What Bitcoin Did - Bitcoin is Winning in DC | Grant McCarty

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Grant McCarty is the Co-President of the Bitcoin Policy Institute. In this episode, we discuss the state of Bitcoin policy in Washington DC, how the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve went from a fringe idea to a real legislative proposal, and why the next 18 months could define Bitcoin’s regulatory future in the United States. We also get into the stablecoin and market structure bills currently moving through Congress, how internal dysfunction could derail progress, and why executive orders aren't enough. Finally, we talk about codifying Bitcoin into law and the quiet support from lawmakers across the aisle. THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: IREN: https://www.iren.com/ RIVER: https://river.com/wbd ANCHORWATCH: https://www.anchorwatch.com/ BLOCKWARE: https://mining.blockwaresolutions.com/wbd Follow: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles or https://primal.net/danny Grant McCarty: https://x.com/grant_mccarty

There are so many lawmakers behind the scenes who are either supportive or they say, I want to be supportive. They're just really scared to talk about this stuff publicly because they don't want to look stupid. The tumult and the behind the scenes, the bickering, the frustration, how long this is taking, the fact that legislating is inherently zero sum. How do we tactfully remind the administration, like the work is not done? because if we don't, there's real risk of them going, well, we did most of it. You guys screwed it up on the second half and that's on you. Tough. Grant McCarthy.

I'm just so wiped out and we still have, there's HRF has a little happy hour. And then we're doing like a, by the way, are you? I'm coming to that. Yeah, to the team dinner. So we're recording you know. Okay. You're busy. I get it. First of all, massive congratulations. Thank you. I think the event was a huge success. Everyone I spoke to who loved it. I'm sure you're

tired. Even doing like cheat code in Bedford after two days, I'm dead. And this has been a bigger scale, much more difficult people to manage, I imagine. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great about the event and incredible about my team, like Bitcoin. Policy Institute team and incredible about the we had about a thousand people show up to the total conference and then of those thousand there are a few hundred of which you are included of just some of the best people in Bitcoin and people who have really bet on not just Bitcoin Policy or Bitcoin Policy Institute but just yeah this ecosystem this community like very early on and Bedford I wasn't there a bunch of people from BPI were there but I heard it was

it is a similar feeling right when you have a few hundred people around you that you really trust that you know are mission aligned yeah and yeah there's nothing quite like it when you throw all those people in the same room together so more than anything that feels amazing i am incredibly tired um it's uh events are a nightmare yeah but we do them because again you bring awesome people together and uh weirdly enough dc is a place where you put a camera on somebody and you can actually make policy policy happened. And yeah, some of that happened at our event, which is fun. It's the funniest mix of people at any event I've ever been to. Because it's like psychopaths bitcorners who are just absolutely nuts and then some of the most important people in policy in the United States. It's my favorite thing. Like some people, it's the first time ever wearing a suit at an event, right? Because they're bitcointers and they do it for our event. It's awesome. The only time I've worn my suit is when I got married at another wedding that I went to and then at two BPI events.

And I turned up for drinks last night and I was in a t-shirt and jeans. And Mills was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'd have to wear a suit for this too. So I had to come home and get changed. Wait, she made you change? Yeah, she's very strict. Good for her.

That's awesome. She's like, you gotta get out of here. Yeah. Well, no. If there's one thing, though, that I've learned in Bitcoin over the last four or five years, I met Zell before I met you,

but it's don't bet against you too. Like, it's incredible what you've done. The first time I met Zell was in San Francisco. and he was kind of scraping around trying to get $10 here, $10 there. And this thing seemed like a ridiculous idea. Especially the fact that you were both, I don't know, 21 at the time, but looked like you were 15. Yeah, it was 20.

20. And what you've put together is insane. Like you are the Policy Institute when it comes to Bitcoin. And you're making meaningful change. It's incredible. Thank you. How do you take the last... When did it start?

Four or five years ago? ago? Yeah. How did you take that in? Four, around four years ago. No, it feels incredible. One of the things I've been doing a lot better job of personally, I would say, is in something I'm encouraging, hopefully everybody who watches this and just Bitcoiners in general is like,

take a step back and take stock of this moment and appreciate how good we have it in so many ways. So obviously, Bitcoin Policy Institute, we started this from zero, right? And with two full-time people, David and myself, and we didn't take a salary for a very long time. Like we bet on this thing, we believed in it. We had a bunch of brilliant people who believed in this vision. And anyways, four years later, here we are doing really cool things

that I'm really proud of. But Bitcoin in general, right? There are people who have been in Bitcoin far longer than me and can speak even further back, right? But I look at the jump from 2017 to 2021 when David and I first started working on Bitcoin policy, and then 2021 to now. And some of the things that are happening, right,

if you told, if I told you right in 2021, these were some of the things that even the US government or governments around the world were going to be doing with regard to Bitcoin, how they were going to be viewing Bitcoin, that Bitcoin was going to be the fifth largest asset in the world, right? I say that over and over because you and I know that, but every person, people in my family, friends, friends, anybody outside of our Bitcoin bubble, they don't realize that, right? They don't realize

it's gold, it's three equities, and then it's Bitcoin. Unbelievable, unbelievable progress. And I know it takes like thousands of people all doing their niche thing, right? Policy is our niche thing. And it is thousands and thousands and thousands of people all doing their thing. And that's gotten us here. So I've just been taking a step back and appreciating that because It's really cool. It's incredible. And it's gold, three equities, then Bitcoin. And then it'll be gold than Bitcoin.

And then it'll be Bitcoin and gold. Exactly. We know what's coming. When you speak to people in D.C., what's the general vibe of Bitcoin right now? Because obviously, Trump's in power, but D.C. is still a pretty liberal city. So how has that change over the last few years?

There's still a lot of confusion, unfortunately. We started BPI in many ways just to, the first thing we knew, if nothing else, we had to differentiate Bitcoin from the rest of the crypto ecosystem. And if we couldn't do that, then we'd be lumped in with all the scams and all the bad things. And you saw that when FTX collapsed is that a lot of people thought, oh, Bitcoin just collapsed, right? Yeah. Oh, SBF, the founder of Bitcoin, right, is going to jail, right? That's like a lot of normal people, right, what they thought, because that was in the headlines, like mainstream news outlets were reporting on that constantly. So,

Go ask your buddies who work for an insurance company. A lot of them will know who SBF is, right? And a lot of them will conflate that with Bitcoin. That wasn't too long ago. And so much of our work is just pounding the pavement every single day saying Bitcoin, not crypto, Bitcoin not crypto, correcting lawmakers on stage. We're doing panels with them. And they go, cryptocurrency and blockchain is vitally important. And you go, think you mean Bitcoin, right?

