The Wolf Of All Streets - Why Democrats and Republicans Must Unite for Crypto’s Success | Anthony Scaramucci

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode of the Wolf of All Streets podcast was recorded in person in Singapore at Token 2049 and is proudly brought to you by the Aptos Foundation. Asia is the fountain of all the technology. Everything comes out of Asia. And it's hard not to be optimistic and it's hard not to be excited about the future. I learned being in politics. I've learned a lot of things being in politics. Number one, don't go into politics. Okay, that's number one. Number one, who's going to win the election? When's Gary Gensler going to get fired? I'm a huge fan of yours. So anytime I can get airtime with you, I enjoy. There's no better guest for a podcast than the Mooch. Two American guys flew all the way across the world when we could have had a Zoom call and sat down for a conversation at Token 2049 in Singapore.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Predictably, we discussed the upcoming election, its implications, and I'll tell you the conclusion. No matter what happens, it's going to be okay. Two guys in the United States. We can talk on a Zoom call anytime. We can meet up in New York. We're sitting in Singapore. Oh, man, I'm a huge fan of yours. So anytime I can get airtime with you, I enjoy. We're sitting in Singapore.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Why? Why would we both come all the way here for this? This is probably one of the biggest. Look, and I and you know this, Scott, I do conferences for a living. I have large and small conferences, but this is the granddaddy conference of the crypto industry, in my opinion. And again, when I say crypto industry, of course, Bitcoin Magazine does the Bitcoin conference, which they had in Nashville. But this is a much broader spectrum of adaptive technology. So I had to be here. And I love this city.

Starting point is 00:01:51 And it's great to be here. We were both at Bitcoin Nashville. Yes. Very different vibe than here. A lot of excitement, but very different. I feel like Asia gets it and maybe the United States still doesn't. So I'm going to tell you a quick story, but you'll get where I'm going. It's 1978. I'm in a blue collar family. Well, one of my friends, his father worked for Revlon,

Starting point is 00:02:17 the cosmetics company. He went to Tokyo and he came back with a Sony Walkman. And, you know, this is 1970. I'm like, what the hell is this, right? And I remember him saying that Asia is the fountain of all the technology. Everything comes out of Asia. And you walk around here, you can see that. You can see the future. You can see 2045, 2050.

Starting point is 00:02:44 All of it's emanating out of here. You just have to know that, you know? Same way it was in the 70s. Was it the black Sony Walkman, or was it the yellow to have that technology. Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges. One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles. The other thing is the taxes. They are absolutely atrocious. What if I told you there was a way to solve both of these problems? Well, there is. And it's with a self-directed IRA from iTrust Capital. Guys, not only can you open a new self-directed IRA

Starting point is 00:03:27 and fund it with the limits each year, but you can actually convert over from your 401k, your Roth IRA, any other IRA that you already have. And you can do that tax-free, just transferring over the balance. And then you can go to cash, buy as much Bitcoin than you want and not pay taxes when you sell it.

Starting point is 00:03:44 You absolutely have to try this if you are in the United States. Use the link down below. and then you can go to cash, buy as much Bitcoin than you want and not pay taxes when you sell it. You absolutely have to try this if you are in the United States. Use the link down below. It's bit.ly slash itrust-scott. That's B-I-T dot L-Y slash I-T-R-U-S-T dash S-C-O-T-T. You have to try this now. So we have this sentiment, I think, in the United States that there's an investable asset class, right? You've got Larry Fink on the roadshow talking about adding it to your portfolio. Bitcoin specifically, we have ETFs, but the crypto side seems to be a bit lost, or at least it's not a part of the narrative yet. You get the Bitcoin ticker, but nobody's talking about payments and

Starting point is 00:04:23 gaming and metaverses and d5 tokenization of real world assets well listen i mean listen the headwind that this industry has faced for the last five years will be written about someone will say how did that industry survive regulatory scrutiny in the u.s uh enforcement regulation by enforcement by the sec in the united states how did that industry grow outside of that knocking miners and bitcoin out of china second or tied for the first largest economy in the world how did that industry grow and the answer is, it's really good technology. It's a lot like the field of dreams. You build it, people understand it,

Starting point is 00:05:09 they will come. And I want to ask you this question rhetorically. If I can set up a system where people can transact with each other quickly, and they can do it without third-party verification, where $7 trillion of the global economy is spent on payment transfers, verification, credit card industry, et cetera. But I can set up a system where now the money has caught up with the technology. It's moving at the speed of light, and it's moving without third-party verification because we can rely on the technology associated with the network. It's a long way the way of saying it, but that's going to work and that will make it no matter who's in the Congress, who's at the SEC, what the Chinese government is saying.

