Unchained - The Chopping Block: Trump's VP Pick, SEC's Future, and Congress' Crypto Legislation - Ep 676

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra explore the latest trends in the crypto world. In this episode, we invite Laura Shin and special guest Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association to discuss the latest in crypto politics. We dive deep into JD Vance's VP candidacy alongside Donald Trump and its implications for the crypto industry. We also explore the impact of recent political events on the crypto markets, the potential outcomes of key legislative efforts, and the future of the SEC post-2024 elections. Don't miss this insightful conversation on how the shifting political landscape might shape the future of crypto in the U.S. Show highlights 🔹The attempted assassination of Donald Trump and its effects on the crypto market, including his announcement of JD Vance as his running mate. 🔹Analysis of Trump's changing stance on crypto, and his increasing willingness to engage with the industry and its leaders. 🔹Explanation of the Vice President's role in setting financial services and innovation policy, especially in a potential Trump administration. 🔹 Speculation on whether Gary Gensler will step down if Trump wins and what this could mean for crypto regulation. 🔹 Overview of recent meetings between crypto executives and White House officials, signaling a shift in the Biden administration's approach to the industry. 🔹 Examination of the significant fundraising by crypto PACs like the Fair Shake PAC and their impact on political and regulatory decisions. 🔹Discussion on the Digital Commodities Act, market structure bills, and the challenges of passing crypto legislation in the current congressional session. 🔹 The evolving bipartisan support for crypto legislation and the importance of maintaining this support for future regulatory clarity. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Laura Shin, Journalist, Author of ‘The Cryptopians,’ founder and CEO of Unchained Guests ⭐️Kristin Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Blockchain Association Disclosures Timestamps  00:00 Intro 02:15 Trump & JD Vance 10:27 Politicians Stance on Crypto Policy 27:41 Crypto's Lobbying Efforts 34:56 Crypto's Political Influence 36:58 SEC Enforcement and Legal Battles 39:19 Speculations on Biden Administration's Crypto Stance 49:48 Legislative Pipeline and Market Structure Bills 01:01:36 Future of Crypto Regulation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Look at the damage that Gary Gensler has done through his enforcement actions alone. Forget other agencies. Let's just look at the SEC. You know, Ripple has spent somewhere between $100 and $200 million on legal bills so far. Coinbase, I think I saw somewhere they've spent close to $100 million already. And they're still early in the process, right? Like, Krak in, who knows what they've spent. If you add up all of the legal fees that the industry has had to pay just to fight enforcement actions from the SEC, it easily tops a billion dollars and could get close to $2 billion by the time all of this is done.

That's a tremendous amount of money that's just going to lawyers, right, to deal with very specific issues. I think for a fraction of that price, we can actually work to educate Washington. We can work to build relationships within Congress and hopefully get a law pass that puts a new framework in place that stops the bleeding. Not a dividend. It's a tale of two quond. Now, your losses are on someone else's balance. Generally speaking, air drops are kind of pointless anyways.

Unnamed trading firms who are very involved. I like that ETH is the ultimate pump. Defy protocols are the antidote to this problem. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the chopping block. Every couple weeks, the four of us get together and give the industry insider's perspective on the cryptot topics of the day. So quick intro, first you got Tom, the DFI Maven and master of memes.

Hello, everyone. Next, we've got Laura, CEO of the show, coming back to join us. Hey, guys. And today we have special guest, Kristen Smith, a policy powerhouse at the Blockchain Association. Ooh, I like that. I'm going to reuse that. Great to be here. Nice.

Great to have you. And I'm a Steve that Hightman at Drive and Fly. We're at early stage investors in crypto, but I want to caveat that nothing we say here is an investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. We see Chopin Block. That X, Y, Z for more disclosures. Okay. So we have had a pretty harrowing weekend.

For those of you have been living under Iraq, the major news is mostly in politics. I know we said before, we are trying not to turn this into a politics podcast, but you may not want to have anything to do with politics, but politics has ideas for what it wants to do with you. So markets, crypto markets have been absolutely royaled by the events this weekend, which is the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Obviously, he survived that assassination, but going into the weekend, The perception was that this assassination attempt and his pursuant defiance and very rousing

public image have contributed mightily to the likelihood that he's going to win in the upcoming presidential election. So his odds on polymarket went up after the attempted assassination. And crypto markets also went up under the anticipation, presumably that this is going to be good for crypto. Then, of course, during the Republican National Convention, he announced his running mate, which he left everybody in suspect. for quite a while, and that running mate turned out to be J.D. Vance. So J.D. Vance, somebody,

I don't think we've mentioned on the show before. He is, in American politics, something of a minor character, but something of a rising star within the Republican Party and within the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. So let's just give some quick background on J.D. Vance. And then, Kristen, I'd love to get a little bit of a download from you about what you see as his crypto positioning and what it likely means that he is now potentially going to be vice president, if Trump ends up winning the presidency. So a quick background on J.D. Vance. He was the author of the best-selling book, Hillbilly Ellogy,

where he talked about his upbringing coming from, you know, the other side of the tracks in America. He grew up in Ohio. He worked at Mithril, which is Peter Thiel's hedge fund, has, you know, experience in Silicon Valley, understands the kind of Peter Thiel wing of the more, you know, conservative, libertarian tech world. Apparently he owns $100,000 worth of Bitcoin.

and is married to his wife, Usha Chilokuri, Vance, who is obviously, in addition to being Indian, worked at Munger, Tolls, and Olson, which is the same firm that turned out to be representing the Blockchain Association when they were filing their amicus brief in the SEC versus Coinbase case. Actually, I hadn't realized that, so that's... Yeah, so there's a few different angles

in which J.D. Vance is a very interesting pick for VP. So I'll hand over the floor to you, Kristen. And by the way, just very briefly, Christian runs the Blockchain Association, which is one of the bigger lobbying groups for the blockchain industry within the U.S., of which Dragonfly is a member. So Kristen, give us a download. How should we be thinking about J.D. Vance? Yeah, I think from a crypto perspective, J.D. Vance is an incredibly bullish choice for the industry. I think the only one who might have been competitive is Vivek Ramoswamy, who's been pretty outspoken on the crypto front. But Vance has, yes, he's fantastic. But Senator Vance, he's only been in the Senate for about two years, but he has been pretty vocally supportive of pro-cryptop policies.

