Ryan Selkis on the Existential Struggle for Crypto in the U.S.

Transcript

I mean the worst case is the status quo Ripple has spent over $100 million on lawsuits Grace scale spent two years God knows how much money on their lawsuit coinbase and Kraken Relentless defense and offense that I'm sure is racked up tens of millions if not getting close to the nine figure Mark there are only so many companies that can do that and eventually people need to realize that the state has unlimited resources and unlimited funds to pursue people regardless of how egregious their misbehavior is look at the box case in um I think it was the SEC branch in Utah they dissolved that office because it was so corrupt that office doesn't exist anymore now what I said is true I want that to happen to the other 11 branches

and that's going to be my goal for the rest of the year is to you know slowly disassemble every single one of them hey everyone Santi and I have been talking about salana a lot recently and we're excited to have a salana sponsor of Empire marinade marinade is a staking protocol on salana and the only stake pool that delivers Auto rebalancing me rewards and automatic downside protection with their new protected staking rewards optimize your soulle stake with marinade by hitting the link in the show notes big thanks to marinade we'll talk more about them later in the show hey everyone the polygon Community grants program was launched with 1 billion tokens All For polygon Builders really excited to share that on today's

episode of Empire season 1 of the polygon Community grants program is now live it features 35 million in mtic to support the next generation of polygon projects join the aggregated future today by applying at polygon.com and governed by mantle mantle reakes 100,000 me to generate massive igen layer points every day basically your chance at being part of the igen that will be given out to meth holders on mantel L2 you can check it

out meth that's m.m manle doxyz campaigns that's a mouthful we'll put a link in the show notes for you to check out and learn more big thanks to mant all right everyone welcome back to Empire highly anticipated episode uh we booted Santi for this one we've got my co-founder Mike joining and then we've got uh badman Mr two bit idiot founder of Masari also uh a friend and a colleague and also a competitor uh Ryan cus so cus welcome to the show man we contain multitudes Yano yes exactly so um look man this should be a this should be a good conversation there's a there's a lot of things we got to cover I think the first thing to cover is we're

recording this Friday morning and I say that because things just happen so quickly and this will go out on Tuesday um and so much can change but the debate just happened last night um would love to get your thoughts on not only the de debate but specifically what comes next sure I just put a a brief voice note out on Twitter before this episode uh just so it's fresh and people have that and and I'll try to be consistent with what I just said about 30 minutes ago on Twitter I think look everybody that watched last night saw what happened it was I don't think that there's anyone that is feeling good this morning about Joe Biden's presidency whether they're Friend or Foe um and there was three big takeaways for me last night one I felt

pretty Vindicated uh for all of the things that I've been saying and and doing even if it looks crazy in the moment all of the tactics and all of the things that I've been doing online as part of my you know Persona that is constantly evolving behind this Tu bit idiot you know moniker it's it's been for a reason and there's been a method to the madness and I've I've told my team that I've told my investors that and customers if they've asked and basically anyone until I'm blew in the face because when they talk to me or when you guys talk to me on the phone or in person or through a format like this people understand how sober and and rational I am about all this but um my my rhetoric has been building to a crescendo because I don't think that we

have a president right now there's no one at the controls and everybody saw that last night so what what I think would be the best outcome for the good of the country is for uh getting into point you know two I think they need to exercise a 25th amendment like we are in that territory right now that's not hyperbole everybody saw what their own two eyes how out of it Joe Biden is and I think that that's probably the realization that the Democratic party and and the Democratic establishment are going to come to in the next couple of weeks because they don't have good options going into the convention in six weeks um it would destroy their whole moniker of oh we're the party of democracy and the Republicans are going

to try to steal the election or end democracy or this out of the other thing it would destroy all of their credibility if they actively forced a an anointment of a new candidate at the convention versus either I don't think that they'll actually get into the 25th Amendment because I think that they will threaten Biden if you don't resign gracefully we will exercise the 25th Amendment and take the nuclear codes from you because you are not uh mentally capable and and and you know at the same level that you were maybe when you got elected four years ago so what that's going to do is that's going to lead to a president Harris which I think would be a great thing for the country just as an American to just stop the insanity um and the charade that you know Joe Biden

is actually at the helm when he's not um I don't particularly like her I don't like her policies but um number three what it would do is it would give uh this party that is going to lose uh in a landslide right now not just the white house but the senate in land Landslide it would at least give them the opportunity to uh attack to the center and like hard pivot from some of the Biden policies because you can get this Blank Slate moment for a very short window of time where Harris could come in and you know maybe she's going to be friendlier towards crypto and and maybe she's gonna soften her rhetorical approach and she'll cut she'll cut heads at the right agencies and you know maybe they'll call Gensler and have him fall on his sword with a wink and a nudge

that hey if you just fall on your sword now you'll be rewarded if we get reelected for doing that kind of dirty work now there's a number of ways politically that they could play this and that is I think the least bad option for them unfortunately I think that Harris is so unpopular and unlikable that they're probably going to get trounced anyway but they're kind of out of options and they've kind of made their bed uh at this point so if I were to zoom out I'd say it's probably going to be you know um it'll probably be something like a Harris Nome ticket um but it really should be something more like Harris Phillips because the entire you know Democratic establishment owes him an apology for smearing him and and maligning him for having the audacity to say what no one else in the party had

the courage to say which is we cannot run Joe Biden for a second term because he is already deteriorating at a rapid rate um and uh look you know I I think people will look at the tone of of my tweets and rhetoric on uh like I look I don't dislike Joe Biden I think he should have run 2016 to be honest with you I voted for him in 2020 I now regret that but I voted for him in 2020 but I don't feel bad piling on here because he the most powerful man in the world and I think that there is an element of humiliation that's important at this time because if we just gloss over the fact that there is an entire apparatus that has lied to

the American people for at least six months about his mental acuity whether it's the media his administration all the other congressmen that have his back the entire party leadership everything it's all been lies it was exposed last night they have been structurally lying to people about this man's mental Fitness and so I think it is important to see the memes the dunks the aggression all aired out in public I think it's a good outlet for people and I think that humiliation is not really about um dunking on an old man who's who's going see Nile it is about sending a message

to everyone that has been involved in this farce that no one's going to forget in November and my position um on this is I think somewhat uh consistent with the position that I have on crypto which is I don't consider myself a partisan I just said I voted for Biden people want to paint me out to be this magga extremist I can get into why I think you know uh there's literally nothing that would that would make me not vote for president Trump at this point but um I think the fact of the matter is that we need a hard partisan Victory this year and then we can get back to nonpartisanship in crypto or

bipartisanship you know more generally speaking politically um and the way that this is going to manifest itself is 2028 right I mean we're talking about a transitional president no matter who wins right well I guess if it's Paris then she could run for two terms it's another reason for it to be Harris instead of Biden um but I think um we're going to see generation change in 2028 we're going to see a hell of a lot of evolution uh in Congress we're going to see the the the entire Power Rankings and and and you know leadership apparatus in Congress turn over in the next few years and so at this point in time it's important to send a message if you're just talking about like crypto single issue voters

it's also important I think to send a message at the White House and the Senate level that Americans aren't stupid and there needs to be some some political retribution for the farce that we've just witnessed um because otherwise I I I truly do think that this country is in trouble um now whether that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm saying like oh anyone that votes for Biden or Harris or whatever is is you know evil or or stupid or anything like that but what it does mean is you know we should not be letting the most powerful office in the world off the hook just because his wife and the establishment around him propped him up

like weekend at Bernie style for the last six months like I'm sorry but we all we all saw what happened last night yeah all right let me pull it let me pull it actually let me pull the conversation out from just Biden vers Trump for a second cuz I think we we will get into that later in the conversation but I almost just as like Mike and I have known you for seven years at this point and I think I I was never this crazy right I never you you've always been a little bit crazy honestly but um uh but but founder crazy not founder crazy so I'd love to just hear the like the development and the evolution of like celus from like yeah crypto founder into someone who realizes and has like thinks and believes right now that like politics is the main thing

you should be spending your effort on maybe I got that right but would love to just hear like the evolution of and like when did you realize that politics was like the thing that you needed to focus on I've had like six moments where I've had that just when I thought I was out they pull me back in but it's happened like six times in the last few years so first of all I would actually argue that like one of the reasons I got into crypto in the first place was political um but it was political in the sense that it was an opt out and you look at the runaway spending that we had and this is way back in 2012 2013 when I first was learning about Bitcoin but you look at the The Runaway spending that we have you look at the the increasing

partisanship and the gridlock in Congress and the dysfunction of Washington DC and a lot of Libertarians and um folks that care about exit and just like building a better future versus arguing about it end up gravitating to Tech so like my version of gravitating to Tech was obviously you know Bitcoin and crypto um but that was enough for me for the first eight years that I was in the industry in the first several years at Missi were you were you did you vote Democrat like if you look at like how you voted in like8 or 12 or 16 honestly I I don't I I don't remember my you know uh it's funny like V actually got like tripped up on this or

you know he got targeted for this during the debates where he's like either he said something like I don't remember I did vote this way or I didn't I don't even think I voted in some of these elections like that's me I think that's a lot of people that are just of the mindset that whole system is rigged and broken and I am not going to opt out because I'm not I'm not doing my civic duty but I'm gonna opt out because I'm gonna build something better which I think is very different so to to be honest with you I can't remember I think I like I think 08 if I did vote it was probably McCain um in 2012 it was I didn't like Romney I think I voted I voted for Ron Paul just as a protest vote in 2016 it was either Rand

