Everybody, Welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. You're home for your cryptocurrency news
and interviews. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button as well
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a podcast platform such as Spotify or Apple, please leave a five star rating
and review. Well, folks, we've got to start off with the big
news, and that is Consensus, which is the firm that works on the
development of Etherorem. They have filed a lawsuit against the SEC because the SEC
we know, is trying to categorize Etherorem as a security. We heard rumors
over the past month that they were investigating the Theorem foundation, and we've been
talking about it for years that Gary Genser, scumbag regulator Gary Ginser refuses to
echo the statements of Jay Clayton and Bill Himmon that etherorem is not a security,
so it's really messy. And of course the CFTC views Etherorem as a
commodity. So this is so messy. This this is why we need regulations.
We need Congress to act because you have this rogue regulator that is Gary
Gainser just doing all types of nonsense and I've been saying that I don't think
Gary necessarily wants to classify eth as a security, but rather he wants to
delay the Etheroreum's BODYTF Now, I could be wrong because there are some moving
pieces here with Prometheum, and they got the license to custody Etheroreum as a
security. I had Aaron Kaplan of Prometheum on the podcast and he was echoing
Gainser's statements of these things are all digital asset securities, and that's a term
Gary Genser coined. So what a mess. But let me give it a
details. Here they said, today Consensus file a lawsuit against the Securities in
Exchange Commission. The goal behind this is to ensure that the etherorem remains a
vibrant and indispensable blockchain platform and to preserve access for the countless developers, market
participants, and institutions who have a stake in the world's second large blockchain.
And they added the hashtag eth for all. They said here, we took
this step for two basic reasons. Number one, the SEC should not be
allowed to arbitrarily expand its jurisdiction to include regulating the future of the Internet by
wrongly labeling eth as a security. And number two, the SEC's reckless approach
is bringing chaos to developers, market participants, institutions, and nations who are
building or already managing critical systems running on the etheroreum. Now they continue into
their reasons and so forth. But that's the TLDR and I'm glad they're doing
this. Recently, I had Bill Hughes, who's a lawyer at Consensus.
I interviewed him. You know, I upload that interview six days ago.
If you haven't seen it, be sure to check it out. We talk
about what the SEC is trying to do here in categorizing ETH as a security.
I personally think this is a delayed tactic to push back that etherorem SPOTTYTF
because the deadline is May twenty third, and you just see this mess though,
right the SEC is soon the industry, the industry suing the SEC,
and it's just all a mess. But we need Congress to act because we're
all just going to be back and forth in litigation. Now. Don't get
me wrong. This is where the balance and the checks and balances comes in
because the SEC has been taking some big losses because they've been lying to the
courts. They've been acting arbitrary and capricious and just doing unlawful activities, so
they're getting exposed. So that's a good thing, right, because we want
these government agencies who are supposed to be the good guys to abide by the
law. They're taking our tax dollars and operating, so they should at least
treat us fairly within the law versus the puppet masters who donate money to them.
So we got to fight here, folks. There's a bigger theme here,
and that is accountability by the government and to push back against these rogue
agencies which have done incredible government overreach. So fascinating what's happening. Like I
said, check out my interview with Bill Hughes. So a lot of folks
are weighing in on this. Paul grad Wall of Coinbase Chief Legal Officers said,
I know eth is a commodity. You know eth is a commodity.
The c FDC knows eth is a commodity. It's time for the SEC to
admit that it still knows eth is a commodity too. No more games.
Thank you Consensus for standing up against the SEC's unlawful expansion of authority. So
we also have the Blockchain Association weighing in on this, giving a full statement.
Their CEO Kristen Smith also weighing in, talking about, Look, you
know this is overreach by the SEC and consensuses. Lawsuit seeks to defend the
ecosystem and much more. Now, folks, it's not that simple because we
know, and I'll quote Stephen Narryoff here in his tweet, that Bill Hinman
was compromised. He had conflicts of interest, so that's a fact, and
he was warned by the SEC Ethics Office. And there's people who try to
cover this up and sweep it out and under the rug. But we have
to call it what it is. And I'm not so much angry at Joe
Lubin the or the etherorem folks, because it was the SEC agency which was
compromised. They take my tax dollars, not Joe Lubin and so forth right.
