Speaker 1: Clarity vote.
Speaker 2: Chaos is now underway as we near the last few
Speaker 2: hours of where anything can happen. So today is going
Speaker 2: to be a good one. We'll get right into it.
Speaker 2: I want to showcase right here as we are one
Speaker 2: day away, guys, three hours and probably those last three
Speaker 2: hours are not going to matter because most everybody, if
Speaker 2: they're not leaving DC and they are staying over, then
Speaker 2: we might build a new counterclock. But right now, as
Speaker 2: of tomorrow, the Senate recess will be in play and
Speaker 2: Clarity may not be on the table. That of course,
Speaker 2: if you look at the polymarket, it does showcase this.
Speaker 1: This is the weekly.
Speaker 2: Right now on where Clarity odds are dropping to their
Speaker 2: lowest point in quite some time. And we're going to
Speaker 2: have a special guest on today. We'll break into this,
Speaker 2: but before we bring her on, I want to go
Speaker 2: over to a clip here, and this is of course,
Speaker 2: what's happening in Russia around regulation.
Speaker 1: Take a look.
Speaker 2: Russia passes the first comprehensive crypto law.
Speaker 3: Russia's new framework.
Speaker 4: Which is effective from first Septeman this year, has created
Speaker 4: the country's first full legal regime.
Speaker 5: Wat Guru picked this up fast over four hundred and
Speaker 5: thirty seven thousand views within hours.
Speaker 6: Russia has finally gone all in on crypto.
Speaker 1: I begin love this.
Speaker 2: Come on Russia.
Speaker 5: It landed on the same Tuesday as the clarity delay.
Speaker 1: We are falling behind everybody. So the US just lost
Speaker 1: to Russia in crypto.
Speaker 3: Don't mistake this for a full embrace of crypto.
Speaker 5: It's the opposite. This is regulation as control, not regulation
Speaker 5: as liberation.
Speaker 1: And get this, it's back by State Oho Bank.
Speaker 2: This serves Russian defense contractors and built by fugitive Oligar.
Speaker 5: And these depositories will need minimum equity somewhere between fifty
Speaker 5: million and two hundred million rubles just to operate.
Speaker 3: Russia still don't want people using crypto to buy everyday
Speaker 3: goods and services inside the country.
Speaker 2: Retail Russians are captured just thirty eight hundred dollars a year.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely tiny. And this was never about giving
Speaker 1: their citizens freedom.
Speaker 2: Large transfers to foreign accounts now require a mandatory forty
Speaker 2: eight hour hold.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like a super protection to me, all right.
Speaker 2: So the point being is that this was all I
Speaker 2: think theater, and we kind of expected this coming out
Speaker 2: of some other countries, and that of course kind of
Speaker 2: puts it into the front of what's happening here in
Speaker 2: the US. So I wanted to bring on Kret Calvert,
Speaker 2: who is the vice president for US policy at Coinbase.
Speaker 6: How are you, Kara, great, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Okay, So a lot happening right now. We played a
Speaker 2: clip there, of course, of Russia, where really it's more
Speaker 2: of an oligarch set up over there, so it's not
Speaker 2: really regulation.
Speaker 1: We have seen good.
Speaker 2: Regulation though in places like Japan, which has been very
Speaker 2: pro and then of course you look at what's happening
Speaker 2: in Europe with Mika, and even to that extent, they've
Speaker 2: been somewhat regulatory, but at least they have a consumer
Speaker 2: element in it that is designed for obviously for users
Speaker 2: within crypto in general. But when you look at what's
Speaker 2: happening right now in DC, who would you say is
Speaker 2: standing in the way here on this last day before
Speaker 2: a recess.
Speaker 7: Well, it's been a long slog. I'd say that there
Speaker 7: are a few issues that are left. Ultimately, though, we
Speaker 7: need to get to sixty votes, so a very few
Speaker 7: number of people can hold out a lot of power,
Speaker 7: and there are a few issues that Democrats have identified
Speaker 7: as key to getting their votes.
Speaker 6: I think each one of those has been ticked off.
Speaker 7: Whether it comes from law enforcement, there's an entirely new
Speaker 7: law enforcement title combating a list at Finance. There's a
Speaker 7: new title on a list at Finance.
Speaker 6: There are new.
