Speaker 1: Let's get into the Senate lockdown today because all of
Speaker 1: this is centered around Clarity. Of course, last week was
Speaker 1: huge today and this week could be even bigger. You've
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Speaker 1: first thing I want to do is lead off with
Speaker 1: a clip from Mike Novagratz, and then we'll bring in
Speaker 1: our guests take a look.
Speaker 2: I think the Clarity Act is going to pass. I do,
Speaker 2: and I know right now doesn't feel like it at all.
Speaker 2: You just need a small compromise on ethics, and I
Speaker 2: think that ethics compromise is going to look like what
Speaker 2: they did with Lake and Riley, where they said the
Speaker 2: state ags can't suit congressman or the president, but they
Speaker 2: can suit the DOJ if they don't think the law
Speaker 2: is being applied appropriately, and that will be enough, I think,
Speaker 2: to get both sides to say, that's a tough enough
Speaker 2: ethics bill, let's pass this thing all right.
Speaker 1: So ethics has been kind of the hold up for
Speaker 1: quite some time, and we've had several analysts on. I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring on Summer Mersinger, who is of course
Speaker 1: CEO over at the Blockchain Association.
Speaker 3: Summer, Welcome into the show.
Speaker 4: How are you hey, Thanks for having me this afternoon.
Speaker 1: So you are absolutely very busy this week, Yes, and
Speaker 1: a lot is happening when you look at the current
Speaker 1: situation as it is right now with the Senate the
Speaker 1: combined bill. Of course, now we see all sorts of
Speaker 1: new copy and new text. First of all, what was
Speaker 1: your initial take on where the Clarity Act stands as
Speaker 1: it is right now.
Speaker 4: I think it's in a great spot. It's right where
Speaker 4: we wanted to be to get Senate consideration and honestly
Speaker 4: passage as well. I think that the players are in
Speaker 4: the room making the they're negotiating, they're making the decisions
Speaker 4: that need to be made to get this across the
Speaker 4: finish line. So We're in striking distance, and I think
Speaker 4: we will see this get done and out of the
Speaker 4: Senate very soon.
Speaker 1: All right, So within striking distance because the scenario and
Speaker 1: the concern that has been mostly within the industry has
Speaker 1: been able to get to that sixty votes, and there's
Speaker 1: been a handful of senators that have seen to kind
Speaker 1: of maybe cross the line here. Is there anybody specific
Speaker 1: that we should be watching for that could signal that
Speaker 1: this is a go from the Senate side?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely. Senator Corey Booker is someone to watch. He's
Speaker 4: been very involved on the Democrat side, especially with the
Speaker 4: agriculture text. Senator Reuben Diego, Senators Angela Alsobrooks again involved
Speaker 4: working very hard on a number of negotiations. And you
Speaker 4: know our people who have said they like to get
Speaker 4: to yes on this, they'd like to be able to
Speaker 4: support this. So keep an eye on those senators.
Speaker 1: All right, Summers, So we are setting at ten days
Speaker 1: right now, five hours? Okay, you tell me? Can this
Speaker 1: be done in ten days?
Speaker 4: Certainly can get past the Senate. It does get a
Speaker 4: little tricky because the House went out of session and
Speaker 4: this bill does need to go back to the House
Speaker 4: of Representatives because the Senate made changes, So we'll have
Speaker 4: to just keep pushing through the Congress's August recess and
Speaker 4: get the House to take up the Senate past bill
Speaker 4: as soon as they get back. But I have no
Speaker 4: doubt we can get this through the Senate this, you know,
Speaker 4: next couple of days or at least in the week,
Speaker 4: and kind of tee it up for the House when
Speaker 4: they return.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have President Trump pushing hard to get
Speaker 1: Senate to stay in session to try to get this done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Rick Scott, he's our senator out there pushing. He's obviously
Speaker 1: talking about Mike Lee. I will vote to stay in
Speaker 1: session unless we have passed the Save America thing. But
Speaker 1: this also could line up in a position where it
Speaker 1: could affect clarity as well in terms of the Senate
Speaker 1: being available. There is that doable in DC? Is this
Speaker 1: something that you have seen happen in DC before?
