The Wolf Of All Streets - Major Crypto Bill Passed! Congressman Richie Torres

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

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Scott, how are you? Mario, can you hear me well? Yeah, I can hear you well. Never a dull moment here with me. Oh, okay. Hold on, hold on. Is it working now? I think so. So let's go ahead and we'll try to make it happen. Mate, you know, I never liked you, but now my dislike to you just reached a new level. Well, then I'm winning.

The mic is yours. Let's kick it off. Perfect. Everyone can hear me? Yeah, man. Everyone can is yours. Let's kick it off. Perfect. Everyone can hear me? Yeah, man. Everyone can hear you. Everyone's giving thumbs up. Thank you so much for joining. I know you have a limited time. You've experienced the joy of Twitter spaces for the first time because this is what happens 99% of the time.

But I want to obviously talk about the flight down. Okay, go ahead. It sounds more functional than Congress. And we were, uh, unfortunately watching some of that yesterday for all of those hours. We were holding our breath and waiting to see

what was going to happen. It seemed that the Financial Innovation for Technology Act did quite well past both committees, but there was a bit of a sticking point

on stablecoins. But maybe we could talk about the first one because that seems to be a huge win. Can you give us the broad strokes? Sure. So for the first time in history, Congress, particularly the House of Representatives and the Financial Services Committee, passed legislation regulating digital assets. So the Market Structure Bill draws a distinction

between restricted digital assets, which will be regulated by the SEC, and digital commodities, which will be regulated by CFTC. And it establishes a process by which digital assets can transition from securities regulation to commodities regulation. So a digital asset is presumptively subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC until it's shown to be so decentralized that it can be a commodity. So that's a broad overview of the bill. That actually rings kind of close to what Commissioner Peirce was proposing for years with Safe Harbor. Is it somewhat a similar concept? Yes.

And, you know, the legislation regulates digital assets. It brings regulatory clarity where none exist. It protects both consumers and investors. And it, but more importantly, protects, But more importantly, it just as importantly protects crypto companies from arbitrary enforcement actions on the part of the SEC. So regulation by enforcement not only had a dreadful day in court, it also had a dreadful day in the financial services. Right. Zed, you wrote a letter to Gettler with a ripple hearing very much along those lines. Can you tell us what you think the problems are with their current path of regulation by enforcement that you just mentioned?

I think everyone in our industry sees why it's problematic, but I think there's actually quite a few people who might not understand it who support that approach. Yeah, I'll do my best to explain it, but Mr. Gensler has been engaged in what is known as regulation by enforcement. And I compare Gary Gensler to an overzealous traffic agent who tickets drivers for speeding without telling them the speeding limit. Gensler refuses to reveal the speeding limit. He has not issued a single rule clarifying the application of securities law to crypto assets. He has not issued a single piece of written guidance. There has been mixed messaging between the two market regulators, the SEC and the CFTC. And then there's been mixed messaging within the SEC itself. So the CFTC has said

that Ether is a commodity, whereas the SEC has said otherwise. And then Mr. Gensler has had an ever-changing position on the status of Ether. He originally said it was a know, clarity is the cornerstone of compliance, and the market structure, bro, is going to bring clarity where none currently exists. Scott, just one question I have. Congressman, it's a broad question, but why? Why the lack of clarity? Look, I'm of the view that Mr. Gensler is using the power of the SEC to sabotage the industry. For whatever reason, he feels that crypto should have no right to operate or exist in the United States. And what we've seen from the SEC is not regulation, but the weaponization of the SEC against the crypto industry. So that's my reading of what is unfolding at the SEC.

I'd love to dig in a bit more on why you're so passionate about this issue. I think that there's a view that it's been partisan, but I think that was proven that this is actually a bipartisan issue in your committee, right? But what got you, I guess, passionate about this particular issue? Why do you care? Is it important to constituents in your district? Can you talk a bit more about that? Sure. Well, first, in order for the United States to remain the leader of the free world, we have to be dominant in fields of emerging technologies,

including technologies like blockchain. And for me, blockchain has the potential to be a revolutionary technology. It has the potential to revolutionize finance, creating a better, cheaper, faster payment system, particularly for the lowest income Americans. It has the potential to revolutionize the internet, creating a new layer of the internet known as Web3. And for me, the project of radically decentralizing the internet and finance is profoundly progressive. People should recognize that crypto is a progressive cause or can be a tool for solving problems affecting the most vulnerable people in our society. So I represent the Bronx, which is one of the poorest congressional districts in America.

And my constituents have been left behind by the traditional financial system. I represent people who have to pay exorbitant fees to transfer their own money through check cashiers. About a decade ago, the New York City Consumer Affairs found that low-income New Yorkers in places like the Bronx spend more than $200 million a year to send remittances to their loved ones abroad and to pay check cashing fees. And so I'm excited about crypto and blockchain because an innovation like stablecoin can digitize the dollar. Blockchain can move the dollar in real time. And the combination of stablecoin and blockchain can create a better, cheaper, faster payment system for the lowest income people.

It can liberate the lowest income people from the predatory rent seeking of the traditional financial system. What you described- Oh, this one. Sorry. You mentioned that Gary Gensler is a traffic officer who's enforcing the speed limit without actually telling people what the speed limit is. Isn't that Congress's role to tell people what the speed limit is

or to create the speed limits on the roads? And isn't that the SEC's role to then almost say police or enforce the speed limit. So isn't the problem not actually, you know, maybe the problem is maybe one level up. I mean, I agree with you. The role of Congress, of a legislature is to make the law. The role of the executive is to execute or enforce the law. And the role of the courts is to interpret the law. But what I said in my remarks during the hearing

is that we Congress have ceded far too much authority to the courts and to the regulators. Like the view of some of my colleagues is that we should leave it to the courts and the regulators to figure it out. And my view is that Congress should be at the

forefront of making the law, especially when it comes to an emerging technology like blockchain. Wouldn't the courts only need to act if there was nothing from Congress? I mean, the court is almost like there to say, look, we're enforcing the rules and the laws that Congress make. So, I mean, court can't really act. They can only act on the guidelines that they've been given by Congress. Isn't that how it works? Well, no. The courts would... So, there's a debate about how do traditional securities laws apply to a new technology like digital assets? And there are conflicting interpretations of securities law when it comes to digital assets. And so the Ripple case actually had an ironic outcome.

Judge Torres in the Southern District of New York essentially held that securities law protects institutional investors in an initial coin offering, but it fails to protect retail customers on an exchange. And so we have a status quo in which institutional investors are protected, but retail customers are left exposed. And my argument is that we in Congress have a choice. We can either maintain a status quo that leaves retail customers exposed, or we can change it and fill that gap in investor protection. And I would argue that we should err on the side of change. I would love to dig a bit more into the bipartisan side of this, because as you so aptly put, this should be a huge issue for the progressives. But it seems

that the farther left side of your party, of the Democrat Party, obviously, has been the ones encouraging this regulation by enforcement and all the pushback. Obviously, Elizabeth Warren's anti-crypto army, some rhetoric even from President Biden. Why do you think that the part of the left, I would say, is not understanding how impactful this technology could be for constituents like your own. I might disagree with the premise of the question. My assessment is that the divide on crypto is not so much ideological or partisan as it is generational. I find that younger members like myself are much more open to embracing the innovative possibilities of crypto.