Or where does Bitcoin fit into that, right? And it's repetitive, but it's only repetitive to us because we've heard it a million times because we do this day in and day out. The average person is still so early. So what's the vibe in D.C.? Increasingly positive with regard to Bitcoin, there are some political challenges, obviously from a partisan perspective. I will say there are a number of Democrats who are very supportive.

of Bitcoin, Bitcoin specifically, including a couple members who spoke at our event, and I'll touch on some of their comments. Like, things that they were saying on stage in public with a camera in their face about Bitcoin, like never would have happened two years ago. And then the thing that I'm most bullish about is that there are so many lawmakers behind the scenes who are either supportive or they say, I want to be supportive. They're just really scared to talk about this stuff publicly because they don't want to look stupid. They don't want to spend the political capital to put their neck out in line and say Bitcoin good. Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example. There is a prominent senator.

He ran for president on the Democratic ticket. I mean, you're narrowing it down here. Yeah. There are only a few. So take your pick, right? You have 33% chance or whatever, right? He's still in office. And behind the scenes, incredibly supportive, incredibly supportive of Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency.

and he has told a number of stakeholders, something to the effect of, I'm supportive. I want to do more. Every time I talk about this publicly, I get calls from my constituents and they're pissed at me. Interesting. Why are you supporting the scam? Why are you supporting this stuff, right? Because the public perception is not quite there, even though I would say DC is actually further along than the general public.

Interesting. Because Trump getting into office clearly a good thing for the Bitcoin industry. I don't think there's any denying that. Compared to Kamala winning that night and day. But there is some baggage that comes along with that where now I think people on the left associate Trump with Bitcoin and therefore hate Bitcoin. When we know like Bitcoin's for anyone, like there are massive benefits to anyone, no matter where you sit on the political scale.

So how do you try and balance those two things? A lot of it is level setting and again reminding people what Bitcoin is and what Bitcoin isn't and saying, hey, you're, There's Bitcoin the network. Here's Bitcoin the protocol. Here's Bitcoin the asset, right? All of these things about Bitcoin that make it independent and a tool regardless of who's using it.

And then here are all these companies of people who are working on Bitcoin. And here's how, here's things that are not Bitcoin, like stable coins or D-5 projects or all these things, right? So a lot of it is just educating people on the fact that you might, if you're a Democrat in Washington, D.C., in Congress, you might not like that the president of the United States loves cryptocurrency, and you might not like that he's talking about Bitcoin and other cryptos, and his family is building companies in it, right? Launching meme coins? Yeah, launching meme coins.

Like, that is, that is a take that a lot of people have. And I think the Bitcoiners would agree that that's disgusting. And we have to remind, we have to remind them that that's not Bitcoin, right? Like so much of this stuff just isn't Bitcoin. So you can have your opinions on this thing, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? So it sounds cliche. Again, it can sound repetitive sometimes, but it really is, like, just reminding people that the things, the assumptions that they're making are the things that they think are true. Actually, there's a little more nuance to it. And if they give you a few

minutes, a lot of times they go, oh, I actually didn't think of it that way. The hardest part is getting them to give you a few minutes. That makes sense. And when it comes to getting a few minutes from these policymakers, is it much easier on the Republican side? Much easier now for sure, right? Because there is a perception of, hey, the president has this mandate essentially, right? He set dates for when he wants digital asset legislation to move. And the president signed an executive order that claims Bitcoin is a strategic asset. So definitely, almost all Republicans in the House and Senate, even if they know zero about Bitcoin,

they're going, well, the president cares about it. Therefore, I do too, right? And what's great about that is we get a lot of them in these closed door conversations where they go, I know zero about this, absolutely zero, but I need to learn, right? So that's cool, right? You can work with that. And then, yeah, I guess you asked about Republicans specifically. A lot of Democrats, again, they are not, a lot of the people who already didn't like it,

they've just used Trump being in office as a further reason to not. like it. Yeah. There are not a lot of, like, there are a lot of fence sitters who have remained being a fence sitter around Bitcoin and crypto. So again, you can still work with that, right? They haven't made up their mind. So even if they don't like that the president is supportive, we still got room to run. This episode is brought to you by River, the best place for Bitcoiners and businesses to buy Bitcoin. With River, you can set up zero fee recurring buys, making stacking stats effortless. And while you're waiting for the perfect buying opportunity, Let's you earn daily interest on your cash balance paid in Bitcoin, which outperforms most

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This episode is brought to you by Anchor Watch. Now, one of the things that keeps us Bitcoiners up at night is an idea of a critical error in your Bitcoin cold storage. And this is where Anchor Watch comes in. With Anchor Watch, you're protected by two things. You have their time locked, multi-sig vault, and you have your own A-plus rated Lloyds of London-backed insurance policy. So you get to hold your keys, and Anchor Watch holds the risk.

So whether you're worried about inheritance planning, wrench attacks, natural disasters, or just your own silly mistakes, you're fully protected by Anchor Watch. Rates for fully insured custody start as low as 0.55% and are available for individuals and commercial customers located in the US. Speak to Anchwatch for a quote and for more details about your security options and coverage over anchorwatch.com. That's anchor watch.com. Nice. So let's talk a bit about the SBR because this is an executive order that you guys were deeply behind. Matthew wrote the white paper, which who knows if that was used or not, but it seems like,

it may have been. So I think there's a portion of Bitcoin is that a little frustrated by kind of the lack of clarity of what's actually going on. So they initially said that they were going to audit all the different agencies and see how much Bitcoin they actually had. I don't think we've seen anything from that yet. And then there's also the idea that they're going to try and acquire Bitcoin in a budget neutral way. Again, not seeing anything from that. So where's it at? Have you heard any kind of rumblings? Yeah. We are having conversations about this. with lawmakers and with different agencies, basically every week, trying to get a lay of the land

and trying to help steward these conversations. The thing that I've been most surprised about in Washington, D.C. is how many policy issues are really just a coordination issue, people not knowing who to talk to, or people not knowing they need to talk to somebody, but just not making the time or not doing so. Yeah, like to be fully honest, the admin has not followed through fully on the SBR promise and certainly not on the timeline that they expected it to.

