The Wolf Of All Streets - Is Kamala Now Pro Crypto? | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

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Testing, testing. So today's space will probably be focused mainly on the stuff that Scott finds more interesting than I do. Just looking at the macro picture, we've got the CPI data in today. And it kind of seals a rate cut later in the year. I think we'll all agree, unless someone still disagrees, I'm sure it's going to be on today. But Dave, maybe you can give us a quick overview on the CPI data and your thoughts. I mean, it was matched expectations full stop so really no change so the market really shouldn't do a whole lot i mean it's it's as simple as that people will read into whatever

they're going to read into we're i will repeat we're in aug, we're in a low volume month. You see what we saw this morning is exactly been the thesis that people should be getting used to me telling you, which is the leverage type speculative traders in Bitcoin are still dominating the price action. They can't push it too low and they can't push it too high. This morning it jumped 2000 bucks. They looked around. The fundamental buyers didn't come in behind them. It slid back. Okay. I mean, move on to the next thing waiting for a catalyst. The catalyst will be when fundamental buyers step into the market or fundamental buyers decide, okay, it's not going to go up. I'm going to sell. I personally think it's going to be the first. There are others think it's going to be

the second. I don't think the data does a whole lot more than that as far as Bitcoin is concerned. Jonathan, your thoughts? Agreed. I forgot. It looked like shelter costs. I didn't do a whole huge run through, but I don't know if you did, too, Dave. But it looked like shelter costs accounted for the biggest chunk in the in the number. But, yeah, this is. I wouldn't expect a big change on anything here. This is kind of par for the course the point there is the point there jonathan and it's important is that will lead people to the well if you cut rates it'll close it will decrease inflation camp because it'll drive down owners equivalent rent if mortgage rates go down now personally i think

that's a bunch of crap but it's a narrative that we saw a lot uh over the last six months can you can you repeat the narrative sorry dave Dave. And by the way, you're right, Jonathan, that shelter is the outlier. It's up substantially. But what was the narrative that you're talking about, Dave? Yeah, I mean, the narrative has been and there's a bunch of people who have said it, a bunch of people who have said it, which is that if you get a rate cut and mortgage rates come down, that that by definition will bring down owner's equivalent rent in the CPI calculations and make the cost of housing go lower because a big component of housing is interest rates. And so it becomes a cycle. That is a story. It's true as far as it goes, but there's still the whole aggregate demand issue. And, you know, look, we'll see. The point is, is narratives are what matters here,

because the Federal Reserve needs room to wiggle. And it's an election year. And I've said, look, I've been nonstop calling for a rate cut in September and for a year now, uh, barring something breaking and nothing has broken. Although it looks like we might've gotten close, but it didn't actually happen. Yeah. I'm just having now.

Yeah, go ahead. Uh, the, the NBA, uh, mortgage bankers association applications, uh,

we're up 16.8% versus 6.9%. And I could see a little bit of a trend change, a lot of refinancing going on. Yeah, just having a look now at some of the data. Again, there's nothing at all that's worth noting. Not sure if you can hear me, by the way, Matthew. I'm going to go to you next, but I'm on on the move so i don't know if my connection is cutting out but it's actually nothing at all is an outlier there's one piece of information is completely unrelated and by the way matthew can you hear me

matthew matthew matthew dixon yeah yeah matthew matthew dixon that's right yeah um yeah so just having a look at the the data there's nothing at all surprising. So if you want to link it to the markets movement, okay, it's down now 26%, which shows that the market's pretty much unchanged since yesterday. We broke 60K earlier today, it went back down. Is there any, from a technical perspective, whether it's you, Matthew, anyone jump in, is there any support level that we should be on the lookout for as long as we're above that support that we should be fine? Obviously, they're breaking out. We just need to hit and break all-time highs. But what support level are we paying attention to now? For me, support level, we've got, I think, from an Elliott Wave perspective, from the top of the

market at 73,000 and change, we've got an ABCDE, the E overshot the trend line, which is the only one allowed to do so. So it's perfect, absolutely perfect. So it's a pre-terminal wave. So we should actually have higher from there. So the actual technical invalidation for that now would be 49,300. So we can't drop below 49,300, but it's highly unlikely we're going to drop that low in fact i think we've had five waves up three waves on the way down now a little bit um i think the bottom is going to be at where it's probably 56 ish somewhere around there and then i think we'll head quite aggressively higher so today's news cpi cpi news was um a non-event is actually in line with

