We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC103: Bitcoin Policy Update w/ Jason Brett (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. Back by popular demand, we have Jason Brett here to talk about all things happening with U.S. policy and legal pertaining to Bitcoin. Since the last time Jason was on the show, we covered the newly released Lumas Gillibrand bill. This time, we cover a new effort called the Digital Commodity Consumer Protection Act of 2022. Additionally, we talk about the White House recently releasing their climate and energy implications document, among much more. This is an episode you won't want to miss. So here's my chat with Jason Brett. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:00:43 Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey, everyone, how you doing? Welcome back to the show. Jason, great to have you here. Great. Thanks for having me, Preston. Good to see you again. I love these chats. I always learned so much. And like I was telling you before we started, This is my weakest area. So having you on to school me up on all things policy, I get excited to learn here. So the last time we talked, we covered the Lumas-Gillibrand bill in quite a bit of detail. I would highly encourage people to go back and listen to that conversation if you want to hear all of our thoughts and what that all encompassed, because that was a pretty substantial size bill.

Starting point is 00:01:32 And since then, there's been a lot happening on the policy front and all the bills and just, everything up on the Capitol Hill. In particular, we have the Digital Commodity Consumer Protection Act of 2022. This came out in August 3rd is when I think that got released. And I guess my first question for you, Jason, is just like, what's the difference here? And how much staying power does the one have over the other? Are they covering two different things? Just kind of give us a roll up on the two different bills? Sure. So the RFIA, or the one we talked about, which was the Lummis Gillibrand bill, covers really all aspects of the digital asset regulatory space, the federal level,

Starting point is 00:02:18 covers taxation issues. Are we going to have to pay taxes when we pay for these Bitcoin to buy a cup of coffee? You know, how our digital asset miner is going to be taxed? What is the framework going to be for securities regulation of tokens? What is digital asset commodities? What is the definition of that? How does Bitcoin fit into that? It grants the power of the spot market, of overseeing the spot market, you know, to, it designates the CFTC as the regulator that's going to overlook that spot market. So it's a very comprehensive bill that covers everything, including licensing at the Fed. So that's really think of that as like an ominous bill or an attempt because the Llamas folks that

Starting point is 00:03:03 worked on that bill came from Wyoming, as you know, Wyoming Senator, and they're the ones that develop the whole Wyoming blockchain initiative and the bills at the state level in Wyoming. So they were really trying to do that on a, you know, at a federal level. The digital currency, the digital commodities DCCPA, you know, Preston, unfortunately, the way Congress works is it's sometimes an insider's game. So it's very interesting because the chair of the CFTC, Rosten Benham, he actually used to work for the chair, the current chair of the CFTC Ag Committee that is overseeing this bill, the DC CPA. So Debbie Stabenen, Senator from Michigan, likes Ross and Benham a lot. So it's

Starting point is 00:03:47 very likely Benham went to Stabenow and said, I kind of want things the way I want them in a bill to cover how I want to regulate digital assets of the CFTC. And so he worked with Stabenow and Booseman, who's John Boosman is the senator on the Republican side, He's the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee. And because the CFTC is overseen by the Ag Committee, those two high-ranking folks have been able to push the DC CPA much farther than where the Lummis Gillibrand bill has existed so far because it only focuses on what the CFTC is going to do. So it only has to deal with one committee.

Starting point is 00:04:26 The RFIA, the one from the Lummus, has to go through four different committees and four different, you know, conversations with different chairs. So this was sort of straight to the punch. And it differs in a couple of ways. The biggest thing is, you know, if you remember we talked about it, we had Tyler Lindholm from Lemmiss's office joined us last time to give us some insights into that. I remember you credited him with the fact that it was an optional regime that the CFTC would have, you know, Coinbase, all these regulators could join. This is a mandatory exchange the way it's written in the DCCP. So it's very different. It means every single exchange. It means every single exchange in the U.S. would have to file with the CFTC to be able to trade in the spot

Starting point is 00:05:08 markets. And the bill specifically designates Bitcoin and Ether as digital commodities. Bitcoin's already technically under law with the CFTC, but this would affirm it in law and give the CFTC quite some power over the way Bitcoin is traded in the marketplace. So I think that it bears a lot of discussion that needs to be had for Bitcoiners. So real fast, just let me recap for people. So I don't know that this is right. So correct me if I'm wrong. But the way I'm seeing it based on how you described it is the Gillibrand bill is kind of this overarching, much larger bill. And in that, like you had said, the CFTC had the commodities piece of digital commodities, which is defined in the Llamis Gillibrand bill. And so now you have Boozman and

Starting point is 00:05:58 and these folks out of the agricultural side that are stepping in and saying, all right, now we're really going to clearly define our space under the CFTC, which is all commodities based digital assets. We're going to define exactly what we want this to be. And that's what this other, this digital commodity consumer protection act of 2022, which you were calling the DC CPA bill. Is that accurate? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I'm sorry. I interrupted you. You keep going. So the main thing I want to say about the DC CPA that's really important for people understand is it has a lot more momentum than the Lomas Gillogram bill. And that's because it has the two leaders of the ad committee, the chair and the banking

Starting point is 00:06:41 member supporting the bill. They actually have Senator Cory Booker, who's very much on the progressive side, who signed up for the bill. And then they also got Senator John Toon. Tune is actually a senator from South Dakota. May not have heard of him too much, but he's actually the number two ranking republicans. looking in the Senate. He sits right behind Mitch McConnell. So he's like the next Mitch McConnell if something happens. So he's a really big heavyweight to come in and support this bill. So a lot

Starting point is 00:07:09 of insiders in DC are saying the DC CPA has a real chance of becoming law. And that's what I've been, you know, it's why I really asked to come on the program because I want people to be aware of that, that this is a fast moving bill that we might even see become law by next year. And, You know, there's been a lot of debate about defy in the bill. Recently, Sam Bankman-Fried on Twitter sort of came out and was trying to talk about this policy and ended up with the debate on a podcast with Eric Borges about whether you need to do, know your customer for defy. But, you know, what's important about that debate to know is, like I said, the DCCPA, if it becomes law, present, it's going to mean that the CFTC can regulate

Starting point is 00:07:52 Bitcoin, the way they regulate other commodities, but also regulate the spot prices. That means that they're going to be able to get unfettered access to all of the traders, to understand who the market players are, so that they could even technically shut off trading like they can do with any other commodities. So it says in this bill that if, let's say they find some fraud or manipulation in the price of Bitcoin, like it's going up a little erratically or down, now you tell me how this would work, but they could technically shut off trading in Bitcoin among the major U.S. exchanges for like a period of a month.

