Crypto is Now a Political Movement

Transcript

- If we win the hearts and minds, we cannot lose this crypto revolution, this crypto battle. So Hester Peirce, SEC commissioner. - Crypto mom. - Is he one of five SEC commissioners? - Seven? - Five or six? Is it seven? - You keep talking while I look that up. Well, David just called her Crypto Mom and she would be fine with that. We actually asked her when she came on the podcast. And the reason she is Crypto Mom and the industry has five, David's saying five SEC commissioners. The reason the industry has deemed her Crypto Mom is because she has been supportive of the values that the crypto industry is trying to provide. She has engaged with the crypto community, not treated us as outsiders and scammers and children.

Yeah, not patronizing, actually like digging in. And so we had her on the podcast, I guess, earlier this year. And I think this was before we knew, it was definitely before we knew what Gary Gensler, what his reaction was going to be. Back when everyone was optimistic about Gary Gensler. We asked her. And I remember it's like, we're kind of like trying to feel around, you know, Commissioner Peirce. Do you think Gary Gensler is going to be helpful to this industry or not? And she... I don't think genuinely she knew, right? And she didn't commit. And she said, we will get clarity. It's one thing we'll get. I recall her saying that. I kind of miss the old days now. You want the non-clarity part? I'll go back.

I'll go back. I'll take it back. Let's get to the speech though, because this speech was fire. Like absolutely. This is at the Texas blockchain summit. She came there, she talked and the analogy she used, David was, the West. Going West. We are headed West. She talked about a book that she read called The Pioneers about the early, I guess, you know, settlement of the West and and how people moved from the East. You know what? I'm just gonna read some quotes here because I think it's that good. "The settlers who moved West came not only with high expectations, but with a whole range of talents and professions. They cultivated other skills by necessity after they had arrived. The society was rougher than the one they had built,

but nevertheless, it was governed by the societal norms they carried with them by law and by mutual concern heightened by the difficult conditions in the early years." And she goes on, she talks about how the people who are headed west were headed to escape kind of the paralyzed, stifled, stymied East Coast elites, basically, where there's no opportunity for them. That's why they were going to greener pastures and settling new lands and establishing cities, okay? So she paints this whole story and she says, I am part of that story, Ohio, that's where I live, that's where I kind of grew up, that's where I went to school. That's what America's tradition has been. And then she pauses and she says, guess what? Crypto's doing the same thing. It is the journey

west. It is the modern journey west that the crypto industry is on. And she says, sure, this home to a lot of code slingers, she says, and speculators and some hucksters, too. This new west has all sorts of fights. Friendships are forged. And she says, it's just like the west of the past is rough and tumble, but so much value and so much good is being created there. And then she goes on to say, do we really have legal clarity around digital assets? I think some in her, you know, in the regulatory bodies would say that's perfect legal clarity. Right.

I've heard these statements like, of course, we know what what a security is in crypto. Right. 1946. Howie. It's obvious, should be obvious what's the security. And she said, "I don't know. Do we really have legal clarity?" And then she says, "Are we enforcing rules by settling or settling for ambiguity?" It's what we want is clarity. "Are we settling for ambiguity?" She poses the question. "Are we fighting for investors or fighting for jurisdiction?" Wow, that's powerful. She's asking the question. This is a regulator. Are we protecting investors or denying investors opportunity? Okay. Right. These are the speech headlines. Okay. You guys have to go read this entire speech. Um, are we going to pretend everything is centralized so we can regulate it? Hitting hard. This is so awesome. This

is great. It's amazing. Are we catching bad actors? Are we creating a catch 22? Are we creating conditions where it's like impossible to identify the bad actors and where everyone's a bad actor? And she goes on her conclusion. Okay. This is the best part. Her conclusion. Actually, the whole speech is the best part. Um, but she ends with this to paraphrase the, to paraphrase the standard closing words of a popular crypto podcast that which follow an appropriate warning about the riskiness of the space. We are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. Dot, dot, dot. Then she says, thank you for allowing me to drop in on your journey west. That footnote, if you go and click there oh who she quoted bankless weekly roll up youtube

the last last week wow dude i have chills right now wow right that is crazy and that commissioner purse if you or your office is listening this is why uh we are so appreciative of the work that you're doing. You are asking the questions that other regulators have not been willing to ask of their agencies and of their approach on this space. And we sincerely appreciate it. I sincerely appreciate this speech. You are saying far more eloquently everything we had hoped to say to this industry and the regulators. And this is posted on sec.gov as a speech, a commissioner speech.

