:07
I was told from my colleagues it was crypto, and guess what it
12:11
wasn't. And I have learned from that, and I'm now publicly saying that.
12:13
And that's the kind of changing of minds that we need here in DC.
12:16
We just can't be, you know, throwing darts at everyone here.
12:18
We have to say, hey, look, you know, come to the
12:20
fold here. The crypto army is growing on like crazy. The anti crypto
12:22
army, whatever is left of it, is shrinking by the moment. And
12:26
so yeah, you know, just having that momentum. The momentum has been
12:30
incredible here in DC the past four months, and I think we need to
12:33
keep building on that. But understanding that, hey, we can't be you
12:35
know, keys it toward to a lot of folks who maybe just have no
12:37
idea about the industry and it's not educated well enough, because as we've seen,
12:41
education works and we've seen people on the record flipping their position. Yeah,
12:46
for sure, I want to get into another scenario that's happening out there.
12:48
It's not that we don't have enough political news, and that of course
12:52
is with RFK a couple of scenario says happened. He of course, was
12:56
has whether this was a leak or incompetence. I don't know which side.
13:00
I would feel better if it was a league that he This was in reference
13:03
to Trump calling him and saying, hey, just you know, give up,
13:05
come over to our side. We're going to put you an administration.
13:09
That's pretty typical of administrations to go into candidates like this and say, hey,
13:13
maybe it's time for you to throw in the towel, isn't it sorts?
13:18
You know, usually at least put the third party candidates. In the
13:20
past, it's been more of hey, you're gonna take votes away from me,
13:22
and I need you to, you know, fall in line here so
13:26
I can shore up and win the election. It seems more, you know,
13:28
there's an branch approach here. And again, I think Trump has been
13:31
really changing a lot of his tactics and it seems to be playing well for
13:33
him, at least on the campaign side, where he's been a lot more
13:35
open to folks from a variety of backgrounds to be more in the fold with
13:39
him. So we'll see how that translates to November. But at least right
13:43
now, there seems to be a lot more ali branch outreach, and of
13:46
course there's campaigns and there's a lot of weeks involved, so I would not
13:50
be shocked. Yeah, I think that's the key. And of course,
13:54
if you look at RFK statement, it said, hey, when he called
13:56
me, I was taping an in house videographer. I mean, he's kind
13:58
of like, i'mied, So he's apologizing to the president all that. So
14:03
maybe it was just a sheer mistake. Okay, I'm hoping that that was
14:07
kind of the scenario, but hey, it's politics. I don't put anything
14:09
past it. You never know the calculative measures. Yeah, you never know
14:15
the calculative measures that are taking place. Here's another thing, man, we've
14:18
got MICA absolutely tearing it up staking one on one. MICA now they're outright
14:26
staking activity. So there's no special license that are needed if you're staking your
14:30
own crypto assets. That's new staking as a service, also new custody for
14:35
services under MEKA. And then they've got client consent in here, which if
14:39
you've got a service was taking service, you get a client consent, which
14:43
is always done. Point being is there's a lot of standards being set in
14:48
place now that MICA is in force, and we're starting to see real movement
14:52
here. And when you look at that and this next clip, I'm going
14:56
to show you a clip here that gets into a couple of points here.
15:01
This of course is vlad Tenev, who is the CEO of robin Hood,
15:03
says, let's start with crypto. Our European customers can now earn staking rewards
15:09
on their soul holdings, flexibility on staking acent This is live in Europe today.
15:15
And you go to this clip and I want to I want your opinion
15:16
on this because I'm hoping some of the staffers you know in capitol here are
15:20
watching this because they're going to be hopefully going back to their senators and their
15:24
reps and letting people know what's happening. This is an interview with Vlad that
15:30
breaks down how different the I guess the current climate is. Take a look.
15:37
But I think what we have the benefit of seeing because we sort of
15:41
like have both of these businesses right and we can see them side by side,
15:45
and we now can look at crypto and the EU brokerage in the UK
15:48
as well, is the cost of running a crypto business is like an order
15:56
of magnitude lower because you get to leverage so much of the public infrastructure,
16:00
and these public blockchains do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to
16:03
settlement and transactions. And you can to some degree see this with dollar stable
16:07
coins overseas. You don't have to squint too hard to imagine a world where
16:14
stocks are on blockchains and are tokenized. There's like a view of crypto as
16:18
a technology layer that's going to be really accelerated once people understand that there's just
16:25
like a huge efficiency advantage. I think that'll become increasingly clear and Robin can
16:30
be a leader there. So I mean, he just pretty put it out
16:33
there. This is a publicly traded company in the United States that simply says
16:38
it's easier to do business in the EU and more profitable. And by the
16:44
way, the entire stock market is getting ready to shift to this. So
16:48
you're talking about the very financial system that pretty much makes the United States the
16:52
most powerful country in the world that is now being at risk in the EU.