Starting point is 00:08:25 So maybe that means it trades in different countries or just trades in the black market. But there's some real powers that we're giving up to the CFTC in this bill, just from purely the fact that Bitcoin is a digital commodity. And we've always said it's so great that Bitcoin is a commodity at the CFTC. But now that this bill is coming in to regulate the whole spot market of the industry, the question is how much regulation do we really need for Bitcoin? do we really want to open ourselves up to where Bitcoin is this commodity where we're going to have a U.S. federal agency that can demand maybe to know if I'm trading some Bitcoin with

Starting point is 00:09:00 you, right? Who we are. The thing I immediately think, yeah, this is a really big deal. So the thing that I would immediately think, if you're a regulator and you're listening to this and you're, you know, all excited about this bill, what people need to realize is the Bitcoin spot is going to continue to run in every other country around the world, regardless of what the U.S. thinks that they can control because I mean this is this has to be one of the most liquid markets on the planet in the last 12 months the numbers I'm hearing of how much have have settled in the spot markets or in the tens of trillions in if you were going to denominate it in dollars tens of trillions in settlement in one year just in the past year alone so like we're not talking about like a

Starting point is 00:09:43 small market here and so if u.s. exchanges get shut down because of some cede FTC overlords, like, they need to be prepared for maybe way less supply of coins being outside of U.S. jurisdiction, making the price explode upside, downside, whatever. And if you have derivative products that are being constructed around this that have durations that are months to years, that could wreck absolute havoc. Like, so maybe, and I guess they just because they would stop and do whatever investigation and maybe it's stopped for an hour or it's stopped for one day or it could be up to 30 days. I think the longer that they would try to stop that, the more insanity that's going to ensue in the global markets because there's no way that they're going to stop this thing from trading like they can in the equity space or something like that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:47 that the policymakers and regulators at the table are really thinking through what this could mean. They're thinking about it like a game stop, right? Oh, just, just hold trading for 30 days, let all the suckers clear out. Let's just get everything back to normal. And like Bitcoin is, you know, it's a beast. It is such a different asset. And again, like I think there's a little bit of an underestimation of what Bitcoin is and how it works. And, you know, again, the whole idea was we would be at the CFTC where digital asset is like, like Bitcoin is a commodity in the US, meaning it's not a security, right? We don't have to have a broker dealer.

Starting point is 00:11:25 That's the whole point of us always not wanting Bitcoin to be a security. You don't need a broker dealer, it doesn't even be traded like the security. But the question is this is also the first time that a spot market for commodities will ever be regulated. Like this is a big deal. This like cows, corn, everything else. The spot markets aren't regulated by the CFTC, only for fraud. for fraud because they're always worried about the derivatives.

Starting point is 00:11:49 So we're assigning a regulator that's not really used to regulating a day-to-day spot market. And I don't know about you, but beyond Bitcoin, how do you even go about regulating the entire spot market for crypto? I think that's a huge task in and of itself. And it's a 24-7 marketplace. You know, it's- Probably one of the most liquid marketplaces, like we said, on the entire planet right now.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Yeah, that sounds crazy. So what do you think that the, surely the rationale isn't because they're just empire building, government empire building on the regulatory side, or is that what this is? Well, I think what you're seeing is this bill isn't really constructed with anyone really who's an advocate for Bitcoin at the table. What the big deal with the DC CPA is. And also a little bit of the Lemuskilobrand bill is to create a way for all of these tokens to not be securities, right?

Starting point is 00:12:47 We always see the ICOs and everything, not wanting to be under Gensler. So the idea is, let's move away from this SEC and let's find another regulator that, you know, the other tokens and blockchain projects feel like they can trust. And so that's been this natural move to, hey, let's go to the CFTC. So this whole bill is built around how do we have and how can we regulate the coin bases, the FDXs, all these major, you know, just in a way that's constructive where we don't have to say the tokens are securities. So it's, it is a little bit of maybe empire building and that they want a federal regime because it is going to exclude all state laws and to the

Starting point is 00:13:25 degree that this is interstate commerce that does make sense. And look, maybe there's some positive aspects of it, but I think first and foremost, the point, you know, I think to discuss is like when we talk with Tyler is, do we want to have a mandatory regime at all? Like what that means is to make it mandatory. And then, you know, I'm raising that the prospect than maybe stopping Bitcoin. Maybe Bitcoin is so liquid. They would never see it as being manipulated. But no one's really evaluating or talking about what powers we might be giving up in the bill regarding what it means to hold Bitcoin or trade Bitcoin. And I think, you know, what you're seeing with this is it's a little bit of a less of an empire building and more of the way regulators

Starting point is 00:14:05 are trying to grab authority because they want to be able to have that authority over digital assets. It's a big prize. I guess when I'm hearing that, is the bill being open, up for comments to the public or talk us through how if a person's listening to this, we have a lot of smart people listen to the show and they might be hearing this and saying, oh, I've got a comment for them or I would like to, you know, weigh in with my two cents. How would they do that in this particular bill? Because I know on the Lumas-Gillbrand bill, they did have a comment period where they were very open to hearing what people thought. Is something like that happening here? Are they just trying to jam it through?

Starting point is 00:14:42 I think for the most part, jamming it through is probably the right way to describe it. You have really key senators. They're involved. Stapnow and Boozman kind of created what they want. And she really believes this is the answer to regulate crypto. So they have listened to industry and taken a lot of comments from the industry, but they haven't really created it more broadly. And to be honest, the way Lemmas and Gilbran did it is very admirable.

Starting point is 00:15:10 It's not usually the way bills are made. in the U.S. They don't usually get opened up to the public the way they did. So this is actually sort of more following the traditional path of the way a bill would be created. It isn't really, you know, for public consumption. It just sort of is introduced. It's really just the lobbying interests that are discussing the different points. Do you see the Lomas-Gillbrand bill still working its way through? You said it has to go through four different types of committees and a much larger process. Do you see them still continuing forward with it? Or do you see it kind of just dying because of this DCCPA bill?

Starting point is 00:15:48 I think there might be other parts of the of the Lummus Gillibrand bill that's able to continue on, but this is one of the four committees is the Ag Committee. So if the Lumas Gillibrand bill goes before Boozman and Stabenow, they're going to be like, well, we've already chosen sort of the DCCPA to deal with it. And this is one of the peculiarities of the American system because We have the CFTC that's regulated by like the agriculture committees and the SEC that's regulated by the House Financial Services or Senate Banking committees. So in a sense, there's almost two different committees with two different jurisdictions

Starting point is 00:16:26 that some want it maybe to be in commodities and someone to be in securities. And it isn't really a holistic way of like looking at maybe what the best way is simply to regulate digital assets. And as a good example of that, Patrick McHenry, Congressman and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee. By the way, it's really good Bitcoiner. If you ever hear him on CNBC, he's very supportive of it. He was quick to point out just today in Politico Pro. He's like, look, they can do whatever they want with the DC CPA. It was common on what ACCA is doing. But at the end of the day, we're the House Financial Services Committee.