Paul or my grand father that I wrote in or like honestly like it was another like um and you got to remember like the states I've lived in my vote legitimately never has mattered you're you're from New York yeah so like either well went to school in Boston and worked in Boston for a while so I was either in Boston New York New Jersey when I hopped over for you know for a minute I don't even know if I was in New Jersey for one of the presidential elections but um and then um and then Maryland now so uh none of those states are gonna get impacted by my vote I think it's safe to say so um but that's not to say that I I didn't take it seriously and so but I

think in the last election I was literally one of those voters that was like een me my Mo with the the B box and and I just I um I've been telling people I in 2020 it was not clear to me whether Trump was the chemo or the cancer and this year it is so blindingly obvious that he's the chemo and we need another round um and I think a lot of other people are kind of coming to that same conclusion um which is what what you're seeing reflected in the polls and and a lot of the Swing voter U polls but um so in terms of like my crypto political moment just going back to your your question it was around the infrastructure bill in 2021 um and um and and quick kind of run back through history the the infrastructure bill that

was passed in the first year the Biden Administration um was this kind of must-pass like signature bill that they wanted wanted to get out was very expensive it was you know um it was you know a stimulant to the economy and and it had a lot of the kind of wish list items for um for Democrats that they wanted to kind of get get out the door and and and uh and you know B basically in the aftermath of Co like investing in our infrastructure um in these types of bills there are you have to pay for them right um and one of they're called payforce so one of the pay fors that was added at the 11th Hour of the bill was a crypto tax provision and basically the Congressional budget office reviewed it

and I can't remember the exact number but it was something like if we improve tax compliance the CBO score as they call it was going to be something like $28 billion if if we just improve Collections and kind of tax compliance from the crypto this was the one that expanded the definition of the broker and then also said that okay now the Brokers have to report the transactions well there was two things that was 650i or something like that and then there was so there was the there was that right um where you know you basically have to do all this reporting which was a disaster and that was that was caught you know actually a slightly afterwards of this other larger Saga but the larger one was um you had this um reporting requirement for tax purposes where essentially the the definition was so

broad that it it was going to make compliance um impossible unless it captured all of Defi and so there was this big uproar in Congress where they were getting just an enormous number of calls um it really kind of put the crypto issue I think on the map for congress because of how ferocious the the response was from the industry and um and you know at the end of the day because of the the way that the bill had already kind of you got through its its process in the Senate the only way to stop it would have been through uh a unanimous vote to approve an amendment or amended language for you know that specific provision and Senator Shelby um

there's a trend here I think he you know 80s something year old Senator that was in his um last year in office um was basically the loan to Center and um and objected to the amendment so it didn't pass it didn't actually get pushed in and he had very close eyes to the banking Lobby and if you look at like his donor records you know he he's he's had you know very very close ties with um with big banks in the banking Lobby so you know that pissed a bunch of us off and and you know certainly didn't smell good at the very least but you know whatever the case was we got screwed um despite a lot of other Senators stepping up and supporting so yeah they ended up doing something called a colloquy which is you it wasn't actually amended but they they made this

explanation from the floor that here's what we meant just in case they ever go back and look at the record whatever the moral of the story was this doesn't happen to well organized industries that have well organized political machines so the next month at mainnet um was kind of I I think it was the first time that everybody had gotten together from the policy side around one table so I had basically invited the top 20 folks that were you know at coinbase and Kraken and a16z and Paradigm and and you know all all these firms and um it was kind of like the event at the event and we got everybody around the same table and then basically the question was like okay what are we G to do about this so it doesn't happen again um so

again like part of it's I am paying attention and and politically inclined but part of it was also like right place right timing that our conference had just happened to fall right right at in the aftermath of of that bill that we got everybody together and then um basically it was pencils down I'd say more or less for for the next year um for me personally you know obviously a lot of folks were getting organized in the industry and then we fast forward a year and we basically do the same thing 2022 but instead of having a round table meeting I basically organized a dinner took everybody that was you know at that initial meeting out to dinner and it was supposed to be just kind of the celebratory like look at how far we've come thank you for for everything that you're doing um you know instead of like

an organized you know little mini conference it was just supposed to be you know thanks for everything and cheers and mov and we'll go a separate ways and it was at that dinner that um a couple of folks flagged that FTX was basically trying to Ram through a really counterproductive Bill through Congress and they were essentially just flying solo spraying money all over DC doing this like really aggressive charm offensive and they were running with the football with essentially no other input from anyone else in the industry so like regulatory capture 101 yeah and was was Sam at that dinner like could you flag that to Sam no but again the timing is crazy because that actually happened days after we closed our series B and

misari counts as you know among our investors pretty much all of the major Western regulated exchanges and I had apprehensions about Sam but Amy woo had just taken over from light speed um right had just taken over FTX Ventures and I like Amy a lot and so you know I I I talked to her and we included FTX Ventures uh in uh in the round and you know very you kind of small slug in in the overall series B um right alongside kind of you know all all the other kind of Western entities like coinbase and Kraken and uh blockchain.com and uh and Gemini and the like so um I I walked out at the dinner and they were they were the only notable absence

and they had actually turned down the dinner invitation they're like the only ones that turned down the dinner invitation because you know everybody kind of knew this is first of all it's a free dinner second of all it's like you're getting like a curated list of like the political power Brokers not just like a bunch of you know schs because I I very tightly you know kind of curated the list and um but there are notable absence and so that you know basically kind of set off a firestorm that was kind of this moment during the dinner where you know uh Chris and Smith kind of dropped the bomb and and then all like hell broke loose uh in terms of the conversation and you know after a few minutes people got up from the table and everybody was having these side conversations it was pretty

wild but um what we did after that is I on the train the next day going coming back from mayet I sent an email to Sam and Mark weijian who's his head of policy and and again this was like three days after the round close and I said hey guys like we have a problem I I spent a lot of time getting up to speed on on what I think is like your strategy for you know engaging in DC and and getting a bill pass this year and obviously we just closed the round we have to talk because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be like very publicly against you on this and I just want to make sure that I'm not like misreading anything so like can we hop on a call and so we hopped on a couple calls and I think you

the first time that I spoke with Sam I think his first you know his first reaction was basically like who the [ __ ] is this guy like not who does he think he is but literally just like who is this guy why am I talking to him about policy I've never heard his name I've never you know seen this that or the other thing and it was it was basically the three of us we Jen me and and Sam and um and I think it took Sam maybe like 10 minutes to to realize that I I knew what I was talking about and I was pretty deep um in in the policy circles even if I wasn't very Hands-On kind of down down in uh in DC so we ended up talking for about 90 minutes almost two hours um and he was trying to basically

convince me like you know can you like just stand down or can we work together on this and at one point at the end and I remember this because ouan was on um and he said something to the effect of you know let's just say hypothetically speaking that I'm wrong which I don't think I am but hypothetically speaking there is a significant amount of money that I would be willing to spend to anyone that is negatively impacted that has my back and then I end up being wrong or I like [ __ ] the industry so it was like it was essentially the like the most thinly veiled like if you just have my back on this like I will take care of you right no matter what happens we call that a

bribe it was a [ __ ] it was 100% a bribe and I the reason I couldn't believe it is because ouan was on the call too and you know he was just I saw his facial expression he was just kind of like I don't know about that and then you know then we go pencils down and I called you know a bunch of folks that were at the dinner and I said um I think this is going to be a problem but we should try to do a followup with Sam and his team in DC just so everybody can get on the same page because I told them I don't want us making complete asses of ourselves in DC because the one thing that Sam had had done was get a ton of momentum a ton of momentum because of how much money he was spending he was

meeting with Pelosi he was meeting with Maxine Waters who blew him a kiss at the hearing right like he was meeting he he was meeting with everybody because of how much money he was spending and because he said he was going to spend a billion dollars on the presidential campaign because he was an effective altruist so you know long story short we end up getting a very similar group together that had just met for dinner and um and then you know had a I think a productive conversation in DC this this meeting that was you know later covered in in the Washington Post uh because someone leaked that it wasn't me um because I didn't want to be involved in in any of that [ __ ] anymore um but again get getting Ro back into it back in yeah exactly um and then Sam

kind of showed up for 20 minutes for like a driveby and comes in all sloppy like he normally was and and basically just lectured to a group of like policy professionals like how things work and uh and what he was going to do and why and and essentially like in the most patronizing way possible and um he kind of famously like came in and then came out because he had to go to another Hill meeting I guess and his sloppy stained cargo shorts and um and on the way out he he like looks over his shoulder and he goes I just want to thank you all for being so [ __ ] constructive and it was like like it was like the little it was like the little pat on the head yeah at the very end nice job kids yeah and I was like this

guy just needs to we we need to take him out not physically but like this guy just needs to be taken out at the knees and um and so you know basically over the course of the next couple months that happened inevitably but you know um word got back to CZ that that Sam was running his mouth and basically maligning binance and throwing them out of the bus and and basically having all these meetings and and most most of them or many of them I'm sure essentially saying you know negative things about uh CZ and binance and kind of he was tweeting about it publicly also at the same time well yeah but before he was tweeting about it publicly he was saying it in private and and those back room like you know conversations got back to

CZ I know that they got back to CZ and I'll leave it at that and I think that you know CZ had been a backer and business partner of Sams in the early days of FTX and um my interpretation of what happened and kind of what led to the unraveling was you know CZ wanted to give him a haircut not a decapitation um when he said he was going to basically sell the the ftt tokens I don't think anyone knew just how egregious the fraud was myself included I thought Sam was sketchy I didn't trust him from day one that was confirmed when he tried to bribe me and that was confirmed with all of his erratic Behavior you know kind of after the fact but I don't think anyone realized how gous the fraud was and then ultimately you know as soon as it became

obvious then it was like okay this is going to be 18 months of hell and we were going to have three problems one was going to be the immediate fraud impact and headline risk two was going to be the credit crisis and not understanding exactly when and where the the daisy chain would end and then um and the third was going to be the political blowback which was going to be a little bit longer in the tooth but but just as if not more painful than the first two and um and so that's kind of the uh the stamp through year end of 2022 but the one silver lining was we killed the staban Boseman bill so that was good soas do you think that I mean even so going back to the start of this the infrastructure build that that kicked all this off I could be wrong but

my memory of it wasn't that it was a super partisan issue back then and then all the and then all the SBF stuff happened and obviously s SPF was he was an effective altruist and he donated more I think he was the second largest donor in the 2020 political election and he was obviously super you know he preferred to donate to Democrats was that the original Schism like did he actually sort of impact the course of history here by donating mostly to Democrats then they sort of had to publicly walk all of that back was was that the beginning of the sort of politization of the industry or do you think it was always just destined for that to happen I think the most charitable explanation for the Democrats behavior um which isn't really that