If you wanted my honest read, I think there was a belief that this was a simpler task and a simpler project than it's turned out to be. And part of that is because of these other two issues that are going on in Congress right now around stable coins and around market structure. Basically, when one of those slows down, it stalls all of the digital assets work, right? And so when the president released the initial executive order, he says, these are my three priorities. Stable coins, market structure, and a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Unfortunately, the SBR was the third bullet. And people interpreted that as it is third in line, right, in order. One of the things we've stressed over and over and over is it doesn't have to happen,

you know, just one, two, three, right? The SBR is completely divorced from securities versus commodity debate and market structure. It's completely divorced from, you know, the stable coin wars between, you know, different issuers that are going on. Like, you can do this and worry about this stuff as well. But like, this is actually an easy win. in terms of just so it doesn't seem like I'm skirting around the answer like where is it at what have we heard there are legitimate explorations around like budget neutral ways to purchase

bitcoin that have gotten to multiple agencies we know for a fact that like bit bonds have been explored you know what does that actually mean all I can offer is this is that like a few months ago six-ish months ago or whatever you know BPI was in the position where we were saying, hey, we've written substantively about a strategic Bitcoin reserve. We've gotten it to people high up in the new administration. And we know for a fact that people in the White House have engaged with this issue. And at a certain point, we're not in the government, right? Like, we can't sign the piece of paper.

We can't do these things. So whatever happens from that point to signing something or moving legislation is like a little bit more a black box, right? Yeah, right? It's out of your hands. Yeah. But I can say that similar things are happening with regard to things that we were talking about six months ago, buying Bitcoin using the exchange stabilization fund.

That's an idea that the admin is talking about with members of Congress and trying to understand what does that actually even look like. Bitbonds. I just did a long show with Andrew Hohens just before you got here. They seem like the most obvious win that I've ever heard. Yes. But it's so new, right? Like that's the issue is it's new. It freaks people out.

And unfortunately, so Mayor Eric Adams in New York announced that New York was going to explore a municipal bit bond in New York City. And unfortunately, a few days after that, was it the office of the comptroller? I apologize if that's incorrect. But basically, one of the key people who needed to be involved in that process, who is not a fan necessarily of the mayor, puts out a statement and says, we're not doing bit bonds in this administration because we're not exposing our citizens to the fluctuation and the risks of Bitcoin. That statement tells me there's a fundamental, he doesn't understand what the bit bond is, right? Because the whole point of it is that it reduces risk. Exactly, right? Like, you genuinely can have your cake and eat it too with bit bonds.

And so if people who are actually in these roles in the government who think about money all day, haven't wrapped their head around it it's going to take some time unfortunately it just says you got more work to do man a lot more work the work the work isn't done um but at least we have an opportunity to like keep winning yeah very different than where we were at a few years ago totally so let's talk about the stable coin bill um maybe it's worth i've not really covered this on the show in any kind of depth so maybe it's worth just explaining what exactly is in that bill yeah um so the uh stable coin bill that just passed in the Senate, it's referred to as the Genius Act or the Genius Bill. And big bill, it's basically trying to draw rules of the road for stable coin issuers,

stable coin usage, all those kinds of things. And I guess at a super high level, what they're trying to figure out, what they've been trying to figure out for years is like our stable coin issuers a bank, right? Like do we treat them like we treat J.P. Morgan, right? And you end up with all these questions of, okay, if Tether or Circle issue, you know, one new USDC or one new USDT, right? Let's say they issue that to you. Do they need to KYC you, right?

Do you need to be within their database, right, as somebody who received one of their stable coins? And then further, when you send it to somebody else, right, do they need, does there need to be KYC between those transactions? Additionally, what happens if you send tether or circle to a sanctioned individual or a sanctioned country, right? Is tether or circle responsible for that? With banks, we put a lot of the onus on them, right? This is why there's so much overhead in the banking system is because there's so much money spent on compliance, right?

to make sure money's not flowing to terrorist organizations, money's not flowing to sanctioned countries. And if that does happen, these banks get slapped with like very large fines, right? So. Yeah, they still do it. They just get fines. They still do it. Yeah, cost of doing business, right?

It's like, you know, it's like insurance companies or car companies, right? We know one out of every 10 of our car is going to have this defect, right? Yeah. We know that it's going to result in 10 deaths and we're going to have to pay out $5 million dollars per death, but it would cost $100 million to recall all the cars. So it's actually cheaper for us, you know, not to pay for the debts. Yeah, to pay for the debts. So similar thing in banking, unfortunately. But this was a big battle, right? And then there was also this tension between, you know, are, do we want the stable coins essentially to be issued onshore, like in the U.S. or do we want

a bunch of different stable coins? Do we want algorithmic stable coins? And are we going to have different jurisdictional opportunities, you know, based on where you're located? So that's kind of the lay of land of what this bill is solving. What's actually in the bill? It ends up writing some of those rules of the road. It establishes like there is significant KYC for stable coin issuers in the United States. There are some rules for like stable coin users and how they can operate like in the stable coin landscape. but a lot of it is just kind of updating and treating stable coins a little more analogous to, like, banks and other issues like that.

But the big thing that was carved out there, and I was listening to All In and David Sachs was talking about this, is that they can't receive any interest from these stable coin issuers. And he said on All In, I was actually surprised he said it so openly, is that it was basically because of pushback from the banks. They're obviously very scared of Tether and Circle because, like, Tether has absolutely crushed it. in terms of numbers. Is this bill a positive thing? Overall, yeah, primarily because of, first off, the ordering that I mentioned. So if this is the first domino that needs to fall in order for us to get to the second domino in order for us to get to Bitcoin, then as a Bitcoiner, I'm going to view that positively. The second piece is ultimately, like, stablecoins are generally good for the US dollar. And to my point about there being this conflation within the digital asset industry broadly,

if the vast majority of cryptocurrency usage is viewed negatively, Bitcoin, unfortunately, is going to be lumped in with that and viewed negatively by a lot of people. If stablecoins Perliferate and they 10x and you have the the thesis play out that you know secretary of treasury Scott Besson talks about which is you know it could create hundreds of billions of dollars worth the demand for US treasuries well now all the sudden the vast majority of like actual transactions taking place in cryptocurrency ecosystem it's no longer just like you know speculation and meme coins and these types of things it's real transactions happening around

the world that strengthen the US and that that strengthens the overall narrative. So our belief has been Bitcoin and dollar-backed stable coins are like a dual force for good and for proliferation of like freedom in American values. This bill is overall solid. Companies that are not operating in the U.S., I'm sure will find workarounds to do the things that they want to do and to continue creating yield. And how do I say this?