Starting point is 00:16:58 So we're ultimately going to have the say, because we have securities and we're going to dictate what's going to happen with this. So that was sort of a shot across the bow to say, look, you can move all you want on the ag side for commodities, but I'm still going to run from sort of what is the security with the SEC and dictate how the market should be. So you almost have two different camps within Congress, you know, pushing back and forth at each other. So they're basically saying, we'll define what a security is and anything that's outside of that definition is yours, commodities. You're not going to define what a commodity is.

Starting point is 00:17:30 We're going to define what the security is and you get what's left over. I would think that the exchanges are going to push, like let's say this thing gets jammed through, it gets passed, becomes law. I would think that the exchanges, and you get, I would think that the exchanges are then going to lawyer up and go to battle over this being defined so differently than how all other commodities are being defined. Actually, like, you know, Sam Bankman-free, who's been really an FTS, kind of been all over DC, in a way, actually, to be honest, it's almost never been seen to have a CEO so involved in the politics.

Starting point is 00:18:05 I think that he's- That doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah. me at all. Yeah, but I think like at least his goal, it seems to be is, so FDX has quote unquote, kind of a home in the U.S. Like, I think they see the regulation as a way. They have like an operating procedure. And I think that's why they want it. I don't think, Coinbase wouldn't object to it either. Preston, remember, it isn't just Coinbase. All of the exchanges are still under investigation by Gary Gansler at the SEC.

Starting point is 00:18:32 A good way to think about this is, you know, I'll go to my like Jewish heritage, just everyone's trying to cross the Red Sea right now to get away from Gensler. It's not so much, no one's really thinking what's necessarily on the other side. But as far as Coinbase is concerned, they do backflips if this DC CPA was passed because then there'd be a structure they could work with and they'd be registered with the CFTC. And that's why Gensler actually has been sort of ranting up a little bit of rhetoric saying, you know, there's lots of these major organizations or banks that have registrations with different organizations, which is his way of saying, you know, yeah, Yeah, you can be registered with the CFTC, but you should still register with me for whatever

Starting point is 00:19:08 security tokens you're trading. So, you know, the main takeaway on the DCCPA, I think, and what the exchanges want is, yes, it would be a novelty to have the spot market of crypto regulated, but it would actually give the regulatory clarity that the overall industry is looking for and would believe that a lot of institutional money from the sidelines would come off and start to really make the market grow much larger than this today. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer.

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Starting point is 00:23:46 What were your thoughts on Sam and Eric's debate? You know, I appreciated Eric's perspective, which is, I guess, to not really deal with regulation, right? And as an ex-regulator, it's hard to kind of look at that and be like, well, that's me. To me, there's a little bit of a lack of realistic expectations. And I think it's a debate that, like, was eventually going to happen. And I think the reason you saw the debate, believe it or not, the debate was listening to by a lot of people in D.C. Too, they really tuned in, which they usually don't, because it showed the industry is really divided over this KYC thing. And I think that to me, it's an example.

Starting point is 00:24:29 looking, listening to that debate of, I don't know that the industry will ever really be able to agree on anything. Like we're, there's so many different facets to it. Sam's obviously interested, it seems like, creating a bit of a regulatory note in terms of like if I did really well, and now he's saying, well, now we have to do KYC because he wants to get the approvals at the CFTC, although ostensibly he's talking about he wants to bring all the assets onshore to the US. I think Eric, it's very good, noble approach. And I think it's important because I don't know if I know any more of your thoughts of how we get to a point where we can say how we can operate anonymously, like in this world without the government either thinking we're doing something wrong or, you know, how we still track the bad guys if the good guys still want to have privacy with their finances. And to me, the DCCPA in this debate that flared up, A shows me why the DCCPA is getting closer to being law, the fact that there's a lot of pressure, why Sam's in there because they're trying

Starting point is 00:25:33 to get this law through. But at the same time, like, there's still this division in the industry, I think. And I think that debate represented it well. And you know a lot of bitcoinsers, people like, you know, it's about not having the KYC, not bringing, you know, keeping that where we can. And that's where, like, and that's where, like, you know, you know, it's where. like it's like maybe we don't need the legitimacy of this major bill of a federal agency. I mean, Bitcoin's kind of doing just fine as it is now.

Starting point is 00:26:00 And that's why I raised this bill is because the pressures, it seems like the pressures of other coins and other projects are bringing on perhaps more stringent regulations and concepts to Bitcoiners that we need to be aware of as this bill progresses too. But yeah, no, I think that I like Eric's position. I think it's a good one, but I think. Sam is going with the political expediency of the day, and he sees the direction of this bill is going in, that it's picking up momentum and is trying to find a way to clear a path because he knows he needs to really get the industry united behind it for the bill to succeed.

Starting point is 00:26:36 There was some big news recently. I know Michael Saylor was really big on trying to get the tax ramifications for how it's, how having Bitcoin on your balance sheet and the capital, the unrealized capital gains or losses have been reported. Talk to us a little bit about that and how that was received on the hill or thoughts on the hill on what that might mean moving forward. So, you know, one of the things that Sailor and Sailor CPA has been bringing to the attention of the SEC for some time is this idea of how they want to consider coin to be like this

Starting point is 00:27:13 intangible asset. And where, you know, as he's been losing the value, like, you know, the idea would be then you have to accept that there's an unrealized loss. So the new gap accounting guidance, it hasn't really been talked about too much on the hill, but I would think for industry that opens up a lot of opportunities for companies who maybe are thinking about holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet, because the approach that was originally taken was kind of draconian really, because it means you have to keep taking the loss, but you can never see a gain

Starting point is 00:27:45 if Bitcoin were to rebound in price. And I think that's a lesson, a major, lesson in general that maybe at some point the SEC and Gary Gensler needs to start accepting the fact that Bitcoin is acting like a rational market player like any other investment. And that we can't just keep considering it somehow different than others or the assumption that it may go to zero. I mean, there's stocks that have more of a chance of going to zero than Bitcoin could ever go to zero.

