The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Hits 108k, MicroStrategy drops 5% | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

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Steve, I know that this is a really, really exciting day for you. I texted you about it yesterday. You and I have railed against Carolyn Crenshaw reminds me the wizard of oz you know ding dong the witch is dead which i wish the wicked witch ding dong the wicked witch is dead i like fred's take uh you know where yeah he said i had a secret crush on her i mean look putting somebody in a job that is literally the job description is supposed to be neutral to all investments to facilitate capital formation and protect investors. It is almost impossible to conceive of someone less qualified for that job than Ms. Crenshaw. It really is. Because every time she writes or decides it has, there's an agenda, which is literally not supposed to exist. So, you know, yeah, of course, I'm happy that they're doing this. There are this also is, you know, there's, there's a game that that we used to play a card game called bullshit. And

you know, where you know, people you could do it with liars poker or other sort of games the the now all of those people all of the the crypto for harris folk democrats who insist that the democrats are not anti-crypto quite literally have the opportunity to prove that they're not full of shit. And I so hope that they do mean, in other words, in other words, getting a pro crypto Democrat on the SEC, let's call it pro crypto, let's call it pro innovation, and someone who is open to technologies that are going to potentially help capital formation and protect investors.

And yes, some of those are crypto. But to be blunt, the SEC should be oriented towards attacking fraud in crypto and bad disclosures in crypto. And there's quite a bit of that. I mean, it just there is. I mean, there are articles that we all have to do it. We have to ask questions like you know why you know what is the investment thesis behind a token and when the investment thesis behind a token is because i thought it would be funny okay well at least you know that but if somebody buys into a token i don't want to name names but they want to buy into a token because they think it's going to be the backbone for real world assets but they're buying a governance token that gives no economic

benefit whatsoever to the holder then people need to know that and most people in the crypto sphere don't and if people are allowed to manipulate markets then that that decreases confidence in markets etc so you know having an sec or any regulator whichever it is sec CFDs doesn't matter that allows for rational markets better disclosure holding people to the feet to the fire that makes sense think about what Crenshaw and Gensler did they did the exact opposite they effectively forced all tokens to provide no economic benefit and they specifically forced good actors to defend themselves with, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, the estimate is like 400 million. And that's just in the defense. That doesn't count the chilling effect on business.

At the same time, allowed scams overseas to target U.S. citizens and cost and basically allowed, you know, everything from Voyager to FTX. They did exactly the same job. I was just going to say, Dave, yeah, I was just going to say, you and I used to sound maybe a little bit crazy when we would kind of hint that the U.S. regulatory regime was partially or more than partially at fault for what happened with FTX. Paul Atkins, the incoming SEC chairman, said that exact thing in an interview last week. He said the United States is responsible for FTX. Damn skippy. I mean, Paul's a smart dude. I mean, you know, Paul is a very smart dude. And, you know, I've talked to him multiple times over the years.

It's been a while, but I can't imagine that he would think anything other than that. And so, yeah, I mean, having an actual regulator who is pro innovation could be a good thing, both from encouraging the industry and from protected for putting in real protections as opposed to the opposite. I see Brian's on stage. I mean, Brian, get get get get cracking, get some some of your compatriots in the Democratic Party uh to put some real pro-innovation candidates up for that spot because the thing about it is and the reason why this should never have even been a fight is Crenshaw's spot will be a Democrat and and people who are listening to this probably don't know this but throughout history I mean recent history the last 30 years almost every major decision decision with a couple of notable exceptions, they have tried very hard to get majorities, you know, 4-1-5-0 decisions, meaning nonpartisan.

The SEC shouldn't be partisan. It would be much better if it wasn't. And so maybe we can get back to that. So let's let's have this as hope. Yeah. You know, like I actually have a call later today with some people that, you know, they want to try and push Democrats in a more pro crypto, you know, right towards pro crypto crypto rhetoric. I think that there's obviously the SEC is needed in some respects to, you know, there's scams everywhere, especially in crypto. Crypto is a breeding ground for scams. But at the same time, I think what the Biden administration did was they overregulated. They wanted to, you know, please the Elizabeth Warrens and push things towards that direction. And it wasn't until, you know, like the last couple of months when you started to hear, oh, Harris is actually pro-crypto. And I don't think she would have been terrible for crypto. Would she have been a Donald Trump? No, definitely not. But I think Democrats move way too slow. And typically Democrats are pro-innovation and should be for crypto.

Crypto is a tool that Democrats should be utilizing for all the right reasons. But instead, I think it's become this tribalistic thing where, oh, Trump is pro-crypto. We got to go against it because he's raising so much money from the crypto crowd and he's using this as a huge part of his platform. And I think you could, really quickly, I think you could actually say that the opposite way. I think Trump became pro crypto and saw the opportunity because of how anti-crypto the Democrats had become in the last administration. But I think the key thing, I just want to ask one question. I mean, there are, as I said, you really shouldn't be pro crypto.

