Unchained - Why Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Is So Pro-Crypto - Ep. 576

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Unchained is running its annual survey to better serve you. Please answer our annual survey here. Vivek Ramaswamy is likely the biggest supporter of crypto among the current crop of presidential candidates. But his enthusiasm comes not from an inherent love of the technology or its principles themselves, but a dissatisfaction with what he calls the “administrative state” that’s stifled innovation in a number of important industries, crypto among them.  On this episode of Unchained, Ramaswamy discusses his radical plan to slash the number of people working at federal agencies; his three-point crypto policy plan based on the freedom to code as a protected form of expression, the freedom of financial self-reliance, and the freedom to innovate free from regulatory overreach; why the current orientation of the U.S. government towards regulation of the crypto industry by enforcement isn’t helping anyone; his plans to stabilize the U.S. dollar by pegging it to a basket of commodities that could eventually include Bitcoin; why he’s so opposed to central bank digital currencies; and what industries he thinks could benefit from the use of blockchain technology. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: how Vivek, who has a background in biotech, fell down the “crypto rabbit hole” how the administrative branch of government doesn't work like it's supposed to, according to Vivek why he believes the government poses a threat to the future of crypto how he would respond to a situation in which the code of a smart contract is exploited how Vivek would prevent the use of crypto for illicit ends why he thinks that the current status quo in terms of crypto regulation is the “worst of all worlds” Vivek’s plan to stabilize the U.S. dollar by pegging it to a basket of commodities, potentially including Bitcoin why he is so against the creation of a central bank digital currency in the U.S. how blockchain technology can be used to help the U.S. maintain its technological supremacy Thank you to our sponsors! Arbitrum Foundation Phemex Popcorn Network Guest Vivek Ramaswamy, 2024 U.S. Presidential Candidate Vivek on The Chopping Block: Why Vivek Ramaswamy Wants Less Crypto Regulation Links Original speech unveiling his crypto policy plan at the North American Blockchain Summit 2023 Unchained: GOP Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Makes the Case for Reduced Crypto Regulation Bloomberg: Ramaswamy’s Crypto Deregulation Plan Is Scaring the Industry CoinDesk: Ramaswamy Shares Crypto Plan, Making Him the Only GOP Candidate Who Has One Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think it is entirely and wholly unacceptable to live in a country where you have the person who leads the SEC. Unable to answer with clarity to Congress, whether or not Ethereum, widely used cryptocurrency, is or is not a security. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started having crypto eight years ago, and as the senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream meter porter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the December 1st, 2023 episode of Unchained. Step beyond the role of a trader and become a partner with a leading cryptocurrency exchange.

Share in Femex's revenue, enjoy staking benefits, and take control of your trading journey. Arbitrum's leading layer two scaling solution offers you ultra-cheap and lightning-fast transactions, all with security rooted on Ethereum. Visit Arbitrum.io today. VaultCraft by popcorn is your no-code defy toolkit for building automated, non-custodial yield strategies. Learn more on vaudecraft.io about how you can supercharge your crypto portfolio. Today's guest is Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. presidential candidate. Welcome, Vivek.

It's good to see. How you doing? Good. Glad to have you on the show. You're a former biotech CEO who's running for the Republican presidential nomination, and you recently rolled out a policy for digital assets. I've been listening to a lot of your podcast and interviews, and in fact, one of them was featured on Unchanged, which was with the chopping block. And I've heard you talk about how your interest in crypto is related to the administrative overreach you saw prior when you were in the biotech industry. And I wondered, is that how you got into crypto? Or what was the moment

where you fell down what people call the crypto rabbit hole? Yeah, that probably came a lot earlier for me. But it wasn't, it was long before I was imagining running for president or otherwise. Actually, it was back when I was in law school, and I was intrigued by the promise of the code is law vision of Bitcoin, actually. The idea of having an entire opt-out of the current system in a way that holds the current system's feet to the fire, both from a financial regulatory standpoint and even from a broader governmental standpoint. That was alluring to me pretty early on, but it was something that was more of a theoretical, abstract idea. I think the thing that gave me my passion for coming back to it was really my, I would say, all-out-planned ideological war on the administrative state. And if when I look at the administrative state, there's two things that are wrong with it. One thing is that it's unconstitutional.

There's three branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial, not this fourth unaccountable branch of government. And so I think it's a bastardization of our constitution and our republic. but it also hampers innovation and productivity and economic growth in the United States. I've seen that firsthand in the industries where I've operated. Those are multiple industries including in drug discovery and drug development, but you see it impeding innovation in every other sector too, from energy to even crypto. And I think that's part of what's brought me back to this with a sense of purpose in this presidential campaign is my crypto policy really isn't a narrow crypto policy per se.

It's one example of the kind of policy agenda I'm bringing to shut down the unconstitutional fourth branch of government. And I have full confidence we'll be able to do it if I'm elected president. But one thing I'm curious about is, and since you went to Los Col, I'm sure you know more about this than I do. But I thought the administrative part of government was like part of the executive branch. At least that's, you know, what it says. So can you explain? Because I believe, you know, the heads of all those agencies would report up to the president. There are. appointed by the president. So explain, yeah, you know, more about your stance there. That was not an uninformed question at all. You're actually framing it exactly the way it's

supposed to work, right? Three branches of government and the executive branch is one executive branch of government. The problem is with the overgrowth of the administrative state, though, what's happened is that many of those positions, in fact, if you take millions of those federal employees, most of them have been treated as though they're unfairable. So speaking of somebody who's been a CEO of a company in the private sector multiple times over. If somebody works for you and you can't fire them, that means they don't work for you. It means you work for them. So that's one major problem with the executive branch is at least the way the laws have been interpreted, which I don't think is the correct constitutional interpretation. But the way DC has operated,

it's been that even the U.S. President can't fire the millions of people supposedly reporting into the U.S. president. You can't give people raises or pay cuts based on their performance. So I think that that's one example of where the administrative state really operates like a fourth branch of government. There are other ways in which it behaves this way, too. I mean, many of the decisions taken by the administrative state are taken without presidential oversight whatsoever, insulated from presidential accountability, not just from firing, but even from decision making. Many of those agencies, I mean, the SEC is one of them, but this exists in many agencies, have all three branches of government sitting inside that same agency, the same agency that rights rule. Those are rules that Congress never passed, but rules that come from the executive branch. Well, in our three-branch system, that's supposed to come through Congress. But now you have rules governing entire industries with the force of law, but that came from the executive branch. That's wrong. Then you have the same agency that's responsible for enforcing those laws, which is also now the same agency that creates these administrative law tribunals, sort of quasi-cords within that same agency. So in our republic, we're supposed to have separation of powers between those who write the laws, those who enforce the laws, and those who judge the laws. But the administrative state, which supposedly sits under the executive branch of the