Starting point is 00:28:16 So there needs to be a fair approach. And I think that was a sign finally, at least on the gap accounting side, of having a fair approach to the way Bitcoin should be considered on the balance sheets of companies. So, Jason, recently the White House climate and energy implications of crypto assets in the United States is a paper that the White House recently published. Just for people who are interested in maybe reading through that, I would strongly encourage you to go find Nick Carter's annotated response to this document that was published. because he puts it in some really important points that I think maybe weren't covered.

Starting point is 00:28:53 One of them particularly that Nick highlights is the Office of Science and Technology Policy acknowledge in the White House report that came out on this energy climate report. They acknowledge that proof of work and proof of stake may not grant identical assurances and there remains uncertainty as to whether proof of stake might be a perfect substitute for proof of work. Bitcoin, obviously, is what we're talking about when we say proof of work. When I look at Ethereum and you're saying that it's going to be covered as a commodity under this new bill that's being introduced, I'm just, there are people that are staking

Starting point is 00:29:33 coins through exchanges and they have no assurance that they'll ever be able to withdraw those coins. There's nothing in these protocols that allow these people to withdraw the coins. And if you talk to a person who's an Ethereum person, they'll say, oh, well, you can still have access through this steith, which is basically like another token that has created liquidity for the ones that are staked. When we look at the battle to basically gain the highest market share in this space for digital assets, the people that are governing the whoever is governing this protocol, this Ethereum protocol, the few people that are able to call the share.

Starting point is 00:30:15 shots and update the code. They're incentivized to not allow people to unstake their coins because they're going to, those coins can never go back on the market. Well, the price is going to bid because there's less of them to sell, right? So I'm looking at this. I'm saying, how is this being viewed in the same light as Bitcoin, which is completely open for anybody to buy, sell? The coins are what you run on your full node. You can audit the entire number of coins that are there. This is much musher and I'd be very concerned if I had Ethereum staked

Starting point is 00:30:50 as to whether it would ever even be, and I'm not trying to drum up fear and all that kind of stuff, but there's no assurance that you're ever going to be able to unstake the coins and yet here they are listening in as a commodity. So our conversations

Starting point is 00:31:06 like that happening on the hill is the technical competence of people that are making these these bills, writing these bills to potentially become laws, do they understand that type of nuance? Well, I think, and what you're referring to with the report from the White House, I think it's an important distinction to make about what the White House wants and does want for the digital asset industry. And I don't believe it's necessarily a lack of understanding the way the mechanics of the token work.

Starting point is 00:31:41 I'd say there is an improvement in that. However, what you just raise about the potential for consumer loss, you know, of consumer protection is really important. I will tell you, for instance, that in December 16th, the White House came out with its framework for digital assets in the United States. Of what would that be 21? This year. September 16th of this year.

Starting point is 00:32:05 September. I'm sorry. I thought I heard you say December. Okay. September. Sorry, September. Okay. And so what's important about that is that that report you mentioned about energy,

Starting point is 00:32:15 if you look at the statement from the OSTP, the Office of Science Technology Policy at the time, acting director Alondra Nelson, she actually said how great it was that Ethereum changed to proof of stake because it was showing that what they were doing was working. But in other words, they believe that they're convincing the industry to switch from proof of work to proof of stake. Yeah. And so let's talk for just a quick second back to the CFTC. Remember I was mentioning Rosson Benham, who's like, would be the overseer of Bitcoin and all these other digital commodities. He has publicly said he is upset with the proof of work community. And he wants everyone to go to proof of stake. And he thinks that they believe that needs to happen

Starting point is 00:33:01 for the sake of the environment. But White House is pushing a policy. And so they really, you know, they're almost blinded because Biden has made it so clear the importance of stopping global warming. And I think if we look and we can talk through the framework if we have time in your show, but the framework the White House has introduced on September 16th is really significant and kind of it almost doesn't matter some of the things you're raising. So the way the White House works when they don't actually rely on legislation and they just start dictating policy is to say, well, the rules and regulations are, well, the rules and regulations

Starting point is 00:33:35 regulations are already on the book. So they're using, even though Nick Carter shredded the report, the report still stands, right? The White House is like, oh yeah, Nick Carter's right. We should throw this out. They're still using that to make policy. And so this one point I'll read you from the framework is this is the takeaway from that report, which is they're pushing out for the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies to consider further tracking digital assets environmental impacts, developing performance standards as appropriate, and performance standards, how much energy is being used, and providing local authorities with the tools, resources, and expertise to mitigate environmental harms. And then it says power and crypto assets

Starting point is 00:34:15 can take a large amount of electricity, which can emit greenhouse gases, strain electricity, electric goods, and harm local communities. Opportunities exist too. And here you go, person align the development of digital assets with transitioning to a net zero emissions economy and improving environmental justice. People aren't having it. People aren't having it. I mean, some people are having that conversation and they're all for it. And then I would say the other side, the other half of the population, maybe even more now,

Starting point is 00:34:46 based on everything that's happening over in Europe and everyone seeing the disasters of some of these strategic policies are coming to their senses and saying, holy moly, we're about to be shivering all winter because of some of these policies. But one other thing that I think was highlighted in the report that, not that I'm trying to counter argue what you're saying was in the report, but one of the things that Nick Carter that highlights as a bright spot in the report was this comment. He says the OSTP acknowledges the interesting developments in mining with otherwise flared or stranded natural gas, often released as an unsaleable byproduct of oil extraction.

Starting point is 00:35:27 So they're acknowledging that from a flaring standpoint, which is hugely important when we're talking about these environmental goals, makes that way more, way more, I'll just use the word green, trying to get to those targets because you're not having the inefficiencies of flaring taking place. If we have policy people listening to this, this is my two cents real fast. you cannot expect to have efficiency and optimization in the consumption and the production of goods when you're dealing with a fiat currency. When you're dealing with a currency that's debasing at the rate that this is debasing, and I would argue that the M2 growth rate of the money supply is your debasement rate, which is in excess of 10%. When you are having debasement at that level and on a global,

Starting point is 00:36:23 scale, how in the world can we possibly expect global cooperation of consumption to take place in an optimized kind of way? When you are dealing with a new monetary standard that doesn't have that debasement rate, you actually get a free and open cost of capital, which then puts an expense to doing business on the producers that is free and open. And what it does is it naturally optimizes production and consumption between two parties. And so that is captured nowhere. That is captured nowhere in any of this analysis is the efficiency of the global economy to be able to function between net producers and net consumers around the world because you can actually agree on the settlement layer, which I think should be something that actually is

