The Pomp Podcast - Bitcoin vs. The Fed: Former Congressman Thinks Bitcoin Is the Answer | Jeb Hensarling

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Jeb Hensarling is the former Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and one of the most influential voices in economic policy during the 2008 financial crisis. He has also joined ProCap BTC as a Senior Advisor. In this conversation, we talk about how Jeb pushed back against the bank bailouts, how those same issues led to the rise of bitcoin, his views on bitcoin, stablecoins, the broader crypto industry, and how technology and innovation are reshaping the financial system today.======================Check out my NEW show for daily bite-sized breakdowns of the biggest stories in finance, technology, and politics: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://pompdesk.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠======================Simple Mining makes Bitcoin mining simple and accessible for everyone. We offer a premium white glove hosting service, helping you maximize the profitability of Bitcoin mining. For more information on Simple Mining or to get started mining Bitcoin, visit https://www.simplemining.io/======================Xapo Bank, the world’s first fully licensed Bitcoin-enabled bank, offers military-grade security with an unmatched blend of physical and digital security, as well as pioneering regulatory oversight, so your funds are always protected. Beyond secure storage, they enable you to grow and use your Bitcoin. Earn daily interest in Bitcoin, spend with zero FX fees using a global card, and make instant payments via the Lightning Network for unrivalled access and convenience. Visit ⁠https://www.xapobank.com/pomp⁠ to join.======================Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro2:25 - 2008 bank bailouts & Satoshi6:21 - QE playbook & constant intervention10:39 - Bitcoin as protection & property rights17:11 - GENIUS Act & advice for industry regulation24:36 - How to get lawmakers educated28:11 - Why stablecoins matter for America & bitcoin33:34 - How to think through a US bitcoin strategic reserve38:39 - Opportunities in the intersection of finance and technology43:25 - Choosing optimism & why Jeb is Long America

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Get tickets now. What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the

opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. How do you view kind of Bitcoin's rise, given the backdrop of this kind of undisciplined central bank and kind of a very heavy handed intervention into the financial market? Well, a two word answer would be the solution. I don't know if this can be seen on the camera. We could see it. This is a 10 trillion, 10 trillion dollar note. I am fearful that we will see the erosion of nest eggs and of purchasing power, okay? Bitcoin is a protection from the ultimate erosion we're

going to have to see. What's going on, guys? Today, we got a great episode with Jeb Hensarling. I'm really excited about this because Jeb's not only a former congressman, but he's the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. In 2008, Jeb led the pushback against the bank bailouts. He understood what the problem was. He understood the mistake that was being made, and he predicted a lot of the challenges that we face today. On top of that, Jeb was pushing back against the bank bailouts at the exact moment that Satoshi Nakamoto was building Bitcoin. Two people who didn't know each other,

but were all trying to attack a solution to the same problem. Jeb today is spending a lot of time advising companies that are operating at the intersection of finance and technology. We're very fortunate to have him as a senior advisor at ProCap Financial, and Jeb's going to explain his views on Bitcoin, stablecoins, and the crypto industry. And on top of that, he'll give us some optimism to understand how technology and innovation are actually driving prosperity forward. Here's my conversation with Jeb Hensarling.

All right, Jeb, I thought a great place to start this conversation is all the way back in 2008 when the bank bailouts were being surfaced as an idea, there's two people who I know who started to do things, you and Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi saw the bank bailouts and the incoming currency debasement and all the problems with kind of the central bank system, and he or she decided they were going to go and write software code to try to solve that problem by building Bitcoin. You use the apparatus and the position that you were in to lead pushback from the bank bailouts. And so can you start just by telling us kind of that story? And why were you one of the few people who saw if there was a

potential issue with the banks doing this? Well, number one, I appreciate the comparison to Satoshi. So already I feel honored that you would do that. And back in 2008, I was chairman of something called the Republican Study Committee, which was the conservative caucus in Congress. Today, there's two. Back then, there was one. It's kind of an amalgamation of social conservatives, what we call defense hawks and libertarians. I'd put myself in the libertarian camp. And so what I saw at the time, and I'm a firm believer that precedents matter and that once you let genies out of their bottle, they're very, very difficult to put back in their bottle. To me, my reading of history, my reading of economics is that the great flourishment of mankind is associated with the maximization of liberty and liberty applied to economics is essentially free market capitalism.

