Supply Shock Cross-Post: Trump vs Utah: The First To Buy Bitcoin | Dennis Porter

Transcript

hey everyone this episode is from blockworks latest podcast Supply shock hosted by the Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo this week he was joined by Dennis Porter of Satoshi action fund to discuss Trump's crypto Reserve announcement and the legislative goals of the Trump Administration enjoy there's a very clear difference between Bitcoin and a lot of these other coins out there and we got to make sure that Bitcoin is in the Strategic reserve and we have to show not just the politicians like I said but also these crypto lobbyists and crypto companies why it is so critical that Bitcoin be the Cornerstone of this Reserve hey everyone quick shout out to today's sponsor namada NADA is currently entering phase three of their mainnet roll out so make sure you check it out by following the link in today's show

notes we'll talk more about namada later today but for now let's get started hey everyone quick disclaimer before we get into today's episode nothing said on bell curve is a recommendation to buy or sell Securities or tokens this podcast is for informational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions not Financial advice our guest and I may hold positions in the companies funds or projects discussed the United States could buy over 20 billion dollars in Bitcoin at least if this man has his say welcome to supply shock on your host Pete Rizzo the Bitcoin historian on X Our Guest here today is President and co-founder of Satoshi action fund Dennis Porter you know him for his big breaking news

deliveries on X he's also a key figure behind the over 30 States that have filed for their own strategic Bitcoin reserves that's right US states buying Bitcoin of course six efforts so far have failed we'll dig into all the specifics but first want to talk about the news of the moment Donald J Trump announcing this weekend a strategic crypto Reserve that will feature five assets including Bitcoin though Bitcoin was added a bit as an addendum so Dennis curious to get your thoughts on this announcement and Donald Trump's strategy here does make you think that Donald Trump is serious about buying Bitcoin as president of the United States uh I

think it does but before we get D too far into the Trump conversation I gotta say man you got right away You're gonna bring up the six bills that have failed I mean aren't you supposed to be on team Bitcoin this feels like I'm already at the fake news hostile you know media Source over here right lay out the facts Supply shock is like clearly taking a side uh in this debate so glad to know where you stand on the side of History though Rizzo that's good that's good to know so uh yeah excited about the announcements you know as a bitcoiner I certainly believe that we need a strategic Bitcoin Reserve I am on the side of let's just do Bitcoin I mean that's going to be my preference um I wouldn't call myself an ultra Bitcoin Maxi but Bitcoin is the only thing I

hold you know I like things like stable coins so I'm I'm a non-traditional uh bitcoiner and I do see also really clearly the political landscape I we're sitting in this environment right now where the crypto indust industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in fact it was funny because just a couple years ago I was telling everybody like like if you want to see it at the table you're going to have to spend more money and I'm not necessarily a big money in politics guy in fact I'm pretty strongly against the amount of money that can be spent but at the end of the day this is system that we currently live in if you want to see to the table you got to spend more money in the last election cycle the amount of money the crypto industry spent has changed radically so we went from being

one of the smallest Spenders in the entire political space to the largest spender by Far and Away I mean if you look at this election cycle we spent more than anyone we spent more than the military-industrial complex we spent more than Healthcare we spent more than the oil and gas industry I mean we are the biggest spender and the the wildest part about it is if you go back 10 years we're still beating them over the 10-e period even though we only really spent a lot in this last two years in this last election so it's an incredible amount of money that's coming in from the crypto Lobby which you know in some ways that does benefit the Bitcoin industry but it's clear that they've been able to have conversations

around strategic reserves and they have made the pitch probably done a pretty good job of it that they should have also other assets within that Reserve I think that at the end of the day it's going to be very difficult to convince the Trump Administration to say it's only going to be Bitcoin they've clearly made known that they want all these other Assets in there our objective now must be as bitcoiners we have to make sure that as much Bitcoin as possible is in that reserve and that we make sure that Bitcoin even makes it in because as you saw the first tweet it didn't even include Bitcoin this is one argument I make a lot to people and I and I get beat up a lot for it I always want to be

the bitcoiner in the room crypto's got the money to Lobby there's no CEO executive or lobbying budget in in Bitcoin because it's a bottomup community and so what I've said for many years now is I said you know sometimes politics makes interesting bedfellows and you can't just go Rage Against the Machine you want to be on Twitter you want to scream into the void I used to do the same I don't blame you I'm on your team when it comes to bitcoin and I think there should only be Bitcoin but at the end of the day you have to achieve consensus with the industry that you're with and now it's our job as bitcoiners to go put ourselves in the room where there's crypto people and you know what for a while when I was put in the crypto room there was no other bitcoiners there literally

no one I was the only bitcoiner in the room having these conversations no one even understood Bitcoin at all uh especially politically it was all about crypto all the time as you as you well know it took me just a whole year just to convince them that Bitcoin mining wasn't like this horrible thing even like some of the crypto lobbyists were like ah we don't need Bitcoin mining it's not good it's bad for the environment they were saying that to the lawmakers a lot of the work we did changed that tune and enabled those crypto lobbyists to start saying good things about Bitcoin Mining and I think the same thing can happen with a strategic Bitcoin Reserve we have to convince not only the politicians we have to convince the lobbyists and the crypto companies why Bitcoin really is best suited to be in the Strategic

