Unchained - The Chopping Block: 2024 Election Debate feat. Mike Novogratz & Shaun Maguire - Ep. 729

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner slice into the juiciest topics in crypto. This week, Robert Leshner welcomes two special guests: Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy, and Shaun Maguire, general partner at Sequoia Capital, for a one-of-a-kind debate on how the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election could shape the future of crypto. With the stakes higher than ever, they explore what a Harris or Trump presidency could mean for crypto regulation, market infrastructure, and the populist undercurrents driving the industry forward. From blockchain voting possibilities to the macroeconomic forces impacting Bitcoin and stablecoins, the conversation pushes beyond policy to the heart of crypto's role in tomorrow's world. This episode delivers crucial insights on the political forces that could redefine crypto’s trajectory in the U.S. and beyond. Show highlights 🔹 Crypto in the Election Crosshairs: Mike Novogratz and Shaun Maguire debate how a Trump or Harris presidency could reshape the U.S. crypto landscape. 🔹 Deregulation vs. Innovation: Trump’s pro-deregulation stance meets Harris’s pro-innovation campaign promises. Which path is better for crypto growth? 🔹 Crypto's Populist Appeal: How Trump’s base connects with crypto’s populist movement and why that resonates with “the people at the bottom” of the income bracket. 🔹 Deep State and Political Jaywalking: Shaun Maguire dives into the concept of “political jaywalking” and its impact on trust in U.S. elections. 🔹 The Future of Blockchain Voting: Could blockchain-based voting bring transparency to elections? The crew weighs in on the feasibility and timing of decentralized voting. 🔹 Bitcoin's Role in Macro Trends: With U.S. debt surging, Mike and Shaun share their thoughts on Bitcoin as a hedge, whether Trump or Harris takes office. 🔹 The Crypto Political Machine: A look at how crypto insiders engage with political campaigns and the industry’s impact on down-ballot races. 🔹 Wildcard Assets: How a national Bitcoin reserve might impact U.S. fiscal policy – could it ever happen under Harris? Hosts ⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate Guests ⭐️Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy ⭐️Shaun Maguire, general partner at Sequoia Capital Disclosures Timestamps  00:00 Introduction 02:03 Shaun’s Argument for Trump 05:10 Mike's Argument for Harris 11:10 Political Bias and Prediction Markets 18:25 Flynn & Political Jaywalking 24:26 Macroeconomic Implications for Crypto 30:29 Bitcoin Price Predictions Post-Election 32:38 Gold & Central Bank Dynamics 34:41 Nation States & Bitcoin Reserves 37:35 Military Technology & Future Dominance 39:10 Presidential Campaign Issues & AI 47:44 Election Integrity & Blockchain Voting 53:17 Crypto's Influence in Politics 56:42 $WLFI Endeavors 01:00:17 Closing Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a special edition of the chopping block covering the 2024 presidential race. Hosted by Robert Leshner right here, right now on the chopping block. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Chopping Block, the industry insider's perspective on the crypto topics of the day. At right now, there's no bigger topic in crypto than the U.S. presidential election taking place on Tuesday. This will be a special episode with a different format than you're used to. We're going to be hosting a debate between two titans of industry with different perspectives on the candidates to discern how the future of crypto in the U.S. might evolve differently

under a Harris or a Trump presidency. I'm Robert Leshner, the czar of superstate, and the moderator of today's debate. Joining me are Mike Novogratz, the godfather of Galaxy Digital, who's been working to advance the Democratic Party's views on crypto. Hi, guys. And John McGuire, the seasoned champion of Sequoia Capital, who catalyzed the Silicon Valley debate when he publicly donated $300,000 to Trump in May. Hey, everyone.

I'm doing to be here. Sean. We are all early stage investors in crypto, but I want a caveat that nothing we say is investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. Please see the chopping block. XYZ from more disclosures. Before we begin, I'd like to start by sharing my backdrop of thinking for this debate and discussion.

In general, I believe that there's two intertwined segments of the crypto industry, assets that go up like Bitcoin and crypto market infrastructure like custody, trading, defy, wallets, tokenization, RWA, et cetera, a lot of things that Galaxy does. During both the Trump and Biden administrations, we've seen the growth in the price of crypto assets, albeit it's been more muted during Biden's presidency. But during the Biden administration, we've seen a very obvious headwind from the administration against crypto market infrastructure, ranging from Operation Chokepoint 2.0 to the regulation by enforcement approach of the SEC. Both candidates offer an opportunity for change.

And today, I'd like us to explore how they would go about accomplishing it. Starting with Sean, how could Trump be better for crypto assets and crypto market infrastructure? Hey, everyone. Happy to be here, ready to get my head chopped off by Novo, someone I have admired for a long time. I only met in person maybe three times. It's crazy for me to be, I just got to start with the meta point. It's crazy for me to be defending Trump because in 2016, I was all in behind Hillary and thought that Trump was a Russian spy and that the world would end if he got elected. And so I just have to start that it's been quite the journey for me.

I think some of the pillars of why I think Trump would be better on crypto specifically are, one, he is a huge fan of deregulation. and we see, you know, with people like Elon, like them embodying that. Two, I mean, he's really, I would say a few years ago, he was extremely skeptical of crypto. But obviously in the last year, he's like really gotten into it, maybe even too much, like to the point that he's a D-Gen. But we're going to talk about World Liberty a little bit later on the episode. But look, he's got young children that are really in. to crypto and I think have educated him on where it's going, at least certain aspects of it. And at least as far as I can tell, he seems like a true believer at this point.

