The Wolf Of All Streets - BTC Nashville Recap | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

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Happy Monday, everyone. I'm assuming anyone who went to the Bitcoin conference is still completely exhausted, like me. I think I slept maybe 15 hours and four or five nights. Last night I slept for nine straight hours and still couldn't get out of bed. What an absolute crazy weekend. James, I know I saw you there, man. Did you have a good time? I don't know that James can hear me. Alex, were you there? I didn't see you. I was there, but I did this smart thing where I left on Friday afternoon. I came in for 48 hours, met the people I needed to, and got the heck out before everything got very rambunctious, I think.

Saturday was wild. Obviously what Alex is referring to here is that Saturday was the day that Donald Trump spoke at the conference. Anyone who was there knows there were long lines, right? So he obviously wasn't physically present. The line to get into the Nakamoto stage, the main stage, I think was three to four hours just to get into that part of the conference. And people seemed genuinely pretty accepting of that, knowing that Secret Service was vetting everyone. And the reason Secret Service was there that day was Kennedy was speaking at four o'clock. So everywhere he goes now,

which is amazing to see he finally has Secret Service after the assassination attempt, which makes, you know, things logistically, obviously more interesting. Try to get some more people on stage. Well, Alex, so the time that you were there, so I'm assuming were you on, on site Thursday? So for anyone who doesn't know, the conference is basically 3 days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But Thursday is just whale passes, which is people who paid many thousands of dollars to be there in industry.

So it's very chill, really nice. And then Friday and Saturday becomes like Coachella. But Alex, were you actually on site at the conference or just taking side meetings? Nope. I was all on the side. So we had a side event going on on Thursday and then Friday morning called the Bitcoin Builders Conference, which, as the name implies, is focused around building on Bitcoin versus, you know, maybe more of the core spirituality of Bitcoin, let's call it, that I feel like the main conference is focused around. Um, and then just, you know, I think the thing that's obviously a big deal about something like

Bitcoin, the Bitcoin conference or consensus is less about the actual conference itself and more about just the absolute like magnetism. I mean, I, everyone I know was in town at some point for it. Um, and so it just you know i will almost always fly in for those things just to grab face time with folks and uh you know get meetings set and then bounce back out as needed but i think next year the fact i'm so curious to see what happens next year i guess that they're doing in vegas like my my God, I mean, I can't, I mean, so imagine yeah, the three or four hours of sleep that I did manage a night. Imagine if I had to get that by passing through a casino on the way home to my room. Yeah. Right. Well, but Vegas is also just

kind of, you know, it's kind of a cluster, right. And like, it's so big. Um, I actually, I don't know how it's going gonna feel for the vibe of it just because like one of the things that's been nice about both miami and nashville with it is that you know everything is both was simultaneously spread out and concentrated right but it was really easy to move between things you know if you've ever been to vegas or something big it sucks trying to move around vegas during a big conference. And you got to take cars everywhere for the most part, because even two hotels that are next door are really far from each other.

So I don't know. I'm curious to see how it plays out, how many people are there for it and what it does to the vibe of it. If they made this work with Secret Service, I'm confident they could make anything work one way or another. But yes, I think your point is but yes i think you can get in i'm just saying like the vibe yeah yeah of course but yeah yeah it's gonna be oh my god the amount of money dropped at vegas clubs next year by like flashy bitcoin people is gonna be absolutely

insane 100 james i think did i see you thursday night or fr Friday night? That's a good question. I think it was Thursday night. Yeah. So how long were you in town and what was your impression? I got in on Tuesday, actually. So there was a little event that I went to early on Wednesday and did some Bloomberg-related stuff on Wednesday and then stayed through Sunday, actually. So I didn't get back. I'm in St. Louis at the moment. I drove four and a half hours from Nashville but so I didn't I stick around

through Sunday I I loved it I had a great time I've never I had never been to Nashville um so um I I had a great time in town it is it was and you could walk everywhere pretty much or I I scootered a lot but it was it was perfect. I shared the same concerns. And this is this isn't going to much people. Many people on the panel aren't going to feel this, but there's one big ETF conference every year. It's usually in Miami. The last few years it's been at the Fountain Blue in February. And this year they just announced that they're going to Vegas next year. So when I heard the rumors that they were going to possibly go to Vegas for the Bitcoin

conference next year, I was like, I really hope that's not true because I already have to go to Vegas in February. So now I have the two of like the, every year I go to like three conferences, four conferences, the same conferences and Bitcoin and this ETF conference are the, are two of them and they're both in Vegas. So I wish it was a little more diverse, but. Rip James's liver yeah yeah i i have a i have a two-night uh maximum rule in vegas generally like i will not go for more than two nights and this would have yeah this this is gonna be gonna be absolutely outrageous ridiculous but what did you think of the actual conference right so outside of what they're gonna do next year i mean i'm assuming you saw the trump speech i'm assuming you uh at at least walked in and walked around.