I mean, yes, it will work out to be that. But it's really pro innovation. And that matters, right? You know, so people like like, you know, in Congress, Richie Torres, or in the Senate, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand, there are there are multiple Democrats with significant followings, who believe innovation is the lifeblood of the American economy, that should not be a minority position now of course there's Elizabeth Warren who believes that you know that unless you are supporting her you should use stone knives and bearskins and if you are supporting her you know you're part of the

party Etc I mean you know it there's just and yes that was a a veiled Pocahontas kind of pun I I get that the the the we could debate who's good or who's bad but what you can't debate is Innovation and the importance to it and when you have people like Brad Sherman who's still in the Congress uh you know saying things that are demonstrably false every time he opens his mouth and talks about the subject it's a problem so you need to have somebody who disagrees with him and will stand up to him right you know just like there are crazies on the other side of the aisle we don't i don't want to go into a political thing you and i would agree about some people who are crazy on the other side of the aisle as well i think that it needs to be called out and that's the point the point is is you can believe in

customer protection in fact customer protection. In fact, customer protection will be best served. The thing about the Biden administration is it actually sacrificed customer protection on the altar of appeasing Elizabeth Warren. It goes way beyond what you just said. And the election's over. There's no point in arguing it anymore. This has been litigated and won. and now we move forward so what we want and what the industry wants it doesn't matter who you listen to whether it's the Winklevii whether it's Brian Armstrong whether it's Jesse Powell you know whether it's Brad Garlinghouse everybody all want to have a rational level playing field that is understood where they

don't need an army of lawyers to digest every single little thing and american citizens don't want to worry about being punished for buying things or investing in things that they understand better than people who quite frankly are my age or older yeah really quickly brian there's just a few things to to briefly unpack there first i made the mistake of once calling hester Purse, who's an SEC, obviously an SEC commissioner. I told her in our first interview years ago, we've done many, that I said, everybody calls you crypto mom. And she said, I'm not crypto mom. I'm not pro-crypto. I'm exactly what Dave just said. I'm pro-innovation and pro-fairness. I am not pro-crypto, right? She's viewed as sort of this pro-crypto

SEC commissioner. That's not the case. She wants exactly what Dave wants. We do need an SEC. And with the deregulation that's coming, I think we can honestly say there's going to be more fraud, right? So the SEC will need to play a role in identifying what the frauds are as we deregulate. Dave, I see you disagreeing, but I think there's going to be people trying to take opportunities there. I think there are people who exist today. I think that it's, in fact, it's hard to imagine. I mean, we had a hook to a girl, you know, what, last week or the week before? I mean, come on, we get rug pulls every week to actually say that deregulation is going to increase fraud.

I mean, we haven't had Bruce on here for a while. I'm not going to go on a Bruce Fenton rant about it, but I will say that I don't believe this was is going to increase fraud. Right. I'm not saying to increase it. Right. OK, I think that's a fair take so i was just gonna say like i i think that you like you know the hawk to a thing that was out in the open that was probably she didn't even know what she was getting herself into but i do think that it could like scott said i think it could give people more balls to you know do things that they might not have risk venture into gray areas where they might not have with that said like i having a startup in the crypto space myself,

I never talk about, I'm not going to talk about here. But one of the issues we've had is I'm afraid, like, at this point, and during the Biden administration, I've been afraid to do things because I don't know the legalities. You can talk to a million lawyers and you get a million different answers. And, you know, you could go forward and then all of a sudden you have the SEC knocking at your door. I think with Trump, and I don't like Trump, but I think in this case I do, I think I'm going to know what I can do here. I think we'll have actually a regulatory framework and clarity that a lot of entrepreneurs really want to see. I interviewed Raoul Pal yesterday, which will be my Sunday podcast, but he made a point about this election and framed it in a way

that I hadn't really thought of it. He said it wasn't really necessarily a right or left. He said technologists swung and won this election. It'll be the most pivotal election in history. I basically pointed out the fact that the crypto industry, but even if you dig in deeper, Brian Armstrong specifically and others, they really are the ones who took over, made sure that Trump won. And now Trump is obviously listening to them and appointing billionaires, technologists and innovators and entrepreneurs into every cabinet position he can find and everywhere. And I think that regardless of your political leanings, you have to like the fact that now

we have smart people who have actually built things in positions of power or at least advising in the government. But crypto, to a very large degree, if you look behind the curtain, won this election for Trump. You know, and I think that, Brian, you know, as you were saying, maybe there was pushback. The Democrats were saying, oh, well, you know, Trump is pro-crypto. We have to be anti. I really do think it's the opposite.