You cannot have free market capitalism if you have, well, basically, privatize your profits and socialize your losses. Capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down. And if you lose your ability to fail, you will lose your ability to succeed in America. So, indeed, I helped lead the efforts against the original bailout legislation. In fact, the New York Times said that I was co-leaning. I usually don't believe what the New York Times says. In this case, I believe the New York Times because I was there. So I tried to lead the effort.

And Anthony, every single day when you're a member of Congress, somebody runs down the aisle and says, we have an emergency. We have an emergency. In this particular case, I did believe that we did have an emergency. We did have a crisis. So myself and other conservatives presented an alternative plan, which was much more in the nature of kind of an FDI insurance program, kind of a bail in instead of bail out. Unfortunately, in my mind, that well, that plan did not carry the day. And I'm afraid what we have seen now is a more brittle financial system. And I've seen we've seen the larger financial players, the big banks got bigger and the smaller financial institutions became smaller.

And I think we've seen less innovation and we've seen more government control. I mean, government doesn't offer assistance without more government control. And I think, again, these are bad precedents. I think we've seen bad things happen because of it. And I think it's exactly why Satoshi did what he or she did, seeing the same problems that could occur because you had the people who supposedly knew it all in Washington and supposedly the people who knew it all on Wall Street didn't know it. And all of a sudden, people didn't have access to their capital. They were seeing that capital erode. And so for all those problems, I put my little five-foot, seven-inch frame in front of that

big train and unfortunately, it didn't quite get stopped. Now, in hindsight, you said once you let the genie out of the bottle, it does feel like 2008, 2009, we invented the QE playbook to the degree that we did. But now, fast forward, you know, 17, 18 years later, it feels like central banks have perfected this. And we saw during kind of COVID crash, and we also saw during kind of some of the other events that have occurred over the last, you know, two decades or so, every time we get to some sort of weakness in the market or some sort of concern, we immediately, both

domestically and now internationally even, go to cut rates, print money. And that seems to be the accepted, you know, kind of criteria in response. Is that how you see this playing out? Well, it's exactly how I see it playing out. And, you know, I would say at least one of the upsides to the terrible inflation we had a few years ago, I think more Americans are starting to connect the dots between the power of the Federal Reserve, an unsustainable national debt and inflation. Since time immemorial, central banks have monetized the debt. It's kind of what central banks do.

I see very few societies that have successful fiscal consolidation plans when they reach incredible levels of debt to GDP. So I'm hoping more Americans in the body politic have learned that lesson. But indeed, this is a very different central bank than we saw a number of years ago using very unconventional monetary policy. And some of the dangerous precedents are, I believe, is that you now see really, again, the connection between fiscal dominance, fiscal policy dominance, and how central banks are there to essentially finance that fiscal dominance. And for example, Jay Powell was the biggest cheerleader for fiscal stimulus during the COVID crisis, which

I think is unique because in some respects it was the government, the state that put the economy into an induced coma. That's very different than people taking outside risk back in the great financial crisis and policies of helping put people into houses that they could not afford to keep. It's a very, very different animal. But the bottom line is those tools, as you put it, being perfected. And they didn't go back in the toolbox. They broke the glass. They pulled out the axe and the fire extinguisher. And once the fire was gone, they're still using the axe and the fire extinguisher. And so that's what I mean about these precedents. And so, for example, having

the central bank prop up one distinct sector of the economy, the housing, by buying all this NBS, these mortgage-backed securities, and then during the COVID crisis, backdropping, you know, backstopping, rather, practically every single financial sector and financial instrument for money market funds to munis. Once they do that, then all of a sudden members of Congress are saying, why should I engage in the appropriations process and go through this debate and having to be accountable to the electorate? I can just go and use the central bank's balance sheet to achieve my political goals.

So it really opens up, again, a number of bad precedents. And to have the central bank now inflate its balance sheet and have such a huge footprint into the economy, the state via the central bank is just playing a much larger role in the economy. And that cannot be good ultimately for economic growth and long-term development of our populace. Now, as a libertarian, it is somewhat funny in hindsight that you were able to, through your intellect and hard work, end up as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. I feel like we successfully got the wolf into the henhouse and you got kind of a lay of the land and understood everything that was happening. um bitcoin is something that i think really aligns with what many people perceive the libertarian viewpoint of free markets and transparency and and uh kind of um you know building solutions