He has, in the past couple months, has been working on his own market structure. You know, he sits on the Senate Banking Committee and he had heard some concerns about the Fit 21 bill that was passed out of the House. And so he was working to try to introduce a bill that addresses those concerns. He hasn't done that yet, but he's been talking with a lot of people in the industry about it. He voted in favor of the Sab 121 repeal when that vote came to the Senate earlier this year. And he's made some really good public statements. He has been very critical of the SEC chairman Gary Gensler. He's also talked back when we had the whole situation with Canada and getting, you know,

truckers getting their bank accounts cut off for protesting. He's talked about like that crypto is the solution to that type of situation because you can have control over your own assets. And as you mentioned, he owns some Bitcoin. which is fantastic. I think he also has a tech investing background and he's very close with the venture capital community in San Francisco and other places. So I think he's about as bullish of a candidate that we could ask to join the ticket. And I think, you know, as we look forward, if, you know, he does indeed get elected along with Donald Trump to the, to the White House, I think,

think one of the things that'll be interesting is what is going to be kind of his role as the vice president. And, you know, it's quite possible given his background and given his, you know, current seat on the Senate Banking Committee that he may take an outsized lead in financial services policy and also innovation policy. So I think he's going to have a big role to play if they do win. And I was very, very excited to see that that he was picked a, as Trump's choice. Well, the other thing is notable is that he's 39. He is much younger than anybody else who is potentially going to be president or VP, right?

So Biden is 81, Trump is 79, Kamala is 59. So he is by far the youngest person who's potentially up to be in office in any capacity. And he's a millennial. So I think he is of the generation that he grew up with technology. He has much better intuitions about how, you know, I think technology is going to end up changing within his own lifetime, which does, again, seem like a very different stance toward this technology. Like, I think with Biden and with Kamala, you know, if they're beaten over the head and they're

shown big piles of money, they're being like, okay, well, I guess crypto is fine. But I don't think they have the same convictions in technology that you're going to get out of somebody like JD Vance, obviously even more so than Trump. I mean, Trump, my assumption is that Trump does not really understand what is going on with crypto besides the fact that he made money by issuing NFTs. I can't think of much else association he would have with a technology like crypto. I mean, I think, you know, I think Trump obviously has evolved, right? I mean, in his last administration, he had a couple of very negative tweets about crypto and Bitcoin and his Treasury Secretary of Mnuchin pursued a kind of last-minute

rulemaking that would have been very damaging for the industry. So it clearly, it clearly, wasn't good, but I think the fact that he's been open to listening and evolving his thinking on this and coming out very strongly and not just in front of a crypto audience. We've seen on a couple occasions during a routine stump speech where he will throw in crypto innovation into kind of a general audience. And he gets a very good response when he does it. And so I think if there's like one that Trump understands. Like, he understands what it's like to have institutions fail someone. And I think when we think of the crypto voter out there, which turns out is a real thing. If you had asked me a couple years ago, I would have thought that was overblown, but we've got

polling to back it up. But I think what the crypto voter is feeling is like the financial services system isn't working for them, right? Or big tech isn't working for them. And they realize that crypto is a way to sort of bypass the broken system. And, you know, I think Donald Trump understands broken systems. And so I do think he's starting to understand it. And, you know, every couple days I talk to a new executive in the crypto industry who's gone down to Marilago to visit with Trump or who attends one of the fundraisers and talks to him. And so I think he is learning. And, you know, I appreciate someone who can take new information and evolve their positions based off of that information.

So, yeah, I don't think he's as good as J.D. Vance by any means. But he's learning and he's listening to a lot of people who care about it. Okay. And just as a quick American civics lesson, what is generally the role of the vice president when it comes to setting policy, right? Because I think it's sometimes unclear what is the president's ambit and what is the vice president's to be doing? Yeah. Well, there's a, you know, a lot of different things that vice president can do. I mean, there are some actually very specific roles the vice president has. And one of them is to be the

president of the Senate. So if there's ever like a tie vote, the vice president comes in and breaks that vote. The vice president has an office in the Senate. And so to the extent that next year, the Senate in the new Congress is considering crypto legislation, you know, he could play a role from his seat as vice president in the development of that legislation. But it's a pretty open role. It's supposed to be a role that's an extension of the president. Obviously, he would step in if something were to happen to the president and he was no longer able to do his job.

But typically what happens is they try to find specific projects for a vice president to undertake, to kind of own and manage. And so I think it will be interesting to see how it evolves. But yeah, I think it was a great choice and we're excited to see what happens this year. And that's not to say that, you know, Biden's not getting better too, right? I was in a meeting last week with some very senior people from the White House. There are about 25 or 30 crypto executives in the room. And it was a fairly open discussion and very frank discussion about some of the problems.

that the crypto industry has faced in the Biden administration. And so I think things are improving on the Biden administration front also. But I do think, you know, Trump has, is, you know, several steps ahead of where the Biden administration is at right now. And I think based off of, you know, I think even before the assassination attempt, I think Trump had kind of the upper hand heading into the elections. You know, the funny thing about elections is events happen, right? Like, they're new, new, like, things that no one can predict that can change the course of elections. But I don't know, when I worked in Capitol Hill and worked for one member of Congress that used to always say, the trend is your friend.

And it's right now the trend is definitely in favor of Donald Trump. Yeah. And Kristen, I have a question. So because it looks, you know, so likely that Trump will be elected, what would happen in terms of the SEC, like how quickly might there be a new head? Because I think Gensler's term actually extends, I don't know, into 2025 or something. Yeah. So the way that it works is the president appoints a chair from the existing pool of commissioners.

So on day one, Donald Trump would say either Hester Perce or Mark Ueda, who are the two Republican commissioners, he would most likely pick one of them to become the chair of the SEC. It's actually interesting. So typically, when there's an administration flip like that and the independent agencies, you know, usually you have the president and their party will have three seats on a five-person agency like the SEC, and the minority, you know, non-office holding party will have the other two seats. So that's right. Right now we have three Democrats and two Republicans.

the custom is if the party flips, if the White House flips, typically the custom is the chair of the agency in this case the SEC will step down and allow the new president. Well, in January, right, when the new president is inaugurated. Yeah, Ms. Sworn in. And that allows the president to appoint one of the other commissioners as acting chair. and then typically they want to choose their own chairman. So they'll, you know, choose someone to fill the commissioner slot, and then they will make that new commissioner chair upon getting confirmed in the Senate. So, okay.

So let's go ahead and ask your question. But there's a twist with Gary Gensler because he's not following the custom apparently. Oh, interesting. Okay. Tell us how he's not following the custom and then I'll ask my question. Well, I mean, I think it's an interesting thing. And this is something that's been, you know, sort of talked around D.C., but it's sort of an open question if Gary Gensler is.

going to step aside. There's some indications that he may want to stick around as just a regular commissioner. And if he does that and care. But he's not, not to remain chairman, but remain a commissioner. Not to remain chair, but to remain a commissioner. And so, you know, that, that's pretty unusual because the difference between being chairman of an agency and a commissioner of an agency is pretty significant in terms of being able to to drive the agenda. And so, So it'll be interesting to see if he does continue to the ground. Why do people think he's going to do that? That doesn't comport with his character.