I think that them being so anti-crypto allowed him the opportunity to take the mindshare and money of this industry and win the election. wasn't exactly pro crypto, but he saw that people wanted to be wanted him to be pro crypto. He saw that there was an opportunity there. He is a populist. And he took that and ran with it. And good for him. He it worked out for him as much as I don't like it. And then Democrats saw him running with it. And instead of also embracing it, I think they stepped back. And they're like, let's just see where this goes. Yeah, they kind of were like, he won this part, but it doesn't matter. That's what the sentiment was to me. I don't think they realized the gravity of losing that audience. You know, I myself didn't realize how important it was either. Like I was one of the people saying, yeah, but I mean, the crypto space that, you know, it's not as big as you think. At least the people that have a huge reason to vote

based on crypto, there aren't that many people. But I think the fact that he embraced it also kind of attracted a younger crowd because it's the younger crowd that the younger voter who really understands crypto and understands what it's about. So maybe it wasn't people voting for their pocketbook so much as voting for somebody that was going to embrace the technology that they like. Right. And I mean, that's basically kind of what Raul was saying to me yesterday, you know, that maybe a lot of it wasn't right left. It was what Dave described as this just push for the ability to do business in the United States, to innovate, to be an entrepreneur. And that maybe is the bigger story of the election, you know, like, and now all of these technologists are in power, you know, and they're

going to sway the way that I think the country is steered for the years to come. Go ahead, Dan. Yeah, I think at its heart, Bitcoin and crypto are more of a kind of, they lend themselves more to conservative ideals of self sovereignty, self dependence, that kind of stuff, mistrust of government, etc. And the Democrats or the liberals in the UK, whatever you want to call it, would be more predisposed to not be pro-crypto. So I think that's probably where the genesis of the Democrats being anti-crypto came from. If you look at Ted Cruz,

Ted Cruz was pro-Bitcoin for quite a while already based on the ideas of, yeah, we won't let the government stop you from custody and your own money. We won't interfere with government. You're right to stack sacks and all that kind of stuff. So I think the issue of this election is that the Democrats took things too far, which they always do.

They took things too far. They were so anti-crypto that they made it so easy for Trump to sweep in and be pro-cry pro crypto that that's what led to this but i think the genesis of being pro anti-crypto i think conservative views typically tend to skew more pro crypto and that's probably where the democrats mistrust or hatred came from do you think that do you do you think that it what you do you think played more into the result that we got was it that democrats were anti-crypto or trump was obsessively pro-crypto 100 democrats being anti-crypto

people would have voted for anybody other than um what was in power that um do we do we care who replaces gary kensler as sec no roll the dice and get whoever, you know, in their place. There's Korsata today. I don't know the person in particular, but the person that was very anti-crypto that just lost her seat, right? It was her being so anti that, that galvanized people. People galvanize around hatred a lot more than they galvanize around love. So I think, yeah, to answer your question, that's my opinion. Yeah, no, I truly didn't i don't know

if people saw the comments yesterday from the next uh senate was going to be the senate banking chair uh wasn't that elizabeth warren's job before but uh tim scott he called yesterday in a public statement crypto the next wonder of the world and you have french hill taking over for patrick mckenry on the house side promising that we're going to get legislation i mean the outright bullishness surrounding crypto and the need to get something done in both houses is unbelievable yeah it is it is worth saying something about what dan said because because it's not actually true. I mean, it is true. People react more to hate than there's no doubt. That's easier. But what is not understood in this space is just how unpopular Crenshaw and Gensler were with even with the innovators in traditional finance.

You know, we don't often have people like Doug Sifu, who's a CEO of Virtu or Ken Griffin from Citadel or whatever but you know those companies and in fact throughout the traditional financial markets were so unhappy with the the regulatory regime which was microscopic over regulation over engineering uh putting climate policy into markets not not because they're anti climate policy, but because they don't belong in markets, you know, making being a public company like, you know, a baton death march for legal and compliance people, you know, it all of that is true. And, and there's a lot of pressure to go back to a data-driven financial regulatory approach that is based on cost-benefit,

not to mention Doge and everything there. But I mean, just even, it's not just, as I said, it is not just crypto. It will certainly help crypto, but it's not just that. Yeah, there's definitely levels to how bullish it is to have an SEC chairman that's not outright against crypto and who is pro-crypto. Can we talk about microstrategy now? Yeah, I can go back to the topic.

The original topic before we went to will the next SEC be pro-innovation was Bitcoin all-time high, but microstrategy down 5% or something to that. Can I remind people and take a victory lap so you you all may remember for those who were listening last week uh when when it was getting added to the the the nasdaq i made the point because i used to i started in program trading and i've been in index reconstitution trading and all that stuff for a very long time that the typical pattern that you see is a run-up that's small uh a push on the day of an index inclusion to a high price and the people that trade this professionally buy in advance set the price and short at the index inclusion price because there's a hangover effect because a lot of buying has been done and that is quite literally exactly what has happened with microstrategy so it dropping whether it was going to be five percent two percent whatever the number was going to be

barring an explosive update for bitcoin that would have taken us to you know where it would be rational to talk i'm tired of every thousand dollars you know making a new all-time high thing but you know unless bitcoin got to 120 or something micro strategy was always going to be soft uh so my bitcoin kind of you know hanging out around its all-time high micro strategy was going to drop just based on the supply demand it happens in every index reconstitution event if you were are listening to me, I told you that was going to happen. It's not surprising. And it doesn't mean nearly what people think it means.