If you want to call him a bad actor, fine, right,
and bad actors exist, but we at least want the government to abide by
the law and not be bribe and not do all these unlawful activities. So
Steven Nariov was of course part of the creation of the Etheroreum ICO. I
interviewed him about a month ago. He said, Joseph Lubin and Consensus have
filed a lawsuit against the SEC to ensure that etherorem is not the cleator security.
Joe Lubin, do you recall when you wrote the terms and conditions?
He tagged him by the way, and they purchased agreement in twenty fourteen.
Lubin's significant buying during the ICO amounted to securities fraud one oh one and also
transformed Ether into a security Gary Genso later confirmed this by stating Lubin bought nine
point five percent of the ICO. So he continues, you know, to
talk about Lubin met with Bill Hinman. We know how that went. He
mentioned here Prometheum they got their license, of course in February of this year.
And much more so, he's essentially trying to say that this is the
SEC coordinating with Lubin and so forth to try to put up some smoke and
mirrors here. I don't know all the details, you know, because I
wasn't there. Steven Arroyoff obviously was, So I'll take him at his word,
but you know, we'll see how this plays out at the end of
the day, what we need is Congress to act to provide clarity because it's
just a mess and people are going to keep suing each other. This one's
going to come up with this narrative, this one's going to say this story.
So it's getting very messy, like where does this even end? And
you know, one of the things I spoke to Bill Hughes about at Consensus
is that if the SEC denies the etherorem' spot ETF, they could get sued
by Fidelity, black Rock and many of the Etheroreum etf issuers. It's no
longer just grayscale like it was in the Bitcoin ETF case. So Gary,
I don't think he wants these problems, but we'll see where this goes.
There's something cooking up here. I don't trust Gary, I don't trust Prometheum,
I don't trust Joe Lubin once again. But my ripe mainly is with
the government agency because that's being funded by my tax dollar. So I've been
on record saying that, and we'll see where this goes. Now, what's
interesting is that eth is trending here. The data is brought to you by
Sentiment, which does social media metrics and sentiment about different crypto coins. So
if you want to sign up for a pro account, you can check out
the LinkedIn and description. You can get a discount using the code thinking crypto
so eth though, even though this news is popping up, is trending positively,
I guess because the investors see this is a good thing going on the
offensive against the SEC. Coming in at number two is Amp with positive sentiment.
Number three baby dos Coin, a meme coin coming in with a positive
sentiment. Vello comes in at number four with positive sentiment. Eos Wow a
blasphom pass. This thing was essentially dead, but it's still here. I'm
not invested in it, but it has high positive sentiment. Chronoscro crypto dot
COM's coin coming in with positive sentiment, Bunk another meme coin coming in with
positive sentiment, and number seven Masa. I've not heard of this. This
token comes in at number eight with positive sentiment. Doge Coin another meme coin
coming in at number nine with positive sentiment, and BnB coming in at number
ten with positive sentiment. So those are you top ten trending tokens on social
media data brought to you by Sentiment Now folks, We've got some interesting news
that Ripple is using USDT the stable coin. It's fascinating and I think this
has to do with the lawsuit. Right They were kind of forced to step
away from XRP a little bit during that period. In crypto. Eddie,
who has a great channel you can check out her channel, highlighted an email
here from Monica Long of Ripple saying that they took steps to mitigate each US
based ODL customer from using Excorp as the bridge in the ODL to using USDT
or the contract was terminated. We should continue to use USDT or Bitcoin or
other vetted stable coins for US based flows unless otherwise approved by legal So you
know, this has to do with the lawsuit. I understand why they pivoted,
but I think the key point here and I always keep it real with
