Hey, everybody, Welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. You're home for cryptocurrency
news and interviews. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button as
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reading and review. Folks, we got the bitcoin spot ETFs in Hong Kong
going live pretty soon. James Sayferd to Bloomberg highlighted the following, the three
Hong Kong spot bitcoin ETFs are going to start trading in a few hours.
They are ready to go on Bloomberg Terminal. He also highlighted that the three
etherorem Spot ETFs will also go live at the same time. So, folks,
I'm very curious as to what the inflows will be now. I'm not
expecting anything crazy right out of the gate. I believe there's a crawl walk
run to this. As we saw with the bigcoin ets in the United States,
it took a couple of weeks before it really ramped up, and the
inflows when nuts, right record breaking. You got Larry Fink smiling on TV
saying we didn't expect this, and it ended up being the best performing ETF
in the history of ETF. So we will see inflows from across the globe.
Yesterday I shared with you guys at Australia is looking to approve bitcoins body
tfs as well later this year, and London via the UK is looking to
launch in May. So, folks, we're gonna see inflows some institutions and
many different folks around the globe. A lot of money is going to come
into this asset class. And we are still in a bullmarket. We are
in a pullback phase right now, and we will find a bottom and start
bouncing up. It wouldn't surprise me if the market started moving within the next
week, given that we have these ETFs launching. That's not a guarantee,
but it's a possibility. It's probable that it could happen. So right now
in Hong Kong, it is just about nine am, I believe. Yeah,
it's eight fifty nine am at the time of recording right now, So
they got to go live, guys, in maybe a half an hour or
whatever it may be. I don't know exactly when their trading opens up,
or maybe it's at ten am, but they're going live today Hong Kong time,
of course. Now let's take a look at the top trending tokens on
social media. This data is brought to you by Sentiment, which is a
partner of the channel. If you want to sign up for a Sentiment account
to get all types of cryptometrics and data and analytics, check out the link
in the description. You can get a discount using the code thinking crypto.
Coming in with the line share of mentions is Masa, which a really great
positive sentiment and the reason why it's trending here pretty significantly according to the summary
is total reward pool for Masa. Trading competition is seven hundred thousand. MASA
trade one hundred dollars worth of Masa to get the guaranteed share of one hundred
and seventy thousand Masa reward pool. So they got some sort of trading incentive
here, which is pretty great. Coming in a Number two is Etherorem with
positive sentiment. Number three is Helium H and T with positive sentiment. We
got number four pledge camp PLG. I haven't heard of this. I don't
know what that is. It comes in at number four here with positive sentiment.
Algoran coming in at number five although it's positive to negative sentiment is not
great. Positive sentiment is at forty one point nine percent, negative at forty
point ninety one percent, so very close there. Then you have monstera mstr
almost like micro strategies. Ticker symbol comes in at number six with positive sentiment.
Usdt on Avalanche comes in at number seven with positive sentiment. AMP comes
in at number eight with positive sentiment. Avax Avalanche I have this in my
portfolio comes in with positive sentiment. And finally tron Trx comes in at number
ten with positive sentiment. So those are your top ten trending tokens. Now
let's jump into the news folks. Shout out to Eleanor Tarrett, journalist at
Fox Business, who did some great reporting on what is happening with the SEC
versus E theorem. She tweeted out her article today stating new court filing show
SEC chair Gary Gainser believed Etherorem was a security for at least a year,
so he didn't just dream this up, guys. This is not a recent
thing. He's been putting his whole plan together over the past year. And
I think that makes sense because they approved Prometheum's licensed to custody Etherrem as a
digital asset security, as Gary would call it. So I think he's been
setting the table here and putting together his strategy so that he can then launch
the investigation with the Etheroreum Foundation and consensus and much more so. Eleanor did
a great write up here. You guys can certainly check out the article on
Fox Business, but here's some details that she provided in tweets to give you
the TLDR she said. The filing says the Etheroreum two point zero investigation,
as it was called, was based on the SEC's belief that possible offers and
sales of certain securities, including but not limited to eth had occurred since at
least twenty eighteen. Wow. If the against the s SEC finds Etherorem to
be a security, it would contradict prior SEC guidance under Chairman J. Clayton.
