The Wolf Of All Streets - BTC Skyrockets to Record High as Trump Wins Presidency | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

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I'm hesitant to interrupt this incredible musical interlude. It's my favorite song, so I was going to let it play for a few more minutes, but we have a show to run here. Alex, remember when we were saying what will we talk about after the election? I guess a Bitcoin all-time high during the election is worthy of a conversation. Yeah, that's pretty good. I'm also glad that we're not going to be talking about who won. We know, which is a pretty good change over where I think a lot of folks were expecting us to be. Yeah, I thought there was a very high percentage chance that things would still be certainly in question today, if not for days or weeks. So this level of clarity is really, I think, a breath of fresh air,

regardless of who you support, the fact that we're not going to be debating it and we can move on from discussing what's likely to happen to what is actually reality is it's really pretty refreshing, I think. So obviously, we're going to talk about the Bitcoin price action, the election itself, unpacking kind of all of it. I have to say that whoever the whales are that push the market in favorable or unfavorable directions are poets because watching sort of the election odds of Trump winning increase while the price of Bitcoin increased was chef's kiss. And to see it, you know, push through all of those resistances and an all time high at that time. Yeah, they've got a great sense of humor. And I think not ironically interesting that this is exactly what Bitcoin should do at

this point in the cycle, whether the election happened or not, right? We topped ahead of the halving, had six months sideways, and things start to go up in October and November. And once again, we're seeing that happen. But moving on, I think more to the implications of the election for the crypto industry. We saw Bitcoin obviously skyrocket. We also saw altcoins fly, right? Bitcoin dominance is still up. I think that's largely because Ethereum is so heavily weighted. But if you look across the board, a lot of altcoins did outperform Bitcoin to the upside, obviously, because of the belief that a Trump administration brings a lot more regulatory clarity, a lot less hostility, maybe legislative clarity.

So we have Dan here, obviously, Dan Spooler from Blockchain Association. You've been here a number of times. I mean, this is what you guys work on, right? Are you surprised at this red wave that basically, I mean, even the popular vote, it looks like probably going to be Republican across the board. And what does it mean for the industry that you've been working so hard to lobby for? Well, thanks so much, Scott. I'm basically up about five in the morning last night. So

just drinking some coffee. I slept for about three, four hours. But what a heck of a night. It was a sweeping victory for crypto on so many different fronts. You know, the industry really came together. There were a few surprises. I think the popular vote really was quite a surprise. I had a feeling the president, former president, now President-elect Trump was going to pull it off. But the popular vote was quite interesting. Picking up the, you know, the Rust Belt states, I think it's Michigan is still technically up in the air, but it was somewhat of a redo of 2016, but we threw in Nevada. The Senate races were also fascinating. I got to give John Deaton a lot of credit.

He put up a resounding fight against Warren. I think he got close to 40% of the vote, which is pretty crazy for a Senate race in Massachusetts, and you just held Warren to the fire. McCormick in Pennsylvania, again, that was a real interesting race that the industry was watching very closely. A lot of folks didn't think that he would pull it off. It still hasn't been called, but it's incredibly close. And if he pulls that off, that's going to be gravy because the other races that we did think we had a really strong shot at,

Montana with Tim Sheehy. Alex, I know you're up that way. Bernie and Bernie Moreno up in Ohio. Fantastic race. And then the Michigan one, too, with Rogers. I mean, that's a squeaker. But I just want to reiterate, the Senate was a surprise. I knew the Republicans were going to pick it up, but not with –

I thought it was going to be a little bit closer on a few of these races, but it's a big win. And then the house is also, so it's just right now, it looks like it's a trifecta, but I think that's going to be very good for crypto policy going forward. You mentioned Moreno, obviously beating Sherrod Brown, who arguably was the lieutenant of Elizabeth Warren in the anti-crypto army right so we have the bad news that elizabeth warren remains a senator that she's going yeah obviously she beat uh our beloved john deaton who many of us even on stage obviously donated to and supported heavily but she's on an island right i mean she's like without without brown and without we, Gary Gensler is likely to go. I mean, she's sort of been decapitated here, even with her victory to some degree, right?

Yeah, no question about it. I think this was really kind of a mandate on her view on crypto, not just obviously with the Republican, but even within her own caucus within the Democratic Party. I think this was a wake-up call that if you're as part of this anti-crypto army, there's going to be repercussions. And our industry, just compared to the last midterm cycle and 2020 cycle, our industry has incredibly stepped up with the political support of these candidates. And I think it really paid off last night from the White House all the way down to even some of the state races. So yeah, Warren is definitely on an island now. And it'll be fascinating to see what her influence is going forward within the party, but also within the Senate itself. So it's hard not to be hyperbolic and sort of expect that all of our crypto wet dreams are going to come true here, right?

We've seen all the proposed policies from Trump from a strategic reserve and no CBDC, guaranteed self-custody, all these things. But we also, and I never expect any president in any party to be able to follow through, even if their intention is good on all their policy, to be clear. But those are sort of the big ideas that were floated. But when you dig down into the, I guess, less Bitcoin and more crypto side of things now, as you alluded to, there's an expectation, maybe market structure and stablecoin bills pass, but more importantly, that we see more favorable chair people and members of regulatory agencies. This is my big way of saying,

when the hell do we see Gary Gensler pack his bags and get the fuck out of our lives? Yeah, well, some folks on the audience here may have some opinions on this too, but I think the transition is going to be key. We have an incoming sitting vice president that holds Bitcoin, incoming president that holds Bitcoin and other crypto assets, to my knowledge. I think the transition is going to be absolutely paramount. We have incredible people that are going to be on that, and transition is going to be absolutely paramount. We have incredible people

that are going to be on that. And it's going to be really the talk of the town over the next 60 days to make sure that these types of positions, including the chairmanships and the appointments of these boards and commissions are filled with supportive folks in our industry. But, you know, come January 20th, I think, you know, it's off to the races and Gensler, you know, the party, the president is the chairman of these commissions. And that's where Gensler is going to have, there's going to be a lot of talk about that. Yes. We've seen Hester purse floated, obviously. I think that even in transition, she would have maybe a brief time as chairperson. We'll see. Yeah. And then of course, Dan Gallagher, you know, legal head for Robin hood, who was also an SEC commissioner in the past, favorable.

