The Wolf Of All Streets - Why Congressman Ro Khanna Is A Strong Believer In Blockchain & Crypto

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

Congressman Ro Khanna is a fierce advocate for crypto and tech and represents California’s 17th Congressional District. He has his work cut out for him - he balances representing both Silicon Valley companies and billionaires and everyday Americans in his district. Congressman Khanna believes that crypto and fintech can be harnessed for good, offering the potential for wealth creation to any and all citizens. If you want to learn what Congress is doing and how you can make a difference, this episode is for you. -- Horizen: Horizen is the zero-knowledge enabled network of blockchains powered by the largest node system with scalability and flexibility unmatched by others. Blockchains built on Horizen are enhanced by zk-SNARK privacy tech and provide massive throughput without compromising decentralization. Horizen can support up to 10,000 independent blockchains running in parallel and issue an unlimited amount of tokens. More at https://thewolfofallstreets.link/horizen -- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworks.co ーーー Join the Wolf Den newsletter: ►►https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen/members

This episode of the Wolf of All Streets podcast is sponsored by Horizon. Please stay tuned for more information on them later in the episode. What's up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and this is the Wolf of All Streets podcast, where twice a week I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, music, art, sports, and politics. Basically, anyone with a good story to tell. Now, today's guest falls into the latter category. He is a politician, and politics. Basically, anyone with a good story to tell. Now, today's guest falls into the latter category. He is a politician, Congressman Ro Khanna, and he represents California's 17th congressional district. Now, if you don't know where that district is, it is

Silicon Valley. So he knows more than most politicians about tech and the future of cryptocurrency in the United States of America. He also recently wrote a book called Dignity in a Digital Age. Representative Khanna, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. Thanks for having me. I know you've got a great following and I'm looking forward to this. Now, listen, I think that there's a perception that cryptocurrency has become a partisan issue with Republicans largely in support and Democrats largely opposing. Why do you think that we have that stigma?

And do you think that that's accurate? Well, as you know, I have supported a blockchain and crypto because of the utility it brings. I mean, it's just a technology. It allows for decentralization. In fact, I advocate for it in my book, Dignity in the Digital Age, is saying that this is a way that artists can distribute their product and cut out the middleman. This is a way you can have college textbooks that

you don't have to pay 25 bucks with all of the costs, but maybe young people who are in school and college and can't afford that can get it directly from the author using this technology. This is a way you can have smart contracts, again, cutting out fees. And this is a way you can remit money overseas without having huge fees. So if you're against the concentration of power in either of the coasts, you should be for this decentralizing technology. And that's why it should be something that progressives champion. We need well-crafted regulation around it. But the idea itself is one of empowering people left out of the power centers. So obviously, as you touched on,

we do have politicians on both sides of the aisle that are in support. So it is largely a perception. But why do you think we have that perception that perhaps the farther left is so against cryptocurrency? Obviously, we hear the energy debates. It's only used for criminals, sort of the same recycled stories that we've had for years. Well, I think there have been some very loud voices on the left who have attacked cryptocurrency, and that has led to this impression. Now, do we need thoughtful regulations around it so people pay tax? Absolutely. But I was opposed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill to this overly broad definition of a broker, where if you're just engaged in mining or if you're just engaged in software development, suddenly you're going to have to be registering or filing with the SEC.

And that just didn't understand the technology. I also think we need a new vision for digital assets. It could be that you're technically under the Howey case, the security, but the same filing requirements may not be the best way to actually protect the consumer. And maybe the requirement should be to disclose things about your blockchain, because the reality is that people, even the company, no longer have as much actual control on a technology that's decentralizing. So a lot of the arguments against it, I think, stem from fair and not a full engagement of the technology itself. So you think it's a case of perhaps not doing the work and not fully understanding it.

And then obviously, I think people are in a position where they have to have an opinion or speak on it. And perhaps they come from a place of not fully understanding it. Yeah. And I think, look, I mean, obviously, there have been scams in crypto appreciation, just like anything. But that doesn't mean that there's not an underlying value or utility to the technology. And if you want to make sure that we're protecting

people for things that are purely speculative, fine. But there's a lot more to blockchain and crypto than just a speculative asset. It's lowering transaction costs. It's making it possible for more people to engage in ownership with tokens. It's making it possible to cut out middle people. And I guess there's not enough focus on the actual utility of technology. I think we can all agree with that. So you touched on regulation, and I think there's an overwhelming sentiment that people just want some sort of clarity. Even if it's not exactly the regulation that they want, they need to have a framework that they can operate in. You also touched on the Howey test, which is from the 1930s and is how we determine what a security is.

