Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Midterm Election Blue Wave vs Crypto🌊Ron Hammond INTERVIEW

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Midterm Election Blue Wave vs Crypto🌊Ron Hammond INTERVIEW · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A blue wave sweeping across the nation. What does that
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: mean for crypto? Today, we're going to break it down
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: with you and for you.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a good one.
• 0:07
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• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Let them know we sent you. Let's just jump right
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: into it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I want to bring in our guest, who is Ron Hammond,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a frequent here on the show, head of policy over
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: at Winter Mute.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I'm doing good, Paul.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: Appreciate the shout out yesterday, too. So a lot to
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: talk about and looking forward to getting to all of it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So a couple of things I want to lead off with.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: When you look at midterms as they are right now,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: here we are early in.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: The voting day.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: What's your response in terms of whether or not you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: think this is going to impact crypto.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: In a positive way or a negative? And I'm just.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Talking in terms of sentiment and price.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: What's your feeling? Is this a pump or a dump?
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: It's probably more of a dump situation. But again, I
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: think also it's important to look at the question is
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: more of longevity wise, what does this mean to the
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: United States? Like, are these the Democrats that really hate
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: crypto and they want to get rid of it completely?
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's the battle we were facing about four
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: or five years ago, or are these people saying, all right,
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: we need some regulation. We don't know what our position
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: is on regulation because they didn't go for the clarity
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: act in some cases for the Democrats, but there's at
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: least a viewpoint to saying, all right, this asset class
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: is here. We might not like certain things about it,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: but overall we are generally supportive of this being in
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: the financial system or ecosystem as you will. However, the
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: question remains, what does regulation look like? And it seems
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: that at least a lot of these Democrats have been
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: opposed to everything the Trump administration or the Republicans in
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Congress have been doing. So the question is kind of
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: what is their position? If it is here to stay,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: how do they seem to regulate it? And that's been
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: a question that a lot of Democrats just haven't been
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: able to answer besides either ban it completely or impose
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: KYC beyond belief that would actually cripple the technology itself
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: or a plethora of other issues. So I would say overall,
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: it's not the most positive situation here. I do try
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: to be an optimist in a lot of cases, but overall,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: The question is how much damage is going to be
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: done in these next two years in terms of Democrat
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: oversight and bringing these companies in to testify. How much
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: are they going to push back on the regulations? And
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: then how much does it dictate the tone for future
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Democrats down the road? Are they going to be more
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: the Gary Gensler type of crowd or we're going to
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: see a Ross Benham type, which are a little more
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: open to the technology and more for regulatory framework like Clarity?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: What's your take?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like it's going to be a little
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: bit more open to where crypto is now? Because maybe
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in the past, in terms of trying to get clarity
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: through and even to a certain extent, the Genius Act,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of that pushback may have just been around
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: what's happening within the Trump family and how they're managing
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: their own crypto assets and companies. If they get beyond
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that and they can actually address this more for, guess what,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world, where would you stand at
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that point? Do you feel like the Democrats could be
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: somewhat positive or still kind of neutral or negative?
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: I think that's a question that we're still waiting to
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: see what plays out here. So, you know, a lot
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: of these Democrats are saying right now, we're not going
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: to do what we did in the last Trump administration
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: when we had power by trying to impeach him right
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: off the rip, trying to go after him every single
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: turn and trying to turn everything into either legal battle
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: or congressional hearing. It seems like they're being a lot
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: more targeted, at least right now, of who they're going
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: to go after. It seems to be the ballroom type
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: of folks, at least in the crypto space. Those who
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: are more involved in the foreign governments, like the Saudis
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: with really financial, that seems to be coming up a lot.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: But overall, It seems at least with a lot of
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: these Democrats, it's still very unknown what direction they go.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: The analogy I keep hearing is more of a chicken
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: with their head cut off because they're saying a lot
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: of these things right now. But of course, there's going
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: to be all these controversies that come during Trump administration
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: that just comes with the territory. And the question is,
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: are Democrats going to be jumping the gun and saying,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: all right, this is the thing we have to impeach
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: him for? Or the whole like Bo Hein story that's
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: really circulating around D.C.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: As well.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Is that something they try to go after him for?
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a question of how much retribution is there?
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: Do they learn from their mistakes last go around? And
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: are they going to be really targeted or are they
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: going to be very broad and just try to go
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: after Trump all over again for the next two years?