powerful stuff sorry david i i wanted to go through all of that it's just it's just such a such a hot speech. I just love it. Yeah. No, it, it, it definitely feels like, like the, the, whatever we talk about on bank lists is coming out of the words of Hester purse at, in one of the most important rooms in the world when she was giving that speech. And I think my, my one comment about this thing, it's, it's not just arguing about the technicalities about clarity and like rules and these catch 22s. It's also talking about the culture, right? She's talking about crypto culture and why we want to go West in the first place. Why are there these motivated groups of internet code slingers, which is a great name. - It's awesome. And why are they motivated to be crypto people at all?

Why are they motivated to go to the metaphorical frontier of wherever that frontier is, which is no longer anywhere except now it's on the internet? Why are these people motivated to escape the perils of crypto? already instantiated society because we're no one feels free anymore everyone has this motivation to go westward and and escape the the the the problems have of Eastern society rules and regulation and tyranny right and so she takes she gets the culture cultural aspect and talks about like what I hope people listening to the speech ask themselves the questions, why are there these deeply motivated people who are going on this westward journey? Because if they can answer that question, maybe they can come to terms with some of the better strategies to regulate this industry.

Well said, well said. You know, there's more we could say, but I think what you should do is take some time to read this entire speech. David, third thing of the week. Is Biden going to crush crypto? I guess that's a question outstanding. There has been talk of an executive order that Biden and the White House are creating to provide some oversight on everything in the crypto markets, everything that's going on, what this executive order might be. People are speculating. Perhaps it's sort of an executive order to all agencies to go do some more research and go ask some other questions. But one of the issues that they have identified is there's no overarching crypto czar relationship as they called it in this Bloomberg

article, somebody that spans all agencies and can look at this industry and what's going on in crypto holistically, right? And what's interesting is this comes on the backdrop of a lot of executive branch regulatory agencies that have been particularly aggressive to crypto lately. At least it seems that way, coming from the SEC, coming maybe from other agencies as well, Treasury with... the recent bill injecting that language in the infrastructure bill, for instance, right? So we're, you know, those in crypto are kind of bracing themselves for like some not good news. Now, it doesn't mean there's gonna be immediate executive order to do all these things. There'll probably be research first. But you know, it was crazy what struck me from this article, David. Let me read

the paragraph because I know where you're about to go with this. Read the paragraph, okay? Because this is crazy. Go ahead. So the paragraph is, Tim Wu, a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, has knowledge in the area, the area being crypto, but But is recused from working on crypto because of his personal holdings which included between 1 and 5 million dollars in Bitcoin and as much as a quarter million dollar dollars in file coin as of when he filed his financial disclosures earlier this year So there's one guy in the White House that owns a bunch of crypto and he had to recuse himself From even being a part of this conversation as to what this executive order might look like the one person that in the White House that holds and there probably understands crypto can't partake in

the conversation. Whoops. Oh, this is what's hilarious to me. This is the irony, right? Because the article concludes with that. And it says basically that the trouble the White House is finding is we can't find anyone who knows anything about crypto except this one guy, Tim. And Tim can't do it because he knows about crypto and he's and he already owns it because he knows about it. Nobody else knows about it. The one guy who knows about it, of course, he owns crypto. Right. Because He knows about crypto. The most bullish thing about crypto is to be understood. The guy that understands it is bullish and can't guide legislation. Talk about catch 22s, because if anyone actually understands crypto, I would argue that they are they therefore

become bullish enough to actually own some to actually buy some crypto. And if they buy some crypto, they have to recuse themselves from the process of being a crypto czar and actually informing policyholders of it because they're biased. The logical conclusion of this is just hilarious, right? And so like... if you just extrapolate this out like the only people that are allowed to like make policy are people that are invested in dollars right like you only have dollars in the bank account and the banking system the existing banking system these are the people without bias yeah crazy absolutely backwards well you know uh you you and i none of our listeners could could ever i guess do this job because we are all uh we all own crypto assets