He seems like quite drawn to being in control and taking attention. Apparently there's a, and again, this is, you want a rumor in speculation. This is just a rumor that's going around. But yeah, there's some, apparently he's expressed interests that he may want to stay. So I think it's unlikely that he's going to do that. That seems pretty far removed from the speculation that he wants to be. become Treasury Secretary. Now he wants to just be a minority commissioner on opposing president. Well, if it's a Trump administration, there's not many, many jobs left for Democrats.

So. But so then wait. So if he doesn't, then what happens? Like, is it like a survivor style thing, like between, you know, crunch on whoever, I forget who the other one is? Well, I mean, no, that's the interesting thing is. Yeah. They could, they could initiate a process. yeah, Lizaraga, they could initiate a process to push him out, depending on if, you know, Caroline Crenshaw, who's been renominated to the SEC, if that nomination goes through or not, then the ratios off, right? And so what we could have is a, you know, there's a world where we have a Republican share of the SEC who doesn't have the three votes that person needs to get their agenda through. So, but at some point, the terms and, and, you know,

You know, they do are given a certain amount of time once their term ends to get renominated. So at some point, it'll cycle through. And the SEC under Trump administration will be fully, you know, sort of operational. But, but yeah. Yeah, hold on. Hold on. I mean, again, rumors that you're getting served for a. The SEC is under the executive branch, right?

So don't all these people ultimately serve at the leisure of the president? No, no. So they are, the SEC is considered an independent agency. So the president's only role is to nominate commissioners. And the president will nominate the minority commissioners as well. And then the Senate approves the commissioners and they typically have a five-year term. So yeah, you can have, you know, they're not, it's not like the Treasury Department where you take away all the top people at Treasury or, you know, the Department of Commerce

or something like that that's an executive branch. agency, the independent agencies have a slightly different structure. Okay, you guys, like, I have some why. So talking about wild speculation, my wild speculation is that if that is what Gary Gensler wants to do, he will do it expressly for the purpose of screwing over crypto. Well, he's not going to be able to do a whole lot as a commissioner, right? I mean, think of like how much we love Hester Purse. Like, she is amazing. But at the end of the day she can only vote on the agenda items that are sort of brought forth by the chair in open meetings. Right. And she could give a bunch of speeches. Right. But what we were saying in terms of

the balance being off if he sticks around and then there's three Democrats rather than, you know, how it should be under a Republican president where it would be three Republicans. Like, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Well, and that would mean that would only happen if Caroline Crenshaw gets renominated. And I think it's kind of an open question if the, if the Senate is going to approve any additional nominees. You know, at any given time, the Senate has a slate of judges that they're trying to get through. They have all sorts of other executive branch nominees. There's a, they're trying to replace the FDIC ahead right now.

And so there's a bunch of different open, open positions. I think it's fairly low odds that they, that Caroline Crenshaw gets reconfirmed. So if that's the case, you know, then they'll be down to two. and, you know, Trump would be able to appoint the third Republican. So, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts there and a lot of different scenarios that can play out. But that is definitely one scenario that people are concerned about. Yeah, I'm curious in the interest of wild speculation. I'm curious to maybe get your thoughts on sort of the calculus that went into choosing Vance as VP.

Because he feels, I mean, looking at Pauly Market, even as early as recently as early July, he was not the favorite for the VP pick, you know, by any means, it was like 30, like, 15, you know, percent. And really has kind of shot up since July. And he also kind of threads this weird needle where he's, like, you know, from Silicon Valley or, you know, has a Silicon Valley background. But, like, he's very anti-Big Tech. Like, he's said publicly, he's like a van of Lena Khan and what she's doing with respect to the FCC going after big tech and antitrust. Like, why do you think if you had to sort of theorize a little bit? bit. What was the logic behind choosing Vance or for some of other VP financial candidates?

I mean, the best thing I've seen on Twitter is that it's assassination insurance. So if you go after Trump when he's president, then you're going to end up with a younger Trump. But no, listen, I think he's young, right? He's, I think somebody that Trump likes very much. I think a lot of people thought when they were looking at the governor from North Dakota, Doug Bergum, that, that, He would be, you know, sort of a more experienced, sort of calmer mind to balance out Trump. But I think in, you know, sort of post-assination world, Trump was able to, you know, sort of pick his, like, chosen successor potentially. And that, you know, you've got the Ohio background, which is, you know, an important battleground state. You've got somebody with, like, some youth and some energy. And so I think this was,

is maybe more of a sort of legacy-making choice for Trump. I mean, I don't know that. That's just kind of my speculation. But I think given that there's pretty good odds that Trump is going to win this thing, he was able to make the choice he wanted to make as opposed to a more political choice to try to bring more voters over to him on Election Day. All right. Well, I will raise my hand and participate in the speculation.

So I think with J.D. Vance, I mean, you could say, see the polymarket odds on JD Vance were already very high even before the weekend with the assassination attempt. And obviously, you know, there's clearly some insider or something going on. And there were some articles that were also leaking that it seems likely that J.D. Vance has become the frontrunner and he's not, you know, he's getting more attention now. So what I've read in the press, so obviously there's the things that Kristen mentioned, which is him being for the Midwest, which is going to play well in the swing states, him being young, which I think is, in a sense, there's a kind of hoteling problem in a way,

which is that everybody else who's in the race is so old, that just having anybody who's from a different generation, from a younger generation, is just going to set you apart to independents who are worried about the age issue, right? Once the age issue became so big in the race, picking a young VP, like a very young VP, like a JFK-age VP,

it just really stands out as a choice at a time when very few of the other people are going to stand out nationally. The other thing, of course, he's obviously very Maga-Trumpie. But the thing that I think is notable, so apparently he is very close friends with Donald Trump Jr. supposedly the two of them are very close. And Donald Trump Jr. was the one who basically advocated for him to Trump Sr.