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: So that remains to be seen. I kind of do
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: believe the Democrats are going to probably have a controversy
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: come up in the first six months that they feel compelled,
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: you could say, to go after the Trump administration for
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: an impeachment, which might bog down everything else legislatively like
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: it did last time.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: But the hope is that does not happen.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: And the Democrats who are a little more, you could
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: say they're moderate or a little more conservative. with their
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: approach are going to probably say, hey, this is not
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: the thing to do. But we'll see those voices went
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: out because there's a lot of anger on the Democrat
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: side right now.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: How much money do you think was spent right now
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: from the crypto industry to try to move these elections?
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: But more importantly, just move D.C. into a position where
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: they're understanding what's happening? How much money do you think's
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: been spent?
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Are we talking about this cycle or all cycle combined?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Let's look at this cycle.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Let's look at this cycle right now.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: What do you think of that?
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's been in probably the hundreds of millions at
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, just the Sherrod Brown race you mentioned, I
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: think crypto's, I mean, just Fairtrade loans, 55 million for
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: that race there.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: And that's seen as probably.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: The most pivotal race at this current moment for both AI,
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: data centers, crypto, and even potentially like anything involving commodities, ag, perps,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: prediction markets. Sherrod Brown could be in charge of that share.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: So that's a huge thing to watch for. But I'd say,
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: you know, it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars here.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: But that's the thing is that, you know, four years
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: ago when I was working in this space, I mean,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: everyone brushed off crypto. I remember two years ago, People
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: are saying, oh, this fair shake thing is a joke. Oh,
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: these guys don't do anything, have no power. But lo
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: and behold, the headlines the next day after the election
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: were how crypto took down Sherrod Brown. And like now
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: we are forced to be reckoned with. And people are
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: watching in D.C. saying, where does the crypto industry go?
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: And where are they putting their chips behind? Because it
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: carries a lot of weight and people are scared. And
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: that's a very new dynamic. And I kind of like it.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: So props to the crypto industry for getting involved.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the Polymarket map right now. And if
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you look at this, what would be considered a win
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: right now for the Senate?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: If you could point out a few key races.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: So my key races right now are Ohio is definitely
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: the number one race, I'd say. It's because A, seniority, B,
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: we spent 55 million at least against the, uh, the challenger.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: So he can come back with a vendetta and he
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: can come back with a powerful position. So Ohio is
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: number one, uh, especially if you care about commodities, perps
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: and prediction markets. Number two is Texas. Uh, it's my
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: home state here. Uh, you know, everyone says it's hard
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: to see Texas going blue, but, um, I mean, I
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: was a tech cruise a couple of weeks or a
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: couple of days ago, uh, as well as a couple
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: of other folks in my, uh, Texas campaign days. And, uh,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: the polling that they're saying is not looking good, at
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: least from my, uh, conversation internally, uh, with my old
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: folks on the campaign side. So, We'll see if Texas
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: does actually go blue. I mean, take a very large step,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: but it does go blue. That's pretty insignificant. That's where
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: I stop, though, at least me personally, of where the
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Senate flips are going to probably happen, besides North Carolina.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: That seems obvious. I think the Republicans hold Maine. I
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: think they hold Alaska. And I think they hold South
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Carolina and a few other ones, Nebraska as well, and Iowa. Now,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: that's more of a hot take. Prediction markets are saying
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: that actually the Democrats are going to win and to
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: be 52 seats.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: But me personally.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I'm looking at 50 right now with the Republicans having
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: the edge with J.D.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Vance, the time vote. But we will see pretty soon
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: if that is true or not.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I think obviously we'll know much more today. And there's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: some races that will still be winding up probably even
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: for the next couple of days.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: We'll see how that, of course, affects everything.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the battleground when you look at where
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and the number of races right now. Only 45 of
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the 470 races are crypto endorsed right now.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: So does that surprise you? Only 45 of the 470?