17:00
And all of this is happening in front of us right now. Ron,
17:03
surely this has got to stop. Yeah. Actually, it's not even
17:06
just like the industry saying that, hey, the EU is taking the lead
17:08
here. We have the CFTC chair. Back in March at the House at
17:11
Committee, he admitted it, saying that, look, I'm seeing firms leave
17:15
the United States and that's bad for jobs, bad for consumer protection. It's
17:19
not good to have these businesses who started here for the most part move overseas.
17:22
And now he is seeing that at the agency level, and that really
17:26
just show again it comes down to one agency for the most part. You
17:29
know, we have issues sometimes you're here and there, but it's the SEC
17:32
and you know, the SLEW enforced actions that are still ongoing. They drop
17:36
the ethereum one, but we're still seeing consensus and like it's it's crazy.
17:41
I think that every you know, top company in this space, for the
17:42
most part in the United States has some form of legal action from the SEC
17:47
in one form or another. And the amount of core cases is pre staggering
17:52
and so this can't keep going on. And I look, of course,
17:55
like folks like myself as a lobbyist, you know, we're higher because these
17:56
companies are having a hard time. I mean clear rules of the road and
18:02
me shouldn't be existing like which should be clear rules of the roads. You
18:04
don't have to hire lobbies where lawyers who will fight yourself or the SEC in
18:08
court or to defend yourself. It's it's crazy the amount of business costs it
18:12
does. And unfortunately, you know a lot of folks in DC are waking
18:17
up. It's just the SEC chair for the majority. There are other folks
18:19
out there too, but they don't see that that way, and they see
18:22
that there are being consumers harmed here and they really need to step in and
18:26
take as much authority as possible. And that's a huge settlement to yea Unice
18:33
last point here because now it's you know, it feels like a dog pile
18:36
now, you know from what's happening globally, and that is Japan has now
18:41
jumped into the mix. Here busiest crypto summer in Japan yet. So they've
18:45
got their blockchain summon in Tokyo that just happened or getting ready to happen.
18:48
They're ed con for Ethereum Salona Super Tokyo, and then they're rolling down into
18:55
the WebEx twenty twenty four, which is going to have look at the lineup
18:59
here. So the Japanese have clearly kind of put it into a position of
19:03
hey, we are ready for blockchain businesses open, and we're getting ready to
19:07
align our business practices with that of what's happening in blockchain right now, and
19:12
we think we can be a player, you know, in the world community.
19:15
This is a big opportunity. It definitely has I think leveled the playing
19:21
field. You know, when we kind of controlled Silicon Valley in the eighties
19:23
and nineties and became the powerhouse and technology, I think that was the birth
19:29
of really really American capitalism and individualism. Of the growth that we've seen,
19:36
we're at risk of losing this now in Japan's the really frustrating for me personally,
19:41
because I do remember we actually had a couple I've forgot if it's parliament
19:45
to call there, but we had to call members of their parliament come to
19:48
DC actually, and they met with us when I was working on Capitol Hill
19:51
with remsident of Davidson, and they're talking about the crypto build that we were
19:55
working on. They're really excited and we you know, we went back and
19:56
forth with a translator at them. It was really cool meeting. But they
20:00
actually I took a while those principles from that meeting, allegedly, and they
20:03
moved forward to go past at least the framework back was it a couple of
20:07
years back in Japan has done almost a one to eighty completely on crypto in
20:11
the past couple of years, and that has been really you know, it
20:14
sinks to see you because at least for here it's like, hey, it's
20:15
been an eight year bow for me personally, but you know, for others
20:18
in the industry twelve plus years and you know, we still you know,
20:21
we moved the needle a little bit this year, at least on the policy
20:23
side again with the ETFs and such, so a long way to go.
20:26
This is the election that's going to make or break the United States, So
20:30
voting is the number one thing you guys can do out there. And of
20:33
course you're not supporting the Blockchain Association, make sure and jumping into that as
20:37
well. If you're a business out there that's doing anything in the crypto space,
20:41
you guys got to check out what Ron and his team are doing.
20:45
So Ron, thank you so much for coming in on the show today.
20:47
We appreciate it anytime. Paul, really appreciate it, and buckle up.
20:51
Let's gonna get busy soon. Business. I like it. Well, we'll
20:55
definitely have you back on because I think things are getting ready to shift pretty
20:56
quickly. We'll see how that plays into the the thing. I know you
21:00
have your policy something coming up in December, is that right? Correct?
21:03
Yeah, we have a Paul summer in December. I'll be Bitcoin Nashville next
21:07
week and yeah, we'll see what happens with Trump campaign and everything going on.
21:11
But I mean, all conversations I've been having on my side personally with
21:14
them, it's been going really positive and that's good. VP candidate chat than
21:18
multiple times and he has been rock solid on this issue. So I give
21:22
you at we had a long way go. Yeah very much. So thanks
21:26
again for stopping in. We appreciate it. Thanks you bet all right,
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21:52
on X do that, it's at Paul Baron. Catch you next time right
21:53
here on tech Path