Speaker 7: Restrictions and consumer protections around intermediaries in the agriculture title.
Speaker 7: So there are a lot of provisions. And I think
Speaker 7: we've got a day left. As you noted, I love
Speaker 7: the clock. Everybody needs a good clock to get action.
Speaker 7: And I think that, you know, hopefully we have a vote,
Speaker 7: Hopefully we see a motion to proceed filed today, and
Speaker 7: ultimately I think the question is going to have to
Speaker 7: be called to see where people stand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the point is is that I think
Speaker 2: this would be a failure, especially for Republicans, if they
Speaker 2: don't even get it to the floor for a vote.
Speaker 2: So I think Thune, of course, is under the gun.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: What about the issue right now? Why hasn't Thune made
Speaker 2: a public statement on clarity? You think here we are
Speaker 2: a day before.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, he said multiple times, and he wants to
Speaker 7: vote before they leave. I think the big question is
Speaker 7: when are they leaving? Are they leaving tomorrow? Are they
Speaker 7: leaving on Saturday. It's a bit like tetris when you're
Speaker 7: in the leadership's office trying to figure out how to
Speaker 7: get all these things to fit together with the time requirements,
Speaker 7: with the necessary you know, whether it's time agreements or amendments,
Speaker 7: you have to figure out how it all fits together.
Speaker 7: So I think that's the big question is when are
Speaker 7: they leaving and then if this can fit into that
Speaker 7: time that time allotment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so you're mentioning that a weekend. Do
Speaker 2: you feel like a weekend vote could actually happen here?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 7: I think that there is absolutely still time to get
Speaker 7: this across the finish line. I think the big question
Speaker 7: is whether or not it hangs out into September. When
Speaker 7: they come back on September fourteenth, I think the conventional
Speaker 7: wisdom is right now, they'll have a vote.
Speaker 6: It'll be a big moment. It'll be a moment.
Speaker 7: That the industry that certainly I've been waiting for for
Speaker 7: a decade. I started working in crypto in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 7: so this has not been an overnight process. It has
Speaker 7: been something that we had worked on for years, and
Speaker 7: I think the time has finally come where they're going.
Speaker 2: To call the vote all right, so you feel it
Speaker 2: still is a possibility of being in play. We may
Speaker 2: have to extend our countdown into the weekend. You had
Speaker 2: Senator Tillis though, also brought out something that let me
Speaker 2: kind of zoom in on that says that the White
Speaker 2: House is now engaging on a Bipartisan Clarity Act ethics text.
Speaker 2: This is almost unprecedented. We have not seen an administration
Speaker 2: go this far, especially this late in the game. And again,
Speaker 2: this looks at a possibility here of where this may
Speaker 2: eliminate all the issues that the Democrats were kind of
Speaker 2: pointing to. Do you feel that this is kind of
Speaker 2: the last thing or is this still a situation of
Speaker 2: protecting the banks and so on?
Speaker 7: This is absolutely one of the key gating factors, and
Speaker 7: it is unprecedented. Never before have we seen an ethics
Speaker 7: provision that has voluntarily been agreed to by a sitting
Speaker 7: president to put in place something that's never been done
Speaker 7: in the history of the United States. You've never had
Speaker 7: those types of ethics requirements, so that it really is unprecedented.
Speaker 7: And I think the question is do Democrats do they
Speaker 7: continue to ask for more? And I think Senator Tillis
Speaker 7: has actually played a really important role here of trying
Speaker 7: to determine what is the appropriate level of requirement and
Speaker 7: an ethics obligation.
Speaker 6: So he's working through that.
Speaker 7: I think he's got a good faith partner with at
Speaker 7: least with Senator Gego. The question is how much further,
Speaker 7: especially when there's something that will will directly impact the
Speaker 7: president and his family, and how do they think about that.
Speaker 6: So it's a big question and it's a big ask.
Speaker 7: And ultimately I think that this will not be This
Speaker 7: may be the final issue that has to be addressed
Speaker 7: because it's the last big one. Things like the banks,
Speaker 7: and we can get into the issues around rewards and
Speaker 7: interest and yield. I think the banks have certainly been
Speaker 7: successful in getting the community banks to be really active
Speaker 7: on Capitol Hill. I think there's a lot of sympathy
Speaker 7: for community banks. I think the larger banks have realized
Speaker 7: that and have put the community banks out in front
Speaker 7: and then have falled, I guess, kind of fallen back
Speaker 7: on the issues around oh, there are no law enforcement
Speaker 7: provisions in this bill. That's where the banks have now
Speaker 7: taken this. So the bank's issue is certainly still out there.