It seems rationally like perhaps we should have a new framework for a technology developed in the 21st century. Well, the Howey he tested stood us well over time. And it's something that appreciates value with a centralized decision maker that appreciates value could be considered a security. The question is not whether something's a security. The question then becomes, so what? OK, something's a security. What do we do? And that is where I think we need new regulations, that a digital asset that has more decentralization, even if it's a security, does it really make sense to have people file 10K and 10Q forms? Or does it make more sense to have them tell about blockchain and then understand some of the decentralized aspects of that network. So what I would say is, even if you embrace the Howey test, which has done a lot of good in general, have new regulations for what a digital asset is.

I'm actually working with the NSC. I'm encouraging them to do a roundtable. Dilip Singh was actually very smart there, deputy NSC director, on soliciting input from the crypto community. One of the other points that is worth making, I mean, a lot of these assets of crypto are owned by people who are Black or Latino or working class. For many people, this is their way or access to wealth generation that they don't have access as much in certain cases to the stock market. So, yes, we want to protect them, but we also want to make sure that people have these opportunities and not deny them that opportunity. And I think that we have an overwhelming trend in the United States in general of that exact

phenomenon, which is where wealthy people have access to better investments and then therefore can make a lot more money. Of course, accreditation laws are a huge part of that, right? Wealthy people have the ability to invest in venture capital and hedge funds, things that poor people literally don't even have access to. Do you see a world where we change the accreditation laws at some point to make that more fair? Well, it's a balance because you obviously don't want people engaged in risky investments.

So I know from Silicon Valley, I mean, the best thing you can do is be in a friends and family round for all of these startups. And so many people, I mean, millions and millions, because they get the call right before Google is going to go public or at the early stages of these companies and they invest. that blockchain can do and that the decentralized finance can do, that fintech can do in general, is give more people access to opportunities that right now are for a very handful of elites. And how we do that while making sure people are still diversified and aren't engaged in hugely risky ventures is a balance. And I think some of the regulations are important to protect consumers because you don't want people putting their life savings in something that's totally speculative. But what you do want is more people having the opportunity even to put

a certain percent in things that are going to create exponential wealth. Look, my district is worth $11 trillion, my district and the surrounding area, most wealth generated in human history. And the reality is, they're not that many ordinary Americans who benefited from that or participate, benefited maybe by the products, but participated in that wealth generation. Yeah, that's an astounding number when you think about it. And since I mean, you're officially the representative for the Googles and the Apples of the world, right? How do they see this? Obviously, we know that they're interested in cryptocurrency, moving into blockchain and the technology, but do you think that there's a sentiment that we need that clear regulation before

these larger companies can really engage? Well, they're looking at these technologies because they see that these technologies is important for the use cases that we discuss, how to remit payments, how to make sure that we are empowering artists, communities, or people to distribute their works. So the challenge is that there needs to be the more clarity and regulatory framework, the less risk it is for some of these big companies to adopt it.

And there needs to be also a more decentralization. I mean, my entire thesis is that we've got to have tech not just in Silicon Valley, New York, Austin, but in many other parts of the country. And I think blockchain can be a part of that movement. And we talk about the importance of decentralization, but on the other hand, we also know that we're likely going to eventually have a central bank digital currency and that the dollar will move digital. And that seems rationally in conflict

with the idea of more decentralization. What do you think of a central bank digital currency? Well, I think we should explore that and we should support that. I mean, that is something that China is considering and other countries are considering. And that just means that the dollar ought to be taking advantage of modern technology tools. I don't believe that cryptocurrencies are going to replace fiat currency. I don't believe that at all. 51% of federal reserves are in the dollars.

