Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Crypto Pumps After Epic Loss?🚀Anchorage Digital INTERVIEW

Transcript

Crypto Pumps After Epic Loss?🚀Anchorage Digital INTERVIEW · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Is a blue wave rally incoming today? I'll break it down.
• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: As well.
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• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to start tax planning soon. And
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: IRAs are one of the diversification things that you should
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: be doing to set yourself up for success. It's going
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to be good because I'm going to have a very
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: special guest who's joined us before. And that is Kevin Wysocki,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: who is the head of policy over at Anchorage Digital.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And he is back on the show. Great to have you.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Paul. I'm glad to be here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So a couple of points, Kevin. I just want to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: kick off, obviously, with The results from the midterms last night,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: absolute bloodbath across the party. I think almost every state,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: including the great state of Texas, has fallen. The republic
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is in question. But when I look at your predictions,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you've got it right here. It says you think they're
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: going to pass the crypto tax reform bill. You think
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that's coming. National Defense Authorization Act includes some crypto provisions.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Tell me about that. And the market structure, not going
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to get flown in. Obviously, this will all play into this.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Other hearings that will be expected around these topics, hacks
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and security, the CFTC and SEC rulemaking, Genius Act rewards,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: which is what we're talking about here in terms of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: stablecoin rewards, vertical integration, DeFi and consumer. Man, you got
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a line list here, Kevin. This is a line list.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: We already know what the CFTC and the SEC rulemaking
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: has done for the market. It's been very bullish here.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's any risk of that becoming slowed
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: down in any way or possibly even with what's happening
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in the CFTC? Because we still have not seen those
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: commissioners come on board, most likely Democratic. Could that possibly
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: refocus the entire efforts of what C-League is trying to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: do over there?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they're going to stay the course over
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: at the CFTC and the SEC. I think they're going
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: to continue to be aggressive with rulemaking, with guidance, with
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: FAQs to explain the rulemakings. And I think that should
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: be welcomed by the industry, right? We've seen a huge
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: wave of traditional financial institutions get into this place. There's
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of talk about tokenized securities right now. Some
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: of that news specific to some of the crypto natives
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: isn't as great, but you look at like some of
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the projects like the DTCC has for tokenized securities, and
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of interest in that. So I think
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: it's going to be full bore from here with the regulators.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Well, you bring up... you know, tokenized stocks here. And
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: we have seen the pushback. It's been deep. Even Tesla,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: SpaceX abandoned ship the other day. The likelihood is this
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: starts to put a lot of pressure on OKEx Ice
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to be able to bring this to market. My question is,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: is who brings this to market? Is it, do you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: think this is TradFi trying to make maybe a flag
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in the market saying, no, it should really go through
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: this route, including what's happening over at the DTCC?
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: I think these markets are extremely competitive. And yes, I
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: think TradFi wants to be in this space. I think
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: crypto wants to be in this space. So there's going
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: to be a race, right? And they're going to pull
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: every lever to give themselves an advantage.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: More of this coming. DeFi and consumer protections, national security.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You have this on your congressional line list of hearings.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: What does that mean, though, for crypto in general? Does
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this mean new rulemaking? Or does this mean a lot
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of soundbites coming out of Congress?
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think obviously with the Democrats now in
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: control of the Congress starting next year, I think you're
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: going to hear some talking points around vertical integration, right?
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Right now, most crypto firms are a one-stop shop. They
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: provide exchange, custody, clearing, all those different services. I think
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: the Democrats are going to push back on that. And
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: when they go forward with market structure hearings and possibly legislation,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: they're going to say, no, we need real walls between
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: those types of activities, just like you see in traditional finance.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I also think some of the DeFi stuff is definitely
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: going to come up. Obviously, the developer protection stuff that
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: was central to the Clarity Act. At the end of that,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: there was a compromise that not everyone in DeFi agreed with,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: not everyone in crypto agreed with, where they took away
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: the safe harbor for.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: The criminal liability, right? For the developers. Things like that
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: are going to come up.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, listen, guys, we're going to be watching that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: one very closely. Uh, these are the things now that
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Trump cannot do. I want to do your thoughts on this.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: How powerless is he? He can't get any money. Uh,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: he can't pass a law. You know, he's possibly facing
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: an impeachment risk. Uh, he can't appoint judges. Uh, we're
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in a situation right now. He can't really do any
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: big foreign deals. So this changes almost everything with the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: exception of maybe executive orders. Um, How much of an
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: impact is this on crypto or is it zero impact
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: on crypto and it actually is good for crypto that
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it can't do these things?
