The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Sold Off On The Crypto Vote. The Fed Could Send It Higher Today | Laura Shin

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Bitcoin is trading near $76K ahead of today’s Fed decision, while the Clarity Act failed its key Senate vote and regulators prepare to move ahead with crypto rules anyway. We also cover Robinhood engineers charged with insider trading through Hyperliquid and Circle launching Arc mainnet with major institutional backing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We finally have, no pun intended, clarity on the Clarity Act, and it is not good. Obviously, crypto and Bitcoin across the board sold off on the news that the Clarity Act, cloture vote did not advance. And now we move on to FOMC today with consensus being that the Fed is likely to hike rates, but that could potentially be good for Bitcoin. We're going to talk about that and everything in the news, I think primarily a post-mortem on clarity right now with very special guests, Laura Schen. go. Good morning, everybody. Happy FOMC rate hike decision day to those who celebrate yesterday. We were

celebrating Clarity-Cloacher vote, but there was very little to celebrate by the time the votes actually came in. I'm going to go ahead and bring on Laura now and we can get into it. Good morning. Laura, how are you? Good. How are you? Good. Good. Do you ever find it really strange to be on the other side of these conversations? A little bit, yeah. Let's start with the Clarity Act. I think that's obviously the big question of the day we spent, man, what, you know, a year, 18 months unpacking the likelihood of this passing. And it kind of died with a whimper, to be quite frank.

I know a lot of that was politics. But ending with zero Democrats coming across the aisle and voting for it, including the ones who sponsored the bill like Jillibrand. And then, of course, having, I believe, four Republicans not vote for it, it fell exceptionally flat. It didn't even come close. I mean, the vote was 49 to 50, right? So not what we were looking for here and many saying that it's pretty much dead. So I guess your first takes on having gone through this experience covering this for so long and seeing where it landed. Yeah. So my perspective here is it's giving it neurofiddling while Rome burns. And what I mean by that is that politics is what

killed the bill. It doesn't have anything to do with crypto. It doesn't have anything to do with the substance of clarity itself. It's literally just that there are these politicians who are in power and they, you know, kind of want to control their little fiefdoms. They want to swing things their way. They want to do things that benefit their party ahead of the election. You know, a lot of this is posturing. And so it's very disappointing that this bill, which in my opinion is actually quite important to help the U.S. maintain its position as the lone global superpower and kind of to maintain this world order. I actually think that, you know, if the U.S. continues to go down this road of prioritizing politics over staying on the frontier of finance and tech, that it has

really large geopolitical implications that, in my opinion, are just frankly not good. You know, I mean, there are plenty of criticisms I can make about the U.S. However, I do think when you compare it to the other choices, I actually think it's a pretty good thing that we are the global superpower. And so I find it very disappointing that these politicians could not put aside their differences to, you know, push something forward that is actually really good for our country and the grand scheme of things. However, I do want to call out also that, you know, like President Trump, I do think bear some of the blame for this. And, you know, I know this is a kind of controversial statement because obviously the crypto community right now is definitely blaming the Democrats. And I can also blame the Democrats. Let's just let me just, let me just throw around some blame right now, actually. Let's go all the way back. So the Democrats started the politicization of crypto. So they bear the, they're sort of like they, they have this original sin, I would say, for just turning a neutral technology into something that became this way for them

to score political points amongst their quote unquote base, which, you know, as has been pointed out so many times, yeah, there is no anti-crypto army. So, and it just, you know, anti-crypto voter. Right. Right. Like there's people who go, okay, maybe I don't like it, but they're not voting in the result. Yes. So they, you know, created this juggernaut of money against them in the last election, you know, caused them to lose Congress. And obviously was a big role in also getting President Trump elected because he saw, you know, just being the kind of person that he is a transactional person. You know, he was not pro-crypto in the first, his first time in office. But he immediately saw, oh, the Democrats have pissed off this

constituency that has a lot of money. It was easy votes for him. You know, easy. you know, political wind at his back. Like, it's just, it's so obvious that what they did was so stupid and on so many levels. So, so I'm going to, you know, ding them really hard, you know, negative whatever five billion points for politicizing a technology that I had covered for, you know, whatever it was at that point, eight or nine years or something, with no sense, in my opinion that it was political. And then, you know, I'm just going to call it straight. President Trump himself bears a lot of the blame for being, as I like to call him, the Max extractor in chief. And essentially, you know, he has enriched himself to the tune of what is estimated to be

$1.4 billion in the last year and a half, which is insane. And, you know, a lot of crypto people can understand, you know, these things that he's doing, World Liberty Finance. financial, you know, like he has whatever, this stable coin. He's just doing the meme coin. He's just doing these things that are purely in his self-interest. It's not good for the crypto industry. And, you know, the unfortunate thing in my opinion is that I've long thought all this time that I've covered crypto that there's kind of like two main groups that are attracted to crypto. There's the, you know, serious entrepreneurs who want to build better financial systems for the world. And this is why, you know, I've had entrepreneurs from Afghanistan and Argentina and, you know,