you guys. I don't have a hidden agenda. You know some people have
a hidden agenda. They spread foot about Tether and USDT. I've interviewed the
CEO Tether. I've found their attestations and their audits which appear on the website
to be legit. They got a big endorsement from Howard Lutnick, the CEO
of Canthor Fitzgerald firm that's been on Wall Street forever, and he said at
Davos they have the money. So I think with all the details that Teather
has done and cleaned up their books and they're in I think they're in a
better place now that even a company like Ripple is using u SDT. So,
you know, crypto Eddie called out the folks who are spreading fud and
lying and saying, you know, you know those channels claiming usdt's a scam,
oh the twist of life, and you know you're pretty much talking about
some XRP maximalists who do this. So, guys, this is why you
always do your own research and don't just listen to stories and people. Go
do your research. Even what I'm telling you, validate it, And I
have confidence saying that because I don't have a hidden agenda. You can go
read up this email, go check out the article and see that indeed this
is fact right, it's not a lie. I'm not trying to blow smoke
up here you know where, or gaslight you or anything. I'm here to
make money and I'm telling you what I'm doing. I'm sharing the facts and
the news and the reporting here, so and Tether. Here's a report that
actually came out yesterday. Tether will freeze while it's evading Venezuelan sanctioned. So
Tether's actually been working with governments to stop bad actors, and that's what you
want to see from the world's largest stable coin issuer. They are working with
different folks. So use of Tether has increased in Venezuela after the US reimposed
sanctions on oil exports, so the firm froze forty one wallets tied to the
US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control specifically designated nationals list in December.
So again they're working with the governments. They have cleaned up their books,
they're doing the attestations, they've done audits. Go on their website and check
it out. And they're getting endorsements from Wall Street firms. So I think
Tether isn't a better place now. I always keep it real with you guys.
I don't think things were in a good place years ago. I'm talking
like four or five years ago, or maybe you know what five six years
ago, I would say, And when it was a bit of the wild
west of the crypto market, and I've had, like I said, represented
some tethers, a couple on the podcasts. I've interviewed them and asked them
the hard questions and so forth. And like I said, my most recent
interview was with the CEO Tether, Paolo r Emos, So be sure to
check out at interview. It's a pretty good one, ri folks. Quick
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more about bidgo, check out the link in the description or go to bitgo
dot com. Now, folks, we've got news area. Stripe is looking
to bring back crypto payments in the next few months. This is the first
cryptocentric announcement from Stripe since May of last year. So we're seeing all types
of technology services, business solutions, and apps and technologies are integrating crypto and
of course because it's a growing technology and acid class. So global payments company
Stripe announced that it was going to start allowing crypto payments on Thursday at the
company's Global Internet Economy Conference. Speaking at the final keynote titled the Future of
Payments, Stripe's president John Collison said, our history with crypto goes back a
long time. He cited the company's now defunct Bitcoin support back in twenty eighteen
because it wasn't being used. We're excited to announce that we're bringing back crypto
as a way to accept payments, but this time it will be a much
better experience, folks. As I always say, this is news you want
to see if you're investing in a nascent acid class. So it's incredible what's
happening. Some of the biggest companies in the world are integrating and adopting crypto.
They're tokenizing their building with it. They're creating financial products right like the
ETFs and much more. Due to the fact that crypto has more use cases
and Callson presentations said, cryptos back Stripe decided to bring back crypto payments.
