The Wolf Of All Streets - Here’s Why It Is Insane To Be Against Bitcoin | Sheila Warren

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, delves into how crypto shapes global politics and impacts the upcoming U.S. election. We discuss the challenges and opportunities in crypto regulation and why the U.S. must act quickly to remain a leader in this rapidly evolving industry. Discover what the future holds for Bitcoin, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies as they become key players on the world stage. Sheila Warren: https://x.com/sheila_warren ►► Sponsored by iTrust Capital Invest in Bitcoin, Crypto Assets & Gold with Your IRA Using iTrust Capital. 👉 https://bit.ly/itrust-scott ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEK DAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►►OKX SIGN UP FOR AN OKX TRADING ACCOUNT THEN DEPOSIT & TRADE TO UNLOCK MYSTERY BOX REWARDS OF UP TO $60,000! 👉 https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. USE CODE ‘10OFF’ FOR 10% OFF WHEN VISITING MY LINK. 👉 https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker ►►NGRAVE This is the coldest hardware wallet in the world and the only one that I personally use. 👉https://www.ngrave.io/?sca_ref=4531319.pgXuTYJlYd Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #Regulation The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

You can't pull back digital technology. Print money to buy Bitcoin. Oh, great. Then kind of said some words that were sort of like, yay, you know? I think that there was an interest in governments and how to use the technology and also like, what the heck is it? The original ethos of all of this was to opt out of government entirely. It's complicated as always. It's very complicated. Bitcoin and crypto have become a key issue in the United States presidential election,

but that election is just one in a global election cycle that's likely to change the course of the world, but certainly of crypto policy. There are people like Sheila Warren, who's the CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, formerly of the World Economic Forum, who've been working on this policy diligently for years and years, who may not be surprised that we've gotten to this point. She offers incredible insight as to what it looks like making this policy, dealing with different countries and jurisdictions and a bright future ahead if we get all these ideas passed. So you're the CEO of the Crypto Council of Innovation. What exactly does that mean? What is the mandate? Is it global? Is it just focusing on policy in the United States? What do you guys do?

Yeah, thanks, Scott, for asking. It's great to be here. Yeah, so the Crypto Council for Innovation is a global alliance of industry leaders. And our mandate is to push for fit-for-purpose regulation in the areas that we are operating, which is Washington, D.C., of course, California and New York. We work in London and Brussels, and we have sprinkling of work in APAC. So Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore. And then through just previous network and connections, we have lines into places like Dubai, Australia, Switzerland, et cetera, even though we're not technically, we don't have staff there, we're not on the ground there. But the idea, I think the fundamental premise is that crypto is universal. It's

accessible to everyone, everywhere in the entire world. It's a global technology. And so to be effective in policy work, you really have to be looking at the levers that exist all over the world. Like how does policy in the UK affect policy in the US? How does that affect dollarization? How does that affect different parts of the policy that's being created here? All those things come together in the work that we do. I think it's interesting that you're global and you named all these

jurisdictions, but then even drilled into the state level. Because in the United States, it's not only getting federal policy, but having to figure out what those policies will look like in every single state and what the different laws are there. You mentioned New York and California, maybe two of the more challenging ones we all probably do about the bit license in New York. So how do you possibly stay on top of the current regulatory environment or policy in every single one of these jurisdictions at the same time? It's the only one answer, the obvious answer, which is there's an incredible team here. And the team here has a line in and is activated in all these different jurisdictions so that we can track not only what's currently happening, but we can scenario plan. We're constantly editing and tweaking what we

think is going to happen. As you know, this is globally the biggest election year in like certainly my lifetime, I believe in like a century. And so all of that has implications for what might happen and what might go down in these various places. But really, it just comes down to having an excellent team that's fired up, that's super hardworking, and it's covering, we basically cover the entire, every single time zone is covered by the team that we have. Would it be fair to say that the United States is starting to see a bit of a groundswell, but is still largely lagging most of the rest of the world? Well, I think that the will is there. So I think the groundswell comment is exactly right. I think that many politicians, many elected at the state and

federal level understand the importance of this, but it's a really challenging time to get things like legislation done in the United States. So we're lagging behind. There's no question with every six month period that goes by. I think other jurisdictions become more and more attractive to builders, leaving the U.S. less and less attractive to builders. And you're starting to see some of the effects of that. Some of the biggest projects are now kind of HQing slowly, you know, but they're kind of moving or thinking about putting pressure in other places

and waiting to see what happens in the U.S. But it's not a good look for the United States, that's for sure. Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges. One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles. The other thing is the taxes. They are absolutely atrocious. What if I told you there was a way to solve both of these problems? Well, there is, and it's with a self-directed IRA from iTrust Capital. Guys, not only can you open a new self-directed IRA and fund it with the limits each year, but you can actually convert over from your 401k, your Roth IRA, any other IRA that you already have,

and you can do that tax-free, just transferring over the balance. And then you can go to cash, buy as much Bitcoin than you want and not pay taxes when you sell it. You absolutely have to try this if you are in the United States. Use the link down below. It's bit.ly slash itrust-scott. That's B-I-T dot L-Y slash I-T-R-U-S-T dash S-C-O-T-T. You have to try this now. It's a terrible look for the United States. I would say that most of them already left last year when the SEC sort of took their very aggressive regulation by enforcement approach, obviously charging Binance and charging

Coinbase. And we've seen, I think, a bit of a softening because of political pressure to some degree, but it's still very contentious, I think, in the United States. Do you think that now they're waiting around to see if we get regime change and what might happen? I'd be surprised if people are aggressively moving out now when they see that there could be a chance. I think they're not going now. I think that they're waiting to see, do we pull up all stakes or do we stick around? And how do we think about the hook or the connection we have into the United States? I'd also say on the SEC front, it's twofold. One of the reasons the SEC I think is backing down is definitely the politics of it. But the other is that they just keep losing. I mean, they straight up just keep losing in court. So, you know, at some point, the strategy, what is it like, fool me once or whatever? Or like you can't, what is it like you can't, it's the definition of insanity. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. Yeah. But also the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting a different outcome, right? So all of these suits are somewhat similar in their broad

strokes and the SEC keeps losing. So at some point it's just insanity to keep trying that again when you're not going to win. So I think it's a testament to the companies that spent millions and millions of dollars fighting the SEC to kind of prove that these were not easily winnable cases, if winnable at all. I'm old enough to remember when the SEC never lost, right? And for people who are listening and not watching, I did air quotes because that was the sentiment when the SEC started attacking the industry. It was, it's over, pack it in, we're finished. And then of course, we got the Ripple decision, which said that secondary sales likely were not securities. There's a lot of nuance there and a