Venezuela on my show. And they talk about how crypto just was such a lifeline for them being from a country that did not have amazing financial services, did not have a strong currency. You know, these are people who were born without the financial privilege that we are born with in the U.S. and they show just how powerful this technology can be. But, you know, the fact of the matter is that there is another kind of person who's attracted to crypto. And they are scammers and brifters. And in my opinion, President Trump is in that category. And so, you know, I do think that there is sort of this kind of moment that the crypto community probably needs to take some reflection and say, hey, like we threw in our lot with this guy who,

you know, knowing his history across, you know, decades in public life, people probably could have predicted he's not somebody you should trust. And in fact, no, I think the fact that they kind of threw in their lot with him has come back to bite them in the ass. Okay, more blame, though. Let me give a little bit more blame because, you know, the other thing is if you look at the Republicans, and yes, the Republicans have been so helpful for crypto and they have seen the technology for the merits that it has and they have kind of not done the same sort of political thing that the Democrats had done for so long. However, they were not willing to call out President Trump for things that anybody could see easily were going to be bad for the industry. And so ultimately,

it culminated in this head where basically the ethics portion, which again had nothing to do with the substance of anything to do with the industry or crypto itself. That is what killed the bill. And it's just so upsetting that essentially, you know, we just ended up in this place where that's why I said this reminds me of neurofiddling while Rome Burns. It's like everybody lost the plot. You know, by the end, the only thing that mattered was this sort of he said, she said, fight, you know, just people with just being in their positions and not being able to take a neutral step back, not being able to kind of, you know, put their emotions aside, put their political aspirations aside, and just say, what's important for the U.S., what's important for this world. And so here we are. We're going to get along just fine. I already see all the Scott has TDS comments because I get them

over here. But I literally tweeted this yesterday. Plenty of blame to go around if you're choosing sides. Fine. As an unaffiliated voter who supports either party, I think the Democrats are awful for blocking clarity. I also think it would have passed easily without Trump launching a meme point, right? I tend to agree with you. Obviously, you know, listen, I was a very anti-Gensler and Biden administration's approach to crypto like most of us were. But the minute he launched that meme coin three days before inauguration, we knew exactly what we were about to get. And I think it's sad because we had a Goldilocks moment, I would say, from November to January, where there was truly no political will to be anti-crypto. Like, the anti-crypt army was dead. It lost. Fairshake had

annihilated them, was funding any, you know, crypto favorable candidate. And then, you know, the ammunition was reapplied. And now we're going to face a midterm where the anti-cryptor army likely comes back. Elizabeth Warren could be ahead of Senate financial. And we might be dealing with all this again. So I agree the Democrats committed the original sin. And it pushed the thing. I just wish that Trump had not done what he had done in this context.

but it's also not just the political side. The blame game goes further, right? So you have the coin-based blamers who say that Brian Armstrong killed it in December when it had a chance to pass, right? And then you have the crypto industry blaming the banks. We have all these industries to blame. Everybody can actually point the finger at somebody in this that they don't like and claim that it's their fault. Right. So it's really, I mean, it's just really, really an interesting.

situation. We have the great feat actually before you jump in from Brian Armstrong here. Let me bring it on because this is kind of his postmortem. You know, obviously it didn't advance. We're disappointed. But clarity's coming regardless, right? And I think this has been the new and very accurate narrative, which is that the SEC and CFDC are going to proceed regardless. We're going to get rulemaking and hopefully we can become so big in the next two and a half years that there's no political will to kill us again through legislation. But this is the part I actually find the most interesting that I just want to unpack. He said, of course, genius is already the law

of the land for stable coins, which is even more permissive on rewards. There were some concessions we made on clarity that were tough to swallow, so perhaps it's for the best. And this is something that I've been scratching my head at for a long time because the banks came out so anti-clearity, but no clarity act is actually worse for them because what they're trying to fight against already exists because of genius. So now Coinbase can basically do whatever they want. right? Yeah, well, at least for the next couple years. I mean, here's the thing about Brian's tweet that I was a little surprised about. He doesn't acknowledge the fact that, yeah, okay, for now we have a great SEC. We have a, you know, both the SEC and the CFTC literally are come from the crypto community. You know, Paula Atkins, he's been in crypto for a long time. I'm obviously chair Seelig as well. So, you know, right now the crypto industry is golden. But, you know, you know, So next election, who knows what's going to happen? And, you know, I was tweeting about this and somebody said to me, oh, the fact that you're saying that the next election can roll this back shows that, you know, this bill was more about protecting the industry than everyday consumers, which is absolutely false.

Because look at, you know, the Gensler track record. Do you, does any investor out there feel protected whatsoever? ever look at FTC, Celsius, blockfi, well, not, you know, that was a different thing, but you get what I'm saying, Voyager. What? Sadly, Voyager, that's me.