Or Trump, I guess, or I guess we call his dad Trump Sr. But the thing about it, obviously, is Trump is old, right? I mean, he's 79. He's not that much younger than Biden. And this is going to be his last term. And so he is very much thinking about succession. And the question is, in 2028, let's assume Trump wins in 2024. In 2008, he knows that a lot of this stuff that, you know, the federal cases of people coming

after him are going to resume immediately once his presidency is over. And so it really matters to him, who is next in line? And is there going to be a rebound to the traditional kind of neocon-led Republican Party, right? the sort of the august politics of the Bushes, or are we going to stay in Trump land? And if you want to stay in Trump land, you can either pick some, you know, just like a graybeard hardliner who's like following you, but doesn't really have true allegiance to your cause. They're kind of a, you know, a momentary acolyte. Or do you choose somebody who basically, like, if he could, he would have Ivanka be his VP,

right? But he can't do that or have Donald Trump doing your behalf. But it's just too un-American. to do that, so he can't quite do that. So how do you get as close as you can? And to my, my guess is that that is in a way how he sees JD Vance, is that J.D. Vance is the closest I can get to basically putting my son in power. And he will have a very long reign and probably be the presidential frontrunner in 2008 if. Yeah, and not undo the policies that he tries to put in place over the next four years if he wins, right? Exactly. So I think he's very,

continue to work on his agenda. Exactly. Yeah. And like, you know, probably his children are going to continue being very active if he has, you know, a 2024 administration. And they're probably to continue in a 2028 administration if J.D. Vance ends up becoming the next president. So that is my guess is that he wants Trump to be the next big political family in America.

And even if he dies in office, he wants that to continue. That is my read on why he thought J.D. Vance was the right person. No, I think that makes sense. Yeah, I actually think I actually think J.D. Vance is similar to Trump, too, in that they, like, appear to have just tacked in completely different directions at different points in their careers. Like, you know, I'm sure you've seen, he used to be a really strong critic of Trump, like calling him all kinds of names. I forget all the things. But, you know, he used to really dislike the guy, like, if not hate him, frankly. And in a way, it reminds me of, I think with Trump, am I wrong, that like he used to be a Democrat and stuff.

Like he was at the Clinton's wedding. And like, so, yeah. So like both of them are kind of not like so easy to pin down. Whereas like, you know, clearly things went way wrong between Pence and Trump, like really wrong. And I think for that pick, that was like Trump listening to the Republicans, you know. Yeah. No, well, so remember when Trump was elected the first time, you know, he kind of ran on this like, you know, very populist platform. And he chose Mike Pence in an effort to sort of, you know, fold into the Republican Party. And he brought Rains Prebis from the RMC over to be his chief of staff. And it turned out that they didn't have, you know, they were trying to pull Trump to the, you know, traditional Republican Party and not willing to adapt. to Trump. And I think, you know, what Trump is done is he's looked across the country and he said, what do people really care about? What are the issues that, that, you know, are affecting sort of everyday voters? And he's trying to completely reinvent the Republican Party. So no, I think you're

totally right, Laura. This is now this time he doesn't have to, you know, try to play nice with the Republican Party. He can, you know, reinvent the Republican Party, which, which is something I think was probably needed, right? I mean, there was quite a dynasty going on before. And I think it's something we still sort of see, you know, that's been very apparent in the past couple weeks looking at, you know, Joe Biden and kind of the way that the Democratic Party machine operates. It's, you know, these parties need to be shaken up every now and then. I think that's what Trump is trying to do. Yeah. So you mentioned the meeting. I heard about this meeting that I guess Rokana organized with some of the folks in D.C. and kind of getting the ear of the Biden administration. And,

you know, what I had heard from some of the folks who'd been there was that the Biden administration, basically since the beginning, has refused to engage entirely on crypto. Like, just absolute radio silence. No one's phone calls are getting returned. Just, you know, like, screw off. We don't want to be seen in the same room with you guys. And this is the first moment, and it's a little bit too little too late, but this is the first moment that the Biden administration has been willing to actually engage, get in the room, listen to the concerns, and try to at least strike a reasonable pose. And I have to assume a big part of the reason why that is, is not just what we talked about on previous shows about Trump showing his willingness to move on the crypto issue, but also the fact

that there has been enormous amounts of fundraising done for crypto packs. So so far we have the number one pack in crypto is called the fair shake pack. It has raised $177 million, which makes it the second largest pack in America behind only the Make America Great Again Pack, which is the number one pack. Only a million dollars less has been raised for the Crypto. Yeah, and two weeks ago, this Fair Shake Pack was actually ahead of the Make America Great Again pack. So it was number one for a while. So we're swapping for a while. Yeah. And I think Elon announced that he's doing a pack at 45 million the month. So that may surpass it.

But, you know, it's by far the number one industry pack, right? There's no other industry organization that is spending that kind of money in the election. So, yeah, this is a really big spend. And I do think it has caught the attention of a lot of policymakers. Right. I have to assume this is a lot of why all of a sudden the Biden administration is looking very reasonable. Well, I think it's a couple things, right?

So, yes, I think the money is catching people's attention. But my understanding from talking with the team at Fairshake, and I always want to be clear, I don't control the Fair Shake pack. You know, Blockchain Association focuses on it, a different piece. But having a super PAC is a very important piece. But my understanding is Fairshake was designed to only play in the congressional races. So, you know, Fairshake itself is it weighing in on the presidential. But there are people within the crypto industry that have, you know,

been going to fundraisers for Donald Trump and working with him in that way. But I think, you know, it's a combination of a couple of things. So the crypto has a newfound political power. And I think it's based off of a couple of things, including the money. But one is that the crypto voter is real. We've seen this in polling. We've got one in five voters in swing states is considering cryptocurrency in their decision of who to vote for in the election this fall. I mean, that's a tremendously large number, you know, especially in swing states where, you know, a certain, a small number of votes can have a big impact. Also, like, the crypto advocate is a real thing now. And by that, I mean, stand with crypto, which was something that Coinbase

initially funded, but a lot of different organizations have kind of helped to get that going. it now has over 1.2 million individual users and advocates who've signed up to that platform. And so they're ready on a moment's notice to activate, to call their congressman or senator or file a comment letter. That is a huge force. I mean, if you remember, and Laura and I talked about this a couple years ago during the infrastructure debate, that was the first time we really saw this sort of grassroots ability for crypto to really use Twitter at the time to organize and to get. get out the word to call your congressman. This is, uh, takes that and puts it on steroids, right?