I even saw John Deaton being floated, which I think is just people on Twitter. But that would be fun. That would be the greatest irony of losing to Elizabeth Warren and then getting to replace her plant at the SEC would be entertaining. But I think, you know, the question that people have maybe where we start to get, I don't know if we're exaggerating or just anticipating too much, but do you think that we actually see the Coinbase suit disappear and the Kraken suit disappear and all the attacks from the SEC against the crypto industry? I think they'll stop. I don't think that, you know, unless there's outright fraud, which is illegal regardless crypto industry, I think they'll stop. I don't think that, you know, unless there's outright fraud, which is illegal, regardless of industry, I think those will continue. But do you think that, you know, for now, like Coinbase is now in the clear, for example?

I mean, listen, Donald Trump is launching NFT projects and shit coins. I can't imagine a world where he allows those to be illegal. Yeah, I think a lot of these cases are actually going to be dropped or certainly paused. And I think a lot of these cases are actually going to be dropped or or certainly paused and i think a lot of it will be also alleviated once we get this market structure defined from congress so we actually know what these assets are man what a what a what a time to be alive it's really crazy how you know listen our job is to talk about the crypto industry and the news and the elections and politics in context of what we have here. I think it should be said, I've said it over and over on my own shows, like I've tried to remain obviously unbiased as a host and to just speak

to the way that I see what's happening and how it affects the industry, regardless of my personal feelings. And it should be noted, there's a lot of other issues outside of crypto that are important in elections, but it's not our job to discuss them on this show, which is why I think you see so much excitement here. Because regardless of your political leanings, your feelings, what you feel about immigration, any of those things, I don't think there's an argument to be made that this is not a clear, massive win for crypto in the United States. Period. Go ahead, Fred. Man, it is just a great time to be alive this morning. But I just wanted to add to what you guys were talking about is, and we've talked about it before, but it's great that we won,

but prepare for all of the crypto enemies to now become crypto advocates, that they were really all about the technology from the beginning, and they just wanted to make sure it was safe from the beginning. Because if you're, I mean, even when Elizabeth Warren was getting destroyed in those debates by John Deaton, she, I mean, a lot of, it almost seemed like a lot of people missed it, but it was just like, oh, I like crypto. I just want to make sure the fraud is gone. So, you know. That blew my mind.

I was like on a tweet storm about that, Fred. My God. I mean, she literally sat on the floor of the Senate and fed Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan, like canned questions. And he said, if I was in the government, I would ban it. She said, yeah, right. Right. I mean, and then like, she's like, yeah, of course we should ban crypto. And then in the debate, she says, everybody should have it. I just

want exchanges to be safe. Yeah. So, I mean, we all, we all picked up on that immediately, but you know, the general public didn't't and so everybody in the crypto world needs to figure out are are we going to be really loud about that and say what are you talking about you were the biggest you know piece of shit for the last three four years i'm talking about everybody that was in a crypto are we gonna bite our tongue and go forward to like get everything done as quick as possible and you know the lawyer in me wants to just yell at everybody and say, I told you so, and you guys are liars, but maybe the practice, maybe you can stop suing the sec now. Can you stop suing the sec now? I mean, exactly. That's what I mean. I have my own personal questions and demons I'm battling with.

Oh yeah. That's an interesting question. So for someone like you who sued the SEC, I mean, it's a fair to say you sued the SEC and lost a valiant effort. But you know, what does that mean for you in a few months? Well, I mean, I've got a couple of things on the back burner that I was I'm trying to figure out do we pull the trigger or not. But you know, honestly, I don't think so. I mean, especially it's not worth doing in the next couple of months. I mean, there's no, there's no point until we see what's going on. Do we think that the SEC is going to come with an absolute lame duck, like storm of enforcement actions in the next few months just to be huge assholes?

Well, I mean, I, it's, if you look at what happened you know trump is going to be a lot more favorable to crypto this time i mean the money is there regardless of all the promises he's made but you know they dropped uh the ripple lawsuit in the lame duck session and that really was the precursor to everything going so you can't't put it past them. I think the day before Clayton left office and Gensler came in, Clayton dropped the Ripple suit. Yeah. And dropped in the bad way, not the good way, guys. They brought the Ripple suit. It all depends.

We're going to, I mean, in this lame duck session, I mean, it'll be revealed as to the fight left in the anti-crypto army. Is it going to... They lost, but is there a last throw of just temper tantrum? Let's see what we can jam up before the new administration takes over. I want to say no, again, because there's so much money that was pumped into crypto. And all of the PACs and whatnot. If you saw towards the end of the election, this was like just Monday, they started saying, okay, and now we've got 100 million, 50 million for 2026. And they started dropping all those hints. So I mean,

the Democrats need that money to everybody wants that money for the next cycle, which, you know, we're on day one of the next cycle so everybody's already thinking of 26. Those sweet crypto dollars. Dareth you had your hand up then Alex. Yeah I was just going to say I found it really funny that Anthony Scaramucci congratulated Trump and Trump and all after the loss this morning and eating some humble pie. And he's probably one of the only, only few that,

that went and did that. He congratulated, uh, Donald Trump said, uh, you know, a fair, fair victory.