rather than just going through uh that political process how do you view kind of bitcoin's rise given the backdrop of this kind of undisciplined central bank and kind of a very heavy-handed uh intervention into the financial market um well a two-word answer would be the solution I just think this is revolutionary. I'm so excited about it, mainly because of the fears that I have. One of the great, I guess, themes that was important to me when I served in Congress was the democratization of credit and investments. So number one, we lived through and we saw what happened with the highest inflation we

had seen in a generation most recently, tied to prolific spending, whether it was required at the moment or not. We saw the results. As a student of history, we've seen it in other societies. Now, I don't believe the US is ever going to be the Weimar Republic of Germany. I don't think we're ever going to be Argentina, much less Zimbabwe. In thinking that this question might arise, I don't know if this can be seen on the camera. We could see it.

This is a $10 trillion note from 2008 printed by the Central Bank of Zimbabwe. And what you might see here in the lower left-hand corner, a friend gave it to me. It cost $8.95. OK, so this is what can happen in inflation. Now, again, I don't see this happening to this degree in the U.S., but I am fearful that we will see the erosion of nest eggs and of purchasing power. OK, Bitcoin is a protection from the ultimate erosion we're going to have to see. Something that is unsustainable has a tendency to stop. I think it was economist Herb Stein who once said that.

Our spending is unsustainable. One day it will stop and central banks again are going to monetize this debt. Bitcoin prevents these nest eggs from being eroded. So that would be point number one. Point number two is at such a time as we see this type of devaluation, these type of interruptions in our economy. Bitcoin is going to be just allowing an explosion, I believe, of economic efficiency within our system. And another aspect of Bitcoin that I'm very excited about is this cross-border transfer of wealth. I'm speaking to you from Dallas, Texas. I'm a fifth generation Texan. I've spent a lot of time south of the border in Mexico, particularly in my youth. I was in Mexico the day, I say the day, it probably happened many

times in their history, where they nationalized the banks. I literally saw armed army personnel in banks preventing the populace from accessing their wealth. Okay, that's not going to happen with Bitcoin. As a libertarian, a conservative, I never forget whose money it is. Bitcoin allows it to be really your money. It strengthens your private property rights and your wealth. It protects it from the state and it protects it from erosion, from bad state policies. And it enables greater economic growth, not to mention greater privacy. And it's one of the reasons why it's so important that the U.S. be the leader in blockchain and cryptocurrency. And I think we both share, we think the Bitcoin is the winner when it comes to cryptocurrency, but it's important

for us to be the leader to ensure also that privacy is respected as well. So for all those reasons, I think that Bitcoin is the answer to a lot of challenges that are going to come with traditional finance in the dollarization of our economy. Now, when people hear you talk about this, they're going to immediately wish that you were back as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. because I think I got to tell you, if I want to keep my current and only wife, I'm not going back. But today's episode is brought to you by Zappo Bank. Are you a Bitcoiner looking for yield, security and liquidity? Zappo Bank is a fully licensed private bank and a virtual asset service

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And if you ever need help, you can talk to a real person too. Zappo's expert team is available 24-7 to answer your questions. Pomp podcast listeners like you who sign up as new users will receive $150 off their first year of membership. Go to zappobank.com slash pomp to learn more and sign up today. That's x-a-p-o-bank.com slash pomp. Go check it out today. I do think that there's this very interesting thing that has happened over maybe the last two years, three years, where there was kind of a private sector push for Bitcoin and stable coins and kind of this whole industry was kind of rising up and regulators were interacting with the industry because of the nature of their activities. But really, politicians, I think they kind of sat on the sidelines. And I found some that were, you know, they were negative, but they didn't have strong opinion. I found some that were slightly positive, but they didn't have strong opinion. It now feels like the political kind of regime has said, this is good for America. We have to figure it out. There's rules that need to be established.

And so you see things like the clarity, genius, stable acts, et cetera, all kind of getting put together. How should people think about, you know, this industry going through that legislative process? And are there things that you've taken away kind of watching this, given, you know, your understanding of what actually are the conversations and how this, you know, kind of comes together that people should be aware of? Well, what I tell people is that you ignore Washington at your own peril. And I would say that those involved in kind of the Bitcoin movement, the crypto industry writ large, have learned that they ignored Washington at their own peril. And because of that, you now see political engagement that you did not once see.