Yes, yeah. So, you know, three arrows. I mean, like, just, there were so many things that SE did not do and they could have done to protect investors and instead they're going after Coinbase. I mean, it's, it's just, it just is so fumbling. But the other thing is that, you know,

banks, like they, you're right that now they're, the situation for them is actually worse. But the thing is, you know, the banks, all they're trying to do is they're basically like blockbuster advising the U.S. government to not use Netflix, not invest in Netflix, and also to hobble Netflix's ability to compete in the marketplace. That is literally what they're doing. And they're doing it again in this context of this could hurt the U.S.'s standing in the world. And I understand it seems it's a very long way off, or it seems a long way off. But you and I know, like, we've been in crypto for a long time. Things in crypto can move so fast. We know blockchain reels move way faster than the banking system. There could be some, and we know that AI is also moving things quickly. There could be a moment

where sort of the existing financial system as we know it and the way the markets are and kind of just the fact that the U.S. has this privileged position of having the biggest markets in the world, we actually know it could actually change quite quickly. And I understand this might seem really out there to some people. But, you know, I just will never forget. There's so many times in this industry where just things kind of sprung up out of nowhere and became big quite fast. I've seen it over and over and over again. And I'm not saying this will be like a flip a switch and it's all over for the U.S. But I'm just saying that this privilege that we have in the U.S., it could actually happen faster than we think. And if you look back to like semiconductors, I know that that is a famous example that has been talked about a lot about how that's something that the U.S. lost.

And it's very hard to get it back once you lose it. And so, you know, that's just a cautionary tale that I would hope our political leaders would be paying attention to, that the banks would be paying attention to. But essentially, yeah, I'm a little bit nervous that we'll have two years to have good regulations in place. But then after that, who knows? Yeah. It's a sad state of affairs. It really just is. It's like I said, not surprising at all.

I'm not even surprised at how the vote went because there was no reason once the Democrats knew it wasn't going to pass for any of them to poke their heads out. Right. And so they just kind of had the consensus. The four Republicans, I think, you know, they knew it wasn't going to pass and probably knew they could get a check from the banking lobby if they voted how they did and then it would be inconsequential and it would go unnoticed. But I agree with every single take. that you basically just had there. What I find interesting is not only did the bank lobby effectively hurt themselves here, because now you can go to Coinbase and earn your yield,

and nobody's ever going to question that. Okay, we unpacked that. The other side is that now the Trumps or anyone else can literally do whatever they want until the end of time. Right? So, like, even the, if you step back and look at it, Like, even the principle that ethics didn't go far enough, by not voting, you get no ethics clause of any sort. And that this isn't just Trump, right?

I mean, I don't think Nancy Pelosi should be a god tier options trader either, right? And I've pointed that out for years. But this left everyone with nothing and no way to prevent the FTXs, but also the political grift from Hunter Biden or Donald Trump. Yeah, this is why it ended up literally just. being about posturing at the end, which is why it's so annoying that all the lobbyists and the policy advocates spent so much time hammering out the details about how to handle a financial system that doesn't always have intermediaries. I mean, this is why in the end, it just makes everybody look bad. There's literally nobody who comes out as a winner. And, you know, the only thing that I

can say is that in a way, this makes the case for the cypherpunk ethos better than anything could. you know, I saw you tweeted about this. Like, I agree with you that in a way, this almost shows the case for self-sovereignty and, you know, kind of pointing out to people why it's important. And also, you know, the fact that that it even exists as an option is just still so amazing to me. You know, I know it's been around for a while, but, you know, just the more time goes on and the more, yeah, the way politics plays out just kind of shows that. the absurdity of that system. I mean, it just is a great, yeah, it's a great, what's the word?

It's a persuasive tale for Bitcoin. Yeah, I mean, maybe we can get a bit of a default back to the original ethos and the reason that we were all here, right? Because we've gotten caught up in this very strange, sort of bipolar situation where a lot of us got into Bitcoin because we didn't trust the government and we didn't necessarily want to cheer for the biggest institutions. And we knew that fiscal and monetary policy were broken, which we can get into because those are breaking in real time right in front of our eyes even further. And then we found ourselves in this unfortunate position, you know, where we're sort of cheering

for the very same institutions and the governments that we were, that was the machine we were raging against. Right. So maybe now we can go, oh, I don't need to think about the Clarity Act anymore. and the world, the sun's still going to come up tomorrow. And, you know, I can just go buy Bitcoin and forget about it. I mean, I think that was kind of the tweet you're referring to. I said something about like, I think the silver lining is that soon we'll be able to stop talking about the clarity act and we could just go back to opting out. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's essentially what it is. The only thing about that sentiment is, obviously, we've seen with, you know, all these hacks this year, you know, cold card, probably being one of the more devastating ones that, yeah, just in this age of AI, even when you want to go the self-sovereign route, there's a lot of questions about whether or not that's even safe. So it's interesting that the politics is showing the benefits of that route at the same time that we have AI showing the perils of it. What a time to be alive.