Congratulated Elon Musk and said, Godspeed. I mean, that's what adults do guys. If you know, uh, I know that most people in crypto are not adults uh most people in the world now are not adults arguably but it's okay to lose you know you mean the adults like trump's

go listen yeah i'm gonna let you have that one simon go ahead alex yeah i would say mark also did follow elon on twitter again here so i think that's really the big sign of everyone coming together um i don't think we'll see too much out of the sec over uh in in the lame duck period i think the victory like the trump's victory was so clear especially with the changes in the senate and stuff. I think, you know, the, sorry, what am I saying is the administrative state that does exist is going to be focused on, I think, trying to insulate against the Trump, what they see as the Trump change of the coming

on areas that are much bigger and more important to them than crypto. And even though like the SEC can operate on their own, it does require coordination with it it's just this is not this is not where the White House uh and other senior folks are going to want to be spending their time over the next two and a half months they have much much higher priority issues um yeah like fighting housing yeah yeah well and just how to basically set up the government to be insulated from Trump's changes for the next four years. So I think that's where the energy is going to go.

Like trying to file a bunch of new crypto suits that can just be dropped as soon as new admins in is not going to be it. I think the more interesting thing is whether Gary will go quietly or fight it. As I recall from the last time we were talking about this over the summer is you know the ability to remove him is not clear um one of the other lawyers i was you know someone who knows this area better can speak to that i'm sure more than i can but um i don't i don't know if he if he does try and fight it maybe we end up with new amazing case law or something or if he just does decide to resign i don't know go back to a professorship somewhere. Yeah.

Yeah, for me, one of the most interesting things that I'm waiting to see is when Trump can actually make good on his promise of releasing Ross Ulbricht. I think for Bitcoiners in general, he pandered a lot to that audience. And I would love to know from a legal expert when this can actually happen and if it's going to happen um because you know everyone from btc media you know the guys at the bitcoin conference um david bailey they worked really hard to campaign for that and that's a big big part of um you know trump's kind of promise and i think it's an important thing for libertarians in general that Ross's sentence is commuted. And yeah, I think this for me will be a very, very big talking point for Bitcoiners in particular as time goes on. Simon. Yeah, I also just wanted to say a few words to some people. For us, this was great for Bitcoin and our sector and our industry. But

for other people, this was like the end of their world as they know it today. And I just want to say a few people, you know, a few things to the to the Democrats out there. And the people that were hoping that Harris was the victor. The first thing is now you get to hold Trump accountable to everything that he said he would do. And there is a bunch of stuff that we would like Trump to do. And so you get to hold him to account and call him out on all of that. And that's all of our jobs collectively together, because there's a lot of good policy in there that helps a lot of people everywhere in America. The second thing is because he aligned himself with Elon, I personally believe that the last two years have been a real net forward for society in terms of

our education by having freedom of speech to be able to speak on X. And so by maintaining that freedom of speech and allowing Elon to hopefully continue what he's doing by allowing us to talk, you get to stand up and you get to push things forward. And freedom of speech is a real victory with X. And remember, you may think that whether Harris wins or something, that's going to determine your financial future. But the reality is that the Fed was going to do the same under Harris and Trump. They were going to create inflation. They're going to pump the real estate. They're going to pump the stock market. And the real determiner of the economy is the Federal Reserve. So understand the game. And once you understand the game, you realize that Bitcoin is the great

equalizer. And protecting your ability to have Bitcoin in self-custody gives you the opportunity to have wealth, to become an important lobby, and to actually make a difference where it actually matters. So all of those things have progressed and it's your turn to kind of progress with that. Dave? to kind of progress with that. Dave, you know, it's interesting. You know, I think that Simon makes a couple of very good points there.

The, the work starts in January and January 20th or 21st. I don't think he has, there's no legal authority before that. The formation of the whoops. Can you guys still hear me? Okay. Whatever it's, i have a message yeah there was the message that said that it was no good you hear yeah we can hear you i just popped in okay good yeah i just popped back the so the but the real work starts with the transition team

and appointing people to do what trump said, the most important promise that he made at Bitcoin 2024, in my mind, from a industry point of view, I think commuting Ross's sentences is actually quite important. I think getting Gensler not to be the chair, he could stay. But if he stays, I think Crenshaw goes because her term is up and his isn't. So he could stay as a commissioner with whatever the new chair is. Lawyers could correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the way it works. Although most convention is he would leave too. And either they could reappoint Crenshaw to be a minority person,

or they could find another Democrat. I think that's the way it works. But the reality is the Republicans in those agencies have been working towards this moment. I can't phrase it any different than that. I mean, I can't tell you how many times and I've had multiple conversations with people in the CFTC and SEC over the last six months. Elections have consequences is literally something that almost every single conversation has. And what does that mean? There are many proposals out there that they were waiting for clarity of the election to see whether they want to move forward on. And I think that people will be surprised at the rate of

change in the US regulatory structure, assuming the transition team gets put together, right? And I'm not going to lie about it. I personally, given my situation, I actually have the time to do it. I would love closing that Dubai office, Dave, that Dubai office you're opening. No, absolutely. No, no, no, no. CoinRoutes is an international company. And I, as people know, I am retiring from CoinRoutes, but not retiring from the world. Ian is doing a great job running it and he's going to run the company and we are an international company but there is going to be a massive push in the united states because brokers what no one really understands the most important and most obvious win here when you get a new sec chair is in 2025 all the broker dealers, and this is most of them, that have applied to FINRA and the

SEC to be able to trade crypto on behalf of their customers as non-securities will now get approved. None of them were approved. They were held up for six years, literally because of Clayton's antipathy to crypto and then obviously Gensler's. And with the administrative change, a pro-crypto SEC chair, which is pretty much guaranteed, and all those applications are going to move forward on their merits. And that's going to change dramatically the way the industry works in the United States. And there are many implications of this. We're going to dive into it on some of our other shows. I'd love to talk about this. This is a much longer conversation. But the simple way to understand it is this.