Let's see, certain betting markets or certain exchanges. are not readily available for people living in the United States, but talk to plenty of bitcoins, and they'll tell you they've traded on margin on some random exchange website that is not supposed to be available in the US. So people find a way. The bill is just like,

it makes people more comfortable with this industry, and it's going to unlock a lot more money. And so for Tether, they have three years to get onshore, basically. What will that mean for them? Will they have to move all their operations onshore, or do you think they'll still have an offshore version of Tether as well? That's a great question. I'm actually not 100% sure about whether they would do it all,

but it would mean that anything that would happen in the United States would have to fall under the guardrails of the Genius Act, right? And so in that world, if they were, you know, you have Binance U.S. versus Binance. You had FTCS. versus FTCS. So there is precedent for having these two separate arms. It just means that what would happen in the U.S. would be totally siloed globally. And you would end up with kind of some weird, some weird regulatory arbitrage is the wrong word.

It's the opposite of that. You'd end up with a lot more issues where you have tether that was issued in the U.S. and is meant to be used for people in the U.S. and follows U.S. rules. And then you have international tether. Freedom tether. Freedom tether, right?

That follows a different set of rules. And so tether would have this weird, like, they'd have a kind of, It costs a lot of money. Again, compliance costs a lot of money where they would have to, everything that was issued in the U.S., now they have to follow,

not just KYC, but OFAC compliance, sanctions, all of that costs money. And they'd end up in this world where does U.S. issue tether, all right, we've got to block off access

to this part of the world. We have to monitor these transactions. We have to be able to reverse these ones. And they're already doing that to a degree. Yeah. But I assume this just means they have to do it to a much larger degree. Much larger degree.

And then in, so you would, mentioning KYC and AML before, what does that mean? Like, if Tether, if I go to Tether and they issue directly to me an amount of USDT, am I KIC'd at that point under this bill? Yeah, that's the idea. And anyone I send it to, how does that work? So the idea is, is on the network, like, these parties are like the issuers need to be responsible for, like, transactions between parties, right? So just as when you send money from one bank, to another bank account right like jp morgan uh you know connects with the wells fargo bank account

that you sent it to and and you now know both parties um there is it puts the onus on the issuer to know both of those parties so from a you know ux perspective like user experience what's that actually going to look like um not 100 percent sure uh it could just be that you know you have to interact on two third parties right exchanges and then you k y see with the exchange and you can only send that way. It could also mean that, you know, any wallet that you use, and if you want to receive that asset, it auto KICs. I'm sure there are, you know, ways that I'm not thinking of. But yeah, it's like the issuer is now responsible for that entire chain of transactions, you know, where that money goes. They got to follow it. And so that's gone through

the Senate or the House? The Senate? And then the House is next. And then this is where things get pretty spicy. Okay. Go on. Tell me. Well, just. again, the ordering stable coins, market structure, Bitcoin Reserve. So when we started Bitcoin Policy Institute, every single year since its inception, even before we started BPI, I have heard in Washington, D.C., this is the year for the stable coin bill, you know, this is the year for market structure legislation, right? And every single year, there have been months and months and months of negotiations, and they've blown up, you know.

Inevitably. inevitably right and every year the reason is different right one year it's bipartisan breakdown the next year the white house makes a call to uh you know the leader of a party and says we don't agree with this the next year one of the big companies in the space you know doesn't like a couple of the provisions they put their foot down um finally uh for the first time ever it actually could be the year of uh the stable coin bill right um but i think the house recognizes that there's a limited window of opportunity here right um republicans control the house the senate and the presidency uh which means that they can get stuff done right uh at the end of 2026 who knows if those three things are going to remain the same right so

with this limited window the house is sitting here thinking okay well the senate just passed this and they send us a bill and that bill needs to be marked up, needs to be worked on, and then either the House essentially codifies what the Senate sent them and they rubber stamp it and it's good to go or the House sends them a bunch of like edits essentially and then the Senate will have to codify those edits. So there are a number of people in the House who are sitting here going, well, cool, the House already wants this to pass. What if we just put the whole market structure bill in there as well, make it a number

them one big bill, send it back to the Senate, and then the Senate can sign off on that. So all the tension is, obviously, it's hard to pass one bill, let alone two. And a lot of people are concerned, like, wait, are we counting our chickens before they're hatching, right? Like, are we getting too cute? Let's just pass one thing and then we can do the next. There is serious risk of, like, the entire thing blowing up if they try to put too much into one bill. So why, I understand why they want to put market structure in because they just want to get this thing past as quickly as possible. What are the negatives of doing that? And maybe it's actually worth explaining what market structure actually means. Sure. Yeah. It's a few hundred pages of stuff

that largely doesn't, you know, affect, I don't say largely doesn't, but in many ways doesn't affect like Bitcoin or Bitcoin users. But it affects a lot of the companies operating in the broader crypto space. And a lot of it is one of the big things that the market structure bill really does is establish what is a commodity versus what is a security, right, like a digital commodity, all these kinds of terms that get thrown around. They have a huge impact on how these things get regulated. So we'll use something like Salana, for example, you have Solana and you can stake your salana and you get, you know, rewards, right?

You get money, tether, Turk, like all these things that have yield in a lot of people's current understanding of securities law, right? that passes the Howie test, right? It could be considered an investment contract, right? Like, just because something in one moment could be deemed a, you know, security or an investment contract doesn't mean in another context that it couldn't be something different, right? But you've got these pieces of the Howie test. And a lot of things in the crypto space, from my perspective, talk to our head of policy, Zach Shapiro, one of the best, like lawyers, not just in Bitcoin, but in the broader digital asset ecosystem. A lot of the stuff probably are like digital securities, right, or excuse me,

securities. And so what market structure wants to do is update some of these securities laws to take into account the nuances of kind of the digital age. And so it tries to establish like a clear definition and bright line of rather than this bulleted list where if you check these four boxes, you are, you know, a security or an investment contract, it's going to create a new definition specifically for things in the digital space that says, hey, if you're this centralized, right? If this number of wallets owns this percentage of the network,

you're a security, right? But if you're sufficiently decentralized, you're a commodity, right? So they're trying to establish this bright line and everything is downstream of that, right? because then you get into like which agencies regulate this stuff honestly i'm like i'm kind of boring myself just talking about it it's all wonky like stuff but it's hundreds of pages full of wonky stuff that impacts entire global financial markets right and it impacts the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that go to our regulators because they need to be told who regulates this stuff

whose job is it so that's market structure and notice how i told you at the outset a lot of this doesn't to bitcoins because we know Bitcoin is a commodity. But the thing that may matter is like, get this through so they can work on the things that actually matter. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, it's funny. I was joking about this with somebody just a few hours ago, but there's this refrain that you see with a lot of like the biggest crypto executives and it's like an open secret, I guess.

But a lot of them, they're shit-coining to buy more Bitcoin, right? They run a shit-coin business because that's what where the money is and they make a bunch of money and then they save in Bitcoin, right? So there are a lot of companies that do a lot of crypto stuff and they want to continue making money with their crypto stuff, but they also do really care about Bitcoin. And it's kind of holding that like almost cognitive dissonance. Yeah. So they care about market structure a lot.