expectation which is actually a bit of a surprise, bearing in mind we have PPI so low and we've had PC dropping lower. But CPI is probably the less important one. PCA is more important. I think people took it initially as a positive that is in line with expectation. It's not such a big positive and it probably brings us more into line with a 25 basis point hike um sorry reduction rather than uh 50 basis points so i think it just solidified 25 basis points for us um which overall is good news for the market does it tell us anything about the japanese inflation data that everyone's waiting for uh considering what we saw on black monday well obviously it was a worry. That's the reason they hiked rates was because of elevated inflation.

So I suspect it will be elevated, but they've already taken their action and they've said they're not going to take further action. So I think that any concerns about further unwinding the yen carry trade would be unfounded. And I actually think that, yeah, there's no issues

there at all i think they'll have slightly elevated inflation again but the fact they've raised rates should probably bring it under control yeah and dan crypto trades put out a tree it's literally nothing else not much to talk about really last thing i mentioned and see here duane as well i will go to you as well right afterwards. But Dan, CryptoTrade has put out a tweet talking about USD liquidity, which is starting to tick upwards, which should push up risk assets. I was going to ask Dave how important of a metric that is, but Dwayne, we'll go to you first. Oh, yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah, I was just going to say that although these numbers are muted with CPI versus PPI, I think it does strengthen the narrative for a perfunctory rate cut here. If we've been looking

at what's happening here, inflation is down. However, it still is sticky. So with rate cuts basically baked in the cake here, this is very positive for Bitcoin as well as gold. Gold has performed very well after initial Fed pauses. And because we are basically within the 15th or 16th month here of a higher for longer cycle here, then I think the rate cuts are definitely on the table and it should prove very positive for gold and for Bitcoin. Just looking at some of the equities here, we're seeing home builders and the home building supply chain on the rise here. We're seeing Lowe's do well this morning, Home Depot do well this morning as well. And it's really become really dependent on earnings here. So even in my world here,

Barrick reported a couple of days ago and they did extremely well, 9% for that day. And overall with the year to date, they're around say 6%. So there's a lot of catch up that they have to do from their peers, but we are noticing that reporting really matters and numbers really matter right now for investors. So those are the sort of things that I'm watching here.

Simon, Tom? Yeah, I guess the other side on top of the Japan carry trade is just watching oil prices. You know, they're ranging at about 78 at the moment. Anything above 80 is concerning. On the geopolitical side, 50 additional rockets made it past the Iron Dome in Israel from Hezbollah in Lebanon. There's a lot of rumors around whether there will be an escalation centered around whether peace talks will come through or not. Highly unlikely there'll be a ceasefire. But it's important to, but on that point it's also important to know that iran has still not responded to israel afghans has uh resumed flights back to lebanon i think other airlines might have followed suit as well i'm not aware i haven't checked yet

um correct we have uh pressure coming in from the us which is a bit of a surprise um along with i think it's egypt and some other country for um for israel to accept a pco so there's a bit of light at the end of that tunnel. Correct, yeah. So there's more US presence in the Middle East than the most since Iraq. But Iran is still giving signals that there will be a reaction. And others are thinking that there won't be. But yeah, I think there is going to be something by the end of this week.

But you agree that the expectations of this being a significant response have diminished, especially with airlines resuming flights and the pressure. We also heard about Russia pressuring Iran or convincing Iran not to respond too aggressively to the attacks. Not sure if you saw those reports about a week ago. Well, yeah, I think it's always going to be like military or infrastructure targets it was never going to be civilian so it's just a question of what what they target yeah and moving to um kind of for more the the domestic political front um there hasn't been much there i'm just trying to see a lot more uh traction i was i was about to read an article on

CoinDesk. I should probably read out the headline here. But it's one that's friendly towards Kamala. I think it's CoinDesk or Cointelegraph. It's friendly towards Kamala's administration, which I know will trigger some people. Let me see if I can find it and read it out for you guys. Also, as reports, there's a lot of attacks on X after the interview between Elon and Trump. We saw the EU crackdown. I know it's not too relevant. I know we're moving away a bit from crypto. But we saw the EU Commission kind of wash their hands from the letter that Trump, that

Elon got before the interview with Trump, kind of a warning letter from that guy, the Thierry guy from Europe. But it seems he's done it independently, not part of the EU Commission. But more importantly, it's a bit of backlash on that interview. But if you look at the numbers, X has donated less than half a million dollars to Republicans, but Meta, Google and LinkedIn

have donated $26 million to the Democrats. So far, it's diminishing that criticism of X and Elon. The quote is dangerously political view. Real quick there on the Camilla point. I think the salient thing here is that your folks are looking at this crypto for high risk campaign saying that she essentially might be changing her tune.

And, you know, we keep hearing behind the scenes. It's a quote unquote reset. But then you look at the folks she's talking about hiring in senior level positions, and I forget the gentleman's name, but one of them was the chief architect of Operation Showpoint 2.0. And then who she's considering for potential SEC chair

to replace Gary Gensler, I think it's Caroline Crenshaw, is actually more unfavorable towards crypto than actually Gary is. So the actions by this potential administration are still extremely hostile to crypto. So I think that's what's got folks up in arms a bit more than- Let me read out the headline on Cointelegraph, by the way. Crypto could get a boost from younger tech-savvy Harris administration. That's by Andrew Singer from Cointelegraph. Harris administration could be younger and more pragmatic and bring quite a fresh perspective towards crypto, some believe.

The campaign of U.S. President Kamala Harris has given several signals of her administration would benefit the crypto industry as Harris continues to climb in the polls. By the way, the numbers are looking better and better for Harris in the polls, industry and even polymarket. And observers are beginning to ask more questions would harris presidency bring a younger bring younger include younger advisors and political appointees who are more open to crypto and blockchain um uh yeah so it's just uh it's a pretty long article but it's pretty um hopeful for a kamala administration but Dave also put in your crying face, still not convinced. Together, Harris and Waltz have, quote, a more modern, relevant perspective, almost an Obama approach, according to Vela, now a senior advisor to Unicoin, an asset-backed crypto.

Not sure if you guys know Unicoin. I'm hopeful that a Kamala Harris presidency will be pro-crypto. She's already surrounding herself with the right people, such as David Plouffe, a former Binance advisor. She is also very close with Silicon Valley. I don't know. I'm not that – I understand I might get some criticism for this, but I'm not that critical of her stance on crypto. I think it won't be as positive as Trump, but I just don't think – I know we're finding it hard to believe after all the bruises we have on our face after the Biden administration did what they did. But I just don't think it makes sense politically not to be pro-crypto right now. So I think that pivot is genuine. And I know someone in the previous space talked about other lawmakers, democratic lawmakers, having to,

I see a lot of people in the audience laughing again i know that i could be wrong here but i think we should at least um you know try to look at it from a positive perspective that because remember we made just listen to me guys before kamala took over from from biden we made the argument a while ago when biden you know when the ectf was launched everyone was in Like, guys, the days of the administration, whether it's the Trump or Biden administrations, Biden, before Kamala came into the picture, of them being anti-crypto, those days are pretty much over. That was the kind of the feeling, the sentiment that everyone had because politically it was

not popular now. So I just don't think, I think I'm still in that cap that I think both administrations are going to be pro-crypto. One is going to be more pro-crypto than the other. And I think that would be Trump. I'm not sure if you still disagree, Dwayne and Simon. Oh, well, after you, Simon. Okay. Yeah, I'll take it. I think the most important thing is, yeah, you've got multiple fronts, right? You've got the crypto regulations, which is a crypto story. Under Harris, you'd expect the same based upon who it looks like the leadership might be.

But it's more around the Bitcoin story and the geopolitical story. If you get the strategic reserve asset, which is meant to be a promise of the Trump administration, I'm not saying we believe in that promise. But that is the whole geopolitical game theory that's playing out right now. You've got the BRICS conference in October where they're saying that they're going to have a cryptocurrency or blockchain-based solution with asset backing.

And with all the, you know, Russia's made the announcement they're legalizing bitcoin mining right now and so to have bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset is really important and that's a promise of the trump administration and we've had no uh comment on that from um the the harris side so that's what i think moves the bar most and i believe that if you got that you'd also have the the crypto market moving with it with a with a better regulatory environment so i think it's that's the important point we haven't seen the markets do too badly do you think the the kind of the um i want to say the

correction but kind of the stagnation we're seeing in the markets is that um um you know everyone's unsure you know from from Trump almost guaranteed to win to now the polls kind of leaning more towards Kamala. Again, it's very early and you can believe the polls, not believe the polls, but could it play a role in where the markets are at right now, which are not as high as many of us would have hoped? Simon and

Dwayne? Yeah, I think that's exactly it. So, you know, we've been through a bit of a whipsaw, right? So from Trump attempted assassination and increase in the price of bitcoin as a result of that then to the bitcoin 2024 pro-bitcoin stance and then suddenly everything was around oh trump is a dead sir um to okay biden's out of the race harris is in and it looks like harris is garnering a lot of the support of people voting for different reasons. So that's really playing in.

And at the end of the day, it's August. People don't care right now in the markets in general. It's a 24-7 market in crypto. But deals don't normally get done in the crypto side. And we don't know what's going to happen with Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. And that's what... I'm just looking at the numbers as well. So Polymarket was a metric that we all used in prior spaces

because the polls were showing Biden to be closer than many of us would have expected to Trump, especially after the assassination attempt. Number One and a few others said, like, Polymarket is the right indicator for, you know, a better indicator than polls. And at that time, Trump was sitting at 75% probability of winning. And yesterday is down all the way down to 40.

It was like 50% a few days ago. Yesterday it was down 46%. Today it's 45. Kamala is at 53, which is a lot more than I expected. Now, I remember back then when Ryan and Scott were talking, Scott was kind of critical of polymarkets, like Mario, polymarkets, mainly crypto investors, crypto traders that trade on there, that bet on there.

And they tend to lean, obviously, because they're pro-crypto, they tend to lean more pro-Trump. Plus, they don't want Kamala to win. So it's very biased as a metric, very biased to being pro to being pro trump um but obviously that argument now doesn't make sense now i actually curiously get rand's thoughts because obviously rand is very pro-trump and very anti-kamala um get his thoughts on on polymarket now that the numbers have changed but uh dwayne get your thoughts right um what i was uh going to say actually is that um I think investors, well, crypto investors, as well as all investors, could be hopeful for a Harris-Walls administration in the sense that, at least initially, she appears to be mixing elements of former Democratic leaders and campaigns elements here in order to try to garner the most votes as possible. So she's really more reminiscent, in my view, of, say, Bill Clinton, if we've seen her shift

to the right on some of these sorts of issues or just basically shift to some of the things that Trump's been doing in regards to taxing on tips and also in regards to border control. So I think that the crypto community does have her ear and she's very flexible in order to basically garner as much of an audience as she can and as many votes as possible. So she's a lot more flexible and fast moving than, say, a Biden administration is and was. So I think, you know, if given given enough pressure then she will definitely put forth some sort of legislation or make some more um you know basically make some more um clear rules around trading crypto and around regulations yeah and by the way i just want to you know there's a reason

that everyone in crypto skeptic skeptical and you know kind of that to have such a massive shift from one administration to a common administration it just takes a lot more. It's not like one person makes all the decisions. A lot of people behind the scenes that influence those decisions and those people haven't changed. It's just Biden and Kamala. It's just the face has changed. So I don't blame people for being skeptical. Zach?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. The important thing, and we talked about this last week, is who the staffers are who have the Harris campaign's ear on this question. And when we talked about this last week, I was urging that we sort of wait and see what information we get about who those advisors are. Unfortunately, I think in the last week, we've gotten some information that leads us to believe that it's just going to be the same war on crypto as the Biden administration. The folks, especially that Harris is talking to for treasury roles, there's really good reporting on this from Alex Thorne, head of research at Galaxy, that these are the same architects of the chokepoint 2.0 policy, that it's a bunch of former Warren staffers, including Warren's

former chief of staff. And so, yeah, I think, unfortunately, that's a sign that there is not this reset we're all hoping for where we're going to get friendlier policies from the Harris administration. Simon? Yeah, just want to, you know, if anyone is listening that has influence in that side, it's a question of, look, you have a major advantage over Trump and Republicans in that you can do it right now. And so that's the key thing. You can't say, you know, you can't try and appease your pro-Palestinian audience and send 20 billion into Israel.

So at the same time, if you are pro-crypto, then do something. Act decisively. Show us what you're going to do to support the industry. Otherwise, we ain't going to believe you. Yeah, I think it's a good – Dave, go ahead. Yeah, I mean – I'm crying face. Dave, getting your thoughts on that initial comment that I didn't want to be a crying face. The thing is that what bothers me about crypto Twitter is people are bifurcating in just an idiotic way. The fact is, is you, the industry should continue to do everything they could to reach out and try to educate, but should be voting the other way and supporting the other way until proven otherwise. Because at this point, we now know that the staff is shaping up to be pro-crypto in the sense of pro-CBDC, because that is crypto,

they might put Bitcoin into the mix because Bitcoin has gotten exalted status, but, you know, within, you know, Larry Fink, et cetera, et cetera. But the absolute reality is, is in terms of the broader regulatory, the broader banking, it's very, very clear that they're still wielding that as a weapon. And they've been doing it more. And if you've noticed, the SEC has actually stepped things up. And that doesn't happen in a vacuum. So this notion of, oh, well, the SEC is operating under Biden and Harris has no voice in it is just complete nonsense. I mean, could we literally find one person, I mean, one, who thinks Biden is actually in charge of making decisions? Well, so I just want to comment on the like, what parts of the industry or have the Harris campaigns here? Unfortunately, it's not Bitcoin. As someone who works in Bitcoin policy, I wish they were friendlier towards Bitcoin. I think the problem with Bitcoin is it's seen as a sanctions evasion and money laundering threat. And the treasury hawks are anti-Bitcoin. The people who are getting invited to these are Brad Garlinghouse from Ripple. It's the Coinbase team. It's a couple of the other top

exchanges and DeFi folks. But if you look at coming out of the roundtables that Ro Khanna has... And Ro Khanna, by the way, is our best champion on the left, and he deserves a lot more support from the industry. And frankly, if you're listening to this call and you see Rokana tweeting something about Bitcoin or crypto, please like it, retweet it, or whatever. That's probably the best sort of grassroots signal boosting we can do. But it is centralized exchange and sort of like banker-friendly coins that are getting these meetings. It's not open source projects, you know, they're building in the Bitcoin or Ethereum ecosystems. No, I understand that. But on the other hand, the Bitcoin ETF is a safe method for investing

in Bitcoin. And it's a hedge for them to be able to say, look, you see what we're doing. And Ether might be in that vein too. But the point here is the lack of regulation and banking crypto startups means they can choke off innovation and literally do. I mean, let's not. It was only two years ago that Sam almost got the DC CPA passed, you know, with the Democrats help to effectively create a very clear oligopoly in charge of crypto to kind of defang it and make it more tradfi like within at the helm it is not that long ago so to me the quote pivot might be going back to the future as it were back to you know back to that and i don't think that's that's arguably what fit 21 is right like it's not it's not about sovereign use of crypto. It's much more. But Zach, that FIT21 has something that I don't think the DCCPA had. The safe harbor and the

notion of building crypto specific regulation is very important. Yes, there's things in the act, which are too prescriptive. We understand that. But that safe harbor arguably is the single most important thing. I mean, look, there's two soft power things that this administration has done that actually dates back to the Trump administration. But, you know, one is one dates back and one doesn't. Chokepoint has been very well chronicled. But the other one that no one talks about, but it's a big deal, big deal for me personally, because of what it did to CoinRoutes is they have not approved a single broker dealer to be able to trade non-securities. Now that sounds like a really

technical thing, but it isn't because if you're Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, you could trade platinum spot. You can trade, you know, like current, you know, commodities. You can trade any of that stuff. You can't trade Bitcoin as a commodity because FINRA, not because there's a law against it because there isn't, but because FINRA has been told don't approve any of that stuff. You can't trade Bitcoin as a commodity because FINRA, not because there's a law against it, because there isn't, but because FINRA has been told don't approve any of those applications. And that soft power has been remarkably consistent. And it essentially means that no one in the traditional financial industry can do anything with regard to crypto assets. And that's, by the way, is why you have cash creation on the ETF and not in kind. It's because in recognition of that. So that, to me, is the sign. If that doesn't change,

then you don't get innovation where crypto can become more mainstream within the traditional financial sector in a real sense, only in a very structured sense via the ETF. And that matters. Yeah, I mean, I would suggest an alternative one, which is like, if we're having rules that allow for actual innovation, it has to allow sort of non custodial tools to work, it has to allow defy to work, it has to allow peer to peer transfers to work. And that is an area where both the DC CPA and fit 21 are lacking. And there are much there are much better bills out there that codify like FinCEN's guidance on this question. But if any non-custodial tool can be designated by

Treasurer DOJ as a money transmitter, and if the SEC can say that any non-custodial wallet that gives you access to DeFi is a securities broker, then like we're stuck in sort of ETF land and we can't do anything with them. We are so on the same page. And just to drive the point home, remember who in the administration was pushing for $600 PayPal's to be considered taxable and wanting to track everything. And what is the single nightmare for that administration? Custodial wallets where people can transfer peer-to-peer. So if you think that there isn't massive organizational resistance within the exact cadre of people that are staffing the Harris campaign and the Biden administration, you're literally smoking something,

because that's the issue, Zach. Chris, Jonathan? I was just going to say, firstly, do you not think the SEC case against XRP being settled and the judge passing judgment that XRP sold on exchanges and not securities, that doesn't seem to have been as big a deal as I thought it was going to be in terms of the crypto industry and plays to what you guys are saying. Do you not think there's a bit of a coincidence that that's happened now? And apparently the Harris-Biden administration have reached out to the SEC

and companies like Ripple to try and start being more receptive. But then I think the other thing is as well that, you know, is there a legitimate concern that a lot of these crypto projects that are being deemed as innovation are actually just ways of raising funds to bypass traditional markets where there is a lot of very centralized entities that are putting investors at risk as opposed to being actual innovation. Yeah, I'm happy to respond to each of those. So first on Ripple, I would say the two reasons to think why that might not be a sea change. The first is the political side. If you look at the people who have been on the board of directors for Ripple Labs and the connections they have, and if anyone takes the Amtrak to DC, you get off the train and there's a big sign advertising Ripple in the train station, they are very well connected to the DC establishment. And the case that said that the secondary trades of Ripple,

I mean, it wasn't secondary trades, but the programmatic sales of Ripple to retail investors were not securities offerings. I think most sophisticated lawyers who've looked at that have said that's just a bad ruling and is likely to get overturned on appeal. So we'll have to wait and see what the Second Circuit says about that and how that differs from the reasoning like in the Coinbase case, which seems quite different. And in the Terraluda case from the same district court. With regard to the sort of end run around traditional securities laws, like yes, look, that is what a lot of crypto is. It is ways to raise what is essentially seed capital using tokens.

What I would say is we just have an antiquated system for how our securities laws work. And I have some sympathy for the SEC in that a lot of these things look technically like investment contracts. But if you look at the best capital formation in crypto, ironically, I think you could say it was in the ICO era. It was when people sold coins directly to retail. And we didn't have this huge VC overhang situation that we have now that we constantly talk about in this space, right? There was just a market price, there was a large float relative to the supply. And that was sort of a fair way to cut out sort of privileged players in the venture capital space and go right to retail. Unfortunately, the SEC completely shut that down. And now we have all these jumping around hoops with token warrants and neutering, you know, people want to add yield to tokens, but they can't because of securities law. And so while yes,

you can say that the token sales are meant to get around the securities laws. I think if the SEC wants to protect investors and promote capital formation, it can do a lot better than just stamping their foot and saying these things are illegal. They can create either guidance or new regulations that meet this technology where it is and allow for better products and better fundraising. The SEC, I don't think is interested in saving or protecting anybody. They're like the guards in a castle, okay? And people who want to sell their goods, crypto people, they come into the castle, and the SEC wants to shake them down. Meanwhile, all of us peasants are sitting outside getting

waylaid on the road, and they do shit about it. Also, if you look at the enforcement record of the SEC. Between 2013 and 2019, they brought 48 cases against crypto. Go to 2020 to 2024, it was like an 80% increase. They brought 87 or 88 cases. I mean, let's not

forget the SEC hasn't just slapped people on the wrist in crypto. They have gone after them. They have bankrupted them as entities. They have bankrupted them as individuals. It is horrible how that agency has treated this industry. It is absolutely shameful, should be criminal.

And that's all I got to say. Simon, I know you've got your hand up. Can I just have a follow up if you don't mind? I mean, on that point, why haven't they been consistent with Bitcoin then? And I kind of know the answer, but I'm interested in your take on why haven't they been? If the guards in the castle, and yet they're recognizing that Bitcoin is not a security because it has the properties that i i believe truly should be in the crypto industry if you like if it's going to qualify to be crypto there are certain traits that make it um stand out and decentralization is key and i think when it's decentralized there's no one to go after um they kind of back the sec into a

corner where they go okay this is, this is not a security, it's decentralized, you know, people that invest in it don't have the same exposure to centralization that they do with virtually every other crypto project. So it's not about exposure to centralization, or that kind of risk, right? The question whether the SEC has jurisdiction over Bitcoin is specifically a question about what kind of asset Bitcoin is. And I don't think you can argue with a straight face that someone who is buying Bitcoin as an investment is investing in the work of any particular group of people. There are lots of

great companies building on Bitcoin. None of them are essential to Bitcoin's success. That's very different than almost every other token, which is released by a startup, where if the startup goes under, probably the token is going under too right great so i mean yeah i was just gonna say i didn't i didn't think ripple moves the needle in any way shape or form because the same ambiguity still exists so if you've got the programmatic trading yeah okay that helps with the exchanges getting a bit more clarity um but if it if there's still uncertainty about whether it is or whether it isn't a security, and if that still fits into the Howey test being the primary way of doing that, and then they also got fined for a company selling those tokens,

then you're still in the exact same place. The change that I think you need to see is that firstly SEC has been proven to be a bad actor so you either need a complete overhaul in terms of somebody that understands the asset class and is not working for the lobby groups and is not bowing down to the lobby pressure of Sandbank and Freed and Ripple

and I think CFTC has been proven to be that actor in terms of a light-to-touch regulation. But then you still need some of the disclosures because there's still elements of disclosure that typically would have been done under the SEC. So a virtual asset service provider regime sitting under the CFTC seems to be the type of thing that you'd be looking for.

And so- I'm sorry, on the CFTC point, I think that like, that's just totally wrong. The CFTC has not been a light touch regulator. They've gone after like personal liability, for example, in the Uki Dow case, literally for token holders, right? If you hold the token, you're legally responsible for what the Dow does, because they treat it as a general partnership. The CFTC wants to expand their jurisdiction over spot markets for things like Bitcoin and Ether, whereas they don't regulate spot commodities. If you buy wheat in the grocery store, the CFTC is not there looking over your shoulder. I think this is sort of a meme that we have because for VCs and companies that are launching

tokens, yes, it's much better for those to be commodities because it's legal to sell commodities in a different way than it's legal to sell securities. But that does not mean at all the CFTC is a good guy or a light touch regulator. Who do you think would be more appropriate for the more centralized tokens? So look, the more centralized tokens probably are securities. We just need new securities laws that allow you to sell and trade tokens in a reasonable way. Okay. allow you to sell and trade tokens in a reasonable way. Okay, so custom regulations, virtual asset service provider regime, whether it sits under

just to update the securities laws to match the reality of how capital is raised in the 21st century. And then and then the SEC totally might be the appropriate party. The problem is the SEC is not giving clarity or guidance or any roadmap on how to do this legally. On that point, Simon, Dave, any final quick comments before I wrap it up? And just for the audience tomorrow, what we're going to be discussing, unless something happens in the markets, is the Animoca news. I'll just read it out right after Dave's. Yeah, I mean, Zach nailed it. I mean, I almost don't need to say a word. I would just say that the reality is there should be a principle-based regulatory regime with rules

that actually work. And unfortunately, when you have a lizard tongue speaking on behalf of the SEC, who on the one hand says three years ago, yeah, we know the rules don't apply and don't work for crypto, and then say, okay, now we have all the rules necessary. The only reason that we have all the rules necessary is that we want to shut it all down. And so the simple reality is rules where issuers can put out disclosures that are meaningful and actually register for raising capital and markets that are a lighter touch rule than this godforsaken Reg NMS rule for national markets and stocks that we have that works because the industry has adapted to it with billions of dollars of cost but is way over

restrictive and doesn't provide benefit. You can't find one person in the TradFi world who thinks that if they had a blank sheet of paper, they would build rules the way we currently have it in equities. So, you know, look, new rules and a lighter touch, a safe harbor is needed. It's why if Kamala was going to do one thing from the Trump, you know, from Trump taxes for tips, okay, whatever. But the one thing that Trump said, which people don't talk about as much, but is the most important is his hundred day. Let's have a real commission. Let's work with the industry. Let's draft rules and get this moving. That idea is, is literally the most important idea. It's been the most important idea since

effectively Hester purse talked about it, uh, under the first Trump administration. And she was ignored by Jay Clayton at that time. On that point, I think we could continue the discussion another day. We're going to have Richard again, CEO of Animoca, on Friday to talk about the news there. Animoca is apparently looking at going public. Let me read out the exact news that came out today. Animoca is considering an IPO in Hong Kong or the Middle East in late 2020. We've been talking about an IPO for a while, but in late 2025 or early 2026, it doesn't seem like it's the best time. They have $300 million in cash and stablecoin reserves, and they've invested in about 540 projects. But it's important to point to something I want to ask Richard about is the

valuation has gone from 6 billion in 2022 to 1.5 billion at present. 2022, that's in the midst of the bear market, isn't it, Simon? 2020. Yeah, that was where we got all the unwinding of all the crypto leverage and ending with FTX in November. FTX was November 2022, right? Yeah, so prior to that, it was like Celsius. We had the Terra Luna was about June, July, I think. Yeah, so in 2022, I'm not sure if it's early or late. I think it plays a big difference. Their valuation was at $6 billion, $5.9 billion to be exact. And now it's down.

I know it's down, but I didn't know it was down to that level. It's $1.5 billion at present, which is going to be an interesting discussion. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about Bybit. I think, Zach, you'd like that one, Bybit. They've announced that they'll establish a new standard for listing tokens and delisting tokens, which requires projects to list key dates such as protocol upgrades, token burns, frozen maturities, et cetera. And they'll formulate a clear delisting standard, including performance metrics, compliance failures, and fraudulent activities.

I think they're being a bit stricter. I think that's one important thing. One thing we've seen in crypto is that VCs follow other VCs. And when you have a respected VC on a cap table, it means it gives credibility to a project. And everyone's like sheep following each other. That's an important point, by the way. That is the whole game of VC investing is the first mover and they all come in and they

all rely on the due diligence of the first one. We've seen that so many times. Exactly. And one of those first movers or one of those indicators that retail looks at even more than VCs is exchanges. And to have exchanges be stricter in what tokens they list and delist. So, for example, any project going on Binance, even OKEx just gets that immediate boost in credibility. And just some others, I don't want to name them. You know, they do the complete opposite.

And when projects list on there, it's kind of a red flag in a way. But yeah, it's good to see Bybit get a bit stricter there. But I think we've discussed everything, Danish. You're a bit late, maybe getting your final quick words, Danish, and wrap up the space on the CPI data earlier today. Nothing exciting,

but I'm sure you'll make it exciting. No, nothing exciting. Okay. Well, I thought you'd spice it up somehow um well any anything any final comments we talked about the carry trade yesterday you missed that one and whether the worst is behind us but maybe getting your thoughts your final rant on whether we're going to see a message a round of liquidations more deleveraging after that carry trade if interest rates are going to continue rising in japan or that's it it's all done and

we should move on no i i think that uh change in policy from Japan is going to pay dividends in about two to three weeks. Keep an eye out. We'll come back on the show and talk about it in detail. All right, bro. I appreciate it. All right, everyone, we'll see you again tomorrow. And we'll have the CEO of Animoca on Friday. Thanks a lot, everybody. Bye-bye.