If you're a crypto project that creates real value and the holders of the token can participate and monetize that value, you're going to see a renaissance. If you're a crypto project that doesn't provide the token holders with any of that value, I think you're going to find tough sledding going forward because now there's going to be real competition. And there's a whole host of rules and why. But that to me is why you can't just throw a dart at the crypto board and say, okay,

everything's going to go up. And maybe it will in the short run. But Bitcoin will go up because the whole world is going to be trying to front run Trump's trade in terms of sovereign adoption. And that's not a small deal. Ethereum will probably go up because the whole world sees the big financial titans using Ethereum on their tokenized chains, and they know they're going to have less regulatory issues with that. You know, real chains that deliver real value will go up. I don't want to go down the list. But if you're a meme, and you're structured in a way that people can't participate

in the value that gets created, I think you're going to have problems. You know, maybe it takes time for that problem to develop, but I think it's a big difference. And I think that may be the biggest single thing that people should understand about what this means. And none of that is really priced in at this point. Dan and Alex. Well, I just want to say what Dave said about the transition. He's absolutely right. I mean, listen, we can take, you know, a day or so to celebrate, absolutely, you know, enjoy the work that we've all accomplished. But the next 60 days before January 20th with the transition are going to be incredibly important. And the Blockchain Association, we're already on top of that.

You know, our annual policy summit is going to be December 16th, 17th. We purposely strategically said it that way because we knew that these conversations are going to be happening, the working groups, you know, and a lot of this has already been assembled. But now that it's official, these business leaders, these former government officials, a lot of familiar names, a lot of new names have expressed a lot of interest on this. And, you know, I think just looking back on how far we've come just over the last, you know, year, year and a half, I mean, know, I think just looking back on how far we've come just over the last, you know, year, year and a half, I mean, Scott, I think it was like last summer, summer of 2023, where we had that town hall with the mayor of Miami, you know, the first when he was running

for president. Yeah. And we had a slew of them there. We had Richie Torres, we had him, we had a few presidential candidates. That was crazy. And a lot of those folks that have ran and their teams and their staff, a lot of them were genuinely interested in helping out whatever potential future administration would take place. And here we are. And I think that's going to be

just an incredibly important part of the next 60 days. Alex? Yeah, we're going to know so much more about what the world is going to look like over the next couple months with the transition. I think if you if you look back to 2016, remember, everyone, especially the Trump team was surprised by him winning, and they were kind of completely unprepared to actually

build an admin and it took them a long time to get off the ball. They were very late on the transition. That is very much not the case this year. They have been planning for months. They've been putting together a transition team. They went into this, especially once you hit the summer, expecting to win and being ready. That said, Trump in particular has made a lot of promises to a lot of people, and he does not have a great track record of keeping promises to people. So I think one thing that will tell us a lot about what it's going to look like, not just in terms of how they actually position for crypto, but just in general, what the admin is going to look like is what a lot of the announcements of the early

appointments look like, who's getting into these key positions. Personally, I'd be pretty bullish on what I think it looks like in regards to the sec and crypto in general just because i think that will cost him very little uh to fulfill on those promises and i think he's very much very bullish on just how much uh tech and crypto did for him uh on this cycle but i think you know what it looks like across the rest of the board too i think we're gonna learn we're gonna learn a lot in the next yeah if you zoom out what it looks like across the rest of the board, too, I think we're going to learn. We're going to learn a lot in the next. Yeah. If you zoom out and take a look at the people. Right. I mean, regardless of what you believe about him or his intentions.

I mean, Nick Cantor Fitzgerald is co-chairing the transition team. Right. And he's literally is the guy that's custodying Tether. Right. And talks about crypto all the time. You have Musk, who is an outspoken advocate of the industry, whether it's Doge or otherwise. Vivek Ramaswamy is obviously a Bitcoiner. RFK is obviously a Bitcoiner. I mean, there's not much here to doubt, I think, on the Bitcoin side. Certainly.

You know, whether you believe he wants to keep his promises or not, I think that for our industry, we're positioned very, very well for him to have to. Go ahead, Dave. Yeah, there are a couple of other things that when you talk about that motivation. So Don Jr. and his Liberty Financial was, I don't want to use the word failure. I think it was expected to fail. I think it was a trial balloon. And it failed because it complied with existing rules, which really are not copacetic, right? So only accredited investors and year seasoning, meaning you can't get immediate liquidity

and all of that stuff, which is completely opposite to the way that crypto works. Anybody who thinks that that isn't up in play now to change those rules, whether they change them for digital assets or whether there's broader changes to the accredited investor rule, that is hard to know. But it feels to me like those rules are in play. And that is a very big deal for, you know, basically it could turn retail away from being exit liquidity to being able to participate. It could change a lot of things. Now, none of those things are going to be easy. It's going to get debated anytime people should understand when the SEC goes to do a rule. I mean, it's a long time period. First, it has to be written up by staff, and there's comments that go back and forth, and then they

do a proposal. And then in the the extremely rare case, it's not revised based on comment, because public comments go out, and those are long periods, etc. But the momentum to actually fix the club of the way investing works and to use this as an opportunity will be there if only to help, you know, fix that trial balloon, because now they have experience in it. And that is not a small thing. So you know, we will have to see what that means. The other thing is

on the derivative side. I mean, I would be beyond stunned if we don't end up with perpetual futures contracts with liquidations and 24 hour trading within the first two years of a Trump administration, I would be beyond stunned because it's a far, far better method. Yes, there will be intermediation if you want it. But the reality is that thing that changed the way finance works in crypto, that's coming soon to a exchange near you here. And those are big implications as well that people have to think through. Yeah, I mean, I think most importantly, Americans will now be able to shit going to their hearts content in peace. Well, I mean, sort of. I mean, those are the two sets of rules

that stop it. Once the enforcement, and like if you pass something like PIT-21, or you pass the safe harbor that Hester has talked about, where people don't have to worry of being sued, then sure, the fringier firms will certainly open up to Americans again. Absolutely. But they're also opening themselves up, even if they don't know it, to fraud prosecutions if, in fact, there is market manipulations on those platforms. And so it could get interesting. I think it's not as obvious as we think.

