Trump Pardons Ross Ulbrict, TRUMP Offical Memecoin, SEC's Pro-Crypto Pivot | Live With Alex Thorn

Transcript

we have a trump memec coin almost at $50 billion there was a crypto ball in Washington DC and there's already movement out of the SEC and cftc to help me cover through all of this news is Alex Thorne who is the head of firmwide research at Galaxy digital he's a proud Bitcoin flavored Patriot a New Yorker and a regular Patron at pubkey the Beloved Bitcoin Pub located in Manhattan Alex welcome back to banlist yeah David great to be here a lot to talk about what a weekend yeah dude I have never like every once in a while something happens where there's just so much news Consolidated into just a few days and Alex you've kind of been at the center of all of it you are down in Washington DC at the crypto uh the crypto ball uh also just kind of watching all the

shenanigans going on down there uh I know you've been commenting on the Ross alri par in overall kind of just give me a Vibe a summary of your sentiments and thoughts over the last like four days of activity out of the Trump Administration in crypto yeah it's been a whirlwind um we were a sponsor of the crypto ball and we were there un for so that that was a celebration I would say of by crypto for crypto for Bitcoin and crypto right it was put on by David Bailey and David Sachs um and with a bunch of Industry sponsors like Galaxy and metamask and andu and coinbase and um Exodus wallet Anchorage I think uh and others micro strategy others that I I mean I think in the end there was many sponsors um that just started the weekend right because

the entire weekend was filled with events related to the inaugural um some of them official um many companies regardless of who is elected president president give money to the Presidential Inaugural Committee uh which then funds the celebrations and events all around the parade security all that type of stuff um and an enormous amount of the money that was raised for president Trump's inaugural committee committee also came from crypto firms so throughout the weekend there were events that we and others attended that um were fil filled with Executives from crypto firms I mean the Brian Armstrongs Jesse Powells um uh Michael sailor was all over the place

obviously David Sachs uh who's the incoming crypto and AI are um tons of others folks from Bitcoin Inc and Sergey nazarov altcoin Founders were all over the place I mean it was really very visible crypto throughout the weekend I think overall the weekend was um very celebratory um not you know some minor protests in DC but nothing like um what was expected you know you saw um like local shop owners putting up because they've gone through this before and by the way in many past inaugurals one side or the other is you know upset and they they put up you know put wood on their glass windows didn't see any real issues while I was there except for the fact that it was extremely cold I know in New

York it was extremely cold as well um really high security really fun time and um just a lot of um anticipation about what is to come for the digital assets industry uh in this Administration the last time we had you on was right after the election and I remember you calling this the golden age uh for crypto at least the golden age for crypto in America because of what the crypto industry was anticipating might be coming and like I said in the intro we're under 48 hours in there's already been a presidential pardon of Ross Al uh this SEC is already making moves uh is this what this looks like uh or are we imagining things uh or is this the actual you you said it was the Golden

Age of crypto is this just what this looks like coming down the pipe yeah I think I think we're off to a great start I mean I it's funny watching uh like Bitcoin Twitter crypto Twitter broadly sort of like think that the president was gonna you know take the oath of office on like on a copy a pocket copy of satoshi's white paper right and that you would get like within you know minutes or hours like action on on our issues um even people were saying that you know the president then nominee at one point later president president-elect now president had promised to free Ross on day one and because it wasn't in one of like the first like seven executive orders that he signed literally the in the first

like eight hours of his presidency on January 20th on Monday people were already saying that he didn't keep his promise of course he did pardon Ross during the first full day of his presidency that was last night on January 21st um look the the president even in the first campaign he campaigned on two primary slogans make America great again and promises made Promises Kept and he's been I think already very um he stayed very true to what he has said so far I mean some of his promises don't matter anymore he said he would fire Gary Gensler well Gary Gensler resigned right um he said he would free raw State one I count that yeah I we take we'll take it um and not just um at

the Bitcoin conference but also even before that at the libertarian National party convention um president president Trump pledged to free Ross on day one and and he did um I think by the way that was an extremely uh for crypto obviously look I'm a supporter of getting Ross out of jail he obviously broke the law I think a double life sentence plus 40 years is an extreme and egregious sentence for what he did I think um and and certainly what he was convicted of I should say which did not include things like ordering assassinations he was never convicted of that as far as I know they never found victims of those alleged crimes um so I'm supportive of it but also I think it's quite bullish for the promises made Promises Kept now I think

it doesn't mean that he's gonna do everything that he said but I think if he didn't do this you'd really have to wonder uh you know really have to wonder if he was going to follow through but of course he did it um and was quite proud to say it as you show here on the screen so um yeah and off I think we're just off to a good start you've got Mark ues the acting chair of the SEC you've got Hester purse who will chair the crypto task force at the SEC which I view as just a normal strong first step to figuring out what they're going to do and sort of getting the ball rolling that's already happened um so I view it as we're off to a great start I think this is what it looks like yeah we have a Donald Trump Jr tweeting out a picture

of Donald Trump uh tweeting on Truth social or truthing on Truth social just saying I called the mother of Ross William alri to let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement which supported me so strongly that it was my pleasure to just have signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son Ross i h could not imagine receiving that call of the mother of a son who has been in jail for 13 years who was going to be in jail for a double life sentence plus 40 years uh the free Ross twitter account which has been relentlessly trying to Garner support for the pardoning of Ross olber tweeted out Ross has just been granted a full and unconditional pardon by Donald Trump words cannot express how grateful

for We Are uh for how grateful we are President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross's life Ross is a free man and this has 62,000 likes which is a very big tweet uh we got this picture of Ross walking out in a parking lot a free man with a bag of his stuff and a little tiny plant with a big old smile on his face uh and I actually kind of want to just draw the attention to uh Lynn ol uh who I I I I wouldn't be surprised if you have met her uh in your travels Alex I met her at Bitcoin 2019 where she was collecting signatures for the pardoning for the release of her son and she has just been pushing this movement forward one of the best moms that there ever was