You know, crypto is probably less than 1%. And I don't believe that that is the goal. The use case for crypto is to give more people the opportunity to engage in ownership of assets and in transacting assets with lower costs. So I have no problem with the fact that the dollar will be a digital, have a digital component. That doesn't mean that the technology isn't still decentralizing. Sure. I think a lot of people just see it as a threat to privacy, of course, because there would be, you know, perfect tracking of all of your transactions. The government wants your taxes. In theory, they could take the taxes right out of your wallet. They want to print some money, send you your stimulus directly, and it would really eliminate sort of the benefits of cash and, you know, privacy. But perhaps they can do it in a way that does not violate those ideas.

Yeah. And that's why we ought to have the Internet Bill of Rights to make sure that your data isn't abused, that you have your privacy protected. But it's the irony of what you're saying is everyone says, well, blockchain and crypto is allowed for nefarious activity and illegal activity. Actually, it's the easiest to trace and may create more transparency. So your point goes to why blockchain may actually help properly understood, properly regulated, reduce some of the fraud and tax evasion. Absolutely. We just saw the Bitfinex hackers, $3.6 billion was recovered from that largely because it was Bitcoin. The colonial pipeline ransomware attack, the FBI was very quickly to get that money back because it was Bitcoin, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the FBI was very quickly to get that money back because it was Bitcoin on a public ledger, right? So I think the

notion that it's for criminals is so outdated and we hate continuing, I think, to hear it. You're absolutely right that it's a public ledger where you have a tracking of everything that has happened to your money. So it gives law enforcement a lot of tools to actually go after people and how they're using it. And I think that that is something that has been totally misunderstood. And what we ought to be doing is training people at the FBI and law enforcement in the appropriate use of blockchain technology. So you brought up the Internet Bill of Rights, which I want to talk about. You're actually one of the authors of that. Can you talk about why that's so important and what's likely going to be a part of that? If you care about privacy, if you care about autonomy, you should

care about the Bill of Rights. Right now, your data is being sucked up by a lot of these companies or the government. And then people are being profiled based on that data, and they're being targeted, or their data is being used for something that they don't even want it used for. What the Bill of Rights says is, first, you have to affirmatively consent before your data is used for anything. Second, these companies need to have a fiduciary responsibility to minimize the use of data in ways that aren't necessary to provide a service. And I think these kind of privacy protections can affirm dignity in the cyber world. I don't think people realize just how much their data is being used for those purposes that you talked about.

Is that something that you think we will eventually see stop? You talk about the fact that they would have to obviously comply, check a box, but we've all seen the very long terms and conditions. You scroll down, you click it, you never read it. Is that something that would be simplified by this Internet Bill of Rights? It would be simplified and it would require you to affirmatively say, yeah, hey, you can take my data as opposed to saying, okay, okay, okay, where the default is that they can get your data. So it would be simplified. It'd have to be easy to understand. And it would require you to specify what your data can be used for. For example, if you want to make sure that you can be targeted based on your location, so you're seeing pizza ads near you and not hundreds of miles away. Fine.

If you want to see things related to Bitcoin or crypto, fine. But you may not want to see things related to politics. And those are choices you should affirmatively be able to make. That that makes absolutely perfect sense. Earlier, you brought up the infrastructure bill that sort of unwittingly brought crypto to the forefront in government and for a lot of people, right? It was sort of this one line about crypto and miners that you talked about that sort of froze the entire infrastructure bill for a few days while people debated it. Of course, the crypto community didn't get the result they wanted out of that. But that was a perfect example of bipartisan support for something logical about

this space, right? Both Democrats and Republicans stepped up and said that was wrong. A bit frustrating that I guess it still passed with that language. Do you think that we'll see that language changed or some sort of editing to it in the future? Absolutely. I'm working on that with Senator Wyden, with Representative Emers. I'm on the bills that would fix that language. There is an easy fix to this issue, and that is that we can just define broker much more narrowly. So it doesn't encompass people who shouldn't by no definition, if you're developing software, you're verifying a transaction that you should be considered a stockbroker or like someone selling stocks.

I mean, it just makes no common sense. And so we're working on it. I'm confident we'll get that fix. The future of cryptocurrency is a multi chain world, and you can't have a-chain world without Horizon, who allows these chains to be interoperable. Horizon is the zero-knowledge-enabled network of blockchains powered by the largest node system, larger than either Bitcoin or Ethereum, with scalability and flexibility unmatched by others. Blockchains built on Horizon are enhanced by ZK-SNARK privacy tech and provide massive throughput without compromising decentralization. Horizon can support up to 10,000 independent blockchains running in parallel and issue an unlimited amount of tokens.