I also think, you know, he's, from my experience, I think Trump feeds on love. Like when people show him love and respect, like that's such a opposite emotion of what he's been getting for the last eight years from the media, then when he gets that, it creates a positive a feedback loop from him and he really craves more of it. And just to be very candid, seeing him at the, you know, Bitcoin conference, like the love he got. I think he just, he sees that this movement, cannily crypto is kind of a populist movement. And that's very much in line with, with Trump's views. And when I say populist movement, I mean, it's driven from the bottoms up. You know, for me, the thing that the moment where, like, that made me feel like, crypto has.

to exist is I did an around-the-world backpacking trip in 2009 and 2010. This was the very, very beginning of crypto. And like specifically, I took a bus from Paraguay into Bolivia and our bus broke down. I got stuck in the Chaco Desert. And I didn't have any, we were just across the border in Bolivia. I didn't have any Bolivian money. Literally had to barter for food. And just had this very strong feeling of how broken money is for most people in the world. Not for people in America, are being infrastructure pretty damn good for most people in the world. And I just, I think Trump, despite the

Eat the Dogs and Cats memes, like, I think he's a champion of kind of the people at the bottom end of the income bracket. I think that's where crypto benefits the most. Excellent. Mike, your turn. Why would listen, it would be disingenuous

to come out in here and say, you know, Harris is going to be better for crypto than Trump. I mean, you just Sean gave it pretty eloquent description, but like, let's be more practical, Ethan, right? His secretary and treasurer will probably be Senator Haggerty, who has been one of our great champions of the Senate. You know, the head of his transition team Howard Lutnik runs Cantor Fitzgerald is a big Bitcoin owner himself, so he's got a vested interest. But he also makes a fortune helping tether, you know, buy and store their treasuries.

And so he's got a vested interest, both in stable coins. And so the people surround him, J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel, lots of the advisors, all are pro-crypto. And so I think I will get much richer if Trump wins, as most of the people on this call will be. Why am I a Harris supporter? I just want to say I fully agree with Novo there, but I just want to add one nuance. and I was told to chop it up, keep this interactive. Drop me up as much as you want. But one thing that I, as I came out and supported Trump, a lot of people said,

oh, you're doing it just for the money. And I agree with Novo here. I think that crypto will absolutely pump. And I'm a major crypto holder. And so like he's right. But that is like not even a top three or four issue form. Like my own personal wealth is not a top three or four issue on supporting Trump. And there's a very important nuance, which was when he got elected in 2016, my taxes went up,

as did basically any wealthy person on a coast. He got rid of this thing called the salt deduction, which let you deduct your state and local taxes, you know, before paying federal income taxes. And so my taxes went up pretty significantly. And so I just want to say, Novo is totally right. I think anyone in crypto will make a lot more money under charge. Trump. And I think there are a lot of Trump supporters. They're doing it purely for financial reasons. I just have to say for myself, it's really ideological reasons, like, not financial.

So let me think the other side on the hair of stuff. Because, listen, what our industry has gone through the last four years is an American unfair and infuriating. I have spent a fortune in legal fees, a galaxy has, defending stupid, or answering stupid subpoenas for other people, you know, defending ourselves. Just the tax, our audit costs three times what a normal audit of a company our size should be. We spend $9 million a year on audit. For God's sake, we were a small company. Now we're a medium-sized company.

I learned small companies are under 500 people. We've just gone over 500. Congratulations. I'm not sure that's a good thing or a bad thing. And so it's it's it's it's it's it's been infuriating to be a Democrat and to be in crypto. What I would say is about a year ago that started to shift people I mean I had this line that they're more crypto owners and dog owners in America and I think people got the they got the message and you know Biden made a deal with Elizabeth Warren in order to get elected and he held true to that deal and Elizabeth Warren had an

undue influence on democratic policy to crypto. That's come to an end. It just has. And the Harris campaign has been very clear, less publicly, but certainly privately, that this will be a first-term presidency, that it'll be pro-innovation, that they get it. They will push for crypto legislation in a lame duck just to get that off the table. And so while I don't think it will be as you're not going to get a push for a strategic reserve, a Bitcoin strategic reserve or a commitment not to sell the Bitcoin that's in with the U.S. Marshals, you will get decent legislation around market structure, stable coins, and you'll get, I think, a push to, and the most important thing for all our community for getting stable coin legislation and market structure legislation.

It is a direction from the new president through Treasury to the OCC and the Fed that you need to let banks own crypto on their balance sheet and you need to let the big old custodians like Bank of New York custody crypto. Bank of New York got permission to custody a tiny bit of crypto. Does nothing. Right. If you see traditional banks start participating, it will increase the amount of participation of our community immensely. And so, listen, I don't think, I think Harris will be significantly significantly better than Biden. And, you know, the rest of my reasons are more personal and philosophical, right? I'm a character over policy guy, right? 41 of the 45 self-appointed cabinet members of the first Trump administration won't work for him.

If Sean decided he was going to start his own venture company and 90% of his employee said, I'm never working for that guy. No one's investing in him. This is one of the strangest setups we've ever had. Every single general that worked for Trump, with the exception of the one that got arrested and put in jail and then pardoned, won't work for him. And so there's something that's so volatile about it. Listen, times he's unbelievably charming and good. And you think, oh, with Elon around, maybe we're going to get, you know, some great stuff happening. But the facts are the facts. That his entire last regime says

no mas. Can I go back to one of the things you said. You said that there's been a shift in, we'll call it the Democrats view source crypto. Do you think that shift is at the campaign level or the administration level because there's a lot of indications still that the administration that's currently in power has not made a shift. You know, every day on Twitter. Biden's administration, again, those guys aren't shifting. It is the Harris team that has pledged we will be much better on this issue. It's Senator Schumer who was trying to push a bill foo. It's the guys in the House. And I think Hakeem Jeffrey probably becomes the Speaker of the House. And, you know, listen, if you're a Wall Streeter, you always pray for

split government. Like, you don't want to sweep if you're a Wall Street guy. And so I think consensus is that the Democrats were in the House, the Republicans were in the Senate and the, and right now that Trump wins the presidency. But I think it's probably closer than the polls show. Yeah, I think it's, I just trust in polymarket and the prediction markets, you know, as being a good barometer. But, you know, that's a whole different debate. Again, 80 to 90 percent of people in crypto are guys and 90% are guys to start within crypto, right? And guys are overwhelmingly Trump and females are overwhelminglyly Harris. It could be literally 67% either way on both sides. And so I don't think Polly Market is even close to a good indicator.

What about Kalshi? What about the markets on interactive brokers in Robin Hood? I mean, at this point, there's like a number of different venues to trade. I think there's such a sex bias there. Again, look at how much. Look at how much. many followers you have on Twitter today and tell me mail versus email. I bet you 85% of your followers on Twitter are male. I would go with like 92%. You know, I'm just guessing. I'm going to jump in because we're now getting like a few points back, you know, that I want to address. But I'll just say on the Polymarket CaliChi debate, Sequoia's investor in Calci, I'm a huge fan of prediction market space. I agree with Mike that there's a lot of kind of systematic bias in who the users are.