Bitcoin reserve and we understand why they would prefer proof of stake over proof of work because that's what they have or why they would prefer Ripple over Bitcoin being in the reserve but there's a very clear difference between Bitcoin and a lot of these other coins out there and we got to make sure that Bitcoin is in the Strategic reserve and we have to show not just the politicians like I said but also these crypto lobbyists and crypto companies why it is so critical that Bitcoin be the Cornerstone of this Reserve superar question followup I think you answered a little bit but want to nail it down just to get your thoughts uh so is this strategic digital asset Reserve happening 100% And is Bitcoin guaranteed to be included sounds like you think no I don't think either of those things are 100% certainly I think there's a very

high chance if it does happen that Bitcoin will be in there but again it was an afterthought it was the second tweet it was like a follow-up conversation so we really need to be thinking taking that very seriously and recognizing that you know a lot of bitcoiners are like Bitcoin should be the only thing in this Reserve nothing else should be in it I think you should be more worried about whether Bitcoin will be in it at all um so these conversations need to be had we need to be talking to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle why Bitcoin truly matters and why it's really should be the Cornerstone of this strategic Bitcoin or the Strategic crypto Reserve I should say um the other question was is it a guarantee that's it's going to happen nothing is a guarantee nothing no policy ever I've never said any policy ever is

a guarantee you can get to 99% but you can never do 100% guarantee on policy it's just not possible because anything can happen we've had policies that we thought no way anyone's going to get in the way of this policy everything is great all sunshine and Roses rainbows everywhere and then at the last minute some critical participant in the process starts to voice concerns and the whole thing falls apart that can happen at any moment at any time for any reason and often times it's hard to know why so we have to be always thinking optimistically but be prepared for the worst plan you know be hopeful but plan for the worst case scenario and that's why it's super important that we get as many bitcoiners as possible to

participate in these conversations and also to be having the conversation with the crypto lobbyists and the politicians on why we need to continue to drive this policy forward I mean look if you look I I think I deleted the Tweet but I just wanted to quickly flash it up there on my account I said that look at the chart of Bitcoin price action and look at the probability of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and they match almost perfectly so in a way this Market is really being it could possibly be being propped up just purely by the idea of a strategic Bitcoin Reserve so if you want Bitcoin to go up in price if you want the market to be successful maybe you don't maybe you want cheap Bitcoin but if you do want the market to go up certainly you should be getting behind this idea and

pushing it as hard as you can to make sure it gets across the Finish Line let's talk about the reaction uh and sort of the you know bipartisan nature of it it does seem like many CEOs at this point have come out and said they think that it should be Bitcoin or nothing uh you know Brian Armstrong so you of coinbase coming out saying that Cameron wios co-founder of Gemini effectively saying the same thing uh do you think there was a strategy here to maybe propose something uh that was extreme and then essentially maybe walk it back towards something like a strategic Bitcoin Reserve because that seems to be a popular sort of Twitter commentary at the moment that this is all sort of part of Trump's plan that this is just you know he leads with something ridiculous he walks it back do you see that there could be some

something to that theory I mean certainly Trump is willing to Pivot I mean he probably willing to Pivot faster than anyone when he sees where the right direction is to go politically um he's probably one of the most politically Savvy presidents that we've had in our in our lifetime when it comes to the willingness to just go wherever the the the water is Flowing so to speak where the political waters are are going to carry him um that being said I don't always just assume that everything single move he does is like 5D chess I think it's much more of Steve Bannon type of approach where it is the um you know Russian try to push as much as you can against the wall as possible as quickly as possible he calls it muzzle velocity um they want to fill the void

as quickly as possible with many ideas as they possibly can and they want to you know really full court press the political system to see what sticks and what doesn't stick so I think that's probably more likely here and that that is what has enabled Trump to be successful in the past but it given the new Administration and with all the people that are on his team that are much more in alignment with him compared to his last Administration I tend to believe that that is the approach they're taking now we also have to keep in consideration that some of the largest donors to the Trump Administration as well as people within the Trump family themselves are supportive of this idea of allowing other assets to be inside of the reserve uh you have the Ripple folks clearly are have made a pitch who are pushing and

they're spending a lot of money politically uh so that's a big part of everything that's happening right now and to your argument that it could be just you know hey this is just a negotiation tactic it could even be a negotiation tactic by Ripple I don't know maybe they're saying we're going to push on this because when it times comes for Market structure we can sort of pull back here on something that's less important to us and lean into something that's more important to us I we see this happen all the time when we were fighting against s SP 1751 in Texas it was a bill that essentially of almost eliminated the ability for Bitcoin miners to participate in Grid balancing and there was also a tax component in the bill for property taxes property tax abatements and when we were fighting hard hard hard to get it done

at the end of the day they were like you know what we'll give up the tax component because actually we really care about kicking you guys out of these grid balancing programs same thing could be happening here with ripple hard to know I try not to question people's motives it's very difficult to question people's motives but at the end of the day it's so important important that we continue to show and advocate for why and I told Jack MERS this you know in New York City I said thank you so much for championing and fighting out there keep making the case you know it's my job to be the bitcoiner in the room making the case but I can't be you know flipping the bird to these people I have to actually engage uh professionally but keep making the case for why Bitcoin I tell it to bitcoiners keep making the

case for why Bitcoin should be in the reserve why it should be the only thing in the reserve that makes my job easier and it makes the job easier for anyone else on Washington DC that does want to see uh Bitcoin be the the Cornerstone of this Reserve this episode is brought to you by namada NADA is the shielded asset Hub rewarding you for protecting the multichain shield your data across any asset and any chain and get shielding rewards for helping strengthen data protection for everyone to learn more follow the link in the description below today's episode is brought to you by Ledger the global leader in digital asset security celebrating 10 years of innovation Ledger is trusted by 7 million users secures 20% of the world's digital assets and Remains the most secure Hardware wallet for your crypto

and logins follow the link in this episode's show notes to grab your Ledger today let's talk about the case against uh Ada xrp Soul uh we know that these are cryptocurrencies that you know were started by founders of heavy concentrations where you know in some cases a single owner uh you know or multiple owners who are part of the founding team have a majority of the supply how do you make that case against if you are talking to the Trump Administration and pushing a Bitcoin only Reserve what is the case against these assets I won't single out one asset in particular but we'll really just compare Bitcoin to the broader crypto industry and at the end of the day 99.9% of crypto these are platforms these are places where you would want to and maybe some of it'll come to bitcoin