And there's a lot of crypto money that has put a lot of time and energy and resources into stable coins market structure. And the last thing is like the crypto community broadly spent like $200 million in U.S. elections in 2024. And Bitcoiners played a large role in that. But the broader crypto and crypto VC community played another big role in that. And they have literally billions of dollars at stake if they're deemed, you know, securities instead of commodities. So the House and the Senate are disagreeing about this. Like I know it's impossible to predict these things are a mess.

But how do you think this will play out? I'm going to give you a cynical take. Okay. And I don't know if I can say this is like gun to my head, my actual prediction, but I think it's one worth like sharing. So you got option one. The house capitulates and they go, all right, we'll just do stable coins. And then they move on to market structure and everything takes very long time because it's Congress.

And cool. Option number two, House of Representatives puts market structure. along with stable coins, they send it back, and it goes through, and both those pass. And wow, you know, amazing. Option three, which I'm, like, actually very concerned about is the tumult and the behind the scenes, the bickering, the frustration, how long this is taking, the fact that legislating is inherently zero sum, right? You spend months working on cryptocurrency policy.

you were taking thousands of hours worth of staff time, worth of member time, and putting it on an issue that for a lot of people is like still seemingly like a niche issue that doesn't impact, again, this is general public view, doesn't impact the lives of like real Americans, right? So you're sitting here and a lot of people are going, why are we spending all this time on digital commodity versus security stuff? We have healthcare problems. We have education problems. We have all these things that we could be focusing on. So what I'm genuinely worried about is the Senate passes genius that they just did. They sent it to the House. The House tries to put market structure in there. There's all this disagreement. There's all this turmoil. The White House goes, what's taking so long? Why am I getting phone calls saying that this senator is screwing this thing up or this Congress person is putting their foot down? Why am I getting you know, why am I hearing about this, right? It's like a parent, your kids are bickering in the

back seat and you're driving to Disneyland or whatever, right? And like at what point does the parent pull over and go like, shut up? Yeah, or we're not going, right? Like, I'm going to pull this car over unless you can stop hitting each other, right? There's like a real chance that that happens between the House and the Senate. And so if the White House, the Senate and the House are not fully aligned, and this stuff doesn't move, like, within the next few months. At what point does the president go, look, crypto industry, appreciate you. You helped get me elected. You gave me a lot of money, and you gave a bunch of Senate and House races a lot of money. But, like, this was supposed to be my, like, gift to you all.

This was supposed to be an easy thing that I just kind of lobbed your way so that I could focus on, you know, war in the Middle East and these geopolitical issues and the U.S. economy and all these things, at what point does he go? It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Right. And that's when it can be detrimental to Bitcoin when it comes to things like the SBR. Yes, because unfortunately we're third on that list and there's a world where the president goes, I fulfilled my campaign promise to you. I wrote a Bitcoin executive order for the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. Like, what are you asked, you're asking me to do more, right? Like, are you just being greedy now?

And so a lot of this is like, how do we tactfully remind the administration, like, the work is not done? This is what success really looks like. Because if we don't, there's real risk of them going, well, we did most of it. You guys screwed it up on the second half, and that's on you. Tough. that's not a good outcome. No. Yeah.

So you have a lot of work to do, man. A lot of work. Why are you here? So let's talk a bit about the conference because it was an amazing conference. I've seen some of it on video. I was there for the first half and then I was recording a podcast. So I missed a big chunk. Tell me, like, give me the kind of general update.

What was the coolest thing that happened? To me, the coolest thing that happened, I got to moderate two panels. And the coolest things that happened had nothing to do. do with my moderation, but they had to do with the things that the people on stage said. And I'm going to be honest, my, it's a sole goal. Anytime I moderate panels or firesides at our policy events is how do you get a member of Congress to say literally anything meaningful, right? Like, how do you get them?

Not just word salad. Yes. Like go beyond the posturing, go beyond the cliches, right? And, you know, I do prep with their offices before. I do prep with the members before. and I make sure that they know going in, I'm going to ask you explicitly about these things. And if you're not comfortable,

we're in a very lucky position at BPI to be able to say, hey, we're going to ask you if the government should buy Bitcoin. And if you're not comfortable responding to that in front of an audience of a thousand people in person and 30,000 plus people online, don't speak at this event, right? And weirdly enough or silly enough, like that was works, right? They respond to that. And they're forced to engage with an issue, right? They want the eyeballs. They want to be able to, you know, we give them an audience of, of not just policymakers in

DC, but because of like the fervor of bitcointers, like in the U.S. and around the world, you get this national, this global audience that you get to speak to if you're a policymaker. And they want that, right? There's a conference for everything in D.E. D.C. Cement conferences, National Electrical Union conferences. Trust me, those live streams are not getting the type of syndication that Bitcoin conferences get that your podcast gets, right? We're an incredibly unique space in that regard. So we bring value to them just through that distribution and syndication, basically.

And you can force the issue. So at our event, I was really proud because Congressional WIP, our House Majority, Tom Emmer, who has been working on digital asset issues for years in Congress. He is a Republican. He's focused a lot on crypto issues, and he's also done work on central bank digital currencies. He was one of the earliest people to push back against that in Congress. Long story short, I asked him on stage, should the government own Bitcoin, and he was seated next to Representative Begich, who introduced the companion bill to Senator Lemmiss's Senate bill.

He's from Alaska. Alaska, and it's the same bill as the one in the Senate, and it says the U.S. government should buy a million Bitcoin, right? So we tee it up. I go, we're talking about the Bitcoin Act. And with Emmer, who's not a co-sponsor of the Bitcoin Act, but who is the majority whip, which means he handles so much of the negotiating and so much of the actual behind the scenes legislating of what gets its way to the congressional floor, what actually gets talked about, do you think the U.S. government should buy Bitcoin? and he goes, I do. I'm not sure if we should use taxpayer dollars, but I think this thing is a strategic asset, and it makes a lot of sense. The U.S. government should have some on its balance sheet. And then it's this perfect opportunity. Congressman Begich goes, oh, you're worried about taxpayer dollars? Let me explain to you how this bill works because we're spending zero taxpayer dollars, right, to buy Bitcoin. So it's a moment like that where you might think that those conversations happen behind the scenes all

the time in Congress. The reality is there are... They've got a lot to talk about. They've got a lot to talk about. There are hundreds and hundreds of congressional members, right? And then 100 senators as well. So like, unless they're good friends, they might meet sometimes on the floor or they might get connected for a few minutes with their staff, but forcing them to have one of these conversations, like real stuff can happen. This episode is brought to you by Blockware. Would you rather have one Bitcoin today or two in a few years from now? Silly question. While Bitcoin mining is a tried and true method to accumulate more Bitcoin, and over a few years it can even outperform a normal DCA. Blockware's mining as a service enables you to start mining Bitcoin without lifting a finger.