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think this directly impacts crypto at all, right?
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: If we were to get into some of the specific
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: things here, maybe I disagree. I think like getting money,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I think the government's still going to be able to
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: cut deals. I think the Democrats and Trump will work
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: together on that. And you could see pretty robust like
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: spending packages going forward. which potentially could be rather bullish
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: for the economy overall, also for the stock market, which
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: could also affect crypto markets as well. But the truth
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: is Trump didn't control the Senate, even in this Congress, right?
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: He was short of the 60 votes necessary. That's part
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: of the reason why we're not able to get clarity.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: So there was a wall of about seven Democrats that
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: needed to sign on on almost anything to pass in
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Trump's first two years.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So I don't think this substantially.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Changes things other than the things in the Senate that
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: you need 50 votes for, like the judicial nominations.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which they have now. So that's a pretty significant
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: issue because that could start to change things around safe harbor,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: who knows what it could go into privacy, all sorts
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of things. So we'll be watching that one pretty close
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: as well. Do you think that we are in a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: position right now This was James Thorne. He's been on
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: our show before, Dr. J Strategy out there on Twitter.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And he kind of is very bullish on this. Take
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a deep breath. You know, yes, they lost, Republicans lost
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: House and Senate, but it's going to keep moving. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: are we in a position right now? Do you think
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: crypto just overreacted leading up to these elections? Because it
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: had pulled back significantly versus to what we're seeing today
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: in the markets right now.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I think the tailwinds behind our industry are still there.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Traditional financial institutions want to get into this space. We've
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: tokenized dollars now with stable coins. Now we're working on
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: the tokenization of securities. We're talking about tokenized bank deposits.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I think there's a ton of momentum. Obviously, there's competition
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: between the various players that want to participate in this ecosystem,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: and that's not going to change. I personally think there's
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: been a ton of bipartisan support for digital asset legislation
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: with clarity. At the end of the day, the Republicans
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: and Democrats couldn't come to an agreement on an ethics issue,
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: which is a bit outside of the nuts and bolts
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: of actual policy issues related to digital assets.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Well, hey, listen, Bitcoin erased its entire midterm uncertainty dump.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It jumped 4%. I think ETH, as we're talking right now,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: up 6%, claiming 81%. We saw 386 million shorts liquidated
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: past four hours. We went from fear territory to neutral
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: today overall. So these are all bullish sentiment elements. What
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: is your position? Do you think 2027 lines up as
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: a bullish year for crypto? What's your thoughts?
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I think it certainly can be.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be shocked if, honestly, President Trump works well
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: with a Democrat Congress on a number of issues that
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: affect the economy. gets bills moving forward, particularly around spending bills, right?