I cannot imagine I know Ross is happy but I also cannot imagine how incredibly relieved Lynn ol was what what would how would you place this into history as the legacy of for the legacy of Bitcoin and the legacy of crypto rossel BR of course founder of the Silk Road dark Market uh which was known for selling illegal drugs and other paraphernalia and other things that would not be Savory or legal to buy or sell in any any other capacity and he went to jail for that for a big Saga we actually had the FBI agent who kind of led the arrest of of Ross wck on the podcast to hear his side of the story which I thought was pretty interesting was that was that Chris Tarbell that was Chris Tarbell yeah yeah so how would you frame this in the

context of the legacy of Bitcoin it's it's a really uh I think poignant uh bookend to what I mean think about this the Silk Road at the time was um quite responsible for years of well oh that blockchain we love the blockchain great really cool distributed letter ledgers they're great but Bitcoin no no no no that's for criminals right like that's largely because of the Silk Road that that narrative in mean the the blockchain not narrative blockchain not Bitcoin was largely due to the Silk Road in sort of the early days of Institutions looking at Bitcoin and crypto um banks used to say this this was like I mean you could even argue

like the creation of rw3 and like these Bank those Bank consortia from the pre2 2017 era the the promotion of of platforms like hyperledger by companies was largely a reaction to this right and and so look I mean in in one way it incredibly hindered the widespread adoption of Bitcoin and and digital assets because of the idea that it was associated with the Silk Road on the other hand look I mean it the Silk Road regardless you know and it didn't just it is widely known as you said for facilitating the trading of um nefarious items but it also you could buy anything on there it was a permissionless eBay right and legal stuff legal stuff was

also able to be bought and absolutely tons of legal stuff people are buying and selling memorabilia and collectibles cars i' I remember seeing um this was a lot of people's introduction a lot of long-term bitcoiners introduction to bitcoin um and and this was keep in mind too the Silk Road was also in an era when people were still pirating a lot of movies there was a lot of use of bit torrent IRC right this the early days of like encrypted chat this was an important part of what we thought the new um Sovereign internet could look like and and I think Ross just took took it to the extreme which is like we're just going to make a Marketplace that has anything on it literally like and

and it also showcased the sort of Unstoppable permissionless censorship resistant nature of Bitcoin so it's a it's a mixed bag like it's I think a lot of people first learned about Bitcoin in a good way from the Silk Road even if they didn't go on it or use it but reading about it and I mean in many ways it was the first application to ever really use Bitcoin at scale um I I did also meet uh Lynn briefly at Bitcoin 2019 that was the conference When Ross uh they played a recorded interview with Ross that he had sent in from jail um which later apparently the fact that he had done that I don't know with like a cell phone in jail I guess you can presumably get a hold of one periodically that they put him in the

hole in in solitary confinement for doing that at the time so um w i i just think like regardless of what you think about what Ross did you know to me a double life sentence um with effectively never being convicted of any violent crime like is just egregious overall so I think that is people's General take about Ross is that they admit that there was law there were laws that were broken by Ross uh but the double life sentence plus 40 years represents something else about the case against him that triggered the eye of the libertarian movement and you know even more moderate people like myself

where I just like look at that and like the outcome here doesn't make any sense I I know many people like just think like the Silk Road we just fostered illegal activity and we allowed crime to happen and it was like a Bastion of nefariousness on on the internet um but I myself and I think most of the crypto PE industry sees this as Ross created a free Marketplace to actually safely do activities safely buy drugs safely do you know illegal things and but just because the state deems them illegal doesn't mean that they are morally negative uh and he actually created a safe place a safe haven to engage in activities and I think that's that was Ross's motivation and that's what the

libertarian movement sees in it as well yeah it's kind of like a digital version of am of Hamsterdam in The Wire right it's it I think uh in the wire the TV show right one of the police captains says like you know our Corners are destroyed by drug dealers they're on there with guns it's dangerous regular citizens can't can't go out and feel safe so what if we push it all into one zone let them freely sell their drugs there and and then try to you then you can give them needle exchange or whatever else to try to make it a little safer for them but in the meantime you've moved it out of the public sphere it's a great part of the wire I think in season uh season three I think in The Wire phenomenal thing of course it doesn't work there's huge backlash and

and then it goes back to the same way it is but I think this is sort of the idea that like if you can create a safe place to do things that although illegal everyone knows they're already being done so would you if if if you know you can't stop it maybe there's a way to this it sort of falls into this idea of like un um unenforceable prohibition right the War on Drugs broadly as an example right it didn't stop people from doing drugs it hasn't stopped people from buying and selling drugs and but it has put generations of people in jail um and it has also forced this activity back out into the Public Square where everybody else has to live and we don't want to to deal with this stuff either I'm not saying he did it out of altruism or that like this is even necessarily

the right policy approach to dealing with drugs but I think a lot of Libertarians believed that like a doing it a way that was safer and private and that didn't involve you doesn't need to involve guns and and and gangs on streets was perhaps a net positive um in the scheme of things yeah and it it does align with the philosophy to me that Bitcoin uh is a money of Peace uh it like unlike the US dollar which is defended by the United States military and the military industrial complex Bitcoin is defended by proof of work miners uh and that philosophy extends this is kind of some deep deep bitcoiner ISM but that philosophy extends to the downstream effects of what Bitcoin does to the world one question I have for you

Alex is like do you think Ross has any Bitcoins left over uh there's this one tweet uh from Connor Joe Connor Rogan saying I found 430 Bitcoin across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Alber that were not confiscated by the US government and has been untouched for 13 years I know that there are bitcoins that the government does have that Ross in theory might have a claim on maybe not uh do you think what do you think about this do you think rossberg bigs man that's a good question um I I don't know I I don't recall the specifics of what he had to agree to hand over at the time um look I mean we we we it's possible we may never know it's possible he or someone else who has the keys to

these coins might not move them for 20 years and then eventually they might move right so I mean there's no real way to know um I you know I do I did tweet yesterday that I was wondering about there is a sizable chunk of Bitcoin still held by the US government it's not exactly right there was a bunch of debate a couple weeks ago about whether they were selling uh some of their remaining Silk Road Bitcoin um yeah this one and you know that the individual X the government has never said who that that person is they did a civil forfeiture uh legal case there was a I don't know an activist or a person um uh Barn barnbridge maybe Barn I think maybe barnbridge that was trying to sue the

