Unchained - ETH Denver Fireside Chat With 2 of the Most Crypto-Friendly Governors in the Nation - Ep.161

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

In this fireside chat from ETH Denver, crypto-friendly governors Jared Polis of Colorado and Mark Gordon of Wyoming discuss how they each became interested in crypto and blockchain, how their states became friendly to the industry and how to resolve some of the thornier problems in crypto regulation, such as the state-by-state money transmission licensing regime. We also dive into the details on some of the regulations in their states, such as the regulations that make it possible to hold state-specific ICOs, what types of companies are taking advantage of those, and whether there's a bipartisan attitude toward crypto regulation.  Thank you to our sponsors!  CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links:  CO Governor Jared Polis: https://twitter.com/jaredpolis WY Governor Mark Gordon: https://governor.wyo.gov/ CO Governor Jared Polis’s background:  https://gazette.com/election/profile-entrepreneur-jared-polis-sees-governor-s-race-as-a/article_af2d0222-c1b2-11e8-8b2b-afa916b3b182.html Governor Polis’s letter to SEC chairman Jay Clayton and then-CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo on crypto regulation: https://www.coindesk.com/lawmakers-renew-calls-us-lead-crypto-innovation Colorado’s Digital Token Act: https://www.coindesk.com/colorado-could-be-next-in-the-race-to-bank-crypto-and-cannabis https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2019a_023_signed.pdf https://thetokenist.io/colorado-signs-digital-token-act-into-law-some-digital-assets-exempt-from-securities-requirements/ Wyoming passes three crypto-friendly laws: https://www.coindesk.com/wyoming-lawmakers-pass-three-bills-in-boost-for-states-crypto-industry Wyoming laws: https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2018/HB0070 https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2019/03/04/what-do-wyomings-new-blockchain-laws-mean/amp/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. This week I have for you a fireside chat I conducted at East Denver with two extremely crypto-friendly governors, Jared Polis of Colorado and Mark Gordon of Wyoming. This was a really great conversation. Governor Polis is a former entrepreneur and has been a crypto-friendly government official at both the federal and state levels, and Governor Gordon can probably claim the mantle of heading up the most crypto-friendly state and the nation. If you listen to the local, last week's episode of Unconfirmed with Caitlin Long, we'll hear him talk a bit more about the special purpose depository institution law that is enabling her new crypto bank Avanti. I think people really enjoyed this discussion because last week, I happened to be talking to

someone who had been at Yth Denver, and he randomly spouted off to me some of the facts he learned in this discussion. And when he finished, I was like, did you learn that in the conversation I moderated at ETH Denver? And yes, folks, the answer is yes. But maybe he'd forgotten that I was there, just sitting on stage asking questions, but otherwise, apparently not that memorable. Anyway, please enjoy this fun conversation from Eath Denver with Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon. Cracken is the best exchange in the world for buying and selling digital assets. It has the tightest security, deep liquidity. and a great fee structure with no minimum or hidden fees.

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Apple Store, all with up to 5% back. Download the Crypto.com app and reserve yours now. So, hello everybody. Thank you for coming to this panel. Here I have the Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis. And there we have the Governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon. All right, Governor Polis, let's start with you. Before you got into politics, you had a very successful career in tech. And actually, when I was reading your bio, I realized we're like roughly the same age. And this reminded me of how for my fifth year college reunion, I showed up. I've been working in journalism for a few years. I was probably making like $50,000 a year or something.

And in my class, there were people who by then had to already launch startups, sold them for millions of dollars, and were like living in high life. And you have kind of a similar story. So can you tell us a little bit about your time as a tech entrepreneur? Yeah, those were the days. So this was, I was class of 96. Is that what you were? 97. Yeah, so we're close. I guess that means I'm a little bit older.

So, yeah, this was sort of what we call Internet 1.0 is what we call it now. Basically, I started an Internet access provider with two friends that I met through college. This was in the days of dial-up, Internet access, of course. We had, you know, we had a T1 coming in, and we had a server, and then we just got a bank started with 20 modems. Grew it. People dial up access. Grew that company.