I mean, I'm sure people ask you all the time. I get the question every single day as a result of cold card. all these data breaches, this revoluted one is mind-blowing to me, right? Because that's the first time that they not only leaked your information, but also leaked your transaction and balance, right, history. So good luck with that, unfortunately. But I mean, what do you tell people now when they ask you, hey, you're in this industry, family, friends, you know, how do you, what's the best way to cost to your assets? Yeah, you know, the way I think about it is a sort of decision entry that is also like a personality test, you know. So people are going to have kind of different

levels of risk or different particularities in their lives that will, you know, make one choice or another kind of better for them. So I wouldn't say necessarily that I would have the answer for anybody, but I would probably lay out the pros and cons of the different routes. And then they can think about what works for them, like what risks make more sense for their lives to take, essentially. But, you know, probably like, so for you and me or like other people who have a big profile in crypto, it actually probably makes more sense to go with the custodian because of the wrench attacks that we've seen. Like obviously in France, that's just been obvious, just like horrific to watch, you know. And again, that came from from a leak. So I think that,

But when it comes to physical safety, if you're doxed, if you're a known figure, like it probably makes more sense to have somebody else custody your crypto for you. But if you're not, then you have more choices. That's just my opinion. Maybe you have a different opinion, but that's how I view it. I mean, I asked you to get myself off the hook because I don't have the answer for people. And I was hoping you can tell me. You know, listen, I've always believed deeply in multi-sig and the, you know, good luck

for my family with the month-long scavenger hunt to find all the pieces to put together because I'm paranoid and I've had issues because I'm a docs person. But I can't begrudge anyone who at this point just says like I'm going to put it in Coinbase Prime, you know, with a UBKee or who says I'm just going to buy an ETF. Yeah. And it's sad that I can't really argue strongly against that for most individuals. I mean, I think you're right. There's a decision tree, but the problem is, you know, even the cold card.

people thought they made the right decision of the decision tree and it was the unknown, unknown that got them. Right? So I used to think we can handicap the risks of self-custody and now I have a much harder time doing that. Yeah. That's the other thing. It's like, you know, I mean, it's even simple things like the Treasor third party leaks, you know,

if you're going to buy, like, your own device. So first of all, you have to trust that company. Ledger has had issues as well, right? And it's like, in Treasor's case, they had, I forget it was, was it, I think it was a contract where the provider had said, yes, we're deleting this. They had, you know, filled it out. They had promised that they were going to do. And they hadn't. So at that point, I mean, just the Treasurer itself had done what it needed to do. And still, still, you know, it's trust of this other. party like illegally, you know, signed on the dotted line, you know, enforced contract. That had also fallen through. So, yeah, there's dangers all around. Right. But the whole idea was eliminating counterparty risk. And it seems like it's an endless rabbit hole of unseen counterparty risk.

Yeah. You know, like, I mean, I don't, I don't even know if we covered the revelry thing here. I'm just trying to bring up a story for people who missed it. But, you know, Revolut data breach affected nearly 700 clients' Financial Times report. For those who missed it, obviously, we've covered the treasur breach and the ledger breach in the past, and those were all data. And the French wrench attacks that you referenced, that was effectively somebody selling, you know, their, effectively their IRS or tax records, which allowed people to see that someone owned crypto. But in this case, this is not only their data, their KYC information, their

passport, their selfie for, you know, confirmation, but also not only that they own crypto, but how much and what transactions they've made. And there was no way you could have known this was coming if you're a revoluted customer. Yeah. So like, yeah. So now, you know, you're like, this isn't self-custody. This is your trusted, every single path is fraught with unknown unknowns. I think that's what just gets me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this reminds me of how, I think I read in John Roberts book, or sorry, Jeff Roberts book about Coinbase, that one of the attempted hacks on Coinbase was through, I think it was targeting an executive. And I think there was another one that was through a third party service that they were using. So, you know, it's probably one of those situations where basically kind of like trust.

So Revolut, it does, you know, have crypto. but it's not like a crypto company. So I think like, you know, the reason why the third party services are such an attack vector is because only crypto companies kind of like really understand the true threat. You know, not not obviously we're talking about Ledgeman Trezor, not that they're all perfect and have, you know, never suffered taxes. Obviously not the case. But I mean, like a by bit that was, you know, mind blowing.

But the point is that, yeah, like a pure crypto company at least kind of like, understands the front of your mind. Yeah, I mean, the Revolut story is nuts. I don't know if you saw it, but it was through from an official Italian government web address. So somebody and then just said, hey, this is a government request for information. And they were like, sure. And they handed it over, right?