charitable because I think it kind of speaks to incompetence or or you know uh not uh whole High degree of intelligence if if they just would overcorrect to this extreme to take it out on an entire industry but I think the most charitable explanation is probably some version of that which is we trusted these guys really when it was just one guy right and they screwed us and everything that we thought about the industry actually is true because we have the sample size of one and it blew up in all of our faces so I think there was an element of Retribution there was an element of just like the pure politics of it you can't immediately turn around after a fraud that size and then um and then say Oh no worries let's work with the good guys uh it was just going to be too too hot to

touch politically and um and so you basically you know a couple things one I'd say credit Wares do for yeah the folks that um politically stuck their necks out for us even when it was unpopular particularly on the right but also with a couple of exceptions on the left um you know Tom Emer and and lumus you kind of come to mind as as two of the uh two of the heroes uh that we didn't deserve at the time but we needed um and then but I think you also had some folks like you know Senator Jill brand and um Richie Torres um that uh that I think have been pretty good on this consistently even in the aftermath of of of f X um but you know basically and and we'll get to modern times you know pretty

quickly but I just want to be comprehensive here um so early 2023 um Brian Armstrong uh hosted a a small dinner in New York and I can talk about that because I love Brian but he posted a picture of [ __ ] eight white guys at dinner for I remember I remember this and the worst the worst part about it it was on International women's day but the worst part of it wasn't that was on International women's day it was that the dinner did not happen on that day and for some reason he chose that day to post the picture tough I was I was like bro you're killing us man somewhere there's a head of comms who just said why do you make my life so tough my God I I love Brian but I was just like come

on man come on um but anyway so so he had he had hosted this uh this dinner with um a handful of us and people can pull up the picture for specifically who was there but um uh essentially it was how do we how do we emerge from the wreckage stronger politically and and basically how do we re-engage politically and um and so a couple weeks later I sent a document around uh called project leonitis which was essentially like a a battle plan for raising hundred million do split across several different entities so this would cover the trade associations um 501 C4s which basically work on things like education and advocacy um and then an actual super pack and and you know aligned packs with

with some of the trade associations and without getting too deep into how all these things work because I don't want you know people's eyes to glaze over for them to just skip over the episode um basically the super pack is the Bazooka that you want for actual elections and you want that just as as a deterrent as much as you want it as an offensive weapon right the the best nukes are the ones that aren't fired so having that Arsenal just having the the actual ual cash on hand in that um in that super pack would be a signal to the DC community that we were very serious about what came next and and is that what started the the fair Shake yeah pack okay yeah um so and and I had known

um and and I think a few folks had known Mike because he actually um he's he and his partner worked in the midterms very effectively with like $13 million and won a ton of races at the at the house level and a couple of the Senate level where they were supportive but they were basically you know helping educate candidates and then you know back the right horses bipartisan uh in in the primaries um the problem was half of their initial 13 came from Sam so um so the fairshake guys you know it was called something different before it was fairshake but the fairshake guys were essentially cold product because the affiliation even though they had themselves been very effective at what they set out to do and um and so you

know there's a few of us that had worked with them and said forget the baggage with Sam they're going to rename it but they're going to run a different strategy at scale and these are still like killer operators that we should continue to work with and um it took a little while but sure enough December of last year so six months ago they announced that they had raised 78 um in in Fair shake and now of course it's uh it's up to 160 because they it's up to 160 now thear is that the these are crypto companies like this yeah this is all public record the lion sharers come from uh from Ripple coinbase and Andre I think the Winos twins have put in some umori put in 5,000 so we got our name we got our name in the press release baby

what I don't think people realize it's not the third biggest it's now the third biggest pack right and it's the largest independent yeah the B there's the Biden Victory fund the Trump um uh save America something or another and then and then it's fair Shake right MH yeah yeah so what's your impression on how important the crypto issue is on as like a presidential election issue I was actually a little bummed I'm not GL I watched the debate last night I was bummed for a couple reasons but like I was bummed to see that crypto didn't come up at all uh really during the debate so how much do you get it because you every once in a while you'll see these studies that a 100 million Americans owns crypto own crypto right but how big of an of an issue do you think it it really is there's two parts

to that answer one is just the math behind it I think um if there's 100 million crypto users you know there's going to be a power law distribution in terms of how people would rank order this as an issue because if you have $100 in coinbase that's not going to swing your vote if you have $10,000 in coinbase it might swing your vote if you have your livelihood and your team and your family relying on the success of this industry you are going to be a zealot for whoever is for you versus who's against you um and I think the problem that the Democrats made was thinking that that was a small number when it wasn't um for two reasons one economically speaking right guys like us

um that do well and have responsibilities and and families and teams that rely on the success of and and and uh and continued growth of this industry um and then two is philosophical all the way back to my initial point I think that they underestimated how many young people particularly in Tech they activated that were never really politically engaged in the past because they were just very happy myself included to opt out of the [ __ ] right so they basically started a fight with a small army of people that just wanted to be left alone and they didn't stop and so at some point if you have this like group

of wildlings uh or whatever whatever the who's north of the wall I think Marvin it's the it's the wild right yeah yeah he he compared me to like the red bearded general which I took very I took as like the highest compliment I think that's a compliment I think it's badass yeah right so like okay so okay so I'm like the red bearded like crazy general of the wild wild links do you want to piss that entire Army off when they were just minding their own business north of the wall that's what they did so I think um activating that denominator in the way that they did is not something that they really and you're saying that's what they did I feel like the turning point there was the the Liz Warren anti building an anti- crypto Army tweet right and then every said we are the

crypto Army that will go down as one of the worst campaign ads of all time yeah yep right and so this actually gets me to to point number two which is okay that's one thing but how did this get to the level of presidential politics and that's when we get into 2024 and all my crazy tweets maybe take us into um the last like what 50 days I'd call it like marog because you you've been tweeting about politics I think some let me let me start let me start at the beginning of the year I'll give I'll give basically the time period up to Mar Lago real quickly and and then we'll we'll talk much more extensively about the last 50 days so again just when I thought I was out they pulled me back in I told my team I'm gonna find myself a

thousand dollars every time I tweet about politics in 2024 um after Fair Shake had loaded the money Cannon right I was like my job is done I helped these guys we got we got the game plan in order I don't need credit I don't care if I I didn't write the big checks but whatever happened it happened and I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore because I I truly thought that this election was going to be existential for US based on how hostile the Democrats were and how hostile the the Biden Administration continued to be mostly at the beest of was Warren and then the Iowa primary happened and the comes in fourth he immediately turns around and endorses Trump and then at his endorsement speech in New

Hampshire suddenly they talk about how horrible Central Bank digital currencies are and I had worked with the and you guys know that I had hosted him at mainnet and we did a fireside chat I hosted a fundraiser for him when I heard that like that was basically a dog whistle for me because I worked with him and a few others worked with him or at least sanity checked some of the things that he had in his platform for crypto over the summer and we knew that that was the most plain vanilla wedge into the broader crypto issue was like do you want a central bank digital currency with constant surveillance or not super easy to understand very like politically tight message like get the government the hell out of our Lives we don't need

more weapons for the you know pin Opticon uh to activate against its citizens and so when I heard that it was it was an immediate call out that this was actually you know we had someone that was going to be directly in the president's year about this particular issue so I basically spent the next few months um trying to figure out exactly where the Overton window was to support you know uh president Trump because uh I uh I obviously supported V I was very vocal about supporting V because he his policies were basically very similar policies to Trump's but with a fresh start and a younger kind of messenger so

when he turned around and endorsed and and they basically got together it was you know kind of green light for me to start figuring out what could I say publicly that would not blow up in my face and have the team you know uh or customers start to react and so you know you can literally um if for anyone that was paying attention at the time you could see a progression um up through March let's call it of like increasingly partisan kind of red meat tweets and the reason for that is I was trying to find a way into that camp to just tell help explain like what is fact versus fiction here and we're not all crazy like some of us are very supportive of Republican leaning candidates or conservative

candidates or Libertarians You by Design but we need you to know that we're not just all like crazy libertarian zealots that are like screw the government there's no role for regulation like this out of the other thing which I think was a Mis U an impression that they had from the prior administration because we were just significantly less sophisticated as an industry at the time um and sure enough you know I ended up getting a couple of different Avenues in um to the camp and then um one uh person another you know entrepreneur in the industry this guy Valentine had tickets to the mar Lago event um because he bought a bunch of the the Trump trading cards these nfts and he said look I got VIP ticket I can't use it because I have

this pre-existing commitment for family reasons I insist that you take it because I know that on the off chance you're able to meet him or someone close to the campaign it will be better uh it will be better time spent than anything that I could do or you know anyone else that I know could do so I was actually on the fence about going and I was like I don't know it's like it seems like you know uh a lot of a lot of time and energy you know to maybe have like 30 seconds with like a policy person that I could probably get through and like you know through other means but I he just he was adamant about it and insisted and so you know I went and um at the event itself um Trump was he got there about an hour late and U because he was at a a

campaign event in in Michigan a rally in Michigan for for another endorsement that he had made and the VIP event that I thought was gonna be like 20 or 30 people was a 100 and so everybody was kind of roped off and he just did an hour of Q&A so I was like all right there's not going to be any direct engagement but I did get one question in which is can we donate crypto to the Trump campaign and um he basically looked at his Finance guy he said I think so right we can I don't know we'll check on that should we and then he goes like this should we and the crowd's like yeah and then he's like all right we'll make it happen and he like points to his guys like let's get on that so I sat back and I said okay I'm I'm

not gonna meet him whatever at least we got that right we got that wi like I know when he says jump people say how high in his Camp um because he's he's a CEO he's an he's an executive so he he moves a little bit differently and and and has that that you know kind of brand and Aura but um the only reason I stayed for dinner because I was actually going to leave after that because then it was just kind of into the big Banquet Hall the only reason I stayed is because Danny Nelson from Queen knew that I was down there and I said don't dox me I I only talked to my VPS and my board that I was even going down here but I'm not ready to be public about anything yet I'm just you know learning and and and trying to talk to a couple people from

the campaign don't write my name and whatever story you're going to write here and in return I will sit next to you at dinner and we can have like an on background or off the record conversation so that's again that's the only reason I'm even at the dinner instead of taking off early um and the next thing I know you know I I hear my name called and I'm essentially cold called on stage and I thought you know someone must have slipped my name and maho's uh name to him as a couple of the more prominent entrepreneurs that were there because remember this was like a fan based event for the nfts not like a big organized you know kind of crypto fundraiser um and so I went up there I thought maybe he just wants a photo op or handshake or whatever and then all of

a sudden he turns he says you know why don't you guys say a few words and then you know I did the minute and shook his hand and uh got a couple of uh pretty pretty gangster looking pictures whoever whoever captured that picture of me shaking his hand deserves like some Pulitzer Prize for for photography because that picture like has moved mountains um for us when it comes to like the subsequent votes or you know basically after the moral Lago event um but I'll I'll pause there hey everyone Santi and I have been talking about salana a lot recently and we're excited to have a salana sponsor of Empire marinade is a staking protocol