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not as much.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: I'd say we're dealing with a pretty small subset of
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: members of Congress. Again, we're dealing with Financial Services Committee
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: largely and Ag Committee. So that's a subset of members here.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: And again, even on those committees. 50 plus members, you
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: probably have half of those engaged in crypto, either positively
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: or negatively. So I think it's a good use of
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: the crypto dollars to put them towards strategically to good races.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: And at least in the fair shake side of things,
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: it seems to be donating to actually some races that
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: have made some impact. So like already fair shakes taken
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: out a Democrat incumbent, Alan Green, and they support his
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: challenger on the Democrat side. So we've seen plays more
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: in the primary stage already from the crypto lobby of
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: sorts or the crypto PACs.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: That have been successful.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: So I'd say, you know, it's targeted. It's not given
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: to everyone who says, I like crypto. It says, all right,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: you like crypto.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: But where's the voting record or where have you introduced
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: bills on this issue? And I think that's kind of
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: where they're more targeted.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: If you look at the Senate races within this right now,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: this battleground, only three senators were endorsed. You have, you know,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Turek and Henson. You've got, Sunu and then Pappas, but
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: even Sherrod Brown sitting in here, obviously, for obvious reasons,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: he is the one that we're most concerned about. How
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: much damage do you think he can do, really, if
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: he does make it back in?
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: A lot.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't well reported or talked about much,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: but even two years ago, Sherrod Brown had the opportunity
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: to pass a kind of clarity-like bill. It wasn't the
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: one that Sam Bingham Free was pushing for or any
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: of the other folks. It was kind of a skinnier
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: version of clarity. And then he said no to that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: There was also an ability to get a stablecoin bill
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: done two years ago. At the last second, the lame duck,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: kind of the situation we're about to go into right now,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: he turned that down as well again. And then he's
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: been Nothing but critical of the industry at every single turn.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: He did change his tone weirdly, actually. After he lost,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: he did make a comment about two months afterwards in
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: 2025 saying, maybe I went a little too aggressive against
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: the crypto industry. And I took a little solace in
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: that saying, at least he learned his lesson. But I
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: think the folks are doubling down here showing that, hey,
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: he's actually a problem. He could actually imbalance the Senate.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: And even worse, hypothetically, if we do have some miracle
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: where Clarity does have some chance in the lame duck
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: this year, let's say the senators all get together, ethics
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: has some miracle situation happen that they find some agreement.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: Sherrod Brown comes in the third week, I believe, second
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: week of December because it's a special election. So he
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: could be foil actually to Clarity if there is in
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: the lightest chance of this actually moving. He could be
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: the guy saying, yeah, this industry actually spent a lot
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: of money against me.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Screw them. I'm a no.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: And every Democrat should be a no. And that's a
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: real situation that could happen.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like he's a slam dunk. I'm
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: looking at the Ohio data right now. It's at 73%
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: for him. So this is a big challenge. Do you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: think it's being closer than this?
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I think it is.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, I still think he loses, unfortunately, but he
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: said loses. But that's just my personal view. But Chair Brown,
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: he is a union man. And Ohio is a very
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: peculiar state. I mean, it's obviously the focal point in
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: most elections anyway.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: But.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: You know, it's been going really red recently. So it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: hard to see how that has really turned into now
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: going to more of the blue side here. But Sherry
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: Brown does have a lot of allies. He's got a
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: lot of campaign cash and he's been there for decades.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: So he's definitely got a political operation in place. So
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: we'll see if that happens. But personally, he's a nice guy.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: I've talked to him a couple of times. Talked to
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: him about the crypto bills back in like 2018 in
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: the Capitol. It was nothing but nice to me, but
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: I could not care back then, could not care eight
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: years after the fact. So that's where it's like, hey,
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: you know what? We need to keep this new blood
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: in Congress, not have the old blood in.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Another race we're watching, of course, what's going on in Michigan.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: You've got Abdul El-Sayed, who is coming in on this.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people anticipated maybe he is
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: not necessarily pro-crypto. Some of his record is actually showing
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that he is kind of on crypto side, especially around self-custody.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: What about this particular race?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is a win no matter who
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: wins Michigan, at least from a crypto standpoint?