Starting point is 00:37:20 tethered to physical reality, which is energy. It has to be tethered to physical energy in order to create a unit of account that does that. I have a biased. I think Bitcoin solves that. And I think it does it in a decentralized way. But sorry to go off on a tangent. I just get so frustrated on this particular topic. And no matter how hard I try to have this discussion, I can't find a person that can counter argue it. Yeah, no, and trust me, I'm not trying to say that I agree with it. I'm trying to give you the political realities of the way the report is taken. But I will say there has been some voices coming from this report of the possibilities of what Bitcoin could do when they are considering that. I think what happens, unfortunately, is like, for instance,

Starting point is 00:38:09 the head of the National Economic Council, Brian Dease, when he's given two minutes to basically explain, well, what does all this mean for digital assets? Because to them, it's like a just a two-minute sound bite. His two-minute sound bite is, well, the takeaways from all these reports, because there are nine reports, there's like over 500 pages in the MIS, the US has to figure out how we're going to do research and development to create our own central bank digital currency. We have to mitigate economic harms to consumers and environmental harms,

Starting point is 00:38:38 and we've got to do more research and development on digital assets in general and stop illicit financing. So, I mean, that's like the quick sound butt, right, is, But we just got to mitigate the environmental benefit. All the stuff you explain. Everybody around them is chirping the same thing as what you just said. Yeah. And the thing that you said that's most interesting than I thought about for a long time,

Starting point is 00:38:59 person that I think needs to be done with Bitcoin is there needs to be almost, and I'm serious, like a Bitcoin advisor at the White House. Because the problem is the report is being done by our top scientists about Bitcoin, where they're really just looking at the equation about energy. You just talk about all the economic realities of it. So nobody from the Fed is part of that. There's no economists sitting there saying, well, what about the economic benefits? We're just looking at one side of like Bitcoin, which is this multifaceted, you know, thing

Starting point is 00:39:32 that we need this, you know, a broad array of economists, energy folks, everyone at the table to really capture what the possibilities are. And until we do that, we're not going to get there. we're going to still be limited in the way Bitcoin's viewed by our government. Here's the thing policymakers need to understand. In the grand scheme of things, if you're looking at it from a global lens, it doesn't matter if the United States gets it right or wrong. It really doesn't because there's other countries in this world

Starting point is 00:40:01 that are rich and natural resources that want to be paid in something that is tethered to physical reality, which is Bitcoin. And they're going to mind the living heck out of this. And if you think that you're going to want their goods and services, the molecules that they're export, that they're net exporting, if you think you're going to get those and pay in something other than Bitcoin, you're going to find out a hard truth real fast. You're going to find out a real hard truth. And so whatever the policy ends up being, it's going to eventually go back to this idea

Starting point is 00:40:35 that if you want to overconsume more than you actually produce, you better be ready to pay for it and a hard money. And there's no harder money than Bitcoin. Because these other things, the Ethereum, the proof of stake that has no tethered a physical reality, they're not going to take it. They're not going to take some Steeth token because whoever, the 10 people that are controlling the proof of stake protocol that's going to hit their net whatever goals by 2030, they're not going to take that coin. They're not going to take that third two. tiered token because it's locked up and doing quote-unquote validations and paying a 10% to somebody who just happened to be on the scene when it was initially launched. They're not going to

Starting point is 00:41:23 take those clown coins. So it's very, I guess I'm getting frustrated because I can see how hard it is for policymakers that have sat at the lap of luxury of owning and controlling the global settlement layer for decades on end and why they can't see this. But when we look at the global macro situation that's playing out in the world right now, Jason, it comes down to this simple truth. There's people with molecules that are net exporters. They do not want more paper promises. They do not want a proof of stake paper promise.

Starting point is 00:42:06 They refuse to take it. That's what the whole, that's why the whole world's in chaos right now. And boy, if we've got policymakers that are listening, I would, I would highly encourage you to challenge whatever belief structure you got around proof of stake. All right. This should not be me blamming about my process. No, no, no, it's great. I love for bringing the fire today. And what I'll say is, like, beyond the proof of stake, I think what you're seeing, though, is, and, you know,

Starting point is 00:42:37 know that sort of what's that expression like in the end it was all kind of inevitable. Like this is the year. Like that's why I'm glad to be on your show really as we get to the end of 2022. Because to me, 2022 is the first year we've seen the White House really engage with digital assets. I mean, think about it. Like we haven't heard of peep. I mean, Trump said like did one tweet. Oh, I think the coins like full of thin air. Like this is the first time they've really taken a comprehensive approach looking at the stable coins. the market, the defy, all the other noise and Bitcoin. And what did they come up with? Like, what's their big answer? So what are the big takeaways from this? It's that they need to

Starting point is 00:43:17 urgently create a central bank digital currency, that that's going to solve it. In other words, they want to take all this technology, all the stuff you're talking about, and in a sense, find a way to preserve it in the digital realm, right, to have it be basically a liability on the Fed balance sheet. And for the people at the Fed and the White House, like, like when you look at like what Russia's doing, what all these other countries are doing, the way they're looking at these assets, you know, that's like, you know, what they always say about sort of the British Empire when it started falling apart, but they couldn't change their ways. They were just stuck on that their Navy would dominate. You know, they just, it's like,

Starting point is 00:43:53 let's build more ships, you know, well, let's build the CBDC. There isn't yet that, that creativity. And again, that's why, you know, I mean, people probably think it's like sounds odd, like I'm trying to say it should be like El Salvador or something, but I really do think There needs to be like a Bitcoin advisor at the table to try to help explain where all this is going. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer.

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Starting point is 00:47:45 And as soon as I read that, it's the biggest for a person like me and I'm looking at it, I'm saying that's the biggest eye roll ever. And here's why. Because it doesn't solve the fiscal situation. It doesn't solve the problem that's upstream of the money itself, which is we're outspending reality. And as long as you're outspending reality, you can create whatever digital central bank digital token you want. But if you think you can force a peg on something that you're controlling the ledger as the government, you're kidding yourself. If you think you're going to put some gold bars and say that, oh, well, now it's 10 gold bars for this many things. thousands of dollars and that that peg can hold without changing the fiscal spending, you're kidding yourself. All the gold is going to fly out of the vault and you'll be off the gold standard in four months, right?