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mantle LSP the base yield is currently 3.2% but there's also more on top of that mantle reakes 100,000 me to generate igen layer points every single day mantle is now the third largest address getting igen layer points a big part of the igen that's going to be distributed is actually going to be given out to me eth holders on mantle L2 including all the daps and there's daily screenshots Bridge the me to an L2 that's bridge. mantle. XYZ you can enjoy being a part of the uh hopefully igen that will be given out to em holders so big thanks to mantle for letting Empire listeners know about this really exciting thanks again mantel so Maro happens so this is early

this is early May right this is like the fir end of this is maybe May 7th or 8th or 9th May 8th you want to get into um I think in the last 50 days like everything is kind of spiraled I say there's Mara in in one week There's Mara Lago and then there was a blockworks op oped actually as well and I'd love to hear just like from your point of view I mean like I remember so I had dinner with um there's a pleaser da dinner and was like a Friday night and I'm sitting across from Rob Lesner he's like sees this tweet go out and he's like what is this oped and Mike and I don't see blockworks articles until they literally are live on the site like we're not because I deal with sponsorships and

sales and we're not allowed in the the channels and so we see this oped go out it's like well I don't know read it later wake up Saturday morning like 70 70 texts 70 DMS whatever and basically a tweet from you saying I will assassinate these guys so I don't think I use that exact word but I it was it was something very close to that which was like a flavor of like Omar's coming right so tell me about tell me about that week wait actually before we before we even get into that celus do do you want to guess how many people viewed that article CU I've talked to a lot of people since that they're like oh that was aming amazing blah blah blah like you want to guess how many people they're like you're just doing it for the traffic yeah yeah I'm sure it's not

a lot yeah it's probably like what 10 15,000 2,000 2,000 nobody the article nobody read the article we actually added up all the Impressions there was like that whole thing ended up getting like 2 million impressions on Twitter so the ratio of like reading to the outrage was like 0.001% many many such cases so okay so but I I'll actually take a step back remember like I I flew out I I went to your guys conference bought a ticket you know game game recognized game I heard it was a good conference and it was and um and and Mike I'm sure you and Yano caught up about it but Yano and I had a couple beers you know one of the nights there and basically you know um I had

heard that there were a couple of folks that were essentially in my mind you know piggybacking off a lot of the risks and and kind of policy work that you know I've done and kind of using it against misari commercially right he like oh do you really want to be affiliated with celus he's he's you know a little bit spicy for you know suit and tie Trad fi crowd and um I told you know Yano and I you know kind of cleared the air and and I didn't think it was I didn't think it was you guys um after that conversation but um that was I think the Contex that was definitely not yeah no no Mike you're totally off hook this is just between me and Jana at this point so but so I was like all right um I was like okay we're good and you know

we we we've had this kind of long-standing you relationship where you know we worked with you guys in the early days on the podcast and and you know I've appreciated and and and you know been been pretty impressed with how how quickly you guys have risen just uh as entrepreneurs in your own right but that happened like a couple weeks before the mar Lago event and then the oped and so the oped drops and I didn't even see it that night um I you know got a couple texts and I kind of woke up in in the middle of the night um just to um you like check on one of my kids who you know had to get up and go to the bathroom or something I don't know I don't know why I was up in like the middle of the night but 2 am I see a

couple of texts and people say like you got to see this this article and I like you you could you could direct a movie and and you can picture the scene of me sitting there quietly staring at the wall in the dark like you know like Robert Robert dairo and Cape Fear just just just ready to go on a rampage and the reason was it wasn't an opet guys you know this this was an editorial there's a difference and I'm not saying that it was you guys that were responsible but um I went back and I looked and this is the only oped that you guys have ever produced that

has two authors and one of them is an editor so this is an editorial um and and and so my my issue was that this was um there is a big difference for those that don't know media you guys do but for those that don't know media like op-eds can come from anywhere often they're external sometimes they're internal if you have a dedicated writer like Molly but the fact that this was both it felt like a hitpiece and only a fool I was like is that like a play on words they being cute because like the TU bit idiot thing but then more importantly like if you go and you look at the links I'm the only person that's linked to right and my my kind of you know onstage endorsement or support or whatever you want to call uh of of

trump was was the only thing that was linked to in the article so it was clearly directed of me never mentioned me my name and that's fine and um I I don't honestly I don't know why because I actually wrote a full thread and like a full strategy and game plan for you know quite honestly like disassembling block Works uh at at at the time that that that was going to be my response because I especially after the conversation that that Yano and I had had in um in London I was like this has gone too far we have competitors that are operating in bad faith trying to hurt my team so now I'm going to respond in kind and honestly you know you guys have known me for a long time I don't know why I put the shotgun down but I

was just like you know what no more own goals no more fighting try to resolve this I was I was on with Yano a few times over the weekend just you know kind of trying to give him my advice on how to handle all the Fallout and it ended up being a nothing burger for me because it was something like five or 10 to one people supporting me versus supporting you guys so you know I I I didn't think it was necessary to pile on and I also think in hindsight um this maybe it was not intended um to do this but I I do think that that article um the unintended but very positive consequence of it was it was I would say friendly fire from a crypto

Outlet versus a big media Outlet right so you said 2,000 views and like that's kind of like a running joke I'm not surprised and I was actually very happy that it came from someone like blockworks versus a bigger publication because it essentially laid out all the arguments that you would expect to see in like a mainstream hitpiece which is all these guys care about is money there's no values here it's just white rich Tech bro like will sell out everybody doesn't care about trans rights women's rights or democracy I mean like it it had all of the greatest hits in that article I don't think it was a very well reasoned or argued oped but the fact that it was written I think stimulated a conversation which is

almost um undeniable that it had a positive impact because it um if nothing else forced me to think about how I was going to address every single possible political issue even as an operating CEO right so even taking on the most like incendiary social issues or or things that people would Levy as an attack on Trump I don't agree with the Republicans on on everything um and I think if you do you're you're you're not a republican you're you're a cultist but um I don't um but I knew that those were were coming and people will will inevitably project whatever they want to on someone that supports president Trump regardless of how inaccurate is I'm a Libertarian I

actually think that the V framing of like libertarian nationalists is probably more in line with with my view of the world um but um the the number of issues and and the type of issues that I think we're addressing the oped were were things that I kind of prepared for and leaned into over the course of the next six weeks I've got I've got a question which is all right so here is the uh here here's something where I'm uh I know you have really strong opinions on this so I'd love you to lay out like the Steelman case for this but here's something that I've struggled with as well zooming out of the current political moment in Zeitgeist operating on a 1020 100e type Horizon do new Industries like crypto have to get politicized and this is something that I've been because the

the the case that I've heard you make that to be honest I'm coming much more around to is the fact they like hey the the Democrats have been punching Us in the face for four years how much of this you know abuse do you do you need to take to just see the light right and what's happening on the other hand you know politics in America is horrible right now right I mean even um like it's it's very contentious and I am conscious of the fact that crypto still does have this like white Tech bro obsessed with money speculative sort of sort of vibe and so how much do you think new Industries like crypto should be aiming to be apolitical and just hey we're a technology we new industry where you can do stuff which that argument has always resonated with me I would say that

that's definitely the camp that I would have been in you know before the last couple months um versus having to side with you know one side or the other well uh the good news for me personally is I don't give a [ __ ] about identity politics so I don't care if I'm like a white straight male with kids I actually think that's an advantage in some respects because you know you're going to get all the Heat and all the smoke from all these identity you know politics arguments um so I think that's number one you know I made this uh point on stage with with Marvin amorey um at at Unis swap he debated me in consensus and um yeah and this was basically the premise of the debate which is this year it was very

tight prompt for the debate it was this year should crypto be partisan and my argument which I'll make again here is and was the White House and the Senate needs to swing and we essentially need to take political scalps and his was that's a really bad strategy long term because we want this to be non-partisan people should vote their conscience and not feel like they have to betray their other political ideals just for a point in time you know a bit of political retribution and I think there's Merit to both sides but the the example that I gave to help people understand that I do think that this should be nonpartisan at scale but I I basically made the comparison to like a cheating spouse and you know you don't need to blow up your

marriage necessarily but if you just immediately take back the cheating spouse at the precise moment that you have caught them with their pants down you are not to be taken seriously it's just there's such a profound lack of self- respect to be in that situation and say oh it's okay come on back same day and that's essentially I think what the what the uh Democratic operatives in the crypto policy sphere are saying when they say we can't make this political this year I agree with you next year the year after that come on home right like we should be engaging with everybody and focusing on education resolving these disagreements through the political

process um with the next Congress but this year it's pencils down anyone that was against us there is a time stamp for when you were against us and we're coming for everybody that we possibly can we won't necessarily be able to come for Liz Warren because that seat might be Untouchable although John deon's goingon to give her a very good run for her money and I'm gonna I'm gonna support him in doing it um but we're going to swing at least five or six Senate seats and I think the goal is to get the president um the the White House shifted because if Biden is reelected or Harris is reelected or whoever it is on the Dem side we're [ __ ] because the financial Regulators are not going to change and Liz Warren will still have outright control over the financial regulatory apparatus well so what what

living through this has made me think is if you actually look at other organiz like Industries in the US you actually see it's a little bit of a mixed bag about how political they are like Silicon Valley is a really great example of that that was also the internet was some crazy new thing remember there all these wars against encryption back in the day and there were a couple of really critical pieces of legislation that I think if they hadn't gotten passed in the right way the US you know internet and Technology industry wouldn't be what it is today and so maybe that's part of the reason why Silicon Valley aligned itself with one political party where they were currying favor you can like there's examples of that on the right right like the NRA and the gun industry in the US is like much

more right leaning but then there are also examples of you know you kind of mentioned the banking Lobby or the Telecom Lobby those seem pretty neutral to me and I guess I'm curious you know from someone who's thought about this quite deeply and is um you know a very thoughtful guy I mean are are there reasons why some of these some of these sort of Industry groups tend to become more political are there some uh is there some reason why some Industries are better suited to be neutral like what what do you think about that in the long run I I think it's probably mixed back I think the answer is more complex than than just you know a black or white issue of like some Industries are prone to be politicized others are not um I think it's a little bit more complex than that but I do think that um most