Starting point is 00:05:59 It'll make it and it's represented here. You can see the representation here. Yeah, the American political debates and what's going to happen with regulation aren't even on the docket here. They don't talk about it. You don't hear about it. It's the only conversation in Nashville. The only conversation when you go to a conference in the United States is, who's going to win the election? When's Gary Gensler going to get fired? What's Elizabeth Warren's influence? You don't hear it here. And you know what? Last year, I never heard about SPF when I was in Singapore. No kidding. We talked about them all the time in the United States, but you never heard about FTX and SPF when you were over here. Okay. Well, we did a small 30-minute panel this morning. It was Richard Tang from Binance, Jeremy Allaire, myself, Michael Belshi from BitGo. And we were talking about

Starting point is 00:06:47 the US regulation. And I think the general consensus is we're going to get there. Money talks in the United States, you know that. Tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed in the presidential election, congressional and Senate seats in the US. And I think you're going to see people moving towards the center for some fair legislation for crypto. But what I say consistently is think of Singapore or Abu Dhabi for a moment. They've taken the politics out of the regulation. They're looking at the asset, the technology. Is this good for our country? Is it good for the citizens of our country? If the answer is yes, how do we create the right regulatory framework around it? In the United States, we're so polarized that we look at it from the prism of

Starting point is 00:07:36 hard right legislation and regulation or hard left. I think it's a very big mistake. We got to switch over to right or wrong and depoliticize the regulatory authorities in the U.S. I think it's a very big mistake. We got to switch over to right or wrong and depoliticize the regulatory authorities in the U.S. I hope we can get there. So you obviously alluded to the environment in the last four or five years led by the Elizabeth Warrens and the Gary Genslers and regulation by enforcement. You're obviously an outspoken supporter of Harris. Within the echo chamber of our industry, I think there's a sentiment that her winning would be more of the same. But you're in the room having the conversation. So how do you view that?

Starting point is 00:08:10 I don't see it that way. And so it wouldn't just be me. It's people like Ron Conway. I think you know, one of the old school venture capitalists, angel venture capitalists. It would be a big investor, early investor in Coinbase. It would be the Coinbase guys, Paul, the general counsel at Coinbase, Mark Cuban, Mike Novogratz. We've all have sat with on various occasions, three or four occasions with White House staff, people at Treasury, elected officials, including Senator Gillibrand and Ro Khanna. And of course, I was on the crypto for Harris Zoom call where Senator Schumer, the current Senate majority leader, said we're going to get positive crypto currency regulation slash legislation either by the end of this year, which I do think is unlikely,

Starting point is 00:09:03 but certainly in the next congressional term. And I pointed out from this stage here, which I'll share, is if you look at the voting on the Democratic side, over 70, they're voting against crypto. Below 50, they're all voting for crypto. And so there's got to be a little bit of a democratic demographic switch on the side of the Democrats to really make this work. But I see her, Brian Nelson. I see her, her team, guys like Ray McGuire. I don't know if you know Ray. I don't. But Ray ran for mayor. He was a Citibank executive. He's very close to the vice president. These are the types of people that could join her in the administration that would be more open to what we're seeing here in Singapore.

Starting point is 00:09:51 So I'm optimistic. One way or another, the remnants of Gensler and Elizabeth Warren will be behind us. But since you brought up Sam Bankman-Fried, I want to share with you my theory, which I think is very accurate. So I'm just going to share it with you. Professor Elizabeth Warren was very close to Sam Bankman Freed's law school professors from Stanford. She was at Harvard. They were at Stanford. They met with her many times. Sam himself met with her many times.