government saying that individual ex's coins were theirs but all of that was finalized as not no evidence that they were theirs and then all legal proceedings finished at the end of the year that resulted in that tweet from db10 K that uh got everybody nervous at the you know in early January about whether they were selling those coins still haven't moved on chain so we don't know and then you look at this other pile that's doj held Silk Road I think those might be um the last remaining coins from Jimmy zong the guy that uh was arrested in like Atlanta Georgia area and um he had just like clicked withdraw a whole bunch of times and I guess there was a bug on the Silk Road website he masked like 50 or 60,000 coins um in my mind like maybe like if those were stolen from the Silk Road

they might Ross might have a claim on them if he has a full and unconditional pardon that means it's it's as if the crimes never occurred is my understanding um a lawyer who I think highly of Joe carair on Twitter pointed out uh a Supreme Court ruling which I believe was related to a blanket amnesty for after the Civil War um saying that uh that the general paron and amnesty granted did not allow individuals to get their the proceeds back right but if those were previously condemned and sold under confiscation act but again I you know Joe's a smart lawyer but this is a pretty specific ruling it specifically says under that act it also

refers to a general pardon an amnesty not a full and unconditional pardon of a specific person so I I don't think anybody really knows and I think this ruling or not doesn't wouldn't maybe prevent um Ross from claiming some some of them I I don't know it's to me I it seems unlikely and and don't get me wrong I think he's probably very happy to be out of prison yeah he might not be concerned that might not be that might be enough yeah might be enough but I I only raise it because outside of the these remaining Silk Road coins the largest pile of coins at the US government is this bitfinex recovery right resulting from the Ilia and rasle con theft of bit finex that's the

largest government says that IEX the owner of bitfinex is the they think is the only claimant they're running on process now to see if anybody else is going to claim access to them we assume that those will be returned in kind of bit for next so those cannot probably be part of a stockpile the largest chunk of you know coins seized uh as the result of crime that we know is crime was these Silk Road coins both the individual X and these and so you wonder if they give the BFF andex coins back if somehow Ross claims those coins and even if he doesn't get them they become part of a legal thing that takes several years like you're now looking at a pretty small chunk of coins to never be sold as the president said in Nashville to form

that National Bitcoin stockpile so just an interesting wrinkle here yeah yeah it's just an interesting part of the story again I think you're totally right Ross is just very happy to be free and he's probably not concerned about the Bitcoins that he owns to my knowledge he's a pretty meditative Zen type individual who has like learned to separate themselves from like tangible objects but uh I think just overall Arc of the story of Ross being able to be free a free man 13 years later and come back to a pile of Bitcoins is a pretty good part of that story yeah who knows if it'll happen but I mean yeah just what a legendary Saga honestly and the man the man was in jail for a long time I think what about 12 years if I did the math correctly and um you know I I think

he looked great though you see that picture of him coming out of jail I thought he looked really good he had a he had a plant yeah I mean look at this he he looks healthy walking out with a tiny little plant is I don't know Ross well but I have watched plenty of interviews and and videos of him and him walking out with a plant is just incredibly unbrand for what I know of yeah it just it it it also I think it's really poetic right it's uh you know we you have this vision of him locked away and yet he's still growing and fostering new life and it's very emblematic I think of the life he has ahead of him I mean is he 40 years old I think he's 40 years old he walks away at 40 years old which he has plenty of life left yeah he

does yeah he does all right Alex let's turn to the Trump meme coin the official tweet out of the Donald J Trump Twitter account tweeted out on January 17th my new official Trump meme is here it's time to celebrate everything we stand for winning join my very special Trump Community get your ticker sign Trump now go to get Trump memes.com which is a page that looks like this which is a very skinny fit looking Trump with the only official Trump meme buy with debit card buy now with crypto and a salana contract address which leads to this Trump token on salana that came in at the day of launch coming in at a uh

let's see about a one billion doll market cap and then it immediately went up to 26 billion doll market cap cing in also came in at something like an 80 billion dollar fully diluted valuation at the at the Peak at the peak uh this people thought it was crazy it was going up 11,000 per in 24 hours uh and I think this was one of the most astounding things I've seen in crypto people were going back and forth and processing this this additionally caused salana the salana token to pump almost 50% on the week simply because the president incoming president at the time chose salana to issue his Trump coin so salana went from 175 to $286 the sold price fell off down to

$230 along with Trump which lost almost 50% of its market cap when the milania meme coin was announced also from a tweet from milania's Twitter account Melania launched at a$2 billion doll market cap 13.3 billion fully diluted and then it quickly fell off to a $600 million market cap where it is today that's A4 billion doll fully diluted uh the launch of Melania was not really received very well and kind of really changed the tune around people's perception of the Trump mcoin especially when Donald Trump made no crypto related statements or executive order in his first day of office or in his inaugural speech it's also worth noting that a trump owned company owns 80% of the supply of the relevant meme coin uh so I think people are still processing this Alex the

existence of an official Trump meme coin along with a Bania coin what what are your initial thoughts and sentim sentiments when you saw this tweet what did you think um well the funny thing is is that he tweeted it what time did he tweet that was scroll down 9:44 p.m. right during the crypto ball yeah so um did not see this until the next morning um I know Nick O'Neal was there with some cringe videos laughing at people for not having seen it I saw some of those on Twitter um I think that was one of the first things that people were surprised about the next morning was um he released this while we were all at the Crypt ball I mean not we all but like a lot I mean no one really knew about this I mean I left the crypto ball

at the end of the night and still hadn't heard about this and was talking with a lot of crypto people all night like nobody knew about this um so that was an interesting surprise um I look I think throughout the weekend uh people went through almost the stages of grief on this and you could see it on Twitter it was at first it was disbelief uh and then uh you know anger and then I think acceptance I think once you got to Monday Tuesday um which is you know surprising right because the president had already released what four separate collections of nfts yeah uh they'd already launched a defi protocol on ethereum called World Liberty Financial I which is currently buying a bunch of crypto including a lot of eth yeah I