Speaker 7: But I think really, ethics is the issue that all
Speaker 7: eyes are watching right now.
Speaker 1: So ethics number one.
Speaker 2: But when you listen to Josh Holly, who is most
Speaker 2: of the time he's kind of been against crypto, but
Speaker 2: not for this reason. Right here and now he's talking
Speaker 2: about the effect on community banks. To your point point,
Speaker 2: the very point you were just making is that the
Speaker 2: ABA and the banking lobbies have been very effective, been
Speaker 2: able to reach some of these senators and lawmakers that
Speaker 2: now the community bank issue is coming up. So is
Speaker 2: this on Josh Holly's mind to where we would not
Speaker 2: be able to pivot him to a yes? FO, Do
Speaker 2: you feel like that has been kind of the closing
Speaker 2: argument for the banks to be able to kind of
Speaker 2: lock in on some of these Republicans?
Speaker 7: You know, Senator Holly is interesting every time we talk
Speaker 7: to them, there's a different issue in the office.
Speaker 6: So I'm not sure what would get Senator Holly too.
Speaker 7: Yes, and that this was the issue that he identified
Speaker 7: in public. Great now we know where he stands and
Speaker 7: at least what the particular issue is. I think that
Speaker 7: at the end of the day, there have not been
Speaker 7: solutions proffered by the banks on this. The only solution
Speaker 7: that they have offered is to ban third party rewards
Speaker 7: because it allows stable coins to directly compete with their
Speaker 7: payment operations. So again, this really isn't about deposits, about
Speaker 7: their payment and their competition in that and basically.
Speaker 6: In that environment.
Speaker 7: And so ultimately, with somebody like Senator Holly, you know,
Speaker 7: he's making a point, and whether or not he votes
Speaker 7: for this bill, I think he's going to have to
Speaker 7: look at.
Speaker 6: It on the merits.
Speaker 7: He's going to have to understand that this is better
Speaker 7: for America. You're opening scene with Russia. I mean, this
Speaker 7: is at its core a national security bill just as
Speaker 7: much as it's a consumer protection bill. America we are
Speaker 7: excellent at exporting things like our as we think about
Speaker 7: our deepest capital markets and our innovation and our leadership.
Speaker 6: But they also look to regulation.
Speaker 7: When we passed the Genius Act, all of a sudden,
Speaker 7: the rest of the world started taking notice. Central bankers
Speaker 7: were caring about this, other regulators were caring about this.
Speaker 7: We export good regulation. Instead, you have Russia deciding what's
Speaker 7: horrible regulation, and if.
Speaker 6: God forbid, other countries start to pick that up.
Speaker 7: That's where I think we're That's what I think Senator
Speaker 7: Holly is going to have to look at and other
Speaker 7: people who are trying to determine what is the best
Speaker 7: foundation here in the United States. Do we take an
Speaker 7: argument that is not founded in reality that this is
Speaker 7: going to impact community bank deposits. We have had stable
Speaker 7: coins out there for years, We've been offering rewards for
Speaker 7: four years. Genius has been a lot of the land
Speaker 7: for over a year now, and deposits have only gone up.
Speaker 7: So it doesn't make any sense. It's not founded in reality.
Speaker 7: But I get that it's a political problem.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think the argument that the banks and
Speaker 2: definitely not on the side of the banks here, but
Speaker 2: they yes, you're right, they have seen deposits, depositors going up.
Speaker 2: I think it was almost seven percent year of a year,
Speaker 2: so continue that was JP Morgan. The point is is
Speaker 2: that fintech is kind of coming along, whether we see
Speaker 2: clarity or not. The other thing that's happening is companies
Speaker 2: like Citadel. You've got Jeff Dorman out there kind of
Speaker 2: attacking on what you guys are doing and blaming Coinbase
Speaker 2: that Armstrong was kind of at the core of not
Speaker 2: getting this across the line. Why do you think we're
Speaker 2: getting so much pressure, you guys, especially from people like
Speaker 2: Citadel and the DTCC.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is, Well.