I mean, you're only as good as every employee. We've seen it over the years with SIM swaps, right? I mean, a phone company can say that they're protecting you, but that can't protect you from a guy at the T-Mobile desk who will take five hundred bucks to give someone your information. Yes, my number was sim swapped, and it turns out it was an employee. Same. So, yeah. Before I got, I have a service called a Fonnie that I think everybody should use that protects my sims. I haven't been sim swapped since, but that was years ago. That is the one of the worst experiences you can possibly go through. Oh, yeah. Yeah, terrifying. I mean, the good thing is

and you're just scrambling to change everything, and it's a big race and all the reset, emails are coming. Well, so for me, I had actually written about those sim swaps all the way back in 2016. I think I was like the first major article to write about it. And so at that time, because I was revealing what was going on, I changed all of my security before I published it. So when they sim swat to me, they got literally nothing. The only thing they got into was an old Yahoo address that I had closed, they had like reactivated and there were no emails in it because I had deleted the account. It was the only thing they got into. Yeah, they didn't get access to anything, but you get all those phishing emails and reset your password reset. So luckily,

I was well protected, but it definitely causes you to go through everything in your life and reassess it and redo all your passwords and check all of your security and move all of your things. It was just really, really hellish. So let's talk more optimistically about moving forward. I think, you know, we know that Atkins and Seleague, as we've discussed, are going to write rules of the road. I think, you know, reg crypto is more favorable than I would have even anticipated the fundraising laws and things. I mean, you can effectively just go get $5 million from all your friends and launch something on a white paper and you got four years to figure it out. So, you know, that I didn't necessarily expect. But the industry is going to continue moving forward and building things.

And we have actually a really good example. It's a nice accidental segue. Arc mainnet is live. So, you know, we've been talking about Arc from Circle, potentially going live. That is now happening. This is Circle's very own layer one blockchain that they've built for purpose for stable coins, but it seems like they have built it for a lot more than that. Arc Studio app kits, Arc Portal, Circle Agent stacks, CCTP, Gateway, CPN, Stable FX,

a whole bunch of words I don't understand if we're being honest. But, and funny, my prediction, by the way, my 1% chance prediction is that this steals Robin Hood chain's meme coin thunder for a little while. Like, people just go over here and start doing DGN crypto things on a very serious blockchain from Circle just to prove that we're in a simulation. But, I mean, what do you think of Circle here and launching their own blockchain? Well, so we've known that this was coming. And I think that this is one of the ways that they're trying to diversify from a business model

that hasn't been super favorable to them. You know, everybody always talks about their deal with Coinbase, how Coinbase, you know, is really the big winner in that arrangement and it's going to have to be for a long time. And so Circle, I think, is using this as its avenue to, yeah, not be so dependent on these other partners. However, the thing is, you know, I do see the potential for it to take some thunder from Robin Hood Chain. At the same time, Robin Hood Chain has a sort of distribution mode that Circle doesn't have quite yet. And so Circle may attract the defy DGens. It will attract the crypto community because, you know, like obviously USDC is very widely used and it's a very prevalent in defy.

So I could see kind of more crypto natives moving, you know, money over there, especially if there are, I'm assuming there will be incentives. You know, the mercenaries love to get their yields wherever they can get it. However, I, yeah, I'm really wondering how they'll compete long term because, like I said, Robin Hood has that not only the distribution, but it also has this certain demographic that, yeah, like they know their demographic and they have built their app in, you know, they don't like this term, but let's just face it, it is a gamified way. It's a great app. I'm not, that's not a knock on them. And so for that reason, like, we'll sort of see kind of, yeah, what what the user experience is, like what the apps are like to kind of, kind of break out

beyond the crypto natives who are used to all the technical difficulties of dealing with crypto UX as it's been for, you know, up until recently. Yeah, I mean, Robin Hood, I've talked about this quite a bit, very much over my head. I'm not flipping meme coins in the trenches or whatever the kids are saying these days. But I did, you know, download Robin Hood wallet and move money to Robin Hood chain. And they've made it easy enough probably that, you know, my mom might be able to figure it out with only one or two questions instead of a thousand. So they're on their way, I would say, on the Robin Hood side.

But I want to double click on something you said about ARC because it's a point I've been pushing a lot. I mean, forget even the fact that Circle's business model is difficult because of Coinbase. You know, we could talk about rate hikes or rate cuts, but eventually rates go down. And stable coin issuers make a hell of a lot less money by holding treasuries. So the main business model, regardless for any stable coin issuer, I can't remember. You might have the numbers. But I think Circle was well more than 90% of their revenue came simply from holding treasuries. Yeah, I also don't remember.

but I wouldn't be surprised if that were the percentage. I mean, this is why their IPO was like so. And they're publicly traded. So like Tether has the luxury of just doing this behind the scenes. Circle has to report earnings every quarter. So if interest rates are 1%, yeah, yeah. No, I, that's why like, obviously they're,

they're probably positioning themselves to have new revenue streams ahead of that happening. although, yeah, now it seems like we might see some rate hikes. But the other thing is what just blows my mind is, you know, at the time of their IPO, the crypto community kind of knew, knew about this and was saying, like, look, this is not a sustainable business. And yet their IPO was so perfectly timed that. I mean, they wrote that so hard.