Technologies should be apolitical or nonpartisan um however we might want that to be true I don't necessarily know that it's true because I've made the point that I think that not all of them but I think that there is a sizable percentage of the democratic conference um you know people that literally identify as Democratic socialists Like Bernie Sanders or AOC or you know folks like that that um believe that the centralizing force of government is a net positive and that you know government can be a solution when it comes to wealth redistribution and kind of enforcing certain policies and and and this that the other thing um and I've made the point that I think um the values that kind of underpin crypto are actually

very similar to you know American constitutional values right code of speech First Amendment this is defense tech for you know against folks that might want to seize your wealth or could be defense Tech against you know runaway AI that's kind of like the Second Amendment Fourth Amendment right to privacy like everything with tornado cash and any you know pseudonymous nature of of of crypto or fully Anonymous nature of crypto like that's kind of enshrined in the code Fifth Amendment due process self executing code 10th Amendment decentralization of power I don't think that there's a I think there's a large percentage an uncomfortably large percentage if you're a Democrat but I think there's a a large percentage of the democratic conflict confence that would not ratify the Bill of Rights today with those five

amendments without changes and that's a philosophical divide I think that's hard to Bridge and and people might disagree with me about that but I think the onus is on them to prove it because if they did think about these issues the same way I actually think that their approach towards crypto would reflect that and it doesn't today so you know at points in time like that yes there might be an impass um and um and and that's when you fight the political fight and the Electoral fight not just the policy fight right so there's a difference between the Electoral politics and the policy politics policy politics is basically like the operations how everything gets done but political you know electoral Focus politics is who

makes these decisions and who is involved in the operations right it's the hiring and firing process to the operations and you guys know as Founders just like I do like it matters just as much who you have at your company and what the culture is at that company as what you're actually doing because if you if you [ __ ] up the people you're done and and so that's why I think it's it it sounds very nice and most people don't like fighting I personally I don't like fighting either but I don't I again I am someone that just wants to be left the [ __ ] alone and uh as an American and someone that's actually studied like the Constitution and and thought about going to law school and has always been politically inclined I look at this

issue through that lens philosophically and I just basically come to the conclusion that like well yeah if you're going to if you're G to just run rampant over a technology that I think is is is constitutionally protected then you know we're gonna have a fight just leave me alone and follow the Constitution we don't have any problems and I think that's where the difference of of opinion and approach really comes down to and oh and and by the way I just should say my and our team's approach like um I off camera I had mentioned like the castling maneuver right so and and chess my version of castling without getting into too many of the forward-looking details which I'm really excited to kind of share later this summer but my my version of castling is you know for for those that are not familiar with chess

it's the one move where you basically get to move three times you you basically get to move the King two spaces versus one and you get to move the rook and basically swap out the rook and put it into like an offensive position so this is really kind of nifty move that was you know not in the original game but it was actually invented you know uh much much later and it um it's is kind of like a core part of the game of chess as you're thinking about strategy and actually like advancing you know uh your pieces forward and um my version of castling is internationally nothing changes we are doing the same like suit and tie proactive engagement very subdued um approach to all these International

regulators and all these International companies for two reasons one their laws are different they don't have the US constit tion and two their technocrats are better than ours so you know my version of that is I have essentially focused all of my personal effort on the US because I think this is where the fight is and the rest of my team is doing a great job on the international front so that is probably a Nuance that's lost on some people but there's a reason that I try to make myself uh scarce uh globally aside from the fact that I have four kids and it just saves me a lot of travel and headache but the um but you know and and our team has things under control but like I BAS Al only go when I'm invited to go places internationally because I understand that people yeah uh might might you know

find my my Approach in the US jarring but there's a reason that it's jarring in the US because you're allowed to be brass knuckled in this country yeah I'd love for you to help me um I I was having this conversation with a with a friend the other day who's very very very Dem like has always been a Democrat will will be a Democrat no matter what and I was trying to he was asking me like why why the Democrats are so bad for crypto and it starts with said well it's not really Biden it's that Biden puts in place these people to run things like the SEC like a Gary Gensler he said why why is Gary Gensler so bad like well he's basically a puppet for Elizabeth Warren like okay well why is Eliz Elizabeth Warren so bad what motivates her to be so bad and that's

where I actually got a little bit hung up and I'd love for you to help me understand like why is like what what is motivating the Democrats here to be so and really what is motivating Elizabeth Warren to be so anti- crypto here I actually had this this the same thing happened to me I was describ I was trying to describe this to my my physical therapist actually I've been talking about this way too much to you on the last phys therapist like shut I shut up dude uh but I was trying to describe her I was like yeah there's this whole dynamic between the Republicans and the Democrats the Democrats are really bad for crypto and she was like well why is that and about 30 seconds into my explanation I just realized I was sounding like a a conspiracy theorist to this person who

like doesn't give a [ __ ] about the industry and know anything about this and I was just like well they've been attacking us and I was like well that sounds just kind of crazy if you have no context but so help help us I would actually love a script from your perspective um yeah I mean a couple things if you want to do something evil wrap it in something boring and I think the I think the evil is um a philosophical divide between me and and I think a lot of uh right of Center folks were libertarian leaning kind of civil liberties oriented Democrats and Elizabeth Warren which is um she and others going back to the Democratic socialist point they they do believe in the power of government and and

government redistribution and influence um being a positive force uh for good in society and I think the evidence is so clearly um in my mind against them right you just look at history and and the force of good that capitalism is has been in the scourge of Communism and and you know basically everything that uh communism touches do everything capitalism touches thrives um and so it really is a fundamental divide in across that lens and you have someone in Liz Warren whose entire career is based on financial oversight and um control and influence of Banks and major Financial entities crypto is a threat to

that strangle hold that she currently has and it started when she ran the Consumer Financial prot Protection Bureau which was basically formed and she was the first head of uh under Obama and then um it's evolved since as part of her you know mandate in the senate or what she perceives as her mandate in the Senate to influence every single Financial regulator and she actually came into office and I think more or less explicitly said this in early interviews something effective I'm not running for Senate and I'm not going to sit in my seat at the Senate to pass bills I don't care about bills she cares about Shifting the Overton window to the left number one and number two she cares about personnel because she's actually very

smart and people underestimate her at their own Peril because they look at the number of bills that she's passed and they say ah well you know she's just kind of like the crazy lady from you know from Massachusetts well yeah but she's doing three things one she's Shifting the Overton window left to she's running interference for some of her less Progressive colleagues she can take the outlandish position on the extreme and then they can still kind of move pretty far left safely without being branded in the same way that that she would be and she can do that because she's safe in Massachusetts and third she has a strangle hold right now because her endorsement really mattered in 2020 and in exchange for her endorsement in 2020 Biden whose background was in foreign policy um even when he was selected as

as um as Obama's VP he did not have the financial and like economic Powerhouse team behind him early on in that campaign in 2020 so when Warren came in and stabbed Bernie Sanders in the back it was in return for this Devil's bargain where I'm going to have influence on who the staffers are on the financial policy side so it does sound like a conspir it does sound like a conspiracy but sometimes conspiracies are literal conspiracies and you're not crazy but you just need to be able to like soberly look at the situation put two and two together and be able to articulate it and and for anyone that wants to read um uh masari's annual report my my my thesis um there's a 30 page section and you know a couple of

chapter specifically on this Dynamic of how Warren's influence extends not only to the White House but then back down to the house because house leaders that are progressive or you know folks like Maxine Waters will literally get calls from the White House and the financial Regulators that are putting pressure on her when it comes to what what bills you know should or should not be supported or what language should or should not be included and those calls are coming from people that weren't helped place or like came from her from her Circle so you know again uh if you're trying to explain it in 30 seconds very difficult that's why you know I think this format is is helpful because you people will see my tweets 280 characters at a time and I don't blame some people for saying

like did celus have a nervous breakdown or you know is he like out of his mind or is he just like thrown over the chessboard or what's going on but um if you if you understand like the logic and the how clear I am about everything that's happening politically under the hood then you can start to talk tactics and from a a tactics and like you know information Warfare standpoint you know look you guys know that I'm not short on ego but I think that the last six weeks in hindsight will be an information Warfare [ __ ] Master Class um in terms of what I I was able to do under enormous stress obviously but I think what I was able to do over the last six

weeks um across a few different axes you know what I think is is just really uh you know to give you a lot of credit where it's due is I do feel like there were a lot of Industry participants that were just accepting a much worse outcome for crypto in the US sort of implicitly slowly over time and know you run a business that's you live in the US and I would guess most of masari's business is probably us-based blockworks is in the same bucket I I can't tell you how different the landscape is here um you know today than it was two years and that's that's not just regular Market Cycles like it's it's it's a night day difference going International being in Europe or Asia versus the us today that's conference attendees that's interest that is uh you know the um you

know some of our investors actually mentioned there was a light bulb moment for me about six months ago where they mentioned they hadn't backed a US founder in over a year I mean that is crazy from some of the best investors in the industry I mean and I think you to your credit just elevated this to guys this is an existential risk and whatever your politics are if you want to do business you know for crypto in the US you have to care about it so I think I think you have done a really good job of just raising the entire urgency the kind of level of the industry well and and by the way I'm gonna walk the walk too because I don't know that I'm personally gonna feel comfortable or safe staying in the US if Biden wins re-election or Harris wins re-election um wait say say