government, but is unfirable, even by the U.S. president, at least that's the way it's been treated, is now also consolidating all three of those powers in one branch of government. That's what makes it so dangerous. And yes, sectors like crypto and otherwise are suffering as a consequence from a wet blanket that puts different innovative sectors into a stranglehold. But it's not a Sometimes I think that, you know, in my experience, I've gone to a lot of the cryptocurrency conferences. I've gone to a lot of Bitcoin conferences. A lot of my friends are pioneers, I would say, in that space. One of the things I would just ask or respectfully suggest is sometimes maybe if you step outside of your own domain and see how broad this problem really is, then you actually more deeply understand the actual threats posed by the government to the future of crypto. And I think that sometimes when you think it's all about you, you end up having a narrower worldview, then understand.

that this is the same threat to the innovative potential of drug discovery, to the future of energy, to the future of our founding spirit as a country, that's really what's at issue. And the crypto sector is just one more victim in that process. Okay. So something that I don't understand also is that, you know, you said that a large portion of that administrative branch is not fireable. And yet you also say that if you were to become president, you would fire 75% of them. So how does that part work? Sure. So if you noticed, I was, you know, to be careful in how I framed that, that's how it has been viewed historically. I think that's actually the wrong interpretation. So this is where they duped President Trump. I think the managerial class, they duped him is the best way I could put it. They said, as they've told prior presidents, the people from that same swamp are the ones that advise the presidents who come into office. They say you can't fire those employees because of these class of rules called civil service protections. And that is a, you know, deep. set of laws that lay out all of the conditions for making sure that president can only fire an

individual employee for cause. You know, you may know in the private sector setting as well, that's a very high bar. So in the government, four cause means that basically broke the law or did something egregious. But if somebody's just doing a poor job, you can't fire them. And the reason, and the logic baked into that is that you don't want, as the U.S. president, someone politically retaliating against somebody they disagree with. Agree or not, that's what's baked into the law. You don't want people engaging in all kinds of discrimination on the basis of race or political ideology or otherwise. So presidents don't bother firing those employees because the law says you can't fire them except for cause. We'll read the law a little more carefully. Those civil service protections

do not apply to mass layoffs, mass firings. Mass firings are actually what I'm bringing to the D.C. bureaucracy. So other presidents who come in and say, hey, I want to go after individual bad actors who are corrupt or behaving in a politicized way, well, yeah, the civil service rules, unfortunately, stop a president from being able to carry out those individual firings as a CEO in the private sector would still be free to do. But the way the law works today is still the U.S. president can execute mass firings that are totally indiscriminate. And that way there's no claim of political retaliation or a civil rights violation. That's why my plans are as, I would say, unusual in the approach to firings from relative to prior presidents is, I don't believe in the use of a chisel

initially. A, I don't think it's going to be successful operationally. B, I don't think that that's what the law would really permit a president to do. But if you're bringing a chainsaw, you know, give you a thought experiment. If you take on day one, say you want to come into the federal government on day one and say anybody whose social security number ends with an odd number you're out, even number you're in, on day two, you're going to have half the size of that federal bureaucracy, yet it was totally in compliance with the civil service laws because no one can claim political retaliation or racial or gender discriminatory violation. That's the kind of change it's going to take to wrap our arms around this administrative state. Anybody who thinks they can come in and incrementally

reform this, cut off one head of an eight-headed monster, it's going to grow right back. You have to be able to gut the thing at its core and at its center. That's going to take someone, someone coming from the outside, and I think someone from the next generation, which is why I'm in this. You know, I've heard you say that that would be one way to do it about the odd number, social security. Yeah. But I'm sure, like, you probably have some kind of principle around which you would actually. So, and I know this is a crypto podcast, but I'm just so curious that I have to ask this.

So look, one of the things we're working on is larger scale tests of people's understanding of what does it mean to actually be swearing an oath to a constitution? What's your level of understanding of that constitution? What is the last 10 years of reporting for duty? What your work requirements have been? What your performance has been on the job. But do it in a large scale blinded manner that it still stays in compliance with those civil service rules, but at the same time gives you the ability to execute quick and rapid large scale mass firings. That's what's in compliance with the law. That's also what's required to drive change quickly. You don't get a lot of time as a president. And I think if you don't make those changes quickly, if you strike that swamp,

the swamp strikes back. And I think that that's one of the lessons from the past. I don't want to make those same mistakes to my predecessors. And so those are some of the principles that will use. But I laid out some thought experiments for how we would do it. I guess so maybe I didn't understand in terms of the principles. It would be something quote unquote random like that. Is that what you're saying? It would have to be without individual discretion of individuals, evaluating individual by individual, because then you're mired in litigation for years about political retaliation or otherwise. So it has to be something that's blind to the individual, but ideally I'd like to bake in competence, understanding of the Constitution, understanding of large-scale blinded performance

over the course of the last 10 years, but without making individual judgments, doing it en masse, that's what it's going to take to get the job done. Okay. So now let's discuss your three-point crypto policy. We'll talk about the first point which supports the freedom to code as a reflection of freedom of speech. And when I've heard you discuss this, you've said that, for example, there could be parallel systems of law. There would be the existing legal system. And then also areas where, quote, code is law, you know, as people say in crypto.