I mean, God knows. I hope it is. I mean, I would love to be able to trade again. And I think a lot of other people feel that way too. But nothing goes in a straight line. There's going to be all sorts of little setbacks and things that come in. Don't expect it to be immediate. But the trend is certainly... Don, as you told me, you have a message. What is your message? I have a message for the people that are on the left because this morning I got a lot of messages

from people saying that they felt distraught, that the world was ending and that everything is going to be awful. And I have to say the number one message that I think people need to hear is everything's going to be fine. I don't think it's a problem. In fact, in fact, you won't even remember this day three years from now, because I am incredibly bullish on a few very big things. And I never use that word. People know me. I never use that word,

but I feel incredibly bullish. Number one, we're getting grid of the regulatory regime of Lina Khan. People don't realize how big of a deal that is, but it's an incredibly big deal. The reason why it's an incredibly big deal is because our entire startup ecosystem has been frozen for the last three to four years, which means there's been zero M&A across the board, which is incredibly important for crypto. Because if you are a financial institution that went to acquire any major crypto company, Lina Khan would come in the way and say that there was some issue. It was a big issue for startups because they literally couldn't go and get acquired in this current regime. And there has been zero IPOs, largely because of regulatory burden that has existed.

All of that goes away. I bet you the IPO window is open. M&A flows again. As M&A flows, more investment comes, and we're going to see more innovation in this country. I am incredibly bullish on that. Number two, we now have a venture capitalist that's one heartbeat away from the presidency. And I think that matters because he will, while VPs don't have that much say, I do think that he will have a say here. And I think that will really matter in terms of the financial institutions and how we grow. And then number three, even though we do need regulation, we will have much

more clarity. And I think that's really good because one thing that's really important is that the world has flipped upside down in the current Democratic Party. And if you're somebody on the left, you should feel incredibly bullish because they will never be able to do this to us again. They will never be able to be the party that exploits your sickness instead of pushes you towards health. You can say whatever you want about RFK. At least he's got a good message. That has not existed in the Democratic Party anymore. That used to be the old Democratic Party. So we're actually going to see people focus on health over health insurance, which is where the Democratic Party has been. So if you're bullish health insurance, I'm sorry, it's about to be a bad year. Number two, if you're looking across everything, the one big risk, and this is

the message to everyone, the one big risk that we have right now is the long end of the yield curve. We are seeing it go up really fast. 10-year is skyrocketing. You mean the Fed cutting 50 VIPs and then seeing rates go to 4.5% isn't kind of strange? Well, and the worst part is, Scott, the mouthpiece for the Fed, Nick Tamaros, just came out and said, well, they've already made their decision for this week. That means there's going to be another rate cut, folks. There's going to be another rate cut in the face of a rising 10-year. This is not good. So we need to see how this plays out. The dollar is rising, which is helpful, but it's, this is not good. This is a big issue that we will have to contend with. And remember that no matter who wins, there's always something that happens around

elections. So we need to be very, very careful. I know we're all feeling very bullish in the short term, but two to three weeks from now, we might see this play out a little bit differently. So people need to be a little careful, just be a little careful, you know, because the long end, the 10 year is doing some weird things right now. And my gut is telling me, and I have no proof over this, but if they cut 25 basis points, we're going to see a rise again. The 10 year is going to go up again. The market is fighting back and I don't know what to do about it.

We have Matt Hogan here. Matt, on my show a couple weeks ago, you said probably the greatest quote of the year, which I have repeated at least 100 times when we were talking about a lot of these topics. And you said, but listen, governments around the world have made recessions illegal. Can't do it anymore. Right? illegal. Can't do it anymore. Right. So how does that play in context of what Tanisha said here? Yeah, I still think I think they have they have banned them. I think that's true. I mean, look, you know, I'm very optimistic for what a new administration can do on efficiency and other aspects.

But I think realistically, debt is going to continue to go up. Stimulus is going to continue to go up. I think that's still a catalyst for crypto. The thing I've been focused on this morning, and I've loved all the commentary here know, we were in a bull market before this happened. And there are three or four or five of these other major catalysts. This is just a cherry on top. It's the one we're focused on right now because it feels very present. But there are these other catalysts like, you know, like governments banning recessions around the world. And I think they're going to all come together in the next 12 months.

I'm pretty excited. Okay. We talked about this, I think, yesterday or to all come together in the next 12 months. I'm pretty excited. Okay. We talked about this, I think, yesterday or certainly in the recent past. So now we have clarity. Matt was on my YouTube show yesterday when we had no idea what was going to happen in the election, just for context. But now we have, you guys obviously have Bitcoin, Ethereum, spot ETFs. But now I think there's a much more likely path, is it fair to say, for Solana, XRP, everything else, index ETFs, crypto going extremely institutional? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, let's start with just the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. I think you're going to see people start to have conversations around whether you can do in-kind creations and redemptions in the future, whether you can broaden the types of firms and the quality

of firms that custody those assets, whether you can do staking. We see that kind of activity in ETF markets around the world. And I think with a more supportive regulatory regime, you can have those conversations here and hopefully make progress. So that's going to make the existing ETFs better. And then beyond that, you know, absolutely, yes, Bitwise and other firms are going to look aggressively at that. I will say that there is still work to do, still, you know, wood to chop on these other assets. And you're going to need some very careful studies and some very careful data. But again, when you look around the world, ETFs are providing safe and low cost access to lots of these assets, helping investors who want to own them in a traditional financial setting do so.

