Molly White's Citation Needed - Issue 103 – The President’s Council of Podcasters

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Coinbase is accused of holding the cryptocurrency industry hostage over stablecoin rewards, prediction markets face an onslaught of opposition, and a Stand With Crypto poll can’t even get enthusiasm from its own activists. Originally published on March 31, 2026.

I'm Molly White, and you're listening to the audio feed for the Citation Needed Newsletter. You can see the text version of the newsletter online at citation needed. News. Issue 103, the President's Council of Podcasters. Coinbase is accused of holding the cryptocurrency industry hostage over stable coin rewards, prediction markets face an onslaught of opposition, and a stand-with-cryptopole can't even get enthusiasm from a thursday. own activists. This issue was originally published on March 31st, 26. Illinois voters delivered a $13 million rebuke to the crypto lobby in the Senate and House District 7 races, which had absorbed

90% of the PAC's spending in the state. Crypto money may be starting to backfire among voters, though whether this marks the beginning of a trend or just a misstep against two strong candidates remains unclear. They're not slowing down, though. the Coinbase-backed stand with crypto advocacy group has endorsed their first six candidates and drawn targets on the backs of two more. Despite endorsements from top White House figures and multi-billion dollar investments, prediction markets are running into serious trouble. Kalshi has accumulated 20 civil cases from states and Native American tribes, and now faces a criminal case in Arizona. Lawmakers have introduced a flood of proposed legislation seeking to prohibit war or assassinations.

relation-related markets, forbid participation by elected officials, or ban sports-related markets entirely. And in perhaps the most emblematic story of these beyond-parody times we're living in, a crypto-fugitive, who hasn't even been convicted yet, is already shopping for a presidential pardon, and has hired two lobbyists whose previous claim to fame involved a series of spectacularly bungled attempts to frame public figures for sexual assault. In the courts, Andean Majedevich Yet another crypto-fraudster is seeking a presidential pardon, though this one hasn't even been convicted yet. Canadian Andean Majedovic is wanted in the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands for allegedly exploiting Khyber Swap and indexed finance for combined $65 million,

taunting the project's operators along the way. A February foreign agent's registration filing shows that lobbyists Jack Berkman and Jacob Wohl have been paid a $300,000 retainer to pursue a, quote, presidential pardon to avert a miscarriage of justice. The lobbyists argue that Medjedevich didn't commit fraud or hacking, but rather, quote, identified an ingenious way to operate within the boundaries set by Khyber Swap Elastic and Indexed Finance Own Code. This framing may prove problematic, however, given that Medvedevich himself discussed his plans to, quote, steal crypto in messages documented in his indictment. According to their disclosure, Berkman and Wohl have thus far made, quote, preliminary introductions with staff for representatives Byron Donald's, a Republican from Florida, and Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri, both prominent crypto industry advocates. Donald serves on the House Financial Services Committee and its Digital Assets Subcommittee, while Smith chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

The lobbyist names may sound familiar from their serial botched attempts to frame public figures for sexual assault, including Robert Mueller, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Anthony Fauci. The duo also caught some charges of their own in 2025, when they pleaded guilty to felonies in Michigan for orchestrating a 2020 robocall voter suppression campaign targeting black communities with false warnings that mail-in ballots would be used to pursue those with open warrants, collect on unpaid debts, or, quote, track people for mandatory vaccines. The FCC also slapped them with a record-breaking $5 million fine in connection to the calls. And Wohl is a questionable pick to make the argument that Medvedevich's alleged exploits were actually legitimate financial activity,

having himself been banned for life at age 20 by the National Futures Association and convicted of felony securities fraud. Birkman's small lobbying firm, J.M. Berkman and Associates, has operated for decades, but has only taken on clients seeking presidential pardons under Trump's presidencies. During his first term, they took on just two presidential pardon clients, one convicted of fraudulent aircraft part repairs, the other of running a Ponzi scheme. They earned $92,000 and $15,000 respectively for their services, and neither client received a pardon. But under Trump's second term, their pardon business, which had gone dormant while Biden was in office, is booming. The Majetovich retainer brought in $300,000. They earned $960,000 to lobby for a pardon for the operator of a $38 million nursing home tax fraud, and rapper Boozy Badaz, who pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a fire,