That's why huge projects that you love like Celsius, Dash, IOTA, GameStation, Hero Engine, and LTO Network are all building their blockchains with Horizon. Anyone can build on Horizon using their platform Zendu, and Horizon is going to issue their own first token on Zendu this year, ZeniToken. If you're not familiar with all the amazing things that this project is doing, check them out at thewolfofallstreets.link slash Horizon. That's H-O-R-I-Z-E-N. Do it now. Another huge topic has been the upcoming executive order from the Biden administration about cryptocurrency. Any insight as to what that may entail?

Well, this is where I'm hoping we have a roundtable with the leap seeing people in the crypto community, because that will entail one, making sure we're keeping the industry in the United States. We don't want it going to places like England. I suggest that they look actually at England's regulatory framework. It's something that I've heard is a more thoughtful, forward-oriented look at crypto with clarity. But I think that the NSC is the right place because it'll look at our national interest in keeping the crypto industry, it'll look at jobs, and then it'll look at what appropriate regulations we should have and how we can be predictable about it so that people don't fear retroactive action that can put them out of business. I think that you just touched on one

of the biggest problems. We've even seen it. I believe it was the exchange Poloniex that was fined basically for activity in 2017 that was unclear from regulators that's still unclear. How much of a threat do you think it is that innovators will actually leave the United States if regulators drag their feet? I think it's a serious issue. I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't want to be in this country right now. I think we risk losing it to Singapore. We risk losing it to UK. We risk losing it to other European countries. It's a serious issue. And why would we want that? I mean, I want the innovation of the 21st century to be in the United States. I want Web 3.0 to be in the United States. One of the things I've said to folks is even if you're

not invested, I'm not invested in crypto, but I've gone on Coinbase. I've opened a wallet. I've opened Metamask. I know that you can't buy NFTs on Coinbase. I know opened a wallet. I've opened MetaMask. I know that you can't buy NFTs on Coinbase. I know that you need to go on the open sea through MetaMask. I know the basic experience. It takes literally 48 hours to figure this stuff out. And yet you probably don't have more than four or five members of Congress who've ever done that. Well, how can you make laws and rules about a industry which you've never experienced and 40 billion Americans have? So, you know, you wouldn't make rules for driving on a road if you've never been in a passenger seat of a car, if you've never driven a car. And we need more people to actually get the basics. Go get open a wallet. See what people

are doing. See what the utility cases are. Yeah. And I've always made the argument that one of the biggest barriers to mainstream adoption is that that process actually is a little more difficult than it needs to be. And that potentially in the future, if we can clean that up and make it much easier to buy NFTs, to buy crypto, it's getting way better over the years, of of course that that could really be the thing that breaks down this wall and we really see mainstream adoption that would also make it easier for politicians to test it out without having to take too much time out of their busy schedule yeah i know i mean it's like i didn't realize that you can do this from a coinbase wallet but you can't do that and you have to do it's confusing from a different wallet you can't do nfts from one wallet and then they've got all these fees that they're still charging you. So it is way too complicated in my experience. And the more

we can simplify it, the more actually you can reduce the fees so that people know that you can transfer money without having these fees. Now, I know people say that you can do it in some places where you need to memorize your 12-word password, but we can fix that so that you don't have to memorize that 12-word password. but we can fix that so that you don't have to memorize that 12-word password. But all of that just means that this is in a nascent stage of technology. And I think the more they can focus on the consumer and making it easy, the better the chances it will be used and used for a lot of great purposes. Yeah, I agree. So a year or two ago, you never even heard crypto talked about in political circles. It was really a very, as you said,

nascent, but almost fringe. And now it's become a part of the mainstream dialogue or so it seems. Do you think that this becomes one of the major issues that voters are passionate about and that politicians really need to speak to and understand? I mean, are we living in a world now where soon a politician could theoretically be voted out of office because they don't have the right position on crypto? I'm not sure you can vote people out of office or Senate or Congress