Starting point is 00:10:24 He also met with Gens her many times. Sam himself met with her many times. He also met with Gensler many times. And he was very close to getting margin approval for his exchange from the U.S. government. He blew up in November of 2022 prior to that regulatory stamp. And I think the embarrassment of that, Scott, caused them to swing very hard against the industry as a shield. They knew they were close to him. Had it gotten out in the press how close they were to him, it would have been damaging to their reputation. So they swung very hard against the industry. And it was damaging, but it is very cynical what they did. Gensler, of course, taught blockchain courses at MIT, but he did that for political power and he did that for political preservation

Starting point is 00:11:12 reasons more than what was right for the US and how can the US maintain its mantle of financial services leadership. He really practiced the art of cynicism in Washington. I got my 11-day PhD in Washington. You might know something about cynicism in Washington. I know how these guys operate. It's interesting. I agree. They got egg on their face, swung completely in the other direction.

Starting point is 00:11:42 And I think the people who were outwardly pro-crypto, even if they remained privately pro-crypto, were afraid to say it because of pushback from their party. Maybe the silver lining to Trump coming out pro-crypto for the industry, whether you agree with him or not or believe him, is that at least those people were able to come back out of the closet and start having conversations again. Listen, no question. I belong to the same beach club as Cameron and Tyler. Of course, they very famously gave a million dollars each to the Trump campaign and they're supporting Donald Trump because they had been up against it with the Biden administration, Warren and Gensler. And I said to them that I applaud Trump for moving the discourse. Don't want to be president again, but he's got very good political instincts.

Starting point is 00:12:35 And by moving the discourse, he's now forced the Democrats to come back into the middle as well. So I think that will bode well for the industry. How much influence do you think that our industry actually has and how large do you think that the voter base actually is? Because it seems like Trump made a huge deal out of it and in our echo chamber, we're like, Bitcoin is going to make him win the election. And then Harris doesn't even address it. It's, you know, at least outwardly, which makes sense. But maybe we're a little self-important or self-involved to some degree. Or maybe not, though, because let's go over the math, OK? Novogratz says, Mike Novogratz says there's 85 million wallets.

Starting point is 00:13:14 I don't know if that's true in the U.S. Coinbase said it was closer to 50. But let's use a low number. Let's say there's 40 million people of voting age in the United States that have a Bitcoin or some other form of cryptocurrency in a wallet. And let's say 5% of them are single issue voters. Right. You know, single issue voters.

Starting point is 00:13:33 I know single issue voters. Some of my partners are single issue voters. So if there are 2 million people that are single issue voters and half of them go to the polls and they're in the right swing states, it could tip the election. And of course, you know, this crypto lobbying group, I can't remember the name. They have this purple bus, red and blue make purple. They're driving around in the swing states trying to sign up single issue voters. That will help Trump. And so, you know, I think it's a mistake that the democrats haven't moved and haven't outwardly moved uh but i think they will and remember she became the presumptive

Starting point is 00:14:11 nominee uh last week of july so imagine all the work that she's had to do uh there's 50 48 days until the election uh but july 21st she's flipping pancakes for her nieces she gets a call from biden i'm out you're in now she's got to consolidate all those delegates she's got to get herself to the convention get the official nomination and then prepare herself for a debate that's uh 12 days later that's why i'm saying maybe we think we're a little more important than we are when she has to come up with immigration, abortion, economic policy. It would rationally make sense

Starting point is 00:14:52 that they haven't caught up to this issue yet. That's not an excuse, but people always say, why hasn't she done this? She's done that. I mean, isn't it assigning a little more importance to the vice president? What I learned being in politics, I've learned a lot of things being in politics. Number one, don't go into politics.