In June of that year, then Director of Corporation Finance Bill Himmen stated
in a speech the SEC's position that Etherorem, alongside Bickquin, was not a
security. Now, folks, we've talked about this ad nauseum, and you
know it goes back to what I've been saying they might throw Bill Hinman over
their bus here and say he's the drunk uncle. But we know he ain't
know a drunk uncle. He knew what he was doing. He had conflicts
of interest with Simpson Thatcher, the law firm that was paying him, which
was part of the Etherorem Enterprise alliance, So clear conflict of interests. Hinman
met with Joe Lubin and Vitalic, and then yesterday I shared with you guys
a news article of what Vitalic recently said that Etherorem d the proof of work
was centralized. So you can't make this stuff up right. A lot of
people trying to cover their tracks here, Gary trying to cover the SEC's track,
Vitalic trying to cover the tracks as well. But this is pathetic,
and this is why the SEC has fallen far from its core mission of protecting
investors, has become corrupt. At its core, it's become political and that
has not changed under Gary Gainser. It's actually been amplified. So incredible what
is taking place here now? Eleanor provides some additional context as well. She
says she reached out to Tom Emmer, the GOP majority whip, who has
been very critical of Gary Ginster, of course, and she said she asked
him for a comment, and here's what he said. Last year, Gary
Ginser refused to tell Congress if the SEC categorizes ETH as a commodity or a
security. Newly released court documents showed that the SEC's enforcement team was directed just
weeks before Gainster's congressional testimony to proceed as though EITH is a security. This
regulatory dishonesty is reprehensible. It's tainting our great capital markets, harming investors,
and threatening US global leadership. Yeah, well that's fine and dandy, but
Gary doesn't care what you say. You can call them names, you can
call them corrupt. He's a crook, but unless you take action, he
doesn't care because he's got Elizabeth Warren backing him up. And look, I
get it right, There's only so much the House can do because the Democrats
are in charge and Elizabeth Warren has a lot of power, and Gary's appointed
by Elizabeth Warren and the Biden administration. So they have to find ways to
keep Gary accountable. And I think one way they can do that is cut
his budgets and reject his budget requests. We'll see if they do that,
I think there's still opportunity for him to cut back his budget as that is
still in play for approval for twenty twenty five. They will bring in Gary
pretty soon, I think in May, if I'm not mistaken. So we'll
see will they actually take any actions? Because calling him out and saying he's
doing this has not worked. The man Gary Gainster keeps going and doing all
types of corrupt things, breaking the law right in the debt box situation that
get sanctioned. He doesn't care. They get called arbitrary and capricious in the
gray Scale lawsuit, he doesn't care. He just continue. So what will
they do now? Eleanor Tarrott acts Patrick McHenry the same thing. What do
you think about this? Here's what Patrick mcchenry said, and it's very similar
to what Tom member said. Just months after a federal judge sanctioned SEC enforcement
lawyers for lying to the court. New evidence shows Chairgainster himself misled Congress.
In testimony to the Financial Services Committee last April, Chair Againster refused to answer
questions regarding the SEC's classification of Ether. New court filings show this was an
intentional attempt to misrepresent the Commission's position classifying ether as a security contradicts previous statements
of the SEC and Chairgainster, yet another example of the arbitrary and capricious nature
of the agency's regulation by enforcement approach to digital assets. This episode underscores the
urgency of Congress passing the bipartisan FIIT Bill for the twenty fourth Century Act to
provide a clear regulatory framework and robust consumer protections for digital asset markets. Again,
Okay, you gotta take action either you pass that bill, you cut
Gary's budget. What are you guys going to do, right? Sending him
letters, tweeting at him and saying these things. It's getting old now,
right Initially, Look, and I have a lot of respect for Tom Emmer
and Patrick McHenry. I respect all the stuff they're doing, and I support
him. But at the end of the day, it's all words unless you're
taking action against this guy, right, unless you're cutting his budget, or
you are doing something where he is tying him up where he cannot do these
enforcement actions against good actors. And we'll see, we'll see, you know,
maybe it still has to go back to the courts. Gary wants to
block the ethere metifs, maybe he gets sued by Black Rock, Fidel League,
Ray Skill and all the issuers in addition to the industry counter suing him.
Right Consensus is suing the SEC. We got a ton of advocacy groups
suing the SEC. So let's see what happens here, right, folks,
I'm keeping it real with you all. And and once again, I've had
Tom emmerod multiple times. I want to get Patrick Henry on, but I
will straight up ask them, guys, what are we doing? Right?
Just talking doesn't do anything. Maybe they're building their case, maybe they're getting
ready to make a big move. Who knows, But we'll have to wait
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be in the description. Now. Guys Ron Hammond of the Blockchain Association,
who has been a frequent guest on this podcast, tweeted out his weekly update
about what's happening in DC and crypto and here's some important takeaways. I'm not
going to read everything, but I think this is important, he said.
Congress is back for four weeks after wrapping up their latest priority for the year
in the foreign aid bills. There aren't many must pass bills left, and
the election is near six months out. There is a lot to look forward
to for crypto on the Hill. First up, stable coins. A lot
of attention on Patrick mc henry and Representative Maxine Waters. While Maxine Waters didn't
vote in support of bipartisan stable coin in twenty twenty three, she is still
heavily involved and suggested to Bloomberg that a deal between the two leads is imminent.
There have been reports that they are engaging Senator Chuck Schumer. This is
important because in a Congress in constant gridlock, the senior Democrat senator has proven
to move things along. There is also the Lumbus Jillibrand stable coin bill,
which has several differences versus the Houses. Then there's the problem of legislative vehicle.
Congress doesn't have much time left to move bills, so they lump many
together to save time. However, some of the bills suggested as vehicles or
to be paired with a potential stable coin bill also carried their own political baggage.
So folks, there seems to be some high probability here that the stable
coin bill could make it through. It's not one hundred percent, of course,
right they're engaging with Senators Chuck Schumer, so that's a good sign as
far as getting bills through. So we'll see, but you know, it's
not very likely. My gut tells me they're not getting anything through this year
just because of the election, but I think definitely next year. But then
again, it could be they make it halfway in a sense that it gets
out of the House, but then it still has to go to the Senate,
and then of course it has to go to the President. So hopefully
they can get it out of the House. That will be a big win
and a big step that we've gotten that far in the history of the crypto
industry. So if you can get it at the House and then send it
over to to send it guys, I think that would be a big win.
It will give us a lot of momentum as we head into next year.
So let's see, call up your representatives, email twitet, do what
you got to do to dram up as much noise, guys. But if
we can get stable coin regulation out, that would be very bullish for the
market. Even if we don't get market structure, it will just set the
tone that things are progressing. And once you get stable coined through, I
think it'll be easy to get the market structure through as well. So fingers
crossed, folks. I'm optimistic, but more so for next year. Well,
folks. That's the news friendly reminder. My book Rethinking Crypto, The
Crash of FTX and the Rise of Safer, Stronger Digital Assets is live on
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I'll talk to you all later