And then obviously I saw you at the side event. So, you know, we know that that's where a lot of the action happened. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was really good. I mean, I did stay. I was in person for the Trump speech. I was there for many different things. I was fortunate to be on stage on Thursday and Friday, mostly with other ETF issuers. I also felt like, I don't know, some people seemed like almost the stuff that was

happening politically wasn't enough, particularly on Twitter watching this. And in my mind, I'm like, what more could you want than two presidential candidates coming to the bitcoin conference talking about putting bitcoin on the national balance sheet essentially and then uh 10 or 10 plus uh senators or house of representatives uh people there um overall i just thought it was really good like i i i get a lot i get a lot out of it like uh the first year i went to this there wasn't as many bloomberg related clients which people on here probably don't care that much. But it's becoming a slightly more institutionalized as part of the game theory, right? The bigger players, the people that I typically accurate in my day job, more and more and more of them are coming to Bitcoin and crypto

related conferences overall. So I mean, I had one I had a blast to I learned a lot. And three, I got to network with a ton of people that, you know, I mean, I, I had one, I had a blast too. I learned a lot in three, I got to network with a ton of people that, you know, I mean, this is the first time I really saw you in person. So there's a lot of people that I interact with online professionally that I got to meet in person. So that was the big benefit I got, but I mean, just, just everything there was unreal. And I mean, there were so many famous people there, billionaires. It was kind of wild. Like if you told me this was going to happen, I don't know, two years ago, I wouldn't have believed you. Yes. So I think the first time we met, I was carrying two drinks through Karate Combat and gave you like an elbow to elbow in Austin But I agree with you.

It's actually almost like there were so many things that happened and it was so big that some of it was sort of lost in the noise that was so massively impactful, right? I mean, I'm obviously a huge fan of RFK. I interviewed him on Wednesday ahead of the conference. And his speech on Friday was just incredible. And then not seeing much talk on Twitter or X about Howard Lutnick from Cantor Fitzgerald's speech, where he once again confirmed that Tether is backed and they hold all of that. You know, one of the biggest asset managers in the world confirming, obviously, that Tether is fully backed. But also said we have, I don't want to misquote it, it was either a shit ton of Bitcoin or we own a shitload of Bitcoin. I think it was a shitload of Bitcoin, right? That went completely unnoticed that they said that.

And then saying that they were going to start offering loans on Bitcoin as collateral from Cantor Fitzgerald. This isn't Celsius and Voyager and BlockFi. This is Cantor Fitzgerald. And then Lummis' announcement that she's actually had a bill in her hand. So much different than politicians making promises about what's going to happen when their administration starts, which they may or may not do on any side, but her actually holding a bill there that said they were going to buy a million Bitcoin over five years as a reserve asset. I mean, the things that happened, to your point, were absolutely mind-blowing. I think that, and understandably, I think it was just a lot of people, because Trump was there, they were focused on his speech and thought that maybe politically like that

didn't deliver as much as they were looking for, which I also think is nonsense. I mean, I thought the speech was rambling and all over the place, but all the main talking points that mattered were there. Right. And, and more importantly, I think we all know that it's not the White House itself or the president that's going to really drive or determine the policy of crypto moving forward. We've seen what this White House has done by having Gensler and Elizabeth Warren effectively her plants in the White House and the advisors being anti-crypto. If he gets a bunch of smart, young advisors who understand crypto, it doesn't really matter what he says because the right people will be there to make policy. And I hope that's what we see. Go ahead, James.

Yeah, I was just going to say, a lot of people were complaining about the Trump speech. And believe me, I'm not a I'm not a big Trump guy. Personally, we don't need to get into that. But like, people complaining about his speech, we're talking about how bad his speech was. I feel like they've never even seen like a longer than one minute clip of a Trump speech. Like that was like, textbook how Trump does speeches, he he looks at different people he says hello to them calls them out in the crowd and then like rambles on different stuff and then hits a point he wants to hit and then rambles and it hits a point like it was like quintessential how he does stuff like there peter mccormick actually fell asleep uh during the speech he was right near me yeah the energy was not there by 10 or 15 minutes into the speech of the audience, objectively, right? I mean, to your point, like he, you know, he had all of his stump speech

talking points, which is what he does. So, right. I think expectation versus reality maybe was the issue there. You know, when he went back to the crypto talking points that were obviously like well-prepared and on the teleprompter it was like really impactful and nailed it right it's all the in between that people maybe that crowd was not excited to hear that's it right i think i think honestly probably because people in this industry are so fickle a 10 minute direct read from the teleprompter would have probably did what they wanted which is you know kind of a kind of a interesting sort of sort of nuance. I mean, yeah, did anybody else here watch the speech? Or have any thoughts and comments Dan go ahead Yeah, I watched it. I literally fell asleep as well, but it was on like 4 a.m. Where I am in Singapore

It was really weird because I've been quite a fan of Trump since 2016. It is different because obviously I'm not American. But I thought it was funny. I thought it was hilarious. I thought it doesn't really matter who's in charge. It's just funny. And then got with it. It was the first time I've ever seen him do a speech where I thought, this is pretty shit.