And I wanted to pose you a hypothetical, let's say a developer code something up. And as you say, you know, users who use that would then opt into that legal system set up by that code. And if the developer has actually coded in something that, causes that blockchain or that smart contract to do something different than what people expected or different than what was promised. And let's say somebody was able to steal a large portion of the money or something like that, then would that code is law system still apply? And would people just sort of be out of luck if they didn't catch the vulnerability beforehand? Or how would you

handle that? Yeah. So I want to be very clear what I've talked about when I say code is law. That's the original promising vision of the future of Bitcoin that it had on promise. And many cryptocurrencies, I would say broadly. That was the vision. Now, that's a theoretical idea. How does it apply in the context of the United States today? Well, look, I think that the key element of what you gave in that hypothetical was telling people one thing and then doing another. You can't tell people you're going to do one thing and then factually do another. Okay, that's fraud. Lying to somebody selling them something that wasn't the very thing that you promised them, that's old school fraud. So bringing that to the real world. What if it was accidental? What if the

code, the developer did this accidentally. They didn't realize that the code didn't do what they intended. Well, you're going to have to get to the very specific facts here about what exactly was the rules of the road of what the user signed up to in the first place. So in the general case, if you're going to tell someone you're going to do something, it doesn't work that way, and then somebody loses assets as a consequence, they have a cause of action. But if something was done that's internal to the rules of the road, and you're signing up to that as an individual saying going in, eyes wide open, here are all of the risks, here are all of the rewards and opportunities, and I'm signing up to that, then yes, you bear both the risks and the opportunities

of making that trade-off. So I think it requires going into the details a little bit, right? Depends on what is accident versus what you actually told the person. But my general principle is if you told somebody something false and somebody loses their assets as a consequence because you gave them something else, that's old school fraud, no longer than, you know, this bottle of water. I'm told that it's water, but it actually contains cyanide and then, you know, I'm poisoned as a result. yeah, I get to sue the person who bottled this bottle of water. It's no different for a real asset as for a digital asset. But what I'm against, in the first prong of my cryptocurrency policy is freedom to code. What that means is you can't just make that code itself the law-breaking act. That's part of what you see in the tornado cash situation, right, is I think this idea that there's theft, but that's separate from penalizing the code itself. So that's where I see a violation of our core principles that we need to respect. You can't outlaw particular mode of expression, a particular kind of code. That alone is not a legal violation. The legal violation is the theft of property when you're telling someone one thing and you're

taken another. That's a violation for a digital asset as it is for an ordinary asset. And that's what I mean by the first prong, the freedom to code. Code is a form of speech and you can't outlaw that form of speech any more than you can outlaw another. But if you tell somebody that they're actually getting one thing and in fact they get another, that's not a form of protected speech, that's a form of fraud. And then what if we combine two of these scenarios, let's say some developers coded something up, they accidentally coded it in a way that wasn't, you know, as, you know, it didn't work as they promised.

And then that allowed somebody else to steal the money from the users. Then you're going to have to, again, get into the specifics of who's liable in which case. But if the provider of code, if the provider of a piece of code or a blockchain or whatever, is telling a user that they get one thing, but that user gets another, then that provider, the person who lied about it, or who made an inaccurate promise, is the one who's liable. And not the person who, quote, unquote, stole the money. So, okay.

It depends on, exactly, but it depends on what those rules of the road are. So it all comes down to the specifics, right? If part of the internal rules of the road is, the way the code works, is it's a zero-sum dog-eat-dog world, and you know that's what you're signing up to, but that's clearly laid out to everybody else up front, that, yes, I'm a firm libertarian on that. You sign up to one set of rules of the road. Everybody knows what they're getting into. And there's not somebody who's a bad actor by playing internal to that set of rules. But if you have the actual provider saying that you're getting one thing on an exchange or otherwise,

when in fact you are getting another, then the person who made you that promise is the one who's liable to you in the court of law. Okay. Okay. These are super inch. I love this thought experiment. It's fun for me too, actually. But it would be even better if we got into specific examples that can respond to, but those are the principles, though. Yeah. So actually, and I'll just state this briefly, the reason I'm asking is this is what happened with the Dow where, and I know, I think somebody for your own podcast asked you about this. And the reason I'm asking is this was a big part of my book.

But basically, yes, the way the developers coded it up, that's not how it actually worked. That allowed somebody else to steal a bunch of the money. And I heard you kind of, I think it was, you know, you felt in that case that Koto's law and the fact that the Ethereum blockchain made a change in order to make users whole, you felt that that was wrong. So in a way, your statements sort of line up with what you said at that time. Yes, exactly. I mean, that's a specific example of it. But in the broader principle, the person who promises the rules of the road and makes the promise to the users needs to keep that promise. and if they fail, they're the ones liable for breaking that promise. But you can't change the rules after the fact when an existing user has assumed that when engaging in a contract of any kind, smart contract or otherwise. All right. So now let's talk about the second policy point you support,

which is the freedom to financial self-reliance and that aligns with supporting self-hosted digital wallets. And I wanted to ask about the fact that in the past few years, crypto activity in defy or decentralized finance has allowed North Korea to, to obtain $2 billion worth of crypto, and they might be using that to fund their nuclear capability. And I wondered, you know, in terms of your policy of not limiting self-hosted wallets, how would you support that while at the same time trying to prevent bad actors from using crypto to elicidens? Go after the bad actors. Don't go after the crypto. I mean, it's really been the case for as long as money has existed that it has been laundered and used for bad and ill purposes. You think North Korea or

other bad actors from Iran to other nations haven't been funding terrorist and other activities long before the advent of crypto? Of course they have, right? And so we didn't outlaw money in that case, or we didn't outlaw the people's right to hold money or to be able to transact from paper dollars to wire transfers. And so I think it's yet another example of laziness on behalf of the government. I think it's lazy to go after the means of transmission as opposed to going after the bad actor who's doing the transmitting. And I think that that laziness in some ways will stop us from still getting to the essence of what we need to be focused on, which is the nature of those bad actors in the first place.

It's like a water balloon. You squeeze it in one place that's going to go to a different place. You try to squeeze that place that's going to go somewhere else. And so when you view it that way, I think that's not the crypto exchange that's the problem. It's not even the money that's the problem. You can always blame the intermediary. It's the fact that you have an ill-intentioned bad actor that's hostile to the United States, own up to that reality, and then go after the root cause,

rather than the modes of transmission. That's what I would say. So just from what you described, it almost sounds like going after them after they've obtained the money. But how would you prevent them from obtaining it? Yeah, well, look, I think that some of this is the risks of living in a free society,

but I want to prevent them from obtaining it. But the act of providing that to a bad actor, knowingly or otherwise, there are laws that prevent against that. I'm fully in favor of enforcing those laws. but one particular means of transmission. You try to go after wire transfer, you're going to have cryptocurrency. You're going to have cryptocurrency.