Speaker 7: It's ironic considering Citadel has had their fair share and
Speaker 7: their hand in making this much more difficult to get
Speaker 7: across the finish line. So I think that that is
Speaker 7: what you're seeing play out in real time on x
Speaker 7: is really a reflection of where people come down on
Speaker 7: the legislation and Coinbase. There's been nobody at the table
Speaker 7: longer than Coinbase. There's been nobody again. I started working
Speaker 7: for Coinbase in twenty sixteen, trying to get legislation passed,
Speaker 7: trying to get clear rules. So there's no company that's
Speaker 7: been at the table longer. I think it's really easy
Speaker 7: to have a scapegoat. It's really easy to point fingers
Speaker 7: out at one company or any one particular player. But ultimately,
Speaker 7: back in January, the bill was not ready for primetime.
Speaker 7: And what we have seen is that had we locked
Speaker 7: in some really problematic policy, it's so easy for opponents
Speaker 7: to fall back on the argument of process. Oh, this
Speaker 7: was already passed, this was already part of the debate,
Speaker 7: This was already locked in to legislative text. That process point,
Speaker 7: we would have handed that process point to opponents. So
Speaker 7: I think that we had to take a take action.
Speaker 7: That legislation was released with only a few days. It
Speaker 7: was released on a Monday night. We really had less
Speaker 7: than forty eight hours to evaluate a three hundred, four
Speaker 7: hundred page bill, and so that you know, that rapid
Speaker 7: movement prompted a lot of chaos, and ultimately we feel
Speaker 7: like it was in a better place now by far.
Speaker 7: But certainly, I mean, we've been working on this for
Speaker 7: a long time. It wasn't us who were dragging out
Speaker 7: these negotiations on Capitol Hill. I think there were many
Speaker 7: other players here. I think the Democrats have a lot
Speaker 7: of wins to show for their you know, eight months
Speaker 7: of negotiations and nearly four hundred extra pages. I think Republicans,
Speaker 7: you know, certainly have also been at the table and
Speaker 7: have have fought hard for what they want, and now
Speaker 7: you have a bipartisan product that's over six hundred pages long.
Speaker 7: So ultimately, you know, we also had a House passed
Speaker 7: clarity bill that would have been great. We could have
Speaker 7: passed that last year when we passed the Genius Act.
Speaker 7: But ultimately, that's how the Senate is. It's deliberative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: And just to remind everybody, the period in which the
Speaker 2: Citadel guy was talking about was a period in which
Speaker 2: we were seeing the full court pressure on stable coin
Speaker 2: yields which was being introduced in that you know in
Speaker 2: that text markup that you're mentioning. So why do you
Speaker 2: think that Citadel and DTCC have not seen the kind
Speaker 2: of backlash because the banks, I think, have seen the
Speaker 2: backlash from the industry. But if you look at some
Speaker 2: of these kind of pseudo financial institutions that could also
Speaker 2: plan this, why aren't they getting the heat.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 7: And just to go back for a second, back to January,
Speaker 7: it's a really good point. The provision that would have
Speaker 7: passed and would have been incredibly difficult to unwind, would
Speaker 7: have killed third party rewards. You couldn't have gone to
Speaker 7: use stable coins and got a balloon, as you know,
Speaker 7: as a reward in your local merchant shop.
Speaker 6: That would have been banned like that is insanity.
Speaker 7: When it comes to just pure competition, free markets, and
Speaker 7: open innovation. So we really, as I think as a
Speaker 7: company that is built on that and really believes in
Speaker 7: our mission is economic freedom. That just ran counter to
Speaker 7: everything we knew, and so we felt very strongly that
Speaker 7: that that we needed to take a stand then for
Speaker 7: our customers and frankly for the innovation itself. And back
Speaker 7: to your question about why, why do I think some
Speaker 7: of these other players who have had I think shadow
Speaker 7: operations to make this bill really difficult. I think at
Speaker 7: the end of the day, it's this is a disruptive technology,
Speaker 7: and we saw that fight play out in some of
Speaker 7: the some of the other sections of the bill. When
Speaker 7: we thought about securities laws, what does a security like
Speaker 7: what that bill back in January would have done was
Speaker 7: basically said, any new rules have to be identical to
Speaker 7: the old rules for securities. Well, if the old rules worked,
Speaker 7: we wouldn't be trying to make fit for purpose rules.