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Not everything in there will be agreed to by everyone
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: in the Republican Party, but there's probably going to be
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: enough critical mass with Republicans to agree to those things.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: And I think in general, that'll be helpful to the economy.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I think one thing to really watch here is what
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: the Fed does with interest rates, right? They held off,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: but in the December meeting, if they continue to hike,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: we'll have to see how that affects the market.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Well, this will be the one to watch. We know
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: December's coming most likely with a hike because he's got
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: covered now. The real question is going to be the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: first quarter of next year, how that starts to play
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: into these Fed rate hikes. I want to play a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: clip here from Mark Cudmore because he's talking about what
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: this could be for the market right now. Pay attention.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: We talked about the last week about we're expecting stock
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: markets to sell off into the midterms because it would
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: be hard for them to buy the dip. We've now
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: had that risk clearing event. I now think it's bullish
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: into year end. I don't think that this changes anything.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: If anything, the fact that Democrats won so cleanly rather
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: than just a marginal one means they're not beholden to
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: the more extreme parts of the party. And it's kind
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: of a clearer picture right now. We're not going to
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: change too much in the policy front. The AI trade
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: was already evolving. And we've already seen some stock markets
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: get massively discounted. So the overall story is that this
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: is now probably a pivot from the end of the
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: US exceptionalism that we've seen for the last eight months
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: with Asia outperforming from here.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: All right. There was Cudmore saying somewhat bullish. You look
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: at the markets in general, this could be a big opportunity.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: The real question is, does this play into 2027? I'm
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: still questioning whether it does. For now, this looks to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: be a very solid move, at least on the first day. Obviously,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you really won't know until many of the committees are
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: put together in January and kind of get a basis
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: of what's coming at you. From a lobby standpoint, how
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: do you guys prepare for that? Because this is going
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: to be a whole, almost like a musical chair situation
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: for many of these committees.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: To be honest, we've been preparing for this for the
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: last 18 months. We thought at least the house would
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: be blue and it was a 50-50 shot. for the
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Senate to be blue with the odds going up, obviously,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: on the prediction markets right before the actual election. So
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: we've done a ton of outreach to Democrats and Republicans
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: on key committees, and we've actually expanded our outreach considerably
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: into folks on the intelligence committees, Homeland Security committees, just
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: trying to get ahead of some of the concerns about
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: security issues.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: With some of the recent hacks and other issues. I
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: think that's kind of.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: A new area that crypto hasn't dove as deeply into
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: as they should. I think there's a lot of education
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: that needs to go on in that space. But there
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: are actually some really good stories to tell in terms
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: of national security with digital assets, with stable coins, due
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: to the properties of blockchains.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I look at the... rundown of everything that was spent.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: This was by Eleanor Terrett. AI emerged as a political spender,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: big political spender, though it didn't even come close to crypto,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: which spent nearly 100 million more. AI-focused packs spent around
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: 72 million versus the roughly 170 from crypto's three biggest packs.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So to me, that seems like a huge loss. But
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in reality, there may be some kind of hidden wins
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: here when you look at, and I'll show you guys
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: something at the end of the show, of Democrats that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: are actually very pro-crypto. So this could swing things dramatically
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of new people coming into Congress that are in a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: good position. But how do you think this money could
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: have been spent better? If you kind of look at
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the damage that the market is in, I mean, I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: should say the market, that the lobbies are in right now,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: how could they have done better in being able to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: get this into a pro-crypto camp?
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: So I think we should define soft money, pack money,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: bank shot into the political arena. There's also hard money
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: that goes directly to campaigns themselves. And then there's a
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: lot of spending that crypto firms and others do on
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: direct lobbying. I think more resources should be invested in
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: a direct lobbying, shoe leather lobbying. With all the debates
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: that are coming up, whether it's access to Fedmaster accounts,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: whether it's stable coin rewards. I think that $ 170 million,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: if you took just $ 10 million of that, you go
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: a long way in Washington, D.C. on a number of
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the issues that we care greatly about.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Why didn't that happen? Why didn't that happen?
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I think it's very attractive to people with
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of influence that go to the super PAC route.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It's splashy headlines. It sounds good. But I think what's
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: most important in D.C.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Is making relationships with the policymakers, with their staff, talking
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: through the issues. And to be honest, I think we
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: need an army of advocates for our industry in Washington
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: daily talking to the various decision makers. And that's the
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: way you win long term.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: OK, so with that being OK, that seems to be
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: an obvious situation that just was kind of overrun by
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: blind sights of what and how these lobbies work and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: have worked in the past. When you say an army,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: do you mean more lobbying or do you mean businesses
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: that should be here, media companies that should be here
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: trying to get DC on board with what's really happening
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: in the crypto market?
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: To be perfectly honest with you, I mean real lobbyists.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I think the firms that come in, if they have
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: an in-house lobbyist that really knows.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: How to work the hill, that works. But I think
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: it needs to be professional.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: But don't they seem to have to know crypto as well?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: They do.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: And that's why you bring in the subject matters experts
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: as well. But I think you need both in there.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: If it's just pure crypto, just honestly knowing how to
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: navigate the halls can be difficult.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: What about this one? Sherard Brown, of course, won. This
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: changes things up pretty dramatically. He is going to joined
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: forces with Elizabeth Warren right back into the camp. How
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: does this affect crypto now that you have Sherrod Brown
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: back in the camp?