If you ban that, you're going to have the next thing. I think that's broadly speaking, chasing the wrong target versus getting to the core act of if you're knowingly providing transfers to a country where you're actors within a country where you're banned from doing so. That's the unlawful act. No matter what mode of transmission you use to accomplish it, that's a violation of the rule of law. So that's what I would say. Yeah.

I mean, I think because it's decentralized, then it's, you know, so when you say you would apply existing laws, existing laws are applied on intermediaries and then defy, since they're, you know, depending on how you define it, you could look at it as not having. So how would you? Well, I think that you have to look at the penalties for somebody who's intentionally using that to achieve a nefarious aim, right? So if you're using what you'll call defy as a way to backdoor, achieve and knowingly achieve a criminal objective, well, that knowing intent, often one of the ways you're actually able to effectively prosecute people in the law is if they're using something to purposefully hide something they otherwise could not do transparently. So it's that knowing

act of wanting to fund a hostile actor and intentionally doing it that the government needs to be able to go after using all the means that the government can lawfully use today. But I think part of what's happened is in the name of that, we've had violations of privacy. And this is is an ancient question in some ways. I'm glad we're talking about it. It's in the aftermath of 9-11. You had the question about wiretaps of phone conversations between people, right? You would say that someone in the United States is going to have a call with somebody who's a terrorist. Well, that gave the government incorrectly, but it gave them they took the authority to wiretap the conversations between U.S. nationals and foreign nationals. The basis for doing it was something called

the third-party doctrine, which is actually what's used in the financial in the defy context right now as well, which is to say that even though you may in the privacy of your home be able to talk to your wife, if you're talking to your wife via the phone, somehow you're giving up your right to privacy because you shared that information with a third party, in this case a telephone provider. Well, the justification for that was that we need this to stop terrorism and part of the war on terror requires clamping down on those conversations where people are able to share the kind of information that would allow terrorists to carry out those attacks. Is that a desirable goal to stop terrorism in the United States? Absolutely it is. But is it a violation of our core principles,

including our constitutional protections and our presumptions of privacy, to be able to say that somehow because you used a telephone to do it, that gives the government the right to wiretap every element of that conversation? I still think that that's wrong regardless. And so I don't think that we have to reduce everything to a tradeoff between effectiveness and our constitutional rights. Our constitutional rights are non-negotiable. But within those confines, absolutely, we want to go after bad actors the way that law enforcers always have. I'd say the same thing when it comes to the anonymity of financial transactions as well, you have a right to be able to host your own money wherever you want to hold it. That's the Jeffersonian vision. That's the, in many ways, the Jacksonian vision.

It's part of who we are as Americans, as our sovereignty comes from the fact that the government should not be able to tell us how we transact. It's back to my first point. It's not the code. that should be unlawful or should be the subject of illegality. It's the bad act of intentionally violating a law. And it's up to the law enforcement professionals to be able to use the tools of the law within the bounds of the Constitution to go after those bad actors. But just as I don't think that it licenses the government to wiretap all of our conversations without a warrant, even though an excuse could be that's part of the fight on the war on terror, nor do I buy that argument when it comes to our ability to engage in financial transactions either. like we do on a stock exchange. You don't know who you're who's buying or selling your stock. Well, I think that in certain areas somehow we've accepted that that's perfectly acceptable,

but in certain other areas we're using the justification of national security to impede on privacy and personal rights. I think that's an age-old book of, I think a government that has, straight from the playbook of a government that regularly tramples on constitutional rights, I'm highly alert to that. And so I'm not one of these people who automatically, just because someone utters the words national security, gives you then a free pass for the government to trample on those rights, to ask how else can the government within the confines of those rights be able to still achieve its objective? And so that's the way I would lead. All right. So in a moment, we're going to talk a little bit more about financial privacy,

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bringing you lightning-fast transactions at a fraction of the cost, all with security rooted on Ethereum. From Defy to gaming, Arbitrum 1 plus Nova is home to over 500 projects. And with the recent launch of orbit, Arbitrum welcomes you to build your very own tailor-made layer three, or an orbit chain. Propel your project and community forward by visiting Arbitrum.io today. Back to my conversation with Vivek. So we were just talking about the third-party doctrine, and you talked about this belief in the right to financial privacy.

You know, as far as I understand, that's not a current right. So is that something that you would support as something you would institute? Yes. I mean, I think it's a basic, what I laid out to be clear in my first wave of our crypto policy, which, by the way, I want to be clear on this, is a first step as part of a broader digital asset framework that I think the public deserves, the American people deserve, and I expect to provide early next year. Here were the basic rules of the road, the principles, freedom to code, freedom to financial

self-reliance, and then freedom to innovate free from regulatory. overreach. So those are basic principles. How that's codified, much of that involves just a proper enforcement of the existing laws as they exist. And then some of that may require specific legal added protections as well. So I'll get into the implementation is yet to come in terms of the specific modes of exactly which will take the form of regulatory rollbacks versus new laws being passed. But the general point is any regulation that was written by an administrative agency that Congress never gave that administrative agency the power to right, which impedes on somebody's ability to have a self-hosted wallet, is something that I will be, and our administration will be

deeply skeptical of. If you want to ban it, fine, go through the front door of Congress. That's democratically accountable. And the people of this country would have to support that by a majority margin, which I don't think they do. But if you want to do it through the front door, do it through the front door, but we can't allow that through the back door through the regulators that were never empowered by Congress to do it. And have you thought about how that would impact the business models of financial services companies? Yeah, I have.

I mean, I think there will be implications in a lot of different directions. Some of the larger financial services companies have lobbied for the sets of rules as they apply today, partly because they're threatened by new competitors. It's the age-old trick. You see it in big pharma. You see it in big tech. You see it amongst big financial institutions as well. Use the government as a moat, as a barrier to entry for somebody who threatens your

existing business model. That doesn't mean that those are necessarily good rules. In fact, often it means that they're not good rules, but they're still part of how we got to the status quo of where we are. I mean, I think that there's no accident, even if you go to the start of Bitcoin and the advent of cryptocurrency, it was in the wake of the shameful, what I view is ignominious 2008 financial crisis bailouts. And so just because you have an existing rule that's the product of lobbying doesn't mean that that's necessarily a good rule. But broadly, I think the sector-wide impact would be one of unleashing innovation, one of applying the basic rules of the road as they stand today. If you're lying and stealing and you're committing fraud, you're liable for doing that

with a digital asset as you are with an ordinary asset. But it's not the fact of it being a digital asset that was the actual wrong act. It was the fraud underlying it. One point for people, maybe challenge people to pay attention to an obvious fact. It's not like the existing regime has been particularly effective at preventing large-scale fraud of the kind that we saw at FTX or otherwise. And so, again, I reject this idea that taking a more pro-innovation approach is automatically somehow going to increase the risk of legal violations or increase the risk of fraud. That's, I think, a false dualism. I think that the reality is the status quo is failing on both counts.