Speaker 7: And so there was the incumbent industry was very interested
Speaker 7: in locking in everybody into the same old rules where
Speaker 7: you have regulatory capture, and that, ultimately, I think is
Speaker 7: where the industry came together. At the end of the day,
Speaker 7: I've never seen the crypto industry so united. It actually
Speaker 7: brought everybody together to fight as as finally an industry
Speaker 7: that wanted, you know, a singular purpose, which was to
Speaker 7: get fit for purpose rules. So ultimately it brought the
Speaker 7: industry together. I think you see the where all the
Speaker 7: different places that are being disrupted is where you're seeing
Speaker 7: the most concerted effort to pose this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, and obviously the banking efforts that you know, we've
Speaker 2: been covering this for many years, and I myself have
Speaker 2: been surprised because you know, we've been in media for
Speaker 2: a couple of decades, so I've seen a lot of
Speaker 2: the let's just call it the pr strategies that many
Speaker 2: of these lobbies will take. And the one that has
Speaker 2: surprised me the most has been the ABA. I mean
Speaker 2: they have got like data scientists or somebody up there
Speaker 2: understanding exactly where to push buttons and pull triggers. I
Speaker 2: was looking at this here recently. This came in from
Speaker 2: punch Bowl and it was in reference to Rob Nichols.
Speaker 2: This is the president of the ABA, and of course
Speaker 2: he's commenting on guess what the editorial that the Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal put out by guess who the editorial board?
Speaker 2: Interesting that we don't really know who the editorial board is.
Speaker 2: But the point is is that you're getting that kind
Speaker 2: of pressure right now. Who would be writing these kinds
Speaker 2: of things. Is this a seeded article from probably the ABA,
Speaker 2: or how does this get hapend to here?
Speaker 7: The talking points were almost identical to the letter that
Speaker 7: Rob Nichols sent you a few months ago, and the
Speaker 7: idea that again that this is a systemically risky endeavor
Speaker 7: when it comes to stable coins, when that there's no
Speaker 7: law enforcement protections in this bill, that there's concerns about DeFi,
Speaker 7: all of these, all of these issues that were raised
Speaker 7: truly read like the ABA or the BPI website, and
Speaker 7: so of course we're skeptical when we see that because
Speaker 7: it doesn't look like it's an unbiased approach.
Speaker 6: And then you have.
Speaker 7: Brendan being you know, Rob retweeting Brendan because Brendan had
Speaker 7: a point of view, and then Brendan retweeting Rob who
Speaker 7: had a similar point of view. It was an interesting
Speaker 7: dynamic that we saw, but the editorial board, it was
Speaker 7: frustrating because it didn't feel like an open and certainly
Speaker 7: we didn't have any kind of contact leading into that
Speaker 7: type of a conversation so or into that into that article.
Speaker 6: So I would just caution everybody.
Speaker 7: As you read it to understand where these talking points
Speaker 7: came from. Throw it into your favorite to your favorite
Speaker 7: LM and discover.
Speaker 1: And do a comparison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the comparison of the two of the two pr positions, And.
Speaker 1: You might be right.
Speaker 2: I liked your you guys's response on this. You know
Speaker 2: what's kind of an in uh. I guess poking and
Speaker 2: fun at it fixed it there on. We're afraid of competition,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, we get it, we get it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about our favorite senator now, and that of
Speaker 2: course is Senator Warren. And Warren came out. I feel
Speaker 2: like this was a little bit of a gas light.
Speaker 2: But she, of course is making her points known again
Speaker 2: the day before we're trying to get a vote across
Speaker 2: the line.
Speaker 1: Watch this clip.
Speaker 7: Do you think there's anything that could happen to change
Speaker 7: it so that it would be appeasing to you in
Speaker 7: any way?
Speaker 4: Of course, we need crypto legislation. I've been saying this
Speaker 4: for a long time. I put together a crypto bill. Yes,
Speaker 4: we need crypto legislation, but not this legislation. As far
Speaker 4: as I've heard, they've still not solved the problem of
Speaker 4: corruption of consumer, protection of national security, or protecting our economy.