lot of debate as to how far that applies. And then of course, Grayscale, which effectively opened the door for these ETFs and the institutionalization of crypto. So to me, those were the huge decisions. We've had some others. I mean, Debtbox was wild. SEC lawyers effectively committing perjury and getting an 81-page judgment written by a federal judge. So it's been pretty ugly for the SEC in the last year, but they still continue to some degree pushing forward. So I think that the SEC, there's still new cases, I think, in the hopper remains to be seen if some of those will get kicked till after the election at this point, because as you rightly know,

there's the politics angle of this as well. But yeah, I don't think that Gary Gensler is done. I would not say that. I think that until Gary Gensler is no longer the chair of the SEC, there's still going to be this industry facing problems. I think they're just going to be of a different nature. I do think the SEC is realizing, but the SEC, we should be very clear, by the way, I hate to always- Leadership at the SEC. Malign, that's right, the chair, the chair. That's right, the chair at the SEC, right? We have two commissioners, Hester Person-Marquita, who are actually very well-informed and very supportive of the industry and really understand the nuances there. But regardless, the chair, the leader of the SEC, I do think you're going to see more, let's call them creative ways and approaches that happen

here through enforcement because the other ones have failed. And look, at a minimum, even critics of, I think, the Ripple case, for example, have to acknowledge at a minimum that demonstrated that these are not slam dunk black and white issues. They're really complicated and they merit litigation, right? It's worth it to fight the SEC because it's not obvious the SEC is going to win at all. So at a minimum, you've got that going for us. And I think I would argue I'm much more positive on what those cases mean, which is I actually think the SEC is teed up for losses. And I said this when the Ripple case was filed, I actually said, I think Ripple can win. I said on the case that was filed against Ripple,

I actually think Ripple can win. And people yelled at me on Twitter, especially, but sometimes, you know, you call them. I think the pendulum just swung so far and few industries have the war chest. That's the problem, right? Enough crazy people, the gumption, the gumption, and I guess the will to fight back. So I think that probably the SEC or Gensler specifically, to your point, because I know that the bulk of the people at the SEC, from what I've heard, actually are not so supportive of their approach. Correct. But that Gensler himself probably did not anticipate the industry fighting back in this way, spending this much money going on the offensive effectively with lawsuits, because

that's something that just didn't really happen in the past. Yeah, I think that's right. I think people usually folded or they settled or, you know, whatever it was. And I think I think it was probably very surprising to see a company that just dug in and was like, no, absolutely not. We're going to ride this all the way out, you know, to the end, whatever the end may be. From your perspective, why do you think the last few years have been the way that they have?

Why has the SEC been so aggressive? Why have we seen Elizabeth Warren raise an anti-crypto army, which might have seven people on the front lines? I have no idea. Seems wildly politically unpopular. But you're closer to the situation. We have all kinds of tinfoil hat theories in the crypto industry as to why that might be an incestuous relationship with banks, a central bank digital currency inevitably coming. But at the end of the day, it seems wildly politically unpopular. Well, I think it is. I don't think it just seems. I think it is wildly politically unpopular. I think it's an extraordinarily bizarre thing to anchor on, given all the topics someone could choose to be anti-crypto.

It's just it's at the time that she became anti-crypto, at least so it seems. I don't know what was in her mind when, but it was just a really niche issue. You know, it's like, why elevate this? It's like, what do you do? It's just very strange. It's very strange. So many things you could have chosen. That's the thing. You know, here's here's something wilder. I'll tell you. So many things you could have chosen. That's the thing. Here's something wilder I'll tell you. She was my contracts law professor in law school, which is hilarious. And so first day, first class at the law school.

She's absolutely terrifying, I will tell you in person. Very Socratic, very hardcore. But you couldn't get a glimpse of her politics. As a student, I didn't know. I actually thought she was rather conservative. She came across as centrist at most, if not quite conservative. And so it's surprising to me when she came out as this like hardcore progressive, that was surprise number one. And then picking again, this niche issue. I have no idea. Like I've thought about this 10 ways to Sunday. I cannot understand why at that time, particularly as things went on and as crypto became a little bit more vocal and

popular as the Sam stuff. Okay. I kind of get maybe why that was a stalking horse she chose, but her antipathy to this industry predates any of that. And I really, I really have no idea why, no idea. It doesn't fit with her priors. It doesn't fit with the things that she doesn't like. It doesn't fit with her hatred of banks. It just doesn't, it doesn't compute. It doesn't fit with the things that she doesn't like. It doesn't fit with her hatred of banks. It just doesn't compute. It doesn't make sense. But here we are. Here we are. And once you go in, I think you go in hard.

And then it's just a classic example of somebody, the sunk cost fallacy, right? You're already in it. You're just going to keep going. Pot committed. Exactly. Pot committed. I'll throw in another million there if I have a fighting shot, even if it's a 15% chance. But it's made for strange bedfellows,

to your point, right? I think she rose through the ranks and became very popular, to my recollection, through the global recession, the Great Recession, 2008, 2009, her really beating the drum on why haven't any white-collar criminals gone to jail for this? Why are none of the bankers getting punished? We're bailing everyone out. Nobody's accountable to sitting in the Senate floor with Jamie Dimon having a best buds conversation about how crypto should be banned in the United States. Right. I mean, clearly prepared remarks. It's crazy town. You can't write this timeline. I mean, you just can't script this. It's just, it's inconceivable. If you had said three years ago, two years ago, a year ago, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Jamie Dimon would be buddies on anything. People would have been like, what are you talking about? That's never going to happen, right? And yet here we are. Look,

there's no question that the antipathy that comes from people like Gary Gensler, I would say Rohit Chopra, some of these other folks, stem this from Elizabeth Warren, to be very clear. I don't know that Gary Gensler came to that independently. There was clearly pressure on him from Elizabeth Warren

to kind of take the stance he took. And who knows how he feels about it now. I imagine that guy has a bunch of regrets. But, you know, here we are, you know, again, pot committed. I think there's also no question that the Biden administration, which when I started as CEO at CCI in February of 22 also no question that the Biden administration, which when I started as