It's creating regulatory uncertainty. you have regulators that aren't writing clear rules but are determining what the rules are after the fact by enforcing them, a paradigm of regulation by enforcement that I reject. While at the same time, the real fraudsters are playing within the confines of those so-called rules on the face of it to actually defraud people of their assets. So I think you lose on both sides of the trade versus the clarity that I'm looking to bring to bear. Yeah. So let's talk about that because this has been an issue for years now in the U.S.

where a lot of the entrepreneurs feel like they don't have regulatory clarity. And I've heard you talk about a 2022 Supreme Court case, West Virginia versus EPA. And when you cite that, you say that your conclusion is that the regulations that are currently being used to classify cryptocurrencies that securities or commodities are unconstitutional. And I wonder, you know, if that is the inference, then how do you believe the agency should regulate crypto? Do you think there should be a single regulator assigned to crypto? Or should we continue to have this same policy,

where every agency regulates some portion of cryptoactivity. So I think the current status quo is in some ways the worst of all worlds. It's ambiguity for everybody. It doesn't effectively stop the bad actors from doing what they're going to do. And it doesn't follow the existing constitutional principles codified in West Virginia versus EPA. And for people who are wondering about that case, you don't have to be free to read it. It's one of the most important cases of our lifetime. But basically the gist is the EPA applied certain regulators to coal.

minors that Congress never gave the EPA the power to actually implement. And the Supreme Court felt that if Congress never actually passed those laws through the front door, then they were unconstitutional when the regulator wrote them through the back door. If those regulations at issue in that case are unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court last year held that they are, that means that literally a majority of federal regulations, it's not specific to the SEC. It goes for the FDA and otherwise. A majority of current regulations are also unconstitutional. As the next president, I swear an oath to the Constitution, and I intend to keep it, we will not enforce day one. We'll have executive action that says stand down from enforcing any regulation that fails the test in West Virginia versus EPA and will immediately rescind those regulations as well. It so happens many of those regulations are the ones being used, I think, to backdoor regulate crypto. Now let's get practical. I'd say the CFTC and the SEC did some process, whatever it is, to determine clarity of something, counting as a security or not. I think it is entirely and wholly unacceptable to live in a country

where you have the person who leads the SEC, unable to answer with clarity to Congress whether or not Ethereum widely used cryptocurrency is or is not a security, right? If that's widely used, that many people affected by it. And if there's one person, you might expect that it's the chief commissioner of the SEC that's able to say whether or not Ethereum itself is a security governed by the laws enforced by that agency, if he can't do it, it's not his fault personally. It just shows how broken the current regime really is, that if it's not even clear to the ultimate head of that regulatory body, how could it be clear to entrepreneurs across this country? And so whatever the right answer is, I'd say the wrong answer is the purposeful ambiguity that we have today. And

I'm a bit of a cynic. When it comes to the government, you have purposeful ambiguity. Often it's a combination of innocent mistake versus the fact that history teaches us that ambiguity is the friend of the tyrant. That's what regulation by enforcement is all about. You enforce the law. And then only after somebody's left in the hot potato, holding the hot potato, the game of musical chairs, the last person left standing. Now you know what the regulations are. That's not this country. You don't pick the person and then figure out the law afterwards that they violated. You have a clear set of laws where a nation of laws, not of men. That's the United States of America. So I have my views on this, but I would say whatever my, I can go to my views, but less important than

that is at least we need clarity where the government and all parts of the government from the CFTC to the SEC is clear about whether a particular digital asset is or is not a security. That much I think the entrepreneurs of this country deserve and I think the regulators of this country deserve as well. And so I think the role that the president could play here is that they would be selecting the heads of these agencies. So what qualities or policy views would you look for or like what would the process look like to choose them or do you already have people in the United?

mind that you would nominate to be the chair of the SEC or the CFTC? So we're working on this across the federal government. And I want to be clear again, I know you're reaching more of a crypto-focused audience. For me, my crypto policy is an outgrowth. And yeah, I think this is hopefully how you can know that I mean at, right? It's not specific. I happen to like cryptocurrencies, you know, as a broad part of American future. I probably, I think of the only presidential candidate who's owned Bitcoin prior to running for president, at least per the presidential disclosure forms, but that's not what guides my policy. This is part of an outgrowth of reshaping the administrative state across the board, three-letter agencies that have nothing to do with

crypto. So as part of that, yes, we're working on a broad staffing plan for the federal government. We're thinking and working in what we call triads, right? So each of the federal bureaucracies, we're going to have teams of three people near the top who are focused, one of whom is going to be a domain expert in that area, likely with experience in that agency, one of whom is going to be a purposeful outsider, generally somebody who's been a business builder or an outsider, understanding how to cut through that bureaucracy. And then the third person who's bringing a constitutional perspective to say, who is actually applying the principles of West Virginia versus EPA or otherwise to understand whether this agency is really following the rules of the road

or not. And so those are the skill sets. We're going to have almost three of those people per major agency that we're bringing in. We're working on staffing that. And then the person who's in charge is going to be able to, say, the chief commissioner or the head or cabinet level appointment, is going to work with those people across the board in some cases to shut down that government agency. In other cases, to downsize the staff by 75% or more. In other cases, working with the staff to figure out which of those existing regulations fail the Supreme Court's test for what a constitutional regulation actually is. And so we're working with a number of leaders from public and private sector backgrounds alike to put together that bench. One of the learnings

from the last administration, or at least Donald Trump and his leadership was, he came in with a lot of the right ideas. But that staffing cannot start only once you've been elected. We need a running start getting in. And I think that's what I'm going to bring to bear because I think we've got about 18 months to get this right. And then after that, unless you've succeeded in those first 18 months, you're sitting lame duck after that. I refuse to be in that position and we want to get that running start out of the gate. You've also said that you would consider ordering the Federal Reserve to grant stable coin issuers, the same access to fed facilities that incumbent banks enjoy. As far as I understand, the central bank is independent of the executive branch. So how would you

put that into action? Well, look, I think that that goes to one of the very first points that you raised, right? The idea that that central bank somehow is independent, that it's not accountable to the three branches of government rejects that premise that there are three co-equal branches of government. I like the very first question you asked, aren't the administrative agencies part of the executive branch. That's what our founding fathers would say. That's what I would say. It's not how the status quo operates, but that doesn't mean the status quo is correct. So I do get an appointment power of a new chairman of the Federal Reserve in January 2026. I intend to use it to put somebody in that role who understands that there's one executive branch of government, not tens or hundreds.