And that political engagement has led to the success that we see with the passage of the Genius Act, and as we await, hopefully, passage of the Clarity Act. But one of the things, Anthony, I think I would have people who are listening to the podcast know, this is not kind of a one and done kind of phenomenon. This is going to be ongoing. It is going to be ongoing for years. And what, for example, the Genius Act has done in many respects is just the first act, again, of a multi-act play. So, what that Genius Act has done in specific is at least create the foundation for the tokenization of the first financial asset, the dollar, with so many other to follow. Prior to enactment of this law, as you know, essentially you had to go knock on the door

of either the SEC, the CFTC. You didn't frankly even know what door to knock on. And once you knock, they say, go to the waiting room, we'll get around to you, and we will allow you to plead your case. And now what we're saying is, okay, there's at least, for lack of a better analogy, a regulatory sandbox. There are some guardrails here, but you get in, you innovate. And so we start to remove uncertainty. And it was that regulatory legal uncertainty that led to this great flight of talent to the, you know, to the EU, to Singapore, to Dubai. And now we're starting to catch up here. And so this is the first step. But what people in the industry need to know is now we're kind of going to the next phase. And regulators, we've kind of divided up to the

regulatory sandbox. But now there are going to be roundtables. There's going to be something known as guidance. And then from guidance comes notice of proposed rulemaking. From notice of proposed rulemaking comes the comment period. From the comment period comes the official rule. From the official rule comes more feedback. And what you hope at that point is you finally get something established into law, and you hope it gets established on a bipartisan basis. So each one of these is kind of a legal foundation creating more certainty. But the most certainty that you can have in the system is an actual law that was passed on a strong bipartisan basis. And that's what the people in Congress with genius have been able to do. But again,

It's the start of the process. And now you need clarity for the flourishing, obviously, of other digital assets. And so far, you've had the House pass it, not with the kind of strong bipartisan vote I'd like to see. And the Senate's still kind of in what we call listening on their discussion draft, kind of the term of art in Washington. So the main thing I would let, again, the movement, the industry know is you've got to keep engaged. You've got to stay engaged. You have to have your finger on the pulse of what is going on. A friend of mine in Congress once described what we do is making very important decisions on the fly with incomplete information, okay? That's not too far from the truth.

So you talk about certain members you engage in. Another thing I would have people know is you don't really have to engage with every member of Congress. There are kind of lead cowbells in Congress. And so, for example, on something like crypto, people are going to look to the chairman of the House of Financial Services, get many my old job, Congressman French Hill of Arkansas. He will be a leader. Brian Still from Wisconsin, he will be a leader.

You know, Cynthia Lummis on the Senate side, she's going to be a leader. And so particularly on a technological issue as complex as blockchain, crypto, other members of Congress are going to look to these lead members. Those are the key ones that the industry needs to focus on. And it's not always influencing. A lot of time it's informing and educating as well. That may be more than you care to know. No, it's perfect to understand. And I think, you know, one of the things that I have started to try to form an opinion on, and I don't have a strong one yet, but I think that it's an important question, is, you know, we have in this country politicians who are asked to legislate or oversee a lot of different things.

You may be talking about, you know, biotech one day. You may be talking about housing another, Bitcoin. I mean, you know, it's a pretty intellectually stimulating job, it seems, in terms of the breadth of different things that you may encounter. And so when I saw people start talking about as politicians, Bitcoin, stable coins, you know, these different things, one of the questions that I would ask, and usually it was to staffers because, you know, you didn't want it to come off as kind of abrasive, was just like, have they ever used the technology? Right. And I was actually surprised. Like there was more people that said, yes, now it's not like they're power users, but you know, they've at least they've got a wallet, they've signed up for an account, you know, that, that

type of stuff. Um, and so when you were, uh, in this seat, like, how did you think about getting up to speed? Right. Cause I think it's part of like, who do you go talk to, but it's also like, what can the industry do, uh, to educate? And there's a fine line, frankly, between like, are you educating or are you just advocating for your own self-interest, but on the education side, What were the things that were helpful for people in terms of you being more informed to make these decisions and create this legislation? Well, I think you bring up a very good point, and that is what is really most valuable to a legislator is a trusted source of expertise that you can ask stupid questions to and behind

closed doors and know that those conversations will remain private. As most Americans know, a lot of congressional hearings are about theater, and it's about to some extent testing out certain arguments on the body politic to ultimately drive policy. But they're there not to shed light. They're there for the fireworks. Now, that's not true of all hearings, but a number of hearings. So again, kind of sharing with the industry in the movement what to do, the time to establish a relationship with a legislator is when you don't need anything.