But I also, I personally think that the prediction markets are probably slightly better than the polls. Like I think there's systematic bias in each. If I had to only choose one to represent the true odds, like I think the prediction markets are closer. And even though there's such large, you know, bias, the whole point of prediction markets is, you know, if there's systematic bias and some smart trader can go ARB that and, you know, make money. And I think there are a lot of, you know, you get this French whale with $43 million, whatever, on the ploy market. I don't think he's doing that because he's, you know, he's not just like a stoner trying to just,

like, bet his team. The thing of betting on binary outcomes is it's very difficult ex post to figure out how accurate it was, right? Like, binary bets are hard in that respect. Listen, I do think this has been great for prediction markets. I think we all agree in that. I just want to go back. I actually have two points from the past that I want to address.

So truly I agree with Mike on most things, and I really respect Mike a ton. He's a titan of crypto and has done a huge amount to advance crypto, especially from a regulatory perspective and Washington perspective. One comment I have on Harris, though, is I don't feel like we actually know what her positions are on things right now. And I don't mean that just as a talking point. Like in my heart, I really believe I don't know what she thinks. Like she didn't run a full, you know, campaign the way candidates have historically. She's done very few interviews. Interviews have for the most part been very scripted. You know, just just last night, CNN aired a clip of her, basically her ads in Michigan

are kind of very pro-Palestine and her ads in Pennsylvania are very pro-Israel. And I feel like we've seen her now take both sides on a lot of issues. And I think Mike is right. I think that she will have a pro-crypto stance and much better than Biden. But I don't think we know for sure. Whereas with Trump, I think we know for sure

that he will take a very pro-picto stance. And then just one other point I want to go back to you know, on the, you know, 45 cabinet members or whatever and all generals except for Flynn not supporting him. I worked in the DoD. I worked with a lot of those people. I deployed to Afghanistan. I've done really crazy shit that no one knows about, like really crazy shit.

And I'm still very deeply in touch with that world. First of all, I know a lot of people that served in Trump's cabinet that have a very different perspective. And second, I've just got to say, like, In 2020, there were 51 intelligence officials, including five former CIA directors that signed a letter, you know, two weeks before the election, saying that Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, which it obviously wasn't. And then the FBI and DOJ had access to it for a year before that. And I'm sorry, but I'm to be honest. I think there are deep state effects that I'm happy to unpack that we cannot ignore.

And it's part of why I'm supporting Trump. And I like that is just an objective, 51 intelligence official, the five former state directors all colluding, you know, to say that 100 Biden laptop was fake. Like that actually happened. That is verifiable. And I'm going to try to a question. Yeah. It's a real question.

Like there's a difference between like. minor hysteria, are hysteria under pressure, right? Like, do you believe that those 51 knew it was Russian disinformation and said it wasn't? Or their bias was, of course this is Russian information. It reeks of Russian information. Therefore, my best guess is it's Russian information. And it became a self-enforce reinforcing hysteria, even though it was wrong. I think this is an amazing question.

It's exactly the right question. And for it's worth, I think what you're implying is correct. Like I think that only maybe two or three of the 51 actually knew that it was, that it was, that they were lying. There are certainly two or three that were running it off and knew they were lying. And I think the rest just trusted their, you know, trusted people that they had served with. And I, because I had served, I trusted that letter deeply. I probably would have signed it. If I had a bunch of former CIA directors, you know, which was an agency, I trusted a lot,

telling me that this was Russian disinformation. Like that for me is like we cannot, we cannot let a Russian asset get elected into the U.S. presidency. And so if you're with very limited information and a tight timeline before an election, like honestly, I probably would have signed it. Then I would never sign it now. Now I'm much more skeptical. But I will just say, like, I'm going to go native.

Please go to. I worked with General Flynn. I sat in a skiff with like his top top two aides every day for many years, including like during the Badabad raid. And which is when, you know, the Steel Team 6 got Osama bin Laden. And like that guy's a patriot. And I'm sorry. But if you go actually look at the details of what happened to him and very few people understand what actually happened to him, like it was a setup. He got really screwed.

and the way to go further, and this has been one of the things that's kind of radicalized me, I believe that in recent years the Democrats have introduced a new tactic against the Republicans. And don't get me wrong, I think the Republicans, I'm afraid that the Republicans would use the same tactic back at the Democrats. I think that both sides are pretty similar. And like whenever a new tactic is invented, the other side will use it four years later. And I'm very afraid of that. But this new tactic is what I would call political jaywalking. So, like, take, I think the simplest example is classified documents.

Hillary Clinton had, you know, thousands of classified documents on her email server. Yeah, agree, agree. You know, Joe Biden had classified documents and at least relocations. Mike Pence had classified documents and Trump had classified documents. The only one that got indicted on this was Trump. And I'll just say, like, if you were to look at every president in the history of America, They've basically all taken some classified documents back with them. First of all, they have declassification authority.

Second of all, they're taking momentos back to go into their future presidential libraries and all of this. And third, it's like it's kind of chaotic on the way out. And there's just different levels to this. Like, you know, if you take something and it's in your basement and it's a future momento and if you declassified it by literally just saying out loud to one friend as you're leaving like, okay, I'm declassifying everything we're taking with us. That's all legal.

And just the fact that basically everyone's been. doing this, no one had gotten indicted for this until Trump. It's like jaywalking. Jaywalking is technically illegal some places, but no one, people are very rarely arrested for it. And what happened to Flynn is honestly, it was the first example of political jaywalking in the Trump administration. So the quick version is, you know, basically... Listen, should I agree with you? What is frustrating, or I think my reality is, he's looking at a guy like Flynn, you know, take you your word that he was a decent patriot and an irrational guy. And then he gets, you can call it law fared or jaywalking or whatever you want.

And then... He's no longer rational. Now he's so angry that now he's... You're angry. He's unhinged. And I don't disagree with you. You know, I honestly don't disagree with you. But I think it's worth, like, if you actually understand what happened to him, it's like basically the highest level is that...