Dan, yeah, one point, I don't think they've been included in the index, right? They get included on the index on the 23rd. They've not been included yet. But I think what we're seeing is Michael Saylor is aggressively selling shares, you know, selling them. He's hitting the ATM as we call it, he's aggressively selling shares getting money in. I read somewhere that in January, they're in a blackout period

where they can't sell any shares whatsoever. That's why he's hitting it very hard. But all we're seeing is that, you know, they're selling shares so aggressively um that that premium is collapsing we've remember we've seen uh micro strategy at highs of over 500 per share back long before bitcoin was over 100k so i i think it's not a bad thing if it's true that they're not going to be able to sell any in january um i think what he's doing is he's just hitting very aggressively selling shares to get money into buy more bitcoin now um i'm not worried i i'm long microstrategy and bitcoin but i think that's what we're seeing i think he's just very

very very aggressively selling shares and that's what's bringing it down rather than we saw we saw he had $530 and $370 on the same day. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. While I think it was, yeah, it was the day that they obviously hit the all-time high. I'm trying to look for the date. I think it was November 21st or something like that. But as long as Bitcoin goes up and to the right. Yeah, as long as Bitcoin continues to go up and to the right. But to your point that the blackout period that's coming,

obviously, potentially they can't sell shares. A lot of people talked about that being throughout January. But the other flip side of that is that probably means they also can't buy Bitcoin. Potentially, yeah, I suppose. Yeah, so a lot of people wondering, there were some articles, conjecture, pretty bad takes today. But if it's meaningful when all of a sudden you don't see $1.5 to $2.5 billion announced of Bitcoin being bought every single Monday, does that affect the market? Does it spook the market in any way? Does it affect demand? I think that's a drop. I mean, Dave, you look at the, obviously, the liquidity and the numbers every day, but that's not a huge portion of weekly trading volume on Bitcoin, right? Well, look, did you see how much BlackRock bought yesterday?

BlackRock alone bought three quarters of a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin yesterday. The last few days have been, I think for the last week at least, it's been half a billion dollars of buying pressure from the ETFs alone, almost consistently every single day. Yeah. The, the interest is astounding in the ETFs and, you know,

and it's been regardless of price action to some degree it's up, the flows are good on updates and down days. That didn't used to be the case in the beginning, right? Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, my mic glitched there as I was talking. The inflows are so high. They're eclipsing. They're typically 10 times the amount of new daily issuance. Now, I know people have said for a while, the amount of new daily issuance doesn't matter, blah, blah. But mathematically, it has to. You can't continue buying 10 times the newly date issued forever without a massive explosion up in price. So it has to have an impact.

I asked my friends the other day, I'm looking at these numbers, am I going crazy? Because this just logically cannot continue forever. Sorry, I'm having some mic glitching. But what blows my mind about that is that there's always someone out there every cycle, every time with enough Bitcoin to sell to meet all that demand, regardless of issuance. So this should show you how big some of the whales are that are out there in this market. We'll be hitting new all-time lows on the amount of bitcoin exchanges like i think it's like 2.25 million like it's the lowest it's been i can't remember maybe since like 2013 some of that it's like we are starting to see this buy

but who knows yeah you're right a lot of retail are unloading their coins kind of willingly um who knows man but the numbers just seem to point in one direction. Yeah, and that's without even taking into account the massive catalysts we could have, even if they're not majority chance at will, but like a strategic reserve or more companies now that Dapp accounting rules have changed buying or otherwise. Duane, Panos, Matt, none of you guys have had an opportunity to really ring in. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the conversation in general. So maybe Dwayne first. Thanks. Good morning.

Just to, I guess, highlight the political side of the talks here, I think a lot of the problems that happened, at least with the Democratic Party, had to do with the old guard. And yes, they were looking at crypto and these sorts of investments as more being representative of the libertarian front. So that made them shy away from these sorts of things. And they were looking more to focus on the consumer and offer the consumer, you know, protections, you know, in regards to these sorts of investments. And, you know, we've seen throughout the last few years here that they've really focused on corruption and, you know, money laundering and, you know, just monopolization of certain markets and supply chains. So I think that went hand in hand with the overall theme of the administration. In regards to micro strategy, it isn't something that I think that investors should

really panic about. We see, if you look at the charting, so to speak, that because of the momentum that we've seen over the last few months here, then we can definitely expect a pull back. But it's nothing to, you know, panic about if you have an overall investment thesis on MicroStrategy that they're going to continue to, you know, basically buy Bitcoin and, you know, present you with a leveraged asset that you can either hold on to for a long time, despite the volatility, or if it's something that you want to trade in and out of. We have a lot of our friends here who are swing traders as well. So if it's something that you want to trade in and out of with the momentum as well, I

don't think it's something that anyone should really put too much credence to in the interim. Yeah, good morning, guys. Good morning, good morning. Yeah, just to go back to the whole political side of it um maybe i'm not the only one whose mic isn't working uh go ahead banish yeah can you hear me okay cool um i can't hear him can you guys i'm sorry we get these glitches just thumbs up or thumbs down if you can hear panos no oh half of you can half of you can't great okay go ahead i'll uh bring myself down and up okay um yeah i was just gonna say when it comes to um the the democratic party when we were when