say more about that well I think that I'm bordering on like a politically exposed person right now be like you know again people can call me consp JY theorist or or you know whatever they want but I mean you look at the weaponization of the justice system and you know if if if the blue team wins I kind of think I'm A Marked Man so I probably just want to get out of the country not that they're like literally gonna send a [ __ ] Blackhawk helicopter and take me out with you know lasers or anything um although they might you know who knows uh give me a few more weeks to stir a little bit more no no but I'm generally C I'm genuinely little yeah well okay so the the most in ous way that this would manifest do you think that I as the

leader ofari will ever be able to have a constructive conversation with the SEC if Biden wins re-election no yeah it' be pretty tough so like we have built a private version of Edgar we should be their best friend I have personally exposed half a dozen of the largest financial frauds in crypto history I have personally in the last 10 years done more to protect investors promote fair and efficient crypto markets and promote Capital formation in this emerging industry than the entire taxpayer funded sec I will literally die on that Hill anyone with two eyes that knows anything about my track record that

knows anything about misari knows that that is true Hester P's Safe Harbor proposal in 2018 that has been Gathering dust for six years was written side by side with reg SK which is the securities disclosures um norms and and and kind of guide book and our fledgling disclosures products in 2018 when we were just getting started I know that because they've told me because we worked with them on it so that's been collecting dust for six years and we've just been slowly grinding through building the piece by piece Brick by Brick to hopefully solve this problem and gift wrap it for whoever the first regulat regulator is that wants to take us up on the offer and the good news for us and

the good news for me and my team is internationally that pitch is selling really well right now because other people have their [ __ ] together in the US it's going to be adversarial until this bum is out suus what's it been like for you personally going out on such a limb here and for folks on the team right like this is a politically torn moment in the US right I'm sure there are some folks on your team who are like hell yeah let's go and then I'm sure that there are some folks on the team who are like wait a second this goes against my personal politics like what's it been for you to really stick your neck out and that that that has been the last six weeks has been without a doubt the most challenging not I think not just of my

career but honestly just personally I think of of my life like the number of every single week it's felt like on four or five different axes there's been an order of magnitude leveling up of stress and challenges and complexity every single week for like six consecutive weeks it's felt like four five or six orders of magnitude of complexity every single [ __ ] week um and fortunately I I got to the point um last week uh I don't not a Breaking Point or anything but but like I think a fork in the road which is um I seriously uh considered resigning um from Missi you know which I obviously found it six and a half years ago I I you know I was

very serious about it I talked to the board I talked to the leadership team about it I was very close not because I would ever quit on the team or or that I I don't love what we're doing or believe in what we're doing or believe in the team but because I was concerned that this kind of fork was not going to be reconcilable with the direction that we needed to go as a company and um that weighed pretty heavily on me because obviously as a Founder you know you go from a Founder Le to like an outside you know CEO there's a huge culture shock it was unclear whether it would be navigable even with a transition period and um and I also just felt like there's unfinished business and we're we're cooking right now like I feel great about where the product is I feel great

about where the team is and more than anything I would never quit something that I started because did you consider it because your internal team was kind of turn like turning they've been no they've no they they've been no the board has been super supportive the team itself has been super supportive everybody is I think been on edge and it's been chaotic because it's felt like you know shrapnel and and you know unpredictability for like six weeks again at you know kind of building to a crescendo and so you know I think uh all credit to the the the team and and and the the investors and the customers that we've had too who all have all been universally supportive even if privately they're like is sooka okay because like a lot of the folks that we work with as customers they've known me for a decade

and um and it's been difficult to share that in a very comprehensive way which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this pod with you guys it's been it's been difficult to share that in a comprehensive a way that is believable that isn't just like okay well then he's going to turn around and he's going to say that he wants to fight Mark Cuban so do we believe what he said like to my face or do we believe what he's actually doing what his actions are on Twitter and I kind of feel like we're we're entering a period um where you know actions speak louder than words but people are going to see the kind of reinvention of my online Persona to reflect the direction that I'm going to take the company now that I've figured out this Castle uh maneuver can you give a hint of what looks

like I think I I think I did a little bit in terms of talking about the international versus the the domestic I mean essentially it it boils down to let's stop pretending that the SEC is an an adversary and a competitor and if you can make that leap that they're an adversarii and competitor then anything I do with respect to investigative journalism that's targeted at the SEC and helping that agency collapse in on itself um anything that we do from a product standpoint you know all kind of triangulated in that direction and you truly view the SEC as an agency that must be um radically restructured and rebuilt um then it's it's a little bit easier than like this

half in half out well we need to win the election but we also need to work well with the SEC no we will work very constructively and well with the SEC if it is restructured and if it is under Republican leadership at this point yeah there is no scenario where we are not directly competitive and adversarial with an SEC led by Gary Gensler and that allows us to still be very constructive internationally now how we do that that's what I'm going to keep close to the V but once people understand like that that's the light bulb that turned on everything should start to make a little bit more sense in hindsight like this wasn't a bluff like I I think I was very close to a decision point that was was going to be difficult but um fortunately it never got all the way

there because I realized why maybe the most obvious thing do is just call a spade a spade like I've been doing everybody knows this guy's corrupt everybody's suing him I where the hell is it is this your Oppo report this is 200 this was last year this was last year 200 pages of Oppo on one person okay this is I'm not I'm not bluffing here like okay wow this is last year this is twice as big this year as it's refreshed so you know what if you're going to try to kick my family effectively out of our home and force me

to consider moving offshore for my political beliefs or for my industry and you're going to threaten my team and my livelihood and the folks that have bet on me and that have entrusted whatever period of their career they've been with Masari I'm going to come for your [ __ ] head and anyone that isn't willing to say that and stand up for themselves I'm probably going to have a a disagreement with cus I would love to get your interpretation of okay the industry has been held back for so long by bad administra like regulators and an Administration who just didn't want

crypto in the US I would love to get your and by the way like obviously we have a slightly different meet like we're not really building an Edgar um but I one thing that has felt like it's missing in crypto for a long time from a data and information standpoint is these Frameworks that everyone abides by and I do think you need some sort of rules uh it sort of feels like we're we're we're at the point of an industry where like we need a little bit more structure than we than we've had and we we haven't wanted to engage the government the Pol like The Regulators because they've been so just openly oppositional to us I would say um but one thing that I find myself getting you know a little bit hopeful about is Maybe if we actually had someone in in office that wanted us

uh around here we could get a little bit more clarity on that front so could you actually just paint uh you know a picture for listeners who are maybe here in the US and have been frustrated by the lack of solid uh you know regulation or guidelines or whatever what could this look like if you know we did have a trump presidency and there were more favor favorable people put in charge of the SEC and whatever like what's kind of like a best case outcome for what crypto could change into well a couple things one I think the next Trump Administration will have a crypto Zar no it's not going to be me I'm not gunting for a pot a spot in the administration and and based on the strategy that I have and and you know the things that I want to do with masui I actually think

that we be more valuable and and and um uh as a political Ally uh for folks that are like-minded than um than anything I could possibly do in government so can can kind of have my cake and eat it too in that regard and you know as as could some of our crypto allies um I I think you know with respect to the the the precise rules and language you have to remember these are going to be there's going to be different flavors of essentially the same core information reporting problems across the globe right but m is GNA have one flavor VAR is gonna have one flavor Mas is gonna have one flavor and then eventually the us will have a flavor the US was probably the most

important flavor right that's you know the Battlefront is here it's the largest economy in the world we dominate Finance we dominate Tech and we have the constitution on our side right so the the framework that you want to get right and is most important to get right is the one right here at home um I don't think it's rock rocket science uh what would be good policy and I think you have um you have Senators like uh JD Vance and Hagerty that are starting to think about what would actually intelligent legislation look like that fully covers the exchanges that creates rules for Banking and stable coin issuance and that also essentially

creates like a section 230 moment for the industry that protects all of the emerging applications right so you know let's not throw the baby out with the bath water because if we do the regulation poorly now then thousands of assets and thousands of new networks might not emerge because there will just be too much red tape to get through and by the way this is the reason not that I'm on this big Crusade but this is the reason that I actually give a [ __ ] about this not just philosophically but commercially because you guys know this too Missi does well if there's thousands of these assets if the information if if if the um uh the Maze and the ability to navigate this asset class is impossibly complex that's the greatest gift for you guys for me for like the handful of us

and you know financial information there's like half a dozen 10 billion dollar companies so you know we said at the at the top that you know we're competitors I think that's somewhat true but you know in very important respects it doesn't [ __ ] matter because there's going to be multiple very big companies in this sphere provided that we are able to grow and Thrive as we have for the first decade of crypto's life and that only happens if you have something analogous to like a section 230 moment for financial assets right section 230 being the um the the internet bill I forget the name of the bill but basically the 90s internet bill that you know essentially created a lot of these

standards section 230 Exempted online platforms from the specific um online platforms and Publishers from the specific person's um speech so you couldn't be held liable for defamation or you know any any of the speech violations that might happen on your platform or on the open internet you would have to Target the individual we need something very similar to that but for financial applications and crypto applications cus if you had um if you sat down with someone and you're they're like list out the three to five things that like year one my 100 day crypto policy like the things I want like for me it would probably be like I want you guys to let people do self- custody I want regul I actually do want

regulation of the exchanges and like the custodians and folks like that like the centralized players um I want the proliferation of stable coins and not a c um those are like the some of the three those are like the three first things that would come to mind for me not having thought about it as much as you like what do you think about that you just nailed the 30 seconds that Trump did on crypto at the libertarian convention go back in insert that 30 seconds into this episode you literally just hit on the exact talking points that the Trump campaign and and Trump team and policy team have been engaged on and studying and trying to distill down

the only one that I would the only one that I would add is that I think Bitcoin mining is very important to protect um for um for counterintuitive reasons being that the Innovations and the development of Bitcoin mining infrastructure is actually going to be extremely helpful as we think about managing the grid with all these AI super centers so you know it's protecting you know uh that infrastructure investment and making sure more of it's here at home because we are going I think the um the folks are building an AI are really going to be able to capitalize on that early work from the Bitcoin miners as they're thinking about managing and and and kind of load balancing the grid um for uh for for AI super centers too so let's say