Speaker 4: And until you solve those problems. I just don't see
Speaker 4: how anyone Democrat or Republican moves forward on this bill.
Speaker 6: Are you worried that the industry will leave the United States?
Speaker 4: I don't even know what that means. You mean that
Speaker 4: they will do their money laundering overseas?
Speaker 2: All right, So obviously the gas lighting continues from Senator Warren.
Speaker 2: She's a master at it, very good. I think most
Speaker 2: of those points have been debunked, and that is, of course,
Speaker 2: the ethics issue that was an issue has now started
Speaker 2: to draw down to almost no issue. And of course
Speaker 2: the national security has mostly been on the flip side,
Speaker 2: is that this is good for national security. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of benefits to this and innovation, Yeah, that can
Speaker 2: still leave the shores, and we are already starting to
Speaker 2: see it. I would ask, why are we not seeing
Speaker 2: some sort of correlation to what's happening in Japan or
Speaker 2: what's happening in Europe with Mika. I mean, those are
Speaker 2: two simple, non you know, bad countries out there and
Speaker 2: areas and regions that have been able to come to
Speaker 2: some sort of alignment for the industry. So what do
Speaker 2: you think about her continued push on this?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So again going back to your very first clip
Speaker 7: on the Russia regulations. I think if Elizabeth Warren had
Speaker 7: her brothers, it.
Speaker 6: Would look a whole lot like the Russia.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And if you look back at her crypto bill,
Speaker 7: her crypto bill was the Digital Asset Gosh, I'd have
Speaker 7: to remember it's Damla and not a very good name
Speaker 7: and not a very good bill. It looked a whole
Speaker 7: lot like the Russia bill and the regulation. So if
Speaker 7: that's Elizabeth Warren's, if that's the way she thinks that
Speaker 7: we're going to solve crypto and the need for regulation,
Speaker 7: she is completely missing the point. She is missing the
Speaker 7: point that this is actually good for consumers, that people
Speaker 7: want something that's better, faster, cheaper, has less lock in,
Speaker 7: better access, and ultimately then it's just back to control.
Speaker 7: It's the fact that just like in Russia, they want
Speaker 7: to control who accesses this, how much you spend on it, how.
Speaker 6: You do it, when you do it.
Speaker 7: That is not America. So ultimately I think that she
Speaker 7: has no interest in looking at the places that are
Speaker 7: doing it well because ultimately that undermines her argument that this.
Speaker 1: Can be for sure. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: It does put her in a position that she doesn't
Speaker 2: usually have, which is facts, a position of facts.
Speaker 1: You know, they usually come into play.
Speaker 2: Hey, I want to go over to another clip here
Speaker 2: because this gets into the issue that we're faced right
Speaker 2: now with the Republicans. This is Tim Scott and he
Speaker 2: talks about a few things he gets into the banks
Speaker 2: a little bit or kind of This is Barbaroma talking
Speaker 2: to him about this.
Speaker 1: Take a look or.
Speaker 8: Is it largely with Josh Holly is worried about and
Speaker 8: that is what the banks have to say about the
Speaker 8: crypto platforms.
Speaker 4: What's holding it up?
Speaker 3: Well, Maria, the truth of the matter is that Democrats
Speaker 3: have been stonewalling for a year now. Every time we
Speaker 3: say yes, they moved the goalpost. When Banking Committee Republicans
Speaker 3: coalesced around the bill, everyone getting in line, than we
Speaker 3: were able to get Democrats to come aboard. We'll do
Speaker 3: the same type of strategy once we have the vast
Speaker 3: majority of Republicans saying yes. I believe the Democrats come
Speaker 3: to the table and find a way to yes.
Speaker 8: But the Republicans are not all on board, right because
Speaker 8: I mean, you've got Mitch mcconna, you've got Josh Holly
Speaker 8: who says he's not going to vote yes because of
Speaker 8: what the concerns are from the banking sector. You've got
Speaker 8: Susan Collins that we're watching. What do you want to
Speaker 8: say in terms of the Republican support behind.