But just let me say this really quickly. Like, the highest level is that for every... administration and history, after the election in November, you know, you take office in January. There's this two-month transition. Basically, every administration in history has had some minor contact between the transition team and some, you know, foreign allies and foreign adversaries of very basic, like, hey, we'll be taking office. You know, these are our key positions, you know, like we're looking forward to talking to you right when we join office. That is technically illegal, you know, to be doing any level of political diplomacy, you know, on behalf of your nation when you're not

in office. But no one had ever, everyone's done it. No one's ever gone in charge for it. That's what they were going after Flynn for. And he was smart enough to know that it's technically illegal and that they're going after him for it. And so he kind of lied about the condens of the call, but it was lose, lose. And he knew they were going after him. And after that and then seeing everything that he saw, he became so radicalized that I agree, it's, it's like destructive at this point. But I'm with the generals that have gone after Trump and the cabinet members, that is a talking point. I literally know hundreds of people that Trump served in Trump's cabinet, or sorry, in his, you know, served in his office. And I think there's just way more nuance. I'm happy to

unpack it for anyone. We could keep going back to crypto, but I think it's just, it's, I just have to push on that. Because I don't think many people. people actually appreciate the other piece that the people that won't vote for Trump. Because it's, listen, there's a lot of good that could come with Trump, right? Like, you know, who knows? I don't think either. One of the reasons I'm kind of bullish either way is, you know, Trump wants to spend, spend, spend, spend and cut taxes and Harris wants to spend, spend, spend, and raise taxes.

We both have huge deficits, big deficits, you know, money printer goes burr and crypto goes higher. And no one's addressing the elephant in the room, which is we've got $36 trillion in debt. They're on your trillion every hundred days. And, you know, the bond market might kick us in the nuts or kick us in the stomach, I should say. My kids have been chiding me for bad language online. At one point, right? That, you know, Elon's the only guy on the campaign so far that's been saying, hey, we're going to bankrupt our kids.

We've got to do something about this. Now it's disingenuous to see I can cut $2 trillion. out of the deficit. I think you on could for what it's worth. Just to make things clear, 57% of the $6.75 trillion dollar budget is Medicare, Social Security, and debt bills. So now you're at 43% left, right? The military is close to 20% of that. And Trump has said he wants to increase the military spending, not decrease it. So you're down to 23% left, right? That is less than $2 trillion. I think you could wildly restructure health services in this country. Security and Medicare, if you're willing to touch them and we're going to have to,

yeah, it's a whole new ballgame. But no politician has come close in this cycle. Well, let's take this to the macroeconomic backdrop, if Trump wins or if Harris wins. So, Novo, your view is that, you know, in either case, the deficit is effed, and that's a tailwind to crypto asset prices? I just got it. So thought experiment in Ovo, what if we restructure Social Security and instead of, you know, holding dollars right now to pay out in dollars, what if we bought a bunch of Bitcoin and

paid out in dollar prices later on? Basically, if you restructure and buy some asset that you believe is going to appreciate like crazy into the future, then, you know, your notional. That's a little bit like putting Bitcoin in the reserve. If you're the reserve, you have to have everyone believe you're the reserve for good. If you're going to slowly inflate away that 36 trillion in debt that you need to do, you've got to be so subtle about it. Yeah. Or it becomes a runaway train.

And so, listen, here's the great irony. If Elon came in or anyone came in and took us from 125% of GDP back down under 100, I'd be selling my Bitcoin, right? I would not. Our story is our story, I'd be selling my goal. The story of hard. Can I hold you that at Novo? Can we come back on the show in four years and you can say I sold my Bitcoin? Well, I just don't think, I don't think there's political will in this country.

We have populism on both sides to do the hard things. And that's why I'm wrong. I'm for the most part, I agree with you. And I think the deficit is a giant, giant problem. That said, I am bullish. The only thing I don't disagree is I'm bullish. on Bitcoin in basically any scenario. Let me ask you a question.

So if I, if we cut the, if I was a secretary of treasury and I came in and said, all right, we're cutting the deficit. We're raising taxes a little bit, not a lot. We're slashing spending. We're social security. You're now 70 years. If you were born, if you're 20 or less, you know, we're means testing both Medicare and Social Security and we're looking for efficiency gains.

You know, when I first got out, my first job was at the Office of Management and Budget in 1984. You're old, Novo. I'm old as fuck. And there was a thing called the Grace Commission. W.R. Grace, big company. They took the best and brightest from a bunch of Wall Street firms, set them to D.C. for a year and said, come up with exactly what Elon's talking about. Show us how we can make government more efficient. And they had a big book. And the best computer guy in the office at that point was me as a 20-year-old who could do Lotus notes. And they said, hey, can you codify this? And I was like, are you kidding?

It was a book like this of all the projects. And so they quickly hired Computer Data Corp to do it instead of me. And I went back to college. Like, if you did all of that, do you still think, what's the argument to still be long Bitcoin? So I think that all of that would set Bitcoin back five or six years or something. But for me, I really, I don't view crypto as an American thing. I personally think that by far the dominant demand for crypto over the next few decades is the developing world and global south.

And it's not even, it's not like Mali. It's also Brazil. It's definitely Argentina. It's definitely, like, it's all of Africa. You know, let me ask you another fair question. Right now, if I asked any one of those, you know, let's call them places where people have lost a lot of faith in economic stewardship, Nigeria, the Naira just keeps getting worse and worse. Would you rather have a dollar stable coin or a Bitcoin? I think most would still rather have a dollar stable coin because I agree.

I agree too. but I think that they're heavily correlated. And I think things like, you know, if you have a stable coin, you're going to try to get yield on the deposits. And I think you'll buy, you know, you'll buy a lot of dollar denominated things, treasury bonds, et cetera. But I think you'll also have 10, 20 percent that's, you know, you'll buy Bitcoin. You'll buy, you know, some equities. You'll buy some things that are slightly higher interest, slightly higher risk uncorrelated. I think that like stable, stable coin growth, I think actually feeds crypto growth more broadly.