So I don't know if that's because I'm so disconnected from American politics in that way. And this was a speech about something that I do inherently know quite well. But that was the weirdest speech I've ever seen Trump give, for sure. And then someone said, I saw on Twitter, people saying, if you're disappointed by that speech, it's just because you understand the subject matter. And so for people that deeply understand politics, this is what all of Trump's speeches sound like. I don't know if that's what it, you know, if that's the thing. But yeah, I think it was definitely low energy as well and kind of a bit drifting.

As I said, I literally did fall asleep during it. Carlo. Good morning, Scott. I listened to it and I was utterly stunned that this is where we're at. And I have to share your sentiment. It's kind of surreal when we had that open forum for John Deaton. I wrote an article discussing how I think that we are in a global crypto Cold War. And it is very clear based on the pivot that we're seeing from both parties and all the candidates, that it is vitally important to the United States interest to gain control of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, as a hedge against the out of control dollar and the policies of rampant spending in this country. And it is in our national interest to accomplish this. I think that this week's speech, although yeah, it did go on a bit longer, and it was kind of typical of his stump speech,

it reinforced that this is definitely on the radar of every candidate that this is in our strategic best interest, and we have to get this right. Right. And so obviously, the conjecture, what was leaked, was that he would say that Bitcoin was going to become a strategic reserve asset. He didn't go as far as to say that. He said a strategic stockpile, adding Bitcoin, that's how we would get our strategic stockpile was by not basically selling any more Bitcoin and keeping 100% of what's confiscated. He didn't go as far as say we would buy it. But Lummis went immediately on stage with actual proposed legislation to do that. So I think that that was planned, right? That's not a coincidence. So I think he said what he was able to say, which makes sense. I actually liked that he didn't

make a really large promise just because he was there that maybe he would or would not be able to keep and that they had a sitting senator come out with legislation after sort of delivering on the best version of that promise. So I think that that was actually really well done. Alex, go ahead. Yeah, so I'll definitely agree with a couple of sentiments. Number one, this was literally just a core Trump industry speech that he's given a thousand times. It's like 80% of his normal rambling and then like 20% of sticking in the talking points that people want to hear.

So anyone who was like surprised by the flow of it has just, I think, never watched a full trump speech before because i literally can't watch trump speeches anymore because i think to the point uh some was making um it's the whole man gelling amnesia thing like once you know anything about a topic and hear him talk on it you realize how full of shit and just the thing that trump is truly world class at and i really admire is his ability to just like read a room and his media instincts i mean you even saw that with the assassination attempt like no one else in the freaking world would have thought i need to like create a photo opportunity out of this moment and he did and that is that is why donald trump is donald trump um but yeah like it was the same thing i think the

the two things of significance for me from in the show is one, the fact that he felt the need to come obviously shows that it's top of mind, but even that wouldn't be that big a deal for me. It's from talking to folks who were at the fundraisers and stuff, the beforehand with him, which is absolutely absurd how much money he raised from that. Another topic. I mean,

I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess he made 25 million. Oh, at least, at least 25 minutes. Yeah yeah because i know there were at least significantly higher yeah there were at least 150 people sorry yeah yeah there were at least 100 people paying 60 and i think i heard 20 plus people paying the 16 people paid just under a million at least i know for a fact yeah 870 it 000 absolutely insane um but you know the other thing is the number of very senior you know deep um industry folks like uh selkis david bailey the winklevise that he's on a first name basis with and seems to actually genuinely talk and

listen to is to, that's the thing that is actually potentially significant on it. Correct. That's what I said. He's going to forget about it. Like any president does about 90% of the things that shouldn't matter to a president, right? But it's who is in place if they're young and they're smart and they actually represent our industry, that's what's going to matter.

And right now we have Elizabeth Warren in that position. Also, there were other roundtables with potential Trump cabinet-level staffers. I came away from this week being much more bullish on the access and policy a couple levels down from the president than how much Trump is going to care about this or pay attention once he's- Yeah, his campaign is a pretty open door i found which is really good i mean i think i think the funniest thing at the end of the day though the level of access at this point is honestly almost immaterial like the the reason people are saying it's just that he won't he they wouldn't be buying right

like again this is literally they could just do nothing and they would be an order of magnitude better than the current administration on this issue, just by doing nothing. I don't know. I think level of access is hugely important, right? As far as Bitcoin is concerned, right? It really matters who's in key positions in the treasury, OCC, FinCEN, like these specific parts of the government that really, really matter to Bitcoin policy. Trump said in his speech that he would have a White House task force. It really matters who's on the Bitcoin and crypto White House task force. Yeah. I think like the open lines of communication are the thing that matters from like an actual

policy objective. Sure. I'm just saying that like even getting good policy isn't our baseline right now. Just having not bad policy, I think. Leave us alone is the uh what has been my baseline best case scenario so anything atop on top of that i think is a huge silver line the thing i'd actually love to get other people's take on from this all is what folks think about sort of the folks who are pushing to get like you know i've heard folks wanting this strategic