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What did he say once Begich had explained how it was actually working? Once he explained it, he goes, I followed up and I go, so we just explained, there's a bill here that accomplishes government buying Bitcoin without spending taxpayer dollars, what are the next steps here? You said you're open to that. And I don't think I phrased exactly like that. You can watch the live stream, check it out. But he essentially says, I think the House should have a serious conversation about this. And I think it needs to happen in House Financial Services Committee, which is where this really needs to go. So Begich has, excuse me, Congressman Begich has 10 or 11 co-sponsors on the Bitcoin Act in the House.

None of them are currently on that financial services committee. Okay. So if WIPEmer becomes a co-sponsor and he's on the financial services committee, that's where something like that would really like actually be able to get voted on, actually go to the floor. So I asked him and he said he wants to have that conversation. We want him to become a co-sponsor. He's been good on a number of different issues.

Not to derail the conversation too much, but the blockchain regulatory Certainty Act is another. This one that Matt Corallo is pushing very hard. Yes. Yeah. So. To self custody, essentially. Yeah.

And the right for developers to write open source software, write code, and not be punished, you know, for writing that code. With Emmer is the co-lead of that, along with Representative Torres, who's a Democrat out of New York. Representative Torres and Representative Gotheimer were on another panel at the conference. They were also asked if the US government should buy Bitcoin. They both also gave really amazing answers. And it just made me so much more bullish for the possibility of this because we're forcing that conversation.

That's amazing. The Cynthia Lemis bill to buy a million Bitcoin seems insane. I mean, I hope it passes, but it's a lot of Bitcoin. And I say that when I say it sounds insane. It sounds insane because to convince the U.S. government to buy a million Bitcoin is a lift. What kind of percentage chance would you put on that bill actually passing? Some double-digit percentage chance. I don't know if I have an exact one.

I don't know if it's necessarily a coin flip. It is the type of percentage chance to me that has the ability to change fairly rapidly and somewhat linearly as the work is taking place. So when she introduced it last year in 2024, that percentage chance was maybe 1%, 2%, with the new administration and with the reintroduction, that probably jumps to 10 or 15%. And then every new co-sponsor,

and don't take these numbers, take them with a grain of salt, but every new co-sponsor adds a little bit of percentage chance, every comment from the president from the White House, the vice president speaking in the, or at the Vegas conference, all of those things are marginally increased the chance that this happens. And getting the house on board increases the chance that this happens. So yeah, it's probably a small to medium double digit percentage chance now, but the strategic Bitcoin Reserve really like didn't exist. That was memed into reality. Yes, exactly. Like you've talked with

other BPI people about this, but it's just people, on Bitcoin Twitter have been talking about the government buying Bitcoin and some Bitcoin policy people have worked to turn that into actual policy. And then a senator's office said, screw it. We're going to do it. And we're going to push for this. And we're actually going to stake political capital on this. So everything is insane until it happens. Everything is ridiculous until it happens. That is Bitcoin in a nutshell. And when I say it's insane, like it's just because that kind of over the window has shifted so much. Like I think whoever manages to pull this off is going to look like a genius. But at the moment, they probably look a little insane

to some people who aren't paying close attention to this. I think the big question that a lot of people would have is we're in this time period, like you said, now is the time to make these real policy changes. In a few years' time, if the Democrats come into power, what do you think the chance are of a lot of this stuff getting reversed? And how do you, as the Bitcoin Policy Institute, make sure that doesn't happen. Yeah, this is an incredible question. It's why we're not resting on our laurels right now and why executive actions aren't enough. Executive actions can be undone like that. It can be undone with the auto pen or whatever. So new administration comes in and they go, I don't like the executive actions in the past administration. I'm going to undo them.

And all of the work, all the progress, the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent by Bitcoin and crypto industry people is now, I guess it bought you a few years of cover, right, to buy and sell your meme coins, right? Like, is that really a win? No. No. So for us, codification in the legislation, that's much more difficult to undo. Yeah. But it also reinforces kind of the core belief of BPI, which from the beginning we've said lobbying is not enough, right? lobbying and just pushing lawmakers to vote yes or no on something, it can be useful if you have a key priority that needs to be pushed on. So blockchain regulatory certainty act, we want more lobbying to support that bill. It got included in the House Clarity Act, you know, market structure

at this point, has a good chance of like actually passing now, like a very high chance of passing, I would say. That is, sorry, I'm like very close to sneezing. You know that feeling? Yeah. So lobbying is important when you have like the opportunity to put points in the board and there's something right in front of you that you can push. And then there's campaign spending, which is good to obviously get people, get out people's good side to be able to get. You owe you a favor.

Yeah. And that's the reality of politics. That's also fleeting. And we saw this with the Genius Act in the Senate actually. There were multiple members of Congress who. who received money from the crypto industry in the 2024 election to help them get elected or reelected. And they were actually some of the people

who ended up stalling the bill and pushing back on it and delaying negotiations. So you might have given a million dollars to a member and you might feel like they owe you a favor, but if they don't truly believe that what you're doing is good, they might just go, thanks for the money. Right. And push you off to the side.

So what we want is we want real stuff passed and we want to explain to people why Bitcoin is good. And we have a few years to explain to people why Bitcoin is good and people across the aisle. Here's why Bitcoin is good and good for America and good for people all over the world. The more people who really understand that and believe that, the more chances we have of not basically just being brutally punished by the next administration that comes in and goes, wow, this whole Bitcoin thing is a great. drift. It is entirely related to the previous administration. And not only am I going to undo what we did, but we're going to go after them twice as hard as we did in the Biden administration. Yeah, which would be a disaster. That's on the table. That's the thing. It's not infeasible. And so when you say you've got a few years, do you really have 18 months?

18 months for legitimate codification of legislation, yes. And then you have two years to, like, educate, educate, educate, right? And that's a lot of the groundwork that isn't, it's not sexy. Honestly, a lot of our work is not. It's policy work. It's wonky. It's nerdy. Like, I get it.