one day but if you're an alific person you probably don't believe that any of that's going to happen in the Bitcoin space so some of these things are going to survive outside of Bitcoin stable coins could be one uh you know Dows is something certainly that people been very interested in smart contracts these things all operate on top of these platforms and these are really crypto companies these are platforms that enable these Technologies and these op these utilities to be able to function properly and there's a race to the bottom to ensure that the price to participate or to ha have these smart contracts games you name it stable coins on those platforms it's a race to the bottom to provide those Services which means that they want to get it to be cheaper and cheaper and cheaper when you drive things to be cheaper and cheaper

cheaper in the crypto space you drive away decentralization and as you drive decentralization away you increase the odds that the people who are controlling those platforms very much like controlling a company can at can do what at any time they can change the protocol which means that at any time they could increase or decrease the supply so just from a just from a financial perspective I don't go as far as to say it's a national security interest if we have Ripple or whatever else in this Reserve I think it's just a financial problem it's a financial problem it's does it make sense to invest our money in an asset that at any point a company a crypto company once sufficiently no longer decentralized can manipulate the

price and dilute the amount of the current Supply so look at a lot of these companies out there already some of them have already done it um and some of them are moving further and further away from decentralization because decentralization doesn't make sense for everything decentralization is a tool to protect the world's most important things money is one of the most important things that we can protect with decentralization I would say voting kind of makes sense at one point if we can figure out a way to decentralize the voting platform so to provide transparency and auditability I think that cost makes sense to show that our votes actually matter and do count and we can verify them same thing with money I don't think it makes sense for gaming I don't think it makes sense to brutally decentralize a platform so that people

can have their game decentralized so that if the game console shuts down they can take their item from one game to the next I get why you would want to do it I just don't think you need to ruthlessly defend it with the centralization enable that through these platforms but making it so it's impossible for those items to go away because you've so ruthlessly decentralized your platform doesn't make any sense to me I don't think it makes sense I I similarly with other types of utilities that operate or want to operate on top of these crypto platforms so the argument really is do you want to invest in an asset that has that is trending towards an environment where it can be manipulated that maybe you do look look at look at mstr look at Apple look at

all these other stocks they certainly devalue and manipulate the stockholders they they dilute them all the time sometimes it's a good thing for the stockholders and they agree that they should go that direction I mean mstr has certainly convinced their stockholders of that sometimes it's not but the idea that our US government is going to invest taxpayer money into these types of assets and they don't have any sort of control over the manipulation that's the concern I have I don't think it's a national security risk obviously unless you invest way too much money which I don't think we're going to do but I do think it's a national security risk not to have any Bitcoin and so that's why I'm going to continue to fight to make sure that Bitcoin is a Cornerstone of that reserve and hopefully maybe one day we we wake up and we've maybe we get an

EO that says let's create a crypto strategic reserve and then Senator lus comes back around with her legislation and is able to pull that Bitcoin out and put it into its own siloed strategic Bitcoin Reserve want to get into the question of when and then also Loop in kind of the main theme of this which is obviously the states buying Bitcoin uh Cynthia lumus telling uh the news uh you know making her rounds I believe on Fox news last week claiming she thinks the states are going to beat the federal government to buying Bitcoin I know you've said you're bullish on Utah being the first US state to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet maybe as soon as as this Mark March uh so how does Trump's announcement shake this up do you think that states will beat Donald Trump uh to buying Bitcoin uh and putting on the

balance sheam I absolutely do there's a number of different states that are well positioned to be able to get this across the finish line but nothing is a guarantee you know we were very optimistic about Utah it's down to the wire now we'll see what happens they're in the last vote they've got to get it through the Senate before the end of the week Texas is looking good the end of this week they have to have the vote in the senate in Utah so they're making that they're getting ready to make the decision on when to have the vote and and trying to get the Senators on board and then you also have uh Oklahoma which looks good you're G to have some great legislation moving forward there in the house here shortly and then you also have North Carolina which looks really good our good friend Dan sper out there

leading the charge Iowa is also a great possibility as a Target State um and as I said Texas just a moment ago is well positioned politically to get it done yes the Trump tweet helps especially in these red states to what degree hard to measure but it does create a pathway for lawmakers and treasurers to get on board because they know that the person at the very top of their party and the top of the country has their back on this idea as well well maybe we could dive into Utah because that I think is the the big question and that's that's been something that people want to know is it going to happen what are the actual dynamics of what's going on so it sounds like you're saying this week it'll be

deigned what are the remaining questions that that people have how are the political parties aligning is it bipartisan are you optimistic love your thoughts yeah so at the end of the day it's coming down to the wire we've done everything we can to put it into a good position and it's really going to be up to the Senate the Senate President and the treasurer if they believe that this is the right direction to take or not we think it's about a 50-50 right now we were very optimistic about the state and we've gotten it into the position to where it can pull the lever and be the first to in the entire country get this legislation across the Finish Line uh certainly every time you have a brand new piece of policy like this it's always going to have some consternation I mean the vote in the house was close

it was 38 34 um then in the senate committee it was a toe tight vote so in the senate floor it's also going to be a tight vote and it's hard to know one way or the other which direction it's going to go it really is going to come down to the wire and that's why we'd encourage anybody in the state of Utah that wants to see this and get across the Finish Line to please reach out to your lawmakers and let them know that you support this type of legislation well what kind of things are being debated at this point in the bill right so we' introduced earlier in the session assume critics have kind of had their voice like are there particular issues that you think would stop Utah from buying Bitcoin at this point or it's just this is the nature of legislation it is