reserve to get filled to 25% of Bitcoin. And like my question on this is, do we really want the U S government owning 25% of all of the Bitcoin, which frankly, 25% of all the Bitcoin blacklist for a 30, 33% when you factor out dead Bitcoin out there. Did they say 25%? I thought some 5%,

but maybe a woman's bill was for like 5%, but I've heard other people pushing much much higher numbers more like four to five million btc is what's neat no i also don't want all bitcoin made minted and whatever he said in america and crypto right it's not centralized at all so like yeah but listen it's bluster and it's whatever. But I think the most important thing is it's, you know, it's easy to dig into the nuance. I've done it myself. I'm writing an entire newsletter about it tomorrow, positives and negatives. But like, if you just zoom out,

there's nothing but positives here. I mean, we have, especially when you look through this, you know, versus what we were staring at six months to a year ago, it's just absolutely an incredible evolution. And I certainly didn't think we would, we would get here, James. Yeah. I was just going to say, I, the one thing I wanted to point out was it, the crowd got loud at different times. He's also,

I want to go back and agree. I think it was Alex saying how like media savvy he is. Like he, he really was pretty media savvy he is. Like he, he really was pretty media savvy. And for a lot, for those that don't know, we were sitting in that room for like two hours before he could maybe even more before he came on stage. And apparently we don't know the full reason, but he basically made a joke about the secret service telling him that they weren't ready yet. And he was just kind of like, take all the time you need after, after. Yeah. Apparently Seattle is funny funny apparently someone left a camera laying in a corner or something and

yeah i think there was also someone who got unauthorized access to the uh meet and greet and that was an issue for the secret service yeah there is a yeah but i also want to say the loudest the room got by far in my if anyone was in there was when he said that on day one he was going to fire gary gensler and goes back to his media savvy he was like he literally just was like i didn't realize how much you guys hate him and then said it again real slow oh my god that was yeah that was the most, I agree with you. And I said that on my show this morning, that was the most telling moment of how he approaches things because it was clearly a talking point. He read off the teleprompter, like you could see it, you know? And he went, wow. It was like, you could watch his thought press thought process as to like,

when he decides things that really work and he's going to probably continue to say them. He literally, like you said, he was like, wow was like wow that was that that was a really good bit i'm going to say that one again right um yeah just incredibly he followed it up by saying like he talked about stopping elizabeth warren and her goons he talked he followed it up saying he was going to end choke point 2.0 which i'm sure nick carter nick carter is probably as giddy as can be the fact that a leading presidential candidate used the fact that a leading presidential candidate used the term that he made up. But yeah, there was a whole bunch of other things that were very impactful. And the room was unanimously, like unquestionably in my mind,

the loudest for firing Gary Gensler, which is comical. And yeah, I'll stop there. I'm not going to say that once upon a time, I'm the person who got the hashtag fire Gary Gensler trending, but I'm just going to put it out there that maybe i had something to do with that go ahead matthew uh am i the only one here that kind of recognizes the fact that he actually can't fire gary gensler and what he has to do is sort of repurpose the appointee designation right of these people so let's just like this is just another example of somebody saying whatever they want to say and people just like so eager to hear it that they don't even care it's just like, this is just another example of somebody saying whatever they want to say. And people just like, so eager to hear it that they don't even care.

It's just like, yeah. Matthew also. Yeah. And also like literally every president turns over the head of the major regulatory agencies. Right. I mean,

so that's, it's not big news. Cause he would put a Republican or that put the process in place to get a Republican in charge. Exactly. Exactly. No, that's a total gimme. But that goes to the point of what folks are saying before that, like the real ask here is not necessarily any specific policy objective. It's to end the Biden administration's war on crypto. Alex. the biden administration's war on crypto alex yeah i i think the the other big i think miss

that i saw from this is like so i don't know how serious the conversations were between the harris campaign and bitcoin magazine about her coming there um i know i've heard her like a fiddle yes but i will say the flip side to it is this would have been such a fucking opportunity i think it was a huge mistake for her or at least a super high level surrogate not to make the trek because given how the swap happened given how recently it was they had such an opportunity to take away crypto as an issue from Trump, especially for the moderates. And you know, one interesting thing is if you look at a lot of the early polling since the

swap out, um, like 75% of Kamala's gains against Trump in the polling hasn't come from Trump. It's come from Kennedy. Um, because you have all these, you had all these,

my, my, I'm guessing is all these really disillusioned people who really didn't want to fucking vote for Biden, really don't want to vote for Trump. And so they kind of said, well, who else is there? And they kind of went to the Kennedy side. Man, if you just took the crypto issue away, you made it seem like you were back on it, it just would have been such an opportunity. They are going to do that. It's not going to be genuine, but they are going to do that.

So I can give you guys some color just because of coincidental timing conversations I'm having. So obviously, it was reported that Kamala Harris is looking for a reset with the crypto industry. They have to. It's not genuine. We can dig into it. It's political. All of this is likely political. But I happened to interview Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman.