And do you have somebody in mind? We have a few candidates in mind. Wanted names and names? You know, I would say I, you know, one that I would name who I think is an example of the kind of person. I don't think Rand Paul or Ron Paul, you know, version of a Ron Paul. And he's at such an advanced stage of his career and I respect him. And if I'm as sharp at his age as he is right now, I want to learn from him the tricks of how he got there. But maybe the version of Ron Paul that ran for president, you know, a decade and a half ago would be the kind of person who I think would be an appropriate chairman of the Federal Reserve.

because part of the job is going to involve a 90% headcount reduction at the U.S. Fed. Part of the problem is when you have a bunch of people showing up to work who should have never had that job in the first place, they start finding things to do that are outside their mandate. Whereas what I want to do is put the Fed in its place with one single mandate. Stabilize the dollar as a unit of measurement. Peg it to commodities. That's how we tie the hands of the government. That was exactly my next question.

You know, as you said, you had this plan to stabilize the dollars a unit of measurement, measured against this basket of commodities. So what would that look like? Which commodities would you include? Are you thinking of including things like Bitcoin or even Ether? So I think that that's a second order discussion and I'm open to having it. We haven't nailed in exactly what our basket is. But we're looking at gold, silver, nickel. We could look at agricultural and farm commodities. Over time, after it's been, I would say broadly accepted the volatility of Bitcoin is no less than, that that, then the combined basket of those commodities, I think it could be reasonable to include Bitcoin in that list as well. But again, the way I'm coming at this is, again, it's not from a within crypto and then how do we use that to advance an agenda through the presidency. I mean, the reality is, I'm swearing an oath to the Constitution. And I'm telling you what I actually

believe. I happen to believe I'm the most pro-Bitcoin and broadly pro-crypto president that probably will, and maybe for the foreseeable future, we'll ever run. But it's not because I'm in here to be a single issue advocate for crypto's inclusion. It's fact that I'm looking at what's my job as the US president, stabilize the dollar. I'm against the volatility of the dollar that we've seen. I'm against the government having widespread authority to print money the way that we have. And so I think that whatever reduces that volatility, stabilizing the value of the dollar against actual hard commodities, which will be what I would use, take something like Bitcoin, put other cryptocurrencies to one side, but something like Bitcoin that has a fixed supply

that has an inherent defined value, I think that that is higher on the list to be included as a candidate in the foreseeable future. But for me, the basic point is stabilize the dollar as a unit of measurement. Think about it as returning to the gold standard, but with an expanded set,

such that even gold is really just a form of paper. I don't want to be tethered to one, but to a basket of commodities that anchor the value of the dollar and tie the government's hands from being able to just print its way out of whatever political convenience presents itself. It seems that there's a kind of geopolitical battle with China in which they're trying to use the digital yuan as a way to undermine the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.

And I wondered if you would either try to use crypto or blockchain technology in any way to combat that. And if so, how? Well, I think the first order question is, you got to be careful not to fall in the trap of this siren song that just because China is doing it, we need to do it. Ask yourself why China is doing it. I'm against a central bank digital currency. because part of what China wants to do is what you saw with the Canadian truckers last year. You've seen in China after the White Sheet Revolution in China after the COVID lockdown policies over there. They want to be able to wipe your bank account clean if necessary, wipe your accounts clean if you say or do something that the government does not approve of. I think that's frightening. The weaponization of the financial system is almost every bit as bad as the weaponization of a justice system against political dissent.

And so this argument that somehow that's going to keep the dollar stronger versus the U.S. if we do the same thing, I think it's backwards. I think a dollar actually becomes more desirable as a reserve currency of the world. If the U.S. is not able to, on a whim, decide the holder of a dollar because they engage in some type of government disapproved behavior, is at risk of having the value of that dollar wiped out. So I'm dead set against the use of a central bank digital currency out of the gate. I'd put an end to the Fed Now program, which is the early stages, I believe, of laying the groundwork for the future of a central bank digital currency. And that's the first step out of the gate for me. Now, if you're looking at technical alternatives

to the current wire transfer system or otherwise, look, it's a clunky system and we can look at easier ways of being able to wire transfer your money than the broken system that we all know and don't love. But that's a separate technical question that shouldn't be conflated with this other, I would say, smokescreen we've created to pave the path to a central bank digital currency. And I'm against a CBDC in the U.S. in this idea that China's doing it and the yuan is going to be ahead, and we need to keep up with the Joneses or, you know, as the case may be, keep up with the Xin Pings. I reject that.

To the contrary, I think that taking the opposite approach would be a better way of preserving the dollar's status as the reserve currency of the world. All right. And I'm going to use my last maybe 30 seconds or so to just ask, you know, your policy points support rights around, you know, developers and, you know, financial freedom. But I wondered if there was any particular application of blockchain technology. that you think the U.S. could best use to support its technological preeminence. Sort of a lightning round question.

Yeah. I think they're, I mean, it's really boundless. I do think that drug discovery is one of the areas where it's probably underutilized to be able to decentralize innovation in the way that we're developing new drugs. And it's a longer conversation. I've even had it at my prior company that I founded, although it was towards the tailing end before I ended up moving on in my career to the kinds of pursuits I'm pursuing now. But I do think advent and advances in innovative areas that improve people's lives outside of politics, decentralizing the innovation in every one of those areas is broadly the category I would give you.