purely down to the comfortability of the lawmakers I believe that the legislation was written the appropriate way you know there are always going to be arguments over you know how much should it be should it be 5% 10% which fund should it go into I I don't really believe that there is a serious debate that needs to be had I think it's just a matter of comfortability of which you know funds they wanted to go towards and we work with every lawmaker and we try to work with the treasurers as well every time to get their input on what they believe is the right direction um we think the bill is written well we think the bill has written the right way to get across the finish line but it's going to come down to the comfortability of the folks like the treasurer and the Senate

president and the folks in the Senate on where they think this on whether or not they think it's a good idea right because obviously the bill sponsor Senator Kore who is the majority there the majority leader he thinks it's a great idea he's got a lot of political power but there are always other forces at play when it comes to getting legislation across the Finish Line we're very optimistic but it's it's gonna come it's going to be another tight vote so uh if that is something that people want to see get across the Finish Line I don't know when this episode's going to come out obviously if it needs to come out by before Friday in order to make a difference uh but if they want to see something change I would highly encourage them to reach out to the treasurer's office and to the Senate

President as well as if you're a constituent you know reaching out to your lawmaker as well that's a senator and let them know that you support this legislation do you see Utah being a bellweather here you know there's been I think a lot of community senent of course I've been tweeting pretty actively about the US states that are you know uh looking to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet obviously it's a historic race Utah really has become the front runner and has become associated with us I think within the Bitcoin community uh you know if you if the Utah vote doesn't pass or if it does pass like how do you think that changes the trajectory for the entirety of these 30 bills it will make a big difference absolutely the momentum that we've been able to generate off of Utah has been instrumental um just like the momentum

that we generated off of Pennsylvania by it being the very first state to introduce strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation at the state level and if we want to capture that momentum we can with a passage of the bill in Utah and continue the momentum I still believe regardless of whether or not Utah passes this bill into law we will see other states go on to pass it into law there are independent political movements taking place in each of these states and there are different forces at play in each of these states now if Utah were to pass it Not only would it help provide additional political momentum to the current states that are looking to get it done but the ones that are more on the fence I think that's where it makes a big difference the ones that are on the fence that I don't feel have the

political momentum currently could generate significant political momentum from this type of getting across the Finish Line in a state like Utah so early in the process of the ones you know a little bit of back and forth at the top of this episode I did mention that there were a few bills that have failed to pass so far have we learned anything from those are there lessons learns that can be applied to something like Utah or Texas or North Carolina going forward what do you make of those failures or those just you know tabling in some cases like in the case of New Mexico yeah definitely absolutely every process every policy um I should say every legislative cycle is a educational process not only for lawmakers but for us at Satoshi action and for other groups that are working as well you know probably the most obvious one would be

in Wyoming it was a little bit of a matter of Mis cordination because everyone oh wow the bill failed in Wyoming Senator L's home state clearly this idea is is not as sold as we thought it was the problem that happened in Wyoming was that there wasn't a group that really got behind the bill you know we could have theoretically gotten behind the bill in a big way but you know it's the state of Wyoming and we just kind of thought you know we're so busy in so many other states that Wyoming has been such a leader they probably don't really need our help because they've consistently been able to get these things across the Finish Line without our help they've done amazing work the problem with an idea like strategic Bitcoin Reserve though is it is such a new idea and now for the

first time ever you're talking about intertwining the funds that are held by the states with Bitcoin and for a lot of lawmakers they've just really never been presented with this idea so if you don't have a group like us or there's other groups as well on the ground and of these states pushing this legislation across the finish line if you don't have a group behind it getting ready to get in the trenches educate lawmakers and why it's important because it's easy to get a bill spawn I want say easy it's relatively um as you can see relatively easy the 24 States almost 25 States now actually it is 25 States now that have some type of strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation that they're they're reviewing half the country is looking at this stuff so you can get a lawmaker in at least half the country that's pretty

good odds but convincing the rest of the legislature and the treasur who's critical to be on board with this legislation that's a totally different ball game and if you don't have a group like Satoshi action or or another type of group nonprofit NGO you name it getting behind it it is very difficult to push because these states a lot of these State lawmakers they are they are running on massive budget deficits they have shortfalls some of them have a lot of money too but they don't tend to fund their state lawmakers enough they don't tend to give them enough staff so order for these things to get moved forward you really need a group to come alongside that lawmaker who wants to get it done and say you know what we're going to charge forward with you we're

going to get it across the Finish Line together we'll provide the one pagers we'll do the research I mean there is an incredible amount of work that goes into getting this stuff even viable you know we have done academic paper after academic paper we have also done uh studies to show how important it is that lawmakers look at this uh in a realistic way we've done resolutions in the past we're meeting with treasurers for well over a year now you know every is jumping in right now we have been meeting with these treasurers for a long time providing that comfortability we have been doing resolutions to let make half States look at studying bit look into studying Bitcoin for the purpose of buying in the pensions we have been doing one-on-one meetings driving advocacy campaigns we helped uh over 200,000 people write letters their

lawmakers at the state level advocating for this type of idea it's an insane amount of work that goes into just having a shot to get this across the finish line so if you don't have that I mean the of passing it are basically zero and in the state of Wyoming unfortunately we assumed there would be a group that would get behind it or an effort and it just didn't materialize so next year we'll definitely be back if they want us to help them there we're happy to help we don't want to step on their toes but if they want to see us help them we're we're more than happy to get into the fight so we certainly learn a lot every single time when we first started in June of 2022 FTX had just collapsed you know lawmakers were like what are we even going to isn't Bitcoin