because it takes a lot of things in a local community. I mean, I'm not saying it's not possible, but one of the problems in this country is you have 98% incumbent reelection rates. It's sort of like the rates are probably higher than some aristocracies. And I think we need to figure out other ways, campaign finance reform, redistricting reform to have more competitive elections. But what I do think is that it's going to be a huge in these swing states in a presidential election. I mean, if you have 40 million people and they can swing either way, that could that could be the swing vote in a presidential election. I mean, if you have 40 million people and they can swing either way, that could be the swing vote in a presidential election. It could be a

swing vote in a gubernatorial election. This is a huge constituency. And many of them, if you go and you're negative on crypto and you don't understand it, it seems like you're hurting their view of what modern wealth generation could entail and that you're not understanding the passion. So if 40 million people have this, there's obviously something to it. We can tell you about how to regulate it responsibly. But what we shouldn't do is just engage in broadsides against it. I think people who do that are really not going to be well served.

And then, you know, I would put humbly that, you know, I think champions of blockchain and the technology, responsible champions like me and others will, it's a help to develop constituents who say, yeah, you know, this guy gets the future. He gets the aspirations of young people. Yeah. And that 40 million people is going to be over 100 million people by the next presidential election at the rate of adoption. So that's going to be a massively, massively growing voter block, in my opinion.

Maybe I'm a little out over my skis, but I do think that that will be the case. And like you said, they'll view someone who's just outwardly aggressive against it as not only a threat to their personal bank account and savings, but a threat to the technology that they love and use, especially if they're a millennial or younger. I mean, this is the future technology, whether you like it or not, right? Yeah. And look, you're going to have companies that are going to be able to make it easier to provide people with equity to participate through tokens. I'm not saying you couldn't do it otherwise, but it'll just be much easier. You don't have to go through all the rigmarole of what it takes to issue stock. You'll have the ability to engage in transactions without third parties. You're going to lower potentially the cost of prescription

drugs. Mark Cuban has this interesting idea where he's going to use some of this technology to try to bring prescription drug costs down. We haven't been able to do that in Congress. We campaign on it every year. You're going to be able to maybe bring the book cost of college textbooks down. As I write in my book, Dignity in a Digital Age, artists, if you care about artists, songwriters, singers,

you should be for this technology. It's going to allow them to be able to sell their songs, to sell their books without a fear of copyright infringement and to directly get the revenue. So I view this technology as an enormous step forward. We need smart regulations. No one is, I believe, you should be taxed if you're making capital gains of this. You should have smart regulations in terms of making sure it's not abused for scams. And obviously, there have been scams. But focus on well-crafted regulations. Don't

have broad sides against the industry. So what made you decide to write the book Dignity in a Digital Age? The consecration of wealth, consecration of wealth. I said, how is it possible that 70% of kids in my district are optimistic about America? And yet polling shows that a lot of other people aren't. Well, I'll tell you, the world is their oyster. They have robotics garages in Cupertino in their garage, and they're doing things that they know they're going to be part of the modern wealth generation. What are we doing with rural communities? What are we doing in black communities and brown communities in terms of giving them the opportunity to build

wealth in a modern economy? So the entire argument is we've got to decentralize technology, have more intels in Ohio, have more partnerships with HBCU. And that's why I think blockchain fits into that vision, because we don't want all of the wealth and concentration in Silicon Valley or New York. And that's why I think it's actually a populist progressive idea. If you're opposed to all the big banks, if you're opposed to just the concentration of power with big tech, that you should be for blockchain, You should be for decentralizing it. And that's why I can't understand why progressives aren't more for it. And it's an interesting view coming from your district where a lot of that is obviously concentrated. And we've seen sort of stories about big tech and bankers and all these moving

out of California and New York, I guess, for friendlier tax havens like Texas and Florida. But it seems like you actually support to some degree that dispersion. I do. Now, I'm not for the decentralization just to the coast. I'm not for it just to going, OK, let's be moving from California to Austin or to Florida. Fine. And I'm not very concerned about Silicon Valley as I started with the number,