Speaker 4: I've seen the congressional recesses canceled before. That is certainly
Speaker 4: something that has happened, especially when there must pass pieces
Speaker 4: of legislation that need to get done. Sometimes when you
Speaker 4: put that kind of pressure on the senators, it's what
Speaker 4: gets them to the table to kind of finalize negotiations
Speaker 4: so that you can get the sixty votes. I do
Speaker 4: think Clarity is a little different than SAVE. I think
Speaker 4: that we're able to pick up a number of Democrats
Speaker 4: once we get some of these last minute negotiations nailed down,
Speaker 4: and I think it's a lot easier to get to
Speaker 4: sixty votes. But I know Save is very important to
Speaker 4: the President, so you know we'll be watching that as well.
Speaker 4: But I feel very good about Clarity kind of beating
Speaker 4: the clock here.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, so one of the guys that has been on
Speaker 1: our show before an ex securities lawyer, and of course
Speaker 1: that's James over Metal law Man.
Speaker 3: You guys can follow him out there on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He kind of hits it right here and is that
Speaker 1: Trump does have the legal authority to cancel the Senate recess.
Speaker 1: And this, of course would get things rolling for both
Speaker 1: the potentially the Save America Act. But primarily what we're
Speaker 1: interested in is the Clarity Act with getting to that
Speaker 1: sixty votes. And I think if the fact that it
Speaker 1: can be done, and what you're saying is that you've
Speaker 1: seen it done before, that's a good possibility.
Speaker 3: Here, paint out.
Speaker 1: The next few steps. Let's assume that we do get
Speaker 1: clarity passed, Senate comes together, we get this done. Does
Speaker 1: it have to go back to the House to get
Speaker 1: a rubber stamp? What's the process at that point?
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely has to go back to the House. I
Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't say it's a rubber stamp because this language
Speaker 4: has changed significantly, significantly from what the House sent over.
Speaker 4: So there will be you know, additional education and efforts
Speaker 4: to make sure that the House is comfortable with this
Speaker 4: bill so they can get it passed. And then once
Speaker 4: the House passes the Senate version, it goes straight to
Speaker 4: the President's desk. The Senate used the House bill number,
Speaker 4: and that allows them to change the text, put in
Speaker 4: the Senate text and send it back over to the
Speaker 4: House for one vote, versus having a conference committee between
Speaker 4: two bills.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we saw the obviously the both Senate Banking
Speaker 1: and the Agriculture Committee versions were put together. This also
Speaker 1: included the ethics provisions, which is really the biggest, I
Speaker 1: think the biggest concession coming out of the White House
Speaker 1: so far.
Speaker 3: But this is something that.
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of, and that is the motion to
Speaker 1: proceed is expected today or tomorrow, with the possibility of
Speaker 1: a floor vote this week. What is this motion to proceed?
Speaker 1: Is that just something saying hey, yeah, it goes to
Speaker 1: the floor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a kind of procedural piece of kind of
Speaker 4: piece of the puzzle, but you have to do to
Speaker 4: get legislation depending on the floor. So we're expecting the
Speaker 4: majority leader to make a motion to proceed that is
Speaker 4: generally subject to culture. It is a debatable procedural vote,
Speaker 4: so usually they will file cloture and then that usually
Speaker 4: sets up a vote in a couple of days. There
Speaker 4: there are some interesting kind of different circumstances this week
Speaker 4: with the funeral arrangements for former Senator Lindsay Graham, but
Speaker 4: we do think they still can get to clarity this week.
Speaker 1: Okay, so getting clarity this week. You look at the
Speaker 1: potential over on polt market. Right now, it's on flatline
Speaker 1: and has been holding there for most of the day
Speaker 1: as and yesterday of course over the weekend, but holding
Speaker 1: at thirty eight percent. This seems very low versus what
Speaker 1: I'm here from many of the people who have been
Speaker 1: on our show over the last week, and including yourself,
Speaker 1: that the likelihood feels or at least am I reading
Speaker 1: this wrong, that you feel like we have a much
Speaker 1: better likelihood than this thirty eight percent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that those who you know are really
Speaker 4: familiar with the procedures how these efforts come together, kind
Speaker 4: of the interaction of staff and senators that lead up
Speaker 4: to a major agreement and a major's legislation getting done.
Speaker 4: All that's in place. We're seeing it, we're feeling it,
Speaker 4: and I think it's really hard to know that from
Speaker 4: the outside. You know, there's a lot going on that
Speaker 4: you don't see. You see the public press releases where
Speaker 4: you know Democrats are slam in the language and saying
Speaker 4: ethics deal isn't good enough. But behind that's just kind
Speaker 4: of a negotiation tactic. Behind the scenes, they are actually
Speaker 4: working together trying to get to a good place on language.