mean basically you can see they on chain wallets so Trump is famous for selling memorabilia and collectibles of all types right I mean stakes and choo choo trains and um whatever else right so I the I think the surprise especially in an industry that he has embraced where pump. fun and Solana meme coins were a huge part of the 2024 Market narrative I think the surprise is was surprising to see frankly the fact that people were so T you know surprised by this um because again like this fits I think it's consistent with um not only Trump's broader you know uh past of issuing branded memorabilia but also his

activities in crypto right like to me this this is relatively um consistent I think look and the and the tech is permissionless it's think about this it's an industry that's been calling for the creation of Creator tokens and fan tokens as a new way people to monetize and interact with their communities and audiences like that's this so me like I'm not surprised and um and but it it you know it it was a it was a really really surpr it was a really I don't even want to say um it caught the industry by surprise and that was clear I think it took most of the weekend for people to sort of come to terms with this and um and then he commented on it uh I think last night yes he did he

commented on it he said um they asked him during a press conference I think last night and he was like uh yeah I don't really know anything I think he said I remember and then they DB or somebody one of those squawk accounts clipped the quote and said that Trump said I don't really know about it and that caused it to go down a lot naturally but the full quote was yeah I don't really know much about it except that it that I launched it and and then he said where's it at right now and they were like I don't know billions of dollars and and but he was in the room with I think he was maybe with MOS when they were talking about soft Banks investment and he was like a a couple billion dollars that's nothing to these that's peanuts to these guys that's what

he said so I me I just think you have to look at the whole thing with humor and say that um you know that these are these are permissionless protocols I mean that's the I think that's what we've been building across crypto so I don't think anyone should be surprised when people use them yeah I I I think that's right the I I will say my sentiments and I think the broader Market reflects this is when Trump launched the mcoin I was astounded and like the Inc a president of the United States is launching a meme coin uh this kind of is along the lines of you know buiness Trump loves business he loves business opportunities this is clearly a business profit making opportunity for

him and it's also highly aligned with the crypto industry I think if anyone in the crypto industry launched a mcoin like this the crypto industry would likely reject it and call it a grift but when it's incentive compatible with what we need which is legitimacy adoption and support by the crypto president that he calls himself it's a little bit of a different tone we can accept that uh but then when the launch of the Melania coin came out uh you can see that reflected in the price and it's and the price of the mcoin has of the Donald Trump mcoin has really uh not it lost its momentum and it hasn't really been able to recapture its own momentum we'll see if it can get some momentum I think the kind of hands-off nature that Donald

Trump is treating it his own meme coin is I guess appropriate because it is truly just a meme at this point um but wow I kind of would like to imagine a world where the Melania meme coin was never launched because why why did they why did they do that like Melania I'm sure is a great fantastic lady but everyone cares about Donald Trump no one really cares about Melania Trump is the meme he is the Meme and now it's highly dilutive and it kind of rips off the mask of the intent it kind of removes some of the deniability of the some of the intent around the Donald Trump meme coin at least that's my perspective yeah well I mean I think you know you don't want to compete with yourself I think in general if you're issuing anything right you don't want to

have too it should be dilutive you think um uh yeah I don't know look that it was surprising also um I don't have much on this I will say yes if you're talking about the sort of the allocation schedule when you mentioned that you know it it might be seen negatively if a normal sort of crypto people launch this um I think that's probably true I I think there's no world in which people in you know like where I came out of in crypto and my Bitcoin friends would think that this wasn't um that this was a fair allocation you know compare 80% of a however we call this it's I guess it's a it's not a pre-mine it's a it's just a pre-launch allocation yeah versus bitcoin's Fair launch right is is a

there's a wide discrepancy there um but I would also say like there's a lot of I mean they they I'm looking at this disclosure page here on on Trump's website and um there's a fairly large amount of disclosure I think in general um this maybe maybe a good way to say this is that it will make consumer protection more important for Democrats in these various legislative discussions uh on the market structure Bill stuff because I think one thing that crypto Democrats in particular I think will be raising this but I think broadly people agree with this that um no one is asking for a free pass for digital Assets in America I don't think anyone wants to go back to the un uh totally unregulated and wild west Ico era of the

2017s I but I do think that and I believe this like you should be able to issue a digital asset as long as you meet the requirements particularly disclosure requirements right um that's how Securities work right the entire process of taking a public uh in America doing an IPO or direct listing is one of disclosures right those all those documents same thing with ETFs remember looking at those s1s over and over again as they were amended like those are disclosure documents so that investors have information if you yeah so this is what I'm talking about I think you know I I haven't verified if these uh allocation schedule that you're showing here is actually hardcoded into the contract or if it's like we just promise

to do it this way I I don't know but I do think we need to get to a place in the industry where disclosure is not only the norm and it's gotten better as being the norm um but perhaps is the requirement and and um and can be verified so I I think look this is good that it has this very good um it would be a lot worse if it didn't have this I think if you know what you're buying you know you're buying the Trump meme coin you know right the other thing is I would say we don't really want to get to I personally think we should get somewhere away from The Nanny state where uh you know only you know rich people can speculate as much as they want but you know the average person can't and um and and so again with

stronger disclosure rules that still you know make sure that at least the information is available to all types of investors I think still was still a shock but I think um you know it it's consistent with what you know he's done in the past and and at least we've got some disclosures here let's get those disclosures let's make a pathway for the people to do it with the disclosures yeah we what I would say about the launch is that it was not a botched launch it was a pretty acceptable launch at least when I go to get Trump memes.com uh we are look what Alex is referencing here is this information about the allocation along with a pie chart and these different groups have that that have different allocations and there's these big texts that says there

are 200 million Trump available on day one and will grow to a total of 1 billion Trump over three years each group's allocations are released on their own schedule over three years and there's a bunch of groups labeled here which uh I would like a little bit more information about what and who these groups are creators in cic digital ones and two and three public distribution uh creators in cic digital four five and six so different groups um and I don't know if there's too much information about what these groups are but I think that would be like the missing component of information that I would like but otherwise it's a fully transparent Supply schedule that has a little bit of missing information in it but other otherwise I'm I'm relatively happy with the information that that as a consumer