But you got 24 months, you know, even after the midterms, you know how many meetings that is? You know how many like opportunities to actually sit down with lawmakers, especially lawmakers who are coming up on their own election or reelection, a number of Democrats. still recognize that the Bitcoin constituency and crypto constituency is like a largely independent constituency. It cross cuts, political aisles, and they got a lot of money. So you're speaking politicians languages, right? They want to engage. They want eyeballs and they want money. They want eyeballs and they want money. And remember what I said earlier, the hardest part is getting them to give you the few minutes. That is what allows you to get in the door. And then it's our job at BPI

and hopefully more people or groups come along to do this, but we started BPI to actually have substantive policy conversations that go beyond lobbying, political spending, and just kind of BS like talking points. So our job is to move past that, dig into substance, and genuinely convince people, Bitcoin is good. And the last thing I'll say about that is like, we don't do that alone.

One of the big reasons that we host the policy summit, One of the big reasons that we do any type of public gathering at BPI or convening is like, we are policy experts. By no means are we the key experts on all of Bitcoin's core issues. So we want to connect core developers, open source developers with lawmakers and have them tell their stories, have them talk about their key issues. That's why we had Matt Corallo speak at the event. That's why we put him on stage with two Democratic lawmakers talking about the BRCA.

Same with the Human Rights Foundation and miners and yeah. Exactly. Like we're, I think people know this and I think people appreciate it because we've just gone to like pains to ensure that this is not misconstrued. But by no means does BPI think that we're like speaking on behalf of all Bitcoinsers by no means are we, do we think we know what's like best for the network, right? That's not for us to decide. That's for everyone in Bitcoin to determine, right? So what we do think is we have the opportunity to advocate for the network and the network's users in DC to ensure that people in the US and around the world can continue using this stuff. So where we're the best people to talk about that, we talk about it and where other people are the best people, we try to bring them in.

I think the work that Alex and the entire human rights foundation are doing is incredible. And it's also like not only is the work amazing, which it is, but the narrative is amazing. And I think that's the kind of thing that it should resonate with everyone, but I think it'll particularly resonate with the left, which is why it was so cool to see you dedicate, I don't know, an hour and a half of the programming to human rights issues. Is that one of like the best areas that you can kind of exploit in these conversations? 100%. It's funny because we've done a number of Bitcoin events at this point.

This is the third annual Bitcoin Policy Summit, and we've done some smaller conferences. We've done, we do all sorts of panel discussions, roundtable discussions. And sometimes we have to check ourselves and go, where is the general public and where is DC at in terms of Bitcoin knowledge and where are they at in terms of the Bitcoin conversation? Have they already heard this stuff, right? Have they heard legitimate arguments for Bitcoin and have they heard the Bitcoin for human rights story, right? One of the things that I think HRF gets better than most groups, not just in Bitcoin, just in general, is that the reality of the world is you can hit thousands and thousands and thousands of people with your message and you have hit the tiniest fraction of 1% of the entire world, right? So if you genuinely believe that Bitcoin is money for people all over the world, if you think that this technology will proliferate, to every single person or almost every single person around the world,

then you know, like, it's cliche, we're still early, right? We're still early. So so many people who hear your talk, it's the first time they're hearing this, right? Maybe they were at another Bitcoin conference and Alex Gladstein or Anna Tchaikovic or Roy Mabub spoke. Maybe the personal audience was on their phone, right? So running that back and doing those talks again and again and again, It means that, frankly, to me, the most powerful and potent arguments for Bitcoin, which

are a lot of HRF arguments, actually resonate with people. And it kind of comes back to the whole like marketing adage or whatever. People need to hear or see a product seven times before they buy it. You know, same kind of thing, right? A lot of people have read about Bitcoin or they read a headline about Bitcoin. Not everybody has heard that human rights story. And maybe they heard one and it didn't resonate. Our goal with BPI is like and with the Bitcoin Policy Summit, if somebody can come to the conference, skeptical of Bitcoin or open to Bitcoin, but not a bitcoiner, which is the majority of the people that come to our events, if they can come away with even one light bulb moment, one aha, like I didn't realize that. I didn't think about that. That's a win.

And I think people maybe overestimate how many events actually do that. There are just a lot of events that people go to and they say hi to people and they drink at the happy hour and they leave. And it's in one year out the other. So by no means do I think people sat through all nine hours of our programming and heard every word. Do I think and do I hope that they heard at least one five minute talk that like made them think? I really hope so. And if we did that, then this event was a massive success. Yeah.

It was truly a great conference. Last thing on the kind of Democrat side, obviously over the last, I don't know, however many years, Elizabeth Warren's had her kind of anti-crypto army. Is that falling apart and are they kind of moving away from that narrative or is it still there? Yeah. I mean, Senator Warren is... Really smart. And I know that is a controversial opinion sometimes. I have heard that from multiple senators on the other side of the aisle say that she is smart, that she is talented, and that she knows the game she is playing and plays it very well.

And so not only do I kind of know what I've seen and what I've interacted with, but they interact with her on the floor and in the media and all these things. And they've said that, almost verbatim. Actually, one said it yesterday, said she's smart and she's talented. And this person disagrees with her on nearly every single policy issue you can imagine. So she is the type of person who, because of her platform, because she has those characteristics, she's going to continue fighting, barking, being loud or annoying or whatever you want to call it, right, against this industry and continue to kind of be that. like force of nature even now, right? That said, she was a lot more potent during the last administration because she had the administration support, right? She doesn't have the administration's support. So there can be a lot of yelling and a lot of name calling and a lot of criticism thrown at bitcoins and people using stable coins and all those types of things, call them criminals,

call them terrorists. And there are just fewer people who are going to see that as a politically savvy move to get behind. So I would say the anti-crypto army is not growing. It's basically the same people that it was in 2021 when we first were looking at this. And what does that tell you? Like that tells you that the TAM, like the total addressable market of the anti-crypto army in D.C. is one, limited by who's in power, which should tell you something. And two, it's limited by, like, if you're not against Bitcoin at this point, if you don't fall Bitcoin? No, no, no. If you're not against it, like, what are you going to learn about Bitcoin or crypto now that would make you against it if you're not already there, right? So think about

all the congressional fence sitters. They've been told Bitcoin finance Tamas. They've been told Bitcoin is used for human trafficking. They've been told Bitcoin is used for fentanyl. They've been told literally every possible bad thing about Bitcoin. And if you're not, like, part of the anti-crypto army. What's going to get you? What's going to get you, you know? What, Bitcoin's going to 2x and you're going to go, oh, man, Bitcoin's the second largest asset in the world.

Now I'm really against it. Like, yeah. So what does that tell you? Right? That message actually hasn't resonated as much as I think she and some others thought it would. And it means that if they're still sitting on the fence, despite all of the, the, the, the fud, we have, we have an opportunity to actually change their mind. lines.