Speaker 4: And I really do think there are a number of
Speaker 4: Democrat senators who do want to get to yes summer.
Speaker 1: As you probably have seen on our channel, I'm always skeptical,
Speaker 1: optimistically skeptical, because I have seen so many very interesting
Speaker 1: and strategic moves out of our opponent. I feel like
Speaker 1: for the industry and that has to be the banks.
Speaker 1: I look at that and you consider that we've had
Speaker 1: support now from all the police associations. That of course
Speaker 1: has started to shift, so law enforcement now starting to
Speaker 1: look like, hey, no, we support this, there's a way
Speaker 1: to use this as a benefit.
Speaker 3: Banks are very quiet.
Speaker 1: Are you anticipating anything unusual last minute coming in from
Speaker 1: the banks.
Speaker 4: So they're quiet publicly, but we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 4: behind the scenes activity. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: kind of myth versus fact sheets out there, talking points
Speaker 4: that we're getting a hold of from the banks, and
Speaker 4: so they are working there, talking points, They are going
Speaker 4: in and meeting with senators, they are having their community
Speaker 4: banks call in. The good news is those talking points
Speaker 4: are very easy for us to counter. They tend to
Speaker 4: be kind of half truths or at least misinformed, and
Speaker 4: we were able to go in kind of in behind
Speaker 4: the banks and really help educate the lawmakers and their
Speaker 4: staff as to what this built really does do. I
Speaker 4: think the other piece of this is interesting is with
Speaker 4: the yield debate and kind of those negotiations. Honestly, the
Speaker 4: banks lost some credibility. There was you know, there was
Speaker 4: a lot was given up by crypto on the yield deal.
Speaker 4: We were all at the table, we were there in
Speaker 4: good faith and to have the banks at the last
Speaker 4: minute pull out of those negotiations. Really, I think set
Speaker 4: kind of left the bad taste in a number of offices,
Speaker 4: you know, just because of how hard they had worked
Speaker 4: to get to an agreement.
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean, let's be clear, You've got a
Speaker 1: lot of banks and institutions that have really come in
Speaker 1: in support of this. Black Rock, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Goldman
Speaker 1: is in Greyscale. Of course, these are all mostly institutional
Speaker 1: layers that have already started to implement a lot of
Speaker 1: blockchain technology, so rightly so they are kind of going
Speaker 1: in that direction. Do you think it's that the banks
Speaker 1: are still feeling that they are just further behind for
Speaker 1: this industry and.
Speaker 3: They weren't quite ready for this advancement in tech.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's exactly the case here. This bill
Speaker 4: is going to benefit banks and cryptoco industry equally. This
Speaker 4: is going to give the banks a lot of opportunity
Speaker 4: to you know, access new technology, to implement faster movement
Speaker 4: of money into the system. You know, I expect most
Speaker 4: of the large banks to actually you know, be in
Speaker 4: this industry, be in crypto fully, you know, supportive of it.
Speaker 4: I just think that there may be a little bit
Speaker 4: behind technologically, and some of this is a effort to
Speaker 4: kind of slow down the progress. But I think at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, this bill is going to
Speaker 4: benefit them as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of those who it could benefit, I want
Speaker 1: to play a clip for you because it's really kind
Speaker 1: of boiling down to two sectors in the banking industry.
Speaker 3: Let me play this clip.
Speaker 5: Monopoly is a good thing if you own the monopoly.
Speaker 5: So I always worked for very large banks and GP
Speaker 5: Morgan Chase being the largest. The large what's called the
Speaker 5: community banks, the smaller banks, and they often were on
Speaker 5: the opposite side of the large banks. But they have
Speaker 5: tremendous political cloud. It's who the congressman and the Senator
Speaker 5: has lunch with. They belong to the same country club,
Speaker 5: they play golf together. It's very tough to go up
Speaker 5: against the community banks. And I think the community banks
Speaker 5: are even more vocal against some of this legislation than
Speaker 5: the large banks.
Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, so that's intriguing to that, But do
Speaker 1: you do you agree with that analyst there in terms
Speaker 1: of kind of the framework of what the banks are
Speaker 1: looking at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, historically, these small the small community banks
Speaker 4: have had a lot of political capital on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 4: Exactly what he said. They're you know, their neighbors, their
Speaker 4: friends of these senators. They they've been meeting with them
Speaker 4: for you know, years and years, and so they have
Speaker 4: a good relationship. I think what's different this time is
Speaker 4: that their arguments don't add up. So this idea that somehow,
Speaker 4: you know, stable coins are going to cause you know,
Speaker 4: deposit flights from community bank is absurd. I grew up
Speaker 4: in a small town. My dad banks at a community bank.