And I think Bitcoin is just a very unique asset that is for me, my worst case for Bitcoin, in my personal opinion, again, this is not investment advice. My worst case is that Bitcoin surpasses gold, that it flips gold over the next 20 years or something. I think Bitcoin is just for my generation and younger, I think Bitcoin is just structurally better in every way than gold. Yep. And I think that the dream scenario of Bitcoin is it becomes a hundred trillion plus asset class in today's dollars. I think that that probably doesn't, you don't achieve that level if America really gets its act together and, you know, we have the dollar is still the world's, you know, reserve currency in 2030. years that's just still structurally strong. So that's how I think about it. Just so I'm really clear

on my macro view, I think the chance of the U.S. getting its act together is really low. I agree with you. I think actually almost the best we can hope for is really gifted people around the table who can run inflation at four to five percent, but not have it accelerate. And slowly inflate away this debt. And in that case, Bitcoin should still go higher. 100%. And so, listen, I'm long. I'm not selling. I think on a Trump win, we break 73 and go a lot higher fast on a Harris win, we probably flushed down to high 50s, low 60s, bottom, and then end up going up pretty quick. Well, I was going to save this question to the lightning round at the end, but since you're already bringing it up, Novo, you know,

30 days after election, where do you see prices with each candidate? You sort of just said it, but without the specific time frame of 30 days? And, Sean, 30 days after the election for either candidate winning, where do you say? 30 days is always hard. But if you take out 73, your next target's 100. And, you know, that would be my year-end, you know, January target. You know, you often take out 73. You go up to 85.

And then you come back and you'll touch 73 again. I never will panic and some people will, you know, paper hands or whatever you want to call. And then it goes back higher. There's a lot of negative gamma. A lot of people have done call overrides. Listen, there's obviously someone selling a ton of crypto above $72,000, $70,000. I mean, just the price action is, you know,

monster supply keeps coming out and it's concentrated. I wish I could tell you it was. I don't know. Yelling at all my salespeople to find out. But we haven't seen that flow. Sean, what do you think? I have basically the exact same answer. You know, last time I looked at all the like cell walls, there's a huge, the next cell walls

around 100K. And I think if Trump wins, we're touching 100K, you know, by end of January. And that said, like, I think that we'll be stuck there for a while because you have to get, you know, whether it's 95K or 100K, K. Like, I think you're stuck in that domain for a while, just selling through kind of all the excess. Right. The market cap of gold is, what, 15 trillion?

15 trillion. Yeah. Right. And market cap of Bitcoin at 100 is 2 trillion. And so you got 7X. I've always had that as a 10-year target. Yeah. You know, 20-year target.

What's driving gold right now is China and Russia, Central Bank, buying a ton of it. And so central bank's taking out supply. We haven't, other than, you know, Ecuador and a few other small places. Yeah, El Salvador. Or El Salvador, I'm sorry. We haven't really seen, you know, nation state. Abu Dhabi has bought some, but it's, you know, that's a. We have seen there are some corporate treasuries that are not publicly disclosed

that have significant Bitcoin reserves. I think that's kind of like, I think the next step of giant demand would be like some corporate treasuries that have a lot of cash and don't know what to do with it. putting 5% of their cash or whatever in Bitcoin. As opposed to returning it to shareholders or, you know. I think some of them have more cash than they even know how to return to shareholders. And obviously not on the limit, but like, you know, you want to keep some cash. What was this up with Microsoft having a, was it a vote?

I think it was more of a PR stunt where, you know, if you get just enough votes of the shares, you can get something on the agenda. Oh, I see. Right. And I think it'll be defeated. you know, when it comes up at the next general meeting by like 99.5 to 0.5 or whatever, but you can, you know, get things onto the agenda. So, if you all, I want to share of Microsoft just to vote.

But the point, the point I'm making is if you look on a 10-year time horizon, I think the, I think the thing that would be the next step to really drive, like, giant demand would be, you know, corporate balance sheets saying, you know, the dollar has some structural issues, like some inflationary issues. Like we're going to, we need working capital. Bitcoin's very liquid. We'll put 5% of our cash into, you know, Bitcoin or whatever. And sure, return, you have too much surplus cash, returns on the shareholders, buyback shares, etc. But that, I think the level beyond that would be nation state activity. Obviously, if people felt like the U.S. was going to set up a Bitcoin reserve, like it's things would go freaking wild.

Things will go ahead. Right. Yeah. Small, the Middle East, like, UAE will have a front run. Yeah. So it will go crazy. Well, here's a question then directed at Novo. You know, if Harris wins, do you think there's any plausibility for the U.S. establishing

a Bitcoin reserve of some kind? Or do you think that just extends, you know, that prospect? Listen, I, as a Bitcoin holder, you'd love a Bitcoin reserve. As a policy guy, I think the government can make a strong argument that we're going to own some Bitcoin on our balance sheet to signal that we're going to be tech. technology first that we're going to be an innovator and a leader in, you know, decentralized systems and, you know, freedom if you want to be bold about it. George Washington said there is there's no freedom without private property and Bitcoin

is private property in its purest sense, right? And so we can make that argument. I think it's very dangerous for a central bank or a country who is the reserve currency to say I'm going to put other. Think about what happened with Luna, right? Luna was using the Luna token as its reserve for its algorithmic stable coin. And when they said, oh, we're not going to use some Bitcoin because we're worried about Luna. People say, wait a minute, how does this whole thing work? You're turning magical internet money into dollars to buy Bitcoin?

You think you can do that infinitely? And that created the awareness that all wasn't well in a, in a algorithmic stable coin where they were paying 18% leverage. 18% interest, right? It did it. That awareness wasn't there until they bought Bitcoin. And so you've got to be pretty careful when you're the reserve currency. Traditionally, you know who wins the reserve currency? The country that has the Navy that controls disease. The Brits did it. The Spanthans did it. The Brits did it. We did it. And we used to spend it. It's also the, so Army Navy is by far the most important. But I think the second thing is whichever country, has historically had the store of value as well.