It's very pro Bitcoin and has been for a very long time. And our interview was delayed because he was standing there on the phone with Harris and the advanced team on, you know, her entire team talking about, he was compelling her to listen on crypto and she was largely listening. I'm not telling you guys that she will be pro-crypto or anything, but I am saying that the idea that they're seeking a reset is true and that there are a lot of Democrats. Listen, we just saw a letter from 20 plus Congress people to Elizabeth Warren saying, dude, chill, right? I mean, there's a lot of Democrats now who, whether it's genuine or not, they know

that this is politically unpalatable and are sick of being fodder in that way. Right. And my point here is the amount of... She would have had to do so little just by showing up and giving... But here's what happened, Alex.

Okay. This is... I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's like if I'm having a big dinner party and I reach out to Justin Timberlake and invite him and I get to publicly say I invited Justin Timberlake to dinner and then get to dunk on him when he refuses.

Like she was not anticipating coming. There was no plan that she was going to come and it's the busiest week of her life because I think she should have come. Right? And Scaramucci actually told plan that she was going to come and it's the busiest week of her life because I think she should have come. And Scaramucci actually told me that she accepted to come via Zoom and they told her she had to come in person. Which I don't

know if that's true. I both don't think that's true. I think the other parts of this you're missing are imagine the reaction by the Trump campaign of the conference folks. They were not allowed. That's correct. Right. And then, and then look, my sort of disappointment with that is, and I don't want to point at the Bitcoin magazine folks, but I think Ryan Selkis is a better example

of someone who's trying to make it politically toxic for, you know, crypto people to talk to Democrats. I think that is such a backwards strategy. I really think we need to be more bipartisan. The Democrats absolutely can win this election. You just said that this morning on my show and got destroyed, Zach. I said that this morning on the show. I said, listen, don't we want to be at the table regardless of who wins, right? Whether it seems palatable or tolerable or not, like we have to recognize that either side could win. Not even just one. I hope she also gets smart young advisors

who care about crypto just in case she wins. Because you know what the opposite of that looks like? It looks like having Elizabeth Warren as the treasury secretary, right? Like, yeah, I agree with that. I just don't think she was ever coming, right? To the conference, obviously. Or had an intention. And so, you know, to make it a story that she rejected and, you know, an invite days before.

Also, I'm pretty sure. And I heard many people say for campaign finance laws, FPC, I cannot, I wish we had some of our lawyers more. Well, we've got Carlo on stage. Maybe, you know, that if you're it's fine to apparently if you're having a public some sort of, you know, conference like this, that in theory, you're not allowed to play favorite to one side and would have to invite both. But that sounded nuts to me. But I heard multiple people parroting that. So I don't know if that's true, that they effectively had to invite her in some way, shape or form to not be in violation of some sort of campaign finance laws.

I'm not familiar with a law that specifically says that. I mean, it's not a political fundraiser. It's not a party affiliated event. I can't see how that would work. I think it's not an FEC rule. It's a media rule. It's a really old one that says you have to give equal time to both sides. It's not enforced anymore. So I don't think that's what it's not an FEC rule. It's a media rule. It's a really old one that says you have to give equal time to both sides. It's not enforced anymore. So I don't think that's a good series. I'll tell you what, Scott. Just an observation on the whole Harris thing. One way she could recover from not appearing, and I think it's an obvious strategic win for everybody, is to maybe have the administration call in ginsler and say hey it might be a good idea if you step down um just fire the guy that's it yeah you fire him that's it

students he wins yeah i mean it would be the popularity back it would be an enormous fundraising jolt because the industry would hedge their bet and and some money her way, I think, in order to, as you said, you know, protect against Trump losing. And it would demonstrate that they are actually serious. I mean, he's really from both sides of the aisle at this point doesn't have a whole lot of defenders. He's going to get a golden parachute. He's going to get a plum job somewhere. Why continue to hold out in this climate climate it just seems like such an obvious win to get him to step down at this point for the good of the party and to secure uh at least a dialogue with crypto that's that's that's positive yeah i just wonder if this is us making ourselves

too self-important you know because it's so important to us we're so passionate about this issue i don't know if the rest of the world is thinking yeah also the administration is not going to undermine their relationship not just not with gensler but with every other senior official who works for them by throwing red meat to like one specific industry like that's that's the reason they balance that 121 in the first case yeah yeah dave weisberger said this on my show this morning though he was like if you made that he said if trump made that fire gary gensler comment uh in front of an audience at a hedge fund conference or private equity you would have gotten the same exact response so gensler is wildly unpopular all over wall street

it ain't just us sure but i'm still just saying like the they can't i don't think they'd want to be seen as caving like if you got him to yes you could pressure him to like resign step down himself but you you couldn't go too hard on it because like i said it'll undermine you with the rest of everyone who works for you and also just i especially now, and this is the other thing about Trump coming out and promising to fire him, even though you probably can't, is that it looks like anything they do from there is responding to him now and gives him more power in the situation. So they're really between a rock and a hard place there. If you're Harris, there are two ways to play this, right? And I don't think we know much of her policy positions.