And be honest in discussing policy matters with legislators if the legislators say, okay, I understand this viewpoint, but what will your opponents tell me? Okay, you need to say, well, this is what you're going to hear from them. Once you establish that credibility, and when I was the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, there were people I relied on. If I wanted to know something about housing, if I wanted to know something about monetary policy, there were people who helped inform my opinions, but there were people I had longstanding relationships with that I finally decided, they knew what they were talking about and

they shot straight with me. So I would say establish relationships early. You start out establishing with the staff, then you end up establishing the relationship with the member. If you become a trusted source, then you can really help drive that public policy among the leadership. And by the way, leadership is always changing. For example, I was term limited as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,

which by the way, is a good idea. discussion for a different day. Well, not my case. I should have been at forever. Nice. It's a good policy to have in place. But my point is you also need to focus on more junior members, those who are kind of rising stars, because at some point they're going to be in positions of leadership. But with, you know, I believe that we are just on the precipice of the next great industrial Revolution. And listen, relative to people on this call, my knowledge of blockchain is probably in the bottom quartile of those who are listening to this podcast, but I'm trying to catch up. But I know a lot about what drives public policy, and I believe public policy ultimately helps drive

um what is possible what is possible and to allow ultimately this innovation to um to flourish now one other aspect that i think is uh tangential to bitcoin which the bitcoiners understand is very important is this idea of stable coins it's important from a u.s economic standpoint it's important from a national security standpoint but it's also important for bitcoin like it makes it easier for people to be able to go in and out of bitcoin and get more liquidity and stuff like that Can you talk about stablecoins in general and kind of given your background and knowledge of maybe the U.S. economy and our financial system, like how do you see the stablecoins playing out here in the coming years? Well, you know, relatively speaking to the U.S. population and the size of the U.S. economy, Bitcoin is still relatively small. Now it's growing by leaps and bounds.

I think that this stablecoin legislation, number one, helps mainstream Bitcoin even more. And so you've lived through, and you are a visionary here, Anthony, but you've lived through the cycle of kind of, you know, what is this thing? You know, this is such a speculative asset. This is, you know, what was it, 16th century tulips in Holland that everybody gambled on and lost their their shirts to where now people are starting to say, OK, what is this? Number one, stable coin, the Genius Act, to some extent, put the imprimatur of the federal government saying, OK, this is an acceptable financial instrument. We have looked at it. And to the extent you believe we are in charge of consumer protection, we're allowing this to move forward. OK, depending upon your risk adversity, all of a sudden, you know, you're starting to say, OK, this is a less risky asset than I thought. So I think that's a very important point.

And once you have government, to some extent, putting their imprimatur on stable coins as an acceptable financial instrument, they get more accepted, as you well know, by mainstream Wall Street firms. It's soon to be Yall Street, but that's a different subject. And once that happens, the people already have pre-existing relationships with J.P. Morgan and BlackRock and Blackstone. You start to mainstream the idea, and as it becomes mainstream, it grows even further. Then, as a matter, I would say, of U.S. policy, we are seeing other nations try to de-dollarize their economy. I don't view myself as either a globalist or an isolationist, but I do believe It is important today that the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. It allows us to do things that we otherwise would not be able to do.

To establish a stable coin that is tied to the dollar helps keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And as people get comfortable with stable coins and are even more comfortable, and as the Bitcoin movement kind of grows, that's going to allow to build other digital financial assets. And I can't think of any financial instrument that ultimately can't be digitized. And so again, the most important step of a long journey is the first step. So this is the first step. And I just think it's going to be an incredible journey. And it all really starts with the Genius Act stable coins in Bitcoin. Today's episode is brought to you by Simple Mining. Have you ever been