And I absolutely think you're going to see that here. We're already in the ETF era of crypto. And now we're going to be sort of in the golden age of ETFs and crypto over the next four years. And I think it's going to be pretty exciting. So presidential meme coin index, isn't that what we were talking about yesterday? I know you're ready to ape into that. If I was ready, I would have because it exists just not for institutions. Fair enough. I know, obviously, there'll be a line. I mean, look,

the reality is, if you look at the scope of all the crypto assets that are out there, there are many that won't and shouldn't can't fit into an ETF structure. There are many that, you know, I think even under a reasonable regime, probably are in fact securities or at least need, you know, new levels of disclosure and clarity. So it's not everything. But for the high quality large cap assets, I think we'll get there. There may be adjustments in terms of internal ownership. There may be adjustments in terms of transparency. There may be adjustments that sort of push us further away from, you know, sort of the wild west. But those will be positive and the high quality assets will get their presidential meme coin index. I don't know.

Although, you know, the price of Doge would tell you it's good that Matt, do you think Solana will get an ETF? Eventually? Yeah, eventually. I'm hopeful that it will. Again, you see that internationally. Now here in the US, you know, they'll have to be careful studies. There's no regulated Solana futures market, but that's not the only means to allow you to proceed for an ETF. So I don't think it's going to be, you know, overnight instantaneous. I don't think it's a slam dunk. But as I interpret, you know, the rules of what is allowed in an ETF, there are definitely arguments you can make in support of multiple crypto assets. And I was any other thoughts here while we got Jeff?

No, I mean, you know, this is pretty, pretty, pretty exciting day. You know, I said this earlier, my CIO, just congratulations to the people who liked crypto when it was unpopular. You know, I do think we're finally going to get to see what this industry can do when it has a level setting from a regulatory perspective. And I think that's going to be pretty exciting. And I just remind people again, what I started with, which is there are multiple catalysts here. There's rising institutional adoption. There's rising mainstream use. There's debt and deficits.

And now we have regulatory and legislative tailwinds. That doesn't mean it's up only, but it's a pretty nice setup. Joe, he was talking about you, people who were here when it was unpopular and building. I mean, what do you make of – we haven't spoken in a little while, what do you make of the election results, the prognosis here for the industry? I really love what Matt actually just said about this sort of is our time to shine. Like if we can't get it done in this next four-year period, then it's going to be a challenge in the United States.

Go ahead. Yeah, man, it's been a long road. I mean, you know, I was just looking at the charts. And, you know, if you got into crypto and Bitcoin in like November of 21, I mean, and you bought Bitcoin, you're only up like 14% today, over that time period. Right. And, you know, there's people that have gotten in at lots of different time periods and are up thousands and thousands of percent or have participated in the meme coin craziness or build utility tokens. But I think one of the key things here, I posted this last night, but Polymarket became this kind of center of the attention, at least on Twitter for sure. But it was talked about a lot in the mainstream media as well. And, you know, for the US election, the center of conversation and US citizens couldn't

even participate, right? Like, if that doesn't tell you everything about American policy that you need to know, and how it was backwards, you know, and I think that this is a huge opportunity for a little bit of a winds of change with regards to just the approach, right? Like so much stuff has happened over the last couple of years with, you know, with Terra Luna, with FTX, you know, it's been cleaned up and we got the ETF even with the previous administration. And I think there's a lot of work to be done here, but there's definitely, you can feel there's a tide that has changed because of this, right? Like the president's going to be put into office and, you know, the dude's launched NFT projects.

He's launched, like, I'm pretty sure he launched a token, right? Like, you know, it doesn't mean necessarily that it's just open season. It just means much more favorable. And, you know, it's like, you can't bet against crypto anymore, right? There's so many people that are, that have wallets that have voted. How many people did make this a, you know, one issue election for them just purely, you know, on, on crypto, right? And so I think the fact that we talked about a lot this year of, you know, you can launch a meme coin, and state it has literally no value, don't buy it. Right. And people did

that, because that was, you know, legally that, like, you know, there was no gray area there. Right. But if you were like, hey, we're trying to build this like new, you know, app layer that's going to do x, y, and z. And, you know, we think it's going to be great for, you know, disruption, you know, the housing market mortgage market, we want to unlock liquidity of people's Bitcoin, you know, so millennials can actually afford homes in certain areas like no, it can't do that. That's illegal,

but like this shit coin, you know, meme coin, you can launch and so it's just, we are so backwards right now. And it's hard for people to understand. And so I think we've, we're finally going to start unwinding some of that. And it's hard for people to understand. And so I think we're finally going to start unwinding some of that. And that's just a more bullish environment. It doesn't guarantee anything like Danish is saying, like, yeah, there's some wonky things going on in the bond market. But it does open the door for some bullishness that we have not seen yet in this industry. But again, it's just the beginning. Like Bitcoin, yes, it's at an all time high stock, the stock market's pushed all time highs multiple times over the last couple of years. And Bitcoin's just kind of getting back

to it. It's been a long slog. So a little bit of a long rant there. But it's just a I would say, you know, be, be a little cautious with everything. But also, you know, it's, it's, if you're a builder, you're just excited to like, Holy shit, like it's happening. I want to build this. I want to do that. And like all these new ideas are popping into my head. Um, and it's really exciting. I kicked for a second. So I couldn't see the hands, Alex. I think I was going to say, yeah, the, the, the only,