Speaker 4: He's a farmer. He would never move his money from
Speaker 4: the community bank to stable coins.
Speaker 6: He can't.
Speaker 4: He has all his operating loans there, his home mortgage,
Speaker 4: everything's at that community bank. So those are different customers
Speaker 4: than who you see buying into stable points to this
Speaker 4: idea of deposit flight. Really there's no proof of it,
Speaker 4: and I think I think that's realized on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: And you also looked at the most recent numbers coming
Speaker 1: in from banks where we were seeing deposit increases. I
Speaker 1: think it was seven percent across some of the bigger
Speaker 1: banks out there. So deposits are increasing, customer accounts increasing,
Speaker 1: revenues are obviously going way up for Banks. All of
Speaker 1: this kind of flies in the face of what they've
Speaker 1: been saying in terms of anti Clarity, So maybe this
Speaker 1: is an opportunity for them to get into the game.
Speaker 1: I do want to play a clip though, of Anthony
Speaker 1: Scaramucci because this is.
Speaker 3: A concern I have.
Speaker 1: Are we still at a position where we could still
Speaker 1: lose this in the last second or two, Because I
Speaker 1: know Mikero Novograts he's kind of saying, hey, this might
Speaker 1: go through. But Scaramucci has a little bit of a
Speaker 1: different spin on this.
Speaker 3: Take a look.
Speaker 6: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If you're
Speaker 6: doing something and your adversaries do not like what you're.
Speaker 7: Doing, then they look through your pick of the litter
Speaker 7: and they say, well, what is this this guy really want? Oh,
Speaker 7: he wants the Clarity Act to pass.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 7: By the way, he's actually physically invested and it will
Speaker 7: monetarily benefit him if Clarity Act passes, So he obviously
Speaker 7: wants it to pass. I'm his adversary. Let me do
Speaker 7: everything I can to block it from happening.
Speaker 6: It's that bulk of his network. Well, let's put this way.
Speaker 7: If a nine hundred and twenty seven page disclosure document
Speaker 7: think Obamas was like nine pages prompts his nine hundred
Speaker 7: and twenty seven pages, So he hit you with a
Speaker 7: phone book, and you know, it's so egregious, it's sort
Speaker 7: of like almost wonderful in a weird way.
Speaker 6: You're like, oh my god, this guy just doesn't care.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So, to Scaramuchi's point, this ethics situation, which has been
Speaker 1: the real line in the sand for really the last
Speaker 1: six months, he's kind of pointing on the fact that
Speaker 1: this could actually get a little ugly at the very
Speaker 1: end if in fact they don't get a final you know,
Speaker 1: concession on one side or the other. When you look
Speaker 1: at that, are you at all concerned? Are you still
Speaker 1: in the camp of this is going to go through
Speaker 1: with what Anthony said.
Speaker 4: There, Yeah, I'm still in the camp that this is
Speaker 4: going to go through. I think when you know, you
Speaker 4: have to look at the language that the president, that
Speaker 4: the White House sent up to the Senate for their
Speaker 4: ethics agreement. I mean, this is extraordinary to have a
Speaker 4: sitting president, you know, say I will be subject to
Speaker 4: ethics agreements based on one sector of the economy, one industry.
Speaker 4: That's that's definitely you know, landmark as well. And you
Speaker 4: have a number of Democrats again who do want to
Speaker 4: get to Yes, they've been kind of using ethics as
Speaker 4: there to hold them back, but now they have language
Speaker 4: to react to. Now they have a proposal to react to.
Speaker 4: I think this is the first time they've really had
Speaker 4: anything to react to, and I do believe that they're
Speaker 4: able to redline this and get to a place where
Speaker 4: both Republicans and Democrats are going to be satisfied. I
Speaker 4: think there's a number of members and on the Democrat
Speaker 4: side who really worry about what happens if this doesn't
Speaker 4: get done. Clarity brings a lot of customer protections to
Speaker 4: the table, and if there's another FTX like incident, you know,
Speaker 4: they don't want to get blamed for not getting Clarity
Speaker 4: done when Clarity could have prevented an FTX if it
Speaker 4: had been in place. When when FTX failed, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I would agree, not only the issue on consumer protection,
Speaker 1: but it's also a scenario now that we're facing a
Speaker 1: flight of innovation. You know, I was just looking at
Speaker 1: this crazy list of number of projects that shut down
Speaker 1: or disappeared in twenty twenty six. Some of these, yes, guys,
Speaker 1: they should go away, but some of these are probably
Speaker 1: really good projects that are trying to build and innovate
Speaker 1: in this industry, and because of no clarity, essentially these
Speaker 1: companies were unable to basically hang on. And then you've
Speaker 1: got the stranglehold on the EU with what's happening in Mica,
Speaker 1: only three hundred firms over there approved. Do you think
Speaker 1: this will put more of a constraint on innovation in
Speaker 1: the US or do you think this completely opens it
Speaker 1: up for opportunity for new businesses.