we was coming up to the election and obviously trump was going hard on um on pushing a positive view of cryptocurrency and bitcoin kamala har, I don't think she mentioned the word Bitcoin or crypto once. She kept saying digital asset, which makes me believe that if she had won the election, I think she would have been pushing for more regulations and probably to speed up the process of central bank digital currencies, which would have been very, very bad for the crypto market. And of course, Gary Gensler would have probably kept his job and the SEC would have just been a lot harsher than they already are. So I don't think, I think the Democratic Party,

or at least Kamala Harris and her administration, were actually anti-cryptocurrency and wanted to really, really push more and more regulation, more unfair regulations. Obviously, the crypto market does need to be regulated in the right way, but I don't think that would have come from the Democratic Party. I think it would have been a lot worse, and we would have seen the SEC continually go after, pick and choose who they go after. And as far as like having more less regulations in the SEC would create more scams. I don't think that is true either. There's thousands of scams that launch every single day in the crypto space. I don't think having less regulations would stop that.

I think the regulations need to be more fair. I mean, you saw the SEC go after a bunch of crypto companies and people in the space, I think unfairly, where you see tons of people getting away with straight out scams, just because it's not really in the best interest of the SEC to go after them. It's not profitable for them. It doesn't really benefit them to go after some of those guys. Whereas it does benefit them to go after CZ, Brian Armstrong, Richard Hart, Garlinghouse and those guys. So I'm just happy that the SEC is being restructured and I think it's going to be very positive for crypto. Matt, do you have any thoughts? Yeah, thanks, Scott. Just to take the same kind of flow that Panos did, the first issue with respect to the

SEC, I think it's not really well appreciated that they're not really the premier fraud agency in the United States. I mean, we have this federal and state system where the states actually have a huge role to play. And I think personally, they do a lot more in terms of fraud prevention than the SEC. The SEC is on the SK salary scale, which is not often talked about. But they're among the most generously compensated federal employees out there. So they're kind of a fat and happy agency. They really could use restructuring, reformation, in my opinion. They don't go to trial a lot. They don't do the things that we think of trial lawyers as doing

very much. And I, for one, would love to see them kind of pivot into more consumer-friendly, like fraud prevention type direction, because as long as I've been in the space and doing securities law, that's not been who they are. I also think it's impossible to look at the political situation in the United States without kind of taking stock of this drama that's going on with Pelosi in this House Oversight Committee situation. So it's beyond doubt the old guard does not want to cede power. And I think this is kind of the microcosm of that dynamic in that Pelosi is in a hospital bed in Germany whipping up votes to get a 74-year-old Virginia congressman placed at the head of house oversight when AOC is the person on the other side who has already got support. circumstances, let a younger, popular celebrity Democrat rise who by all, you know, any definition would probably be great in the role. They just, there's something about the boomer DNA right now in Congress. It doesn't allow these things to happen. Finally, microstrategy. What can you say? I mean, I've been watching from afar. Everybody who, myself,

my friends, we all bought the stock in 2021. It's fascinating to be sure. I think what we're experiencing is a blip in the road, but the obvious trend is still upward. did anybody see biden's comments on stock trading in congress which i think uh came it came kind of out of nowhere nobody in the congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they're in the congress biden said endorsing a ban on congressional stock trading uh nancy pelosi is not going to like that very much do Do you think that interview, do you think he planned to say this or do you think it just kind of slipped out as he is? I didn't see it. Did you did you actually watch it, Brian? I don't know.

Yeah, I did. I mean, he had a lot to say and it kind of made me think that maybe he told the interviewer, hey, mention this, but I'm not sure. And it I mean, it sucks that it's at the end of his term. It would have been nice if he said this four years ago, three and a half years ago. You mean 45 years ago? Well, yeah, that too, I guess, right? I mean, Grant, what do you think about that? It's astounding how much money and advantage there's been, obviously, being in Congress with stock

trading, but also, obviously, the revolving door to industry and speaking opportunity and such afterwards. It seems like public service has just become a path to exceptional wealth. Yeah, I mean, look, I think both sides agree, no matter what side you vote on, it shouldn't be allowed. You know, she's made, like, if you do the math on what her net worth is today and what she's been paid by the U.S. government, like, she would have had to have been in office for, like, 3,000 years. I mean, I'm not even exaggerating. Like, I did the math on it, and she would have had to have been in Congress earning $179,000 a year since before the Great Pyramids or something. But it shouldn't be allowed.

I think both sides agree with that. Who holds that up are the guys that are benefiting from it. And the American people just have to stand up and say, look, this is not going to be tolerated. And maybe that's who you vote in, in Congress and Senate. You know, you vote for people that don't want that, don't need that. I think we're seeing a new time, a new era where extremely wealthy, successful people are going to be in politics because they want to save the country and they don't need money. And, you know, there's no amount of money you can pay Elon or the bank.

I mean, I guess there is, I guess there's some number for everybody, but most of these guys are already extremely successful. And so, uh, you know, do they want an inside track? Maybe, but I think what some of these people want more than anything is just to make a difference. I think the inside track narrative with this group is largely false. I think the entire i think it's funny because the inside track narrative makes sense for a bunch of career politicians who never intend to innovate right well you know like like the whole elon thing and doge i i i actually look forward to seeing how that plays out um i i do think that the people saying oh he's going to deregulate and make help cut back on spending that will maybe help him, I think that's a fair thing to say.