dead and we barely even knew what we were doing we had enough we knew enough to get two bills passed in a law but it was very very very like watered down I wouldn't say watered down is probably not the right word but it was just much less significant than a strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill this is a much more cuttingedge piece of policy much more difficult but the work that we've done over the last two years the training the education that we have taken in and that we have delivered has put us in a position to pursue this type of policy um hopefully we get across the state in Utah but there are other options for us as well to fall back on to get that first state let's talk about the reactions from lawmakers you mentioned a few times there just the education process are there any interesting

anecdotes or stories from when you first presented these bills the reactions you got to maybe the more sophisticated reactions that you're seeing now now that some of these bills have spent as you said you know maybe a few months in the process of being considered have you seen lawmakers make a journey towards education what has that been like oh absolutely you know mentioned earlier June of 2022 we launched you could barely get a phone call with law makers to talk to them about Bitcoin you it was very difficult you know luckily in a way there there is one benefit of the shutdowns that we had from covid it's that every lawmaker in the world had to learn how to use zoom so that was good really helpful because most lawmakers

before then I'll tell you they wouldn't even they wouldn't even meet you unless you were in the state so you have to fly there every single time so we were able to scale our Communications really rapidly and actually get these phone calls to happen without having to be you know fored to go fly to every single state and on a and a nonprofit on a Sho string budget that was really really important to our success was the ability for these lawmakers and the willingness to jump on these phone calls because they had become very accustomed to it so we find I think it was seven states that we introduced policy in the first legislative cycle in 2023 very beginning of 2023 and we ultimately passed two bills into law but it was just like just protecting the ability for miners to operate that's that's it that

time back then was hard to get a call now if you fast forward to where we are today lawmakers are calling us they're sliding into my DMs they're emailing us they are taking our models off of our website not even communicating with us and just introducing them we don't even have to talk to them it's an emergent behavior that has started to occur and this is but this is what we had planned from the very beginning I don't think I really believe that it would happen this quickly um when I first started Satoshi action I really honestly just started it because I was worried about the direction that we were headed as a country and I didn't see anybody getting into the fight and doing it the way I thought it needed to be done we needed a a Grassroots advocacy group that could move across the country and push agendas

and push policy across the Finish Line educate lawmakers in mass and drive policy wins across the Finish Line we were always on our back foot always playing defense and we wanted to go on offense for Bitcoin we did that successfully and wow things have really changed not just because of our work there are many other groups in the space that are making a meaningful impact but I launched tooshi action because I really just didn't see anyone doing what were doing and I thought what we were doing is so important and now we're in this incredible position to be able to have conversations with not only state lawmakers State treasurers but also we're working on some stuff on the federal side as well now we've been able to because of our work you know obviously people are paying attention and they're saying wow look at all this

great stuff that's happening at the state level maybe we need to be working with Satoshi action on some of this federal work as well so we've been very fortunate to be put in that position and yes it's changed dramatically and now lawmakers are more than ever willing to learn about Bitcoin not on not just Republicans but also Democrats as well namada is the shielded asset Hub rewarding you to protect the multi-chain built to give you full control over sharing your personal information namada brings data protection to existing assets applications and networks namada ends the era of transparency by default enabling shielded transfers and shielded cross-chain actions to protect your data even when interacting with transparent chains namata also introduces a novel shielding rewards system by holding your assets in the shielded set you help strengthen nada's data protection

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today well the Bhed moment I think for many people uh just reserving in the industry was over 25 States there's only 50 states in the United States in the Union uh the bills have been introduced in over 30 States what do you make of that does it really say something about Bitcoin kind of as an idea or the idea of saving in Bitcoin and keeping it as a reserve asset as it hit some some threshold is there something to be said about the fact that the majority of US states are at least considering this proposal absolutely you know it's just a sign of how quickly things have changed the Overton window has totally shifted and it's continuing to shift and continuing to go the right direction and we now have 33 states with some type of pro Bitcoin or digital asset policy and

there's going to be more you know there's more coming we're in conversations with states that aren't on the map yet and some big ones too so very excited about how far we've come but at the end of the day at the end of everything when it comes to our work and all of these things that you're seeing all this orange on the map the only way the orange stays on the map is if they pass the bill into law if they don't pass the bill into law I wouldn't say it was for nothing because we'll be back the next year but that's the only thing that really matters the only thing that really matters is you got to get this legislation across the Finish Line you absolutely have to score these wins and that's the message we've been sharing from the very beginning but the the

beautiful thing about the states is you get 50 btes of the Apple you have 50 chances to score in Washington DC you only get one opportunity and usually it only comes every 10 years so that's sort of why we've spent a little less time in DC and also there's a lot of other great groups doing work there on the ground but this is why the states are so important because you can have so many chances to get things across the finish line but that is the only thing that matters because in five to 10 years the political winds could completely shift we could see another hostile Administration come through that wants to bash us all over the heads and and make us think about the need to go do our business elsewhere in the world and the only thing that's going to protect us is if we pass policy into law to

protect this industry and to create regulatory Frameworks that will stand the test of time blue red orange you mentioned it uh this is a republican issue or seen as a republican issue because of Trump's association with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at the state level are you you seeing bipartisanship emerge or are you seeing the Republicans in that environment absolutely I mean just look at the state of I mean there's a lot of obviously we're working in a lot of red States but we work in blue States as well we saw Massachusetts I'll start with the Democrat sponsors Massachusetts two Democrats introduce strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation one in the house one in the Senate we also saw in the state of Oregon Representative no introduce a Bitcoin Rights bill to protect the right to self- custody and a few other items we will see another big bill from a