and so i think they're going to find a increasingly shrinking pool but I guess the tragedy of this is what they have to do is find someone who doesn't know about crypto or like, I guess feels like maybe they missed the boat on crypto. And, you know, some people get bitter in that experience, right? And it's likely they're pulling from that pool of candidates, the person who's going to regulate crypto, somebody who, Baby already hates it. Right. Oh, you guys got a 10,000 X gains on your crypto. Well, I, and I didn't, I'm going to regulate that until it goes back down to zero. This is the problem, guys. So I don't know how to solve that. I understand there are things like conflicts of interest you have to deal

with. But to know crypto, I would argue, is to be bullish on crypto. And what are you going to want to do? You're going to want to have some allocation in your portfolio in it. So what do we do about that? This is why government can't attract talent, because if you want to express your talent and like generate wealth and capital, your government is like, well, no, no, no, no, no. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. All right. What are you excited about, though, David? That time of the week. Oh, what do you think, man? So I volunteered for the Andrew Yang campaign for the 2020 election campaign. Sadly, he did not get elected president. But I remember going to his Seattle event in Gasworks Park, shaking his hand in 2019. I have a little clip of me just shaking his hand, taken by my buddy Michael Wong.

And then in 2021, I get him on the podcast, right? It's just kind of like a nice A to B, like 2019, just volunteering for the campaign, 2020, getting him on the podcast. So that was a nice little like life check mark. And I have to tip of the hat to you, Ryan, for actually getting out there and scheduling that with him. Hey, that was awesome. And that was all because of, I think the bankless community is because we actually have people that listen to the show and watch the show. And so we are getting like, large politicians with the following to come on the show. We are getting like lots of different names who would never have previously known that David and I existed or cared about crypto to come on the show. So it's all thanks to you guys as well. And yeah,

what an exciting episode, man. Big milestone for us. and a fantastic episode too. So let's just say Yang has some good things to say about crypto. And we might have a politician in our camp to help us fight this fight, which is what we've been wanting for. I don't care if it comes from the right or the left, right? Crypto, remember what we said last time? If we get them to adopt crypto protocols, then they adopt crypto values. So we win in the end. And that's what the mission is, to get them to adopt crypto protocols. 100%. A hundred percent. There's that line about like, don't meet your heroes in the sense that like, you know, your hero, you have some vision about who your heroes are in your head.

And then when you meet them, you realize that that's not actually who they are. Yeah. That was not true about Andrew Yang. He is the guy that he advertises himself to be. Yep. Meet your heroes, have podcasts with your heroes whenever possible. Just overall, have good heroes. Have good vibes with your heroes. Have good vibes with your good heroes. Economic vibes with your heroes. This is getting weird. I don't know where this is going next. Ryan, what are you excited about? Hester Peirce. I mean, she crushed it. And, you know, we already went over kind of the speech and she quoted Bankless, which was, I think, huge for us. And, you know, another great thing that happened this week was And I think for me, it was just another reminder.

We have so often we kind of paint, um, regulators as kind of like, oh, that, you know, the evil regulators, like, you know, we are the, the mannequins, they are the puppeteers. They just, you know, pull the strings. And now these are people like, these are real human beings. These are people, they're just like us. Okay. Except they're regulators. Many of them are caught inside of the system. Okay. And, uh, They're not machines. I mean, this goes back to like, what are we fighting for at the end of the day? We're fighting for hearts and minds. We're fighting to convince people in government that crypto is a valuable thing and that it matters and that it's good for the country and that it's good for the world and that it's good for our fellow citizens. And so, I mean, that's just a reminder to me.

I think that's just huge. She quoted us from a weekly rollup is really cool. And I think just to humanize the people in government, I mean, is an important thing for us to do because it allows us to focus on our mission. And that mission is always was And it will continue to be a battle for hearts and minds. If we win the hearts and minds, we cannot lose this crypto revolution, this crypto battle. If we do lose, it's because we haven't convinced enough people. It's because crypto hasn't done enough good in the world to make them believe in our narrative. We recommend joining our daily

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