Now, the question is, do you not want him to be helped? Do you want him to have an unfair advantage, possibly? Some people will say yes. His work with regulations and how Doge may scale back regulations, I think there's no doubt that it's likely going to help his companies, but it should also help other companies as well. Yeah, it's a bit of a catch-22, right? Because to help innovation, obviously there's going to be self-interest or it's going to serve him.

I don't think it's unfair to ask for some sort of ethics agreement where any involvement, any regulation he decides should be cut, he should maybe step away from that and hand it to Vivek. But yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I think when it comes to Well, there's two points here.

First, when it comes to regulation, it regulation disproportionately helps larger companies at the expense of and hurt smaller companies. And we're not talking a small disproportion, we're talking a massive one so it is barring some incredible scalpel-like precision uh it's almost impossible to imagine you know tesla being helped more than startups that might compete against him i mean it's it's just literally an impossibility but because if the way the rules get written they get written by lobbyists who are are taking donations and so you know it is a very important reason why cutting

regulation matters and it's in fact something vivek has talked about rather significantly and understand he understands this to be true the other thing that it's worth when on this topic of doge it's really worth reading uh vivek, it's not that long of a post yesterday, where he basically described the omnibus spending bill is exactly the same thing that that they are really trying to stop. And he views it as a test. And we'll see. But I think he's right. The fact that you would effectively put 65 cents on the dollar for every new dollar spending an extra 65 cents of spending on top of it

in order just to keep the government open through to February is, I mean, borderline insane. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think, I think I forgot who it was talking before. Dan, I think I can't remember. The fact that we have so many people in Congress who only really care about maintaining the status quo and their power is literally what's on display here. Department of Government Efficiency, though, I think they're going to obviously have potentially a huge influence on, you know, who loses a job and where the money goes and cutting down on bloat. But I think the people being put in charge of the regulatory agencies are going to have a much bigger impact on deregulation than Elon Musk is. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like you should be looking at, you know, Quintenz or whoever ends up

at the CFTC and and Paul Atkins and, you know, the heads of FDIC, Fed, et cetera, and how that's going to make a much bigger difference. And along those lines, the fact that Chevron was overturned. That's right. That's absolutely true, which is why it's so important to get people that are aligned into these agencies. But there's some agencies where that's really difficult to do. And all this nonsense about, you know, this resolution that got turned down yesterday to try to make uh everything a political appointees you can't fire them i mean all this all this nonsense that's going on to block stuff i mean keep in mind every congress person has a staff that's equivalent it's larger than we wouldn't even call them startups anymore you know small

we'll call them small, thriving companies. They're 20 to 40 person staffs. The fact that they haven't been able to read the spending bill. I mean, this is just, this is not that hard. I mean, you know, there is a lot of people in D.C. at the agencies and congressional staffs that could actually do work that are basically sitting there with their to quote a phrase with their thumbs up their ass, kind of doing whatever that you know, whatever it is to maintain the status quo. And that's what they're trying to get rid of. So it's a very

deeply suited, deeply entrenched problem. But you're right, having the right people at the key agencies to change the way and the methodology of what they're doing is important, but it's going to take more than just that. I mean, Brent, you're obviously a huge fan of deregulation. You've railed against the IRS countless times. I mean, how much of a tidal shift do you think this is, seeing these people in the positions of power and seeing people, know people obviously in the circles that you run in that maybe as some of us don't starting to have some real influence on how business is done in this country yeah i think i think everybody's gonna it's underestimating what the plans are over there to usurp status quo don Donald Trump hates the IRS.

Elon Musk has paid more than any single human being in history to the IRS without any acknowledgement. And not that he should be or not, but I mean, it's still a big contribution. You put $10 billion back in the freaking U.S. coffers, I mean, you should be acknowledged. Any other place you would be acknowledged for your contribution, but not in this country, unfortunately unfortunately so the sec is also a group that i think is going to be looked at as not the protector of the little person the little guy as they pretend to be but I just know personally, with the JOBS Act, the $200,000 minimum non-accredited accredited formula is such a discriminatory. Borders on racism. It locks out little people, the little guy, the startup individual, the 19 or 29-year-old

that will never make 200 grand in their lifetime. They will always be non-accredited. And the only way they can become accredited is not through their salary, but through their investments. So the fact that whoever set that number, it's just so ridiculous. That means if you make 189 000 by the way you don't qualify um but if you if you make another 11 000 now you're somehow sophisticated so it just discriminates it keeps all the money 97 of americans are non-accredited and that means 97 of all the money in this country will be kept by wall street and big banks you know what those people can do grant they can go to vegas and they can play the lottery yeah exactly they go to vegas they can fucking buy a lottery uh and they can

save their money at the banks and basically be depreciated into a to a lower middle class so hopefully those guys are going to listen to those kinds of things. I think they are. I think Trump actually is. Don't forget grant. It also turns retail into exit liquidity from all the VCs. Say that again. Well,

the IPO process is a great piece of, it's a great exit liquidity machine, which allows unaccredited investors to become the exit liquidity from accredited investors. It's kind of a game as old as time. And it's right. Right. Oh, dude, that's that. Yeah, I get it.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. They finally unlock after all the years and then they dump on retail when they finally get listed. The non-accredited becomes the toilet. It becomes the flush. Yes, sir. Interesting.