This is like a, a sort of built up organization that supports, uh, debate watch parties in different cities and really tries to, uh, engage the everyday voters. So the crypto advocate is real. Um, and, um, I would also say that the crypto industry is mature and organized and thoughtful and engaged. Like, it wasn't always this way. I mean, I, when I first met. Laura, almost six years ago, it was a total mess, right? There was barely any resources. There

wasn't any organization. You know, you had a bunch of different people kind of pushing out bad messaging. And I think there's been a real sort of maturity. And part of that is the super PAC. But part of it is just our ability to bring really thoughtful ideas to the table. So I think the combination of all of this political power that kind of crossed at the same time that Donald Trump decided or happened to have this NFT event in Marilago, right? That coincided with all these votes in the House and Senate where all of a sudden, crypto was able to demonstrate its strength. It was sort of a perfect storm of events that it got to the point where the White House couldn't ignore it anymore, right? I mean, I think in their minds, they were thinking FTX, they were thinking

money laundering. They'd really deferred heavily to Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler, and they realized that, you know, this was a community they had to engage with and that there were real thoughtful people that are working. And so, um, so I think there's hope going forward. I do think this is a bipartisan issue. It always has been. But I think that our enemies have been skewed to the Democratic side, but they're, they're getting less and less credibility by the day. Yeah, Kristen, I actually just now, when you said when we met six years ago, I remember in that first, that first interview I ever did with you. You talked about how the infrastructure for lobbying for the crypto industry was so nascent and like not built out. So it's just amazing that now we're having this conversation

where you're saying the opposite that actually it's a huge force in D.C. and, you know, really well organized and, you know, just even, you know, how you were talking about, like, fair shake is only focused on the congressional races. Like, that's how specific everything has gotten. There's like a whole, like, this whole ecosystem has like a niche for, every player. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not, you know, the lobbying is sophisticated. Like, yes, we have the blockchain association, but we have all these companies that have in-house government relations teams that are, you know, up on the hill every day. We've got all these executives that are flying in to be a part of the process. We have, you know, the fundraising piece on the

super PAC side, on the hard dollar side. We've got the grassroots piece. We have Deere Innovation Foundation that does education. Like, yeah, there's like, it's like a, you know, collection of tools in a very full toolbox, whereas before, you know, we had kind of maybe like a broken screwdriver or something that we were trying to use. So what's interesting to me about all this? It's a lot better. Yeah. So, you know, I was looking on some of the websites that aggregate information about super PACs.

And so there's 170 million dollars raised, but only about 70 million that's been spent right now from Fairshake. So we've got $100 million of cash on hand. And now obviously, Fairshake is not the only thing that has been expending money, and there's a lot of other resources that are being expended to do all this political lobbying. But if you just kind of look at the raw numbers, okay, $70 million spent, right, on congressional lobbying right now. In the context of crypto, that's actually a very small number, right? Like, crypto has lost so, like we have pissed away so much money over much stupider things with very little to show for it. And so I guess the question of my mind is not so much, you know, why did it take so long?

It's a little bit why did it take so long. But it's also a little bit like, okay, let's go back to 2020, previous presidential election. I remember at that time, there were a lot of news stories about the fact that SBF was spending so much money on the hill, donating both. He was the second biggest donor to Biden's campaign and he was a massive donor to many Democrats up and down the country. It didn't feel at that time that crypto really had that much. of a voice. So, you know, SPF was a celebrity and Coinbase, I think, you know, they had just gone public, or this is right before they went public, I don't remember exactly, but it didn't feel like anybody cared, and there wasn't the sense that crypto was a real force, even though, you know,

in 2020, we had the crypto bull run, we had tons of retail investors buying into crypto, and, like, exchange volumes were bigger than than they are now. So I guess my question is, like, what is your theory of why it feels so different, why there is so much? organization. Is it that the infrastructure now has been built out? Is it that the companies are more mature? Is it that our strategy is more well thought out? Is it actually that there are just more people who are engaged and who care on the ground? Or is it that we're spending in a more sensible way? What is your theory of why this time is different? Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, there's certainly a maturity element, right? Like you can't build these different organizations and teams of people

overnight. So that is certainly part of it. But no, I think the bigger part of it, is look at the damage that Gary Gensler has done through his enforcement actions alone. Forget other agencies. Let's just look at the SEC. You know, Ripple has spent, what, somewhere between $100 and $200 million on legal bills so far. I think Coinbase, I think I saw somewhere they've spent close to $100 million already. These are, and they're still early in the process, right? Like, crack in, who knows what they've spent. If you add up all of the legal fees that the industry has had to pay just to find,

enforcement actions from the SEC, it easily tops a billion dollars and could get close to $2 billion by the time all of this is done. That's a tremendous amount of money that's just going to lawyers, right, to deal with very specific issues. I think, you know, for a fraction of that price, we can actually work to educate Washington. We can work to, you know, build relationships within Congress and hopefully ultimately get a law pass that puts a new framework in place that stops the bleeding. So I think some of it has been a bit of a necessity, like the realization that, you know, we need to spend money in Washington to stop the problems that we've seen, you know, out of the SEC specifically. But I think there is a maturity element, too. I mean,

I, you know, remember people used to not think very highly. of ripple and now ripple is sort of the hero, right? Because they've taken on the good fight. I think people are banding together because everyone has individually been beat up and now they're like, all right, let's like work together to push back in a way that ensures that this kind of treatment like never ever happens again. I mean, I think that's why the name Fair Shake is like so brilliant, right? Like I think that's all the industry is asking for. They're asking for someone in the government, to listen to them, and to try to work out the appropriate framework. And so, yeah, I think it's a little bit out of necessity, but it's certainly, like you were saying,

it's much less expensive to try to engage in a constructive process in Washington. It takes a long time, but it's much less expensive than fighting it out in the court. So, Kristen, I have to ask you a question. And this, again, gets into the speculation territory. That is so interesting. endantilizing for everybody. But so we were talking about what it was that caused the Biden administration to kind of switch. And, you know, you laid out like all the different factors. But I have a question about something in particular because, so I don't remember what it went. I guess it was,

I think it was like one of the SAB votes or something where maybe it was the one where like 71 Democrats cross party lines or something. And then. That was 21. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I don't remember. So maybe we can piece together what exactly happened. But all I remember is something happened that signaled like, oh, there's a bunch of Democrats crossing party lines. And then the next Monday is when we got the news that the SEC had quote unquote changed its mind on the ETFs and, you know, sent, you know, notice to the different issuers that they were going to approve them before that Thursday deadline. And I remember that originally everybody was like, oh, the Biden administration doesn't want to lose the crypto vote.

So this came on from down high and they told Gary to get in line and he has to like approve these ether ETFs. Okay, so that was the prevailing theory initially. And I can't remember, I guess maybe it was Biden's veto of the SCB-121 reveal where then people were like, well, we now don't understand like why they reversed on the ether ETFs if it didn't come from on down high. But James Safer of Bloomberg intelligence, at least on our channel on bits and bibs, he said that he'd been hearing that actually what happened was that with those votes in Congress, that so I guess this, the one SEC commissioner, Jamie Lizaraga, was Nancy Pelosi's right-hand man for like, I don't know, over a decade or something. I forget what the exact number of years was. But the new theory was that it was Nancy Pelosi who through Jamie Lazzaraga had been. like, wait, we're going to lose this vote for stupid reasons.