And I think the kind of the hidden secondary piece around the dollar becoming the world's reserve currency was like in addition to, you know, UK going into lots of debt and their Army Navy being heavily weakened and kind of being seen as probably not even a top three Army Navy post-World War II. During World War II, almost all of the world's gold went to America for safekeeping. And so when you came out of World War II, just like the France is gold,

the UK is gold, like Spain's gold, it was all just sitting in America. And so we already had it in our banks and, you know, we're able to have this dollar, you know, this gold reserve. What's also interesting, and this is where Elon is so fascinating, if you think about aircraft carriers, which were, is the Navy, if you think about it, like any, right, And how vulnerable they are now to the drones, the Houthis are actually, you know, with, I actually went on a, it looked like a jet ski, but it was a bigger jet ski. And it was an electric jet ski. So it was quiet, high powered.

And this one was trying to get me to invest in it. And she was like, we're getting huge orders from the military because they just make these autonomous drones. And they fucking send a thousand jet skis out there at the same time. And you can't stop them all. So I actually think the next frontier of dominance is satellites with, you know, somebody showed me this whole project with you have a tungsten rod that you drop from space. And by the time it hits, it's pinpointed, pinpointed, you know, one meter target.

It creates such because it's going at a zillion miles an hour. It's basically landing. It's like how SpaceX lands, you know, Starship or Falcon 9. You basically land. If you go look at the mechanics, it's basically a rod, and it's the same control problem. And you basically, with tiny little tail fins or whatever, you can guide it at terminal philosophy. You've got like a freaking, you know, mini-new or you ever hit anyone you'll want to hit. And so, like, who controls space?

And that's a real big, what is frustrating about this presidential campaign on both sides is all the issues that we should be discussing, AI, and how it's going to impact our future, right? How we have amazing inequality in America, yet only 25 million-ish people are paying tax for the other 300 million. So we already have this skewed, you know, about who's paying for it, but we still have inequality.

It's really complicated stuff out there right now. You can look at inequality differently once you take government subsidies and that's what's not as bad. But like these are really complicated questions. in a world where change is happening so fast. And our debate isn't there, right? It's, I mean, he's just watched the Madison Square Garden debate or the nicer version,

which was Harris on the mall, you know, very different tone, but no content. Right. So how do you think the actual conversation will be established, you know, post-election, you know, post-inauguration, right, if it's not happening now? Like, will the debate of AI policy and, the policy be entirely behind closed doors, will it be done in the halls of Congress? Like, how do you think that shakes out? Remember.

It'll be done in the halls of X. Depending on who wins. If Trump wins, I think it's going to, I think that we're going to get a lot of pontification on X. And if Harris wins, X might be banned. Yeah. Well, the problem with X is, you know, it's 80% right now. It used to be a platform of debate, and now it's just a right-wing echo chain.

It was Fox News with a tech bet. And so, and I get a lot of my, you know, because I'm an ex guy, right? And so it's frustrating because I do think it's the same bias you're seeking polymarking. You're like, oh, my God, this election's over. And then I talk to people on the ground in Pennsylvania. They're like, dude, we are going to be counting every last vote. It's going to be within 10,000 votes. You know, he pissed off the Puerto Ricans.

There's a half a million of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania. And bad bunny just went there. I mean, there's all these, there's these little mini narratives. that are real. And that's how politics works, right? It's a ground game. And the one thing the Democrats have going for them, while they're losing the big narrative, they have a much more sophisticated ground game in Wisconsin, certainly Michigan and Pennsylvania than the Republicans. The Republicans had Laura Trump as their head. Yeah, I think this is a very important point. And it's like, it's actually gets to a big part of how I'm voting in this election.

I don't view this election as about, it's like, I'm not voting for Trump or against Harris. Honestly, I'm voting like against the Democratic machine. And let me just say a little bit on that. Like my rough mental model is that all sides are roughly equal, if given the opportunity. And that basically the legacy Republican machine and legacy Democratic machine were co-evolving for more than 100 years. And when one side learned a tactic, the other side would figure it out by the next cycle, gerrymandering, okay, the other side does it too, you know, like changing, like ballot harvesting, one side learns it, the other side will learn it too.

There's been this co-evolution for more than 100 years. And both machines got really, really strong. One aspect of which was like figuring out voter rolls of, you know, like really, so you can do really targeted, you know, door knocking and stuff like that. but Trump broke the Republican machine in 2016. Like the Republican machine as of 2016 was the neocon machine. It was the machine controlled by the Bush family and Dick Cheney and, you know, but like family people like the Koch brothers who I actually respect the Koch brothers a lot.

And I think that they have been kind of, I do not respect Dick Cheney, but I do respect the Koch brothers. I think there's a lot of nuance here. But basically it was a neocon machine. Trump broke the machine. That Republican machine hated Trump and did not want him to win. Still do. They still do. They absolutely hate him.

And that's why you see Dick Cheney supporting Harris. But Trump didn't inherit the RNC machine. He's building his own machine. And so right now you have this big, like, you know, disparity between the power and sophistication of the DNC machine versus the RNC machine. I think Trump's machine is kind of where the machines were in the 90s. And because he sees where they are, he'll get there fast in the next four to eight years. The problem with it, it has been built in lots of ways, right, on this angry grievance.

Yeah. Grievance first, MAGA. And, you know, no respect, just no respect, right? And so to start your, to start your big, big benefit, when you know the world's going to be looking at you because of that 1939, you know, Madison Square Garden Nazi thing. So you know the world's looking at you. And to start with the most racist comedian you could find is just tone deaf at best and really sinister at worst. Look, so let me just finish the bigger point and then I'll respond to that point. And just the punchline of what I was saying is like I you're for breaking the

system. I'm for breaking the system and having just like smaller, less sophisticated machines. And honestly at that point, I want to change the rules. Like I want to I want to add in campaign finance rules to like take the big money out of politics. I want to have one day elections in person with paper ballot and ID. That was the coach by the way. Yeah. Right. I mean like the coach. Like I like Chase Coke. I think they do a lot of great stuff. But it's so interesting, right, the Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited money into politics is in some way. is the root of so much of this. I agree. I think if you remove the big money and if you have like one day elections, so many of these other things just become irrelevant, like these state court

battles of, you know, who's on the voter role and all that. Like it all just goes away and everyone will just trust elections. I don't think it's, I think the Democrats benefit so much more than the Republicans by the current system because they're further along. So I don't think they have the incentives to go break that machine. I think for Trump and the Republicans, they're so far behind that it's better for them to just like reset the machine, pass some simplifying, clarifying rules. And for me, like these are, these are actually some of my top issues. I think that you can kind of put it on the bucket of like kind of resetting democracy, protecting democracy. And whatever rhetoric you hear from the individual candidates, whatever you hear like, sure, I'm with you.