Do you think there will be a movement to expand investor accreditation to encompass other factors like education or other measures of sophistication? And this is a step in the right direction. You pass a test to prove that you're sophisticated. Yeah, that did a lot for options. I mean, you know, we have zero day options, which are nothing more than a gambling vehicle being the largest, most successful product launch in the options market. I mean, it's a bunch of bullshit. I mean, let's just call it for what it is. When you make a wealth test, it just looks and feels bad. So now they just want to expand it. When you throw regulatory roadblocks in front of people, it makes it hard. You know, anyone who's

taken as many tests as I have, you know, all the FINRA tests, CFTC tests, etc, will tell you that it just creates yet another bureaucratic bloat. And it's going to be impossible to prove value to it. They may do it. But getting rid of that rule is the obvious thing to do. It just is. So there's there's literally no benefit to it. It's like a three quote rule. Right. We still have rules. You know, it's like the 30 day publishing rule for an IPO, because it used to take that long to get prospectuses from the printer. Those are still rules on the books. So many of these are that way. Do I pass? I'm not an American citizen, so I don't really know how this would work. But

I mean, question to the panel, would there be a way around this and this whole accredited side of things if we were able to tokenize these investments? The form doesn't matter. Just to be specific, tokenized is the technology. And the problem that people have with tokenization right now, the reason tokenization is so slow, is because it still has to go through the same analog rule sets. And that's why there's a whole bunch of reasons why panels quite a few, we don't have enough time for all of them. But that's why the crypto is stayed completely separate because and that's why by the way, we have this thing called

governance tokens, which don't provide economic value because the incident you provide economic value, yes, he sees going to scream it's a security. And then, of course, the security has to be held by a qualified custodian with transfer agents, etc., etc., etc., etc., and it goes down that rabbit hole. So it's a better technology, but we also need better rules. Right. But if we had more security exchanges, let's say, where the securities exchange is fully licensed to make their exempt market dealer, they can create security tokens and then they have a secondary market to allow retail to buy those tokens. Yeah. You've done that the other way around. It won't. And the reason it won't is because to create a security for a security to trade on, there's two different types of exchanges. There's national market system, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, et cetera, and there's the OTC world. Securities either have to go through an IPO process, which is incredibly rigorous, or a SPAC process, a reverse takeover to elicit a national securities exchange.

Significant fees involved in that. Or they could go through one of these other vehicles, it could be you know, reg a there's there's crowdfunding, it's a reg CF, all of which have limitations and difficulties. But any new company or new asset has to be so it's called seasoned for a year before it can be listed and traded by retail based upon existing rules. So those rules are what need to be discussed. And one of the reasons why crypto is a big deal is because you can provide tokens,

airdrop tokens or sell tokens or whatever to people who are not accredited investors, and then they have immediate liquidity. That does not exist in the world of securities. That's, by the way, why the Trump brothers, you know, Liberty World Financial failed. It's because they tried to follow securities laws. Yeah, you can't raise a bunch of money from token degens if they need to be accredited and go through KYC. Okay, understood. Quickly, I just happened to see this in the uh spirit of the conversation we're having this is from coin telegraph so i haven't seen the full article but breaking black rocks etf makes history by investing in the first municipal bonds issued on the blockchain

signaling a massive potential for rwas so you know as we're talking about obviously tokenization these things are happening it's just going to be very slow and very difficult until there's more clarity. But I mean, tokenization is the future. I mean, Scott, you know, I've been saying this for six years. Real time on demand settlement, true multi currency, true global trading on much, much, much more efficient rails is going to eventually mean that every stock, basically every liquidly traded instrument will eventually be tokenized simply because the rails are more efficient. I mean, you've talked to the guys from Franklin Templeton and just their money market fund, you know, they're the Benji and

how much more efficient it is. It's. The gains are stupefying. And that's why Larry Fink has been telling everybody the same thing. This is obvious. It's incredibly obvious. The issue is people in the traditional financial markets make a lot of money from inefficiency. And so you got to break down those barriers. It will happen, but it's never without a fight. Yeah, I haven't checked it of late and I'm on my phone, so it's hard to see. Actually, but so it's got to be much. But I think tokenized treasuries was, you know, one point five billion or something a few months ago, and the bulk of that. Was Franklin Templetoneton as you said um but now i'm looking it says total rwa on chain 14 billion i mean that's

a drop in the bucket in the bucket of obviously potential global assets that can be tokenized we're talking about tens of trillions of dollars but it's it's meaningful. I mean, this is going to happen. I wonder if this is something that will in any way be affected by the new regime, whether we will finally see death to the third parties that are in between all of these transactions, but there's got to be some risk there too. But I mean, BlackRock, you can't have Larry Fink on a roadshow talking about tokenization every single day and not believe that this is happening in some way, shape or form. David, go ahead. No, I just, I real quickly, I really, I just wanted to say Dave Weisberger is just an incredible wealth of knowledge. I don't get to join the show every day,

but it's just, I mean, you know, a lawyer, I'm a lawyer by training practice so on and so forth but his just grip of all things securities related is really so valuable and I just I thank him for being up here every day Dave you've pretty much seen it all at this point, right? Yeah, the benefit of being old. You should see him play poker. I feel old sometimes when I hear that. It's just that I've run multiple broker-dealers, David, and when you've done that, you have two choices. Trust your lawyers or become their friends by reading everything they read. I chose the latter.