And so I'm not going to pick one sector from energy to drug discovery. I put broadly the innovative categories where it's better done in a decentralized way, rather than by centralized bureaucracies in the private sector, which exists today from industry incumbents. That's broadly what I would say. but that's more of a, you know, 20-plus-year discussion ahead of us, not the next 20 months that I'm focused on today. All right. Well, thank you so much. Where can people learn more about you on your platform? Yeah, sure. Go to Vivek-2024.com. V-I-V-E-K-24.com. If people prefer to understand a little bit more of the message, you could also go to know-to-neocons.com. And I think that gives you a sense for what my domestic and foreign policy vision is. I'll just say one thing in closing as well.

admittedly self-interested. But, you know, I mean, in this conversation, my goal in rolling this out has not, you know, you probably got a sense for that. You may agree with most of what I say. You may not agree with everything of what I've said. But I do think that we live in a moment where we require a president who comes from the next generation with fresh legs and actually has an understanding of questions relating to the future of cryptocurrency to the future of AI that most people in, frankly, both parties, the Republican Party included, utterly lack today and who are going to be thoughtful about the way we're going to approach that future that goes beyond just the traditional cable news Republican versus Democrat debates that were taught to have. It's for that reason that I'm a black sheep in the Republican Party's establishment right now. I called out the Republican Party's failure at the start of that third debate. And I encourage everybody to watch that third debate if you're interested. After that, the chairwoman of the RNC, the Republican National Committee, said that I won't get another scent of funding from the RNC, which almost proves my point about the corruption of

this party. That's a long way of saying that I'm not somebody's circus monkey or pawn, which is what most of these politicians are. Our family, we've lived the American dream. I've lived the American dream. We didn't inherit our money, but we've earned it through the companies I've found it and otherwise. And we're making immense sacrifices in this campaign. But part of the reason the system is the way it is, is that as ugly as politics is, I think it requires people like us to be able to engage and lead. And so I'll ask for people's help. At this point, at the start of this campaign, I was a little shy about doing it. I realize we're now in striking distance of me being your next president. It's an uphill climb ahead, but it's achievable.

And I think that we have a clear path to get there. I'm polling it forth, but not by much. And the margins, I think, can change very quickly in the months ahead. And so I'd ask for others who have lived their version of the American dream, if you lift us up, you know, we're going to do our part and the beginning of what we've what we talked about here just scratches the surface. But if people support us, you go to Vivek 2024.com. We take crypto, we take Bitcoin, we take dollars. But those who are able to support us, and that's really going to help me get across the finish line and make everything we talked about here today, not just a theoretical idea that we're talking about on a podcast, but part of the framework and the principles of how we actually lead this country.

I think we can do it. And I'd appreciate your guys' help if you're open to it. All right. Well, Vivek, it has been such a pleasure having you on Unchained. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap. Today, presented by veteran crypto reporter and Columbia University United Batchett fellow Michael Del Castillo. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break. Popcorn just made Defy way easier with VaultCraft through no-code defy toolkit for building, deploying, and monetizing automated yield strategies in a few clicks. Forget spending months of R&D and capital when you can instantly launch your

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close to you, please go to conicsonterio.ca. Hello and welcome to this week's crypto roundup. This week we cover the obstacles Binance's former CEO Changpang Zao still has to face after the company he founded's historic settlement with the DOJ. The U.S. Treasury's recent sanctions on the Cryptomixer Sinbad, massive increases in cryptocurrency fund inflows, relatively speaking, and the ongoing proceedings in the FTX bankruptcy case, among several other stories. I'm Michael Doe Castillo, a nightbatchett fellow at Columbia University, and this is your weekly crypto recap. After the historic settlement last week between Binance and the U.S. Department of Justice, founder Changpang or CZ Zhao has stepped down as the chairman of Binance U.S. Board of Directors.

The decision follows his guilty plea for violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, leading to a $50 million penalty and his resignation as Binance CEO. Despite this, Zao will maintain his economic interest in Binance U.S.. Adding to Zao's challenges, the federal judge has ruled that he cannot leave the U.S. for now, marking him as a, quote, serious flight risk. The decision comes after Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties for operating as an unlicensed money, transmitting business, and violating sanctions laws. In a perhaps not-surprising twist, former Bittemex CEO Arthur Hayes has come to Zau's defense. In an essay that extensively quoted from the Hebrew and Christian Bible, Hayes questioned the severity of the treatment

and Zhao has received compared to traditional financial companies involved in similar wrongdoings. Hayes, who faced similar charges and received six months of house arrest, called the treatment of Zau and finance, quote, absurd, and highlighted what he characterized as the arbitrary nature of punishment by state. CZ's guilty plea certainly distinguishes him from the CEOs of traditional companies who escaped the Great Recession they helped cause, with Neri a lecture from the government. But it should also be noted that CZ's personal wealth at the time this was recorded was estimated to be about $25 billion, according to the Bloomberg billionaire's index. In other words, assuming Bloomberg's index is accurate, CZ's company paid about 0.004 of his

personal wealth. Perhaps he didn't get away with too strict of a punishment after all. On Wednesday, the new bosses at FTX, the beleaguered cryptocurrency, Exchange received approval from a U.S. bankruptcy court to sell assets worth approximately $744 million. These assets include interests and various crypto funds, notably Grayscale and Bitwise trusts. The largest portion of these assets is nearly 22.3 million units of Grayscale's flagship Bitcoin fund, GBTC, valued at around $597 million, followed by Grayscale's Ethereum Trust with 6.3 million units worth about $87 million. The development is part of FTX's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, which began last November after the exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, giving it the potential

to reorganize and maybe even reopen. The court-appointed CEO John Ray III had previously testified to Congress about the, quote, utter failure of corporate controls, end quote, and the misuse of funds by FTX and its affiliated trading firm Alameda research. The Exchange's former CEO, Sam Bangman-Fried, was convicted of fraud and other charges earlier this month. The sale of these assets is a potentially critical step in addressing the bankruptcy claims, which have been trading at 60 to 65 cents on the dollar recently. This week was marked by significant optimism and activity in crypto markets, with a notable surge in investment inflows and developments among exchange traded funds.