It was literally perfect. It was like there was no more popular word on planet Earth than stable coin that they launched. Yeah, yeah. And then obviously, genius, you know, put more a tailwinds at their back. So, you know, I do think that they've used that well to, you know, take the, the revenue that they have and to, you know, launch something new. I do think that this is, it is a good, you know, kind of ploy, I would say, or good strategy. Because, like, obviously stable coins are going to be the on-ram for crypto over the next, you know, minimum, I don't know, three years, but I would even extend it out further to like five to seven. And so if they can become

dominant in that respect, like, you know, I do think that this will be quite helpful. And it will for sure help the company not be so dependent on, you know, what interest rates are. again, not, it puts more control in their hands, essentially. Yeah, I mean, to lower down in that tweet, this is what this says that, you know, ARC launches with inter-structure for agentic economic workflows, lending and borrowing, trading and liquidity, on-chain FX, payments and settlement, tokenized assets, exchange, wallet, custody, compliance, data, and developer tooling. I don't see meme coins there.

So I guess, you know, they're not specifically focused on that. I'm sure they would be perfectly happy if people came over and started adding, you know, TVL to the chain, but this does seem like a different, a step in a different direction that's purpose built for their product so that they can make money and maybe be at the center of exactly what you just described, which is this probably five to seven year Cambrian explosion in stable coin usage. Yeah, I mean, so the one thing, so I've never looked deeply into arc, so I don't know this, the answer to this question, and I don't know if you know it, but I don't know how they would prevent a meme coin activity or if they're even intending to do that. I mean,

just saying what they have the tooling for at the outset doesn't say like if anything's prohibited. But as we've seen with Robin Hood chain, you know, there's a lot of creativity that the DGent traders have to create things that are not expected. So yeah, I'd be curious to know if if there is some way to, yeah, kind of force certain types of activity. I just looked it up. While you're talking, I just asked, are there any crypto launch pads on Ark's new chain? Yes, several crypto launch pads are active or launching on Circle View ArcMayNet, which goes live on September 16th, 2026. Tali Arcpad flipped, aka.com, warp shark pools.

So I guess there's our answers, that there's already, you know, 10 people who have said, I'm going to go launch a pump fun on circle and a hyperliquid on certainly. You've heard it, right? I mean, come on. Every time there's a new chain, someone's like, we're going to be the blank of this chain. The hyperliquid of arc or the pump fun, which, you know, of Robin Hood chain. Tell as old as time. Listen, I'm here for it.

It's fine. It doesn't affect me in any way, shape, or form. But it is kind of funny that we have this extreme barbell, I think, in crypto that's so clear, which is like that very serious, as you talked about. And then the other side is complete D-Gen, and there's very little. Right, right. Like there wouldn't be a way for them to necessarily be like, this is forbidden. So, yeah, so we'll see what it's actually used for.

So we've got like, we kind of cooked through it. We've got three or four minutes. I mean, in your mind, what are you still very excited about in this sort of post-clarity? I think, you know, what are you looking at as the things that are most likely to gain adoption moving forward beyond stable coins and beyond hoping for legislation. So I never thought that I would say this because for the longest time, I thought real-world assets were so boring. But, you know, like this year has proved my bias wrong.

Obviously, the RWA perps on hyperliquid I have found quite interesting. You know, I like to my mind, you know, so here's what's so fascinating to me about this particular year. I got into crypto in 2015, which was the blockchain, not Bitcoin era. And what is so funny to me is that actually now it's kind of coming to fruition this year. And, you know, at that time, like there were things I thought were interesting about it. And then I obviously got into kind of, or I learned more about like all the real crypto stuff that happened and saw like, oh, okay, actually blockchain, not Bitcoin is actually quite boring. But now that is actually happening, I'm like, oh, okay, no, I'm swinging back to, okay, actually,

this is quite interesting. Even just the, you know, not this is not my favorite word to say on air, but obviously the boner him saying like that also was just hilarious right? Mike Belchie pointed at that he was like, I have embarrassed to say this. Say thank you. Have you seen Boner on Robin Hunt-Chay? It's like, no. Yeah, but it just goes to show that, you know, this kind of notion that I had for so long that RDAs are kind of boring. Like even stable coins are like a little bit boring. You know, but now I'm like, oh, actually, no, it's going to stay crypto. It's going to be weird and wild. And it's just fascinating to see that like crypto is showing that there are real use cases. Like just the thing about the

oil perps, you know, all the way back during that weekend when the Iran war started. Like it's just, it's just like, oh, I mean, now we're seeing that non-crypto people, they understand the value. They, they are just coming to, you know, what, what crypto has to offer and showing like there is use for it beyond just degeneracy. and, you know, games with memes. So, yeah, I'm kind of interested to see how it continues to play out because I have been surprised by what's been happening in that sector. But the big question that I am wondering about is this issue about whether stock tokens