Speaker 4: I think it opens it up, and it's not because
Speaker 4: they're somehow you know, free for all. This is going
Speaker 4: to put strict rules in place, put a regular federal
Speaker 4: regulatory framework in place. But I think it's a legal
Speaker 4: certainty that people need. There's a lot of great ideas
Speaker 4: out there, a lot of really you know, new innovation
Speaker 4: that we are seeing that could come on shore, but
Speaker 4: without that legal clarity, they're going to stay off shore
Speaker 4: and innovate over you know, overseas where they don't have
Speaker 4: to worry about a future SEC coming in saying hey,
Speaker 4: you're offering unregistered security. So it's the clarity that the
Speaker 4: legal clarity, the certainty that these innovators and developers need
Speaker 4: to fully be you know, on board with us and
Speaker 4: make us their home.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the key here is going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of companies are going to one either decide
Speaker 1: to stay in the US or we're going to start
Speaker 1: to see real innovation. I know several founders that have
Speaker 1: talked about this about moving offshore, and they're in the
Speaker 1: midst of building a business, and so it is real.
Speaker 1: And I think the innovation side of it plus the
Speaker 1: just the consumer protection side, to me, that's the paramount
Speaker 1: issue here for new you know, new acquisition of crypto
Speaker 1: in general, because I think the adoption curve is going
Speaker 1: to leap forward dramatically once we get something like this
Speaker 1: in place. All right, so Trump is saying Senators, you're
Speaker 1: not going home until you get this done. You, of
Speaker 1: course put up a Clarity for America website to tell
Speaker 1: the Senate to go ahead and get this done.
Speaker 3: They need to do so.
Speaker 1: For our listeners and viewers, what's the one thing they
Speaker 1: can do right now, Yeah.
Speaker 4: We'd love for you to log on to Clarity for
Speaker 4: America and create a letter. We've made it very simple.
Speaker 4: It's just a couple of clicks of the button and
Speaker 4: the letter will be sent to your senators, and it's
Speaker 4: really important for them to get these individual letters. We've
Speaker 4: had over one thousand sent over the weekend. In fact,
Speaker 4: it crashed our system for a little bit. We were
Speaker 4: able to get it back up and running. But this
Speaker 4: is how you make sure your voice is heard. You know,
Speaker 4: these letters don't just go into the the you know,
Speaker 4: kind of universe. They actually are read by staff and
Speaker 4: they're counted, and the staff tell the members, hey, we
Speaker 4: have X number of letters and support of the bills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, guys, I want you to stop everything you're doing
Speaker 1: right now. Just go over to Clarity for America and
Speaker 1: whether you're a business or an individual, hit it. Follow
Speaker 1: Summer's lead. I like the fact that you've kind of
Speaker 1: got the.
Speaker 3: Priorities that matter.
Speaker 1: Those all matter to me right there, so you can
Speaker 1: see these are big And then I like this right here.
Speaker 1: You can go with different different tones. The only problem
Speaker 1: is is can we get we're pissed off tone? Can
Speaker 1: we get one of those that would be a good Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean that's kind of passionate, heartfelt.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go I'm gonna stay at passionate and heartfelt. Then,
Speaker 1: but I would we need a pissed off mode there
Speaker 1: because I think this needs to get done obviously, So hey, listen,
Speaker 1: super We're definitely going to be watching this very closely.
Speaker 1: Things are getting very very tight as we roll into
Speaker 1: it for next week.
Speaker 3: Hopefully this is going to come together.
Speaker 1: We'll love to get you back on the show to
Speaker 1: talk about where we go from here once this is done.
Speaker 3: But thanks for coming in today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely happy to be here and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: If you like this video, like and subscribe, drop a
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Speaker 3: The link is in the description.