$11 trillion of wealth, a 40% increase. So this idea that there's a mass exodus from my district is just not true. We've got Intel, Apple, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn. But what I am for is saying, can we get this into the heartland? Can we get this into the South? Can we get more into the heartland? Can we get this into the South? Can we get more black entrepreneurs funded? Can we get more people in rural America an opportunity? And I think that COVID has forced an experiment on that. I really do. And so I think we're going to see a great opportunity there. I 100% agree that COVID has really taught companies and people

that they, A, the people can demand more, but companies that they can hire people everywhere and they don't necessarily be into the office. It really is a massive paradigm shift. And it really, now there's no excuse not to hire talent all over the country. Absolutely. I mean, the reality is everyone used to say, come to Silicon Valley. We're only going to fund you if you come to Sand Hill Road. And, you know, when I used to say, look, put your jobs in other parts of the country as well, hire people in other parts of the country, they used to say, come on, Rob, that's silly. Then what happened? There was a forced experiment with remote work and they saw, well, this works. People can stay in their hometown

and they're doing great. And yeah, you need to still have human interaction and human capital built. And it can't be all remote. But a lot of the remote stuff worked. And a lot of the crypto companies, by the way, are doing the most in terms of being remote. Like Coinbase, I think, is all remote.

And so this creates a huge opportunity for people in rural America, for people in black and brown communities to participate. And you're going to have 25 million digital jobs. They pay $80,000 a year on average, twice the median average. Think of the economic revitalization that could be possible if tech decentralizes, if you have both the hard tech, the semiconductor manufacturing and the tech related to social media and search, but also the tech related to crypto. If those jobs were in communities across America, wow, now you can talk about a wealth generation

of the new economy in hometowns that don't have to have empty storefronts. And so I think that the possibilities are extraordinary if we decentralize. Yeah, now we just need some clear regulations so that we can keep all of those jobs here in the United States, right? I also read that you introduced the Endless Frontier Act. Can you talk a bit about that? Well, it passed. The Endless Frontier Act passed the House and it's passed the Endless Frontier Act, passed the House, and it's passed the Senate.

So now we're going to go to reconciliation. But it's basically if you believe that what Intel is doing in Ohio by creating 3,000 new manufacturing jobs and 7,000 construction jobs, you should be for the Endless Frontier Act. It's going to provide grants for companies to bring modern manufacturing, advanced technology production across America and create 10 tech hubs. Here's the thing. In this country, yeah, we need to invent things, but we also need to produce things. You know, Mark Andreessen had a great column. He said we can't produce masks. I mean, I get that we're dependent on semiconductors, but masks. Why can't we make that in the United States?

We didn't invent the jet engine. We didn't invent the automobile. We figured out the mass production. I mean, I get that we're dependent on semiconductors, but masks? Why can't we make that in the United States? We didn't invent the jet engine. We didn't invent the automobile. We figured out the mass production. And we need to be a nation of producers again. What Endless Frontiers does is help fund semiconductor manufacturing, new technology manufacturing, and new technology development in communities across America. Why have we ceased to be a country of producers? I think we had this view of globalization. Okay, we can just have some of the invention here. It doesn't matter where the manufacturing goes. Let it go to China. Let it go to Asia.

But that was a source of huge job creation. That was a source for huge stability in communities. And we shouldn't just have the unfettered free market where you don't focus on making things, developing things in the United States and where we don't focus on technology advancement in the United States. So let's talk about the most important question and that's that we have all these listeners who are in the United States, all these crypto enthusiasts. How can we help? How can we help? Who can we call? What can we do to make sure that we get sensible regulation, that our voices are heard and that we're able to advance the ball with cryptocurrencies in the United States? You have a tremendous amount of power,

more power than you realize. You first have to participate. I know the first choice is, well, these politicians, they don't know what they're talking about. Why should I care? I don't need to be involved. And if you have that attitude, then Congress will never get it. But if you say, look, we demand that our representatives understand this technology, we believe this technology is transformative, and we want to have sensible regulation, then you have an enormous ability to have impact, as you already have, by pointing out the flaws in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, by pointing out the flaws in some of the regulatory framework, which has unpredictability, by sharing your concerns that this industry is going to move to Singapore and Britain and offshore.