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: You know, I remember meeting with his staffers years ago
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: before the last Senate cycle, and I had very positive
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: meetings with them. They were very interested in like regulated
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: crypto activity and how that can enhance the financial system.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I do think.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Obviously all the crypto money that went against him kind
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: of probably shapes how he's going to think about crypto
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: going forward. I'm hoping that he rehires some of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: staffers that he had before that we had good conversations
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: with because they were receptive to tokenization.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: So you, okay, let me get this right. You think
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: this might be a good play for Sherrod Brown?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to find the silver lining here, right? Okay.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Obviously, like, he has probably an ax to grind, right?
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Like the industry spent a lot of money against him.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: But I will say, again, like shoe leather lobbying, meeting
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: with his staff, he wasn't the biggest opponent to crypto originally.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Well, and it also maybe opened his eyes to just
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: how powerful that voting block is. And maybe that alone,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, could kind of get him in a right
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: position of being able to maybe sway over even more
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: voters to go on that side of the hill, which
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: is kind of interesting for sure. You look at no clarity,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of course. When you look at the trade-offs here, there
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: are some with Republicans. We had more crypto rug pulls
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: by this administration. No Clarity Act came through. There was
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: obviously more war uncertainty, which really, I think, dramatically impacted crypto.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with like clarity, that's probably right. It's
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: not going to happen, though.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I think there could be some constructive hearings and maybe
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: a slimmer bill that could address some of the matters
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: within clarity. Maybe there's a national security piece. Maybe there's
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: a piece for exchanges. We got to kind of see
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: how that all plays out. For like administrative action, I
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: think like we talked about earlier, we're going to just
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: continue to see the CFTC, the SEC, the OCC to
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: move forward with all this. And they've they've kind of
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: stood by their word, honestly, on all this. They've really
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: led the way, and I think they're going to continue
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: to do that.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: What about rug pulls? Do you think we're done with
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: rug pulls coming into the market or not a chance?
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think we're going to have as many issues
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: with those. Those are probably in the past.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: People know now there's a new sheriff in town. Speaking
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: of new sheriffs in town, they may go after one
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: World Liberty Financial Company. When you look at WLFI and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: their biggest potential as being a target for the next
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: two years, what does this look like for Donald Trump's
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: World Liberty Fi?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I think Congress is definitely going to have oversight hearings.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: And I think there are a couple of companies that
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: will be most affected by those. But in general, I
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: think most of crypto is safe.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: When you say companies, like who?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's anyone that's been heavily involved in
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the crypto ecosystem that isn't well-regulated, right? I think for
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: OCC chartered entities like us and others that are going
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: down that path, I think all those, and I guess
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: World Liberty is actually one of those if they ultimately
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: get the charter, I.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Think they're definitely....
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Everyone's trying to position themselves where like, nope, we're well-regulated.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: The issues that you see with security and all that
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: is another segment of the ecosystem. And I think the
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: oversight hearings will touch on some of the stuff that
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: you mentioned. I think it'll touch on some of the
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: recent hacks. I do think you're going to see some
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: of the flavors you got from Gensler and the SEC era, again,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: around vertical integration concerns there, DeFi, and possibly some more
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: national security stuff.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you've got that. And then also there
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: was recent news out talking about the potential companies that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: were involved with these special projects. So the Ballroom, you've got,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and there was a bunch of crypto companies involved in that. Specifically,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: you had Ripple involved, Coinbase. I think the Gemini guys
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: with the Winklevoss. This seems to be, do you think
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: there's any risk of those kind of companies being drawn
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: into Congress to address these kinds of activities?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I think there will definitely be oversight hearings, probably along
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: the lines that you suggested.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I do think, though, this is why it's.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Important more than ever that the institutions that want to
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: be regulated in this space do it. They can become
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: swap dealers. They can become broker dealers. They can become
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: OCC National Trust Banks. And then some of the questions
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: about the regulatory status and what you're doing and how
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: you're held accountable are no longer an issue. And that's
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: one of the great things about Anchorage Digital. We've really
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: led on that. We've had our OCC charter for the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: last six years. We're issuing stable coins from it. And
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's the path forward.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: When you look at this, Kevin, and you weigh out
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the two in terms of what was good for crypto,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you had Binance's response to what was the biggest hack
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in the history of mankind. It has been very positive.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: They've held up, which to me is super bullish. The
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: fact that one, the way they've addressed it, the way
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: they've gone about the business of it, learning how to
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: better their situation. in terms of protecting against that. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: then you have the other side of the coin, which
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: is Trump's crypto agenda. Which one do you think is
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: going to move adoption forward? Do you think crypto Binance
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: tactics and style versus what Trump has been doing?