Democrat coming from another deep blue State here that will protect digital asset rights Bitcoin rights um but on the states where you have Republicans leading and they're pushing legislation forward we've seen unanimous votes and don't and don't assume because it's a red state that the blue lawmakers in the red state are like not very liberal or not very Democrat sometimes they are sometimes they they tend to bend further to the right than like let's say um Democrats in a blue state but Democrats in a red state are voting in favor of this legislation in the state of Kentucky we just had a 91 to Zer unanimous vote there are Democrats in that state um we've had other legislation that has received unanimous votes in committee

and on the floor and Democrats have voted in favor of that so the big thing right now is the Democrat Party is going through a massive restructure huge restructure um it's much different than when this all happened in 2016 we didn't see this level of restructure take place the Democrat Party is is in a way in total rebuild mode you know like a sports team sports team gets down to the bottom of the bracket they're one of the teams that aren't winning anymore they you know instead of trying to focus on winning next year they go through this process of saying you know we're going to take a longer term approach and we are going to figure out what we're doing wrong and we're going to fix it we're going to take it seriously that process is happening right now in the Democrat

Party very early in that process but the benefit of that is the entire party is figuring out where it wants to go and so you have this opportunity as individual lawmakers in the country to go the right direction that you think you need to go on bitcoin because you're not having to worry about what the part's going to say to you you also don't have to worry about what the administration is going to say to you because there's no Democrats in power right now typically when you have the whoever the president is they're the de facto leader of the party so when Biden was president he's a de facto leader of the Democrats and also everybody that's in his inner circle is very much controll what happens in the Democrat Party well during his administration I don't think

it was really his idea I think it was more of a Warren thing but during his administration the defacto leader of the party was pushing and allowing for the suppression broadly RIT large of Bitcoin and digital assets so lawmakers that are State lawmakers and federal lawmakers that are Democrats have to be a little bit more careful they can't they cannot overstep the president they don't want to be in conflict with the president and the leader of the party generally speaking sometimes they will generally speaking that's most lawmakers on both sides of the look at the Trump Administration very few Republicans are willing to challenge Trump and the Trump Administration uh even probably more so than during this last Biden presidential um Administration but now that there's

no Biden there's no Democrat in the current in the white house right now and that the the Democrat Party is is rebuilding in rebuild mode there's a huge opportunity for these individual lawmakers to say you know what actually I am in favor of Bitcoin I do want to see stable coin legislation Market structure strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation I don't think we're going to see that broadly right away but this is a process where we truly start to find our Bitcoin champion on the Democrat side of the aisle not only at the state level but at the federal level as well looking atad post Biden I know this was a conversation in Nashville speaking of the bit Bitcoin conference The Narrative was very much that the Republicans were shifting towards a Bitcoin only or Bitcoin first approach and that it was the Democrats who were kind of broadly

crypto focused sort of yeah you know old alliances with Silicon Valley from the time of Obama's presidency uh so as we look to this post Biden Democratic party do we have a sense of what their Bitcoin or crypto strategy should be if you were talking to Elizabeth Warren uh what's the opportunity that you would say is on the table given this change that we've seen from Trump absolutely uh there's a huge opportunity in fact for Democrats not only do they have this restructuring that's taking place and so there's an opening um there's there's a there's a void that needs to be filled and there's a liability for these individual lawmakers to figure out what they want to believe on bitcoin and digital assets but Trump has also opened up an additional door because he has been so unrestricted in his support of everything crypto everything from

Bitcoin to him launching his own mcoin and because he has been so mcoin Bill even put forward right to kind of restrict some of the president and lawmakers from getting active in the market right yeah that was that was a natural of course we that was that's going to happen in at the state level as well so we already aware of those efforts taking place at the state level so um I'm not surprised that that that bill came from Democrats in the house I I'm actually surprised it took this long to an extent um but the reason why that's so important his unrestricted support and unlimited sort of free market for crypto is it gives Democrats the ability to create a position that is in opposition to some parts of that

space so you have the ability in my opinion for Democrats to be become very Pro Bitcoin very Pro stable coin maybe a few other items but then to become very AG against in an opposition to the worst parts of this industry and I won't go around sort of naming names on who the worst parts of the industry are but I think we can all agree that folks that are running for office they should be very careful about the way that they are using this Market to benefit themselves in public office I think that's a concern conern that a lot of people have had and I think it's a concern that Democrats can now get behind and let that frustration be something that they

will give a voice to that would be the smartest play for Democrats right now I have for a long time in fact many years despite being told by many bitcoiners that I was wrong have said that I actually believe that Democrats will be more likely to be more Pro Bitcoin than Republicans RIT large I think Republicans will be the party of minimal regulation defaulting to one side Democrats will be on the opposite side fighting for a little always a little bit too much regulation but I think if they can find the proper balance they can be the party that will actually Galvanize the majority of this space into a single party but the reason why Democrats are really going to be

favorable to bitcoin versus many Republicans maybe not Senator lumus right of course Senator lumus is out there being the super Champion for Bitcoin on the Republican side but the reason why you will have a lot of Democrats that are really interested in this technology is because it's a bottom-up technology that is completely decentralized there's no VC hedge fund or executive board profiteering off of the people beneath of them it's 100% bottom up the people control it the users are in control and they can control their Destiny that's very uncommon you even if you go to Apple Apple stock you buy Apple stock they can dilute their shareholders at any given time if they have a majority that just simply cannot happen in