Speaker 3: This, Well, listen, I worked on Republican members yesterday. We
Speaker 3: made progress on the issue of rewards. Right now, Maria,
Speaker 3: crypto firms can do anything they want because there is
Speaker 3: no regulatory standard that's for rewards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point, right, let me move on,
Speaker 2: all right, So Scott kind of defending right now on
Speaker 2: his heels a little bit there with the issue on
Speaker 2: Republicans because there have been a few that we kind
Speaker 2: of knew where you Rampaul landed were kind of Josh
Speaker 2: Holly landed. Those weren't expected votes, but there was a
Speaker 2: handful that are kind of on the bubble right now.
Speaker 2: When you look at that, and remember, he hasn't failed.
Speaker 2: He didn't say anything about the banks. He was just
Speaker 2: pointed to the Democrats.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, what are the bankers doing right now?
Speaker 1: What's the ABA doing right now?
Speaker 4: Kara?
Speaker 2: Your team is probably ready for everything, aren't they.
Speaker 7: They are canvassing, and let's be clear, the bankers are powerful.
Speaker 7: They're formidable. They have a banker in every community. They
Speaker 7: have a banker with the cell phone of every senator.
Speaker 7: They have somebody who probably helped them when they were
Speaker 7: running for city council. So the bankers actually have a
Speaker 7: very long standing relationship with a lot of these members
Speaker 7: and their staff. I think it's interesting, though. We were
Speaker 7: in a meeting the other day and they said, all
Speaker 7: we're hearing from is bankers.
Speaker 6: We're not hearing from the crypto community.
Speaker 7: Well, it turns out thirty thousand emails have gone in
Speaker 7: to that office. There have been over a million emails
Speaker 7: going in from every day American voters who care about
Speaker 7: this bill, just in the last week. I believe I'll
Speaker 7: have to check a stand with crypto, but I think
Speaker 7: they said they had something like twenty five hundred calls. Calls,
Speaker 7: not emails, not form letters, calls go in and say
Speaker 7: that we care about this bill and we want it
Speaker 7: to pass because we think about crypto as part of
Speaker 7: our economic freedom, our financial abilities, our access. So it's
Speaker 7: just an imbalance in terms of who you have making
Speaker 7: those calls, and bankers are turning up the heat, not
Speaker 7: fading away. I think ultimately there are Republicans who have
Speaker 7: been and continue to be concerned about where this deal
Speaker 7: is landing. Ultimately, though when we talk to them, and
Speaker 7: we say, talk to Senator Tillis, understand how we went
Speaker 7: for six months in negotiating what ultimately landed in the
Speaker 7: rewards section.
Speaker 6: The banks never.
Speaker 7: Showed up, Not a single CEO showed up to have
Speaker 7: those conversations. Minded My chief legal officer was there to
Speaker 7: negotiate it. We showed up every time, and the banks didn't.
Speaker 7: And so when we think about where we landed, ultimately,
Speaker 7: the rewards allows for third party rewards for activity, not
Speaker 7: for holding, not for anything that is functionally or economically
Speaker 7: equivalent to a deposit. That is, it's airtight. There's no
Speaker 7: way to get around it. So ultimately, when you think
Speaker 7: about how this is going to shape up, it's not
Speaker 7: competing with deposits. It's competing with other things that people want.
Speaker 7: It's competing with high yield savings accounts, or competing with
Speaker 7: money mutual fund money market mutual funds, or it's competing
Speaker 7: with just the ability to use collateral and the ability
Speaker 7: to go out and actually make trades and wait for
Speaker 7: a sale. Those are the types of things that people
Speaker 7: want to do, and the banks don't like it. It's
Speaker 7: truly not about deposits.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I know you're on a hard stop, but I want
Speaker 2: to play this last clip because I have one last
Speaker 2: question for you, and this is Scaramuccia Novograt's kind of
Speaker 2: touching on this point, and then I'll go to the question.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 9: But I fear that Trump doesn't want this to pass
Speaker 9: because he wants to be able to say, hey, it's
Speaker 9: the Democrat's fault. And I don't think he's going to
Speaker 9: be able to. I think Tillis has boxed them in.
Speaker 9: It's a very fair compromise on ethics. And quite frankly,
Speaker 9: Trump already did his two mean coins, and he's got immunity,
Speaker 9: you know, and so he's not really this is just ego.
Speaker 1: You read the two.