I'd say the group that's really definitely in a good position this morning is builders can, at least you're getting, you know that you're going to be in a much clearer regulatory space uh than we were yesterday on it i think for the overall like it goes back to the idea so much of what happens in crypto is still going to be so deeply linked to just the overall macro economy and no one has any idea what is going to happen there in part because we have no clue what Trump's actually going to specifically do in regards to the economy. You know, one of the things I really like that people said before is you have to treat Trump seriously, but not

literally. Right. And he floated all of these different proposals during it, especially around tariffs and things. I don't think we will see, end up seeing a, you know, like 20% across the board tariff on all imports. But if we did like, I mean, the amount that that would reshape and nuke the U S economy is like unfathomable given how our economy is currently structured and what the second, third,

fourth order impacts on crypto and other things would be is substantial. So like, there's still a lot that we're not going to know for even a year or two, as we see what policies actually come out, actually get proposed and they take effect. So it's definitely a better time to be a builder. I will also say, I think the other thing Don is just time out with Lena Khan.

I don't think Lena Khan matters at all for crypto. Nobody in crypto is doing M&A and and it wasn't because of Lina Khan out there. It's because nobody wanted to be buying companies, and even the companies in crypto just aren't that big. Like, that's the reason that the Stripe acquisition on Stables is so big. It's like a billion dollar acquisition in crypto is unheard of pretty much ever. Yeah, I mean, it's unheard of, and it's not because of Lena Kahn, um, where that's going to make a huge difference is on venture-backed tech startups. That's where, uh, you know, the, the impact that Lena Kahn had on that, um, was absolutely huge. And so I think the first thing that you're going to see there is just a lot of, I think, the later stage rounds are going to start accelerating again as

folks are just much more optimistic that there will be exit paths. I don't think it's going to go anywhere back to where the 2020, 2021 rounds were because just the fundamental PE ratios have changed and people just aren't going to price private tech startups the way that they did before. But this is at least going to give some hope to folks that like there is a path for exit liquidity. David, if you had your hand up. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's not just Lena Kahn. I have a lot of insight, some of which is confidential, so I can't really talk about it. But what I can say is there are at least a dozen of the top financial services companies in the world that considered anything that had the word crypto in it as radioactive from an M&A point of view,

and because they were afraid of regulatory blowback. And that changed last night. That is non-trivial in the extreme. Lina Khan is extremely relevant, as was just said, relative to tech startups, but now understands something that tech startups themselves were kind of pushed not to integrate. If you're AI, you didn't want to integrate with crypto because you were worried about being debanked. And that ended last night. Well, it will end in January, but you understand the point. I mean, law firms, for Christ's sakes, were being debanked because they serve crypto clients.

Don't underestimate the amount of dry powder and tinder in the United States for builders that was just unleashed. And M&A is a big part of it because you can't exit into the market and get liquidity and you can't exit via takeover. It puts you in a interesting position. I mean, look, I have a lot of personal experience with this, you know, sitting as the chairman of a company who is profitable, growing, and I'm pretty confident that our capital market access literally just, you know, I don't know what the number is, but my guess is up by an order or two orders of magnitude. And I think that's the same for other firms that are creating value. I think it is a very big deal. And I think the Lena Kahn thing, you know, I just watched the biggest thing that she did that pissed me off was blocking Spirit merging with JetBlue because it meant that, you know, that Spirit's roots in the northeast that go to the Atlantic City airport where I, you know, I go back and forth in there in Florida.

Yeah, it also meant you might get free water on your airplane. I mean, devastating consequences. There have been so many consequences of that. But I agree with Danish. I think that the overall impact, whether it's just her, but the sum total of all of this is going to be a very big deal for the startup ecosystem in the United States. And by the way, don't underestimate the virtual impossibility now of having to worry about a massive capital gains tax increase, or potentially people were floating the idea of getting rid of the QSBS.

For those who are in startup world, you know what I mean by that. I mean, there's some major tax incentives that were going to be taken away that will, of course, not be taken away now. And that's another big reason that that ecosystem will go. I think it's probably people are underestimating, when we look back four years from now, underestimating the impact of that on the overall economy, because it takes time for that to show up, but show up it will. Derek, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I just wanted to pick everyone's brain very quickly on Trump's kind of promise and obviously the influence of RFK Jr. on a Bitcoin strategic reserve. When we, you know, obviously when it looked like Trump was going to win the election early this morning, European time, I started going over all the promises he made at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville. And this was one of them, right, like the 220,000 Bitcoin that the US government kind of has custody of at the moment. If Trump follows through on this promise and they agree to not sell and make it very publicly known that this is part of a strategic reserve or a stockpile, whatever you want to call it. Does that signal to the rest of the world that Bitcoin is digital gold now? And could that be the real catalyst for like nation state adoption of Bitcoin? Because there's been a lot of rhetoric, but El Salvador is the

only country that's really doing it properly. Bahrain's got a lot of Bitcoin as well. But, I mean, is that going to be the real run? Is that going to be the real Bitcoin bull run? If it actually happens, of course. Like every central bank in the world would have to add Bitcoin to the balance sheet if the United States actually does. But I think this is one of those wait and see situations in my mind. Go ahead, Simon.