will require, whether they'll institute some law that requires that the issue or give permission. Because that, yeah, that's really going to determine whether or not we're going to to see the creativity or not. So yeah. Maybe we'll create future legislation that we can get past to tell us whatever. Whatever. I know it's time for you to go. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell everybody about Unchained. As I said to you kind of before, I'm a huge fan. It's cool to have you on the other side of the microphone here. And your other host, you know, Rom and Austin and Chris and all those guys have been regulars here. I love all of them. So maybe just

tell everybody where they can check it out and what you've been building over there. Yeah. So Unchained is its own podcast plus now also has a podcast network. We have two other shows, bits and bips and uneasy money. And we have some newsletters called Unchained and also Bits and Bips. And we have a website, UnchainedCrypto.com. And you can find us on X at Unchained underscore Pod. But yeah, I have enjoyed.

connecting with you. I'm also a fan of your show and just, yeah, have been watching your rise in the industry for a while. And I'm just, yeah, so pleased that we finally got to connect. It's been a strange roller coaster. I'm sure it has for you as well. Fortunately, it's maturing with me. You know, like as I push 50 here, maybe real world assets are better than meme points. I won't reveal my age, but let's just say we're not that far apart. I think we both look 25. Thank you, Laura. I deeply appreciate you coming on. Hopefully we can do this again soon. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me. Absolutely great conversation. So obviously there's some other things that need to be discussed today because, as I said in the intro, it's not just the death of the Clarity Act that we have to discuss today,

but of course we have a sort of maybe kind of important FOMC decision that is coming today. And it's coming from a new chairman who is notoriously bad at telling us what's coming. And I think that that's going to be the real push and pull of the decision today. So, you know, if bed meeting is shaping up to be a nightmare for Warsh, Bitcoin might still shine. As I've sort of said, I don't understand why anyone would want Kevin Warsh's job. I can't imagine a worse situation for a human being than being the fall guy for the entire United States economy. But Godspeed, Kevin. I hope that this goes well for you, but here you go.

So Fed meeting, yeah, shape you up. So what the expectation is now is roughly that there's a 90% chance. I still, I don't know. Like if I was a betting man, I'm sure they will probably hike because there's 90% chance that they will hike. But like, if I could get my money in with good pot odds on that 10% at a poker table, I might take it to be quite honest. So listen, what we know is that Trump is going to go ape shit crazy on. on Kevin Warsh if he hikes rates, or we can assume that, right?

Because you have one job, and that is to come in and cut rates and get that stimulus going on the economy. Got to get us stimulated, Kevin. And so today, the expectation is at 25% rate hike. But the real question, and one we probably won't get from Kevin Warsh because of his lack of forward guidance and his, I think, justified, you know, hesitants. to tell us what's likely to come in the future is not just if we get the height, because 25 bips means nothing.

I think we all know that. It's what the expectation is where the tone is about the future. So in Jackson Hole, he said 2% is basically a hard line, right? We have to hit that 2% number. It's non-negotiable. And then CPI and PPI came in relatively hot last week. The job market doesn't really give him any room to maneuver. And if he wants to get 2%, that probably means hiking rates.

But if he comes in and hikes 25 bits and says, we're good, I think markets have already priced in the hike. And that's a good thing. If he says this is the first in a new hiking cycle, I think watch out below. But if you want to know why this could be good for Bitcoin, I think you always have to think about how Bitcoin trades, what it's made for, and why it exists. And also to zoom out and stop watching price every first.

minutes. So someone's asking me in the comments, who's calling for the 25 rate hike? Literally every single pundit and bank on planet Earth. It's a 91% chance. But anyways, what's likely to happen is that he raises rates and it makes the situation far worse for Bessent because we already have the 10-year-over-5%. And rates continue to go up. And obviously the Fed continues. control the short side of the curve short end, but the Treasury is more concerned with the long and he raises rates here and rates continue to go up on the long end. And that's kind of the situation that Bitcoin is built for. Right. We see fiscal and monetary policy fail. They can't control the rates since they haven't been able to already. And Bitcoin, gold, and the debasement

trade idea continues to game in stream. So I think I'm going to go be that idiot who's like bullish rate hike. Not in the short term, though. Buy Bitcoin cheaper if it drops today. I think that's really the idea. And listen, I mean, taking a look at what markets have actually done as a result of the Clarity Act, Bitcoin ETF shed $450 million as Clarity Act fails. Goodbye losers. See you later. Didn't want you here anyways. And of course, Crypto Long's worth 570 million wiped out as Clarity Act fails. You losers, I like a little more because at least you were trying to get long Bitcoin. Still losers. Bye. So obviously, listen, the market didn't like it, but I'll be honest. I mean, Bitcoin trading here at what, 75,644? That looks pretty good.