CEO at CCI in February of 22, shortly thereafter, the Biden administration issued an executive order that really asked various agencies to look at crypto. And it was tone neutral, if not tone positive. And the suggestion at the time, since 22, was look at this stuff, take it seriously. What do we do with it? And it was kind of like, do we want it here? Do we not? What's the deal? And that is actually what led to some of the sort of Sam engagement was this indication that Democrats and the Biden administration were open to crypto. They were the pro crypto party at the time. And I believe that they were, they were. So, and there's no question that all of the shenanigans that happened in the late fall of

22. And like, we can talk about that if you want to, but we all know what I'm talking about. Those had a massive, of course, a massive impact and effect on how not only Democrats, but frankly, also Republicans saw crypto for a little while. And digging out of that was easier with Republicans and Democrats, for sure. But it took time. It took time. It took almost a year, I would say, for anyone to really start taking this stuff seriously again and to not believe that in the middle of a bear market, in the middle of the spectacular implosion of FTX via SAM, there was anything here that was worthy of paying attention to in the first place. But again, we lived to see another day. And I think any sort of rumors of the demise of crypto were greatly exaggerated. And here we are, stronger than ever.

Bubbles don't rally back, right? I mean, tulips never saw a second, third, and fourth rise after dropping near to zero. And I think that there's a certain recognition that the industry is here to stay, even among the Elizabeth Warrens and Gary Genslers of the world. I mean, I laugh at what you said about Gary Gensler. We cheered. We cheered when he was coming in as chairman of the SEC because he had topped Bitcoin and blockchain at MIT. And in his course, he had named most of them commodities. I mean, he really did a full pivot, whether real belief or political.

And I think everybody knows about that. Then they fight you days, right? And it seems like you're becoming legitimate, actually, when you see an anti-crypto army. Because before that, I think then they laugh at you, right? You're just, you're going to go away. You're going to disappear. And we've failed to disappear. I think it would be fair to say so.

Well, and here's the thing, right, Scott, is I think the thing to remember, and I can't say this strongly enough, is, you know, crypto has won, right? The only discussion now is where is it going to be? There's no question that crypto has won. I mean, you've got these huge wins in the United States also, by the way, with these ETFs, for example, and with other kinds of posturing that's happened here. So institutional money is starting to flood in. It's only going to continue. There's been like a sufficient normalization, optimization, at least some assets, right? Certainly Bitcoin and Ethereum. And I think they're like gateway,

you know, some other things. So crypto has won. And the discussion right now, which I take very seriously as an American, is where is this industry going to locate? Which residents or citizens are going to be able to take full advantage of the opportunity? And right now, that's not Americans, right? It's people other parts of the world have much more flexibility and fluidity in how to use the asset and what to do with it, which is the technology than we have here in the US. And in my mind, that is a disaster for a variety of reasons, and not the least of which is consumer engagement, but also just the future trajectory of the technology. So like I say, I think the arguments have to shift in recognition of the fact that we're no longer clinging to legitimacy and trying to fight for it. We have it. We're here. We've arrived. So now what do you do with that, I think,

is the question on the table. Thank you, Larry Fink. Another phrase, but four words I did not think I would hear. No, but when he started on his roadshow, everybody had to pay attention. This is the thing, you know? I think the approval of those ETFs was really a watershed moment, obviously. So now we have this sort of interesting period, I think, for policy in the United States because we're approaching an election in a matter of months. So I think there's an expectation it's very hard to get things done during that period.

But there's also a question as to who may be the next president and what the regulatory regime may look like. And we've had actually surprising progress on some bills that are at least crypto adjacent, like FIT21. We obviously had the video of SAB121, but interesting things obviously happening. So we have this sort of divide I've seen in the industry that I've never been able to dig into with anyone. You're perfect for this. So there's people who cheer Fit 21 and say, oh my gosh, we've got something. We got to do it and get it passed immediately while it's on

the table. We don't know what will happen after the election. That reminds me of Mika, which was very suboptimal if you were looking at it from 30,000 feet, but we got something on the books and some clarity. Sort of the idea that even bad clarity is better than no clarity. But then we have people very aggressively saying, no, we hold, we wait until we have a more favorable political environment. And that's when we start to push legislation through because it will be better legislation for the industry. So I don't know where you stand on that or what you've seen, but I found it to be really interesting. Well, I do think that is how the debate gets framed. And I would say I fall somewhere in the middle because above all else, Scott, what I am is

pragmatic. Okay. So let's look at what happened in the House. And so we appreciate you bringing it up. We were instrumental, actually, in bringing that bill to the vote that it got. People told me, oh, maybe you'll get 25 Democrats on side with a Republican drafted bill to be very clear what that was. OK, we got 71, 71 Democrats that arguably broke from the Biden administration to say and signal this is really important. This is important legislation. Now, the reason I disagree with people who talk about FIT the way they talk about it is because it was a Republican led bill. The House is led by Republicans. Patrick McHenry is one of the biggest allies the industry has had in the House as chair

of the House Financial Services Committee, HFSC, for years. If you really think you're going to do better than that guy and you're willing to take the risk, because I don't know what's going to happen with the House, especially now that we have Kamala Harris running, there's going to be voter turnout of the likes I think we haven't seen in a while, probably since Obama. I don't know if the Republicans keep the House or Democrats take it. I'm not willing to gamble on that when I have somebody in Patrick McHenry and GT Thompson to chair the ad committee to give. Who's retiring? Patrick McHenry's retiring for people who don't know. So this is the one shot with him, at least. He's retiring. That's exactly right. He is not only very smart on our issues, he's also extremely

politically astute. He's very, very good at navigating the swamp, if you want to call it that, the bureaucracy of government. Not everyone is that good. And it's not to throw any shade at future contenders for that chair, if the Republicans keep it, who are all excellent. But Patrick has been around for a very long time. He knows how to get all this stuff done. So in my mind, passing a Republican, again, it's like I want a Republican drafted, okay, but it was very bipartisan. You saw the votes and people were not just jumping on because they were on the bandwagon. There was a lot of discussion. It was not easy to get 71 Democrats to vote for that bill, to be very clear. There had to be a lot of education that was done, a lot of going in about why it matters, why it's not a perfect bill. There's no such thing. Nothing that comes through Congress is going to be perfect. So that's kind of the frame I take on this is if you have a shot on goal, you take the shot. Like, why would you not? Right now, that being said, I think there is this misperception. And I think this was probably more fair when it was Trump versus Biden than it is Trump versus Harris. And to be fair, at the time of fit, it was Trump versus Biden. OK, so fair enough,

contextualize it that way. But I think and I maintain this belief that whatever happens at the presidential, you're going to have razor thin majorities in Congress, in both the House and Senate, which is what we have now. You're not going to get this. So listen, here's something funny. There was this dinner that happened or lunch or something in 22 before 22, before the midterms, when it was like 30 crypto policy people in a room and every single person there was like, there's going to be a red wave. It's going to be an absolute Republican Congress, House and Senate, going to be controlled by Republicans.

And I put my hand up and I said, why do we think that? Why are we so sure it's going to be? And who was right? Okay. Everyone looked and I got pitying looks. Like it actually, I took a big hit professionally for that for a little while. And then I was right. A month later, it was like, here we are. You just don't know until the votes are counted. So you have to always be, I don't want to say hedging, but you are kind of hedging, right? It concerns me. It concerns me that the industry has gone so aggressively and so quickly behind Donald Trump. And guys, everyone who listens knows that I try to stay as apolitical as possible, try to view it once again from a 30,000 foot view. But whoever wins, the industry needs a seat at the

table. Yes. And needs to have influence and needs to have a less contentious relationship with the government than we do now. So it does make sense for people to be reaching out to the Warren campaign. And Warren, you can tell where my head is. Who's in control? The Kamala Harris campaign to try to at least make sure that if she does win, that they're getting sensible intel from our industry. Yeah. Let me put it this way.

Okay. When I talk to crypto skeptics, electeds all over the world, I'll often talk about Pascal's wager, which people can look it up. But the idea there is like, if you aren't sure about something, how are you going to play it? And so what I say to people who are crypto skeptical is, look, even if you think this stuff is silly, even if you think it's silly, even frankly, if you don't like it, why on earth wouldn't you want to take it seriously? That makes no sense. That makes no sense. The fossil record of evidence shows it's not going anywhere. It's becoming an increasingly powerful force and it matters. It may not matter to you personally, but like, why not take it

seriously? And similarly, I'd say the same thing to people in crypto who are like one party or bust, you know, who are like all in. And I say, look, that's, we're an industry. We can have different faces. We can have different faces. We can have different representatives. And the fact that there's so much vitriol being pushed on people who are talking to the Harris campaign or reaching out or trying to build a bridge is wild. Why on earth wouldn't you want to have, isn't the goal at the end of the day, I talk a lot about a postpartisan world, right? So we had a time when crypto was not on the radar. It was nonpartisan. Now it is extremely partisan. Okay. And that is through actions, by the way,

both by the Democrats via Mr. Gary Gensler, but also via crypto industry itself, really like, as you say, really kind of aligning itself with one candidate. The goal is to get to a postpartisan world where, as my friend Justin Slaughter says, like it should be as crazy to be anti-crypto as it is to be anti-toaster ovens, right? It just doesn't make any sense to be anti-crypto. And to get there, you've got to educate. You've got to have a line of communication. That work is valuable.

It's harder work, frankly, than getting Trump on side. It's a lot harder to kind of get that enthusiasm from other folks. Why on earth would people get slammed for doing that? It just is so insane to me. It makes no sense because you just don't know what's going to happen. We cheered Gary Gensler and that didn't work out particularly well for us. That's exactly right. So I'm skeptical.

And I think it's important to remember that the original ethos of all of this was to opt out of government entirely. Like for it to not only to not take sides, but to just not pay attention and be out of it. So I find this very strange bipolarity between this like heavy politicization of our industry, which I do think is necessary. We do need to see at the table

and the idea that like all of these people are corrupt and the Fed's burning too much money and we need to opt out, right? It's a very strange, once again, strange bedfellows. Yeah. The other thing I'll say, Scott, is watching the evolution of Donald Trump on these issues. Look, I'm thrilled that Donald Trump is as bought in as he seems to be on especially particularly Bitcoin, but on crypto in general. That's a great development for a variety of reasons. Right. But think about the

evolution there. This is a person who was pretty anti-crypto and publicly anti-crypto, then came around to being kind of like vaguely skeptical and open, then kind of said some words that were sort of like, yay, you know? And now it's like- This thing is really catching on for me. Yeah, there it is, right? And then now, just last weekend in Nashville, laid out like a point for point, almost like wish list of crypto policy. That is a hell of an evolution. And to imagine that he's the only person capable of evolution is not only ridiculous, it's kind of insulting.

Like, I think many people have made that evolution. They just aren't as prominent as Donald Trump, right? But the goal is to bring everybody along that curve so that everybody who's elected, maybe apart from Elizabeth Warren, you know, is really in a place where at worst they're neutral on our issues. And at best, they're really excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity because they finally understand it. So that's the work. It's not easy work. And it's really wild to me, again, that people are getting slammed for taking on the hardest piece of this, which is getting, I think, some of the more anti-Democrats, you know, on side. I would not, by the way,

put Kamala Harris in that category. I think we don't know much about her positions. We just don't know. Yeah. So if you don't know, why wouldn't you assume that there's Greenfield there and there's room, you know, to actually make a convincing case? Because the convincing case is not hard to make, as we all know. Yeah, I think the most compelling part about Trump's rambling speech to me, I was there, I was in the room and, you know, it was a Trump speech with some great points on a teleprompter, but they were the right points. You know, you could tell he didn't understand and he didn't necessarily believe. But I give I give credit where due that a 78 year old who just kind of

started down the Bitcoin rabbit hole three months ago isn't going to know much, and he has more important things to worry about. So I tried to grasp onto the things that I thought were really impactful. And I think the most impactful that speaks to what we're talking about now, as I said, on day one, I'm going to appoint a council of people from this industry to craft the regulation and legislation. Don't you want your laws and regulations made by people favorable to the industry? So if any of that, I don't expect Donald Trump to become a Bitcoin or maybe he will. But I do want someone and this should be in the case of Harris as well, who would realize that they don't know and they're going to appoint smart people to handle it.

Exactly. Young, smart people to handle it. People who know what they're doing to handle it, you know, so and isn't that the way the government is often supposed to work? It's like you set the agenda at the top and then the details get worked out by people that actually have deep expertise. You don't expect any elected official. And this is true across senators, congresspeople, whoever it is, parliamentarians, whoever it is. They don't have the time. Right. They are elected on usually something and donald trump i mean as much as people in crypto hate my saying this he's not going to get elected because of crypto there are a lot of other things in this platform that appeal to all kinds of people but the fact that he knows

enough to take this seriously enough to allow someone to draft talking points and then to relay those talking points that's about as good as you're going to get. So like I say, I think that if anything, it's good for a variety of reasons. It does make crypto an issue in the race, in my view. It does mean the Harris campaign has to start taking it seriously, in my view. And again, I just think the work is to try to get this to a place where it's no longer a wedge issue. And every candidate, depending on the level, right? But every candidate is like, oh, yeah, of course, we're going to take crypto seriously. Of course, we're going to have a crypto council of folks who are going to be knowledgeable about them. And of course, we're going to do that. Why wouldn't we? And the devil

is always in the details. But that's what you want to get to. You want to get to a place where you just take it sort of off the table, as it were, right? You're postpartisan, as I call it. In our very small, admittedly, echo chamber, we think that Bitcoin is going to sway the election, swing the election. You said, obviously, that it's not. I think I agree. That said, I think there's hundreds of thousands of people who now who may have voted for the other side, who are pretty much all in Trump because they're single issue. I agree. I think that's right. But what could help swing

the election, as you say, is raising $21 million at a single event, which is probably over 25 from the industry and is likely to be well over 50 by the election. Money matters. And this industry has got a ton of it to throw around for the guys they like. Yeah, totally agree. I also think there's evidence disproportionately that swing states actually have crypto voters who are a single issue. So I don't want to discount that. When I say the election's not being decided on Bitcoin or on crypto alone, it's a combination of factors, right? So if you took everything else and assumed equality, I think this would be a swaying issue. But there's a lot of other things that go into this, right? Again, just like I said, that I think Congress will be razor thin. I don't know which, I have no idea at this point, predictability where it's going to go. Is it going to be Democrat or Republican led? I don't think anybody knows.

Anybody who's saying it, I think, is just not looking at how the polling is so erratic. I think the Trump-Harris situation is also going to be pretty razor thin. And so you're not talking about a lot of voters. So it could be that there are enough single issue crypto voters to swing it because they're in swing states. But we also know a lot of crypto voters are in sort of, you know, Texas, California, Florida, New York, which are states that tend to kind of go. I'm in Florida. My vote doesn't matter. I'm going to vote for RMK. This is the thing. This is the thing. Whatever. Vote for your dog. He was there first, man. On some level.

Yeah. I guess backing up a bit, though, you've been at this for quite a long time. I find it very interesting you were at the World Economic Forum before, which I'm sure that that was not at all controversial with the crypto industry for you. Doing blockchain at the World Economic Forum. Totally. But are you surprised at all, actually, that we are where we are a few months before the election? Because even six months ago, I would have never imagined us being a meaningful part of this election as an industry. And a year ago, I thought it was going to be all negative rhetoric indefinitely. And here we are talking about what does Harris have to do to stop hemorrhaging crypto voters and tens of millions of dollars going to Donald Trump. And I mean, yeah, I'm not surprised at all precisely because I did work at the World

Economic Forum. So the history there is I was I was asked to found the blockchain and digital assets team at the forum. By the time I left there, I oversaw tech policy in 16 countries. So what it was, was working objectively. It was educating about the technology. I was not actually involved deeply in policymaking. That wasn't the job. A lot of people think it is. The WEF is not a policy organization. It's an education organization. So it really was saying what is true about the technology? What does it do? How does it work? And part of my mandate was to brief ministers, heads of state, politicians all around the world. And I can tell you, even back then, I took that job in 2017, there was more, South Africa, Dubai, the UAE, India, all coming in and really very, very, very senior people asking questions and wanting to understand almost nothing from the United States. And this was under Trump, by the way. So we got the midnight rule,

the Mnuchin rule, right? So the US under Trump was pretty anti-crypto. Ripple was under Trump, people. People forget that we do have a watch what they do, not what they say. I'll give people the benefit of the doubt that their pivot could be real. But I mean, the Ripple case was Jay Clayton, right? It was on the way out. That's right. That's right. There's a lot of negative things for crypto for the past eight years, not just the past. I would have loved to have had more discussions with Washington. California, funnily enough, I was part of this blockchain working group that Governor Newsom put together that was like, how could the state of California use blockchain technologies? It was fascinating. You know, it was a bunch of folks, many names you'll recognize that were on that committee that made some recommendations.

So I think that there was an interest in governments and how to use the technology and also like what the heck is it? There were also, there's also interest from leaders of every single big financial institution. Of course, they're all Davos goers and they're all very interested in what's cutting edge. They were absolutely fascinated by this stuff. So we had sessions on stage in Davos talking about Bitcoin, having debates about it, starting in 20, I think even before I got there, that was happening at the forum, but it was certainly very, very active under my leadership. But again, it's an education

organization. So just looking at where the interest was coming from, I said in 2017, there's more interest in the global South. That was predictive. I was like, it makes sense, right? I was like, this is just logical. And everyone's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, well, look where the problems are. The immediate problems it solves are places like the Argentinas, the Venezuelans. These are where African capital market flows. This is where these things are immediately actionable. Sure enough, that was the inbound we got was all over the global south.

So like I say, I think because of the vantage point I had there, I'm not surprised. I'm surprised it took so freaking long for the United States to get on board. I'm surprised by the opposite, right? But I'm not at all surprised. I would have expected this to be more of an issue, frankly, earlier than it turned out to be. I would have expected it to be an issue in 20, in the 2020 election, which it was not.

And then here we are. So yeah, zero surprise, glad to see it. Wish it had happened earlier. And riding this wave, and I think we have to take advantage and capitalize on the awareness around it because that's not going to last forever either. There's going to be the next thing that comes up.

It's probably going to be some form of AI that's going to be the thing that everyone is campaigning around and all the money is in. We have a moment here. And if we don't take advantage of it to get as many people from across the political spectrum, from far progressive to far right on side as possible,

we're just like idiots. Like, what are we doing here? Like, that's the point. That's the goal, right? And I'm laughing inside because we're already seeing the same narratives that we saw about Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining applied to AI, which is the new emerging technology.

Electricity, boiling the ocean. It's always the same. It's the same exact narratives, which is really interesting to watch and to say, hey, this isn't just us. But I want to drill in a little more on the Global South point that you made. Obviously, we know in countries with hyperinflation, they're more likely to either dollarize and that can mean stable coins proliferate widely, which we've seen. We've expected maybe a lot more of them would move to Bitcoin, but it was really El Salvador and then nothing else. And I think we've learned that stablecoins,

people want the dollar in those situations. But why do you think we haven't seen more nation state chatter in the global South since El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender? Yeah, it's a great question. I think part of it is that El Salvador is the one that adopted legal tender and El Salvador is branded in a certain way. And Bokele is branded, whether you like it or not. And the dollar was their currency already. And the dollar was their currency already. We couldn't go crush their local currency. That's right. That's right. That's right. So I think for a variety of people, we're looking at that to say, oh, it's going to be this absolutely transformational thing that I can then copy pasta into my own country.

And because of the uniqueness of El Salvador, for reasons that you just cited and other reasons, I think that was hard to do. And it kind of wasn't the sort of crack the nut use case that everyone kind of hoped it would be. I also think that you're seeing a lot of the monies that cross border flow. So it isn't so much like we're stabilizing our local economy. It's that it's now easier for us to bypass some of the restrictions put on us, like correspondent banking, de-risking, respondent banking, de-risking, you know, the flood of capital out of our country. They're seeing it kind of that way.

And that's where, to your point, you really are seeing more like USDC in the remittance kind of economies and things like that, where I do think that the use of digital currency, either USDC or even in some cases, Bitcoin is very robust and strong. So I think that's part of the reason. I think there's also been like concern about this discussion happening at a national level. And again, I'm not part of these conversations. I'm not the web anymore, but some of them I'm part of. And I think the question is kind of like, OK, dollarization, pro or con, like true or false? Do we want to do that? What are the decision points we're making there? And then finally, I think you can't underestimate digital yuan and the role of the Chinese and Chinese money in a lot of places where there's been a stabilization,

whether people like it or not. The debt flows are different now. And so there's a question around how in bed do we want to be with the Chinese in terms of our debt burden and how are we thinking about Chinese investment around that? That's decoupled, I would say, from the form factor of the currency, of the money. Digital yuan is not flooding, you know, currently the places like Africa or places like ASEAN or Latin America, but the money is flowing. So there is this interesting geopolitical thing happening that I think is shifting the discussion. This is part of the reason why I think the US not taking cryptocurrency seriously until very recently is wild, because it's not like anybody loved dollarization. People are not like, sweet, here come the Yanks. They're going to do awesome things in my country. That's not the situation, right? They're like, oh, man, here come the Yanks. They're going to do awesome things in my country. That's not the situation, right? They're like, oh man, like here we are again, right? So the fact that there are alternatives, they're just, I think there's just this open question, how do all of these different

options play and what is it that is needed? The other thing I'll say is I think leadership, we're in a time of intense leadership transition in most countries in the world right now. We're in this, again, we're in this unprecedented historic election cycle where we're getting turnover at the top levels of government in a lot of places. And the battle is one of politics. You see like the far right, far left, all of this coalition governments. We've seen this in France and in Germany. It's happening all over the place. And there's going to be this discussion about how much do we want to be engaging with currency we control because we're authoritarian, how much we want to side with the US, with the Chinese, et cetera, or how much we want to escape

all of this and perhaps think about something like Bitcoin that could be an alternative for us because our own local currency is not in any way stable or viable. But it's complicated as always. It's very complicated. It may just be rhetoric, but Trump didn't go all the way to saying strategic reserve asset in his speech for Bitcoin. But he did say strategic stockpile that they would stop selling, assuming we have any left by the time he's there, but that he would stop selling Bitcoin. Then Lummis came out with a bill right after him and said, here it is. Here's the strategic reserve bill. We're going to buy 200,000 Bitcoin a year for five years until we have a million Bitcoin. We're going to put it right next to the gold on the balance sheet and we're not going to sell it for 20 years.

So listen, we all know that these things don't happen overnight and maybe don't happen at all. And maybe it was a really good clickbait talking point for a Bitcoin conference. But doesn't that, to some degree, at least put foreign governments on alert that Bitcoin could become a legitimate asset and could end up as a strategic reserve and maybe their central banks at least need to start thinking about it? I mean, to me, like the idea of we've seen retail FOMO, we've seen some institutional FOMO. The idea of central bank FOMO is a whole new level. It's really funny. I haven't heard that term. I'm going to use it.

Let me just put it this way. I think there is a lot riding on this election globally in a variety of spheres. This is but one. And I think a lot of governments around the world are looking to see where does America go? And are we in this more kind of, let me call it like a collaborative stance, which I would characterize as kind of like a Harris administration? Or are we in more of a isolationist, everyone for themselves kind of stance globally, which is what I would characterize on this topic, a Trump administration. And I think a lot's going to depend on how that plays out in a variety of ways. I think a huddle strategy on the part of like a government, it has pros and cons, right? It depends on like, because don't forget, like, you got to buy that with something. And if you don't have a lot of cash on hand, how are you

buying that? You know, so you may not be able to take advantage of a strategy like that. Print money to buy Bitcoin. Oh, there it is. I'm not kidding. Like that's, I was literally going to go there. Like the money printer go bird thing. It's like, are you going to print money to buy Bitcoin. There it is. I'm not kidding. Like that's, I was literally going to go there. Like the money printer go brr thing. It's like, are you going to print money to buy Bitcoin? Is that what we want? I don't think so. So it's not as easy as people, I don't think that the indicator and people not rushing to do that is meaningful.

Because I think it's, again, as always, these things are super complicated. The other thing I want to talk about, which is something I talk about a lot, and I get a lot of eye rolls from my team about this, and from a lot of people, but there's this thing called BRICS, okay? And it's an alliance, and it's Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. There's now BRICS+, which has added all these other countries, okay? It's added Ethiopia, Nigeria, a bunch of other places are now part of this alliance. It's a loose alliance. It's primarily an economic alliance.

But I see this as one of the biggest i always hesitate to say threats because i think that's a little bit dodgy it's just very judgmental right i think for them it's like they're forming an alliance because they feel like they have to and so who are they going to get it's very complicated but let's say for the sake of argument it's one of the biggest threats i think to not only the dollar i think, but also to anything that is dollarized, anything that's done using the dollar, okay, dollarization, if you want to call it that. So we should call it that, I suppose what it is. And I don't know how that's going to play out over time. But it is certainly something that I pay attention to. And I'm keeping an eye on to kind of see what does it

mean that you have some of the most populous nations on earth? Because it's not about their economic wealth. They've got all the people. Like you want to talk about, I mean, all the people. And they're the only countries that are growing in population as opposed to dying off, right? And they're in an alliance that we are not in, nor will we ever be invited to be in as Americans, right? That is a thing. And so when you look at the fact that, and I look at, I keep a close eye on Nigeria, not only because I love the country, I love Nigeria, but also it's just anyway. But I also think like when you look at cultural exports from Nollywood, you look at population growth, you look at the number of young people, you look at the tech savvy, the entrepreneurship, the innovation happening in the country as reflective, I think, of a swath of Africa. It's just the most populous country. It's got the biggest population in Africa. Very, very crypto forward, very tech forward in terms of mindset, right? There's a reason Nigeria keeps banning Bitcoin off and on, right? They keep doing

that because they understand the population has a lot of appetite for it. So countries like that, being part of this other alliance, it's not great, I think, for what the United States is trying to accomplish. I don't agree with all of our foreign policy, to say the least. I think it's not great for the world or those people, but it's certainly not great for globalization as a global reserve. Well, this is the thing. So all of these factors come into play. And so something as simple as a Bitcoin strategic reserve is it's doing one thing, but you have to look at the broader context. I'm always a big context person. Like what else is happening in the world that is relevant here? Like how does all how do all these things interplay? And again, I keep saying it's complicated. It's complicated, but it is extremely complicated. And I do think there's

a reason Biden pitched himself as a foreign policy president. I do think there's a reason that people are very people who have concerns about Trump have a lot of concerns about his foreign policy. That's a big part of why people are hesitant, even those who are otherwise inclined on his domestic policy or on his crypto policy, et cetera. There are some concerns about how that might play and how to think about it. So, like I say, I think a lot is riding on this election. There's no question. I don't actually believe that crypto policy is riding as much on this election as I think other people think.

Because again, I think we have hit an, I think the ETF rulings hit an exit. It's a tipping point. It hit an exit where you just can't be against crypto. It's insane. Like, I just think that no matter what happens, you're going to get, maybe you won't get the pro stance that you have under Trump, but you're going to get a neutral stance because there isn't really a way isn't anything else meaningful. Wouldn't we take it?

You know, so there isn't a way to do anything else that's meaningful. Now, again, that's not to say that Trump is not, you know, super pro crypto. And again, in terms of what was said in Nashville seems to be willing to put forth policies that would be very beneficial to the industry. And that is not that's nothing to sneeze at for sure. But I don't think you're going to see the hostility because we're just in a completely different world than we were back in 22 or even back in 2020, frankly. You mentioned the, obviously the digital yuan, which is effectively a central bank digital currency from China, which may be the most sort of dystopian version that people fear could be coming to America soon.

Right. And so it's actually become a talking point with politicians, never a CBDC or the idea that we may get one, depending on which side you're on. In China, we know that when you have a central bank digital currency, it means effectively complete control by the government of your money, what you can spend it on, how you can spend it. If you behave badly, we can take it away. We can airdrop you some stimulus, take out your taxes, something that's, I think, very terrifying for the United States. How much of a threat do you think, in general, central bank digital currencies are? And how realistic do you think one being created or used in the United States be? Yeah. So I've thought for a long time,

for seven years, that you're going to see a world, I said this seven years ago for the first time, inevitably, you're going to see a world where you have all three kinds of digital currency. You have central bank digital currency, CBDCs, you have stables, you have stable coins, and you have cryptocurrency. Sure enough, that's the world we're in. We already have those three things. So that prediction has come true. The question is, where is a CBDC going to live? So you already have one in China. You've got them kind of brewing in various forms all over ASEAN, right? So the horse is out of the barn. There is a CBDC in the world, not going to unring the bell, boom, okay? Now, the question on the table really is, what should the US do and what is the US going to do? I'm agnostic. I don't think it matters that much. I think that I don't really care about having a CBDC, a U.S. CBDC, if we have a U.S. dollar

back stable coin. But we don't have that either, by the way. Stable coin legislation has been pending for two years and it's not through. So we don't have a regulated, if you want to call it, you know, stable coin that's got boundaries around it, parameters around it, that I think accomplishes most of the goals. I don't think that you need a retail U.S. CBDC to accomplish the goals, the goals of the U.S. government. I just don't think you need that, right? That being said- USDC does it. It can. It could, it could in a way, right? Assuming that it's properly regulated, yeah. Assuming it's properly regulated. So like these are, they're very similar, right? I also think the government should have, has no business being at a a retail having a retail CBDC. I mean,

like the customer service alone. And it just seems like a disaster. But wholesale, I actually still think wholesale CBDC makes sense. And most people who are rapidly anti CBDC don't bother to make these distinctions. OK, I have never been bought into a retail CBDC unless you're a country like China where you want to have the kinds of controls they can give you. I'm like, what's the point? Who cares? Why would you need that? It's not important. But a wholesale CBDC, whatever, right? But a wholesale CBDC definitely gives you advantages. It reduces friction and moving money across the border. It reduces friction between the government and banks. It makes the M0 and M1 transition easier. There's a variety of reasons why a wholesale CVC could be good.

I don't think it's the number one priority. I don't think it's like we're missing out by not having one. But I also think it could make sense to have one and we shouldn't be afraid of it. I just think this whole thing is a stalking horse and not really worthy of the attention that it gets. Right. For cross-border payments or settlements, Swift is old. That's right. And Fedwire is old, and the systems that we use are old. So utilizing blockchain technology for faster and cheaper

makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn't we want that? It's updating the rails. That's barely even a CBDC, right? It's just better. But it is technically a CBDC, right? Yeah, technologically better rails. So these distinctions, I think, are important.

That's right. Why would we not want better rails for all kinds of reasons? So to me, I feel like it's just, it's understand the political point, like no CBDC and surveillance money, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, a retail CBDC could be surveillance money if designed to be such, but I do not think the US could get away

with designing surveillance money. We would certainly all lose our minds around that, but wholesale is not necessarily that. The differences matter. It's so Jamie Dimon. He says the government should ban crypto and he hates it. And it's like, yeah, everyone can have it, but it's like smoking, do whatever you want. But then like JP Morgan coin and Onyx for tokenizing real world assets. They do. I mean, they settle using blockchain technology and their own private token and blockchain.

That's exactly sort of the differentiation. And we're just getting into this world. We're in this world, but I've been getting into it where like these fine distinctions are, they're kind of hilarious to me, right? Because when you zoom out even a little bit, most people cannot tell the difference. They're like, okay, that's the thing that runs. Honestly, they can't tell the difference between e-money that exists everywhere and like a CBDC. They don't know the difference. And so I do think it's incumbent on those of us who do understand the difference to be talking about this. But these sort of making the political talking point like anti-CBDC, that surveillance.

I just think that's like I just roll my eyes a lot about that. I'm like, OK whatever it's just there's more important things i think to fight for here uh in terms of being pro-crypto than being anti-cbc i don't think they have to go together i think you can be like sure a wholesale cbdc is fine for the rails reasons we discussed uh we want a us you know dollar back stable coin uh and but also we really want crypto i don't think you have to i don't think being pro-crypto means you are anti-cbdc i think it means that you're like eh this is a better way of doing some of the things you want to do over there and we should do it this way. But ultimately, we already have a CBDC in the world.

It's out there. It has not gotten the massive traction I think people expected that Jilly Wan would get, right, for political reasons. So I'm not overly concerned about it. Are you saying that there's nuance to these topics? It's not just black and white. Come on. Not to this audience. So listen, I know we kind of, that went so fast and we're sort of getting towards time, but there's, I want to ask you one more question and I'm not talking about who wins or who doesn't. I'm not talking about party. From a policy perspective, in your mind, what would be the best case outcome through sort of this cycle? And certainly in the United States, but I guess this sort of global election cycle, and what would be the worst case outcome? I'm assuming we fall somewhere in between, but

we're all very encouraged, but is there something we might be missing that could be a political black swan or something like that, or something that goes so well that we're living in our perfect crypto utopia? Yeah. Well, I'll answer it two ways. I'll answer it as a person who cares a lot about crypto and thinks it's extremely important. And I'll answer it as maybe like an American, okay, on the front side. So as an American, I actually think the most important thing that we need is stablecoin legislation, period, full stop, done. It's not that hard. It's ready. We just need to get it across the line. It's going to be massive. So I think that is the most important thing. As a pro-crypto person, I think that is also true,

and I don't want to understate that. But I also think having some policy that makes it very, very clear that not just that crypto is here to stay, but that it is encouraged. And that could take a number of different forms. Okay. It could be how are we going to regulate it? It could be a directive on high for agencies to back off. There's all kinds of ways that that could kind of be. But what I want to see most importantly, as a crypto professional is I want it to be possible to do business in the United States without fear and without having to expend millions and millions of dollars in legal fees to get clarity that should come from the government ex ante. Like, that's what I want to see. There's, again, there's a number of paths there. I'm

somewhat agnostic about them. I have my own personal preferences, but that is the frame that I think we need to have, right? It should not, it is absolutely absurd that you cannot safely launch a business in the United States in this arena because you might get sued out of existence. It's absolutely ridiculous. How many are registered? Exactly right. That's got to stop. So that's how I'll answer that.

On the other side, what's the worst thing that could happen? I think it is, and I'm going to conflate the sort of being an American and being a crypto person. I think it is the continued offshoring of this. And so last year, I did this thread that went super viral on semiconductors. And I said, I'm having this massive cognitive dissonance watching the Biden administration via the CHIPS Act be like desperately trying to bring back semiconductor chips manufacturing, which is something we blithely allowed, not Biden, but like America blithely allowed to go offshore and encouraged offshoring of, you know, 40, 50 years ago. We're doing the same thing with crypto because people didn't take it seriously and thought it was this like fad sort of thing that

would go away. There was this like, we don't care if it goes offshore. And the thing, the difference, I think it's important that I point out in this thread, which went, like, it gets picked up all the time, this talking point on semiconductors. But the thing I think about this is they're not the same because you can pull back semiconductor chip manufacturing. That's a matter of making big capital investments, getting labor. It's manufacturing, right? You're doing hardware. You can't pull back digital technology. When it's built somewhere else, it's gone. Like, it's forever. It's just gone forever. You could hire some people. It doesn't come back. And there's no way to, and look, we, and this is going to be like kind of a mushy point, but I think it's forever. It's just gone forever. You could hire some people. It doesn't come back. And there's no way to, and look, we, and this is going to be like kind of a mushy point, but I think it's a

really true one. Cause I saw this when I've sat in global roles for 20 years now, where something is built matters because the culture in ways you don't even understand gets put into it's persistent. It's pervasive. It gets built into that technology. It really, really, really matters. I think people have an intuitive understanding. Something built in India or Nigeria or Australia or China is different from something built in the United States in subtle, intangible ways that may not seem important, but I think that they really are. So for many, many reasons, I want to see this technology remain. I think this is the question, as I noted before, crypto is one.

We're going to thrive. It's just a matter of where is the thriving happening. And I am very committed to making sure the United States has a key, if not the key, leadership position in the future of this technology. And we're in danger of that being done forever. We're very close to it already being done forever, but we're very close to that really just kicking the technology essentially elsewhere and just sort of blindly pretending it doesn't matter. It really matters. Well, most of us thought it was

done forever a year ago. So the fact that we can even talk about it, I think. Yeah. And also, so where can people follow you, keep up with what you're doing, but then you also have an amazing podcast. So I'd love for you to share. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thanks. So the podcast is called Money Reimagined and my co-host is Michael Casey. So he's an Aussie and I'm an American. And we have this, we just talk a lot about these topics and we try to do it in ways that are very, very understandable by non-technologists. So not technical podcasts. It's really more about culture and money and a bunch about policy and things like that. So not technical podcasts. It's really more about culture and money and a bunch about policy and things like that.

So I recommend you check it out. That'd be great. For me, I'm on X, Twitter, Sheila underscore Warren. You can follow the Crypto Council, Crypto underscore Council. We have a website that's got a bunch of things. And if you're someone who's really new to this space, we have a number of things we call explainers.

And they explain in very quick, simple, understandable paragraphs. What is Bitcoin? What is proof of work? What is Ethereum? What is MEV? All these different kinds of what is staking like these topics that you might hear dropped on podcasts. And if you don't know, we found that it's a really good place. A lot of policymakers go there, you know, to understand the basics around these things. We also have explainers on how is how is a sausage made? How does something get through the European Parliament? How is a bill made? Things like that. If you're curious about that, you can also go to the website and check it out. And that's

CryptoCouncil.org. This is so enjoyable. I wish we had five hours. Thanks. Me too. It's really fun. We'll do it again. We'll do it again. Awesome. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me.