We raised professional capital. We started it at 93. We raised professional capital 96. We sold it at 98. So that was all happening during that time frame. Started a online flower company, Proflowers.com. And also online greeting cards,

Blue Mountain.com. A few others along the way, but those were some of the ones people might know. And you then spent 10 years in Congress as a representative. And while you were there, you were a member of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, and you even wrote letters like to the SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and the CFDC Chairman Christopher Troncarlo, you know, kind of sort of requesting or advocating, I guess, very, or what's the word, you know, advocating that there's like loose regulation and regulation

that isn't too restrictive in the U.S. around crypto. So can you tell us, like, how you got into cryptocurrency and sort of what would be on your wish list for how it should be regulated? Well, I think my most famous moment there in Congress was when there was a senator that wrote a letter saying that Bitcoin should be banned because, you know, used by criminals, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I basically took the letter and I just, everywhere I wrote Bitcoin, I said paper currency should be banned because it's used by criminals. It's untraceable.

It's sometimes used for tax evasion. So I sent the same letter with that. out just using paper currency. So that was fun. I also was the first candidate for Congress. I was an incumbent. I was already there running again to accept donations in Bitcoin. Didn't get too much, maybe $2,000, $3,000, but still it was fun to do. And then I sponsored some legislation with regard to creating a framework that allows for more innovation nationally with regard to blockchain technologies. Transitioning the state level, I was just doing an interview with Coin Desk, and they asked me the difference is. Congress, you can do a lot because it's national government. A lot of stuff has to be

regulated from the federal level, but it's really slow, really, really, really, really, really slow. State level, really fast, but we can only do what we can do. So both Mark and I and our states have done what we can to be as opening and facilitating of blockchain currencies we can. We passed the Digital Securities Act to exempt tokens from, you know, our state securities laws. But again, we're still under federal law. Wyoming and Colorado are still part of the United States of America last time I checked. And Governor Gordon, this is actually the perfect segue, because your state has launched probably more blockchain bills than any other state. So how did you become interested in cryptocurrency and become such an active state in the space?

Thank you. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. I think it really came about because we have a strong libertarian background in our state. We're 588,000 people. People expect to know everyone that's in government. We don't like government. We just never have like government. And so it's been really important. So, you know, a number of our legislators, Caitlin Long is going to be here tomorrow, Tyler Lindholm, you know, decided what can Wyoming do to do things like

create the first utility token law in the country? What can we do to figure out how to build a logical on-wrap and off ramp. How can we get ourselves under the UCC code so that you don't have to worry about SEC? How can we build reciprocity? These are all things that we kind of put together in about 13

bills that really stood up in kind of a framework that it's nice to see others are beginning to kind of copy and follow. But I think really Laura, what I'd like to say is that the coolest thing about Jared and me being here

is that you know, this is the sort of part of the world where I think that libertarian spirit, regardless the party, comes to the four, and we really want to build, you know, this kind of an environment here. Well, so one thing that I want to ask you about is, you know, both of you have power at the state level, but this is, you know, I think something that's actually kind of a burden to a lot of entrepreneurs in this space, where especially around the money transmission licensing laws, you know, all of these startups have to go state by state, and many of the most well-funded startups in the space actually still don't even have all their state licenses. So, you know, what do you think should be done about that

and what do you think can be done about that? Well, I think Wyoming really worked on that and built. I think we are the only state that has 50, all 50 states can do money transmission. It's exempted from any taxation or any other regulation under Wyoming law. And so do you think basically every state should kind of adopt that stance? Yeah, I think it's probably a good idea. You know, I think what we're really working on is trying to build a whole new ecosystem for these kinds of, you know, call them currencies, call them different settlement regimes. You know, I think this is really what we're looking at in the future.

We have some experience in Colorado also around another industry that the federal regs are far behind on because it's technically illegal. That's the cannabis industry in Colorado. So we've been doing workarounds. We announced our cannabis banking roadmap the other day. It's been a priority for us to help make sure that our legal cannabis industry has access to legal banking and financial resources. Again, it's a similar juxtaposition because technically none of that is allowed federally. And so we have to do what we can to create that safe haven for innovators and entrepreneurs to be successful in our state.