Yeah, I'd say for America, a commitment to not sell them is nothing. It's signal. But you'd actually want a commitment to purchase them, increase the position, and actually recognize it as an integral part of the strategy. So yeah, there is a bill right now. So maybe you guys could let me know what would need to happen for that bill to be actioned. What's the next steps on that? Well, they would have to, well, I mean, it's not going to happen lame duck,

but Lummis obviously proposed it right after that speech in Nashville. So I suppose during the next session of the fresh Senate, they would have to put it on the floor and assuming it passes would have to pass Congress and then be signed into law. But, you know, if it's all Republican, I mean, you know, it's the classic, I think, call your call your senators, call your congressional, you know, representatives and do it the old school way. But it actually, you know, is possible with if

everything is red depending on how much of a groundswell it gets and gareth i think it would be uh huge just huge is there like yeah it would be huge i think or something or anything like that no i don't think so it's just get in line and uh you know when they decide to bring it up they decide to bring it up i can't imagine it's at the top of the legislative agenda, but it could happen. I think what's interesting is David Bailey talking about being in conversation with Trump's administration in the past month, sort of building a strategy on how they would drive this sort of Bitcoin adoption narrative. You've got RFK there and on stage he stage he was saying you know if i was president

i would tell us to acquire up to three million bitcoin and then that way they have a real sort of uh you know stranglehold on the supply of bitcoin i mean in that scenario then every you know michael saylor's wet dream of whatever it is per Bitcoin price comes to fruition. Oh, if the United States buys, you know, 10, 15, 20 percent of the supply of Bitcoin, I don't think that you can even possibly be able to fathom what that does to the price when every central bank is battling to get it. But I guess across that bridge, when we come to it, I would I would love to see some of the even lesser promises sort of come into fruition first. Dan, you had your hand up before, Spuler. Yeah, you know, I just, I know

we're wrapping it up, but I would be remiss to say just as an industry, I think one of the biggest winners too, just over the last, you know, few weeks has been these prediction markets, calcium polymarket, particularly, Seltzer, Polster, a lot of Polster's credibility is completely in ruins, I think, after last night. And I think these prediction platforms have really been leading the way. And so I'm so glad that Kelsey was able to get out there, at least for the United States citizens. I want to just give a shout out to their teams over there, Luan and Lara, and the Polymarket. Yeah. And within the last two weeks,

Robin hood actually added those predictive markets as well, which were somewhat popular. So, uh, that's going to definitely become sort of mainstream. Uh, yeah, I know we're kind of getting towards time here. It did bring up James Murphy, metal law, man. Uh, I know you were with John last night, man, uh, John Deaton, uh, unfortunately one of the few, you night, man, John Deaton, unfortunately, one of the few casualties in an otherwise very, very favorable, I think, outcome for the crypto industry. It was always a long shot. You did so much to support him. What was the vibe like? Thanks, Scott.

Yeah, I'm coming to you from my Boston hotel, still hydrating. I have to say that party was indistinguishable from a victory party. There was a lot of smiles, hugs, cheers, high fives. Everybody felt good, and I think for good reason. I'll just give you a quick rundown on the numbers here. In Massachusetts, 8% of the electorate are registered Republicans. What I messaged to you, Scott, was the real question here is, will John outrun Trump? And the numbers are Trump scored 36% and John scored 40%. It was a lot closer than anybody expected. And what people need to understand is John did it all on his own. John got no support from the Mitch McConnell's Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. He got no support from Fair Shake.

And so he was not really able to put up the commercials that you need to do to close, you know, to introduce yourself. I mean, let's face it, he moved to Massachusetts about the time he declared he was running for Senate. He was unknown. It was a miracle that he won the primary with 65% and that he got 40% on a base of 8% Republicans is, I think, the reason people were celebrating because he outran Trump. And that really means that he has a future. And I want to caveat this. He has a future if he wants one. I don't know. I don't speak for him and what might the future hold.

But people saw him in action. They saw what a skilled debater he is. They saw what a genuine human being he is. And so, you know, I feel like I let him down in terms of raising the money he needed to get his story out because you really can't find anybody who says, you know what, I've read John's book or I learned from my neighbor this guy's backstory and I'm still voting for Warren. That person doesn't exist, and we just were unable to raise the money to the extent that we needed to get his message to every single voter in Massachusetts. But as far as I'm concerned, it was a huge victory. It was a great night,

a great celebration of democracy, and I'm just so thrilled to have been able to participate in it. Yeah. Did you see people floating, John, for SEC chairman? I saw that. Yeah. So the party was a lot of people who were new to politics, never been involved in anything, but really had bought into John's story and who John was. But then there were a few pros. That's how these parties work, that they go to every party, you know, every year. And normally they watch the sacrificial lamb lose by about 30 to 33 percent to Markey or Warren. And so this was a different, you know, the gap is probably going to come in under 20%. But what they're talking, they were talking about governor, and they were talking about Markey, who's up in 2026. I have no idea, you know,

if John has any interest in that. But there's a real feeling of a movement behind John. And I say that because of the level of commitment to him as a person. That is something I rarely have ever seen. And so it was just an exciting night, honestly. And I don't know if there's going to be a future. So it was just an exciting night, honestly. And I don't know if there's going to be a future, but if there is a future run for something, I'm certainly down for it myself. And I hope next time that we get a little bit more support, you know, from the big players in the crypto industry.

I think the ball is rolling in that direction, right? I think there's momentum and I think it's going to be an incredible few years here for the industry. Guys, that's all we got time for today. Obviously going to be a lot of fun watching what the market does in the coming days, weeks, months and years. Once again, regardless of your political leanings, I don't think that there's much argument that the crypto industry is in a much better place in the United States than it was yesterday. And that's something, you know, for this community to certainly hang your hat on, even if that's only a silver lining for you and you were supporting, obviously, Harris or the other

side. That's all we got for you today. We will obviously be back tomorrow, 10, 15 AM Eastern standard time. Thanks to all the guests, always incredible. Everybody in the audience. I once again, implore you, beg you plead that you follow all of the people on this incredible panel. We work hard to curate the best guests, the, uh, the most respected voices, and you should be following them as well. That's all we got. See you guys tomorrow. Thanks. Bye.