Like we, you know, and it was Liz Araga who'd switched. So what is your theory about what happened? Did it come from the Biden administration or? Yeah, no, I do not think it came from the Biden administration. Because like we were talking about earlier, the SEC is an independent agency. And they don't necessarily take their cues from the Biden administration. I mean, the Biden administration, if you want to be renominated, plays an important role. but they don't typically give specific instruction, you know, to an independent agency like that.

But I do think what happened is, I mean, I mean, that was, I got to tell you, that was, it's like the weak FTCS went down. And then like the like week or two where like crypto realized its political power, this may. I mean, those are like crazy, crazy moments where so much happened so quickly. But no, I do think that the SEC realized that, you know, they, that they, that they, we're going to have to explain their posture towards the crypto industry and that they really couldn't justify not considering the ETF, the ether ETF applications. And so I think it was just more of a political reading of the tea leaves. James, the theory is interesting. When I heard that, I was like, I could see how that happens. Because if you looked at like, you know, so there was the

Sab 21 and FAB 121 and Fit 21, right? Lots of 21. So Sab 121 was the accounting bulletin repeal that allows banks to get in custody. Fit 21 is market structure. So the House voted on the Saab 121 repeal surprisingly got 21 Democratic votes. And what's interesting about that is we actually didn't even lobby to try to get votes for that bill because the House Financial Services Committee says, oh, we don't want this to be perceived as like a crypto issue because they thought that would make it lose votes. But then it sort of pleasantly, surprisingly got 21 votes.

It went over to the Senate. And the Senate's like, hmm, actually, maybe like you guys should like push a little bit as an industry and try to get us some more votes. And surprisingly got 11 Democratic votes plus an independent. So a total of 60, which was huge. And that included people like Chuck Schumer, who the majority leader or Ron Whiden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. Like these are senior members of the Senate that voted for this. So by the time the fit 21 vote came around, you had Nancy Pelosi on board. You had Catherine Clark, who's the whip in the house.

You had, you know, Adam Schiff, who used to chair, the House Intel Committee. You had some very, very senior people in the house. And I think, you know, the SEC knew they weren't going to be able to justify sitting on that any longer. And so they picked up the process. But yeah, I remember that Monday. I was on a panel that morning where they asked about the E3ETF. And I was like, oh, that's not happening until next year. And then the afternoon came and it was pretty miraculous news.

But wait. So then I have to ask you if you're saying that they realized they couldn't justify it because there are other theories I've seen on Twitter. Like I think Nate Jarachi is the main one where he's like, or maybe it's Scott Johnson, I forget, where one of them is just like, no, I think they had been planning to approve it all along. They just didn't want to do it until close to the deadline. So is that what you were saying?

Or are you saying something different that they did, change their minds. Yeah, no, I did not get that. Yeah, I mean, listen, this is all speculation, right? But no, I think they had to, I think they felt they needed to change their mind because, you know, they were going to have to answer to a bunch of questions as to why they'd been so hostile. And this, this kind of helps ease that, that pressure. Well, okay, no, but I don't, I don't buy the story. I don't buy the story, right? Like, your claim basically is that there was no phone call. It was all endogenous. They just, like, introspected and realized that, like, oh, we're going to get sued if we reject this and we're going to lose in court. Yeah, but they, of course,

they knew that. They knew they were going to get sued ages ago, but they were not engaging. They were clearly giving people no signals that they were going to approve this thing. Almost certainly, if there was not a phone call, there was something like a phone call, you know, like there was something that has this political independent agency to get influenced by somebody outside the independent agency that, hey, approve this or there's going to be trouble. Well, the oversight committees, right? I mean, Chairman Gensler has to go before the House Financial Services Committee every few months, the Senate Manking Committee.

Well, they can ask questions and they can make it uncomfortable. Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, I, I, but they're independent, right? So they can't fire him. Well, okay, wait, so then has Steve. So what is your theory? Is your theory that the call came from the Biden administration or from Nancy Pelosi or like from a different person or what's your theory?

I have no idea where the call came from, but like the idea that, okay, it's a quote-unquote independent agency, therefore they're not taking phone calls from politicians is obviously absurd. Like, of course they're taking phone calls from the Hill, right? Right? Because the Hill has oversight over the agency. But we know, we know. And I'm so sorry.

The Hill, is that Congress? What's the Hill? Yeah, yeah, Capitol Hill, right? Yeah, Congress, yeah. Just a, yeah. Yes. So we know that Gary Gensler has aspirations to become Treasury Secretary. That means he has to be appointed by the president.

Okay? So ultimately, yeah, Elizabeth Warren is his saint, but he needs to make Biden happy. So it feels to me like everything that we've learned, okay, SAB 121, I don't know, maybe it made him look weak. Maybe that's why they decided to do it. Maybe he was on autopilot. Maybe he gave the instruction a while back and didn't revisit it. We don't know why.

But we saw, you know, this recent meeting that Rokana organized and we've seen that you know, the Biden administration is clearly realizing, you know, the political gears are turning. It's something that I've said on the show repeatedly that going into the election year, Biden's going to soften on crypto. And surprise, surprise, it's an election year, Biden's softening on crypto, right? It's just politics. So the idea that, you know, obviously, Gensler, he cares. He clearly doesn't like crypto.

To him, it's personal and understandably, because we have beaten the hell out of this guy in the public arena for the last four years. So I understand why he hates crypto because we hate him back. But the reality is that he ultimately responds to the political machinery around him. And so something within that political machinery whispered into his ear, hey, you know, approve this thing or there's going to be more pain come November. Yeah. So my personal theory is I think James Seyford is right.

I think it was Nancy Pelosi pulling the strings because since we did see that Biden did do the veto, that kind of like lends less. credence to the Biden theory. But because Nancy Pelosi voted for, like she crossed party lines. Like she clearly understands the importance of the crypto vote. And so if she really is as tight with Jamie Lizaraga, as, you know, people are saying, then that would make the most sense to me as the theory. Well, yeah. And he used to work for her, right, in the house. So when she was speaker, he worked for her in the house. So no, I think that is a plausible, that is a very plausible theory. Yeah. Plus, she represents San Francisco, right? So she's close to people in the industry.