I know it well now being on the client side. So, yeah, I had the formal training. And so, you know, it comes more easily and naturally. But just and the way you distill it, certainly for the crypto assets, is very, very helpful. David, worth discussing Ethereum here? Yeah, worth discussing Ethereum here.

We can discuss Ethereum broadly, and then we can discuss my project. Ethereum broadly, I think, important to stay above $4,000, which it is not. It seems to be retreating every time it even gets not just even a hair above it, you know, a good amount above it. You know, I think that the conversation about its rivalry with Solana will continue.

Avalanche obviously getting, you know getting a good amount of investment recently, so that will go ahead and help their coffers. And so we will see in terms of how this horse race shakes out. I find that people are incredibly emotional about all this. I don't know why, but I'm not. At the end of the day, there will be a winner. Maybe there'll be multiple winners. It will take a lot of time, I think, before we can crown a winner.

Some people may not like that because maybe they only have one horse that they've bet on in the race. I would not like that because maybe they only have one horse that they've bet on in the race. I would not take that position. I'm betting on multiple horses in the race. And in terms of what I'm doing, just for the folks in the audience that don't know, I'm the CEO, in addition to a bunch of other things that I do, I'm CEO of a publicly traded company. It's listed in Canada. It has a secondary listing on the OTC markets in the United States. The name of the company is Centaurus Energy currently. And the company has a passive royalty stream from some oil assets that it has owned. And the company announced a couple of months ago that it would use Ether as its primary treasury asset. I went ahead and lent the company a million and a half

dollars to start buying and staking ETH, very important in terms of U.S. ETFs currently not being able to stake. And I immediately got called into the principal's office in Canada, and I went through a five-month process now. My stock has been halted for five months. It has less to do with the crypto side of things, and frankly, more to do with changing the business from an oil and gas company to a digital asset or cryptocurrency company. That is something unique. We don't have that in the United States, that the exchange gets to call you in and talk to you about changing your business.

I've been through a five-month process, but we are on the cusp. Hopefully, over the next day or two. I can go ahead and say this, since you can't trade my stock since it's halted for the last five months. We should get public permission to go ahead and move forward. And we have already petitioned for permission on Solana, since there are other entities listed in Canada that do own Solana and stake Solana. And so therefore, we'd be able to go ahead and add Solana potentially to our portfolio. And the expectation is to go ahead and broaden it out from there. And so, yes, we would be a proxy for an ETF stock, primarily listed in Canada. So we're subject to Canadian regulatory regime. We're not subject to U.S. regulators because we just have a tracking

stock, effectively, or a secondary listing here in the United States. So really can't get in the line of fire of U.S. regulators. Not to say that, you know, the regulatory regime is going to be hostile. I think it's going to be very accommodative, you know, under Trump. But nevertheless, hopefully we'll be out ahead. And the idea is to go ahead and raise money. And I hope to be able to, like Michael Saylor, issue 0% coupons on converts and go ahead and raise a ton of money to go ahead and plow into other layer ones other than Bitcoin. the end of the day. It's a vehicle that investors should have access to, just like any other equity that could be in their portfolio, 401k, whatever, and also offer the benefits of staking,

which I think are very important to go ahead and have an ETF without staking. You're missing a big piece of the pie of why this all makes sense in terms of ownership. So there you have it. That's what we're up to. Hopefully, we'll be able to make this big public announcement sometime soon. And we're going to be rocking and rolling, hopefully, in terms of capital raising and putting money to work. Godspeed, my friend, guys.

We just ran up against time, 11.15. So we're going to go ahead and wrap and move on to tomorrow, 10.15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time for the next Crypto Town Hall. As I say at the end of every show, when I remember my ADHD doesn't kick in, give everybody on stage a follow. These guys are exceptional voices and they're here for a reason. Scott, can I go ahead and promote? We have an FOMC. The Daily Finance Show has an FOMC special show today at 1.30. We will have Powell's remarks, the press conference afterwards live, and we'll be discussing all

the happenings regarding interest rates and inflation and unemployment and all things Fed related. I assume that's with Mario. Yeah, of course. Of course. He'll be the host. That is correct. So just so you know, this is this is a big incestuous circle jerk of Twitter spaces about finance, guys. We all work together for everybody out there. So I will be tuning into that as well, David, and I'd love for you guys all to do that. So give everyone a follow. See you all, I guess at one 30 this afternoon to see if Jerome Powell sneezes in the wrong direction and rocks global markets. That's all we got for you guys. Talk later. Have see tomorrow. Bye.