Starting point is 00:15:08 Okay, that's number one. Number one, don't do it. First thing I learned. But the second thing is very hard. But just imagine she's got her staff and the Biden reelection campaign, and she has to merge the two of them and try to make sure there's not a lot of tribalism in that staff and a lot of infighting. She's got to get the messaging right. She's got to preserve the legacy and the integrity

Starting point is 00:15:32 of her relationship with President Biden. Ergo, the entire platform, including Joe Biden's name, is in the convention. And when you go through the platform. platform. And I think she's done a very good job of doing all that. And now she's got 50 days to go to set the table. You know, listen, I mean, empirically, and I say this objectively, I mean, he had a hard time debating her. She came with the facts. She was very well prepared. Scott, I was at that debate. I was invited there by the vice president. And I said to Gavin Newsom, I was sitting in the green room before the debate started. I said, Trump's gonna have a hard time tonight. Governor Newsom looked over me and said,

Starting point is 00:16:13 why are you saying that? I said, he's landing in Philadelphia at 6.57 PM. The start time for the debate is nine. Nobody, I don't care if you're the greatest rock star, the greatest entertainer, the greatest politician, nobody can pull that off. Nobody can get the psychological gears together. And Jack Kennedy, 1960, got there the day before. Richard Nixon, the day before. I went through every debate from 1960 to try to catch the travel schedule of the candidate or the current president that was in an incumbency debating

Starting point is 00:16:53 an opponent. Every single one of them got there the day before, not Donald Trump on the night of that debate. Shouldn't his team know that? I mean, is that hubris on the behalf? That was Macho Man. He was probably playing the song to the YMCA, Macho Macho Man, as he was landing. Because he needed to show her he could best her. She's not the person that he says that she is. The derogation of comments that he makes about her, she's certainly not that. And so, you know, my message to the crypto industry, I get it. You're a single-issue voter. You're going to be with Donald Trump. He's at PubKey, the very famous New York pub, buying hamburgers, using Bitcoin. I get all that. But you want, trust me, for long-term stability,

Starting point is 00:17:43 long-term durability in this industry, you want a bipartisan commitment to crypto. And you want people like me on her team helping her because if she does win, it's going to be a very close election. If she wins, you want to make sure she comes to the center on crypto. That's interesting because I've made the argument, and you know better than anyone, if you say anything pro either side you're going to get eviscerated one way or another no I you don't care yeah I don't love it I don't but um I've long made the point that even if you hate the democratic party and you despise what's happened for the last four or five years you realistically have to accept

Starting point is 00:18:21 that either side could win and that we need a seat at the table. Exactly right. Exactly right. And don't forget that. So if you're with one of the two sides, recognize you need friends on the other side. You absolutely do in our industry. And remember, the United States, we're here. This is an amazing city. There's amazing things going on and innovation in the space outside the United States. But let's face it, we need the United States if we want to take the entire industry to the next level. What excites you the most that you're seeing here? We always have these cyclical narratives and things that are going to happen. I'm talking to the wolf of all streets. I mean, like I said, we could have done this on Zoom from your car, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:09 famous. I've done that before. Sorry, man. No, that's the best. Literally the best content I have is you in the car. Because I can't get to the goddamn location because of New York traffic, you know? I'll tell you what I'm excited about. I just turned 60 and I'm in here with people that are my kids' ages, you know, 28, 29, 30. And they come and see me and they talk to me about what they're doing. And it's hard not to be optimistic and it's hard not to be excited about the future. And again, not just in our space, the world of decentralized finance, AI, tech, fintech, talk about the world in general. Okay. We can really make vast improvements to the world with this younger generation of people. And so it gets me super excited. Back in the States, you obviously mentioned Schumer on the call. That didn't make the news

Starting point is 00:19:57 as much as it should have because it was a pretty wholesale reversal, at least even to hear somebody of that stature talking about it. What do you think it would take at this point? I'm not talking about from either side, but in general, what kind of regulation or legislation would we need to see for the companies that are building here to say, I'm putting an office back in New York? Because the New Yorkers are getting offices in Dubai. So it's a great question.

Starting point is 00:20:20 And trust me, as a senator from New York, Schumer's well aware of that displacement, the intellectual capital displacement, but also the capital capital displacement. So to me, I think it's very clear regulation on stable coins. I think that's very important for the United States, especially if you want to keep dollar supremacy, you got to explain to these policymakers having a stable coin ensures that. You know that Tether has more US treasury holdings than Germany and Japan. If you look at treasury holders.