So, you know, I understand what you're doing, at the same time, I don't know how much it, like, resolves issues for the entrepreneurs. Like, you know, like you were saying that you thought other states should adopt a similar regulation, but, like, is there something that you can do to kind of get that going to make it so that there are more states that adopt that stance? Well, so in Wyoming, we have a new, what we call our Speedy Bank, special purpose depositories. And we created basically three different

classes of digital assets. And part of what we're trying to do is to build that into a framework that is comfortable for the SEC and others. And so we've really worked hard on that. Our banking

regulate, the nice thing in Wyoming, again, very small. So the banking administrator, the head of banking department, And we've been able to work together. I used to be on the Federal Reserve Bank Board. And so we've been able to kind of craft banking laws around special purpose depositories and digital asset owning both the securitization and utility tokens.

And I think if people see a first mover, and first mover isn't shot out of the saddle, then perhaps they start to follow. and then perhaps you start to say this space really is able to be opened up. And by that, do you mean it's sort of like a competitive advantage and it kind of brings some startups and that there are states interested in attracting that industry? We'll want to get a piece of that business? I don't really know if it's about a competitive advantage. It's just about actually forging the thing.

I think, you know, Jared and I often are in this sort of situation where we're the Wild West and you have to have a framework that works, but you really can take the lead and hopefully others come along behind. We're seeing Puerto Rico do that and others. And hopefully the federal government. I mean, we want to push some of the thought leadership at the state level up when the federal government gets around

to doing a thoughtful process around this. Yeah, exactly. Well, so can you talk a little bit more, like, you know, other than sort of hoping that happens, or is there anything kind of more concrete that the states can do to try to push more sensible federal regulation? Well, look, I mean, we also compete in a global economy, and for that very reason, there are absolutely

blockchain companies today that are in Switzerland or in other countries because of more favorable legal landscape. I think we need to recognize that that's part of the competitive landscape. It's easy for a company to domicile, wherever they choose the domicile. So we need to remove anything that inhibits that kind of innovation in our state. Now, again, things are not. that dire. I mean, last year alone, $50 million was invested in blockchain companies here in Colorado. We have a chief blockchain architect at our Office of Information Technology. We passed several

bills in the area. We're doing a lot of work around ag, blockchain and ag. And of course, we did our digital tokens law, examined it from state securities law. I mean, stuff's happening. But I totally get, and we hear too, yes, this company is locating somewhere else because they're not able to get by at the American regulatory landscape. Well, and I think the other thing, too, is that when people look at, you know, the United States, they tend to look at a place like, and God bless them, New York or California or, you know, something you see. But really when you come to this part of the country,

regardless of where it is, you really see a kind of a culture that says we can handle it here at a local level. And my point is, and Jared knows this much more than any, than I do, you know, he's served at a federal level. It takes a very big push to get things to move. So I think if you start to get, I mean, you saw this with some of the cannabis laws and others, if you start to see a body of work that starts to move forward, eventually the federal government has to respond. And I was also wondering about the Digital Token Acts that you guys have passed, you know, kind of enabling utility tokens to be launched here are basically like having ICOs here in the state.

How popular has that been? How many token issuers have taken advantage of that in your states? I had a little trouble hearing your question. Oh, just like how many ICUs have taken advantage of the Colorado? So I think what we're, so we have, you know, states have the ability to regulate securities, and we do. We wanted to create a space where we could exempt digital tokens from our state securities laws. Doesn't mean they're not subject to federal securities laws, if applicable. It's a gray area.

But we wanted to make sure that at the very least, the state of Colorado is doing nothing above and beyond that, that we're simply monitoring and learning from what's happening in the free market. And just to answer your question, I think we've had about 40 ICOs that have incorporated in Wyoming over the last year. It's kind of fun to see the mining operations that are setting up various places. So that's happening. As I say, we've had two charters for the speedy banks. So things are starting to happen. And when you start talking about utility tokens, to me, a whole new realm of things open up.

Really cool stuff. Fractionalized ownership, ways to create carbon. actual carbon markets, not artifices of accounting, but actual carbon sequestration markets, that sort of thing. We have a very high... Hello, there we go. Hello, hi. Hi.