Coin shares reported that weekly inflows into cryptocurrency investment products reached a 2023 high of $346 million, with Bitcoin accounting for about 90% of that. This week also marked the longest streak of inflows since the late 2021 bull market, indicating a robust resurgence in investor interest. Of course, that's still very relative, with the broader ETF market experiencing a $31 billion increase in inflows over a similar period. Simultaneously, crypto asset manager, Pando asset, that's Pando, not Panda, filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a spot Bitcoin ETF. The Chennai India-based firm joins a roster of 13 companies, including financial heavyweights,

BlackRock, and Fidelity Investments, as well as another one we'll talk about shortly, seeking regulatory approval for similar products. Though SEC Chair Gary Gensler has become the man to hate at many corners of crypto, a growing list of his court losses seemingly has many optimistic. Bitcoin's price soared about 48% since early September and 126% since the beginning of the year in January. Back in ETF land, CoinDesk reports that Grayscale is updating the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust or GBT agreement to prepare for a potential conversion to a spot Bitcoin ETF. At the same time, the SEC is seeking public feedback on whether to approve yet another ETF application from another mainstream firm investment management giant Franklin Templeton, indicating a possibly accelerated decision-making

process. In related news, Bitcoin's strategy ETF, or B-I-T-O, hit a record $1.47 billion in assets, further signaling rising institutional interest in Bitcoin. The New York-based cryptocurrency lender Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy last summer, began allowing withdrawals for certain account holders on November 29. Customers of the custody program with Class A general custody claims and or Class B withdrawable custody claims can withdraw up to 72.5% of their crypto minus transaction fees, according to a report by the block, which cited court documents for its reporting. This opportunity is available until February 28, provided the investors did not previously participate in assets custody settlement. However, customers who voted against the reorganization plan will not be a part of

this distribution. Their funds will be managed separately by the litigation administration over the next six months. This move follows Celsius's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in July 2022 and the subsequent approval of a settlement plan in March, allowing deposit account holders to recover a portion of their funds. On a similar topic, Bloomberg cited the proverbial people familiar with the matter and a report that troubled crypto exchange Zitmex has proposed paying creditors 3.35 cents on the dollar, with a potential to rise to 29.35 cents amid restructuring and creditor pushback. Digital Currency Group has agreed to repay $275 million to its subsidiary Genesis by April 2004. The agreement comes as a resolution to the lawsuit filed by Genesis against DCG, seeking the

repayment of $600 million in loans. The dispute began when Genesis made four loans totaling $500 million to DCG in 2022, which DCG later attempted to convert into open loans, meaning they could have been paid off at DCG's leisure. A move Genesis says it did not consent to. So far, DCG has repaid approximately $227.3 million, leaving a balance of $324.5 million. The agreed repayment of $275 million by April is expected to provide Genesis with $200 million in value over the coming weeks. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Sinbad, a cryptocurrency mixer, the Department alleges was used to conceal the origin and destination of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. The Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, identified Sinbad as a, quote, key money laundering

tool, end quote, used by the notorious Lazarus Group, which has been linked to the totalitarian North Korean government in numerous reports. The sanctions follow the revelation that Sinbad allegedly played a significant role in masking assets stolen from various sources, including atomic wallet, Axi Infinity, and Horizon Bridge. The Treasury underlined Lazarus Group's alleged use of such tactics to fund North Korea's ballistic missile program. It's unclear where Sinbad was based, but the site's alleged crater, known as Methdi, declined to share the location in a wired report earlier this year. However, as part of the FBI's Caesar of Sinbad's site, the U.S. investigator indicated cooperation between U.S., Dutch, and Finnish law enforcement. This development echoes

the Treasury's previous sanctioning of Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer founded by an American and Russian also used by Lazarus to allegedly launder money, according to an FBI report. London-based blotching analytics firm, Elliptic, published a statement claiming that Sinbad is likely a reincarnation of Blender, the first crypto mixer to face OFAC sanctions. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Ademmo, emphasized the U.S. government's commitment to combating illicit activities in the digital asset sphere, saying in a statement, quote, we encourage responsible innovation in the digital asset ecosystem. We will not hesitate to take action against illicit actors. It should be noted that laundering stolen funds for a totalitarian government's ballistic missile program is it the only reason why some people might want privacy.

The FBI statement makes no mention of whether or not any non-criminals use sinbad for humanitarian or other purposes. In a startling development, the hacker behind in alleged $48 million theft from kibirswept, a decentralized finance market maker, issued what appears to be an unprecedented demand for complete control of the company. The self-proclaimed Khyber director sent an on-chain letter via an Ethereum transaction, insisting on full executive control over Kiber Network, the company behind KiberSwap. The demands extend to temporary authority over the company's governance Dow, access to all internal documents, and forfeiture of all assets, including intellectual

property. In return, the hacker promises a new era for the company, offering two double salaries for non-executive employees and provide a 12-month severance for those choosing to leave. The hacker also assured token holders and investors that he, she, or they would personally manage a turnaround, hinting that the new, quote, cryptographic project, end quote, would no longer be the, quote, seventh most popular decks. It was unclear if the hacker method, the decentralized exchange would become more popular, maybe the sixth most popular decks, or stop being a dex altogether, or something else entirely. The bizarre turn of events has left Khyber Network in a challenging position

as they contemplate their next steps amid this unprecedented situation. Cosmos founder Jay Kwan has proposed a significant shift in the network's trajectory. This week, the platform's governance token holders voted to reduce the inflation rate of Cosmos Hub's native token atom from around 14% to a maximum of 10%. Instead of accepting the vote and moving on, Kwan did the crypto equivalent of taking his ball home after the game didn't go his way, proposing a blockchain fork that would create a new token. Kwan's proposal, which he shared on social media, would turn atom one into a separate entity within the cosmos ecosystem, potentially supporting both the existing atom and a new

atom-one token, not that that's going to get confusing. Some users, like ex-user, eggs-in-staken, view the fork as a positive step towards diversification and security, while others, like Cosmonaut June, expressed concerns about the implications of not accepting the results of a democratic voting process. The specifics of the atom-one network, including its governance, tokenomics and technical architecture remain largely speculative. However, Kwan claims he wants to collaborate even while not be willing to accept the result of the vote. These dexes are starting to look an awful lot like politics as usual. And that's all. Thanks so much for joining us today. Unchanged is produced by Laura Shin,

with help from Kevin Fuchs, Matt Pilchard, Juan Oronovich, Megan Gavis, Nelson Wang, Shawshank, and Margaret Curia. The weekly recap was written by Juan Aronovich and edited by myself Michael Del Castillo. Thanks so much for listening. I look forward to speaking with you next week. Unchained is now a part of the Coin Desk Podcast Network. For the latest in digital assets, check out Markets Daily seven days a week with new host, Noel Acheson. Follow the CoinDesk Podcast Network for some of the best shows in crypto.