I hate the anger. But I just like, I really care about resetting democracy. Well, let me jump in. Let me say two things real quick. All right. Go ahead, Noah. A, I agree. Like open primaries, we should only have open primaries.

It just shifts everything to the center. Ranked choice voting even helps a little bit. We've been funding a lot of that stuff. But my biggest fear, you know, I got a call from David Tepper a little while ago. He's one of the world's great macro investors. and was not happy with either candidate. Not happy is a light way of saying it. But he really wanted to participate.

And so he said, I'm worried that people aren't going to accept the, you know, the election. And so how do we focus on that in the swing states? And so he put a bunch of money and had me and then someone on the right. He wanted someone on the left, someone on the right and himself just so it wasn't one person. That's what this show is as well, just pointing that out.

He put the bulk of the money in, but it still cost me a pretty penny. And the idea was to get ex-state officials who were Trumpers, a few never-trumpers, Republicans, and a few Democrats, all respected state officials in those swing states to go on a press tour before the election and say, guys, I know what you think the last election was fair. We're going to monitor the election, say it was fair, and afterwards come out and say, guys, these are fair. And so like it's crazy that private citizens are spending $20 million just to try to convince people it's fair. But let me give you the polling. No, I'm this. So I have to jump in on this. I'm going to say, again, I'm going to absolutely stick my neck out and get it chopped off by whoever wins this or at least if Harris wins.

Like, this will not go well for me. Hillary Clinton, after the 2016 election, said for the last eight years that the 2016 election was stolen, that it wasn't fair. I agree with her. I think she was right. I think if you look at the amount of what we know as public meddling in that election, it is insane. I think the election was stolen from Hillary. In 2020, I honestly think the election was stolen from Trump. I'm sorry to say, but we have, I used to work in really advanced cybersecurity. I really believe that both of those elections were not secure. And I just don't think it's, I don't think it's possible to know what actually happened either. I'm going to say the unpopular thing. I don't think this selection, it's ever going to be knowable of exactly what their results were and exactly what the influence was. That said, no matter who wins, my goal is that we have to just accept the results, but on the back of it, my goal is that we change the rules to make it so that 2028 is fair. I don't care who wins. I want 2028 to be a simple, like go Taiwan style. We have to accept that these are adversarial elections, whereas a lot.

to gain, you know, for adversaries and just go to a very simple election. And I'm sorry to say this is, you're not supposed to say this. You get canceled for saying this. But I think that's the truth. Well, it's interesting. I was with the secretary of state, the woman in charge of elections in Michigan. She's also in charge of the DMV. And in Michigan, you need a driver's license to vote.

There are 12,000 people that have either reserve light, you know, Indian Reserve reservation licenses, and there are a few people that have two written signatures because of some small exemption. But the broad population driver's license to vote. And she was thinking this could be with a 10,000 vote error. And she was like, there's almost nothing I can do to convince people this is going to be fair. So we polled. Only 65% of Democrats in these swing states think the election is going to.

to be fair. In Republicans, it's like 11%. So you have such a bias already that's been seated by Let's get back to crypto. I see Robert's face. Well, I mean, we can go back to crypto just on this exact topic. I mean, you know, just as a left field idea that's been discussed in our industry for a long time, like, is there any plausible path for blockchain-based voting to help solve some of these problems? So, you know, Jeff Bezos gave out $100 million grants to a bunch of, you know, potential philanthropists and Van Jones got one. You know, Van Jones, the X CNN guy who's a very smart guy. And he called, he said, I'm thinking about doing blockchain-based voting with my Hyundai. And I was like, let's start on American Idol, right? You've got to get people to trust. If blockchains are

trust machines, you've got to get the masses to trust the trust machine. And in some ways, I think we have a most like I thought about this this morning. I hate mail and voting. because it just creates uncertainty. I would rather have us all, we've already given up a lot of our privacy. You know, you walk to an airport now. They've got your facial recognition. You don't even have to show them your passport.

And like, you should be able to go to a booth and I should be able to vote in California from New York because it's the same nationwide system. And where do I live? I put my ID in. It pulls up my ballot. I vote. I hit it. It authenticates me either, you know, through a thumbprint or a facial recognition or

my ID does it. And, you know, we have a national holiday and lots of polling stations or maybe you have three days to vote. But instead, every single county, every single state has a different system, different machines, different. And it just creates just this unbelievable uncertainty. I mean, New York is, it's crazy. New York to vote. You go, there's paper everywhere. You don't ID. You're like, it makes no sense. Robert, I think that there's absolutely the opportunity for it. And I don't think it'll happen in 2028, but I think I think the soon as it could happen is 2032. And I think it would be a huge step forward.

It would be incredible for trust if there was like a Zieg, zero knowledge. Yeah, you got to have to zero knowledge identity thing. Agreed. You have to use the new technologies that are still sort of being developed. Yeah. And just to be able to see like American Idol where people then can learn, hey, this works. Yeah, but just to be able to see like a ledger, anyone can see it and see the total number of votes and like see how many per the things that would be public or like the age of the person, which candidate they voted for, the county they're in like timestamp of when they voted. The things that, you know, their name would not be public or whatever, except for like anyone with, you know, decryption key or whatever. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. I think in the near term, it's just paper ballots in person with ID.

But eventually... I love the purple thumb that people, you know, it's like, thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, we have a couple minutes left. Let's go to the lightning round for a second and try to get out like the biggest topics that we can. This is the first election where there's been the discussion of a crypto political machine, a crypto voting block, however you want to refer to it.

You know, from what you've seen so far, you know, starting Sean and the Novo, like, do you think this has had a material impact in the presidential race at all? Or do you think it's limited to House and Senate candidates? I think the PAC has had a big influence in House and Senate candidates, not in the presidential race directly. But I think the crypto community has had a big influence of just, like, trying to educate and you both Trump and Harris teams and kind of bring them in. So it's like, it's like, I think crypto is a big issue here, but I think it was less the PAC that had the influence on the presidential race than kind of individuals, people like Nova. Just as a data point, I helped put together a roundtable with six world-class crypto founders and people with the Harris team. And they were like, dude, this is our seventh crypto meeting.