We have a hyperprofile one. A new journalistic enterprise Colorado Sun. I don't know if Colorado Sun reporters are here. Anybody from Colorado Sun? So, because they were, in fact, largely funded through digital tokens. So it's an innovative model in sort of... you know, citizen-funded journalism that it's, you know, it's somewhat commercial.

Their goal isn't to make a ton of money, but it's a civic value of it. But that's a very high-profile example here in Colorado. Now that I think about it, I actually think I know some journalists who worked there and they were telling me about it. And I was also wondering, so let's say that, you know,

I live in a different state. Can I participate in these ICOs without any kind of risk to myself, or how does that part work? You certainly don't run afoul of Colorado law or Wyoming law, but you have to check with whoever you. check with to see in your state. But any issue would not be ours. So it tends to, like the participants

tend to be people who are like already residents of Colorado or Wyoming? I don't think it's, I don't think anybody, I mean, I don't think anybody's going to, I, again, you have to seek legal advice wherever you are. But I don't think there's an actual issue there as far as actual prosecution. No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be. I don't think there is either. You know, one of the things that that Wyoming law is working on now is making sure that you have First Amendment rights for code. So, for example, if you've set up an ICO, there's a coin, and somehow it's implicated in crime, you, as a creator, cannot be prosecuted for that crime. So those are the kinds of things we're doing in Wyoming.

It's kind of like the equivalent of what we used to call common carrier laws in telecom, right? If you commit, if you plan a crime over the telephone speaking to somebody and ATTs the carrier, they're not liable. They were simply the medium of communication. So same similar concept. Why should you get an MCO visa card from crypto.com? First, it's a beautiful metal card. You can top up the card with crypto and spend anywhere visa is accepted. You also get up to 5% back every time you spend on all spending including your morning coffee, gas, or even a new phone. You know they'll pay for your Spotify and Netflix too. You'll love the unlimited airport lounge access and interbank exchange rates if you travel a lot.

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So if your crypto asset business isn't using CipherTrace, You should start now because hackers and fraudsters can run with the cryptocurrency loot, but with CipherTrace, they can't hide. Learn more about how we're making virtual assets safe and trusted at ciphertrace.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Cracken. Cracken is the best exchange in the world for buying and selling digital assets. With all the recent exchange hacks and other troubles, you want to trade on an exchange you can trust.

Cracken's focus on security is utterly amazing. Their liquidity is deep and their fee structure is great with no minimum or hidden fees. They even reward you for trading so you can make more trades for less. If you're a beginner, you will find an easy on-ramp from five V-A-V-E-O-C currencies. And if you're an advanced trader, you'll love their 5-X margin and futures trading. To learn more, please go to crackin.com. That's K-R-A-K-E-N dot com. So there's something I'm curious about. So everybody seems very excited about the fact that you can

launch a token in one of these states and, you know, not have any state consequences. But, you know, I think like in general, in the crypto community, most people are excited about tokens that are utilized in, like, decentralized networks. And they're sort of like these, you know, global distributed decentralized networks. But I think, you know, some of these examples that you're talking about, if they're kind of like a little bit more local or small, like, you know, I don't think they're really the crypto networks that a lot of people here are like working on building, or maybe I'm wrong. How many of you would be interested in participating in, you know, something like the Colorado Sun, ICO, or, you know, something that's like kind of specific to Wyoming? I'm curious.

Oh, really? So that seemed like maybe a quarter to a third or so? And I guess, like, you know, and I'm not trying to say that, like, what, your efforts are, are not important or you. useful, but I just wonder what impact they will have really for this group. You know, like, do you see that there is some kind of connection between what? Well, if somebody can't locate in the United States, they can't locate in the United States. But if they can, what, you know, the governor and I are both saying is we would love them to be in Wyoming or Colorado.

I happen to prefer Colorado. He prefers Wyoming. But, you know, we're actually, you know, contingent. We're near each other. Let's just call it the, you know, the Cheyenne to Denver corridor. How about that? but no, we'd love to have you here. Yeah, and I mean, to me it's a different frame of reference, right?