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: It's hard to see.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: The problem with a lot of these more junior folks
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: who kind of come in in a situation where they're
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: not seniors at all, especially when we're trying to learn
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: like the ropes and everything, especially for Al Sayed, who's
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: never been in Congress before, he's going to take a
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: lot of direction from the folks who are up top,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: the Elizabeth Warrens, the Sherrod Brown, he's back in. So
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: he's not going to try to rock the boat. So
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: that's why we even see folks like John Fetterman, for example,
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: who kind of is almost a Republican at this point
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: on the Democrat side. But even then he wasn't supportive
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: of a lot of the clarity, you know, provisions moving forward,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: even though he said the right things about clarity leading
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: up to it, they take direction from the top. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: when the top Democrats say, Hey, we are all against clarity.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: That's what showed up in that vote a couple months ago.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: So that's the unfortunate part here is that you really
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: got to take out these top dogs here, like your
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Sherrod Browns, because they do dictate for the rest of
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: the dice down saying, hey, I don't like this.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Ergo, all Democrats, you don't like this.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So I guess that's my question. I'll go back to Al-Said.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: He took the Sand with Crypto questionnaire, and some of
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the things he hits on are he supports consumer protection, transparency,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and self-custody, one of the biggest ones that, of course,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: we are and also to end debanking.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So he falls on the.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Side of either an A or a B right now.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I think he's in a B category based on these
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: statements because these are very early. Do you think there's
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: enough potential here of new, you know, new D.C. members
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: coming into this Congress and affecting maybe how.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Some of the older D.C. members think on this? Because
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: this is new blood. This is new blood.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you listen to them. And maybe they're a little
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: bit more, you know, tuned into what's happening in crypto.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: What do you think? Yes or no?
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: No, you're 100% right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, these things like right to self-custody, I saw
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: debanking was on that list you showed there too, which
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: is weird because it's when the opposite party usually does
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: a debanking to one party for whatever political purpose, it's
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden everyone says, hey, like, I'm against
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: debanking now. But when Operation Chokepoint was happening, maybe they
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: were for debanking then or they wouldn't say publicly. So
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: I think it's Helpful even when these political apparatuses happen,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: they have these shifts from Trump to Biden to who
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: have you. These core principles of self-custody as well as anti-debanking,
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: those are principles we can work with. And so it's like, hey,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: you might be, the right to self-custody is a very,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: very tough issue. Privacy is a tough issue, but at
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: least we have some Democrats who hold the viewpoint of like, Hey,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: I'm actually very privacy centered focus here. We can work
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: with that, uh, in terms of trying to find a
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: way to either a support their, uh, their viewpoint via
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: crypto legislation or be trying to find a way to
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: get their colleagues more engaged saying, Hey, look, self custody
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: is important. That's why we should have it. And having
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: to be kind of that voice to others, like Richard
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Torres is a great example of a younger member who
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: it wasn't a more self custody back then it was
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: more NFTs. But when he got into NFTs, he got
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of his more younger members saying, Hey, look,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I don't think all this is crap, but let's explore this.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: And so it's kind of these other kind of more
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: opening points. You can have these conversations with folks. So
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: it's good to see that Al Saeed had that position.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: We'll see if it holds up when the time comes,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: because that's probably say all the right things. But if
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: you're taking direction from Elizabeth Warren, that's still a problem.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's speaking of Elizabeth Warren, of course, one of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: her former nemesis here was John Deaton. who tried to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: run against her, failed that attempt. Now he is going
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: head on with Markey. And it's not looking good for
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: John Deaton, at least right now, when you look at
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the current position. I'll go to the polymarket right here.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: It looks like Ed Markey is going to take this
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: pretty much as a slam dunk. Where do you think
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: John Deaton can plug into D.C. and be most helpful?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Because he has such a good you know, understanding of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: what's happening in crypto. I know he didn't go full
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: force crypto when he was trying to deal with Warren,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: but he definitely is kind of all in on crypto,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: at least going against Ed Markey for the Senate position.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Where do you think he lands?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: You know, it depends.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: We've seen some failed candidates in the past actually come
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: up and get positions of power within the Trump administration itself.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, Bo Hines is a good example of that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: He ran for North Carolina congressional race, ended up losing,
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: but actually got picked up to go become the crypto czar.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: And so I think we see a lot of these
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: allies do get placed within the Republican apparatus. They kind
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: of choose to go down that more political path here.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So John can be a great candidate for something like that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Especially given the vacancies we've had a lot recently in
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: the Trump administration with folks leaving. So there is a
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: lot of opportunities there. But also he's a force to
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: be reckoned with on X itself. He's got a great following.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: So maybe it's something even more on the outside influencing policy,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: whether it be through lobbying or through advocacy or preparing
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: for another run on something else there. So he's been
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: a great force.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: He's in D.C.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: A decent amount. It's good to see that he's making
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: strides here. But it's tough to run against Elizabeth Warren
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: in a really tough state. So he gets all the
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: credit for that. And hopefully he can start turning more
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: of that state red or at least getting Elizabeth Warren
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: to wake up to her losing issues here, which has
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: not happened yet, but hopefully will.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I like the fact that you think that Warren might
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: turn at some point.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, come on.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Hey, she's with the banks now.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: She's crapped on them for years. So, you know, we
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: have to see Elizabeth Warren come around.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, speaking of that, coming around, you've got Mike Selleck
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: posting out today. Americans now may access equity perps on
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: CFTC regulated markets online. And this is subject to robust
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: safeguards from the CFTC. This changes things pretty heavily, obviously,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: even for Terry Duffy.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, he seems to.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Be, I can't imagine what he thought when this came through.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: But first of all, what do you think this impact
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is where you get, you know, a lot of these
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: bureaucracies starting to set the standard by rulemaking instead of
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: it coming out of lawmaking out of Congress?