The Clarity Act failed. We're expecting tightening, which, by the way, the bond market's already given us the tightening that people are looking for from the Fed, and the Fed is likely neutered. But these are all theoretically very bad short-term catalyst for Bitcoin. And last I checked a couple weeks ago, we were at 65 with no hope. So I am not necessarily seeing this as the bad news that many people are. Now, a lot of people clearly sold their Bitcoin, apparently, because the government didn't pass law. I mean, why'd you own Bitcoin in the first place? That gives us a nice segue, actually, to discuss today's amazing sponsor, which is NXO because you don't ever have to sell your Bitcoin. You can literally just stop being an idiot and take a loan

against that Bitcoin. And if Bitcoin goes up, actually, that loan effectively pays for itself. But, you know, you don't have to be the guy who sells your Bitcoin. You don't need to sell your Bitcoin to buy a house. You don't need to sell a Bitcoin to go on a vacation. You don't need to sell Bitcoin to go pay for your kids, private school tuition. You can just take a simple loan against it with a very, very safe loan to value ratio and go about your life without having the tax implications and the stress of having to sell your Bitcoin. You can check them down out down in the description. The link is there. But yeah, check out NXO. You do not have to sell your Bitcoin. Come on, people. Don't need to do it. So a couple more stories I just wanted to

show you guys, two Robin Hood engineers charged with insider trading, you're hyper liquid perpetuals. I don't know which part of the simulation we're in here. So two guys at Robin Hood use confidential information about Robin Hood token listings to trade on checks notes, hyperliquid Robin Hood's competitor, and they only made a little bit of money like 50 grand or something, and now they're going to go to jail. Have fun. Totally worth it. Totally worth it. But yeah, man, listen, the United States government does not take insider trading lightly. And this is probably How Not to Invest, right?

Do we have that? Wait, wait. Here, I'm going to play it for you guys. Where is it? I don't think it fits right. How not to invest. How not to invest. Don't insider trade. How not to invest. Don't do it. Also, US DOJ seeks 61 million in crypto proceeds from elicited Iranian oil sales laundered on finance. What a world. I'm not having it. into that one. I'm not using to that's that one. Okay, that's all we got. So a few housekeeping things here to tell you about. So tomorrow we have Tristan Thompson joining the show live,

the NBA superstar, Kardashian superstar, who's now a crypto enthusiast. He's going to be joining the show live tomorrow. First question will be if he thinks he can stop me from scoring 20 points and three minutes on him. Does he think I go hard in the paint? Does he think I could bomb a three over his head? Does he think it could take me in a fight? Those are my first questions for Tristan Thompson

tomorrow, so tune in for that. I will seriously say stupid shit like that. By the way, I think the first time I interviewed John Ngerian, who played for the Bears, we'd never met. I didn't know if he was a serious person or not. And I was like, okay, I'm at one end of a hallway

five feet wide. You're at the other end of the hallway. We run full speed at each other. How many times I attend do I get past you? The answer was zero. I don't get past him at all because he was a linebacker in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears. Okay, so that's tomorrow. And then I don't know if you've been noticing how insane our guests have been here.

Kudos to the booking team. but we are absolutely murdering it here, to be quite honest. So we got Tristan tomorrow and then noon tomorrow. Listen to this very carefully. On the Daily Wolf on Yahoo Finance, we are extending the show from 15 to 30 minutes for a special edition, which is the first exclusive interview with Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, for a postmortem of the Clarity Act. Yahoo Finance,

Daily Wolf, the show you probably never watch. Sorry, you should. Noon tomorrow, Brian Armstrong, that beautiful guy with the beautiful. Love that guy.

Never interviewed Brian Armstrong before. We've kicked it around for about five years, I think. So it hasn't happened yet. Oh, and then Friday, I'm now going to bring out the calendar. Got a calendar.

Friday, Haseeb Qureshi from Dragonfly, one of the greatest guests of all time. Sunday podcast this week, SEC Commissioner Hester Perce, crypto mom. I'm telling you, it's epic. We got Peter Chear on Macro Monday. Looking, it's just, it's endless. It's endless. We got the best guests. The best guests.

Tune in and watch them. All right. What are you guys saying here in the comments? Oh, good. 15 minutes is too quick. I wanted it longer, said everyone's wife. Scott will... 15 minutes. Three minutes.

Scott will interview Riza soon. Yes. You guys might not know this, but I used to DJ for Raquan from the Wu-Tang Clan. So that could actually get done if we wanted to do it. I'm going to get out of here. before I say anything else stupid because I was trying to be serious. And they might watch it and cancel the interview. So we're going to get out of here.

I just want you guys to see this again. How not to invest. How not to invest? I have the best team. They make the best stuff. All right, guys. That is all that I have for you today. Once again, tune into the Daily Wolf today at noon.

Tristan Thompson tomorrow at 9 a.m. Brian Armstrong at noon tomorrow. we can literally worry about the rest of our lives. Because you're spending the next two days with me. Guest rooms open. Let's go.