I mean, this is a time when it doesn't matter where you are in the world, but you want to have a government that's accessible where you're sort of incorporated. So it's a global environment, but you want very localized, very small, very precise government. And I would say, look, there's an advantage of the stability that we all have, too. I mean, some entrepreneurs may say, look, from a legal perspective, the best place for me to be is Nigeria. But then you go there and then like arm raiders take over your headquarters at night or something.

So like there's something to be said for the stability that United States of America offers. So we have some value in that. That's exactly right. All right. Well, I also actually want to bring up a recent proposal that came out from SEC Commissioner Hester Perce where she proposed a three-year safe harbor period for token sales.

I don't know. Did you hear about her proposal? It's a three-year safe harbor period for token sales? Well, I would certainly be supportive of a safe harbor. Absolutely. I mean, that's what we want to do under state law. But obviously, from our own securities, there's an exemption. But we would love any kind of federal.

I would welcome any kind of federal safe harbor. Same. And how would that? Your question was a little different. Oh, no, I just wanted to know what you thought of her proposal. I have not looked at it in detail. So thank you. All I heard is.

that potential for a federal safe harbor, so I would be supportive of that. Okay, okay. And if that were to happen, I don't know, like, how that affects your existing laws. Well, it certainly does, because I don't think you'd find a welcome reception in every state. I mean, you'd find some states that might even have an opposite attitude of us. They might say, oh, if there's a federal safe harbor, we better get our own division of banking and other divisions to really start enforcing things more originally or whatever. I mean, there's 50 states, their laboratories of democracy, They have all different perspectives. So even under a federal safe harbor, you might find different states that interpret that differently.

I think we would say, wow, let's go, let's do it. Other states might say, oh, that means we need to do more regulation at the state level because the federal government is not for a period of time. And so I think that's a little bit of the difference where we find ourselves in the evolution of this. Wyoming, we believe that we have created kind of a safe place. we feel that we've been working with a regulatory environment, and maybe it's just because they want to see how far it goes or what it does. But at this point, we believe we're about the only state that really has those kinds of

relationships across the country. And amongst the other laws that Wyoming has passed regarding the blockchain industry, which of those are other ones that you think would be beneficial for those to also be instituted at the federal level? Well, I think the one that I'm particularly fascinated by is a special purpose depository. So, you know, we've defined what the legal certainty about what a digital asset is. We've classified them. We've created these banks.

We've created the regulatory structure around them so that now you have ownership of that in that banking institution. And I think, you know, people are saying, okay, you've really taken a good long look at this. and it seems like a regulatory framework is working. I guess we'll see how that goes. It's very young. But as I say, it's up. And it's running.

We've had two banks that have dropped their charters here in the last month. And what about you? I mean, you have experience at the federal level. What's on your wish? I asked you this before, but in the context of, you know, what you've already passed. Well, I think they beat us in the number of bills. I maybe signed six that had to do with blockchain. You had 13.

It also depends what they do. But again, we did establish a council around implementation in ag. We're focused on state-level implementation. I think that, you know what, distributed ledger technologies can offer in terms of, you know, states are very information-intensive endeavors. And there's just a lot of information in society. Obviously, the distrust of centralized databases is something that exists on the political left and the political right.

on the left it might take the form of being more skeptical of corporate centralized databases. On the left, on the right, it might take more of a form of being skeptical of government centralized databases. But a distributed ledger solution solves both of those, right? Whether you distrust government or distrust corporations or, like most people, probably distrust both, you are finally able to trust yourselves through a distributed ledger technology. Well, so speaking of left and right, that was actually my next question. Governor Gordon, you're a Republican, Governor Polis, you're a Democrat. At the moment,

this is just my take, but I don't see this as being like an obviously either partisan or even frankly, bipartisan issue with sort of there are arguments I could make that it seems partisan and other arguments I could make where it seems bipartisan. I'm interested to know what your opinion is of, you know, kind of attitudes in terms of partisanship over blockchain technology. I don't think it's partisan here. I mean, I think, many of the bills that I signed were we have a Democratic majority in both chambers but they were sponsored by Democrats and Republicans.