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slash pomp to get started today. That's simplemining.io slash pomp to get started today with Simple Mining, they make it simple. When you see these assets starting to become more adopted by these Wall Street firms in particular, I think that people have built a mental framework of kind of individuals first, then you got companies and financial institutions, countries is the next kind of big adoption pool of capital. The United States has already established what they're calling a strategic Bitcoin reserve. They've not bought more Bitcoin, but they're holding Bitcoin that has been previously seized. I think I'm a little surprised at how quickly we got to this point. You know, I think it was always something that we thought,

hey, this will happen. But how do you think about the politicians and legislative process thinking about, you know, it's one thing to create rules for the private sector to do stuff. It's another thing when you start thinking about, hey, we as a political leadership body, should we be doing stuff with taxpayers' money, citizens, et cetera? You know, and you kind of have this unique thing. It's like you're a libertarian, which I'm assuming you're an advocate for small government. But at the same time, you know, there is this argument of like, maybe it is good for citizens to have some of their taxpayer dollars stored in the thing that can't be debased away by the exploding national debt. And so how do you kind of think through maybe some of the nuances

there and how you would advise other politicians to think about it? Well, I'm leery of the federal government. I'm skeptical of the federal government. I used to be in the middle of it and I saw it firsthand. And so I think a healthy skepticism should be encouraged, number one. Certainly to have, for example, a central bank digital currency. From an efficiency standpoint, it would be great. It would be fabulous. But the privacy concerns are real. They are very, very real. And so wherever, again, you see government ownership, wherever you see government subsidy, there ought to be some concern of what policies are going to flow from that. So number one, as an aside, when President Trump announced, you know, we're going to have this

Bitcoin reserve and kind of a sovereign wealth fund. And I thought to myself, well, don't you to have wealth before you have sovereign wealth. Last I looked, we're about $30 trillion in debt. We'll put that aside for the moment. I would say to some extent, when we're looking at the national balance sheet, it is fundamentally different from personal balance sheets. Another project I'm involved in is kind of the democratization, for example, of retirement security plans, like 401ks. And I believe people ought to be able to have Bitcoin in their 401ks. Again, whose money is it? And I'm not a financial planner. I'm not offering this advice. But in my own case, I want stocks, I want bonds, and I want Bitcoin.

And as time goes by and the debt gets worse, I'm pretty sure I'm going to want even more Bitcoin in my personal portfolio. But again, I have a very healthy skepticism of the U.S. Treasury and the central banks getting involved. Again, I think potentially this could be a bad precedent. And to some extent, with the passage, again, of the stablecoin legislation, hopefully the passage of the Clarity Act, there's other ways that crypto writ large can be legitimized. And I think, listen, bottom line is sovereign governments are never going to give up their opportunity to control the money supply. But what's important is not that they're going to give up their ability to control currency, but that we have alternative currencies and

alternative private currencies, which at other times in our nation's history we've had. And what we'll end up seeing is some form of what Gresham's law, which the economist listening to the podcast know, and that is ultimately bad money drives good money out of circulation, which means they're going to be even more private Bitcoin available because as the dollar continues to degrade, it's going to drive out Bitcoin even more. So the bottom line is, that's a long way of saying I'm still a little skeptical and a little fearful. I think that that is a good position to be in in life, is to be skeptical. But if I'm skeptical, I get a little bit more worried as you,

as someone who's been in the belly of the beast, if you're skeptical now, now I'm really paying attention. one of the axioms i try to live by is to have high hopes and low expectations that is a fast track to happiness so that you avoid the uh the wide gap between expectations and reality um we um we recently announced that uh you joined pro cap financial as a senior advisor and i think one of the reasons why i'm very excited to uh to work with you is you know one obviously you're a wealth of knowledge you've got a lot of experience but um i think of uh kind of your post-political career as you are somebody who is taking the knowledge and experience you

have, but you're really applying it to the intersection of finance and technology where people are upgrading, you know, kind of the system. And so you mentioned kind of the modernization of 401ks. I know that you're involved with the Texas Stock Exchange and kind of some of the things that they're trying to do there. Can you talk a little bit maybe as to, you know, your view as why you're so focused on that intersection of technology and finance and kind of how you think the opportunity set to improve here is, and one that obviously we hope to benefit as you continue working on? Well, again, the flourishing of human society is tied to innovation. Innovation is tied to public policy. And listen, please, now, I am so excited to be part of the ProCap team because