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: To be honest, I think there might be a third way, right? Yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I think it's getting the Republicans and Democrats to come
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: together on major reforms that parallel traditional finance more similarly.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: All the exchanges, instead of hot wallets and the exchanges
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: doing the custody themselves, you can set it up so
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: you have a qualified custodian that's a well-regulated bank providing
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: the custody with APIs that can call the custodian and
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: you can still do the trades pretty much instantaneously. That's
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: a real consumer protection that Democrats definitely welcome.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: And Republicans should do.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: And it's not that novel because it's very similar to
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: what's- So you're.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Talking about bringing in a banking layer into this.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I think that's gotta be part of the discussion going forward.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: I know that's where some of the earlier drafts were headed.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I know for all the faults that the industry found
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: in Gensler, I think that might be something that is
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: necessary to really allow for mass adoption of digital assets.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And there are other like, consumer protections associated with that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: But I think that's a really good starting point.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, but Kevin, when you do something like that, you're
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: adding in a layer of fees. Do you think that's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: what we're destined for is some sort of banking plugin
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: into the existing regulated companies to be able to kind
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of appease both parties to get this moving forward and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: create adoption?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I think we need to think bigger than that, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Right now, about a small segment of the potential attainable market.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: We're going to have tokenized securities in the trillions. Right now,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: some of the adoption is frustrated right now because there's
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: concerns about the security.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Where is the tokenized securities going to be? If they're declining,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: most of these companies are pushing back on this.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: There are other projects other than some of the ones
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: that are the most noted in the crypto native space.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Like DTCC, there are others that are coming on board.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: So you think DTCC is a winner here versus something
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: like an OKExice partnership?
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know for certain, but I would say the
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: last couple of weeks seems to be a push in
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: that direction.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Listen, I've got a clip here on whether or
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: not the DEMs will be pro-AI and data centers or not.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And this is coming from Tom Lee. Granted, Tom seems
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to be somewhat of a bullish guy all the time.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: But I want you to listen to it. I want
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: to get your response. Here we go.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: Even if the Democrats take the Senate and the House,
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: it doesn't mean they can actually pass anti-crypto and anti-AI
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: legislation because the president has veto power. So unless the
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Senate gets two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: Senate votes, to vote in favor of a vetoed bill,
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: they can't overturn a presidential veto. Congress's focus is going
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: to just be trying to impeach President Trump. Now, the
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: second thing to keep in mind is that if the
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: Democrats take the House, and let's say they even take
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: the Senate, they're very likely to flip pro-data center and pro-crypto.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: Because now that they control Congress, the money that these
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: data centers bring into the community and the lobbying money
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: that the crypto money would be spending would just go
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: to the Democrats.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: So that's a big statement is that there's a shift
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in where this money is going to be pointed. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: this would understand that the Democrats have to prepare for
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a presidential election. So to his point, there's going to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: be a lot of potential lobby money as well as
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: just structural money of how these communities are going to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: be doing in two years that have data centers and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: those that don't, because you're going to have a chance
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to see both results. And it depends on where you
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: fall as to whether or not you get a good
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: bid on the next election. And also, I think the president,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the people that run for president at that time are
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: probably going to have a lot more data and to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: be able to know what side to fall on, you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: so very interesting times, man. Kevin, what do you think?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Do you think Tom's right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I think you could see some softening for those that
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: have been opposed to AI.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And I think that'll be very constructive.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I do think if there's going to be an AI bill,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: it's going to have to be bipartisan, exactly like he said.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: You're going to need, I think the Dems have 54
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: confirmed in the Senate right now. They might get a 55th,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: depending on how Alaska turns out.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: So you're going to need a couple of Republicans to
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: play ball and you're going to need the president to