Starting point is 00:48:36 It's not solving the fundamental critical variable that's upstream, which is the fiscal spending. So that and that's the whole thing with Bitcoin is you have something that's tethered to physical reality through energy that is going to force upon the world a peg. that you either learn to deal with it and get your fiscal spending under control, or you experience the pain that's associated with not doing that. And so the central bank digital currency for me is just, it's laughable. You still control the ledger from the government's point of view, and nobody's going to force

Starting point is 00:49:13 austerity. It's not politically popular. Everybody knows that. It's an impossible history has suggested that's how it will never be solved is through austerity. They might try for a couple months, but I'd say we're trying it right now with monetary policy. And everybody knows, I mean, you heard Powell today talk about, well, we have tools to solve this if it gets out of, if it gets too austere, right? It's crazy. Yeah. And I think that ultimately we're going to have to make a choice to recognize that

Starting point is 00:49:46 perhaps the US dollar to the degree of like the way it's designed today is going extinct, right? In other words, it's not going to be able to carry and to look at the history of like no money can last that long, right? No, there's always evolutions in money. And so it's kind of shocking to think that we're this advanced nation that we're not going to take a step back and actually analyze possible other outcomes. But instead, what you're seeing is just a real like underestimation of Bitcoin. Like, I mean, you know, like some of the things you were talking about who talked to policymakers, you know, I were to bring you there, Preston, like, and you left the room and then they'd like take me. So I'd say, hey, Jason, like, what's that guy smoking?

Starting point is 00:50:32 Like, can I get some? You know, like, I think you're nuts. You know, and that's the problem is, there's just this real underestimation of, of what you're seeing. And like you said, is, is there has to be the ability at some point to take Bitcoin seriously. Maybe it's good that they're not taking it that seriously right now because they're kind of leaving a loan for the most part. They're just trying to invent their own CBDC. But like you said, if you care about the US being the leader, you know, for digital assets and us being able to have a home year where Bitcoin, you know, can be huddled and, you know,

Starting point is 00:51:04 we can use it and benefit it individually and this country, you know, it's, we're missing the boat and look again, this is the first shot, right? This is 2020. I mean, look, it took 14 years for the White House to finally get involved in this stuff. And yeah, they missed the mark in a lot of ways, you know, because of the focus, the overfocus on the energy use and not really considering the whole thing. And so it's going to require kind of a, unfortunately the way our government works, something probably bad to happen really bad economically, to wake up and say, okay, wait a minute, we got to look at this Bitcoin thing. And but then it might be too late, It's like we can sound the alarm all we want, but it's like until something bad happens,

Starting point is 00:51:43 no one really does anything. Tons of people miss the fact that the innovation is the injection of energy into the token. They miss it. Big time, they miss it. You had, before we started, you had told me that the White House was working off of three principles or three rules of thumb as they're thinking about this space. Walk us through what those three things are. Sure. So really before the executive order came out, the White House, Federal Reserve, and Treasury

Starting point is 00:52:17 had been having meetings trying to determine what to do about digital assets. It was a concern because of things like ransomware, colonial pipeline, sorry about the illicit asset side of things. So what they really came up with is they kind of looked at the whole space and they just said, you know, at the end of the day, the US government can't let the technology like wag the dog, you know, this this odd digital asset technology. It's somehow because it's different. We need to conform our laws around us. Like the laws need to be enforced on this industry. And so they're what they evaluated and looking at all the different products and ideas going on in digital assets, the first, the three principles they really wanted to keep.

Starting point is 00:52:59 And they've really accomplished a lot of this without legislation is to maintain that the US government be able to set monetary policy, that that not occur somehow in the private sector or through something, let's say, like Bitcoin. The second one is to be able to regulate financial markets and enforce consumer protection. What that has to do with is this concept of same activity, same risk, same regulation. So a lot of these like defy products or loans or whatever, they're saying, look, these are still products. So the laws we have on the books, you know, we need to just enforce those. So it's, you know, the second principle is we got to make sure we're always, you know, monitoring and

Starting point is 00:53:40 regulating our financial markets and protecting consumers and investors that play in that market. And the third one is really illicit, illicit finance, ways of mitigating concerns around illicit finance, particularly with ransomware, colonial pipeline. I mean, you know, the U.S. convened 40 countries here in the U.S. to talk about the concept of ransomware and the danger of people using, you know, ransomware and asking for Bitcoin to like hold up, you know, major, major supply chain issues in the US. And so that's where the illicit assets come come in. So really like the, when you think about things like you've seen recently with Tornado cash, which is, you know,

Starting point is 00:54:19 on the Ethereum protocol and sort of this OKDao where they're saying, you know, we don't have to do know your customer protocols, but the CFTC kind of shut them down and everyone's I was wondering, what does it mean if you have a governance token? It's not so much about the governance token and it's not so much about the anonymizing effect of tornado cash. What you're seeing is a coordinated government effort to try to stop the illicit use of digital assets in any way. So if that's the tornado cash turning out money for Korea, North Korea, excuse me, or if that's

Starting point is 00:54:53 you know, us seeing sort of this, this oaky Dow that doesn't want to do, know, your customer, this is where you're starting to see the government enforce these principles of that they be able to regulate, you know, monetary policy. So I think what you're, and if you take those three principles, you look at what they're doing, I mean, the way they're looking to make sure they can regulate monetary policy is, again, your favorite person, everyone's favorite in the space, just kidding, is CBDCs, right? Because they see CBDCs, they can introduce it. They can do negative, you know, at the low end of like, you know, they can create negative interest rates with CBDCs, force people to spend them, keep limits on it. I mean, the CBDC to them is the way of weaponizing

Starting point is 00:55:34 through the digital space monetary policy for the US, the way we have inflate. It's crazy. Yeah, the way we have Powell announcing the interest rate today is to do it at a mass retail levels. And so that's like, so the US can continue to set monetary policy through CBDC, I think. The financial markets, you're just seeing regulate everything the way the banks regulate these things. So you don't have defy and all these things existing on the edges, bring them under the financial system. And then finally, yeah, the illicit assets is just, you know, they're not going to let terrorist financing happen.

Starting point is 00:56:07 Even though there's not a lot of record of it happening yet, but it's like the colonial pipeline thing really, really spoof them. I just don't know how anybody could think that you can create currencies that act this way and that you can be a net consumer at the level that this country and a whole lot of other countries that are in debt up to their eyeballs that are also net consumers, think that they're going to be able to do business with other countries in the world that are net producers, and they're going to accept that stuff as payment. They're not going to accept it as payment.