I don't know if she's decided on that many of her policy positions or how she's going to run this campaign. But one thing to do is what we've all been talking about, which is like, throw a bone to the industry, get rid of Gary Gensler and signal a pivot from Biden's sort of anti-business and tech policies. The other is to say, listen, you know why the people at the Bitcoin conference are cheering so loud to get rid of Gary Gensler? You know why the people at a hedge fund conference would cheer so loud for getting rid of Gary Gensler? This is the Republicans deregulation thing, right? They are corrupt. They're just looking out for the rich

business people. And they're trying to get rid of the effective sort of cop on the beat. And like that, I don't think that's the right approach, obviously, but that is a sort of tack the Democrats could take with regard to issues like this. Yeah, but I would say I don't think they're going to want to do that either, because to the point we discussed, nobody likes them. Andrew, you were throwing up a lot of hundreds there before you were at the conference. Good, good meeting and sitting down and eating steak with you was fun. We're all making we're all making assumptions that politicians or heads of political parties are meaningfully competent. Um, while it would make sense that, that, you know, the firing of quote unquote Gensler in the midst of a political campaign, um, would be reasonable and thoughtful. Um, that's not how decisions are made. Generally speaking,

in Washington, D.C., there are alliances, there are, you know, power centers, there are factions, you know, go take a look at one of the heads of AEI, which is about is about as powerful a think tank slash power broker in Washington, D.C. You know, his comment on Senator Loomis's plan for a Bitcoin strategic reserve is don't bail out, you know, don't bail out these beanie baby guys. You know, that's that that's if we get out of our own bubble, that's the thought process in Washington, D.C. at writ large about our industry. You know, so the very powerful within the Democratic Party. This is John Dayton. I would love that. I would love that. That's also probably in Massachusetts. Elizabeth Warren's been there a long time.

I would love for that to happen. John is an absolutely wonderful human being and would be an enormous upgrade in that seat. But again, difficult to quantify, you know, again, living in moves that are being made is going to somehow micro-target Gary Gensler. That's just not how the Democratic Party works. The reality is that they lionize regulatory bodies. They lionize the ability to control and rein in the corporate world and the world of money with those regulatory bodies. They lionize the ability to control and reign in, you know, the corporate world and the world of money with those regulatory bodies. There's a large, large, large, large percentage of people in that party that would think that that would be crazy to remove somebody that has done their bidding. You know, look at the, you know, some other regulatory bodies and the way that they've treated mergers and acquisitions over the past four years.

It's, has there been a merger and acquisition or a merger of any meaningful scale in the past four years? No, there has not. Why? Yeah, Lena Kahn is just as unpopular. Yeah, right. And here's the point. The unpopularness, quote unquote, is irrelevant based on the way that they think about how to carry out business. So it's also, yeah, it's a directed from above. They're not doing that at their own. Correct. Right. It's a it's almost a, you know, party staple, right? It's a principle. It should almost be in there. You know, I don't know what they call it, where they put out their statement about this

is what we believe is a party at the convention each year. Basically, they are against the growth. They are anti-capitalist. I mean, I hate to, you know, I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to flame anybody here. But actions versus words over the last four years, the idea of capitalism and the growth of capitalism in the United States keeps taking it in the eye, you know, been bloodied and bruised. So an immediate pivot because, you know, Trump raised probably more than $100 million at an event and spoke in front of 30,000 people. I just, you know, sure, there's little narratives out there that are being parroted by some of the more democratic folks in our industry that there's going to be a pivot. That sounds great. I just, I highly doubt that there's going to be a pivot. That sounds great. Uh, I just, I highly doubt that there's

going to be meaningful action that actually comes from that. Alex. So I think, I think you're 50% right there. Um, I think, you know, a couple of baseline things are number one, we don't know what Kamala's position is on almost anything, especially because i think you can look at everything she said in the pre-2020 campaign as sort of just playing to what the sentiment of the times were um hopefully we're going to learn a lot more about what she actually thinks and believes from a policy position um i do think you're entirely right like they're not going to give any financial industry crypto included hedge funds, especially a big win. I think while the base of the Democratic Party doesn't have particularly strong views on crypto or even a lot of, again, a lot of this stuff, giving a giant win to big money people would very much be going against the dna of the party but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people in it and in theory harris could be among this that are willing

to have much better policy as long as it doesn't look like but that's the reason you're not going to go back and like yeah again fire try him because you can't fire him uh gary gensler publicly is that that's too much of a PR win for people. And that's what I think they're going to need to avoid. On the general anti-capitalist front, look, we can go back and forth on how much they actually are or aren't. Again, I think there's a lot of different factions of the Democratic Party. Certainly a lot of the loudest ones are not particularly pro-capitalist these days. But like on Lena Lena Khan in particular,

she is, she is far more popular both in the party and outside than Gary Gensler is. She, she's actually done pretty well. And like her views on especially M and a and big company monopoly stuff are not very far off of JD dance, right? Vance in particular has repeatedly publicly said basically nice things about her and likes where it's going there.