You did put out the memo, I think it was after the Mar-a-Lago, you know, dinner about, hey, we should, you know, work together to find reasonable legislation for crypto. And that felt very out of the blue and random, like why, after, you know, so many years of kind of going the course that suddenly in a week, he's decided, you know, with this very coincidental timing to put out a memo saying, was engaged with the industry. Like that feels like that was kind of the wake up call. No, but that was, he released that as a statement. So he, that statement was part of his saying like, I don't support Fit 21, but I'm not

going to veto it. But I do want to work with the industry to create new legislation. That's what, what that was part of. So it was like a. Which was a big deal. Yeah, which was a total, you know, for a long time, the, at least the SEC position is we don't need new legislation because we already have the authority because of, all these things are securities, right? So for Biden to say we need legislation and we need on market

structure and I want to keep working on that, that is actually a hugely positive development, even though it was like against the vote at the time. Right. Okay. So let's switch gears a little bit away from speculation. Let's talk about what the actual pipeline of legislation looks like on the policy side. Okay. So there's a few different bills. We've talked about SB 121. Looks like that. override has failed. And so we're probably going to have to wait for a new SEC for anything accounting-wise to change, although there's some rumors about exceptions for certain groups or whatever. Let's ignore that. Talk to us about Fit21. Talk to us about what are some of the other bills that are coming down the line. And what should people be paying attention to that's likely to get done this year and or will have to wait until a new Congress gets seated post-elections? Yeah, so there's one big effort going on this year that I think everyone in the industry should be paying attention to. And that is this idea of getting a market structure bill signed into law. And there's definitely an effort and a strategy by some in Congress to try to get that done this year.

Whether or not that happens, I think is an open question, but they're certainly on that path. So, you know, rewinding, as you mentioned, and as we've been talking about back in May, the House passed the 21 bill with 71 Democratic votes, which is, you know, way more than anyone expected, right? Like, I think if we had gotten 25 to 30 votes, that would have been considered a victory. But 71 was a complete overperformance and more success than I think even those of us in the industry thought we were going to get. And so because it was so strongly bipartisan, the Senate realized that, you know, there's some momentum here and that they needed to work on a bill too. Now, the Senate, I've worked as a staffer, both the Senate in the House. The Senate, you know, kind of considers themselves like, you know, typically the older sort of calmer, more thoughtful group of Congress. You know, the Senate didn't just take Fit 21 and, you know, move that through their committee process or to the floor.

The Senate wants to take their own approach. So that's pretty normal. So what we see happening in the Senate is Debbie Stabenow, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She is working on a new piece of legislation called the Digital Commodities Act. It's a little bit similar to the DCCPA from two years ago, but it's been reworked to solve some of the problems with the DCCPA. You know, I think the biggest one is there seems to be a real effort to try to exclude Defi, you know, whether or not that actually works in the details, I think, remains to be seen, but there's at least an acknowledgement that the defy should be saved for later. So, you know, there's a real chance that the Senate Agriculture Committee marks up this new legislation before the end of July, maybe August 1st.

Now, the Senate Agriculture Committee only has a piece of it, right? They oversee the CFTC. They do not oversee the SEC. And so the thinking is that if this happens when the bill goes to the Senate floor, probably, you know, sometime in September, then the SEC piece could be added on the Senate floor, and then the House could have the option of taking up that Senate bill or it could get attached to kind of a year-end package. So there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes right now to try to provide feedback to different pieces of the draft legislation. It's not publicly available yet. There's only sort

of different pieces of it that are floating around. And so I think, you know, at some point that will be made public and we'll be able to get, you know, kind of a broader industry response to that bill. But it's definitely underway. I think the challenge we're going to run into is there's not that many legislative days left on the calendar. I think there's something like 22 or so days in the Senate and the House between now and the election. So, So, you know, their Congress is in for the last two weeks of July. Then they take a long break till the middle of September, which is sort of the custom. They usually work, you know, from their districts and states during August.

They're back in September. Typically in September, they need to get spending bills passed because the end of the fiscal year is at the end of September. So there's, and then, you know, you've got Jewish holidays in the mix. Like, there's only about three weeks of time where they can actually vote on, on legislative. And so the challenge will be, can they get some of that time? But then October, they all go home to campaign. So they are not voting. They're not doing committee meetings.

And then, you know, depending on what happens with the election, there's another 20 or so days on the calendar between November, end of November and early December. But those could be canceled. Yeah. Okay. So brass tax it for us. What do you handicap the odds that we get Digital Commodities Act or something like get passed this year? Like signed into law?

Signed into law. I would say about maybe 15 to 20%, which is actually pretty high in legislative land. Is that? Yeah, but it's not impossible. Okay. All right. So most bills never go anywhere. Sure, sure, sure, fine. Okay. So let's assume that that doesn't pass this year. What about stable coin legislation? How do you handicap those odds? You know, I would say that's about the same. And the reason is I think market structure legislation could actually be a vehicle to pass stable coin legislation. I do think stable coin legislation could move in other ways. If you would talk to me even a week ago, I would have said that the odds are higher. The reason I think they're lower is because if, you know, I think in a post-assassination attempt world, I think the odds that the Republican, keep the House and that Democrats lose the Senate are pretty high. So if you are, you know,

a Republican in the House and it's after the election in the lame duck period before the new Congress is signed in, you have very little incentive knowing that, you know, the Republicans are going to have the House in the Senate and the White House. I think the odds of that are pretty high right now. And in that scenario, I don't see a lot of, like, legislating happening at the end of the year. That could change. It's a little bit hard to see. Is what you're saying. If you're a Republican and you know that there's about to be a sweep, then, you know, to pass legislation now is to compromise. And you don't want to compromise. Right. Just wait a few months and then get your cake and eat it too. I see. Yeah. But that being said,

crypto has this amazing influence in power right now. And if anybody can overcome the convention, Like if we can actually get a good bill that, yes, provides the market regulatory piece, but provides a really strong clarity piece and keeps D5 for later, like that's a pretty good deal, I think. And so if, you know, the details can get worked out, you know, quickly and it's good, I think the crypto industry has a lot of clout right now and that, you know, the timing might be right to get it done. So it could be the one exception to all of this. But traditionally, when you have a situation where all, you know, the House of Senate and the White House are all controlled by the same party, the Congress tends to not do very much in the lame duck.

And Kristen, because both Fit 21 and this new Stabenow bill, address the same thing, which do you either think is better? Well, first question, which you think is better. and then second, which you think is more likely to actually be made into law? You know, I haven't seen the full package of what the CFTC and the SEC piece in the Senate would look like together. I think, though, the way the process is working out is that the House would be very happy to take almost anything the Senate can pass. And so I think that, you know, Fit 21 served a really important role in that it brought a strong group of, of bipartisan members together.