as a potential investor not Financial advice I'm not buying um but there's information here that is interesting as a potential Trump owner at the very least um there was some some public commentary from Dave pornoy uh he tweeted out I have two a a dumb two-part question what's the difference between the hawk Tua coin and the Trump coin besides nothing second question can I String up my own coin now and tell people it's a sponsy Ponzi scheme from the jump and I'm going to rug pull at some point and you better just hope you're out when I do and that would make the entire thing legal and then he finishes with Dicker sign Trump I think these are hyper um hypothetical questions uh and then even uh the event

of the Trump mcoin made its way into mainstream media is a political Politico article saying a horrible look cryptool Lobby reels from Trump's mem coin which includes a quote from our friend Nick Carter who said it's absolutely Preposterous that he would do this uh who is a founding partner at the crypto investment firm castline Ventures who describes himself as an avowed and explicit Trump supporter in another quote they're Plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memec coin launch so even inside of the crypto industry mixed reaction to the launch of the Trump mcoin Alex any final comments before we move on yeah I mean I think Nick is was is reflecting what a lot of people were thinking when it happened early and but look again they have done done pretty

much everything in crypto they're speedr running their crypto world the Trump family is right they were Pro Bitcoin minor I think was the first thing that they said about Bitcoin um about in in crypto then well I actually think they had launched nfts they' launched ordinals I think one of the collections is on ordinals so they did nfts ordinals defi talk about Bitcoin miners one did the Bitcoin conference talk about the stockpile say they love Bitcoin they say never sell your Bitcoin then they and and the idea that they do a meme coin I think is just totally on brand I mean it's also you know we talked about this on Bank list before you and I David but like last year was largely this barbell Market of Bitcoin on one end and the institutionalization and maturation of

Bitcoin adoption on one end and meme coins on the other I mean really from like February through the end of the year maybe with the AI agent coins coming in sort of later at the end of the year which themselves are kind of meme coins also so it doesn't surprise me and I don't think people should be that surprised given um I think it's pretty consistent with the what the Trump's family has done and memorabilia Collectibles but also in crypto Alex I got a couple more things I want to talk to you about you were at the crypto ball in Washington DC but then there's also been some movement out of the SEC and the cftc mark Auda is the new SEC chair and then the cftc just lifted the sanctions on tornado cache uh I know you're not a lawyer but I'm going to ask

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can tell me a little bit about that but what was the crypto ball what was the purpose of it uh why did it happen uh Tred a little context on the whole event for us yeah I mean I think this was it was put on primarily by David Sachs and David Bailey from Bitcoin Inc right Bitcoin conference um I think David and his team my guess I don't actually know but I think they probably they organized it and and ran the event given that they are a big events company as well um but so you had you had companies from across the industry both sponsor it I mean I think this is a shot that show St with crypto as one of the sponsors um and it says Exodus wallet and and um and Kraken and uh Anchorage uh I think um maybe one

other that I can't see there's a bunch on the left there's galaxy there's you guys Ando salana micro strategy coinbase metamask well metam mask M Labs the Bitcoin layer to wow they they sponsored wow so yeah I mean I think um so it was a a celebration uh for crypto this was not an official inauguration event um I was there I did not see the president uh there um Donald Trump Jr was there I think other other members of the uh incoming cabinet were there um so there there were people there um from sort of the administration and then um so you know I think it was a celebration put on by crypto the crypto industry broadly the Bitcoin and crypto Industries

broadly and um I think it was welld deserved because it's been a I mean it was pretty surreal you know having gone through the you know ranging from Total uh ignoring us on one end to directly attacking us I mean a whole I mean it wasn't just crypto that was under attack I mean they proposed a 30% value added tax on Bitcoin mining at one point in a in a federal budget right it was um the stuff at ofac and finsen on the bank secrecy act things like Elizabeth Warren's proposed digital asset anti money laundering act that would affect all of crypto not just you know it's not just about issuance and and defi at the SDC right there was broad attacks on bitcoin Bitcoin developers you know the

sort of the most anything adjacent anything relevant yeah truly um and so that to then be in the heart of Washington DC on inauguration weekend um surrounded by people who uh either individually or their companies had been in the trenches um you know fighting that fight for the last four years and be able to celebrate and know that I mean I would say at a minimum we expect at a minimum we expect a a much more open-minded and hands-off approach from the new administration at a minimum um so it was pretty surreal it was a great celebration Snoop Dog performed uh soldja boy performed performed yeah um and which were funny and good I mean they were

they were and and it was just a yeah it was a fun time it was a lot of it was sort of it became sort of a meeting place I mean individuals could buy tickets they were quite pricey I think um what I was told, for an individual I think it started at 2500 5K then it went to higher I mean as it as you got as the supply of tickets were now it was absolutely packed to be clear like it was packed you were like shoulder-to-shoulder in some parts of that room um but I think a lot of the money will go to I believe uh some large portion of it will go to bitcoin developer nonprofits um and um so I I think it was just it was a fun time to get everybody there together and it this is how we kicked off the weekend

I mean if you were there for the whole weekend this was Friday night we were joking the next week like this is this was actually from The Starlight ball these that you're showing here which was Trump's uh Inauguration Ball on Monday night after taking the oath and going to the oval and sign after becoming president um there were things like this all weekend long and we were thinking back on like Sunday afternoon we were like God the crypto ball was like a month ago like we did a lot of stuff was it like a sometimes going to a crypto conference feels like a marathon of just events events events it kind of sounds like it was that except it was in Washington DC and a crypto president was getting elected yeah and and and I'm sure other crypto firms that were there

like we were um did similar things like we met with members of Congress and and Regulatory officials and people that we know in general to you know check in say hi like figure out like how we can help with information I mean one of the things I think that I'm so excited about with a new Administration with a more openminded and Open Door approach to digital Assets in general regardless of where policies land is they they're asking for help they want to know more about the space they want to be educated on the space when something uh new comes out they want they need help learning what it is and how it works and finding how do we find data on it right like that's where you know the industry has a

lot of expertise and so um it's just nice to know that if you go in um you know think about Robin Hood pretty famously said that they met with the SEC like 12 I think it was 12 or 13 times or maybe Vlad had said it was a it was a dozen times gave a bunch of information about what they wanted to do what they were doing information about it and then the SEC sued them with that information right they or I don't know if they actually ended up filing suit I can't remember but they definitely sent them a Wells notice which is intent to sue them um and and they complained Robin Hood that this was unfair because it was on the back of them coming in being very transparent trying to help them understand providing information I it feels like from the statements that uh the new guy who's

taking over the FDIC said that they want an open-minded approach to Innovation and uh technology including fintech digital assets and tokenization obviously with the crypto task force that's now being established been established at the SEC it it feels similar again not saying they're going to come out with rules that are exactly what the digital assets industry wants but they're very very clearly signaling that the doors open so it wasn't just these celebratory balls it was also a lot of meetings and and you know breakfasts and catching up with people that you know and coffees and it was a lot but it was a lot of fun yeah and that does kind of lead us into something that's going on at the SEC Mark UA who is the pro crypto compatriot to Hester