So that to me, that's a very different situation of there's a lot of people where even if their core capitalists are very concerned about monopoly structure and power, she's just moved on it more than anyone else has in the last 20 years. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure that was 50% different than what I said, but I come back to the reality that, you know, past performance is a predictor, generally speaking, of future performance. And Kamala Harris is, you know, she hails from the state of California. That's where her politics was born. That's where she comes from. I don't, I'm fairly certain that California isn't the kind of place that's, you know, super excited and a warm and fuzzy spot for business and capitalism. We should note the migration of many, many, many, many, many businesses

away from California into states that are much more comfortable for businesses to grow. So I don't know, maybe that's the foundation by which I hold some of these views. I hope that, you know, it's not as anti-capitalist as it seems and feels and sounds and looks. But, you know, hope is one thing, reality is definitely another. I think one of the phrases that's most important to understand the modern Democratic Party is adults in the room, right? There are different types of capitalism. And the question is, who should be in charge? And there's sort of like, populist capitalism, right? If you listen to like the Andreessen Horowitz about the little tech agenda, their podcast, if you look at even

at like, Lena Khan, who I think her views are different than the way the mainstream Democratic Party has treated sort of big tech and big tech monopolies, versus like the sort of Obama style of supporting capitalism, which is we're going to have leaders from big tech, leaders from big banks, like talk to the leaders from the executive branch. And like together, like this small group of smart people are going to decide what's best for anyone, for everyone, rather than sort of leaving it to more of an open field. And like, I think that is sort of the par that we should expect from a Harris administration. It's possible that you would deviate from that. And I think the like Lena Kahn, sort of wing of the party that absolutely does intersect with sort of like JD Vance's views. I mean, they were they were friends in law school,

but I think they also share sort of an affinity for looking out for startups as opposed to big tech companies like that, that could be a shift. But the default for the Democrats is like we're going to get this small group of people from capitalism and from government and they know best and they're going to set high barriers to who gets to be winners. I think that's fair. Andrew, what were your thoughts in general? Just kind of coming back to Bitcoin National recap on the conference. I mean, I thought the conference was fantastic. I thought the Bitcoin Magazine folks did a phenomenal job. I'm always I've known those guys for a long time and I've known them for most of the time when their offices was effectively a closet with a bunch of t-shirts in it. So it's always shocking to me when I go to this conference and it's as big and it's as well done

as it is. I thought the diversity of speakers and the conversations was remarkable and smart and just a great representation of our industry. And I also think that it was very, very clear that the audience continues to evolve associated with Bitcoin. You know, three, four years ago, we were in Miami. very Bitcoin and certainly a little more cypherpunk that continues to adjust and find ourselves in a more cross section of traditional finance and serious Bitcoin and crypto folks that are building things that matter. For example, you know, I don't think the Bloomberg guys were there three years ago. I could be wrong. But James, did you speak there three years ago? No, no, no. But I was there. Right. So, you know, material differences in, again, the folks that, you know, are at the dais,

you know, not only answering questions, but even hosting panels. There's a clear difference in the feel of it and in a good way, in a positive way. Andrew, did you notice, because I thought, and maybe I'm wrong, I didn't go to Bitcoin Miami last year. I go to most conferences, the big ones, but I've been going for years. I think that the average ticket buyer this year was 10 years older than three years ago. I completely agree on that. Yeah. Your, your average person at the conference was probably 48 years old. 45, 45, 48. Yeah. Something like that. Um, and, and,

and in a positive way, more, uh, there was a, a better cross section of, you know, gender roles. The bathroom line. Yes, we went from one in ten girls to one in seven girls. Right. One in nine. The gender mixture probably wasn't that. And, you know, the bathrooms on the general admission days, you know, were as they usually are. But, you know, on industry days.

Did you see that? For anyone who's, I have to clarify so you're clear. Every men's bathroom had a 20-minute line to pee and the women could just walk in and out. Just walk in. For Trump's opinion. Unprompted. Everywhere else in the world. But definitely Trump.

Yeah, everywhere else in the world that's reversed, right? Literally reversed at any event of scale. But only at the Bitcoin conference does that happen. But a well done event. Again, all the speakers, very, very top notch. And yeah, it continues to, the industry continues to evolve and grow up and it's in good hands. I also loved, and this was something, I did a recap video of day three and I have another one coming

and then doing a recap video of the entire thing. We were sort of shooting the whole time, but I loved how many kids were there. There were so many kids, people, people brought their kids so much that I think for the first year, this, they set up like full on daycare. Yeah. On Friday and Saturday, you could drop your kids off little kids for the day for daycare on site. But most people had their kids walking around with them of all ages. I met a guy who was there with his three sons. I mean, there's a lot of people. And interestingly,

it was kind of both ways or a lot of them who, when I talked to them said, Hey, like my kid got me into this. So I'm here listening and I brought them, but there were equally as many who were like, I'm trying to educate my kids on this, you know were in their 50s and 60s I thought was really really cool James yeah I was gonna say the one in 10 to one in seven common female I think I think it's even I think the ratio is even better than that because if you go back to three years ago like Andrew was talking about even 2022 where the festival was huge there was there was a lot of women there but a lot of them were like hired models, it seems.