after an arrest during a music video shoot is paying them $600,000. Their success rates, however, have yet to catch up with their fees. When nursing home operator Joseph Schwartz eventually secured one of Trump's many second-term pardons, it came only after he'd dismissed Berkman and Wohl and hired a different lobbyist. Defy Injunction The District Court of the Northern District of Texas has dismissed a January 2025 lawsuit from Michael Llewellyn, the developer of a cryptocurrency crowdfunding tool, who sought a preemptive declaration that his tool was legal and an injunction preventing charges of operating an unlicensed money transmission business. Llewellyn stated in the lawsuit that he would not register

as a money transmitter because, quote, it will be impossible to comply with the reporting requirements that registration would demand, namely the requirements that money transmitting businesses verify and report the identities of their customers. The lawsuit, he says, was prompt. by these several criminal cases from the Justice Department against non-custodial crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash and Samurai Wallet. The Justice Department later decided not to pursue the charge of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business against Roman Storm, the developer of Tornado Cash, after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued an April 2025 memo instructing prosecutors

not to pursue this charge in crypto cases. Llewellyn's complaint garnered support from eight crypto companies and industry advocacy groups, including Paradigm, Uniswap, the Solana Policy Institute, and the Blockchain Association, who filed a joint amicus brief. The government's aggressive prosecutions under Section 1960 have sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency industry, and, quote, cast a cloud of uncertainty over cryptocurrency software developers, stifling development that is critical to the industry's growth. Nevertheless, the court granted the government's motion to dismiss, finding that Llewellyn failed to demonstrate he faces a substantial threat of prosecution. The court noted that money laundering was a core issue

in the cases Llewellyn cited as similar to his planned business and pointed to the Blanche memo as further evidence that Llewellyn is not in danger. Llewellyn and his supporters have expressed disappointment with the decision. Peter Van Valkenberg, executive director of the Coin Center Cryptocurrency Advocacy Group, wrote, quote, DOJ memo is not binding law. It can be revised, revoked, or ignored, and it plainly has not provided meaningful protection to developers, given the outcomes in the tornado cash and samurai wallet cases. In regulators, the SEC has dismissed with prejudice its enforcement action against Nader Al-Nazi, the founder of the defunct blockchain-based social network BitClout.

The dismissal adds to a growing list of over a dozen crypto-related enforcement cases and investigations the SEC has dropped since Trump took office. The 2024 lawsuit had charged El Naji with securities fraud, unregistered security sales, and unjust enrichment, alleging he sold more than $250 million of his BitClout token while lying to investors about the supposedly decentralized nature of the project. According to the SEC, El Naji then used some of the proceeds for personal expenses, including renting a Beverly Hills mansion, paying his personal credit card bills, and making cash gifts of at least $2.9 million to family.

Shortly after Trump took office in February 2025, the Justice Department dismissed a criminal wire fraud case against El Nashi. Not everyone at the SEC has welcomed the apparent directive to abandon crypto enforcement. Margaret Ryan, the SEC's Enforcement Division Director, has resigned after only six months in the position. Reuters has reported that two sources familiar with the matters said that, quote, Ryan wanted to be more aggressive in pursuing charges for fraud and other miscarriage. conduct, including in cases that touched the president's circle, but faced resistance from SEC Chair Paul Atkins and other top Republican political appointees. Among the cases Ryan reportedly balked at dropping were those against Justin Sun and Elon Musk,

both Trump mega-donors. While Sun is not a U.S. citizen and cannot make direct campaign contributions, he has contributed to Trump through the Trump family's cryptocurrency ventures. In Congress, Clarity Act. After Coinbase scuttled a planned Senate banking markup hearing on draft language for the Clarity Act Crypto Market Structure Bill in January, the crypto lobby, the banking lobby, and members of Congress have been battling over various components of the wide-ranging bill. The push to advance the controversial legislation has grown increasingly desperate, as circumstances mount against it. Midterm campaigns are well underway, and Trump'sy-Rimpsy-Rimbing.

and war is siphoning attention away from other issues in front of Congress. Draft amendments prohibiting stable coin rewards, a provision pushed heavily by the banking lobby, which views such rewards as competitive threats to traditional bank deposit products, were among Coinbase's primary objections in January. But some members of Congress now appear willing to proceed without the exchange's blessing, a risky gambit, considering Coinbase has effectively become a shadow legislature, drafting bills and holding veto power over. proposed crypto regulation. In doing so, they're also breaking from Trump, who posted on this social media platform that banks were, quote, undermining our powerful crypto agenda with their opposition

to stable coin rewards. It seems that Coinbase is still and willing to budge on the stable coin rewards issue, which is perhaps unsurprising given the exchange's lucrative partnership with Circle, the issuer of USC. But this intransigence is frustrating some others in the industry, who increasingly view Coinbase's stance as putting the entire legislative effort at risk. Quote, six weeks later, Coinbase is still holding the whole industry hostage, wrote ARCA executive Jeff Dorman on Twitter. Quote, I'm all for doing what is right for your shareholders, but this is becoming incredibly short-sighted as the whole industry is going to suffer far more than any gains Coinbase gets

out of killing this bill. Delphi Digital co-founder Tommy Shaughnessy echoed his concern, arguing that Coinbase should accept a compromise now rather than risk losing the bill entirely. quote, we need a bill slash clarity before Democrats take back the House. Once crypto slash stablecoins 10x, we can revisit this down the road. With Congress in recess until mid-April and other controversial portions of the bill still unresolved, the window for passage is rapidly closing. As Galaxy Digital Research Director Alex Thorne observed, quote,

If clarity doesn't pass committee by end of April, odds of passage in 2026 become extremely low. Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, holds a similar opinion. Quote, if we don't get the Clarity Act passed by May, digital asset legislation will not pass for the foreseeable future. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, says she's confident that the bill will be done by then. But Congress has used up their boy who cried wolf quota on timeline predictions for this bill. Senators have predicted it would pass by the end of September 2025,

then by the end of last year, and here we are. In the White House, P-CAST While it may seem like good news that AI and Crypto-Zar David Sacks has exited the role, it appears to be a reshuffling in name only, to dodge the 130-day limit on the terms of special government employees that Congresspeople pointed out months ago he was already exceeding. Sachs is now stripped of that title and is left only as the co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology,

which, judging by its makeup, is now the Council of Billionaire Tech executives on AI, with a little crypto and nuclear energy sprinkled in. He was named co-chair in a January 2025 executive order re-establishing the council, along with fellow co-chair Michael Kratzios, who worked for Peter Thiel and Teal's portfolio company Scale AI, and was a technology advisor during Trump's first term. Though the two have held their co-chair positions for over a year now, the council was otherwise empty. Now that Sachs is out of his separate advisory role, Trump seems to have remembered the council exists and has just announced a list of new members.

These are Mark Andresen, a co-founder and general partner at Andresen Horowitz, Sergei Bryn, a co-founder of former president and AI researcher at Google, Safra Katz, the executive vice chair of Oracle, Michael Dell, the founder, CEO and chairman of Dell, Jacob DeWitt, the founder of the Nuclear Reactor Technology Company, Aklo. Fred Ursem, the co-founder of Coinbase and co-founder and general partner of the Crypto Venture Capital Firm Paradigm, Larry Ellison, the co-founder, executive chairman and CTO of Oracle, David Friedberg, an angel investor and co-host, along with Sacks, of the All-In podcast, Jensen Huang, the founder, president and CEO of NVIDIA, John Martinez, quantum physicist

and professor at UC Santa Barbara, Bob Mungard, the co-founder and CEO of Fusion Technologies, Company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Lisa Sue, the president and CEO of AMD, and Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder, CEO and chairman of Facebook and Meta. Under previous administrations, including in Trump's first term, the Science Advisory Council was typically a mix of professors, scientists, doctors, and executives. Now it has more all-in podcast hosts than it does professors. Howard Lutnik. According to Bloomberg, Howard Lutnik's October, 25th,

sale of Cantor Fitzgerald to his children, ostensibly to eliminate conflicts of interest, may have been financed in part by controversial stablecoin giant tether, which maintains other business relationships with Cantor. Law professor and former DC Ethics Council Kathleen Clark observed that, quote, this transaction is in theory supposed to eliminate a conflict of interest, but in reality it creates a new one. Lutnik secured a waiver to participate in cryptocurrency policy conversations before completing the and now that he is technically fully divested, his family continues to profit from crypto and other deals. In elections and political influence, Super PACs.

The Fair Shake Crypto Super PAC Network was dealt a harsh rebuke in Illinois, despite pouring $14.2 million into the Senate race and eight House districts. True to form, the PACs backed likely winners in most races to produce an impressive scorecard. But their real money went into two high-stakes Democratic primaries, the Senate and House District 7. Despite $10.3 million spent opposing Democratic Senate candidate Juliana Stratton and $2.5 million against Democratic House candidate Lashon Ford, both candidates won their races. That $12.8 million, 90% of the PAC network spending in the state, was squandered. Whether these losses stemmed solely from Stratton and Ford's own strengths, or if we're also beginning to see voter backlash against heavy spending from corporations and other outside

interests, remains unclear with so few states having held their primaries. But both candidates had directly called out the crypto industry's spending in their races. Ford went further, sending Fairshake a cease and desist over an ad he alleged falsely portrayed him as corrupt, a convicted felon for bank fraud, and someone who had abused. his power in the Illinois state legislature. Ford has pledged to continue fighting false political ads beyond the primary, though Fairshake will likely abandon both his race and Strattons, which are heavily favored to go Democratic in the general election. We're in a bit of a quiet spell now, with the next state primaries over a month away. However, with nearly a dozen states

scheduled to hold their primary elections in May, some of which are predicted to be highly competitive, spending targeting those voters is likely to ramp up very soon. Stand with Crypto. The Coinbase-backed political advocacy group Stand with Crypto announced its first slate of House candidate endorsements, targeting battleground races where they say candidates have, quote, demonstrated clear support for crypto innovation and policy. The six endorsed candidates are equally split across parties, and all are incumbents. They are Zach Nunn, a Republican in Iowa's District 3. Susie Lee, a Democrat in Nevada's District 3. Mike Lawler, a Republican in New York's District 17. Don Davis, a Democrat in North Carolina's District 1. Greg Lansman, a Democrat in Ohio's

District 1, and Rob Bresnahan, a Republican in Pennsylvania's District 8. They're also planning to target two sitting members of Congress they view as hostile to crypto interests. The group warns it will, quote, prioritize races in Ohio's 9th congressional district and Pennsylvania's 10th congressional district, where incumbents, both Democrat and Republican, have concerning records on crypto policy. The Ohio target is Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptor, who faces a challenging re-election bid after redistricting. All three frontrunners in the Republican primary race have A-Ratings on stand with crypto, so the lack of endorsement now suggests they're likely to just back whoever wins the primary. In Pennsylvania, they're taking aim at Republican Scott Perry, whose case illustrates the arbitrary

nature of Stand With Crypto's rating system. Despite Perry's profile showing one, quote, very pro-crypto statement, and five pro-crypto votes or bill sponsorships, a single vote against the Genius Act has earned him a strongly against crypto F-rating. The industry may be ready to back his Democratic challenger, former news anchor Janelle Stelson, who lost to Perry in 2020. She has never held office and so has no voting record, but has filled out the stand-with-crypto questionnaire with supportive answers, a strong signal she's open to industry's super PAC support. As in 2024, the crypto industry is deploying a two-pronged strategy, offering support to candidates willing to embrace the crypto agenda while threatening opponents with both heavy spending and the specter of a mobilized so-called crypto voter bloc.

Stand with Crypto's new poll results, released alongside the endorsements, purport to demonstrate that mobilized voter bloc. Crypto voters, they claim in one takeaway, quote, are a potential major swing voting block in the upcoming midterm elections. But the survey exemplifies the rigor, typical of crypto industry polling. Their sample is evenly split between 500 cryptocurrency owners and 500 so-called stand with crypto advocates, essentially oversampling the most politically engaged crypto enthusiasts. The survey selectively breaks out stand with crypto advocates when reporting particularly favorable numbers, but never identifies results for non-advocate crypto owners alone, meaning most top-line figures blend casual crypto owners with those who care so much about the subject they've

signed up as advocates. Even with this sample tilted heavily toward their activist base, only 64 percent expressed enthusiasm about voting for pro-crypto candidates. If they can't even get two-thirds enthusiasm from their most engaged supporters, what does that actually say about crypto's power as a swing voting issue? I requested more information about the poll from both stand-with-crypto and impact research, the pollster who they hired for the survey. Neither responded to my inquiry. In prediction markets. Even as the CFTC has decided its new mandate is prediction markets protector, rather than markets regulator, states and Native American tribes are continuing to take the platforms to court. The Nevada state judge has granted a temporary restraining order that bans

Kalshi from the state, finding that the state is, quote, reasonably likely to prevail on the merits. This will last until an April hearing over whether to impose an injunction, which would extend the ban as the case continues. Washington state, whose unusually strict gambling laws ban online gambling entirely, is among the latest to say Calci is violating those laws. They further allege that Cali is explicitly targeting young adults, and particularly young adult men, with its marketing, and that, quote, Calci is now fueling a public health crisis in Washington by promoting and providing illegal online betting in the state under the guise of, quote, events trading in a financial, quote, prediction market. They point to Calci's own advertising about how it, quote, cracked the code on legal

betting in all 50 states, likely to preempt Kalshi's usual excuse that they're offering trades, not bets. And as the civil lawsuits pile up, at least 20 of them against Kalsi so far, Arizona has taken things even a step further by filing criminal charges against the company for violations of state gambling and election gambling laws. Kalshi attempted to shut it down by running to federal court for an injunction before the case was even filed, but District Judge Michael LaBerty has denied their request for a temporary restraint. order. It remains to be seen whether he will grant some form of injunction, but he didn't sound all that tempted when he ordered that, quote, plaintiff must show cause no later than March 20,

20, 26, why this court should not abstain from this case in light of the criminal proceedings brought by the state of Arizona against plaintiff in state court. Calci isn't giving up without a fight, though. They've sued numerous states that have already brought enforcement actions against them, or that they expect will. They're appealing several actions from state courts, and they're aggressively seeking to remove state cases to federal court, where they apparently believe they'll stand a better chance, and where the CFTC might more easily intervene. Congress is also considering stepping in,

with Senators Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, and John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, proposing a prediction markets are gambling act to prohibit CFTC regulated prediction markets like Kalshi from offering bouts on sporting events or, quote, casino-style games like poker. Beyond their complaints about the prediction market firms, their press release criticizes the regulator as well. Quote, for 15 years, the CFTC has enforced its authority to prohibit the listing of a contract that involves, relates to, or references gaming.