Bitcoin the ability to be able to dute the bitcoiners is virtually off the table theoretically people will may say that there is an argument that it could happen I I think that's like saying like yeah that the Earth could fall into the sun right like sure yeah one day that could happen um but if it does I think much worse things are probably going on that we could not predict including the loss of orbit around the sun um so I do think the Democrats will find that very appealing they will also find it very appealing that Bitcoin is a tool to be able to bank the unbanked and provide financial services for people all over the world who have been left behind there are billions of people today who currently do not have access to a bank account or who don't have access to stable currencies to put into that bank

account and we're missing out on just so much human potential every year every hundred years we're seeing billions of people live and die and never achieve their full potential if you have Bitcoin come in you can change that Dynamic and you know what I commonly say to people is we could have the next Einstein in one of these countries where they don't have banking access where they don't have access to a traditional currency we could have the next great thinker that could be coming from one of these places but we will never know because they were never able to buy their first textbook they were never able to get on the internet and start communicating with people their ideas but Bitcoin changes that entire Dynamic by for for the first time ever allowing billions of people to have the potential to participate in the

global economy for the first time ever and that's something that Democrats care a lot about along with consumer Productions so I do think that Bitcoin in a way helps to uh enable Democrats to push that forward especially on the consumer protection angle like think about it this way Bitcoin is the most tightly regulated monetary asset in the entire world people don't believe me it's extremely regulated almost overregulation regulation we should change the policy the Bitcoin Maxis the most extreme Bitcoin Maxis were actually in favor of the most extreme form of

Regulation because it protected decentralization and it protects the ability for users to know that they're in power same thing with the the supply cap the supply cap is hyper regulated it's the most regulated Supply cap in monetary history of course we've seen copycat since the invention of Bitcoin but you can't change the supply cap that's a that's a form of regul so Democrats again this will appeal to Democrats Republicans love sound money they love the reduction of the government they want to see more FC conservatism that's that all that's great I don't think Democrats are opposed to any of that necessarily but the thing that will appeal to Democrats is really the inner core and inner workings of Bitcoin and what fundamentally makes it so different than

the rest of the crypto industry and also why Bitcoin firmly belongs in a strategic Bitcoin Reserve whereas it's a question mark a big question mark for everything else Traders AI enthusiasts and Deens listen up the game is changing and desk is leading the charge to celebrate their launch desk is running a trading campaign with three major highlights 38% of their token Supply will be allocated to airdrops they're offering the lowest trading fees on Earth and finally they will be running a desk referral program the more people you invite the bigger your rewards will be to get started click the link in the show notes below and make sure to follow at trade ones desk this episode is brought to you by Moro Moro is the first and only defi protocol coinbase has integrated Direct directly into their main app giving millions of users access

to borrow against their Bitcoin on coinbase just as web two companies like Google Amazon and meta were built on internet protocols the largest financial companies of the future such as coinbase will build on decentralized protocols like Moro whether you're an individual fund fintech or institution Moro is for you follow the link in today's show notes to try Moro today mentioned a word there in the in that uh description there stable stable coins obviously the discussion in Congress now are you seeing that on the state level what do the states make of the stable coin bills I mean obviously this would in some ways expand Federal power or you know move Federal power in to money in a different way is there skepticism is there

excitement what are you seeing on the state level definitely we're favorable I think there still needs to be a lot of debate and negotiations that will take place over the current legislation youve got the genius act in the Senate you got the stable act in um in the house there's bipartisan support for the genius Act in the Senate and I do believe that that will probably be the the one that makes it the core of all the language obviously you've got technically three bills you've also got one by Maxine Waters in the house and you you you'll have some degree of a little bit of each in the final product but there's going to be a lot of debates that are taking place I mean that is really everybody is like hyper hyper focused on um stable coin legislation getting it across the Finish Line mostly

because it's the most reasonable policy to to push forward all of those well at least the genius act I need to look further into the stabil but the genius act enables for states to also participate um and for there to be the ability for them to for smaller groups to come in so up to up to 10 billion dollars they can be outside the federal regulatory system I believe that that's that's all you know well and done and I do think that we will see a stable coin legislation pass into law before the August recess and I do want to see States be able to participate in this ecosystem as well I'm a very big fan of the Dual banking system we have to ensure that we continue to protect that dual banking system which has been intact for 150

plus years and enables there to be State Regulators as well as Federal Regulators ultimately ensuring that there's competition over who your regulator is because if you're a bank and you launch you can choose do you want to be State regulated or do you want to be regulated by the OCC do you want to have FDI insurance or not you can pick something different you could be fully reserved back that's what Caitlyn long was trying to do I think it's good to have optionality and how the these banks are regulated because that drives better outcomes for consumers and the users of those products and I think there will be a level of resurgence of State banking over the next 10 years 15 years due to the Advent of stable coins and various other products that are coming into the

space but after that we have Market structure and um I think the market structure bill is going to be a bigger I I I'm pretty convinced that at this point maybe I'm wrong that stable coin legislation will pass on its own get done because it's just there's a lot of agreement there from Republicans and from Democrats on moving it Forward Market structure though is going to be the next really big a piece of agend the big agenda on the Trump um uh agenda for crypto policy as well as in the Senate it's big part of their agenda and the industry really wants to see it get done and I think it'll be good because when you get when you're able to actually in Implement broad regulations around an industry you see a massive amount of investment come in similarly to when the 1996 Telecommunications Act was passed

into law that was one something that regulated and and sort of re-regulated various parts of the Telecommunications industry around Wireless Broadband you name it when they pass it into law like go look at the charts it's like you just see all this investment dump into that space so if you do the regulations because you got to do them the right way if you do them the right way and you're able to get them implemented we will see a massive amount of investment come into this space because there's going to be a lot of clarity investors love clarity and right now there's not enough Clarity I think we're headed towards a world of clarity that's why we've seen an increase in the price because people are believing that we will see that world play out but there's still not Clarity over whether you're a security whether