They reached my desk with Democratic and Republican votes. You know, I think there might be a few folks on both sides. It might be crumogenely or not support things they don't fully understand or be more law enforcement oriented and they might oppose things, but that could be Democrats

or Republicans. Yeah, and I guess I'd echo that. I don't really think this is a partisan issue and I hope it doesn't become a partisan issue because we can screw up almost anything. You know, it's just good business. It's good business and, you know, the distributed nature of it is very democratic and offers tremendous opportunities.

And if you love small government, as I think both of us probably do, you know, what better mechanism to be able to create a smaller government than with, you know, maybe a blockchain apparatus in place? So earlier when I said I could argue it both ways, I am going to now argue it one of the ways, at least, because when I watched the congressional hearings about Libra and Facebook, there definitely was a lot of animosity towards Facebook, obviously. But then you even saw kind of like Congressman Sherman, I think, you know, saying like these needed to be banned and stuff.

And so there were definitely, it felt like if you were to pick one side that was like a little bit more, negative toward blockchain technology would probably be the Democratic side. So I just wondered, you know, if you are seeing that, how do you think you can overcome that? Like, what are the best arguments to make? I didn't see the hearings you're talking about. I'm sorry, were they about Facebook or were they about blockchain? They were about Libra. Okay, they were about Libra. But all the issues with Facebook came up. Right, yeah. So I haven't had the advantage of seeing what you're talking about. So, no, I don't see it being partisan. I mean, as I said, I think there are some that come out the kind of, you know, law enforcement side that are more skeptical of anything that's decentralized.

There's some on the personal liberty side, Democrats or Republicans, that are more embracing of anything that can empower people rather than governments or corporations. So, again, I don't think there's much of a correlation to party. I think there's just sort of there are parts of the coalition that form the Democratic Party and parts of the coalition that form the Republican Party that are skeptical of these kinds of technologies, and there's other parts of those coalitions for both parties that embrace both technology. Yeah, and I would tend to agree. But the other thing is I think this is a, you know, there's a real kind of movement here, right?

And as a movement, it's just sort of overwhelms, hopefully, the partisanship and the negativity, because, I mean, everybody knows we have challenges and things. like insurance. Well, you know, now you can create an insurance company on the blockchain and you don't have to have a whole crazy network of, you know, administrators and everything else to make that work. You can, medical records, we have HIPAA requirements. Well, you know, now you can have on the blockchain all your medical records and ain't nobody anywhere going to see what those are unless you show it to them. So I just think these good business things are going to overwhelm all of that stuff. This is, this is,

where it's starting. So another perfect segue, because I was also going to ask you, you guys both work in government, and as we all know, there are a lot of applications where you can use blockchain technology for governance, what would you like to see come out of the developments in this technology? Here we have a whole room of developers, and there's even a hackathon this weekend, so maybe one of them will take you up on your ideas. Well, I'll tell you a couple of projects that we're particularly. interested in working on. I spoke here with some of your attendees a little bit earlier.

Governor Polis is Director of Revenue as a dear old friend of mine, and we've been talking about a couple of things. How can you build a budget for the state and make it truly democratic? Make it real time so that people, anyone, can get on and see what that budget's going to do to them and understand where the money is going to go and how it's going to be dealt with and what services are valuable and what services aren't. You know, really just, really, just, bill time government that is as close and accessible to the people. It's something we can do. 58,000 people may not work in other places, but we'd really like to try to get that started. There's so many applications, right? So hopefully they're here somewhere today, but Denver was

recently, I think the first jurisdiction in America to use blockchain technology for their overseas residents to participate in a recent election when they can vote online. Was that any of you guys that did that? Or nope. Okay, well, they're right. Not here. They're probably busy getting ready for the next election. But yeah, there were, I think there were a few thousand people that cast their ballots. It was a pilot, but it was all of the Denver residents in the municipal election that lived overseas didn't have to worry about sending a physical ballot through the mail, you know, from Mongolia to Denver and have it arrive in time. They were able to just vote online.

But there's a lot of great examples in the public sector. As I said, the public sector is very information intense, whether it's health care, whether it's democracy. graphics, whether it's property titles, you name it, all of those applications really stand to be disrupted by blockchain technologies. And the other one I wanted to ask about was obviously money is created with this kind of technology, and money, at least recently in human history, has been associated with the government. So I was wondering, you know, what wishes would you have for developers, maybe even here, when it comes to the development of money, programmable money?