Speaker 9: You can't retell the difference other than it allows the
Speaker 9: state attorney general not to shoot the individuals, but to
Speaker 9: suit the DOJ. You know, you and I could negotiate
Speaker 9: that thing tomorrow if you got permission from your buddy,
Speaker 9: the president. If the Republicans don't put on the floor,
Speaker 9: it's because they know the version they're going to put
Speaker 9: isn't even get their fifty of their guys, right, fifty
Speaker 9: to fifty chants that they do. You're still bullish that
Speaker 9: this gets done in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I am, all right, it's just to me. I just
Speaker 1: would be a big shout out to the crypto bros
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 9: Don't give any money to these people if they're not
Speaker 9: going to put it on the floor, and then they're
Speaker 9: going to blame the Democrats.
Speaker 1: Don't give the money to the people.
Speaker 6: You know, be smarter than that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 9: I just don't think that's the winning strategy for the industry,
Speaker 9: all right.
Speaker 2: So that's my question is how do you respond to that?
Speaker 2: If if Tillis doesn't even get this thing to the floor,
Speaker 2: what happens post this fallout coming mid terms? How would
Speaker 2: the how do you think the industry is going to
Speaker 2: respond to this, especially with these Republicans.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 7: And first I just want to say, with Anthony's mention
Speaker 7: of crypto bros, it actually goes back to the editorial
Speaker 7: where they said crypto boys, the crypto boys out there.
Speaker 7: I just want to flag that I am not a
Speaker 7: crypto boy. I've been doing this for ten years, so
Speaker 7: I wanted to highlight that. But ultimately, you know, I
Speaker 7: think that there is a big question about what happens politically.
Speaker 7: This is something that the crypto industry established three years ago.
Speaker 7: Now in terms of stand with crypto, I think the
Speaker 7: superpower is the fact that you've got three million people
Speaker 7: who are voters who care deeply about who is procrypto
Speaker 7: and who isn't. Those ratings on standwthcrypto dot org. People
Speaker 7: go and look at those and they care about there
Speaker 7: there's a voter's hub. So I think that the crypto
Speaker 7: voter is going to play a very important role here.
Speaker 7: But ultimately, shiny object is money, right, It's all about
Speaker 7: the super PAC. It's all about where the super PACs
Speaker 7: spent in twenty four, where the super pac will spend
Speaker 7: in twenty six, And ultimately I think that that is
Speaker 7: that's still up for grabs. Ultimately, the design is to
Speaker 7: get legislation passed. That was the goal of the super PAC.
Speaker 7: That's the goal of everybody who's involved, is to get
Speaker 7: clear rules in the United States. And if you have blockers,
Speaker 7: that's a problem. We need people who want to get
Speaker 7: this passed. And so once we see what happens over
Speaker 7: the weekend and into September, hopefully, I think it will
Speaker 7: become more clear what the political strategy is.
Speaker 2: So do you think that if they do stretch this
Speaker 2: into the weekend, because many people have said this is
Speaker 2: going to take longer than just Saturday and Sunday, do
Speaker 2: you think there's still a possibility past the August recess.
Speaker 6: I do, but I think it has to be I
Speaker 6: think we have to get started.
Speaker 7: I think the idea that this will just be delayed
Speaker 7: inevitably is a really hard one, especially because we've been
Speaker 7: pushing for a floor time since May. Since the minute
Speaker 7: it passed the Banking Committee, we have been pushing to
Speaker 7: get on the floor, and so ultimately I think that
Speaker 7: it does need to get started. I think we have
Speaker 7: to call the question. We have to see where people are.
Speaker 7: There are issues out there that are going to hang
Speaker 7: out there until.
Speaker 6: The vote is called.
Speaker 7: People just don't put down their pens in Washington and
Speaker 7: stop stop trying to negotiate. That's not how it works.
Speaker 7: People negotiate a very last second to get as much
Speaker 7: as they possibly can. So ultimately we're going to have
Speaker 7: to the leadership is going to have to save pens down.
Speaker 6: We're done.
Speaker 7: We've got an ethics deal. We've got everything else lined
Speaker 7: up and we're going, Yeah.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 5: Carot.
Speaker 1: It's been good talking to you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: We're going to be covering this very tightly over the
Speaker 2: next few days, so stay tuned for all that.
Speaker 1: But thanks for stopping it today. We appreciate it, love it.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me.
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