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Well, there's always the perception that this is a Trump
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: rule from here on out, so it must be going away.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: So the viewpoint of a lot of the Democrats would be, hey,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: let's wipe the board clean. I mean, that's what the
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Trump administration did to a lot of the SC rules
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: that the Biden administration put in place. They got rid
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: of a lot of them and said, hey, guess what?
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: We're going to do our own rules here. So we've
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: been going through this whole cycle back and forth. It's
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: not helpful, especially also considering the market has adopted so
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: much of these rules and has made a market structure
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: based off these rulemakings and future rulemakings. So- The idea
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: that you want to go forward and try to repeal
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: all this stuff is more as a screw you to Trump.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: It would be very disadvantageous to the whole market itself,
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to DC, to a lot of progress we made here.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: And it's happened in the past.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: We've had Democrat administrators reach out to us and send
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: me at the blockchain association where Tether was causing problems.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: And they're saying, hey, the idea back in the 2022
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: was we should ban Tether. And we had to go
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: in to talk to Treasury and be like, hey, look,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: if you ban Tether, the Downstream effect of all this
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: is huge for the industry itself. You're not going after
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: one company. You're going to affect all DeFi, for example.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: So it's going to be a lot of that saying like, hey, look,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: I know you guys really want to attack the Trump administration,
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: but let's make sure we understand that there's people's jobs
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: and livelihood. There's a market here that is very developed
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: now in the past 10 years. So let's make sure
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: we do this very strategically and smart if you make
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: some changes, but also understand that these rules in place
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: are the de facto rules now because there's no legislations.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: So if you get rid of them, a lot of
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: things can happen in the markets that probably won't be great.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: And you can capture all the issues that happen. I
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: think it's important to see, but as we've seen the
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Binance hack, it took only a matter of seconds for
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: a lot of the folks who are anti-crypto to jump
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: on and say, see, Clarity wouldn't have solved this, or see,
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Republicans actually want more of Binance as the United States
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: so they can all fail. And it's just a battle
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: of the narratives, which is really frustrating. But I think
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: the smarter members and the smarter regulators understand this is
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: a tough issue, and it's not something like a political
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: win saying, I hate this or I like this, so
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: we should do it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: So Ron, when you look at the landscape, on the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: other side if a blue wave does in fact occur.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The likelihood of the Congress bringing out things like Royal
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Liberty Fi and other Trump-associated crypto firms to where they're
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: actually bringing them into Congress for review, for whatever scenario
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that might play.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Out, do you think that's a possibility? What would you
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: give it right now on a one to 100?
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: The question I think is, uh, how many committees are
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: they gonna get dragged in front of?