that's the best case best case is we get good stable coin uh good reg those not negotiating unconditional surrender great best case what is worst case here Biden gets reelected and they just slowly strangle us yeah I mean the worst case is the status quo Ripple has spent over100 million on lawsuits gray scale spent two years God knows how much money on their lawsuit coinbase and Kraken Relentless defense and offense that I'm sure is racked up tens of millions if not getting close to the nine figure Mark there are only so many companies that can do that and eventually people need to realize that the state has unlimited

resources and unlimited funds to pursue people regardless of how egregious their misbehavior is look at the Deb box case in um was it Utah or yeah I think it was the SEC branch in Utah they dissolved that office because it was so corrupt that office doesn't exist anymore and now what I said is true I want that to happen to the other 11 branches and that's going to be my goal for the rest of the year is to you know slowly disassemble every single one of them it is uncomfortable to say this especially if you're in a regulated industry especially if you are yourselves regulated and one of the things that has been to my benefit in this process is that we're a data research and information company we're a little bit harder to attack headon they're still going to try I'm sure that Gary's gonna

try to right you don't you don't have a token you're not we don't have a token we don't move money around right so there I'm sure that someone's gonna try at this point I've already telegraphed someone's gonna try just because I'm I'm being so like in in your face about it but I can say what other people think and what prog and and what increasingly more people are willing to say which is the SEC under Gary genser is one of the most corrupt institutions in the country Gary enser himself is one of the most corrupt political operatives in the country and until he is out at the SEC and until some of these other Liz Warren plants are out of their positions of power it's going to be tough for us to make real progress you know Marty gromberg is stepping down

from the FDIC in disgrace after all the scandals that they uh that that that agency has been played with recently the nominee that's going to come in to the FDIC is worse she's like a direct Liz Warren Acolyte and she's younger and she's going to be around for five years and you're not going to be able to get rid of her that's what we're up against yeah the the the the the entity that is literally running a second version of what they had explicitly named Operation choke point under the Obama Administration this is not conspiracy again it's hiding in plain sight operation choke point cut off banking access to politically disfavored Industries just so happens at

crypto is under the microscope now so if there isn't a change in control in the executive branch it doesn't matter it doesn't matter I know that's uncomfortable for people but it doesn't matter it just doesn't so you know one if if more people come to that realization then it will be less difficult to understand why I am banging the table and putting all the chips in the center of the table to make sure that Trump wins and the Senate goes red why is it um we've mainly talked about Trump Biden can you say why it's so important that the Senate goes red like why why you not focused on because well because the the Senate confirms all the political appointments um and Senate banking is where Elizabeth Warren sits so if she's in the majority she's even

if she's not the chair she's gonna have outsized influence on Senate banking um so the in terms of like you know School School House Rock like how a bill becomes a law there's a couple of interim steps there that are glossed over in the Schoolhouse Rock version but but one of the most important is that um these aren't bodies of like 100 senators or you know 400 whatever congressmen there are hierarchies and there's power dynamics within those two Chambers and there is a great deal of deference that is given to the Committees that cover certain areas right so you will only see certain bills introduced out of Senate banking or house Financial Services or Senate agriculture or house Agriculture

and so you need look at the power rankings not just at who's in those committees but the power rankings and kind of who would be next in line in those committees and um and Liz Warren will be moving up the leaderboards if we knock out a couple of her allies um uh on banking but at least she'll be in the minority got it what would you say to someone listening to this who actually has no interest in crypto um now there probably aren't many of those people listening to Empire but uh if you're sitting down with your your your cousin or something who doesn't really care about crypto but does care about the election and does care about politics um actually specifically there are probably three things I hear people talk about when they say no like look I'm not there's no way I could vote for Trump

it's abortion uh he's a criminal and January 6th I'm curious how you think about the social issues and maybe those three those three issues as well well I mean I'm like I said I'm a Libertarian so I think I'm I'm socially liberal last night the debate was fascinating because because Trump's answer on abortion the most dangerous issue for him he actually had a better answer than Biden did and and that's one of that was pointed out in some of the kind of postgame coverage even un like CNN and kind of the liberal Outlets which was that's how lopsided the debate was um but I think there's an important reason to that um for that issue in particular I'll tell you right now because I've

I've sent this around to several Democratic congressmen said okay if the status quo on this issue is is it's all remanded to the states right and it's now a States issue to resolve then would you ever propose something that instantly improves this situation for 50% of the states and women in 50% of the states and does nothing negative to the other 25 states that are currently blue and they know it's a trap and a trick question because it is possible to do so they just would never introduce legislation to that effect and it's because they want to use this as a

political football so like I you know we don't have enough time uh for today to kind of go into the specifics here but I have an eight-page memo on this particular issue and again this is part of the like creative unlock from Molly's piece you quite frankly which is this particular issue that everybody is losing their minds over we could immediately solve 99% of the problem if there was any political will from the Democrats to actually solve it they don't want to because it's one of the only three things to your point that they they can win right now that's how off the rails that party is the other one is January 6th Nancy Pelosi there was just footage out confirming what Trump's been saying all along which is he offered to send the National Guard there and she refused and basically in a film that her daughter took said we're

responsible like and this happened like a week ago or two weeks ago like I that's one of the things one of the many things that is confirmed to me that we're living in a simulation because like everything is break the wrong direction for the Democrats right now and they're getting exposed as Liars for like some of these signature issues and then the third one he's a criminal you know going back to our friend Gary Gensler you guys know that he was the campaign CFO for Hillary Clinton right yeah yeah and you know that he signed the checks for the steel dos and you know that they ultimately settled a misdemeanor for these same type of fraud that they're now

threatening to send president Trump to rers for you could call me a conspiracy theories but I got all the receipts man like I didn't get into this and take these kind of risks personally professionally socially if I didn't have every single one of the [ __ ] receipts and I wasn't able to clearly articulate step by step how I've come to these conclusions the fortunate thing for me is there's not really inner turmoil right now because I happen to think that um despite the rhetoric Trump is closer to a Libertarian than any uh political candidate that we've had in my lifetime or our lifetimes but um I know that's not popular and there's you know a bunch of people that would disagree with me on that I just I happen to think it's true and and I probably agree with him on you

know 95% of the core issues um which makes it a little bit easier for me so I I do recognize that if you know if you if you are a progressive in crypto that's going to be a much more difficult Hill to climb than it would have been for me but it's one of the reasons that I felt pretty comfortable you know advocating for some of these positions because I just I already believe them I just didn't think that I'd have to say them out loud as an operating CEO yeah and why do you think folks like maybe Reed Hoffman or venod this kind of the Silicon Valley Elite crowd has been so vocally Democratic it's a philosophical divide it's a philosop I mean um I call them the real bulvik of Silicon Valley um

there's a there's a real social capitalist divide and the thing that pisses me off about those guys is it's all coming from people that are pulling up the ladder after themselves and using all their Financial Muscle their political muscle to stifle dissent and the up andc comers because I think if you took a poll in Silicon Valley of where Founders and people in Tech are leaning under the age of 40 you're going to see something that would alarm Reed Hoffman and venod and Ron Conway which is why they're being so aggressive and stifling descent right now and using you know 10-year-old cancellation playbooks that don't necessarily work anymore there's actually a trend in Canada celus I'm not sure one of our our new podcast hosts uh

guy Felix Jovin is is based out of out of Canada and he was saying there's this you can actually see it it's like Trudeau is losing in these historically extremely Progressive spots and did you see did you see bology uh he had a tweet of the G7 Leaders with their disapproval rates over their heads yeah I did not actually know brilant I think Trudeau was like minus 35 and uh Rishi was like minus 50 and Biden was like minus 30 or something like that it's it's pretty funny you should look at it all right yeah it's just interesting like the young this is something that no one really had on their 2024 bingo card is the youth actually moving more conservative which is historically not that's been the opposite you know I think conservative is I think the reason that

there's probably so much internal turmoil with so many people is I'll use myself as a perfect case study I don't identify as conservative because because conservative to me is a loaded word it it reminds me of all the social issues it reminds me of like the the wars you know like George W Bush was a conservative like I don't view myself as that and then on the other hand you've got all of the labels around like magga magga Maga extremists right that's that that are being levied as attack and you think about you know the protesters of January 6 you think about the you know the the folks that are at the rallies that are like holding up the posters that are are you know viewing Trump as like a god right and I respect

the man but I don't I certainly don't view him as a God I think there's a lot of folks um younger folks probably the same folks that you're talking about in Canada same people that I'm talking about in Silicon Valley where I think V again uh he came up with this moncher at least it was the first time I'd ever heard him use it a couple of weeks ago of like this libertarian National Alliance which sounds like a contradiction in terms but I I actually think is is pretty profound which kind of speaks to the heart of what you'd call like the America first movement under the Trump umbrella but also why so many Libertarians are leaning in that direction and do view Trump as more libertarian than anyone that we've had in modern memory that's not to say he

got everything right he got a bunch of stuff wrong in his first Administration um which is why I voted for Biden but um but I I think in the second Administration it's going to be pretty night and day and he has other worldly political instincts and understands how people have evolved the last several years part of his generation change and part of it is he knows the next generation of conservatives probably look more like me and V and folks like us than the conservatives under George W bush and so whether you call it Maga or conservatism or libertarian nationalism whatever libertarianism I actually think that there's something really important there which speaks more to generation change

and a lack of institutional trust than you know anything that would be traditionally labeled conservative once you get past the labels and you have a conversation it's pretty easy right it's just that very rarely do you have this amount of time to articulate it you know what um I I actually listen to who who's the geopolitics guy that goes on uh I'm blank him his name anyway but I I listen to this guy I podcast four or five years ago when around the time that Trump first got elected and he was mentioning that you know political parties in the US aren't stagnant they actually change over time if you go back to the founding of the US you know there there's the Federalist and the I think it was the Federalist and the Democrats the Democrats would would be the equivalent

of the Republicans today whatever it was and he he was talking about how Trump um is basically this is the beginning of the end of the modern uh you know political parties in the US and even when I talk to my parents they have an extremely different conception of what it means to be Republican or Democrat than what's on the ground today and I actually was reminded last night have you guys ever read that involved lavacon thing groups never admit when they're wrong have you ever seen that no but he's usually good about titling things well and so I can I can probably imagine what the thesis is he is it's basically just individuals can admit that they're wrong groups never admit that they're wrong they prefer to just live in this reality that they were repressed and what's much more common is a Schism and