Starting point is 00:56:45 They're going to literally shut off their lines and they're saying, you know what? Just going to have to be cold. Or you're just not going to get that because we're not accepting that as payment. It's what the whole global macro situation has come down to is that exact scenario. And we're going to mutilate the currency even worse than it already is. Like, we're in fantasy land. We're in fantasy land. Yeah, it's kind of like we have like this really good idea that comes out like Bitcoin

Starting point is 00:57:16 or, you know, a different way of looking at the way economics and can play out and all these things. And then, I mean, kind of going to the Avengers movie thing. And then it's like you have Thanos that comes in with a plan. Like, here's the plan. We're going to do this instead. And it's like, but, and you kind of want to say, you know, I mean, maybe we just need to issue 1984 to all the policy people developing CBDCs to understand where this could go. Maybe not what their intent is, right? Yeah. It's like, you know, it's maybe not the original intent, but down the road, somebody picks this up and they're like, control people's money. Like, You know what, Jason? I think the reason why they're going down that path is because they don't see any other solution. They don't see Bitcoin as a solution. They see it as like this new, like this weird. Okay. So like they did something technologically that now we can leverage some of that technology to to put another band-aid on this on this bleeding patient. They don't see a real solution to stop the hemorrhaging. It was interesting there a few years ago, NIST, we

Starting point is 00:58:21 which is like the computer scientist agency of the US government and the National Institute of Standards, they actually produced a white paper. And I thought it was really invented at the time. And it was really, to be honest, before the Federal Reserve started getting involved, before we even called the CBDC. And they actually did, and it's still, I think, on GitHub. They did a fork of Bitcoin. And they actually explained how Bitcoin could be used to help with monetary policy in the US. It was really creative. It wasn't like the way Bitcoin is, is it was more conforming to having a federal reserve, but having different users and administrators who could help put controls in. It's like you don't just have one person like Powell saying,

Starting point is 00:59:03 hey, the interest rates going here. Other people could have votes, maybe states. And it was this really inventive way of looking at it, of saying, you know, maybe Bitcoin could be used in this fashion. And it kind of just got filed in the archives, kind of like the Indiana Jones, you know, pushing the government way in the back, like no one talks about this anymore. Ever since we started talking about CBDCs, but I mean, that was a really interesting look and that was some computer scientists in the government who were being really creative saying this has some merit, you know. And so I think it's there. It's just, I don't know, maybe it's it's just when you get into the powers of the White House and, you know, it's the leading country,

Starting point is 00:59:45 there's these blind spots, you know, they're used to the way that they're used to the way things are and they're trying to recreate that in the digital world. They're seeing this simply as an analog to digital, you know, move that we can do when there just needs to be more open-mindedness about the possibilities. And, you know, maybe we can have that with the right research and development and a little bit of a change of agenda, you know, with the White House. I mean, it's, you almost need a president who can understand Bitcoin to really start to, because Because the direction right now, the policies is nothing to do. It's not even like positive for Bitcoin or negative for Bitcoin.

Starting point is 01:00:26 It's just worried about the energy, you know, like let's develop our own coin. You know, and it's very much like first inning type maneuvers where they're just going to need more time hopefully to understand it. And like you said, hopefully before it's not too late or other countries just get the jump on us. I think you're already starting to see a little bit of that too, particularly with Russia. Like, when you still go with finance is doing, finance talking about still possibly engaging with Russian customers. You know, there's, the U.S. actually is a very small part of the whole crypto asset space.

Starting point is 01:00:58 So, you know, we do really have to be cautious about what we're going to give up to other, other countries. Yeah. Thinking that they can turn off their exchanges and not the rest of the world, not continuing to move out, is just pure hubris. Hey, so who are some of the key personalities? If people are hearing this and they want to start pinging key. influencers on the Hill, on all these matters. Who do you think are some of the key influencers

Starting point is 01:01:24 that are really kind of, from a political standpoint, having an impact on the shaping of these bills and potentially laws in the future? Well, I think a good place to start. It's usually the staffers, the joke is the staffers do a lot of the work in D.C. But I think, you know, reaching out to either Senator Lummis's office in Wyoming kind of reaffirm what they're doing with their bill. Nothing wrong at all with reaching out to the DC CPA. Folks like Stabenow and Boosman's office and giving them, you know, your opinions or run Bitcoin. You know, you do see some of the folks really pushing the envelope, I think is great. One is an advisor for the DPI, you know, the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Starting point is 01:02:09 David Zell has really been on fire as of late in helping with these. kinds of issues. So I think he would be a good person to reach out to see what efforts, you know, they might get involved with. Yeah, I think that that's a good start reaching out to, you know, Patrick McHenry's office since he's ultimately, we're probably going to see the Republicans win, you know, the House. So he's going to be the chair of the, you know, House Financial Services Committee. He's a big bit-pointer. I mean, you go back and look, I mean, I saw him, he would go go around and do like a podcast, go on other congresspeople's podcasts with another congressman or congresswoman and basically orange-pilled-them.

Starting point is 01:02:49 So I mean, I'm really happy about his positioning. So I think he's a good one to kind of remind as we deal with all the other aspects of the digital asset industry where we, you know, we've gotten all fancy, right? We have D-5, NFTs, we have DOS, like let's just remember the basics, you know, of this instrument and how it works and what it means and how it's fundamentally different. And I think like that would be a good office to sort of pursue the concern you're saying with the ETH. And again, I've seen that too, whatever the five letter word is for the new rap,

Starting point is 01:03:17 the kind of thing and the dangers from a consumer protection aspect to it. You know, I think that's what's important to raise. Remember, the Hill's never going to really pick sides. It's not going to be like, oh, Ethereum, bad, Bitcoin good. You know, that's not really their role. They just see it as two different opportunities in the ecosystem. And so, you know, it's not really their place to say, well, this is like a scammy thing or whatever. If it breaks a law and it's illegal, that's quite another story.

Starting point is 01:03:44 And that's where an agency can step in. So they're never going to really try to, you know, pick a winner in that regard. But certainly just from the perspective, I think for me is right now my focus with Bitcoiners is I feel like there needs to be protections, possibly even placed in the Constitution at some point, but in laws about protecting our privacy. protecting our property and protecting our ability to simply transact in Bitcoin. So I think those are the things with wallets that aren't on exchanges. Those are the things I think they're in most jeopardy right now. Was there anything in the DC CPA, the new bill, that related to a person running their own node and conducting transactions over the Lightning Network that would impact that person?