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And then how targeted is this going to be? Um, okay.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: So like we've already had members say, if you're donating
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: to the Trump ballroom, you're probably on the list. Um,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: and if you donate heavily to the meme coin dinner,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: potentially you might be on the list. Um, if you
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: donate to, um, you know, very Mar-a-Lago, um, uh, ventures
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: or whatever, or maybe you donate to other Trump efforts
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: or got involved with worldly financial. you're probably on the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: list to get dragged in front of financial services, government
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: oversight over reform, judiciary, agriculture committee. So for a lot
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: of people I talked to, because I've had a brief
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: of a bunch of CEOs who have testified before, they
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: all get really excited first saying, well, I can't wait
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: to go against AOC and get my five minutes in
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: and really kind of go back and forth with her.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: It's like, no, this is a dressing down that the
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: whole point is that you don't get to talk. They
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: want to yell you five minutes, get a great headline
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: or great clip. and make you look like the worst
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: person ever, there's no benefit to testifying these situations. It's
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: more reputational risk and regulatory risk at the end of
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: the day anyways, but it's mostly for the headlines for
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: the members of Congress here. So we're gonna have a
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: lot of that. I expect at least a dozen hearings,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: probably two dozen hearings in the next two years and
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: about seven or eight committees on crypto and more of
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: the Democrats trying to either enact revenge or to try
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: to really put the screws to them. We'll see how
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: soon it is, but I expect that to, I mean,
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: probably the first three months, four months, we'll probably see
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: the first crypto hearing oversight-wise.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: It will not be great.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Speaking of not being great, I want to go to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a clip. This, of course, is Gary Gensler's podcast that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we have to play a clip from.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think it's only fitting. Let's
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: go to that.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: If I were advising this speaker, I'd say, look, there's
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: going to be a need for investigations. Start the investigations, frankly,
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: about improprieties and corruption and so forth. The crypto field,
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: their association with prediction markets, there might be a move
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: to try to impeach a couple of cabinet members. And
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: I think number one on that is the Secretary of Defense,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: Pete Hegseth. But what will be interesting is I think
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: there'll be members of both the House and Senate, Republican
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: and Democrats who will want to get some legislation done.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: A lot of the people in the industry will probably
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: want Congress to do something if, but only if, any
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: legislation would preempt all the states doing something similar.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Is there a.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: Bill that could pass Congress, get the president's approval, because
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: the president would feel, all right, we're going to preempt
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: the states, that's sufficiently strong enough to get the majority
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: of the Democrats and some Republicans. And I think there
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: will be some places.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: All right. So a couple of questions with that. First
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of all, what do you think? Do you think Gensler
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: is right? I mean, I'm saying that in one sentence,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so that's an unusual sentence.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: But what do you think?
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I don't think we'll see anything on prediction markets. That's
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: definitely going to the Supreme Court. I mean, you'll see
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: a lot of hearings on it. You'll see a lot
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: of scrutiny on it. You'll see a lot of people
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: yelling about it. It's going to go down to the
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court for that question.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: So I think that's it's all posturing for that one.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: I was curious again.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: So I was going to say impeachment, but like say
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: someone else on the financial regulatory side, the defense secretary.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: That is kind of the first one that comes to
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: mind for a lot of people. There's been some rumors
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: going around that he might run for Tennessee Senate to
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: avoid that. We'll see what happens on that front. But overall, yeah,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: Gary– I mean, Gensler doesn't miss the spotlight. He's trying
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: to get into– he's falling into a lot of these
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: tropes the Democrats on the leadership side have been falling into,
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: more of attacking prediction markets, attacking the CFTC, attacking the regulators,
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: and saying that this is not sufficient enough. Legislation, though,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: that's pretty minimal. I'd say the Democrats honestly have not
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: really passed much when it comes to legislation on the
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: financial services side unless there's a crisis. Dodd-Frank kind of
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: comes to mind. So unless– There's been some big hacks,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: you know, with the Biden's hack, for example. But even then,
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: it hasn't really compelled a lot of Democrats to move
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: here because the question always been, what do you guys
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: have to propose in terms of like legislation? And the
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Democrats really haven't had anything to step against. You know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of time they've been working with clarity drafters
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: on the Clarity Act. So the question kind of is,
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: will Elizabeth Warren, will she ever work on legislation that
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: mirrors the Clarity Act in some way, shape or form?
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: It's really hard to see.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: And she's the one that determines what bills get votes,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: what bills don't and what hearings happen. And so if
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: you don't have her, you don't have legislation.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Listen, okay, I've got a couple of questions I want
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to ask about post the midterms and going into even
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the next presidential election.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But some of the things that.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Are happening in the market right now, you got Justin Sun,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: who's moving heavily against World Liberty Fi. This has been
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a dirty laundry fight in terms of where
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Justin Sun and World Liberty Fi is setting. And this
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is really tying into a couple of things, one of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: which has been this whole issue of their failure to disclose,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: all sorts of issues that kind of, again, pull World
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Liberty Five back into the limelight here. When you think
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: about that, do you think he's prepping for a Democrat win?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So he would be on the side of going after, well,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: he's already on the side of the Democrats if you're
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: going after World Liberty Five.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess, but he was what, the number
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: one meme coin holder and he's done a lot already
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: in this space that's ticked off Republicans and Democrats. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: don't think Justin Sun's got too many friends candidly in DC.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: My conversation, so yeah, so we'll see on that front.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: But I'll just bet here, if anything, he's probably just
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: trying to get more Celine Jouser to go after versus him,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: but guess what, they're coming for him too.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Hey, listen, we had the big, you mentioned the Binance hack,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: but that happened. And if you guys will remember, It
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: was also just after what the president had put down
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: in terms of his new administration's efforts to crack down
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: on foreign criminal networks. That didn't look so well for
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that effort. If we go out and get, you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a six billion dollar hack coming off of one of
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the largest Asian exchanges out, the largest Asian exchange out there.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So what kind of impact do you think that's egg
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: on the president's face right now with what's happening out there?