Starting point is 00:20:59 I think they're 18th or 19th of treasury holders in the world, period. So you want a stable coin denominated US dollar proliferating. So you got to get clarity on that regulation. The second thing is you need clarity on other tokenization. What is the real definition of a security versus what is a commodity? You can't have an Ethereum ETF

Starting point is 00:21:24 and have Solana have the exact same properties, okay, in terms of decentralization, all of the same metrical analysis, call one a security and the other one a token. You can't do that and get the confidence of the industry. So we need clarity on that. And of course, we need a pro-business friendly environment in New York. And so that's got to also be done not just at the Schumer level, that's got to be done at the state level and at the mayor's office. And are you confident that we can do that regardless of which party's in power, who's in power? I do. Maybe a different time frame? As I've said to Jeremy Allaire, remember, nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted Uber. There was no elected official. There was no taxi commission.

Starting point is 00:22:11 I'm old enough to remember the fight over Uber. But who wanted Uber? The American people wanted Uber. So they got it. They got it in London. You remember the taxi cab fight in the UK over Uber? And all the politicians were on the side of the taxi commission. And look at where Uber is today. And you just have to remember in these pluralistic free societies where the political leadership is still subjected to a vote from the population, the population generally gets what it wants. You're such an optimist. Is there a pessimistic view at all moving forward for this industry? Of course. I'll give you the pessimistic view. The industry is quite volatile. John Deaton, who I support, I maxed out on. John Deaton wins. OK. And Vice President Harris wins. And Elizabeth Warren becomes Secretary of Treasury, SEC chair or Fed chairman. I mean, her losing being the pessimistic case is

Starting point is 00:23:17 OK. But I just want you to think about that. Yeah, he wins. But the vice president wins. And now they've got to give an administrative position to Senator Elizabeth Warren, who's a walking disaster, a regressive politician, probably the worst political leader in the last 50 years. She's weirdly a Joe McCarthy-like figure in terms of what she stands for, in terms of centralization and control, which are very anti-American concepts. But because of the way patronage works in our political elites, she could end up in an administrative position. Let me just make the sign of the cross on your show. OK, I pray that that does not happen. But that's that's the pessimistic version.

Starting point is 00:24:02 But but Scott, but we want her to lose. We need her to be gone. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But don't don't let me end the show like that. I mean, we could get the same from Gensler, right? Right. I mean, he's always wanted to be Secretary of Treasury. Right. What if we finally get Gary Gensler? I think he's wildly unpopular. No, no, he's he's very unpopular in Washington. The only person I think that thinks they have a good chance to be secretary of treasury, Gary Gensler does, is Gary Gensler. I don't think he'll make it. I think he's unified a lot of people in both parties against him. I think if our pessimistic view is her losing, then we're generally in a pretty good place.

Starting point is 00:24:41 I agree. Because I think we all want to see that happen. By the way, I want John to win. My money's behind him, and I've raised the money, and I've maxed out on his campaign. Yeah, I did a fundraiser for him in Nashville or Austin. Now I can't even remember what cities I was in, but I think he's an incredible guy.

Starting point is 00:24:58 We get this incredible opportunity with him to not only vote against the head of the snake, against our industry, but also actually do it for someone who we love. Absolutely. Which is a rare, rare opportunity. I think in this country, we're usually voting against someone

Starting point is 00:25:10 and not for someone anymore. Listen, he's an interesting public leader. You know, when he called me on Christmas Eve, 2023, he said, I want to get on a Zoom with me and my wife. And okay, I want you to tell me what you faced going into politics. And I told him and I gave it to him very nakedly. It was Christmas Eve and his wife thanked me. And despite what I said to him, which was don't do it, he still ran. And that says a lot, speaks very well of him and his commitment to public service.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Absolutely. Well, I'm optimistic for the future. I, like you, think it's inevitable. I would just hope we don't get another SBF or something like that. I think it really blows us up for another two or three years. Yeah, but it feels like we've got that under control and there's a lot less leverage in the system. And of course, these big institutions that are really good compliance protocols like Fidelity and BlackRock, I think are really helping. It's good leadership, providing good leadership. We're going to have a conversation with this level of excitement in the United States in the next year or two at a conference. Thank you so much for having me. It's great always to be on

Starting point is 00:26:17 with you, man. Let's go.

The Wolf Of All Streets - Why Democrats and Republicans Must Unite for Crypto’s Success | Anthony Scaramucci

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