Starting point is 01:04:31 Yeah, so that's where it's tricky, right, because it doesn't directly talk about that. But the question would be, do you fit into one of the categories of the DC CPA's definition of are you a digital commodities broker or are you in exchange? And if it's mandatory for all exchange to register with, you know, the CFTC, what if I am that person that you're talking about? You know, and I've spun up my own node and I'm monitoring transactions. Does that make me like Coinbase? Do I have to also register? And those are unanswered questions. And I think that's where there still needs to be a little more,

Starting point is 01:05:09 you know, exploration into what this bill really means down the line. I think like Lightning and others sometimes are, believe it or not, I actually heard someone one time talk about lightning. I know how hard you're going to laugh when I say this. I'm like repairing myself for your reaction. But like literally said like lightning was like this way of doing like off balance sheet maneuvers like in other words because it's not on the see because it's not on the blockchain and it's not visible it's kind of like the way they used to do these credit default swaps that led us

Starting point is 01:05:42 to the first financial crisis so i mean literally and i'm not kidding that was there was one of the people who's running to be the oCC chair i can't remember her name but i'll find the quote in sent it too see you can look at it but i mean literally her paper discussed the notion that like the lightning network of bitcoin could maybe create the next financial crisis because it was taking stuff off the balance sheet and off the visibility of the blockchain. Like, it's amazing what people will, like, kind of conflate. So this is crazy. I mean, that's, that's so dangerous for, and it's dangerous for the, for the country in which

Starting point is 01:06:18 a person like that is able to construct laws. It's not dangerous to Bitcoin. And that's, I think that's the thing a lot of these policymakers don't understand. This is not dangerous to Bitcoin whatsoever. This is dangerous to their local jurisdiction and whoever falls inside of it. Is they're just going to be in the back of the pack? Because this thing's moving out. It does not care whether you understand it or not.

Starting point is 01:06:45 And it reveals a lot, I think too, Preston, about what their intent is. By the mere fact that their immediate concern is it wouldn't be visible on the blockchain ledger what that's happening with the transactions means they like that the Bitcoin blockchain is visible to the degree that they can at least survey. all the transactions. So second, you maybe take that visibility away. It's like, you know, but I think that ultimately like that, you know, with how that's going to impact it, that's the big question, right? And that's what we haven't yet seen. So this bill is an opportunity to maybe create that kind of carve out to protect those that are doing lightning notes. My personal belief is,

Starting point is 01:07:23 and it's funny, this is coming up right now is I think ultimately they're going to do all this, like spend millions of dollars of our taxpayer money exploring a CVDC person. And then to come to the conclusion that the Lightning Network is actually how they need to be doing it. Because it's going to provide the anonymity that you want if you're going to want somebody to have digital cash. So anyway, I think they'll eventually spend millions and millions of dollars to come back and say, gee, maybe we could just use the Lightning Network work. I think that's how it's all going to go down. I think that you're going to have all these, this consternation.

Starting point is 01:07:57 And even if they do create laws, the market for Bitcoin is so massive. The amount of transactional throughput that's happening on a daily basis is so massive that they can't afford to stop a spot market. And it's just ballooning in size. And I think what they're going to find is their inability to really do anything might have been their greatest asset. It might have been their greatest asset because if they would have passed something, it would have constrained them.

Starting point is 01:08:26 and then it would have put them further back in the pack relative to all these other countries that are understanding it and are passing laws. Like Wyoming is a perfect example of a state at the state level that just totally got this. I think they're going to have, you know, when you look at it compared to other states, they literally got it a decade before other states, even understood what was happening. And it just goes to leadership and technical competence and kind of understanding the inherent problem that's being solved for in the first place, which is when you start talking about all these proof of stake tokens, proof of stake tokens, I think that's my biggest pet peeve is like,

Starting point is 01:09:07 what are you fundamentally solving that's broke here? I can go into my stocks exchange account and look at stocks that are there. And I don't have a concern with buying, selling, holding, You know, do other people in the world have that problem? Yes. And I think that that's probably where they're going to solve, or where they're trying to solve that issue. But when I think about the scale of what's being solved of a global settlement layer that can't be manipulated by any individual country that's tethered to physical reality through energy and has a scarce amount that can serve as that settlement layer so that we can come to agreement between net consumers and net producers.

Starting point is 01:09:56 That is a massive thing that is being solved for. And it's very different than what a lot of these proof of stake tokens are trying to do and what they're solving for. And people on the hill and all over do not understand the magnitude of what it is we're talking about here. It's insane. It's insane. I think there's a good opportunity.

Starting point is 01:10:18 We never like to say it's like more of a progressive or a Republican concept, but I will say with the Republicans taking over in the midterms and people like Patrick McCannery on the Hill, one thing that there's a big policy push for them is always about the cross-border nature and how to improve cross-border transactions. So that could be something that could be, you know, really flushed out with them to really explain the value proposition of Bitcoin in that regard. And I have heard a couple of folks like Congressman Tom Imer talk about that before. So, you know, it could be interesting, right, because you're talking about how do we do these cross-border transactions. We're hearing CBDC, CBDC, CBDC from like the White House, but maybe from the legislature we could hear a little bit of a pushback and start to develop.

Starting point is 01:11:05 Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I believe maybe our leaders will be able to pick this up at some point and be able to pivot the way they have with other technologies, you know, to make sure the U.S. stays in the lead. What's the most useful thing that a plebe who's listening to this can do in what I would describe is a battle of knowledge and sharing knowledge to people as to what this thing is? So just like there's this top-down approach from the White House that I mentioned earlier about informing local authorities about potential environmental impacts of Bitcoin, let's just call it kind of misinformation, right? talk to your local folks, even a state rep, you know, even a town supervisor, help explain what Bitcoin is, explain, you know, what the value proposition is and, you know, show how on

Starting point is 01:11:57 a local and state level there can be that influence and let that be, let that become kind of a grassroots movement that maybe can be formulated one day into something like maybe an NRA or something along those lines where there's certain principles that we kind of stick to about what Bitcoin is. I think the more, it doesn't have to necessarily be organized, but the more that you must have those conversations with the politicians that are accessible to you, because we're getting top-down information that is misinforming a lot of our local and state authorities. So the least you can do is to help correct that, help them understand why Bitcoin might make sense, why if a Bitcoin miner is trying to open up in your community, it shouldn't be

Starting point is 01:12:37 disallowed because of environmental concerns, things like that. Give people a handoff to your Twitter and anything else, your organization that you work with. Give people something that they can check out in the show notes, Jason. Sure. You can find me at Regulatory Jason on Twitter and DM me. I'm happy to share information. And then the nonprofit that provides education on this to a lot of departments like Department of State and others is the Value Technology Foundation. and we're at Tech Foundation, so just at T-E-C-H-F-D-N on Twitter.

Starting point is 01:13:16 And you can find it more about the Value Technology Foundation and what we're doing to try to educate federal agencies about Bitcoin and this industry. Awesome. Jason, I really enjoy these chats, and you're just so gracious with your time. You always come on whenever I ask, and this was no different. So thank you so much for coming on today. Thanks for having, Preston. I appreciate it. If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application

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We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC103: Bitcoin Policy Update w/ Jason Brett (Bitcoin Podcast)

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