you're a commodity until this legislation gets passed and once it does I I personally believe that's when we're going to see an absolute waterfall of money pour into the space especially within the United States um and then hopefully in that bill we're able to include other components that are important to bitcoiners um I would love to see some type of strategic Bitcoin Reserve or digital asset stockpile get implemented through that um piece but more than likely Senator Lam's bill will be a third and separate conversation that will take place whether or not they do a stockpile in that larger crypto bill um but you'll see Senator ls' strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill hopefully move forward as long as also Trump doesn't try to like you know steal the thunder so to speak with his current legislation well then I just want to

wind it kind of down here as we as we head towards the end want to bring it back to the beginning talk a little bit about Bitcoin right this was obviously something that was super important as a Toshi action fund getting started you know and there's a lot of federal government support now for the industry why is it important to still back these kind of Bitcoin rights initiatives why do we need to solidify this into law now and do you want to Galvanize people towards giving those bills more of an emphasis now even in this environment where things are friendly absolutely I mean like I said we when you have a friendly environment that's when you need to full court press try to get as many points scored as possible because you don't know when things are going to turn back the other direction and you

don't know how far you're going to be able to go until you run into resistance again so you know take cannabis for an example right cannabis has run really quickly the right direction for their issue I you know certainly I'm I'm Pro cannabis I don't know where everyone stands but just like let's just take it as a standalone like their own success caring about their them caring about their own success they have done a great job of moving across the state level they've gotten into 75 plus perent of the states but they're still that last 25% now they know where their true targets are to get to potentially get to 100% but also they've still been waiting on federal policy you know and um I think a lot of the momentum has really slowed down for them partly because I think people have moved their concern to other parts of

the policy Arena and right now we have so much attention so much interest not only from bitcoiners but just really the whole crypto industry on seeing these things move forward and so we need to just Dil diligently right we don't want to do Messi diligently move through but also quickly move through um and thoughtfully move through as many of these pieces of policy as possible and as many states as possible and federal as well um and on the Bitcoin rights component you know protecting the right to self- custody protecting the right to run a node protecting the right to be able to participate in Bitcoin mining being able to participate in peer-to-peer transactions these are all what I would call critical functions of the Bitcoin Network like if you can't run a node and you can't mine like

Bitcoin doesn't work um and we want to make sure as many Americans as possible can participate in that we protected millions of Americans in their rights to be able to access this type of technology and it also helps us to generate conversations and education at the state level so when we go in let's say in the state of Oregon I've been able to meet with every Committee Member on the on the committee for the bill that it was referenced to and have great conversations with them about why this legislation should move forward and even if the bill never passes let's say it's a long shot and it doesn't move at all I have now been able to have conversations about Bitcoin with many lawmakers and even even more than the folks that are on the committee and in some cases I've been able to get um important

conversations around why Bitcoin matters with some people that are on very far left in the state and that has really influenced my ability to talk about Bitcoin with Democrats because I able to have one-on-one face-to-face conversations with some of the people that people in the Bitcoin space and it's very like libertarian sort of right on the internet right now even though there's been studies to show that a lot of people on the left and the far left are buying Bitcoin in sometimes greater amounts than those on the far right but the internet is very like it's like everybody thinks that all bitcoiners are like Maga people um which is totally not true but uh when I'm talking to these super farle lawmakers in my home state it's it's very interesting it's

very telling because they tend to say you know why don't we just do Bitcoin only why are we need all this other stuff and that has been a really insightful uh event that has enabled me to have bigger and better and broader conversations and so even if we don't ever pass it there are huge things that come out of just these conversations alone but of course like I said at the end of the day the most important thing is passing policy into law and protecting those rights and so we will continue to fight for that and regardless of what Washington DC does they might do nothing who knows it's all talk right now certainly Trump has done his EOS to get some good stuff going but policy hasn't gotten done and a lot of infighting in the space it's why they canceled that c that remember they were

going to do a industry crypto Council and Trump was like yeah I don't think so and I think Elanor reported and said there was like so much infighting in the crypto industry to get these spots that they just canceled the whole thing that infighting could cause us to wait another four years or another 10 years we don't know hopefully not but it could and if it does we got to be making sure that we're continuing to make progress and the best way to do that is at the state level and I want to do it with Bitcoin rights and I want to do it with strateg Bitcoin Reserve legislation so that's why it matters not only for education but ensuring that no matter what happens in Washington DC we are seeing policy move forward and get passed into law Dennis it was a great having you on here appreciate you coming

on Sat tooshi action fund appreciate all the work you do uh want to just nail it down kind of a final thought here uh talking about the US government versus the states do the States win the states buy Bitcoin first your quick thoughts before we head out if I had to guess yes but we'll see on March 7th mark put you're putting your Bitcoin down right now I don't bet I am not a Gambling Man anymore I used to love to do a little gambling when I was young but uh not I don't gamble my Bitcoin never it's just really going to come down to Trump and whether or not he decides to push something forward through an EO if it's legislation it's not going to happen before the states it's just not possible the legislative process in Congress is too slow if it's an EO it'll be most

likely a stockpile where they're not buying anything so does that count technically in a way it does you know certainly gives the Federal government I think a half of the win at least right they certainly take it the lead but when it comes to buying it I don't think that buying it in an EO is likely and if it does happen it could get struck down by the courts or congress could intervene potentially I mean Congress is all Republicans so maybe they don't it's very like I said it's very unpredictable at the federal level I still very very confident that the states will get it done first but nothing is a guarantee in life as I've said at the very beginning of this conversation so um I hate to nail it down to uh not giving you a specific yes or no but a percentage I

would say it's 70% chance that states get it done first well we'll see obviously with Utah this week this episode will be out on block Works will also be at the digital asset Summit so by March 18th to the 20th when we descend on New York City I bring the Bitcoin Focus conversation there we will at least know if there was a US state uh that is going to buy Bitcoin definitely Dennis thanks for joining us again this has been Supply shock like subscribe and listen to the podcast appreciate you joining us