Here's a quote. Crypto is finding real utility. Callison said, with transaction
speeds increasing and costs coming down, we're seeing crypto finally make sense as a
means of exchange. And I think we're seeing a lot of that is due
to stable coins like USDC and much more. And with interoperability and different blockchains
and faster transaction times and lower costs. You know, as there's more iterations
with these different cryptocurrencies and like I said, better experience and speed and transaction
fee standpoint, you're going to see more adoption globally. So this is really
good news. Now we got some big news around Algoran. Many of you
know I hold the Algo token. I am bullish on this project, not
financial advice through your own research. But the headline reads Algoran courts Python devs
in seismic chain. The Algrand Foundation touts the network as the first to go
after full of ten million global developers. A choice of programming language is not
the be all and end all of smart contract development, but it does influence
security, efficiency, and accessibility of blockchain applications. Each language comes with its
own set of capabilities and limitations that can impact how contracts are executed, the
potential for vulnerabilities, and the ease of finding and fixing errors. Algran is
becoming the first Layer one blockchain to adopt Python as its canonical language. In
what Algrand Foundation Chief technology Officer John Woods calls a seismic change. Python is
a massive step forward on the roadmap towards removing all barriers to entry for developers,
said Woods. So this is actually really good. I know it's not
something that we as investors really pay attention to, but when you want to
attract more developers and the best developers, you want to make sure you're using
certain coding language that is familiar and has global presence so that you get more
talent, right, and you get people who are more familiar with that talent,
and you can try to get the best out of these folks. So
I think it makes sense, and this is really good news for Algo token
holders. So great to see that this is a door they're opening up,
and I think it will lead to more adoption of blockchains if they're more compatible
with you know, other solutions that are out there, other technologies and so
forth. So I think it's a win win all around. Now, next
news item here, crypto focused federal chartered bank intro settlement network, coin fund
edX Clearing and non co are among the first users of the offering. So
this is Anchorage Digital. Many of you may recall my interview with Nathan McCauley,
he's the CEO of Anchorage Digital, just maybe about a month ago,
so be sure to check that out. I try to bring you guys these
interviews so you can hear from people building and investing in the market. So,
Anchorage Digital is a federally chartered bank and it is now offering settlement of
US dollars and crypto assets for buy and sell side institutions. Crypto focused.
Anchorage Digital unveil its new settlement network called Atlas in a Thursday announcement. Atlas
has already settled hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto since its early access launch
earlier this year. To company said, Atlass users can access counterparties that include
clients of Anchorage Digital and its Singapore subsidiary on chain settlement ensures the assets are
not commingled and don't leave on chain addresses until settlement occurs. According to the
bank, this is what we need for the growth of the market. No
commingling, no FTX, right trusted institutions who are federally chartered, god insurance,
your license, and much more. And you know if you put your
crypto funds with these firms, you know there's safeguards, there's guardrails in place,
and that they're not going to do nonsense like FTX was allowed to do
under Gary Genser's watch. By the way, so at List participants are not
reliant on settlement providers books, a spokesperson told block Works. Our regulatory status
and security profile represent a major unlock for institutions, with ATLAS advancing a new
era of safe and secure settlement across the industry. So really great to see
this. And the industry is growing, guys, it's maturing all the bells
and whistles and even more than what exists in the tratify markets. So these
are custody and these things are pillars for the growth of this asset class and
a continued adoption and we continue to raise the bar and the standard here.
So this is a great, great sign. So that's the news, folks.
Friendly reminder to check out my book, Rethinking Crypto. It is available
on Amazon in digital and in paperback. Guys. This book tells the story
of crypto. Talks about you know, the sec versus Gray Scale and Ripple,
and why those lawsuits are there, why FTX was not the ethos of
crypto, Sam Beck, mcfred was just a bad actor. It talks about
the future of crypto, what that looks like. It talks about the bigcoin
ETM phrase with Black Rock and Wall Street. It also highlights tips for how
to invest in crypto. Now, if you know all about crypto, you
know, this would make a great gift for someone who doesn't know, because
it gives the holistic view of crypto, not just okay, it's only bitcoin,
but or it's only this and that. It talks about everything, tokenization,
CBDCs, everything, guys. So grab a copy, guys. Link
will be in the description. And I also have a book signing event next
week, So if you are in the New York City area, come check
it out. The book signing will be in a building right across the street
from the Wall Street Bowl. Will be in the Financial district. Come get
some food and chat up about crypto. Get a signed copy of the book,
we can hang out. It'll be Tuesday, April thirty. A link
will be in a description. Thank you guys for watching and listening, and
I'll talk to you all late. This task stop post tasks. Don't stand