I see an alignment of my personal business interest with my public policy interest. And when the two can align, I think, my Lord, don't I live in a great country? What a blessed individual I am. And so what I try to do and the value I try to add, as you know, is not just be able to keep my finger on the pulse of where is the public policy debate, where is the legislative regulatory tip of the sword today and to help people participate in that process and to make them most effective, but also to look over the horizon and see what are the public policy trends that people should know about that are going to impact their particular industry and their particular balance sheets, or their own particular families. And so what I see is that,

again, we are looking at the dawn of a new age. I want to be part of what Joseph Schumpeter, the famous economist, called creative destruction. And to be a part of that is very exciting to me to further the principles of the democratization of finance, to be part of DeFi, to be part of disintermediation. Again, it's all personally exciting to me. And if I can play a small role in helping to continue to shape kind of the public policy debate is something I'm very, very excited about. And I think that as we get into this brave new world of digitized access assets in blockchain, the question is, who's going to lead this? Is it going to be the traditional financial institutions who know a lot about banking and finance, but know very,

very little about blockchain? Or is it going to be those who know a lot about blockchain, a lot about crypto, but very little about global finance. My guess is it's going to be the firms and the individuals to where that intersection occurs. So, Anthony, your experience in finance, the fact that you have so much credibility and expertise in Bitcoin, I just really think sets a pro cap for success and being one of the leaders, again, in this intersection, in this brave new world. And so let me thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your team. And I'm glad that you're going to pay me to do it, and I don't have to pay you. But if I was wealthy, I'd pay you for the opportunity.

Well, I was talking to a friend this week, and I told him that we were going to do this. And he said to me, you know, what is the thing that you have learned most? I said, well, here's the here's the secret is every time I talk to him, I learn something. And I think I've learned over time that those are the people that you want to to be around is people who have different experiences, different kind of understanding of a system that, you know, frankly, you're affected by, but don't participate in on a day to day basis. And, you know, there's some people who have that knowledge and they don't share. You happen to be the person who who shares. So I appreciate all the time that you've spent with us and it's been very helpful. Maybe the last thing that we can leave everyone who's watching and listening to this with

is, you know, I think that there's a lot of folks who look at the legacy financial system and they're not very optimistic. They're actually very pessimistic, you know, kind of this K-shaped economy. They're on the bottom end of the K and they're saying to themselves, I feel like everything is getting away from me. You have always struck me as somebody who is very optimistic and somebody who kind of believes in innovation and progress and you know things can get better what drives your optimism right now like are there certain things you mentioned innovation is kind of a part of that

progress but like are there certain things that you when you talk to your kids or to your neighbors or people in your community where you're like you know it's going to be okay actually this is there's a positive story here well two things number one optimism is a choice i enjoy life more when i am an optimist, but it's not just based on personal choice. I think it's based upon empiricism. So I'm dating myself here, but perhaps you can already tell with the gray in my beard. You know, I'm from an older generation. Now, I was a mere child. I was a mere child in the late 60s, early 70s. But I vividly remember my parents thinking, okay, the American dream is over. We've seen the assassination of RFK and MLK. We've seen Vietnam. We saw Kent State. We saw riots in the

street. And we just think that America, as we know it, is over. Well, you know what? It wasn't all that long before it was morning in America again. And we saw one of the great periods and flourishing of economic growth in human liberty. So I tell people who feel very troubled about present times, you know, I'm not sure we all know the way forward, but as history is my guide, America's going to find a way forward. And nobody ever made money going short on America. And so I think we will find our way forward. And we've always benefited from this phenomena of creative destruction. And so people who are fearful of their nest eggs, fearful of their opportunities, we've seen it before. I mean, I'm sure that at one point there were farmers who were feeling threatened by the mechanization to some extent of agriculture.

I mean, in 1900, it was almost half of our population was involved in producing our food. Now we produce more food and I think it's like less than 2% of our population. People decry the hollowing out of manufacturing. The truth is we're manufacturing more and we're manufacturing it on the higher end and or manufacturing with fewer people. Technology is not our problem. Technology will ultimately be our solution. And when I think about successful enterprises, I think about innovators and dreamers.

I think about human capital, but I also think about financial capital. And any time we can make financial capital more accessible, more sound, more efficient, cheaper capital. We're going to see even a greater flourishing of humankind. Now, there's going to be winners and losers. There's going to be growing pains. But ultimately, what we're seeing in DeFi and blockchain, there's a brave new financial world. And ultimately, we are going to be huge beneficiaries of it. Well, I was expecting like two minutes of mizumai. That's enough for me for the next lifetime. I'm pretty pumped up hearing that. uh jeff listen thank you so much for uh for taking the time to do this uh you've been incredible to

us already and very helpful um and we feel very fortunate to be able to tap into all your expertise so uh so thank you for the time we'll definitely do this again in the future looking forward to it thanks a lot