Pur that I think more more bankless listeners are familiar with Hester Pur but marua and Hester Pur are really been leading the descents against the SEC SEC chairs that are lead Commissioners that are leading the descents against Gary gendler uh and his anti-crypto campaign uh and he Mar UA has been named the SEC chair while a real uh while the official Trump appointee is um we're still waiting for that for that appointee that name so in the interim Mark UA is the SEC chair and uh there has been some movements going on the SEC has announced a new crypto task force uh announced by Mark UA along with Hester Pur uh apparently is going to lead this tax task force then and a tweet from you uh Alex that I read this morning SEC

schedules closed door meetings for Thursday January 23rd that's in uh to that's tomorrow the topics include institution and settlement of injunction actions institution and settlement of administrative proceedings resolution of litigation claims and other matters relating to examinations and enforcement proceedings uh Alex can you just like read between the lines for me here like spell this out clearly what's going on over here yeah so uh commissioner ueda is a great supporter of digital Assets in general again when we say that we don't mean that they're like gonna like let us do whatever we want and have no rules at all but you know he very strongly and clearly favors a more Progressive approach to regulating in general that includes working with industry to find something that that is

possible right so I think it's a great choice um I think um and by the way I know some of his staff they're also very smart on on crypto actually real crypto um so yeah with that meeting uh I I should have been a little clearer that meeting is a recurring well it's they do that meeting a lot right that's part of the normal business of the SEC um however this will be the first one that has Mark uh and Hester as the majority right I think the other two have already resigned so um right Gensler has resigned and I think khaw has resigned carw so they do have a two to one majority so they can actually move even without Paul Atkins who's been named as

Trump's um right chair of the SEC he probably won't take be confirmed by the Senate until I mean I don't know April or May I think uh Gensler was confirmed in April um Jay Clayton before him was confirmed in May so like it it's not like the you know treasury you know Marco Rubio was confirmed for state Secretary of State like a night and a half ago right they're going to move there's only so much floor time available in the Senate to actually do these confirmations and there are certainly other positions that are more important to urgently do than the SEC chair so we expect that Paul um will come into office sometime in April or May um in the interim though with the establishment of this crypto task force

which will be led by Hester purse um the other you know Republican appointed commissioner and and which by the way will include Rich Gabbert who is a senior advisor to Mar UA and Taylor Asher also a senior visor to marua both very smart on crypto um with the establishment of that task force I I think you're going to start to see them move on things like halting enforcements or at least pausing to review them right this group that Now controls the SEC was not in the majority that decided on bringing a lot of these court cases uh or high-profile enforcement so I they descent it against them yeah so this meeting which is ex specifically about reviewing the current state of

litigation and enforcements is now being run by uh a majority that is uh opposed to the prior approach so I I think you you you will start to see them get to work here and and I mean we we when we talked right after the election the election and I I said this and we published a report called the digital Golden Era which is all about what to expect and one of the first things we wrote was that we expect to see a widespread halting of enforcements in crypto pending further review and possibly the pausing or withdrawing of major litigation um I think it's very likely that in the next month you'll see month or two you'll see the SEC file in court in major cases like with coinbase it least something to the effect of hey

your honor we may actually be re-evaluating our approach to this entire case I think it doesn't mean they're going to immediately file to but right they I think the task force is sort of the first step to them figuring out like you know where do we want to go yeah we know where point a is that's where we are now but where do we want point B to be and then and then what is the actual process to get there I think they're gonna it's not going to happen right away but I think I would be shocked I mean that's a the meeting tomorrow is a closed door meeting that's why it's published Under the Sun Sunshine act meaning it's internal SEC meeting um so I don't know whether we'll learn anything about what is actually said there but um I mean if this group

is here talking about what to do with enforcements and litigations I think this is the start of them changing their approach yeah and like you said we're not expecting nor asking for just a blank check from these more Pro crypto SEC uh Commissioners I think what you know reading between the lines they are going to go Case by case of individual enforcement actions and evaluating each individual one to see if they what they want to do with each individual one they disagreed with many of them but they're not just going to throw every single one out the door they're going to evaluate each one by its merits and decide what's right and what's best and what's fair for uh the Mandate of the SEC which is fair and orderly markets uh which is something that I think the crypto industry feels that the SEC has not been

doing they had some undisclosed secret mandate uh and I think we all kind of have fa faith that Hester p and marua will uh act in accordance with the actual Mandate of the SEC at least that's what I'm hopeful for which is fair and orderly Capital markets something that came out this morning which uh I mist ly called the cftc but this is actually ofac uh this was breaking this morning Court lifts ofac sanctions on tornado cach marking a major win for crypto privacy Advocates uh so it turns out this is actually not anything to do with Donald Trump but the timing of this is just you know another good cherry on top for crypto industry wins this is part of the Arc of crypto winds in the court uh I this is the um Joseph Van Loon Preston van Lon Alex

Fischer Kevin Vitali and a few others uh their Court cas case the coinbase sponsored court case against ofac about the illegality of tornado cash uh this tweet which is a coin Telegraph reads Court lifts ofac sanctions which to me makes it seem that going and using tornado cash is legal I am going to wait for multiple lawyers confirmations on this on Twitter uh before I even go anywhere near tornado cach uh but Alex have you processed any of this what's your reaction here yeah so the ruling this is a public in of the ruling that came out in November um which is great it's remanded back to the district court to figure out what to do with it and my

understanding is either it will become legal for the plaintiffs in the case like van Lon and and others to use tornado cash or it will become legal for everyone to use tornado cash in general I think the ruling spec uh explicitly said that tornado Cash Smart contracts are not property and to and and that's important because the authorizing legislation that allows ofac to sanction foreign individuals and entities meaning things um doesn't have an exception for whatever a smart contract is which is why ofac said well smart contract is property and that's what allowed them to do the sanctions and so um I think this is this is a big deal I