Damn, you're going to be busy. That's the goal, you know. Actually, no, no, no. What is the goal? Tell me revise that. Let me revise that. It will be incredible if I, like, don't have a job. True.

Genuinely, like, that is a version of winning, right? Alternatively, another version of winning is that BPI becomes one of the largest institutions in Washington, D.C., because Bitcoin is the largest asset in the entire world. And we do need to be thinking about Bitcoin policy in every possible aspect, right? So that's what winning really looks like on the political level is that Bitcoin just supersedes and overtakes and eats all of the crypto conversations that have been happening all these years. Like that's just going to become its own thing. Oh, you don't want to be regulated as security and you want to offer people yield and do these things. Cool.

That's this financial services conversation. And then there's Bitcoin, which is the largest asset in the entire world in this future scenario. And we're thinking about it from a geopolitical perspective. We're thinking about it from the perspective of everyday Americans using it in the economy. We're thinking about it on a totally different level than just like financial services, niche issues. So BPI will scale with Bitcoin to meet the demands of the moment. We're definitely, there's more work for us to do now than we have the bandwidth for, unfortunately. We're still to date the only Bitcoin focused organization working in Washington, D.C.

We started this because there wasn't another one. And I've said this every single year. It's like not a joke. We want more of this, but it's just it's not there. Like there's not more Bitcoin advocacy happening in D.C. So hop on board the BPI train and I guess help support our work and be involved. And I mentioned we're like a convene. of some of the smartest people in this space.

The team you've got is incredible. Incredible people. Like most importantly, just really high integrity, amazing people who care about the mission more than anything, who also happen to be brilliant and incredibly hardworking. And then not only that, but all the people who are not necessarily BPI affiliated, who just believe the mission and are working to support our work. Because, again, it's not just our work.

Like, this is, it's so much bigger. than me than BPI than any of us, right? So it's very cool to be part of something that people can buy into because it's not inherently like ego-based or selfish or anything like that. We're a nonprofit, you know. We're doing this because we genuinely love it because it's an opportunity to make an incredible impact. And like Bitcoin, we are taking something that on face is insane. Really, magic internet money being the fifth largest asset in the entire world, being used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, being money of last resort for millions

of people, right, did not exist 20 years ago. So in the same way, why can't the Bitcoin Policy Institute be one of the largest organizations in Washington, D.C.? Why can't we advise all the members of Congress and every agency in the administration on Bitcoin policy. Why not? And no one else is doing it. So yeah, success is, it scales with Bitcoin. The alternative is maybe we just, we win so much, you know, in the next few years, we win so much that we go, wow. Job done. Job done. Oh my goodness. You know, Bitcoin has secured monetary freedom for everyone and this thing's bigger than anybody can get their heads.

your hands around at this point. So we don't really need, you know, we don't have to save anybody from anything at this point. We don't have to protect anybody from anything. This thing is, you know, grown so much that it is, it is past that point. I hope so, but I think it's unlikely. Thomas took me around the new pub key location where I know you guys are going to be co-locating. That place is huge, but it sounds like you might need a bigger office pretty quickly. It's, uh, we'll see. I am, I'm glad he mentioned it because we've been like, kind of, uh, what can we talk about publicly? What can we, you know, what's the PR around this?

But we've been working on this for months. And I am so pumped. Puppy DC. It's going to be unbelievable. The place is incredible. It's so cool. It's a very big space. It's really, we've been telling all of these people in D.C.

There's going to be a Bitcoin community hub. And the number of people, staffers from yesterday, legislative directors from, you know, a few of the offices that spoke, just shot me a text at the end. Great event. I'll come to the opening of Pub Key or, you know, can't wait to come to Pub Key. So this thing is going to be just the lifeblood of Bitcoin policy conversations. The fact that we get to be a part of it, frankly, I feel incredibly privileged. Like, shout out to Thomas and the rest of the Pub Key team for believing in us to partner with us in that way. but it's an extension of and hopefully a reminder of like why we're doing what we're doing

this is not just about securing like incentives for big bitcoin companies or any of that kind of stuff or like just pumping people's bags right we're we're bitcoiners first david david and i like when we founded bPI uh you know we we did not come from a political background we weren't oil lobbyists that decided to get in the Bitcoin game, right? We were bitcoins and we're working in the Bitcoin space. So the fact that we get to be part of Bitcoin Community Hub and create a Bitcoin community hub in D.C., it's like, that's what's all about.

A hundred percent. There are not that many Bitcoiners in D.C. Not nearly as many as we would like. So we want to change that. That's the way of changing it. Having a beer next to Thomas and Jerk is the way to Orange Pill people. That'll get you. That'll get you.

Well, thank you for this, Grant. The work you're doing is amazing. Appreciate you. Appreciate everything you're doing. Thank you. And last thing, just shout out to you because you have had so many BPI guests over the years. Because they're great. Like I said, high integrity, just awesome people who also happen to be brilliant.

But the fact that you continue to take the time to platform to have conversations with people who are part of BPI, it is not unappreciated. BPI now is more of an institution. and we're going to be around for a very long time. BPI two or three years ago, we were month to month, right, in terms of a number of different things, right? Whether it was fundraising or just what our work was going to look like, right? So you guys bet on us early and you kind of recognized, hey, the group of people that we have are really special.

And also that the Bitcoin policy conversation was one worth having. The last thing I'll say is if you remember for your, years ago, Bitcoin policy was not like super popular among Bitcoiners, right? The first months or years of BPI, we were fielding questions of why does Bitcoin even need a policy organization? Why do we even need a BPI? So I think you guys recognize that very early on and understood, hey, this is a conversation at the very least worth having.

And I think it is, you know, it's going to age very well. I think so too. I mean, don't get me wrong. I appreciate the kind words. But the only reason I have the people from BPI on and similarly with the old what Bitcoin did is because they're great. Like if they were rubbish. Yeah, if they didn't get the views. Yeah, exactly. I'm doing a show with Matt Pines tomorrow on aliens. So I'm very excited. I'm glad we split this up. You know, so I get to show BPI, I get to say, hey, the summit was awesome. By the way, if you get the chance, go back and watch the chat with Representative Torres, Representative Gottheimer. And then the chat with Representative Begich and Representative Emmer. They all said really awesome things about Bitcoin. But yeah, I get to show the summit. I get to show BPI. And then you're going to have an utterly ridiculous conversation with Matt tomorrow, I'm sure. Well, go watch the whole thing.

It's on Bitcoin Magazine's YouTube. It's on your YouTube, Bitcoin Mag and Twitter, Rumble. Honestly, yeah, it's everywhere. Go watch. I appreciate you, Grant. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate you.