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Mean to your point is an asian exchange like they're
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: not in the united states there is buying us but
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: they're separate entity here so like it was kind of
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: weird seeing some of the people like your manifestors you're
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: going they're against their types attacking uh this current administration
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: for the buying situations like they're not even in the
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: united states like this is not something that they regulate
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: this would be buying us so it's an odd play
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: but of course it doesn't help them it doesn't hurt
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: for them to add it to their talking points saying
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: hey look there's a lot of hacks issues here but
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: as you and i and the audience probably well know
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: is that crypto usually is subject to a lot of
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: these hacks especially the ai revolution and such usually we
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: get like the first taste of it and then stratify
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: gets the next taste of it uh a couple days
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: or weeks afterwards so i would not be shocked we
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: see another hack between now and heck even maybe january
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: that's like to this magnitude the more immediate traditional clients
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: or some other space that gets a lot of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: attention here because of ai so so we'll see on
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: that front but One last thing I want to.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Highlight, though.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: I remember a reporter did ask Trump about the Biden
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: attack and said, hey, we're monitoring it. But, you know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: we will come to defense of our companies and our
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: citizens if anything was ever occurring on the North Korea side.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Oddly enough, North Korea denied the attack, I think it
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: was today. So that was weird to see. But I
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: remember this actually four years ago. A similar situation happened
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: where North Korea had an attack on exchange and Biden
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: was asked about it. And Biden's response was more attacking
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: the industry itself, saying that it's unregulated and these people
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: are doing horrible things with crypto. And it was really refreshing,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: at least for Trump, even though it was a horrible
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: situation with North Korea and such, to say, like, we
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: got these guys' backs here.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And that's really refreshing. That's how it should be.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: Watch out for Americans who are in more of the
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: crypto industry itself. I mean, again, Biden's being foreign is
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: a whole different story as well. But it's nice to
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: see at least the tone from the top down has
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: shifted dramatically. And that's been at least... encouraging, you could say,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: to be in the United States, have someone.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Have your back.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Ron, do you think that, I mean, because these cyber
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: attacks are happening everywhere. You had Europe under massive cyber attack.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: You've got all sorts of issues that are going out.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Even in TradFi, there's been a few recent small TradFi hits.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But now let's go here stateside. Let's, don't assume, but
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: let's say that either one of the major exchanges, like
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: a Coinbase or someone like that, gets hacked, or one
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of the traditional finance banks get hacked? Which one of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: those do you think would look worse for the Democrats
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: or even the Republicans or Congress in general if one
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of those occur, which is very possible that we could
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: see that in 2027?