And it was a very, very symbolic vote. But yeah, it's a little bit hard to compare right now because we don't have the two to compare side by side. But I think the reality is whatever the Senate sort of pushes through is probably going to be the piece that what ultimately is signed into law is probably going to be closer to what the Senate bill looks like than the House bill. And one other question because so I know that both you and I believe that crypto bipartisan as an issue just like like I've always said oh being against crypto is like saying like

you're against the internet or something like it like yeah it doesn't even make sense um but like obviously now the Republican Party has put it in their platform and you know Vance is so obviously he's he's like a crypto person like he you know owns a bunch of Bitcoin he's clearly very knowledgeable about all this stuff um and yet at the same time like like we've been talking about we have have some members of the Democratic Party that are coming around to this issue, but in definitely in a late way, more like laggards. But do you feel like with the way things are playing out with the election or just electoral politics generally that it is becoming still more of like a Republican issue? Or do you think like, like do you see it becoming more of a partisan issue?

Or do you think it's only like a brief moment in time and it'll become? Yeah. I think this is a brief moment in time. I mean, listen, if we have Republicans in charge of Congress in the White House, like, that's going to be very positive for crypto, right? Like, there's no question about that at this point. But that doesn't mean, like, if Democrats are in charge of Congress in the White House, that we can't also get there. We just have a little bit more work to do. And I think, you know, the engagements there. I think, you know, the challenge we had for the longest time was that, you know, sort of Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren had a monopoly over the policy, both from the administration standpoint and from the congressional standpoint. A lot of members of Congress deferred to those two

people as to what to do on crypto. And the White House didn't think it was big enough for them to care. And so they just deferred as well to both of them. And so we've passed that. There's a realization that there needs to be engagement. And again, as I said before, crypto is not asking for free pass. We're just asking for the kind of regulation that makes sense for the risks that the technology has. It's fundamentally different than, you know, a traditional financial services world. And so we need to have the right kind of rules. And so, so no, I think it's definitely going to continue to be a bipartisan issue. But, but I will say, I mean, it's hard to argue that the Republicans aren't ahead at the moment.

But, you know, it'll be interesting to see because the Democratic Convention isn't until August. They haven't put out their platform yet. And so, you know, I'm pretty hopeful that we'll hopefully, you know, see something in that platform as well. And that could be, you know, hopefully like a move that, like signifies that this is something that we can continue to work on in a bipartisan way. Okay. We're running up on time, but I want to ask you one last thing. somewhat at the expense of overly focusing on the SEC, but at least in this industry and on this show, we like to kind of make the SEC the final boss. So let's assume, because right now

Trump is a fronter, obviously, but, you know, he's, Polly Market says he's about 70% to win, which means that 30% likelihood that actually we end up with a Democratic White House. So, you know, the race is not over until it's over. But let's say that Biden wins or, you know, Kamala, whatever. What do you think happen? Do you think we get another round of Gensler? You think we get somebody else in that seat? What is that SEC working? I think Gensler sticks around a little while longer, just given sort of what I've been hearing. Oftentimes, there's switches in a second administration, but I don't think Gensler is going

to get his wish to be Treasury Secretary. There seems he's got a lot of enemies within his own, within the own, within the Biden administration, right? Like I don't think he's going to get the nomination. And moreover, I don't think he gets confirmed by the Senate. Remember, the Senate has to confirm all of the nominees that the president puts forward. And so I think he can definitely serve out his term. But I don't think he's likely to come back after that.

Okay. And generally in that situation, do you promote one of the commissioners or do you appoint somebody new to be chair? usually if there's a you know no chair you can have like an interim chair but typically the president likes to appoint or nominate the commissioner that they will then make the chair so not not always so it's usually fresh blood it's not one of the present commissioners usually yes not always but usually they try to that that's a pretty coveted position and and so they usually like to to find someone you know new that they bring in to do that. So the commissioners are usually like sort of bureaucrats who've risen through the ranks,

but the chair is like an outsider. Yeah, the commissioners are, they're often former hill staffers. You know, it's very hard to find people to nominate that don't have a complex background or conflicts of interest. And so, yeah, you're often committee staffers or, you know, like Lizaraga is a former Pelosi staffer. You know, Hester Perth worked as a Senate Banking Committee staffer. You know, you oftentimes, it's often easier to confirm somebody who's worked in Congress

and knows the people doing the nominating at the commissioner level. But usually the chair is somebody with a, you know, slightly more robust resume. But it's not unheard of. You can have, you know, the president can choose whoever they want. And if there's a superstar commissioner, they may choose to put that person as chair. Okay. So in one minute, play out the fanfic for us. What happens if Trump gets elected and appoints a new SEC commissioner or a new SEC chairperson? What does that SEC do? And who do you think it would be? Um, you know, that's a good question. I actually haven't heard who the, the, who Trump would ultimately put forward. Um, you know, I, I, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've,

I heard a couple names in the name of speculation. Like Chris John Carlo is a name that I hear quite a bit. He used to share the CFTC, and I think he would be an excellent choice. But yeah, I don't know. But I think the one thing that we'll see is the regulation by enforcement is going to stop, I think, immediately. And so I think the ongoing cases, the ongoing cases, there's a couple things that could happen. They could kind of continue to play out. There is a world where they could be completely dropped.

I think the more likely thing is there might be some sort of settlement there that provides kind of a pathway forward. But yeah, I think that's going to be on a case-by-case basis. But no, they could continue if there is a strong case. But no, I don't think that will be immediate. I think that will take more time. And then we could see a rulemaking effort out of the agencies to try to provide some sort of clarity on some of the issues that are outstanding out there. I do think at the end of the day, we're going to need Congress to come in and give, you know, new authority to federal agencies to actually do kind of market structure correctly. But there are some things that the SEC could do with its existing exemptive authority that provides some clarity for crypto.

So I think we could see that. That again will be a longer process. But I think immediately the first thing on day one is just the fear of regulation by enforcement will stop. Awesome. Okay. Well, we've got a lot to look forward to this year and a lot to fear this year as well, as always. Thanks for coming on and always appreciate all your hard work. Godspeed out there.

I know this is going to be a really intense second half of the year for you guys. So appreciate all the work you do. Yeah. Well, it's a lot more fun to be. doing this as a winning, coordinated, organized industry, as opposed to kind of the underfunded underdog. So we'll take this posture anytime. Awesome. All right. That's it for this week. Thanks for coming on, Kristen. Do you everybody. All right. See you guys. Hi, everyone.