And I was like, I'm not sure there's seven meetings of people you're speaking to. There is such a desire on our industry to be heard. And certainly if you're a Democrat, this can't happen again. Like the asshattery of the last four years can't happen again. And I know lots of friends have never voted Republican that are voting because I just can't take it. Like what happened to us was unfair as an industry. And it's not all like, listen, the industry did a lot of stupid shit. and completely unregulated was probably not the right answer either, as we saw so many people

get scammed out of stuff. So I do think it's in the psyche. I think, quite frankly, Trump going to Nashville, you know, Harris gets appointed right after that. And there was nonstop crypto for the first week, should I go to this other conference? Should I go to Nashville? It was in their head. I would tell you that as a guy who sits relatively close. It's certainly in the, you know, Sherritt Brown's race, watch, you know, if Sherritt loses that I don't think it's good for crypto, quite frankly, because the narrative will be these guys took out, took out a guy who ran a, you know, ran a committee and there'll be like an anger response. You know, Katie Porter, didn't know what hit her. She got to take.

it in California, you know, and if she ends up getting a role in the Harris administration, if there is one, she's not going to be a friend of crypto. Those are good insights. It's a two-way street. You know, it's how do you get people's ear and sometimes you've got to break glass to get it? And I think glass got broken this year. And I'm hoping now that the Pax and the crypto people that are willing to put money to try to change policy, do it with the idea that you need, I mean, you're not going to get 60 senators

no matter who wins. And so, you know, the budget is approved by Congress, legislation is approved by Congress, and while the president's really important, you need Congress. I've had fundraisers for Republicans this year, never had before. Yeah. All right, next lightning round question. We have to be relatively quick. Do you think that the Trump family's affiliation with World Liberty Financial and the short tumultuous journey that it's had so far is, helpful to Trump's messages around crypto, or do you think it distracts from it? Starting with you, Neva. I think it's almost insane that in the middle of a presidential campaign, he's out there pumping

up his own crypto. I mean, there's the definition of insanity, especially when the rules aren't even clear yet, right? You know, like, is the SEC going to go after? I mean, it just seems insane. Look, to me, my experience with the crypto is you kind of, you kind of, you're going to, you The only way to learn is by doing. And there are a lot of things I don't like about World Liberty Financial. But I respect the Trump team and family and Trump himself for just like actually going and trying to use this stuff and learn how it works.

I really think it's the only way to learn how crypto works. Does Sequoia invest? No. Okay. Final lightning round question. If you had one message to prospective voters about why you think you are candidate would be better for crypto in just 30 seconds, you know, what would you say? Starting with you, Sean. I don't think my canon will be better for crypto.

I actually think Donald Trump will be better for crypto than Kamala Harris. But I think Kamala Harris will be better for our country and better for, and crypto is going to be just fine. I don't think, I think the pain of the last four years of Biden administration is going to. no matter who wins. Look, to answer the question specifically, I think Trump is clearly better for crypto. He believes in deregulation. He is using crypto, is a big fan of crypto.

And I think that Biden-Harris administration could not have been more hostile. I think it was like a 10 out of 10 maximum, worst-case hostile environment. And so they've just set the bar so low. And I do think Harris would be better, but I think I just think she will inherit a lot of the same people and policies that we've had with Biden Harris. You know, Robert, if Trump wins, one of the reasons that Harris will have lost is because what Trump's got going for him is he, you know, some of his answers are silly and stupid. it and but he gives me an answer where like this whole idea that Kamala Harris, you know,

the Biden Harris administration, she's been in power for three years, has done anything. Her honest answer would have been, what are you talking about? I was the vice president. I got put in a corner by by Jill Biden and Joe. I barely had any influence. Don't give me credit for what happened good or what happened bad. I'm running on a new platform. This is my vision.

Like if she had said that I think the American of people would have said, hallelujah, but she was very careful to say how gracious Joe was to drop down. He wasn't gracious. He got forced to drop down pressure. And quite frankly, he's too old. And Trump will be too old in four years. Well, maybe not. But Biden certainly was too old.

And, you know, 82's old. He'd be running the biggest country in the world, the richest country in the world. And so I do think, you know, what appeals to people by Trump is, they feel that he says what he thinks. And, you know, sometimes he can't help what's any more. he thinks, right? He says too much. Where that measured, you know, platitudes, people are like, come on already. And so we'll see. Robert, can I say 20 seconds of closing statement? Yes, this will be the last closing statement. Yeah. One, Novo and Robert, you're both legends,

and I've done a huge amount for crypto. Thank you, truly. Second, whoever wins, I just hope, like, don't retaliate against the other side. Like, let's just try to reset democracy. I think that should be the most important thing coming out of this. And third point, I don't have a crystal ball. Everything I said was my own personal opinion, not the opinion of my firm, definitely not invested in advice. And, you know, especially if Harris, you know, if Harris wins and, you know, watches this in the future.

Well, in my last point, Robert, is somebody is going to win. And then the next 60 days are really, really important. And so their transition team, the Republican transition team, is much more organized and up and running because they've had a long time to get there. You know, and so after that election, if you want to have impact, it's people create policy. And it's not just the head of the SEC and the Treasury. It's the undersecretaries. It's there are probably 70 policy positions that will get filled that have an impact on our industry.

And so, you know, if you've got any influence, weigh in on both sides. And so like at Galaxy, we literally have a plan for both teams. We've got contacts on both sides. You know, again, I think the Trump team is further along at this point. But that's really where the pudding gets, what do you? Putting gets made. I don't know. Or the pudding gets made.

Well, we'll have to revisit this, you know, after the election, see who wins, see how the transition goes, and then see if our predictions have come true. But Sean and Novo, thank you both for being a part of this show. Thank you for being willing to debate the pros and cons of each candidate. And we'll find out the outcome in just a couple short days. Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully we find out the outcome in the next couple. So Democrats and crypto are hedged because if you lose the election, your bag still goes up.

I am not long. I'm levered long. Yeah, Texas hedge. Good luck, guys. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you, too, Robert.

Thank you.