I think there was plenty of also language in the ruling that was supportive of was it wasn't just a niche like well it's not property and we don't care what it is but since it's not property send it back that that's sort of the legal justification for the ruling but there were um there was a lot of language that I mean they looked they said that the fact that the smart contracts didn't have upgradability was a big feature couldn't be controlled by any party makes it impossible for it to be property if nobody actually controls it right it was a well-reasoned argument and um I think it's very positive I think this is one of the most important issues by the way that the administration um is is I would say less likely to sort of give the industry what it wants which is um some relief from

the stuff at treasury right so finsen what we call TFI terrorism and financial intelligence wing of the Treasury Department which oversees finsen and ofac it's not and not saying because maybe they don't want to or might not try but think about in a post 911 world it's very difficult to justify um maybe easier to justify very difficult to argue about relaxing things that involve illicit Finance right it's just very tough to to argue that um you know you should be able out I mean let's face it North Korea did use tornado cash a lot like it's right user right so like that it's it's hard to make that case so it's great to see the courts here because

politically it's going to be more difficult I think to get um you know elected officials and and appointed officials to support a more um libertarian view of how this should should go um but on the other hand you know to me I think it's it is the right thing if it can't be upgraded it is literally the internet you know that you don't put Microsoft uh Microsoft CEO in jail because a Al qaa Manifesto was typed in Microsoft Word like it's not if it is truly a decentralized tool um which is what the court has basically said tornado cash is then it really doesn't make sense to criminalize um the people that merely authored it right you should you should really focus on the people

that used it for El for illegal activities the other thing I want to point out too that gets lost a lot privacy in finance is not illegal at all it's not even intentionally obfuscating the origin of funds is not money laundering right for it to be moneya laundering the funds themselves have to also emanate and be proceeds of crime right so vitalic sending uh donations to Ukraine through tornado cash which believe he said he did um that's not moneya laundering even though he is obusca that it came from him right right you're totally allowed to use private uh be private uh wealthy people in particular do this all the time right um corporations even in Delaware and and in

the dtas where we they have strong corporate privacy right like are structured to give people privacy it's merely illegal if you also are doing it to hide the origin of illicit funds so people deserve erve privacy I I I hope that will and by the way I hope the same um ruling or uh outcome will eventually happen for something like Samurai wallet as well and and coin join uh providers that um I don't know if the legal facts are exactly you know comparable or whatever but in general I think we're supportive of um tools for privacy and we're also supportive of tools to help law enforcement catch bad guys and and that's what the court and um the

government are going to have to figure out the the way forward I I am happy that it seems like the court here possibly also the government now will be at least slightly tilted a little closer to our view of this yes yeah yeah and I I think that kind of brings me to maybe the the last question I have for you Alex is just we have momentum right now uh we have the courts which are consistently giving wins to the crypto industry we have Donald Trump pardoning uh crypto crypto people crypto supporters like Ross Al uh and also just generally just we have a lot of momentum across the board maybe if you could just you know think for a moment and come up with a wish list of of what we want I know uh vitalic butterin tweeted out no

man Left Behind uh after talking about the uh pardoning of uh Ross ook he tweeted out Roman storm and Alexi perv are next these are the two developers behind tornado Cash Tornado cash again with the uh announcement that we just read that a court has lifted a ban on tornado cach does it make sense sense that the tornado cash developers are in jail Roman storm and Alexi PV I believe Alexi PV is in jail in the Netherlands but Roman storm is potentially going to jail in the United States he is living in Seattle Washington as of right now uh and and so may maybe a wish list of future things that you would be hopeful for as it relates to ofac and tornado cash or just you know Bitcoin Bitcoin

mining anything what what comes to mind first for you Alex well I you know I think when it when it comes to Roman and Alexi um or the samurai wallet guys or um uh well stick with them as two relatively similar examples you know they're not charged by the federal prosecutor specifically with having deployed the smart contracts right they have the charges are are are involved I think primarily the front end and specifically not Banning the IPS of the North Korean actors even after they knew so there are some facts I think that are a little uh you know that that are harmful to them and that relate more specifically to the charges they're actually being charged with that doesn't mean that I support you know pointing

that out just to be um to be very clear that doesn't mean I'm I'm not supportive of them um having some relief here in one way or another I mean you you could also for all we know see a different approach taken in their criminal case specifically Romans in the US I really can't speak to the Netherlands I I I did see it seemed like he was being treated terribly he was held for months Alexi without I think being even charged so I mean I'm I'm opposed to that I want due process it's possible you could get a better approach from the prosecutor in Roman's case anyway maybe um I do think this is a great fact for his case right I mean if it's not illegal then uh he on its face then I mean the case is definitely I would say it's pretty safe

to say it's probably weakened of the federal Prosecutor's case against Roman um would love to see some resolution here um overall that's positive um I think either way you're going to have the ability to it it looks like we have to wait and see what this District Court says with this remanding back to them but it looks like we could be at a place where you can deploy immutable non upgradable privacy contracts and and have that not be illegal as possible now maybe you can't profit out them maybe if there is something you control like a front end uh by the way defi also broadly I don't I think you've talked about this in the past but regardless of who's President and regardless of who's in the regulatory seats defi needs to yet to locally run front ends because

the operator of a front end is always going to be somewhat responsible and they should be right it's why Unis swap doesn't show like a whole bunch of tokens they don't show they right I mean they because that is they're hosting they are effectively like coinbase wallet is to the rest of defi like they are they may not be a broker but they certainly can limit what you can go there yeah so I think it falls under the category that we like at bank list which is if it can be regulated then perhaps ought to be regulated and if it can't beated because it's decentralized then it shouldn't I mean it's the same thing like why we don't think about like a open source uh locally run wallet you know take like Bitcoin core or gu or something right like like that can't be

