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Hey, everybody. Tony here meant
the DC Blockchain Summit, and I have

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Commissioner hester Purse with me. Commissioner
purs, how are you doing, Tony.

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It's great to be here and it's
been a fun conference so far.

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Of course, I want to say
that my views are my own views and

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not as a commissioner, not necessarily
those of the SEC are my filial commissioners.

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Well, it's a pleasure to see
you in person after we've spoken over

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zoom and I'm a big fan of
yours and I appreciate all the work you've

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been doing, Commissioner Purse. Things
are really heating up here in DC around

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crypto. I mean, Donald Trump
last week said he's endorsing crypto. You

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have a couple of bills that are
in play, they saw one to one

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was repealed in the House. How
are you feeling about crypto in general as

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it relates to it being in almost
all facets of government. Yeah, there

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is has been a lot of attention
in recent weeks and months on crypto,

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and I do it's helpful to see
Congress weighing in on some of these issues.

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Sure, and uh, you know, I've had concerns around SAB one

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twenty one, for example, And
it's it's helpful to see that people take

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those process considerations seriously. Hester I'm
always curious that's the inner workings of things.

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So with SAB one to one being
were peeled in the house, how

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are you and the other folks that
guest feeling about that? As an agelist?

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Well, I mean I've been feeling
bad about SAB one twenty one since

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it was adopted is the wrong word, since it was put out on our

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website. Right, it's a staff
accounting bulletin, as its name suggests,

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and so it's not a commissioned document. And when it first came out,

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I said, I think this is
something we need to get noticed in comment

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on. I need to understand how
this is going to work. Sure,

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since it came out, we've heard
lots about the that it doesn't work,

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sure, and it keeps people out
of the industry and who would otherwise come

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into it. So from my perspective, seeing other people share those concerns is

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really helpful. But we could you
know, SAV one twenty one is still

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up on our website, So I
guess that's the answer to your question.

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Right, Maybe you can take me
behind the scenes the logic behind this,

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because it seems unreasonable that banks can
hold the dollar amount of those crypto acids

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while you know, outside the country. Then you know other banks, global

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competitors are don't have to do that. What's the logic, especially with a

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regulated into me like a maintan Tony. I can't tell you the logic because

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I don't understand it. So that's
that's the problem. Okay, yeah,

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how you got it? And it
keeps growing right now it covers broker dealers.

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It was about public companies at first, and now it's broader, so

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it's broker dealers too, So I
really don't understand the logic. Now,

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let's talk about the big old meta
amazing performance, But it was a fight

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to get that approved, and of
course it played out into courts. I

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would love to get your thoughts on
the judges calling the SEC arbitrary and capricious,

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and eventually the SCM being forced to
approve those uts, and what are

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your thoughts on that whole process and
how it played out in the courts.

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Well, as you know, I
would have preferred to see us moving forward

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earlier. I had thought that we
could have approved it earlier. With the

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with the applicants that had come in. Again, each application has to be

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judged on the facts and circumstances.
But I had written dicent saying we should

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have done this earlier. I mean, the fact that it took a court

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to weigh in is unfortunate. But
the bottom line is the products did get

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out there, and that's what matters
most. Now it's up to investors to

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decide whether they want them or not, and a lot of investors have decided

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they did. And again, we're
not putting our informatur on any product.

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But this is all I want.
It is for people to be able to

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choose for themselves whether they wanted this
product. Absolutely, and I know there's

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decisions coming up with you, dear
media, for to say anything about that,

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I'm not okay. Now, there's
some crypto regulation bills, a couple

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in the House, one for arche
structure, one for staple points. Senator

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A. Lummus and Jilli Brand have
a version in the Senate. There's a

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boat coming up for the one in
the House pretty soon. What are your

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thoughts do you think that will help
saying sec here's your job, here's your

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job, and let's move forward.
Yeah, I think you're exactly putting your

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finger on what would be helpful to
have Congress tell us, you know,

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whether they want us to be doing
a particular piece of this or whether they

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want CMDC or potentially another regulator.
And so we do answer to Congress.

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We're supposed to operate within the bounds
that Congress sets for us. And so

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I'm always enthusiastic when I see Congress
saying, hey, we want to give

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you some guidance on where to go. So that's that's how Well, again,

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we'll see what happens, and I'm
excited to see what this here brings.

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Yeah, it's fascinating. I feel
like crosst the HASM crypto is very

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much an election issue now. There's
so many different politicians. Look, I

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know the game of politics. There's
things that are said to pander to the

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industry. But at the same time, I mean, just even like last

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week, nothing that I'm supporting Donald
Trump with Biden or one or the others,

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but the fact that a former president
came in and said I use this

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stuff, I endorse it. Do
you feel that moving forward it will be

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easier for everybody to figure this out. In the past, it was hard

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because no one was President Trump at
one point was saying, I don't I'm

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not a fan of this. I
don't believe in it. I believe in

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the US dollar. But it seems
something has changed the narrative. We hit

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a tipping point. Are your thoughts
well, I mean, I think what

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I'm most excited about is the possibility
that we can actually get beyond the conversations

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about whether we're just going to say
no to this whole industry and get to

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a place where we say, Okay, what are we actually trying to achieve

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here, and how can we do
it in a way that maximizes people's liberty

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but also enables people to get the
kind of information they need and to for

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folks in the industry to feel there's
a way to be compliant. And so

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if we've moved to that place,
then I'm happy we're there for sure.

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I still, you know, I'm
not always super optimistic, because there's a

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lot going on that I'm not too
happy about as well. But I think

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if we can move to that place, that's a good thing. Krishioner.

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First, the SEC absolutely has a
job. There are bad actors, there's

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scammers looking at scamping, I've seen
it, But there's great entrepreneurs and innovators

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building incredible things. There's companies adopting
this technology. And if we could just

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have the clarity of the innovators or
the entrepreneurs not worried about going to get

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a wall's notice to get sued,
and then you guys can focus well,

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not you specifically, but you know, yes, you can focus on stopping

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the scammers because I don't know.
Sometimes I get frustrated because I'm like,

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Hey, does this scam happening?
Why are you setting point based at wall's

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notice? So without speaking to any
particular enforcement action, I think the point

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that you're making is such a good
point because I've talked to so many people

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who really want to use the technology
to do something interesting, to try something

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interesting, and they're hanging back because
they don't know whether whether it will implicate

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the securities laws, and if so, is there a way that they could

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do this that would make sense from
a commercial standpoint but also from our clients

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standpoint. And if we spent more
time thinking about that, then we could

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concentrate our enforcement resources where they would
make the most difference and help the most

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people. And that's what you're putting
your finger on, and I think that's

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really important. Final item here,
I don't know much about your tenure as

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a commissioner, but if you were
teed up to be the chair, would

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you accept that position and are you
able to? I am very happy in

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my role as a commissioner. My
term ends next June, and I've had

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a tremendous opportunity to work on really
interesting issues. I think the most important

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thing, the thing that I worry
about the most is getting my institution,

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the Secure, into a more productive
place, and that there's a lot of

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work still to be done. I'm
hopeful that we can make some progress over

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the next year. Well, you
have my vote and a lot of other

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folks votes to stay and and keep
doing the great work. But if you

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don't City SEC, what do you
think you might do after that? Oh?

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This is a job where you can't
think about your next job while you're

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in this one. So the only
thing I have planned is to is to

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be my dad's assistant beekeeper. So
other than that, I have no plans.

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Hester always a pleasure. Thank you
so much for taking the time.

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Thank you, Tony