And one of the challenges, one of the problems with Congress is that it's a gerontocracy. Until recently, all of our leaders were at or above the age of 80. Our committee chairs are at or above the age of 70. And I find that the gerontocracy in Congress is much more xenophobic about technology. There's a fear of the unknown. There's a fear of change. I think that's an incredible point and well put. So how do we solve that problem?

And I'm not an ageist, but I do feel like Congress would benefit from a new generation of leadership. And I find younger voters just have the right intuitions about the centrality of technology. To me, that means that we should all be encouraged because whether it takes a year, five years, or 10, that means it's inevitable because eventually, obviously, we'll see regime change as far as age. I agree. As Congress becomes younger, I predict that it will become more open to embracing emerging technology. That's my prediction. only have a few more moments. Can you give us a quick summary of what was happening with the stablecoin bill? Because obviously, it got a lot of the attention, but we had two bills that were both concurrently happening yesterday. So we passed bipartisan legislation that would establish a framework for regulating stablecoins. And the most controversial issue in stablecoins was the state path. So the Federal Reserve felt strongly that there should be federal preemption, that only the

Federal Reserve should be a regulator of stablecoins. And there were a number of members like myself who disagreed, because there's a long tradition of dual regulation, federal and state regulation in the field of financial services. Just like a bank can either have a federal charter or a state charter, a stablecoin issuer should have either a federal license or a state license. And we should preserve the role of states like New York in the field of stable coin regulation. So that was the main controversial issue. But we passed it on a bipartisan basis. And I argue that this is going to reinforce the status of the dollar as a world reserve currency. Congressman, I've got two more quick questions. The first one is, what can the various stakeholders in crypto do to help you

pass those bills? that'll be the first question and then the second question on us and both together because i don't have to jump off second question is to get your thoughts on the um your experience on twitter spaces where you're able to share updates live and get the community listening to you directly so we'd love to get your personal thoughts on that as well. Look, I encourage the crypto community has an extraordinary groundswell of energy. The grassroots energy is extraordinary, but we have to figure out how do we translate that energy into an effective lobby in Washington, DC. And so I would encourage members of the crypto community to engage their members of Congress.

You know, we passed both the market structure bill and the stablecoin bill in the Financial Services Committee in the House. It's going to come to the floor. It's going to be subject to a vote of the full House.

And so I would encourage you to reach out to your members of Congress and make the case for those two bills because the broader the bipartisan support, the better. And then reach out to your members of Congress and make the case for those two bills, because the broader the bipartisan support, the better. And then reach out to your senators, because the bills are going to have a complicated path in the Senate, given the opposition that you cited earlier. Thank you, Congressman, so much for your time. I know that you have to go. We really do appreciate it. And we will be doing all that we can to get

everybody to help us through. I think it's always encouraging to hear one of our representatives tell us that we actually have a voice and that we actually can help. So I encourage everybody to do exactly what he said, and that is do what I do on a regular basis, which is annoy my family members constantly with letters. Thank you so much for your time, sir. Take care. Great. Obviously, I see, David, you have your hand up. I don't know if you had a specific comment, but please feel free to go ahead.

Well, I just wanted to say I'm unhappy that the representative had to run, but I really wanted to thank him because he is one of the standout members of Congress that has really done his homework about crypto. And he has made an educated position on the matter. And I think there's a lot of members of Congress, unfortunately, that have not taken the time to educate themselves about this. And I'm not simply saying that because of how he's falling out on the matter in terms of his support. He really knows. In his hearings, I've watched many of them. He has asked very intelligent questions and has really been a thoughtful voice for support for the crypto community. David, on that point, before you go to number two, do you think it's too little too late? Do you think that the damage done by Gensler has just scared everyone out of the US and will take us a while to get innovators, to get creators, to get builders and investors back into the country? I don't think it's too late. I think it's late,

but that's the way we work here in the United States for better and for worse sometimes, that we've got a system that requires generally consensus and it takes time for things to wind their way through the Congress know, the Congress. They've got a lot of things that they need to go ahead and take care of. And they have limited bandwidth. And at the same time, unfortunately, sometimes when we're in election years, there's really not much that gets done. And we get a lot of gridlock. So it is what it is.

I don't think it's the short answer is I don't think it's too late. I think it's a good step. Certainly, this isn't a panacea, and I don't know if this is going to go. David, you dropped out. Spuller, who is here, he's the one who's been helping me extremely aggressively on behalf of the Blockchain Association to get a lot of these amazing politicians. We've had Suarez coming next Monday, by the way, for anybody who doesn't know, at 10.15, we're going to have a solo show with Mayor Francis Suarez, who's also running for president. Dan facilitated that, and obviously, Congressman Torres today. So we got to go to you. A, thank you. But B, first, what do you think of his thoughts? And second, obviously, at the Blockchain Association,

you're probably closer to all of this on both sides of the aisle. Do you feel like we're going to make real progress here? This is the first time, and I think there's really a glimmer of hope. I think we are making progress. And again, thanks, Scott, Mario, for... I think we are making progress and again thanks Scott Mario for Did Dan just drop out as well Scott? Yeah I did Dan I think someone called you as well While waiting for Dan to do the

the success success rally for You knew what I'm trying to say. Success rally. I want to go back to David who came out earlier. David, I'll let you finish what you were saying before we go back to Dan.

David, Dan. All right, it seems space is a glitchy today. Alex, go ahead, man. Well, I can't take a victory lap for the Blockchain Association, but there is a glimmer of hope. I know you said, is it too little too late? I agree with David.

In the U.S., things just take time. I know we have Cody Carbone on here. He's our policy director. He's been on the ground. I think the last month we visited 25 congressional offices, specifically Democrats, to get them on board. Richard Torres is a wonderful advocate of the space. But I'm very optimistic the u.s gets it right we're working hard along with the blockchain association obviously uh to uh

to make sure that these things pass these these laws pass we have a long path ahead of us in the senate uh like the representative talked about but look, we're optimistic. The point is, and I try to hammer this point home all the time, the time to fight for the industry is now. The US is the biggest market in the world. We can get the US right. So the time to get engaged, there is no, we need to have a little bit of a man in the mirror moment. Look yourself in the mirror, look yourself in the eye and say, if you believe in crypto and you you're buying it for whatever reason you're here you know have you done all that you can do and the answer is no and you can do more call a representative donate support uh you know spread some of the policy news that us

flopchill association other to do it it's very very important it's really really important to come together as an industry right now There is no other time just like I just I wonder I don't want to be it's good But it's good to see that. I don't know if you feel it's got like just there's a sentiment is just shifting We're seeing those two bills Get closer to passing. We saw the XRP ruling as well Just a few weeks ago. We're all doom and gloom with the with Gensler and the SEC And so I'm pretty optimistic, man.

It seems pretty bullish, even though the prices don't reflect that. The prices, look, I mean, the prices will come, right? The bull market is, I won't comment, but it's probably starting, right? But it takes some time. The point is, in the US, we need regulation for the institutions to come in. We, Blockchain Association, others are working to get that regulation. What's at some place? Alex, I just want to, on that point of price, Dave, Mikko, when do you think we start seeing that this all impact the market? We obviously saw the XRP ruling benefit a lot of the Yelts,

but that was relatively short-lived. I didn't see much movement with those two bills getting closer to passing. Any thoughts on that, Mikkel, Dave? I know, Scott, you want to add on to that as well? Yeah, I was just going to say real quick, I'm optimistic on the United States for the two main reasons is one, the courts seem to be getting it right. And the courts are not just blindly accepting what the regulators are saying. And two, the legislation that's being passed is coming from people who are pro-crypto. And that's one of the benefits of how this whole system works. The people who are anti-crypto just simply don't care enough or aren't smart enough to actually write these bills that can actually hurt the industry.

Or they're just too lazy to actually put their time and effort into that. The people who care about this industry and the people who want to see it prosper are the ones creating the legislation right now. And I think that's really bullish for what we're going to see when we finally do get rules for this industry. And David, I'm not sure if you're with us yet. I know you cut out earlier. Is it working now on your end, David? Yeah. Hey, David. Yeah. I know you've got, I know you had more things to say, but can I ask you just for people that weren't there earlier, can you just sum up, what do these two bills do for the average investor or the average builder here in the US? David? Yeah, I don't want to be the guy that comments on that, frankly.

I will leave that to somebody else. No problem. And I'll give you the mic because I know you cut out earlier before we go to Dave and Ron. Oh, no. The only thing I was going to ask Representative Torres was why under the bill is the default to the SEC and then if something gets decentralized enough gets kicked over to the CFTC, especially in light of the difficulty that he, I mean, he called it out very loudly. The difficulty that he has with the way Gensler has run his approach to regulating the sector. to me that if the bill passes and the default is to this SEC and needs to be taken out only upon sufficient decentralization, it's going to be a land grab by the SEC and I wonder if that's a disappointing

thing. And Ron, are you with us? Have you looked into those bills? How much do you know about them? We have the Blockchain Association and I saw the Digital Chamber of Commerce folks and plenty of others, and actually some of them are on the Twitter space, were involved behind the scenes

on the legislation for quite some time. The same one I asked David is, can you repeat again, I know Congressman talked about it earlier, is what does that mean for the average builder? How will that benefit the US? It's kind of simplifying it for the US. Yeah, sure, thanks. At a high level here, it provides that clarity.

I mean, we talked about the SEC's role and the CFTC's role, but as we were talking about right now, it is a land grab currently because there really are no rules in place. The SEC hasn't provided guidance and we have enforced actions that really overlap with each other with certain agencies calling certain things commodities and then calling the same things securities with the SEC. So, this provides bright line rules and that's important. And I think, yes, the SEC has a role here. You know, again, sometimes there's a situation that these are securities, but we seem to move over to commodities or we see a situation where they become decentralized. And so I think it's a really important thing to have. Again, it's not perfect by any means,

but it's a really good right line test that provides that clarity that we just currently don't have. And again, I want to stress, six Democrats in financial services bucked the leadership in their own party to vote for this bill. And also, they bucked the SEC's talking points that there's no need for legislation. That's huge. And these are progressives, moderates, and very senior Democrats, too. And I think that's a very important thing to highlight when we have folks like Jim Himes, who have a lot of respect for their colleagues. And I think that gives it some legs in the Senate. But it's going to be a long pathway as out. So interesting.

So one big benefit that we're going to get is the clarity of when something is a security and when it's a commodity, correct? Which has been a battle for years now. Exactly. And again, it's not looking like it's going to improve anytime soon. And the hope that there's only regulation by enforcing here, that could end with this legislation. Again, it still has a long ways to go. But this is the first time we've seen good bipartisan legislation. And the Congress that really passes any bills these days is good bipartisan.

Is that common to see that land grab between the CFTC and the SEC and that lack of clarity in other industries that are nascent? Did we see that in the internet era, for example, between different institutions? Yes, we did. And we saw actually the Democrats were actually on the pro-internet side and Republicans were anti-internet back in the 90s. We'll see how this plays out with AI. That's kind of starting to percolate right now.

But mind you, we were going against the banks, the consumer groups, the SEC, the White House, and the crypto industry got actually several wins here in terms of bipartisan support. Again, there is putting regulations on the industry itself, which some may not like, but that's what it looks like for progress. This is what we need for a framework. You got to put rules on the books that have not existed. And so the industry got several wins here. That's a lot of years of efforts here and good staff work. And the members of Congress educating themselves to your point. The last thing I'll highlight, I was at the hearing for both of them for quite some time. You'll see the ones who were actually pro the regulation framework were actually not even reading from the script. They were well educated enough to talk about this on the fly. Those who had to defend the SEC talking points had to really just read off the page

because they weren't educated enough to really defend their own points. And so I think it's really important. Richie Torres when he spoke, he was always off script. He was always talking about it from passion. And it was really exciting to see. And again, Republicans, very much so as well. We see a lot of education really

paying off. And the next question I have, Ron, very much so as well. We see a lot of education really paying off. And the next question I have, Ron, is, man, I just had one more question to you before going to Dave. I just forgot what it was. Let me go to Dave, Ron. I had one more question about the bill, but I'll ask you right after Dave speaks. Go ahead, Dave. Yeah, I mean, I want to answer your question directly. I mean, the reason the price isn't moving is that we're now stuck in a situation where the long-term believers and holders in Bitcoin, et cetera, are increasing, increasing, increasing. It's one of the most ridiculous, the right charts you'll ever see. Yet the speculation is dying down because every time speculators FOMO in, nobody follows them and the price comes back

down. And people call that a coiled spring. But if you listen to what Ron was just saying, you understand why. I mean, there was the news last night that the White House specifically was objecting to the stable coin bill. They passed it out of committee anyway. There is obviously the issue that the SEC will be involved. They're going to be involved. Now, they're going to be forced not to do regulation by enforcement, forced to write rules. But people who understand and have read any piece of the 2,000 plus pages of rules

that the SEC has put out in the last six months understand that the devil's in the details. And they can hold this up from rulemaking to where people get clarity for quite some time so there it's it's not out of the woods yet it is however a massively positive step to do not enforcement because it means builders can at least start and the safe harbor is a very big deal when and if that gets passed yeah that will be a very big deal but i think people in the market at this point are conditioned to say, eh, I'm not going to speculate. I'm going to wait for the ink to be dry. And I think that's why the market is doing what it's doing

in a certain sense. And I think they're also waiting for one potential positive white swan or one black swan event, right? We don't talk about it, but the DOJ and Binance is a potential black swan and an ETF approval from BlackRock and Binance is a potential black swan, and an ETF approval from BlackRock and Fidelity is a white swan. And people are just waiting, and that's why we're stuck where we are. Yeah. I remember the question, Ron, and something I'm always confused about is everything is getting polarized. How the hell did this become Democrats versus Republicans, and why? Actually, I wouldn't say it was Democrats versus Republicans. I say that there was a lead Democrat, which is Maxine Waters, for the stablecoin bill, for example. And she's going to defer to the regulators, the experts, the subject matter experts here.

And allegedly, again, she almost got onto the stablecoin bill if it wasn't for that literally midnight call from the White House and the NEC, it seemed like, to push back on that. But even again, even though she was the lead Democrat, usually you follow the lead in the House. You defer to the chairwoman or the chairman of your party. Five senior members of the Democrat Party bucked that on stablecoins and six on market structure. And then for the Agriculture Committee, which is important to highlight, they voted that by voice vote. They all said, yes, let's move this forward, all Democrats and all Republicans. So I wouldn't say actually it's a Democrat versus Republican issue.

It's actually been pretty bipartisan here. And the ones that bucked their own party on the Democrat side especially deserve a lot of praise because politically, that's really tough. You get some political backlash when you do that. And they said, I'll take the political backlash to show that, hey, this is not working. The status quo isn't. And whether you like crypto or hate crypto, we need to have a regulatory framework. And that message is resonating. And we've seen this again and again. The SEC is losing the narrative war very badly. They had a moment in 2023 in the early parts of really dominating. And they are slipping in the courts. They're slipping in Congress. And I think that's going to continue for quite some time. The legislation's slow, but as we've seen with the Ripple case, if there is an appeal, that's going to be several more

years too. So I think legislation might be the fastest way, even though it is slow sometimes. And Cody, I know you've got your hand up, but I want to ask you a question before you make your points as well. Just looking at this, all the news that we've seen over the past few weeks and months, it just seems bullish on top of bullish news, yet liquidity is still not there. VC funding is still drying up. Just today, I saw that Sequoia reduced their crypto fund from like, I think it was like 500 to 200 million, from 580 million to 200 million. Yet we see regulatory clarity. We see the SEC getting bruised, especially with the XRP ruling. Obviously, we've got Wall Street getting

into crypto, the ETF, and all the big guys jumping in, especially BlackRock. Why that disparity? Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. I think the issue is that people have gotten burnt too many times. We've had so many moments throughout the history of crypto where we've had a string of good news, but then it's not followed up by regulatory clarity. And while we still have these good news in the courts, and we have this legislation moving forward, and we're taking a victory lap, we still have a very long way to go. Nothing has happened yet. I was a little discouraged yesterday that even though these bills have moved forward, I spent my time with the Chamber of Digital Commerce talking to members that were off the House Ag and House Financial Services Committee. Another 400 members in the

House who are not focused on these issues every day. And the sentiment and the narratives that we received from those members of Congress were, wait, isn't crypto dead? We're still talking about this. And so there's still so much education that needs to be done outside of the members of Congress were, wait, isn't crypto dead? We're still talking about this. And so there's still so much education that needs to be done outside of the members of these two committees who focus on this every day. Yes, now these bills have gone through, but now it's open to the entire House to vote through these bills. So if we truly want to see passage and we want to see laws enacted, then we're going to have to educate the rest of the committees because there's so much work left to be done. They're following their talking points, not from members of their own party, not from the administration, but they're following talking points from the media who just reports on

the SBS of the world. And I'll add one point that Ron added on the polarization of this and Democrats versus Republicans. I think one thing to always keep in mind is that Democrats are very protective of the administration. And although the SEC and the CFTC are independent agencies, they were still Democratic appointees by the Biden administration. So when you've got a Democratic head of an agency and Gary Gensler saying, I do not like this bill, it is very, very unique for members of the Democratic Party to go against him. And I think that's what we're seeing, that even though the courts are kind of pinning him down a little bit, and it's waking up and motivating some Democrats in the side of the aisle, as we saw with the six who supported the FIT bill, it's going to be very hard for the party as a consensus to oppose one

of their own. Noelle, good to have you. Noelle, can you hear me? Sorry, I hit the wrong button there. Great to be here, Meredith. Thank you very much. Thanks. Now, I want to follow on with what you were talking about, why crypto is not reacting to this. First of all, I do want to say that I generally don't follow too closely. I mean, I keep an eye on it, but I don't get excited about a lot of the regulatory proposals around crypto going forward because there's a lot of noise, a lot of noise, and nothing much happens. But this is the first time I am getting really excited. I've never been so excited. Huge kudos to everyone here today who's helped make that happen, huge respect to Representative Torres for his role in this. On the timing, Representative Torres said, and many others have reiterated,

it takes a long time, which is why we are not seeing any move in the price just yet. Everyone realizes they've got time. Plus, there's still quite a lot of risk. There are shoes to drop, as Dave was hinting, many more even that we're not even talking about. And there is still no certainty that we're going to get the ETF approval. Volume is low, liquidity is low, and that is a significant risk for institutional investors. It adds the slippage risk if they were to come in, definitely the exit liquidity risk where they decide to leave. I don't think we're going to see price moves at an interesting level until volume, liquidity and volatility start to tick up. It's summer,

it's unlikely it's going to happen anytime in the next few weeks. And Ran, since we're talking about price, are you there? Before I go to Leo. Sure. Hey man, give us a bit of a market update, man. Like, surprisingly, we kind of lost the game. Mario, I can't even give you a pricing update because it's just so boring.

It's like, take yesterday's update, the update from the day before and the update from the day before and the update from the day before and the update from the day before and it's all exactly the same. But what if you take

more steps back and you go back all the way to the ETF news that we've been covering for the past few weeks? The price has been hovering between $29,000 and $31,000 now for 40 days.

There's really, really, really not much happening. I think the volatility is at an all-time low again. It just keeps going lower and lower and lower. There's just zero volatility. I think the volatility is at an all-time low again. It just keeps going lower and lower and lower. There's just zero volatility. And I think the market's waiting for directions. I mean, we can't just argue this debate again, but to me, when everybody's expecting the market to go down,

which is what 80% of people are expecting, I think that's when the market shocks people and goes up. Traditional markets generally flying, and it doesn't look like they're gonna stop anytime and leia how are you i'm great thanks for having me laria it's been a while um i want to get your thoughts on uh just general sentiment on the industry and all the news we've been seeing over the past few weeks and months and also on a slowly pivot to the news yesterday around uh spf i'm glad david's here as well um i'm not sure if you've been following the case closely but I know yesterday's announcement was a bit shocking so maybe you give us some thoughts on the market

in general and your sentiment and then pivot to to the news around SPF. Yeah absolutely so just on the regulation front because obviously you know that's what we've been talking about. We heard the news with XRP. I think I'm not sure who mentioned it earlier, but America is certainly taking its time when it comes to providing some clarity for the crypto world. And I think it's quite concerning, just because America has this mentality that it's always at the forefront of innovation, the world's going to follow America. America is a superpower. But I think they're just so arrogant, unfortunately. I think regulators are extremely arrogant and not realizing that we live in a new digital world and people don't really need to be situated in America. You know, we can do business with Americans. We can do business with anyone, anywhere in the world,

but we don't have to be situated there. And so as they prolong this clarity and as they prolong the regulation, but we don't have to be situated there. And so as they prolong this clarity, and as they prolong the regulation, they're just going to be pushing more and more innovation offshore. And that's what we're seeing anyway, which causes further problems. And so that's my biggest concern with all of this. It's that America is going to fall behind dramatically. We still don't have clarity over the spot ETF. I can't remember who mentioned that earlier. And so it's that lack of clarity, which I think is going to push a lot of people offshore.

In terms of SBF, I don't know whether I'm surprised or if I'm or whether it's expected, but it's just taken them so long to to to to i'm trying to think of the word it's just taken them so long to actually crack down on what's happened that it just doesn't surprise me um you know i made a tweet about how ross albrecht made a website and he's been given two life sentences somebody steals millions um from retail from retail traders and is basically just given a slap on the wrist. I guess that's what happens when you donate $93 million to Democrats. Leah, what do you think is the fate of SPF when all this is said and done? How do you see his sentence playing out?

Certainly not two life sentences. I did think that I would see two life sentences at first, but no, I think it's going to be a bit of a slap on the wrist, unfortunately. What do you think, Ram? What do you think? Six months in six months house arrest? Or do you think I'm being too harsh? No, I think you're completely right. I think, yes, six months in jail.

Hold on, why did you get six months jail? Yeah, maybe not. Maybe just the house arrest. Hold on a minute. No, no, that's not what I mean. Why only six months? Like, you know, there's still seven charges

around fraud left. I think, as I said the other day when we were here on the spaces, it's seven, seven becomes six, six becomes five, five becomes four.

But right now it's still the set but right now still seven Yeah, I think they've dropped you right two out of seven two out of nine. Yes We're up to we were only in the first inning David. We're the David is it is it Sorry, right now just when I on that particular point that Iran is saying that we've dropped two already We could keep dropping them Is it common to have two charges like the following that the ones we saw with Sam dropped is that something a common occurrence or you know are we going down the conspiracy side or Ross Ulbricht didn't get two charges dropped against him how many charges did he have

I don't remember but it wasn't that many I I want to check it out. And then you also have to compare the difference in what they did. Ross Ulbricht created a website. He created a free market, of course, then for criminals to do as they wish. But he just created a free market. Whereas this guy actually stole millions, billions, I think, sorry, you know, from the average person and then donated that money to the Democrats. And then I believe they still haven't, they haven't given that money back, right? They're just still sitting on it.

I think, yes, some of them did. Most of them didn't. But he did. There's a 14-day refund policy at Walmart, friends. You go and get your money back after 14 days. So hold on, I've got, okay. So Ross Ulbricht, he had 10 he had seven charges and then three added afterwards. He was found guilty on all seven charges, so none of them were dropped.

They were originally filed against him. And then the three additional ones were dropped before trial, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment and possibility of parole. Just quickly, just check on the same article, just check how much Ross a little bit donated to the Democrats. Okay. So the charges that he faced were engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiracy to distribute narcotics, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents,acy to commit computer hacking.

So he essentially created the website. He was, it seems he was blamed for whatever was on the website. I need to look further into the case. It's been a long time. David, have you, I don't know if you know much about Ross's case. I'm probably, you're more on top of Sam's one. I want to get your thoughts. Do you agree with the general narrative that the donations play a role?

Because I remember having those debates back during the FTX space. And I was was one of the few that says i don't think the charges will have much impact considering how big the crime is in the world is watching um am i the naive one or am i uh am i uh david silver am i am i um am i the logical one first of all thanks for having me back it's been a while you know i had to decompress a little bit after all the ripple rounds. No, I mean, anyone would have to be insane. This is just simple. If you lay with dogs, you get fleas. Politicians do

not want to be investigated for the $100 million he funneled into donations over the last three years. I think it's totally the money. It's totally the politicians, Department of Justice. This would be such a mess for everybody when they unwound and see who got the $100 million. First of all, he wasn't just bribing the Democrats. He was bribing the

Republicans. It was both parties. This was bad for everybody. But how the one. Yes, they drop charges all the time. So that's not unusual. What's a little bit unusual here is it's not really the Department of Justice who dropped this charge. And I said, by the way, I thought this was the most lethal charge of all of them. But they're saying that they're only dropping this because the Bahamas are saying as part of the extradition agreement, they have approval of what charges get brought. So to me, there's so much weirdness here. And there's so many people who didn't want to see these particular charges go through. This is not shocking. The only thing I will say, he's spending a lot more time than six months in jail.

We're not saying six months in six months. I think that was brand new come on come on dave come on tell me tell me how much money tell me how much time sam i wanna and i wanna i wanna remember this i wanna i wanna get this i'm telling you he's not spending more than six months in the jail he may be sentenced to i don't know 12 months or 18 months three years or whatever but he'll get out on good behavior and he'll be out in six months hold on david david don't fall for this trap. Don't give a number yet.

Ran, I want to give you a different argument. Let me know what you think. Don't politicians want to distance themselves? Don't politicians, they don't want to get involved in this mess. Why would they be sticking up for a guy that's a criminal that everyone's hating right now? Because Mario, I mean,

for a guy that's been doing spaces for a long time, I would imagine that you know exactly what's going on here. I would imagine this is not your first time seeing what's going on here. This is a pure case of corruption. This is a pure case of you give the Democrats money, you cannot get charged. It's like I watch what's going on in the United States as an outsider. But there's still seven charges and only two of them were dropped he was extradited people were saying but the argument back then

was like hey he won't get extradited they'll never extradite him he'll be in bahamas he'll end up in whatever country and he'll he'll be in hiding like whatever the luna guy and say sitting on the wall and if one little monkey should accidentally fall there'll be six charges there'll be five charges and then there'll be four and then you'll be charged for four and you know for the wolf but you're not you're not asking the round round you're not asking the question you're avoiding the question though why would they dirty themselves that a criminal funded them a criminal that's hated that the world is watching all eyes on them the last thing they want is a text message or a call leaked in which they're trying to influence the investigation and their career is over.

Why not distance themselves and just throw them to the wolves? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because daddy, daddy and Gary Gensler have very close ties. Daddy and Gary Gensler's ex-boss

have very close ties. Mommy has very close ties. But close ties. With other people. Close ties. They only go so ties. Mommy has very close ties. But close ties. With other people. Close ties. They only go so far. They only go so far. Look at what's going on in the chat here

and how many hundreds people are starting to listen to you. Ryan is correct. No, because you're fine. I'll give you the mic right after because you're a really good speaker and it's going to be hard for me to argue with you. Ryan's a bit easier and he's nicer. So, Ryan, the reason everyone is giving me a thumbs up

is because you're you're saying something that everyone believes in and I can say the same thing also get thumbs up but I genuinely believe and I could be wrong and again

I could be the naive one here I genuinely believe that Sam fucked up so badly that they're not going to touch this it was it was a small

who fucked up worse who fucked up worse Sam or Hunter Biden with a laptop who fucked up worse yeah but you're comparing the son of a president to a random crypto guy that made a bunch of money it's a bit different Who fucked up worse? Who fucked up worse? Sam or Hunter Biden with a laptop? Who fucked up worse? Yeah, but you're comparing the son of a president to a random crypto guy that made a bunch of money. It's a bit different.

It's not a random crypto guy, Mario. Yeah, they're both insiders. One is the son of a president. The one is the son of a sitting president. They're in the inner circle. They're in the club and you're not in it. Hi, Mario. Hey, Gideon, how are you?

Yeah, very good. Hi everyone. Hello, hello. Thanks for having me. I think Ryan is hitting the nail on the head and I was waiting for it to get to this conversation. At the end of the day, I don't believe SBF will spend any time in jail because he's part of the secret club. He's in the homogeneous network.

No, he will spend some time no i don't think he will wrap sometimes in the whole but the jail will be a jail it feels like a college no it is it is his show as much as mine unfortunately so we have to we have to bear with it gideon unfortunately hold on so can i just finish my point, please? He's in the homogeneous network. And what that means is he's very, very connected. If something were to happen where he does get sentenced and he's in some kind of jail, it's going to disrupt so many relationships. His family's very wealthy and connected. They're not going to let this happen to him.

The whole Luna situation with convicting Do Kwon, that's slightly different. He's nowhere near as connected as the SBS family. And it will just destroy many relationships. When you're in the homogeneous network, you can get away with murder. It's crazy. And we see that with so many other huge players on Wall Street. He's just another classic example. So I don't think he'll spend any time.

They'll just drag this out until the media find something else to talk about and shove that down all our throats. And then one weekend when there is a war that the U.S. orchestrate, that on the Friday before the weekend, all the PR that gets arranged on that Friday, quietly, the judge will drop two more wow hold on right right i was about to have a slam dunk against you and gideon i was so happy i was preparing myself and i'm like how much did bernard madoff bernie madoff donate to uh politicians and uh with uh sam it's tens of millions i'm like i'm sure madoff's gonna be more no joke The total donated, unless Bayard is wrong, Google's chat GPT, the total donated was less than half a million dollars to federal candidates' parties and committees. versus dark money that went in. So the amount of money they donated to individual politicians, because it sounds very small, I think Sam only donated, because you're capped at like $2,500, $5,000 a candidate, depending on elections.

It's the dark money that Sam put in through his mom, ran an organization. He donated the $40, $50 million to the third parties. When you watch a commercial and it's not a candidate commercial, it's an outside business commercial, you can donate as much money as you want. What about the COVID vaccine campaign? What about the donations made to the COVID vaccinations campaign? Do you remember that? The SPF donations to the COVID vaccine research. Do you remember that? yeah that's dark money so the amount of money you have to look up for

for how much Bernie Madoff but David so you've given me my slam dunk because now I can say to Gideon and Ren is like hey Madoff was even more powerful than SPF and he ended up spending his life in jail the slam dunk Mario which I think you're right about, but I think the slam dunk is simple.

This charge, and David Silver is the one who taught us this, he said this many times, this charge that got dropped, the discovery that would have gone along with this charge would have been unbelievably embarrassing to a huge swath of politicians. And so to the extent that they can distance him and throw him under the bus, which they do need to do, and you can see it in a lot of other things, they just want to throw them under the bus without the bus running themselves over.

And I think that's what's going on here, right? I mean, David, am I crazy? No, it's 100% exactly what's going on. This would have been bad for not just Democrats, but Republicans too. This was bad for everybody. He wasn't, there's the, I forget the movie, you know, it said like, you know, some old guy is running for like Congress and the guy loses the election. He's like, I don't understand.

I was, he paid me. I don't understand why you ruined my campaign. It's because the bad guy was paying off both candidates and he didn't care who won. Sam's the same way. SBF was paying off both candidates and he didn't care if we won. Sam's the same way. SBF was paying off both sides. This would be so embarrassing. Everyone wanted to walk away from this. David, can I ask you a quick question before we go to David Tawil?

How corrupt is the judicial system? Because obviously I cover a lot of topics and I generally get guests that are very critical, especially with what we're seeing with Trump and others over the last few months. I know there's corruption. I think you'd be an idiot to think there is no corruption, but is it as corrupt as people make it out to be, especially the claims we're making in the crypto world around SBF?

Can SBF spend a few tens of millions and he's got pretty much full immunity no matter how badly he fucked up? Because that sounds to be really far-fetched like we're talking about the usc we're not talking about some random um poorer country i had dinner with michael turpin wednesday night and michael was making the pitch about how corrupt the judges were and i guess call me naive call me optimistic i said absolutely not i am not buying that the judges can be bought and paid for here. Are there going to be a couple of bad eggs out here?

Sure, maybe. But there's no way in this instance the judge is being, there's no way. I don't believe it. And, you know, as much as I've become a conspiracy theorist a little bit over the last couple of years, there's no way in this instance that we're going to see in these high-profile cases that Juggler is going to be bought off. What do we need to agree on? Mario, you made a point about Bernie Madoff versus SBF.

You said Bernie Madoff stole way more money. And that's true. I think it was like $80 billion. The difference, in my opinion, versus Bernie Madoff versus SBF, Bernie Madoff pissed off way more bigger players he had money from all the banks around the world both city of london wall street he had all the pension funds he had so many wealthy retired retirees in florida who put all their money with him spf had retail money mainly that's who he had he had my he had your money, he had the average Joe.

So they don't- and here's the thing, the prosecutors, the regulatory bodies, they don't give a fuck about the average Joe. She's incredible, I'll smart giddy on your- It's just a- that's a charity. If you be a- You're getting married, US citizen. They will come up, but they don't care when you take average Joe's money. So that's why SPF will not face the wrath Bernie Madoff faced.

It's incredible how smart Gideon is. You can't agree. You can't agree. I'm going to give you the mic, Mr. Tawil. You can't agree with both Mr. Silver and Gideon. They both made different points, Fran. You're playing both sides just like a politician, Fran. Gideon's

absolutely right, Jake. He knows how the game... You know, the difference here is Gideon Gideon Gideon's absolutely right Jake Gideon's absolutely right he knows how the game you know the difference here is Gideon's not not afraid to he's not he's not sucked into the system he's an outsider oh don't play that card don't play that card I don't know I'm knowing it because I was there on the beach I'm just watching the game I see he's watching it and he's got he's got clarity exactly about the game that is being played. Most Americans don't see the game. None of us have any eyes to the game. And we try to.

We try to dissect the limited information we have. But unless you're behind the scenes, unless you're talking to those people, unless you are Sam or those close to him, I don't think we'll ever know. But my question and David, I'm going to give you the mic. And I know we're digressing, but it's such an interesting conversation. If you look at Epstein, for example, I think we all agree that he was more powerful than Sam. Yet he was thrown to the wolves. Even worse would be ending up in jail. Ending up in jail.

Because he had big people around him. He was big people around him. He wasn't retail investor, Mickey mouse might be $500 a thousand dollars But you can make by Sam was big too, but he didn't lose their money. He fucked up in other ways And the same way my Both ways right you can't you can't have it But I think first of all everyone that's a pine very seriously about us system Other than David silver is a non-U.S. citizen, right?

I would like to give the point of view of a U.S. citizen on two things that have been said by international folks, and nothing against international people opining on the U.S. I respect the objective point of view to see the U.S. for what it is. However, I think I do take an objective point of view, even being a U.S. citizen. First of all, I don't think the judiciary is as corrupt as you want to go ahead and paint it to be. There may be one judge here or there. Certainly, there are situations of corruption, I think, at lower levels. High profile cases, federal cases, I don't believe are corrupt because, frankly, there are too many whispers around that would get out and you would be destroyed. You would destroy not only the system, you would also destroy your career. And I don't believe that it is necessarily rampant in terms of corruption. I believe in the case of FTX, by the way, remember all of these politicians that you

say are influencing the judiciary in terms of their decision, their voters matter to them. They are the ones that leave them in office and have their job security, not necessarily the money. Oh, they need the money for their campaigns. But at the end of the day, they need the votes. FTX creditors and investors, it's the largest bankruptcy that this country has ever seen in terms of how many people have been burned. That numerosity is very, very important to legislators. And I don't think they're going to stop on this one. And I do think they're ready to throw Sam Bankman Freed under the bus because frankly, the guy's got no future, even if they do give him some leniency.

So I don't believe there that there really is anything but a very long sentence waiting for Sam Bank to be free. And they're on a point made much earlier by Leia. Put a number on the sentence, David. Put a number on the sentence. 20 plus years. I agree, David. And how much of it will he serve, David? 15 plus. I'd say 10 plus. David,

I wish the world operated the way you think it operates. Unfortunately, he won't serve any time. It's just the way the world works. The regulatory bodies, the federal state, they don't care about the retail investors. Like I said, you have to piss off the big players. Take JP Morgan's money. Take Bank of America's money. What should we do? Should we do a financial bet on this one? Ran, should we do a financial bet, all of us?

Let's do a whole pool. I think I'll be making a bit of money from this. Ran, should we do it? No one can tell the future, Gideon. I mean, I understand your argument. You understand my argument. Let's put something. Should we do it? being the center of, I don't know, world financial markets. I'm old enough, thankfully, at this point to remember when we were told Hong Kong is going to be the center of finance many, many times over. I do believe that there is talent running away from the United States as a result of the current uncertainty surrounding crypto regulation. But I can assure you there's more money here

than anywhere else in the world. And I think even though I would argue otherwise to scare the shit out of regulators that better get their, you know, butts into high gear to, you know, prove regulation so that the talent gets back here. I believe I would, I'm willing to bet that the talent runs back here. The money runs back here as soon as the regulatory landscape is clear. Yeah, I'll just respond to that, David. I understand what you're saying. You know, you've heard this all before.

However, if I may say, times are a little different. I'm not sure of what time you were talking about, but there was a time where you had to be situated in these big cities, you know, in order to make the money to make your mark in whatever industry it is. But technology is moving fast. in order to make the money to to make your mark in whatever industry it is but times like technology is moving fast we don't need to be situated major cities anymore in fact even if raters do get their act together what what what incentive do people have to want to stay in these major cities even tax purposes there are far more friendlier places to live and people are moving they're leaving and so i i'm not really bullish on this on the future of america for that reason they can get they can get

that act together with regulation but in general moving far more to um more of an authoritarian uh a way of being taxes are increasing um you know we saw lockdowns and things like that. People don't want that anymore. You know, CBDCs, because working on their CBDC, just like many other different countries. And so we don't need to be situated in these places anymore. We actually now, technology has actually given us the free to leave and go wherever we want to go, wherever, you know, we're benefited, wherever we have the most.

Yeah, let's see. Let's see if the audience agrees with Gideon and Leia and Ran, the Ran crew, or my crew with David and David. I think my crew is a lot stronger. And I'm going to have... Well, do you have any... Yeah, you do have Bruce. Bruce is going to be in your crew.

Yeah, hold on. And Ron, are you in my crew, Ron, before we go to Bruce? Just so I know, because Bruce is tough. I need to balance it out. Ron, or are you in Rand's crew? If you're in Rand's crew, I'm screwed. No, I'm in your crew. All right, cool.

All right, perfect, perfect. All right, cool. So I got Ron. I'm pretty comfortable. Bruce, you go and then Ron, and then we'll see if my camp or Rand's camp. And in the comments, let us know if you're in my camp or Rand's camp. Rand is already too chicken to do a financial bet on this one. We'll see if he changes his mind. I hold him to this financial you just name the number all

right i'll we'll do that anyone i just amari i just want to comment on what leah said and also about the whole crypto bill and innovation in america i think leah makes a really good point both leah and i as you might be aware we live in florida so we're english but we live in america and we really like America. And for years and years and years, for over 100 years, America has been the dominant player in the world. It has the most sophisticated and complex market. Everybody wants to sell to Americans. When you run ads on the internet, you get paid the most if you sell to Americans, because they have the most disposable income. So we know America is the greatest, but Leia makes a good point. America is getting too cocky, too big headed because technology has made the world globalized

and I don't need to be in Miami. I like Miami, but I don't need to be here. I can be anywhere in the world and operate my business. Same thing with Ran Nuna. Look how successful Ran Nuna is. He's all the way at the bottom of Africa. He doesn't need to be in New York on Wall Street. He doesn't need to be in downtown LA or on wall street he doesn't need to be in downtown la or miami or chicago he can be wherever he wants we can work anywhere so if america get too cocky and continue to act the way they act with crypto we don't understand it and it's it's this it's that and it's it's for bad actors then all the money will just leave the would leave leave America and go offshore. I'm going to... Just the last point, if I can.

This is the other corruption that I promise you is so rife in America. Listen to this one, David D. Towell. A Bitcoin spot ETF will only be approved once it's in J.P. Morgan, Bank of America's interest. That is the only time. And that's it. That's how only time. And that's it. That's how it works. It's nothing to do with protecting the retail. It's once it's in their interest

and they can make money on fees and have a huge share in the market. So you're saying, so you said right all the way South Africa, you're saying South Africa has less corruption than the US? No, it just means you don't need to be where the players are. South Africa is really to be corrupted. So, before

going to Bruce, I'm going to go to Ron to balance it out. Ron, you've got to back me up here, man, because I think we're not giving the US enough credit. We're not giving the judicial system enough credit. No, I want to stress here, I'm a lobbyist, so I'm here on the ground in DC

every day. I live a quarter mile away from the Capitol. I run across SBF all the time. There's a reason why Coinbase, Mochi Association, and a few others joined against SBF's bill he was pushing last year. Because he was trying to screw over the entire DeFi ecosystem and having centralized exchange regulation apply to DeFi. It just didn't make sense. And I've seen this play out firsthand. He is not well liked. His political circles have crumbled. He is outcast. He has screwed over Democrats and Republicans because he donated to Democrats and Republicans. And he has lost all goodwill here. There's not some conspiracy theory in terms of that he's going to get off

because of this. We've seen it play out out firsthand if you were at the hearings or watch the hearings past two days ftx came up so many times in terms of we need regulation because of what happened uh there was no one saying you know pro team spf anymore he is the one the most disliked people the benefit uh the better i agree with the benefit of backing spf is far outweighed by the risk. The risk of leaks coming out and saying you tried to influence the SBF's hearing and the charges is going to destroy anyone's career. Now, the only argument that would make sense to me, and I don't agree with that argument, but I'll make it, is that you could say that politicians want to show that donations have an impact, that they will help you afterwards so they can keep getting more donations. But I think this is a bit far-fetched.

Bruce? Yeah, I think, you know, I agree that Sam may get thrown under the bus and do some time, but I also think that the legal system is definitely corrupt. You know, lawyers are the biggest defenders of this. No, it's not corrupt. You know, and I see that a lot on Twitter. And I say, you know, bless your hearts, lawyers. You remind me of when I was in boot camp and I thought that I was fighting for America. I thought I was fighting for freedom. You know, me and my other 19 year old boot camp idiots were sitting there believing the line. And a lot of lawyers believe what they learned in law school, which is that judges are fair and the system works. And we have

overwhelming evidence right now, right on this call. Everybody knows that the reason that they pulled the campaign finance charges is because what David said, because of the discovery, because if they go into the discovery, they're going to see all kinds of dirt. And by the way, when we say it's Republicans and Democrats, let's be fair, it was 31 million to Democrats and 200,000 to Republicans. So it's not like it's both sides. He gave a piddly amount to Republicans to make it seem like it was bipartisan, but it was overwhelmingly Democrats. He was the second largest donator to Biden. Gensler, the guy who appointed Gensler, you know, Joe Biden got 11 million dollars. So it's

completely corrupt. We see it in the Hunter Biden case. You know, lawyers can't hand wave it away. I know that I know. Believe me, I want to believe this just like I wanted to believe what I believed in boot camp, which is that, you know, America is fighting for freedom. But it just ain't true. And I know the lawyers want to believe what they they're invested their whole career in, that this system is fair. But the under Biden case proves that it absolutely positively is not. And the corruption of Gary Gensler, who is head of the regulator, who has not even explained why Sam had a special unprecedented access. Why did Sam get access that I can't get, even as a registered person, that Sam wasn't? And Brian Armstrong can't

get and a lot of other people. Why? Why did he get that access? We know why he got that access. Because of corruption. Because of corruption. Because Gary Gensler is corrupt. And if he says otherwise, I know this bothers him. He said that tweets bother him. He needs to come and be transparent like everybody else in the industry.

And he can come on a spaces like everybody else in the industry. And he can explain. I guess he's too busy or too important. But until then, I'm going to assume that Gary Gensler is corrupt because the overwhelming evidence is that he is. Why else? If he has some other reasonable explanation about why he gave Sam special access and special treatment, then he needs to be transparent and come forward to that. So the system is rotten to the core. It is totally, completely corrupt. I have no faith in the justice systems based on the ridiculous travesties of what has happened in the last few years and what the judges have done in all kinds of cases related to this and all kinds of other things with human rights and

lockdowns and abandoning the Constitution and free speech and a million other things. So unfortunately, I hate to say it, but unfortunately, the system is rotten to the core. It is very, very corrupt. And we've got to at least recognize that so that we can fix it. And I'm also not super optimistic of this idea that we're getting some kind of magic clarity that's going to open floodgates again. We're still in a bad position. We have a long, long way to go. Give us a number. Let's do this. But I'm sure, let me get my notepad out and let's get everyone's numbers. In the audience,

tell us how many years and be objective. Don't just say put zero. How many years do you think Sam will end up in jail? Put it in the comments, the purple circle, bottom right corner.

Let's start with Scott is offline doing silly things. Rad, do you want to go first? Sure, six months. And six months, I'll tell you this stuff. Leah. Yeah, I agree with Rad. Six months, so then six months on six months after that layer yeah i agree with rand six months so then six months on house arrest bruce yeah i'd say probably a couple years two years all right uh gideon yeah he'll do a few

months on house arrest and they'll just drag it out and then once the media have something else to talk about like a new proxy war like russia versus ukraine or a new disease that comes out then we forget about sbs and the world goes on that's how it works everybody we would well we have we have we have trump now people are still we have trump but people are still talking about ftx it doesn't seem to be working oh don't worry they'll bring out a new disease for all to talk about. They'll do that very soon, I predict. Don't worry.

It's coming. Because that's how the media runs. You have to keep the attention. You need to keep people listening to the radio, to the TV. That's how we do it. So six months on house arrest maximum, and then we'll just forget about it because... I can't imagine, Gideon, I cannot imagine you and Leia fighting.

You both have such a strong personality. It must end up in punches. And I'm sure she's punching you. Mikko, how many? That's what I said. Oh, you got easier. He's like, go easy on her. It's fine.

I'm putting up a hand. Mikko, how many years? I'm going to say 24. All right, man. I like that. You're one of the smart ones here. Noelle? 30 30 years 20 served 20 served nice

Alright David Yeah I'm 20 plus I love this We have a great panel today Ron I'm a lobbyist not a lawyer but I'm going to go with 10 years minimum at least Cool David

Oh I'm sorry lobbyist, not a lawyer, but I'm going to go with 10 years minimum. Cool. David, tell you. Oh, I'm sorry. I answered for David Silver. Okay. And Mr. Silver? I'll jump in for me. I'm going to say 21 years sentence. And I'm going to say, you guys got to remember, in federal courts, a little different. You have to serve, you know, with rare exception, you have to serve about 85% on federal charges. So I'm going to say 21 years, figure 18 years in jail. 18 years in jail. All right, let me fix that. All right, cool. I'm going to sit at 15. It was meant to be a 10 plus, but 15 is somewhere in

the middle. I just averaged everybody and I got a 15 and I'm going to go through the comments, see what the audience says, but I like it. I think I've got and I got him 15. And I'm going to go through the comments and see what the audience says. But I like it. I think I've got... So on my side, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And on Ran's side is 1, 2, 3, 4.

4 versus 6. Cool. I'm sure Scott would be on your side, Ran, but he's offline, unfortunately. Yes, sir. Remember Al Capone? I wasn't alive back then,

but yes. Okay, I know him personally. No, I'm kidding. So Al Capone did all these terrible things back then, but yes. Okay, I know him personally. No, I'm kidding. So Al Capone did all these terrible things, right? We can all agree that. Do you remember the one thing they got him on? What was it? Tax?

Tax. So who did he fuck with? Not all the bootlegging, the gangster, the racketeer. None of that. It was because he fucked with the IRS. You don't fuck with the government's money. I like, I like. They'll get you on.

I agree. You just, yeah. You just made the poor out of it. That makes a good point, Gideon. The one you should be looking at is Michael Milken. Michael Milken only went to jail for 22 months. If you want to make a good argument, it's Michael Milken. Oh, yeah.

Michael Milken's the Gordon Gekko. Yeah. Yes. Michael Milken. Of course. He's the big corporate raider. I know. It's the same thing.

He's connected. He's in the homogeneous corporate. I know it's the same thing. He's connected He's in the homogeneous network That's how you play the game and you can either cry and bitch and moan like oh he it's not fair or you can just Understand how the game is played and I guess play the game yourself That's all you can do see Mario. I want to help both sides. I'm just I almost split the fence I think he's wrong. But Michael Milken's the best example here. If you really look at someone who's similar to

playing the game in the inside, Milken was on the inside. He was the first one in the Drexel, Berman, Lambert years who wanted to be more famous than rich.

But I'll tell you, 18 years minimum. Cool. Mike, I'm struggling, Michael. The. Mike was juggling Michael. The guy who entered the junk bonds. No, I don't think so, no. Was it?

Yeah. So Michael Milken, again, he was in the network. He was in the interest to sell... Scott, Scott decided to join us. Scott, did you hear the discussion? It was an epic... I've heard a bit of it.

I mean, Milken... How much... Scott, I want to get your number, man. It wasn't a Ponzi scheme. I think he goes to jail for 20... Oh, shit. I didn't expect you to be on my side for once. Yeah, and Milken was different.

It was jump bonds, but he wasn't like... It wasn't a full-on Ponzi scheme stealing from retail. I have a great Michael Milken story, actually. I went to school with his son at the University of Pennsylvania, Lance. And our freshman year, I was rushing his fraternity, and we were in his room, and The Simpsons came on. And I was sitting there with this dude watching The Simpsons, and they made fun of his dad on The Simpsons. It probably was the most awkward moment in history. But Michael Milken was not the same, man.

He did not destroy millions and millions of people's finances. Cool. Well, on that point, I think it was a really fun space today. Anyone that wants to jump on the show as a sponsor, just DM me because Ran just dropped off. We didn't pin the tweets, so you just got to DM me. I don't know, Scott. Scott, do you have your DMs open yet? All right, cool. Don't DM Scott. Yeah, I do not have my DMs open. Sorry. Okay.

Maybe one day you should open them. Maybe you can open them so people that want to pay us can message you. You arrogant man. Not worth any amount of money. Okay. Okay. All right, guys. So if you want to come on as a sponsor on the Shark Tank show that we do, just DM us and we'll see you again, not tomorrow, but Monday,

same time as always. Really appreciate the panel. It was a pretty epic chat. It was a pleasure to have Congressman Torres on here earlier. Thanks a lot, everyone.