So I think it's, I don't know if it's money per se. It's more just a ledger for a transaction, which money is a proxy for. And so you're sort of disintermediating money from the transaction ledger. And you can still call it something like Ethereum or Bitcoin, but it's basically the ledger of transactions. Keep in mind that, you know, in human history, even these non-redeemable currencies are relatively new. It used to be they were tied to gold or silver. or commodity even in the United States of America until I think 1964 or something around then our currency was pegged to gold and silver. But again, I think when you deconstruct why we have money and why that's more efficient than barter, the next step is really to say, why don't we

out for direct kind of crediting and debiting on a shared ledger through, you know, a distributed technology like blockchain. Yeah, and I guess I'd reference that a little bit by just saying, you know, as I said earlier, it's a different form of settlement. So, you know, if you're going to buy electricity on the utility, but you're also generating it in a distributed fashion, why go through a money exchange? It's really inefficient. Why don't you just set up a tokenization?

You can make that work. You know, I spoke earlier about the opportunity to really set up exchanges that are about important things like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and sequestering that. How do you do that? and how can you, I mean, that's something you can actually do without having an artifice. Our ranch sold some of the very first carbon credits ever, and, you know, 50% of that was brokerage fees. That was just ridiculous. The money that we were going to get 50% reduced by

brokerage. The brokerage had nothing to do with it. It was between the consumer and us, the producer, and that's where that exchange should occur. That's interesting. Yeah, I also personally am very, fascinated by how we could apply this technology to solve environmental kind of like common problems issues. So I used to cover that as a journalist. Anyway, okay, last question. Just general question, what do you think of Ethereum? Because this is an Ethereum hack, what do you think of Ethereum? Yeah, because this is an Ethereum Packathon.

You know, I mean, I always say I'm completely agnostic about all the wonderful new and wonderful technologies. Obviously, Ethereum is an important. one right now you have the second or third biggest capitalization. Is it's second? Second. $250 or so for one Ethereum unit. Is that right? You know, I don't even know. Can somebody... 260? Do I hear two 60? 270? I do not know the price of... 280? 280? 280. 288? 288. Okay, great. 288. Look, the way that value is conveyed, you have a stake in because you're Ethereum developers.

From our perspective, it doesn't matter that much. much what the ultimate way that value is conveyed is. There can be many. I think that there is already value, you know, significant value being conveyed through Ethereum. That's why there's a developer ecosystem around Ethereum. You wouldn't be here. If it had the 15th largest cap,

you'd probably have a small group of maybe 12 of you here. So it directly inspires the economic ecosystem around development. So that's exciting and fun. but obviously we're completely, I'm agnostic about what happens, but it's exciting to see that the value of Ethereum has driven such a large development community to develop innovations in this ecosystem. Yeah, and I guess what I'd say about Ethereum, you know, when we started seeing the ICOs and various things, Bitcoin and others coming along, it was easy to sort of say, well, this is going to be speculative. We've got a lot of volatility. really don't see the application, and it can start to grow, et cetera, et cetera.

When Ethereum entered, you know, suddenly you're saying, oh, wait a minute, I understand where this really has practicality. Then you can back, you know, back test that against the other cryptos, but what's really cool about Ethereum is it really did open the way,

you know, you were talking about title chains and things like that. It's extraordinary what Ethereum sort of opened up in that respect. Great. All right, so I don't have a watch on. Is that 30 minutes? Yes? Oh, I have like really good spidey sentence. I think it's from doing the podcast so much. Thank you so much, Governor Polis and Governor Gordon. Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about Governor Polis and Governor Gordon, check out the show notes inside your podcast player. Whether you're feeling this crypto winter or the other kind of winter, keep yourself warm with some unchained t-shirts, hats, mugs, and stickers, which you can find at show notes. shop.unchained podcast.com. Again, that's shop.com. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from factual recording, Anthony Yun, Daniel Nuss, Josh Sturm, and the team at CLK

transcription. Thanks for listening.