But if you can be part of the political process, you can help get the right policies on this. And I think it's so important that people tell their story. When I think of someone who is engaged in the crypto space, I don't think of Mark Cuban, though I know he is, or some Silicon Valley entrepreneur. I think of young people in their 20s and 30s. I think of many people working class. I think of people who are black and brown. I think of women. I think of folks who have been left out of the sophisticated markets. And I think these are folks who are looking to build wealth, to have a shot, to buy a house, to have a shot, to have a better life.

They've been skeptical that the American dream works for them. You need to tell your story. You need to tell your story so that it's not the stereotype of these are tech pros who are pushing this. These are ordinary Americans who care about this and who believe that this can help their communities and help the world. So does that mean we call our representative and send them your book and ask them to read it? Well, I don't want to be that self-promotional, though the book does make the case for blockchain. I say you call your representative and pick three things. What I would say is if you are going to be engaged with your representative, say we need transparency in the rules. Yes, we need rules, but they have to be transparent and predictable.

Say that we need to make sure that people understand the value and utility of crypto and explain it to them. And then say, we need to have opportunities for wealth generation, a modern economy, 50% of people aren't in the stock market. Where are the opportunities for building wealth in today's economy? And how can crypto be part of that while protecting investors? I do think there's an overwhelming feeling that your voice would be lost even if you tried. So if somebody calls your office, one of your constituents, do they talk to somebody in your office and that person puts together a memo and sends it forward to you? I know everybody can't call you on a daily basis. You would never put your phone down. But are our voices actually heard when we call our congressman, congresswoman,

our senator? Yes, of course, if your voice is persistent and out there, it's heard more like anything. You know, I've seen one individual make a huge difference by being active on social media, by visiting offices, by just the power of an individual. But if you don't want to devote that much time to something, then the power of groups matter. I pay attention. If 50 people were to write to my office about something, then the power of groups matter. I pay attention. If 50 people were to write to my office about something, it certainly would catch my attention. If 20 people from my district were to show up to DC and say, I want to meet with you on something, I would almost certainly take that meeting. You know, maybe one thing you could do is have an action day on the Hill and have thousands of people who are participating in crypto come to the Hill to

help educate members about this. The opportunity you have is people right now have an open mind. There's not a clearly formed opinion of blockchain and crypto one way or the other. People are trying to figure this out. So you can help them. You can even have a session saying, hey, if you want to start a Met meta wallet, here's how you do it. If you want to start buying NFT, here's how you do it. I think that's an absolutely amazing idea and something that we should all collectively work on, because I think that not only would it be a great educational opportunity for our representatives, but it would be a big enough PR situation that they would want to show up. Right. That matters. Right. but it would be a big enough PR situation that they would want to show up, right? And that matters, right? If we got a thousand people, 2,000 people to show up on the Hill,

we would get everybody, everybody, every representative there and have an opportunity to speak to them. I love that idea. How do we make that happen? Yeah, and look, you got two things going through you. You represent the future in some ways, right? People want to be associated with the future. People want to be associated with the future. People want to be associated with the next generation. And you have the ability to save the 40 million of us.

That's a lot of people who have the power to vote. So I think that as the community is developing its political consciousness, engagement, activism is important and not just being anti-politics. That's the danger. Those folks don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're talking about. They're all corrupt, though they're not. I mean, I think that's too cynical of you. And I don't have to get involved. Well, let me tell you something. Crypto may be powerful, but Silicon Valley may be powerful, but there is no force even close to as powerful as the United States of America and the government in terms of our military, in terms of the strength of our institution. So you have to recognize that, that we are, for a reason,

the world's greatest superpower ever known in human history. And not to engage with that is a big mistake. I think everyone can agree. So where can everybody keep up with you, get access to the book and follow your progress after this conversation? Well, I'd love to stay in touch. I'm at at Rokano on Twitter. The book is there as well on the handle. And, you know, I'd love to just come on every now and then come see me on the hill, come see me in the valley. And, you know, you have a lot of possibility to mobilize. And I guess I'll just leave you with this. It's not just about mobilizing for crypto. It's about mobilizing for a higher principle, which is financial inclusion,

the opportunity for wealth generation to be decentralized, the opportunity for the American dream to be accessible to a lot of people who feel skeptical about how this country has been for the last 30 to 40 years. I can't think of a better conclusion than that. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak. And we'll definitely do this again very soon in the near future. Thank you, Scott. Really an honor.