Correct. I don't think I even really saw any of that this year. But yeah, the mix was way better in my experience. And I said this at the very top of the space is like there were a lot of people like from that like Bloomberg interacts with. So like my clients essentially that I could talk with. There always is a handful of them, a decent amount of them, but it seemed like I talked, there were so many people there that I couldn't even meet with all of the clients that I wanted to talk with. So just echoing the fact that it's getting more mature, which I guess some people in the cyberpunk world aren't going to like,

but this is kind of the game theory of Bitcoin, right? Eventually, everyone's going to get involved and see the value in it theoretically. And now we're seeing nation states, pensions, get involved but institutions have been here a couple years ago they were quiet right they were i know for a fact there were institutions there that were kind of in almost like a stealth mode they weren't at the actual conference but they were doing tons of meetings on the side uh at bitcoin at the bitcoin conference in miami and also in consensus in austin a couple years ago uh but like it was just quiet like nobody else knew that they were really there they didn't want to make a big splash and now obviously with the bitcoin etfs you get there in etfs and all this different stuff

we're seeing a lot of institutions um have no problem talking about and showing their faces at these places yeah there's you know i think in 2022 in Miami, you know, one of the highlights was, you know, the lead speaker or the guy everybody wanted to see was Michael Saylor. And as he walked out, he was actually being interviewed by Max Keiser. And Max Keiser's, you know, moment in the sun, he's screaming, fuck Elon, fuck Elon, right? So let's juxtapose that two years later to what the conference sounded and felt like and the people that were involved. And that type of thing wasn't part of the narrative. That's not going to be what it looks like on a go-forward basis. Andrew, you were actually a sponsor.

So what did you see? So from actually being at your table and such, I walked around the floor and I also thought it was really interesting that to my, you know, anecdotally, it seemed like 80% of the floor was Bitcoin miners and B2B. Yeah. But well, here's the other thing too. Like, you know, I would say that there was a sizable portion of, you know, the largest booths that exist that existed at the conference were the

public companies. Right. So some of the biggest sponsors were actually now public companies. Most of those are minors. Right. But you you have, you know, various serious people that are that are in the room and that are now, again, some of the loudest voices in the space. You have representatives from BlackRock, Bloomberg, Fidelity, you know, all of these organizations that, frankly, there's just, you know, part of their corporate ethos is, you know, first, do no harm, right? None of those folks are going to go running across a stage or through an exhibit room and do wild and crazy things. Sure, there may be folks in the movement that may miss some of that. As James said, it's part of the process here where you have Bitcoin higher and higher and higher. It's the maturation of an industry. And again, the exhibit area was very professional, all tightened up. And people that

are in the business of making money in and around the Bitcoin industry, as opposed to who knows what was going. Listen, in 2022, I was in Miami for 10 days. And the first four of those days was like a 5,000 person NFT Miami event that was three days long. I don't even know if that exists anymore. And certainly that's not part of the meaningful conversation associated with Bitcoin in the industry at large. Absolutely. I mean, I thought that the conference was a real tipping point for the industry. You know, I don't think we at some point we'll discuss what happened with the quote unquote special guest that everybody was waiting for on stage. Elon Musk, spoiler for anyone who was until the last moment was very much supposed to be there.

He trolled pretty hard. He actually took a flight from New York that looked like it was going to Nashville. And then his plane turned over to Nashville and went to California. He goes to New Jersey or New York. And there's a lot of reason for that, trying to unpack what's true and rumor. We'll get into it one day. But yeah, there was a moment where actually could have likely been the two most recognizable people on the planet, Elon Musk and Donald Trump on stage together, talking about Bitcoin. But that leaves the door open for Musk next year. So I think they can now

go bigger instead of this being the top of what was ever possible. But I thought it was an incredible conference. I met so many amazing people and like i said it's not people weren't there for the party like in the past this is really like serious people investors versus traders it was just a very very interesting encouraging environment um if anyone's looking for recaps i have been posting them on my youtube channel uh just kind of interviewing people, random people to see their thoughts on all of it. I think it gives a pretty good vibe of what was happening there. We're going to go ahead and wrap this and move on, be back tomorrow at 10.15am Eastern Standard Time. But amazing conference. I'm sure we'll be talking about it and parsing

the speeches and everything for days to come. But just, I think it's important to take the 30,000 foot view and realize where we are now versus where we were even a year ago. And I think very few people could have believed that we would have such incredible tailwinds and that we would even have the luxury of debating the nuance of a president's speech about Bitcoin. Absolutely incredible that we're here. And I can't wait to see kind of what happens. We're gonna have no lack of discussion topics over the next few months. On this channel, I can tell you that on this show. Thank you, everyone. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye.