The Breakdown - The Longest Vote in House History and a Crypto Week in Chaos

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

NLW breaks down the dramatic twists of Crypto Week on Capitol Hill, where GOP infighting brought legislative progress to a near halt. From Trump’s Oval Office intervention to the 7-hour procedural vote—the longest in House history—he unpacks the fragile deal to move the anti-CBDC bill forward. Also in this episode: the mysterious movement of $4.6B in ancient Bitcoin, speculation around Adam Back’s treasury strategy, a $100M Coin Metrics acquisition, and signs of retail returning as Ethereum and altcoins stir to life. Brought to you by: Grayscale offers more than 20 different crypto investment products. Explore the full suite at grayscale.com. Invest in your share of the future. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal. To learn more, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Grayscale.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.grayscale.com//?utm_source=blockworks&utm_medium=paid-other&utm_campaign=brand&utm_id=&utm_term=&utm_content=audio-thebreakdown)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownBW

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, July 17th, and today we are talking about the latest in Crypto Week on Capitol Hill. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, first up today, we have an update on this absolute S show of a crypto week. It continues and fits and starts as House Republicans struggle to reach consensus. When we left off on Tuesday night, the House Freedom Caucus had tanked a procedural vote that

brought progress to a screeching halt. They demanded that the anti-CbDC bill be attached to other legislation to ensure it passes. On Tuesday night, President Trump called the lawmakers to the Oval Office and claimed he had hashed out a deal to secure their support to vote in favor of the rule. On Wednesday morning, House Freedom Caucus leader Andy Harris committed his members to vote in favor of the rule, citing an agreement with the president. He tweeted, under this agreement, the Rules Committee will reconvene later today to add clear, strong anti-CbDC provisions to the clarity legislation. Now, while the president agreed, he didn't appear to have cleared the deal with House leadership.

Politico reported that Republican committee members believed that adding anti-CBDC language to the Clarity Act would simply doom both bills. They wrote that an alternative was being sought in attaching the anti-CBDC bill to another must-pass bill, such as the Annual Defense Authorization Act or the Bill to renew foreign surveillance powers. The morning featured leadership huddles but zero progress. In the afternoon, the procedural vote was finally called, but it seemed House Freedom Caucus members were still not on board. After voting no, Chip Roy left the House floor telling the press, there was some sort of an agreement that doesn't appear to exist anymore, and that's all I got to say. In the late afternoon, the vote remained open, and committee leadership continued to

negotiate with the Republican holdouts. The House Freedom Caucus voted no one by one, making the outlook increasingly grim for the second procedural vote. Around 6.45 p.m., Republican leadership announced that no further votes would be taken, but negotiations continued in closed-door meetings. Reporters went to press with their stories after a long day of coverage with Punchbowl reporting, Crypto Week is an unmitigated disaster. At around 9.30, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris returned to the floor to change his vote to a no, negotiations clearly heading in the wrong direction. An hour later, Republican leader Steve Scalise announced that a deal had been reached. The anti-CBDC bill would be attached to the must-pass defense appropriations bill to ensure it got

across the line. House Freedom Caucus members trickled back in to switch their vote to a yes. Around 11 o'clock, the vote was finally solidified and the rule was passed. House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Genius Act would go to a vote today, but the Clarity Act would likely be punted into next week. For those of you who are looking for records, this was the longest-ever vote in the history of the House at seven hours and 20 minutes. Now, the agenda can move forward, but the process is in shambles. So far, anti-crypto-democrats haven't needed to lift a finger to frustrate the agenda,

with Republicans managing to derail it all on their own. Still, Justin Slaughter-Paradar Paradigms VP of Regulatory Affairs is still optimistic that the sleep-deprived lawmakers will pass the Genius Act when they return to Congress today, tweeting my baseline is 280 House votes for Genius with moderate overperformance being 300. But what a needlessly long and unnecessarily complicated road this has been, to everyone's detriment. I hope the saga spurs DC to do better about regulating new tech. I agree, but I am not holding more. my breath, Justin. To the extent there's an upside to the chaotic way Crypto Week is playing out,

I guess it's that CBDCs are getting a high-profile moment in Congress. Tom Emmer seems satisfied that stapling his anti-cdcdbdbill to the defense appropriations bill will ensure it passes. He said it would, quote, ensure unelected bureaucrats are never allowed to trade Americans' financial privacy for a CCP-style surveillance tool. Others drew on religious views to ground their opposition to a CBDC? Marjorie Taylor Green, who is the lone holdout who didn't change your vote to a yes, tweeted, I am not voting for the mark of the beast system, totally happy and content being 1,000 percent, no. Whatever the reason it's now clear there's a strong constituency against CBDC should they ever reemerge as a serious proposition in the U.S. On the downside, we're three

days into crypto week with zero bills passed. Hopefully the Genius Act sails through today, but momentum is at risk of stalling out for the Clarity Act. Political capital and floor time are being torched on factional squabbles instead of moving the agenda forward. Almost certainly at this point, it is unlikely that we will get all of the goals of the week accomplished. Now, moving to some more fun topics, we discussed last week that $8 billion in Bitcoin that was owned by an ancient crypto whale that was moving for the first time in a very long time. A series of wallets moved 80,000 Bitcoin that hadn't been touched since 2011. The movements looked like a wallet upgrade, with the funds moving a single time and then stopping. No one had any idea around who owned the

coins, but speculation centered around Roger Verr. On Tuesday, the coin started moving again with a series of transactions to Galaxy Digital. Batches varied in size, but once the movement of funds stopped, the whale had deposited around 40,000 Bitcoin worth around $4.6 billion. Blockchain tracker look-on-chain speculated that by transferring to Galaxy, they were, quote, likely preparing to sell through their services. Certainly a possibility, Galaxy offers one of the largest OTC desks in crypto, so they're one of the few places that you could find a buyer, or more likely, combination of buyers, for 4.6 billion in Bitcoin. OTC deals also have the benefit of not moving the market as much as dumping Bitcoin on spot markets, but they still have an impact. If this was a gigantic sale,

then it's ridiculously impressive that Bitcoin didn't go below $115,000 yesterday. B.J. Boyapati commented, do you realize a whale just dumped almost as much Bitcoin as the German nation did last year and Bitcoin only dropped a few percent? Let that sink in. Bitcoin is now one of the most deeply liquid markets on Earth, up there with gold and treasuries. Now, obviously, Galaxy isn't going to reveal the identity of a huge client like this, and they're also not going to explain what they're doing, so all were left is speculation. And although crypto-Twitter is convinced this was a massive sale, that's not necessarily the case. Unlike an exchange deposit, a deposit into Galaxy could be for a range of other reasons. Alongside their OTC desk, they offer custody and a wide range of

investment banking services, so it's not as simple as just assuming that this is a sale. Today's episode of The Breakdown is brought to you exclusively by Grayscale. Grayscale is almost certainly a name you know. They've been offering exposure to crypto for over a decade now and offer over 20 different crypto investment products ranging from single asset to diversified to thematic exposure to crypto and the broader crypto industry. They have long been innovators at the intersection of tradfai and crypto. And one of the benefits for a lot of us is that grayscale products are available right through your existing brokerage or IRA. Now, of course, investing involves risk, possible loss of principle. For more information and important disclosures, visit grayscale.com.

Go to gracecale.com to explore their full suite of crypto investment products and invest in your share of the future. Incompletely unrelated news, Blockstream CEO Adam Back is close to closing a $3 to $4 billion Bitcoin deal with Cantor Fitzgerald. The Financial Times reports that Back is in discussions to contribute as much as 30,000 Bitcoin to Cantor Equity Partners one, a blank check company set to be converted into a publicly listed Bitcoin Treasury play. That vehicle is separate from 21 Capital, which is another Cantor-backed Bitcoin Treasury play fronted by Jack Mullers, which is taking capital from BitFinex, Tether, and SoftBank. In addition to the Bitcoin contribution, there are plans to raise another $800 million

in equity to fund additional Bitcoin purchases as part of the deal. Back has funded a series of Bitcoin Treasury plays this cycle, each valued in the range of 5 to $15 million. But this deal is one of the single largest plays of the cycle, similar in size to the 21 Capital play. The Times reports that funding will come from Back personally alongside Blockstream Capital, but wasn't clear on the exact ownership of the Bitcoin being used to seed the company. And while another Bitcoin Treasury company at this stage isn't that interesting in and of itself, even at this size, the deal does raise a lot of questions about Adam Back's Bitcoin stash.

If you were making a list of people who could have plausibly owned tens of thousands of Bitcoin in 2011, Back has to be included. He was a member of the Cypherpunk movement in the late 90s and worked on cryptographic projects that formed some of the inspiration for Bitcoin. His work was even referenced in the Bitcoin white paper, leading to persistent theories that he might be Satoshi. Despite his history, though, Back has always denied being a Bitcoin billionaire, although he would never discuss the actual size of his Bitcoin holdings. Of course, all speculation at this point, but for many people, it is difficult to ignore that the Bitcoin deposited into Galaxy is a pretty close match to the size of this deal. If you were sitting on several billion dollars in ancient

Bitcoin, you wanted to liquidate, there are worse ways to do it than funneling it into a Bitcoin Treasury Company. Indeed, the industry chatter is that a large number of Bitcoin OGs have been taking this exit. Still back is very clear in his recent public statements that he sees Bitcoin capital markets is still a gigantic arbitrage opportunity. He's adamant that Bitcoin is steadily moving towards a multi-hundred trillion dollar market cap as the fiat system falls apart. And so maybe, rather than an exit, this is back accessing the leverage he needs to join that arbitrage in size. Maybe his goal is to run the same speculative attack on the dollar that Michael Saylor has been running since 2020. Indeed, Bitwise strategist Jeff Park is invigorated by the move rather than getting

concerned, tweeting, watching Adam Back just drop a cool $3 billion of Bitcoin into the generational trade of a lifetime is the exact energy I needed to get over the procedural circus over crypto bills that is the U.S. government. You can just do things. Speaking of you can just do things, what started as a dorm room project has now been acquired for $100 million. Citigroup-back tokenization firm Talos has paid $100 million to acquire coin metrics, which started off all the way back in Nick Carter's humble dorm room. Now, Coin Metrics is a crypto data firm providing a range of on-and-off-chain data feeds. Tallow CEO Anton Katz said that the acquisition was aimed at getting ahead of the digital transformation

of capital markets. He said, digital assets are actually changing how finance is doing things behind the scenes. This is the next evolution for us. Our bet is that digital assets are going to be the underlying technology of financial markets. Lastly, today, retail appears to be returning as the Coinbase app climbs the download charts. In another confirmation that retail interest is finally picking back up, the Coinbase app has moved up to rank 162 on the App Store. That's up from 436 last month, so a sharp uptick in interest. Historically, the app has hit the number one spot around market peaks when retail mania is in full effect.

And indeed, in markets, it looks like the Bitcoin-only cycle is breaking down, potentially because of the spike in retail participation. Ethereum is showing the first signs of life in a long time, achieving a 20% gain for the week to hit a six-month high. Longer-tail alt are flying as the pump.bun ICO restarts the meme coin narrative. Bitcoin dominance has dropped several percentage points this week falling from 64%. And while that doesn't seem like a big shift, this is the lowest level since mid-May and a clear trend break. Analyst Matthew Highland wrote, If ETH breaks bullish and remains bullish against Bitcoin, there is a 99% chance Bitcoin

dominance has topped. In other words, while retail interest is still nowhere near 2021 levels, I would brace yourself to start answering questions about crypto again. Ryan McNutt of Orbit Finance wrote, Family no longer sees crypto as a scam, but Finance 2.0. Retail, inbound. That's going to do it for today's breakdown. Appreciate you listening as always. And until next time, be safe and take care of each other.

Peace.