However, the CFTC and its chair have abruptly reversed course, intervening in ongoing litigation and proceeding with rulemaking to significantly relax the CFTC's enforcement of this clause. Now the CFTC is entering into partnerships with entities like Major League Baseball to further facilitate these markets' growth. This legislation adds to a growing pile of proposed bills to restrict prediction markets, though it's perhaps the broadest so far. Other proposals like shifts by Camerol Deathbets Act would seek to unequivocally prohibit contracts related to terrorism, assassination, or war, and bills like Richie Torres' Public Integrity and Financial Prediction Markets Act would restrict participation on political events contracts by elected officials, appointees, and staff. Some new research is suggesting that prediction markets are actually worse than gambling, at least in terms of outcomes for the betters. Citizens' JMP has found that retail customers

had a median return of negative 8% on prediction markets versus negative 5% on sportsbooks. This is at least in part because, unlike regular, sportsbooks, prediction markets don't limit or prohibit profitable betters. Whereas sportsbook betters primarily bet against the house, prediction market customers trade against other users, and these users often include sophisticated professional betters and market makers, not to mention those with inside information, as I've covered in other recent issues. After Coinbase rolled out notifications inviting their customers to participate in their new prediction markets on March Madness basketball games, some of their customers were

Shopped, shopped to find that gambling is going on in here. One customer, John Palmer, tweeted, This is incredibly annoying, getting several of these per day from Coinbase. I don't understand pushing this on users who trust Coinbase to hold their stable coin and crypto balances. This is essentially encouraging me to gamble. What does that say about the internal philosophy around money management? Can I trust the yield sources on USDA interest?

Can I trust internal risk management, etc? I really just don't get it. I love Coinbase and hold the stock too, but this just feels like there are no consistent brand values underlying the strategy. Outside the U.S. The United Kingdom has decided to ban cryptocurrency donations to political parties, at least until they can implement the system to properly monitor them. They have also said they will limit political contributions from British citizens living outside the country to 100,000 pounds, or around $134,000 per year. This all comes after Christopher Harbourn, a Thailand-based British Thai citizen, contributed 12 million pounds, or around $15.9 million, to Reform U.K. last year. It also follows reporting that Reform U.K. had not shared any of its wallet addresses with the U.K.'s election watchdog, preventing them from scrutinizing contributions.

The U.K. government has presented the limits as, quote, changes to protect U.K. democracy from the scourge of foreign actors and financial influence. Canada is now also considering legislation that would prohibit crypto donations and other, quote, anonymous slash hard-to-trace contributions like money orders and prepaid cards. It's part of a sweeping bill that would also ban most election-related deepfakes and further limit foreign political spending. Finance has been fined $10 million Australian dollars or around $6.9 million U.S. dollars in Australia for misclassifying retail traders as institutional investors and allowing them to trade high-risk. crypto derivatives without the usual protections. The 524 misclassified clients, who made up more than 85% of its local customers, lost 8.66 million Australian dollars, or around 5.9 million U.S. dollars,

on their trades, and paid $3.9 million Australian dollars, or around 2.7 million U.S. dollars in fees. The issue stemmed from an investor sophistication onboarding quiz that customers could retake until they passed, and other issues pertaining to individual wealth tests and compliance staff failures. The Web 3 is going just great recap. There were five entries between March 14 and March 30th. $26.15 million was added to the grift counter. Moonwell faced a $1 million governance attack. Balancer Labs shut down after a $110 million hack. The USR stable coin depegged in a $24 million exploit, the Venus Protocol accumulated $2.15 million in bad debt after an exploit, and block fills went bankrupt. In the news, HuffPost, Coin Desk, City and State, New York, and Dahl News,

times three, cited my data analysis and reporting on the crypto lobby and its election spending. That's all for now, folks. Until next time, this has been Molly White. Thanks for listening to this is. issue of the citation needed newsletter. If you would like to support my work with a free or pay what you want subscription to the citation needed newsletter, or if you would like to receive these issues in your email, go to citation needed.news. Sign up. If you enjoyed the podcast version of this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review in your podcast player of choice.