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: ultimately sign off. And so I think you're going to
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: if there is any AI bills that pass, I think
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: they're going to be more reasonable.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think he's true on that.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: The dollars in which way they flow.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that's something that some of these
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: folks are definitely going to think through and it will
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: be a factor to a degree here.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: But I think it cuts both ways.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I think the AI issues are very prominent in some
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: districts and folks took pretty hard lines one way or
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: the other. And I think it's going to be hard
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: to go too far for some of them.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Interesting. Okay.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Hard to go for too far for some, but this
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of course gets into the line list of a lot
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: of these new Congress people, House members are going to
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: be joining Congress up there. And now you have A
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: good example of something I wanted to show you, this
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: is Joshua Turek, okay? And he's a Democrat. He's in Iowa.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And he took the time to fill out the Stand
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: With Crypto questionnaire, which to me aligned it very interesting.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: First of all, is that we're seeing more Democrats actually
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: aligning with the beliefs, I think, of most of the community.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: So Right to self custody and regulatory debanking. This was
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: a big deal. He also supports updating market structure laws.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So maybe there's something there. Defining digital assets as securities
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: or commodities. And even looking at blockchain for government transparency.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: That's huge if that were the case. So that's a.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Democrat, guys.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: That's a new Democrat coming in to Congress right now
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: into D.C. And that's not all of it. Look at
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: this list right here. This just goes down the list
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of scores over on Stand with Crypto of what their
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: rankings were. We don't know anything about Hafner. Killen came in.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: She's an A. She wins. You had Darren Soto, who's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: also an A. He wins.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's consistent with what we've seen the last
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: few Congresses. As Congresses have gotten younger, they've been more
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: well-informed and maybe more familiar with the technology. And they're
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: more accepting of it. So I think long term, it's
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: absolutely bullish for our industry in terms of getting the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: bills that are necessary through Congress and the laws ultimately
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: on the books that the industry needs.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: What lessons do you think were learned by the lobbies?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: We talked about it a little bit, but for many
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of the lobbies that are out there following our channel,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: we get followed by a lot of these organizations. What
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: do you think was the big takeaway after last night?
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: I think your approach always has to be bipartisan, right?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Who's going to be in charge is going to change.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: You need to work with sides. You need to sell
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the technology, how this helps the American people, right? And
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: work well with everyone and make friends with everyone. Don't
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: burn bridges, right? And that's what needs to be done
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: in DC. And I think the industry has done a
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: pretty good job of that. And that's why we've seen
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of success with like the Genius Act, with
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: repealing SAB 121, with all the rules.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And I expect more success in.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: The 120th Congress.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Kevin, do you think the Democrats could actually become the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: party of crypto?
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I think there's a chance that on most votes, we
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: already get about a third of them. I don't see
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: why with the new makeup of Congress, I don't see
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: why we can't get close to half most of the
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: time now.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: That would be a significant improvement because a lot of
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: times you're looking at people who are essentially going to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: be running the future of Congress who are going to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: be training the next layer of congressional participants coming in,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: which looks at a long-term opportunity. I think this is
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: very bullish for the industry as a whole as we
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: get going forward. And that's probably going to drag in
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: even more from the Republican side that's going to fall
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: into that camp as well to be able just to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: go head for head on tech, crypto, and kind of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: this next evolution of where the United States is heading.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So very bullish, guys. We're going to continue to cover
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: this as more data is going to be released. not
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: only from the results, but how does this affect the markets?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Kevin Wysocki coming in from Anchorage Digital. Thanks so much
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: for stopping in today. We appreciate it.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Paul.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: If you like this video, hit like and subscribe, drop
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a comment down below, and also join our free private
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: member group. The link is in the description.