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I'm going to.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Go probably the more traditional finance route, but that's more
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: because what they're going to say usually, again, there's a
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: lot of circumstances, but I would say what's going to
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: happen likely is they're going to say, hey, we have
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: this hack, we're a major institution. Therefore, anything that's on
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: the verge of innovation or precipice of being cool, like
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: purpose or tokenized equities or various wallets and such, they're
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: going to say, we can't do this yet. We need
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: to take a year or two to pause. And then
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: when we realize all the risks and parameters, then we
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: can realize that we should have some regulations and move
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: forward with this technology. But we should not move forward
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: with the technology until then. So that's the excuse they're
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: going to use. And it's more to mask their other priorities.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: So if like tokenized equities, for example, they're going to
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: always ask them for delay, delay, delay, because they know
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: it's happening. It's only a matter, it's never going to happen.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: But they want to make sure it happens either underneath
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: the Democrat administration that really locks out the new entrants,
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: or they want to make sure they have the right
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: market share here. So I think that's what we're going
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: to see is a lot of these institutional players using
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: bad things that happened to either crypto or themselves and say, see,
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: now we can't move forward with innovation until we study
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: the issue. And that's frustrating because we've done that for years.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: And it's just been buying their time here.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: At this point.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Do you not, but do you not think that, I mean,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: because that seems silly, the opportunity is, is this new
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: innovation of this technology actually is designed to potentially stop
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff? You know, when you look
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: at zero knowledge, you look at the evolution of where
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the blockchain is building from. This seems like the natural
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: evolution as opposed to the old rails that have been
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: sitting out there for three decades, which are the highest
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: vector right now, surface vector for an AI or even
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: a social engineering attack, which is what happened to Binance,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: where they got into a laptop, was able to navigate
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the system, wasn't really necessarily an AI. AI aided it,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: but that would be my concern is that the banks
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: would say, no, we need to ramp up our cybersecurity
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and our models in terms of how do we protect
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Americans funds, especially in the banking system.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: They'll say like, hey, we need to ramp it up
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: on that front.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: But then they'll also push other things like we should
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: have KYC for all DeFi, for example. And they know
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: that will kill a lot of DeFi innovation there, or
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: at least maybe put the blame a lot on the
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: DeFi folks saying, see, they're not trying to comply. We comply,
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: but they don't comply. Therefore, we should shut it down.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Or maybe we should put some really strenuous requirements on them.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: So this is kind of just how the narrative game works, unfortunately.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: But given how much these hacks are happening and how
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: much crypto is facing the brunt of it right now,
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: to your point, it's only a matter of time.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: TradFi gets a lot more of that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: And it's about how you spend it, unfortunately, especially when
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: a Congress you know is not going to probably do
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: a lot right now. And yet the agency is pretty
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: much able to do as much as they can. A
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: lot of it's going to be narrative building and then
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: trying to use that to either A, exercise oversight and
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: get those kind of quips and hearings, or B, set
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: up a legal challenge, whether it be through suing them
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: or having another entity sue them. But I think the
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: important thing to watch is how much do traditional finance
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: and the Democrats really align here? Because 12 years ago,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: they hate each other. But now they're allies here. And
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of companies are going through the Democrats as
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: their vocal piece and hiding behind them. Whereas at least crypto,
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: we're pretty out and about saying here's what we want.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: And some Democrats like us, some Republicans like us, but
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: we're not compromising a lot of ideals here. So it'll
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: be interesting to see, but I think that's a more
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: shift to watch is how much of these traditional finance
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: folks hide behind the Democrats, what they're saying. And we're
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: already seeing that play out right now, again, especially on
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: tokenized equities and PERPs, but I think it's only going
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: to continue from here on out.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Ron, last question. Do you think we could get surprised?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Let's, you know, with the looks of the polls right now,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a swing here. Do you think
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: we could get surprised by the Democrats that, the sense
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: that they could be positive for crypto over the next
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: two years.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: Um you know there's a slight chance on that front
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: again at least the downside democrats is very top heavy
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: driven so you're dealing with a lot of the older
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: members here who just a vote against crypto already or
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: b have already said they don't like it so the
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: question is do we are we able to pull off
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: some democrats on the younger side of things or more
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: open-minded who uh can kind of say hey We don't
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: agree with Elizabeth Warren's line of questioning here. We don't
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: think the stablecoin yield fight is something that the banks
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: should have full control over here. So it's going to
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: be more, can we pick off more Democrats like Richard
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Torres is, Usain McCardos, who can say we are willing
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: to step up in front of the line of fire
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: and say this is the wrong way Democrats have been
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: going about things.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: You know, they've been saying that for a lot of
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: other issues. Some have said for crypto.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: But the question is, after this win for Democrats tomorrow,
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: how many are going to say we're all united or
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: how many are going to say we're united, but I'm
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: going to call you out when something I don't agree with.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: And that we have not seen yet in the Senate.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, we're going to maybe get a chance to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: see that coming up soon because it looks like we're
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: going to see a little bit of a switch. We'll
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: know today at the end of the polls, hopefully into tomorrow.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: locking down some of these races. Ron Hammond, thanks for
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: coming in today.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: We do appreciate it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Thanks, Paul. Always good to be on.
• 34:44
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• 34:46
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• 34:49
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• 34:50
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