regulated it's literally piece of code right but a front-end website where I log in you ask me for information then it's like well I mean maybe you could be regulated so which by the way is also okay but I just mean I hope that um for defi to become more resilient for Founders to not you know face this kind of threat whether in the US or abroad I mean if you don't clip a fee and you don't store data and you don't host a front end that's should be now you're looking a lot like Satoshi to be honest right like so I hope we get more of that I think to your question I mean I think we want to see I think you just got to chill and let this play out I mean right I think crypto Twitter has relaxed a little bit since Ross's pardon which is

right I think everybody needs to take a little bit of a chill pill um everything appears to be happening as so far as promised um and I think you you know there's just a lot of priorities you can't expect the president you don't even realize there's a debt sealing limit debate that has to happen like the US government is about to run out of money so Congress is gonna be all tied up dealing with that right and negotiations around that for a while so a couple weeks and stuff so like there's a lot of high priority stuff stuff that although the digital assets industry gave a lot of support to the president so did a lot of other people and a lot of other the only industry in America it is not literally a crypto Congress sure there is a lot of crypto support in

Congress but it is America's Congress they've got other issues to work on so I think people just relax and chill and um and you know wait and see what's going to happen I think so far at FDIC and SEC and cftc where Carolyn fam uh was elevated to acting chair to you've got in three of the most important finreg seats uh much more open-minded um possibly supportive people uh in charge and you've still got um I mean even Scott Besson who's who's very likely to be confirmed soon I mean the treasury secretary is very important I mean in terms of the government operating um he's signaled plenty of support for digital Assets in the past so I think you're looking at everything looks like

uh ready to go here so um it's hard to know I don't want to speculate tooo much but I'll do one one specific I'm hoping that um uh you know a good friend of mine Omid malayon who's a professor at Columbia business school we had him on the Pod not too long ago oh great I love Omid um he he was saying something really interesting about tokenization which was that we all used to we all who were in crypto a long time used to think that it would help bring liquidity to illiquid assets and I looked at dozens of platforms when I did VC at Fidelity to tokenize stuff and like some of them were explicitly for Real Estate right and remember there was the St reges and Aspen that was partially tokenized and all this stuff none of that ended up being true right it liquid it turned out

that you know you don't want liquidity sometimes or other like you know you don't want to wake up and find that for some reason someone dumped your House's token overnight now your house like and also there's other advantageous reasons why things might not want to be marked to market right Venture investors as an example like they don't have to mark their stuff to Market you know maybe they do it quarterly or annually but like they don't want it to be live right there's so there reasons why that wasn't true that it it didn't its primary reason for tokenization was not bringing liquidity to illiquid assets and in fact what we found over the years is that the biggest product Market fit for tokenization has been stable coins so far which is expressly the opposite it's tokenizing the most liquid asset which

is the US dollar and I would say the second and he pointed this out Omid the second was that we've seen traction on as sovereign debt right treasuries right the second you've got Franklin Templeton and black Rock and others that are tokenizing creating onchain money market funds money market funds own national debt they own treasuries right and so then you say to yourself well what's the third okay now it looks like it's more about giving access to existing High highly liquid those seem to be working one and two are the most liquid in the world what's three right us equities right so maybe and just today I saw at Davos Larry Flink was Larry Flink Black Rock CEO was explicitly talking about tokenizing bonds and equities wow so I think you're you're likely to get he

would not say that unless he was already cooking on something yeah I think you're likely and they and they've already been tokenizing bonds too with bidd so I think you're likely to get at a minimum some sandbox environments and proof of concept State you know areas at the SEC where say a tokenization company and an issuer as in like a company who issu stock and maybe like a major national Securities Exchange sort of all come in and they say we want to tokenize at th shares of you know ticker XYZ or whatever it is and um and just like you know okay how can we do that and maybe they'll say the SEC will we know I'm pretty sure the SEC is going to say let's figure out how we can do that in a limited way and then we'll study it all

together and figure out the path forward and so you'll get things like oh well you can only do it for a thousand shares and they have to be to an accredit investor so you're great you go find like some high net worth person or a family office that also wants to be part of the experiment right and then you sort of try things like how okay well how's finra going to get finra gets from all the brokerage firms like a daily reporting called Blue sheet reporting which is just like all the trades the brokerage firm did okay well how did we get that to finra the SEC might ask and and literally there's some guy at finra who has to receive these every day how can he get it in the exact same format that he currently gets it from Fidelity from ethereum right so so then it would

be like okay like help set them up with a node and like we'll create an indexer for him we can pull the data forget every day you just see it in real time if wants to right or export under any time frame you go through all those stages and I think eventually you do get to a place where you can in some way n can adopt a decentralized trading infrastructure if they might want to and issuers could choose to either dual issue both on a blockchain or not I I think it's very likely that over the next four years we see significant movement on that wow Alex that is as bullish as it comes as thinking that some of our Regulators are going to actually start to become crypto native and run some local infra in order to do their jobs that's as I think as bullish

and optimistic as it comes and I'm absolutely here for it Alex thank you so much for joining me on Bank list today and helping me work through all this news yeah thank you David Alex if people want to just hear more from you maybe they liked your takes maybe they like the sound of your voice where should they go to get more of it yeah check me out on Twitter uh on x.com a great website x.com uh intangible coins is my handle there and um check our cont we publish a lot of research at galaxy.com resarch awesome we'll get all those links in the show notes for the podcast and on the YouTube Bank list Nation thank you so much for tuning in if you're watching on the YouTube make sure to give us a like And subscribe where we cover any time Trump talks about crypto

we're probably going to cover it so if you want more of that content make sure you subscribe to the YouTube and uh give us a festar review in your podcast app we really appreciate it bankless Nation you guys know the deal crypto is risky you can lose what you put in but nonetheless we are headed west this is a frontier it's not for everyone but we are glad you are with us on the bankless journey thanks a lot with over $1.5 billion in tvl the me protocol is home to me the fourth largest eth liquid staking token offering one of the highest aprs among the top 10 lsts and now CM takes things even further this restak version captures multiple yields across carak enan lay symbiotic and many more making CME the most efficient and most composable LRT Solution on the market metamorphosis season 1 dropped

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