he gives this example of protestantism in you know Catholics and protestantism it wasn't like hey maybe we should relax some of the stuff that we thought was really important it was you know the body of Christ is not in the blood and I'm gonna fight Wars you know about and it just created this huge big Schism and what struck me last night at the end of that debate was I had I I mean it was crazy I didn't I didn't know what the reaction was going to be Jason and I were talking a little bit about it before this podcast but I think we were a little bit confused that people were so surprised about that debate it's like have you not been watching Biden I actually thought he did better than I thought he was going to do um but but uh it was crazy to see like the CNN host

immediately just get on there and say wow that was horrible kind of like knife him in the back a little bit and I feel like we're watching the you think it was an accident or you think this was premeditated moving the debate all right so I I I don't know I I always frankly it doesn't it doesn't matter like I think matter get too like spun up about that sort of thing but I think I think the most scenario is that they wanted this debate early to be able to make the decision they didn't know they didn't know exactly what was going to happen but they said you know what we're going to basically do this debate on these terms and if he shines great we're good and then we don't have another debate until September if he doesn't clear a very low bar which he didn't then we're

gonna have to make a change so I think again it like anytime you get more information you can make a better decision and so that's why you know any action you can take that's forward progress instead of just sitting on your hands is is is better and that's why you know I've I've been going on offense um because it rattles people when they're you know on their back heel and then that's when people make mistakes and that's when you can you know basically control the the momentum just like a sport right um you know fast paac fast tempo is usually gonna you know gonna win you the game I think the same is true in politics um but I want to talk about um just one thing you mentioned in terms of like schisms and like evolving parties I think this is a really important point and um and it's 100%

true I also think it manifests itself in a way that's not obvious at first blush because people look at RFK Jr and they're like well why don't we just finally try to make this the year of the Third Party candidate and I think that's the wrong way to look at it because a much better and healthier and stronger way to evolve over time is to have this kind of pingpong ball going back and forth over the net where Whoever has the stronger Coalition and is like more you know in tune with the pulse of the country at the moment or you the voters you know state or local wherever it is at the moment they will ultimately win in a two horse race a third horse [ __ ] it all up right because it it it just creates like chaos like three body

problem right like you know it's it's just there's there's too much chaos that ensues so it's actually better to have these schisms and these slow evolutions of the political parties whether they're called something different or you know whatever but I I actually have come around to the sense that like the two-party system actually does work but what really works is when you peel off massive chunks of um the voter base for one party to the other and I think that's what's going to happen this year so like Nixon did it um 49 states Reagan did it 49 states I think Trump is gonna uh I think he's gonna absolutely Crush I think he's gonna win 49 states but um and I'll give you one reason why and this is my next wi 49 states okay so I

can I can I have one maneuver for you guys and I'm going to make it my mission the next 30 days to use any accumulated political influence that I have to make this happen and I want you manver in chess form cus what what what's our chess analogy here okay so well let me just instead of I mean this is what I'm actually going to try to push for as best I can and I'm I'm basically like the the you know uh [ __ ] Jason Bourne at this point in politics but the um so I'm not giving myself too much credit but but if if at all this what I think is a very good idea could come to fruition then it would be a really good thing for the country and I think it would lead to 49 states let me know if you

agree RFK Jr drops out of the race endorses Trump and becomes his health and human services secretary which would give him oversight of the CDC FDA massive chunk of the federal budget that's a problem in terms of how we're spending money and has historically been his sweet spot in terms of where where he's taken on the administrative State and won so here's my like personal problem to give like well first of all first of all if that happened do you agree that that would be a game changer in terms of the the the the numbers and the popular votes right now I think that the it would have a huge impact on the popular vote yeah my my my actual issue like you are very clear-sighted in being uh on the libertarian side of things I I have this

problem where I hold two different ideas in my head at the same time I can see the facts that you see I see that the government comes in and messes stuff up and allocates capital inefficiently and makes poor decisions but I also see that there's a problem with just letting things totally ride in the free market and I actually just don't know how to reconcile these these two things that I'm holding in my head I I don't yeah I don't think it's to destroy government I think it's to give it the Elon treatment it needs to be radically restructured and and and trimmed down by 80% which is what you know even V has said that like V is um you know again like um I mean i' I've got to know him a little bit personally and I like him um and I just

happen to think that we're you know we see the world in much the same way I'm not like you know kissing his ass or or or know acting like a super fan I just I happen to share close to spot on you know um uh political beliefs and Frameworks to to him not 100% but close um and you know even he has said we shouldn't eliminate the federal government like we shouldn't eliminate you know everyone of these federal agencies but we can restructure most if not all of them and um working out pretty freaking well in Argentina right now I might add yeah I was gonna say Malay is doing pretty well all right here's my I guess if I had to so here's what here are the things that I like

about this which is it does feel like there's a lot of things that are broken and a lot of a lot of each each thing it almost doesn't feel like is a is a world-ending issue but there are lots of uh here here was actually something I didn't love that V said which was he would abolish the doe and like I have a girlfriend who's a teacher like I actually and if pre- crypto all this stuff you would have asked me if I was a single issue vo voter I would have said education I think that's so important for people like that's the key to unlock that's just a family value that's been driven into me okay but well let me let me let me take that directly on what if the funding that goes to the Department of Education was funneled back into the

states and actually went into teachers Pockets so that they have so that's I actually have been thinking that person because I've seen how like messed up it is you you know what I've I've got on this tire you know basically the the the the the the philosophical divide is between and the way to reconcile the way that I think you already think about things the philosophical divide is between people that believe that certain things should happen and people that believe the government will never be the solution to ensure that those things happen and so whether you're talking about the union leaders or the Department of Education or any centralizing bureaucratic Force generally speaking they're useless and in the way not always but just like anything else they're use there there's

going to be some really good operators and a lot of really mediocre or bad ones and the problem with government is there's never any accountability because there's never any Market forces so I agree teachers should get paid more I agree that we need to fix the education problems but the solution very clearly is not the Department of Education or they already would have fixed some of this stuff okay so there I'm inclined to agree with you and here's an analogy that uh I would be CU like you've probably seen this as a Founder you know CEO entrepreneur is in companies you often don't get real change until [ __ ] hits the fan because there's this really strong incentive where if it ain't broke don't fix it and it's kind of working so we really need only when you're confronted with something that feels

like an existential crisis do you say whoa what we're doing is not working and basically every you know huge Innovation at blockworks has come from Jason and I being like holy [ __ ] we are up against the wall we need to come up with solution here and we actually do make changes and I think I don't know y if you would agree that basically all the positive innovation of block Works has come from those moments and I do wonder if there's an element that's facing the us right now and it's a bunch of stuff it's I mean stuff that wasn't even getting talked about last night but one thing that I would love to see is people talk about food and the quality of what's going into our food which is basically poison RFK is Health and Human Services Under Trump yeah so United States baby

okay so here's what I would love then I because I feels like there's a lot of like tear it down okay like let's let's like radically rethink how we think about all this stuff but I want to see solutions for how to build it up too that that would be my hope I I and and I think it's out there let me let me ask you the question I mean I know we we compete on uh some in some respects but do you think that the country would be better off if Masari was fully empowered to run crypto information reporting standards or the SEC I mean you guys definitely I I I think so my so my my thesis right now is that there are dozens of Masari out there in different

pockets of different industries that could essentially run the same Playbook that I want to run against the SEC to great effect and essentially show that there's Market solutions that could make it easier and more um palatable to fire 80% of the bureaucrats because the Lion Share of the work could be done by contractors and I can prove this and you don't even to trust me orari you can literally prove this because this is already happening at SpaceX and what they've done replacing NASA's function this is already happened with andil pommer Lucky's company and most of the defense contractors you know the the Pentagon is not building all their own [ __ ] like they're working with contractors they're working with these

big entities and companies like paler and Ander have shown that you can be an upstart and win some of that business from the government um I just don't think anyone has fully operationalized this across the entire administrative state so you're talking about privatizing there's probably what 300 500 government agencies sub agencies you're talking about privatizing those well I'm saying let's look at what they do and what they are uniquely good at and what must be run from the government versus what could be delegated to much more efficient private Market actors I could get on board with that

yeah one thing that would make that um again and we're waiting into politics which is like you thought about this much I I I'm not pretending to have like sophisticated political opinions but I would what what would make me much more comfortable with that actually is removing some of the the money in politics if if you did this combination of like simultaneously trying to take some of the money out of politics and then giving over big parts of the responsibility to the private sector I'm on board with that that sounds well yeah I mean that's going to be easier said than done I think the way that we're do that's very tough yeah yeah but but I think but I think the way that that we're doing it which is essentially I think about it slightly differently and that you know let let's pretend for a

second that you could just take the entire like crypto team at the SEC to the extent that there is one they just focus on crypto and you say there's a thousand people that are working on crypto what needs to be solved and then someone like us solves it it's not necessarily that we're going to get taxpayer money because we already have a solution that works that doesn't net us a dime from the US government but what we've done if we continue to execute as I want to and as I expect we will is we've essentially showed that you don't need those thousand people maybe you need 200 so it's less about how do you grift your way into replacing government agencies as a

contractor and just like winning the book of Business by you know stroking checks like Sam bankman freed did and in instead it's you build the life raft and then you burn the boat not the other way around I can get on board guys I've actually got another podcast that starts in four minutes so I just I just saw Jana's facial Jana's facial expression what I just said that should be a gift of like the exploding head emoji you gota understand like my my I I come from a political family and I interned for uh Ron widen on the hill and my grandfather was a US senator for 20 years and it was I gotta I'm uh I gota I gotta process all this here so yeah yeah suus man this this has been

great I appreciate you coming on um you're much more levelheaded on a two-hour podcast than a 280 character tweet so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts man they're all by Design they're all by Design so uh but thank you uh and uh yeah I I like and respect you guys I thought for a very fleeting moment that I wanted to uh really come for uh a head shot but I I respect what you guys have built uh you know all all credit to the blockworks team keep up the good work and and yeah thank you for uh for uh for doing a little extra time feeling is mutual man a lot of respect dud happy fourth [Music]