Since the last time we spoke, a lot has changed in the crypto world.
You and I were having a conversation just a few weeks ago, along with our
colleague Tom Mackenzie at Bloomberg, about the prospects of legislation
coming from Capitol Hill, which seems like it may progress this year.
Now it's a giant question mark, post midterms considered as well.
What do you think the odds are that Congress is going to be able to move on
this in the near term, or is now everyone going to be a little frightened
about the prospect that quote that you just showed is is sort of correct?
Generally speaking, when you end up with a mixed Congress, like it looks like
we're gonna have the Republicans in charge of part in and the Democrats
charge in charge of another is with the executive branch sort of kicks into high
gear. So doubt the White House is saying,
well, we can't get our agenda legislatively.
Now, what can we do through the executive branch?
What good is the agencies of the secretary and so forth?
And that's typically what happens in general was happening right now.
Crypto, however, might be the one example.
There is no pushback on that. Quote you just showed is that there's
very few things in Washington right now that are bipartisan.
But in talking with with Patrick McHenry, who's likely to be the House
financial services chairman, Tom Emmer, who's the head of the BLOCK Shane
Caucus, there's actually bipartisan support for some type of crypto
legislation in this next Congress. It's a very short list.
It's bipartisan. Maybe something on China, maybe
something on big tech and maybe something on crypto.
But there may actually be a prospect for some legislation moving forward, which I
think is better, and we'll be more even handed.
It's something that comes out of the agencies.
OK, so you think something could move forward is not going to be less friendly
and it maybe would have been before a little bit of pushback.
Then there's going to be folks who recognize that regulation might not have
stopped the RTX thing. But if it's fraud and I'm not saying
that, isn't it defame anybody. But if it's fraud or extortion that's
already against the law and changing regs doesn't change that.
But there are people who want to pull back on crypto and they will see this as
an opportunity. Washington, DC Both parties know the old
maxim don't let a crisis go to waste. So there are people who don't like
crypto who are going to see this as an opportunity to try and get something on
the books that is more restrictive than it needs to be.
But I still think that center of gravity is that this is bipartisan.
It's not associated with one party or the other yet.
It's not ultra politicized like so many things are in Washington.
And you might get a decent piece of legislation in the next 18 months.
We were just talking to the leader of a D fi platform and a lot of people don't
maybe don't know that after you served in South Carolina and then the United
States of America. You have been advising as a strategic
advisor, I think, to the Astro Protocol, a D a D fi platform as well with a token
USTR as the symbol. Do you think D FI offers a way for
safely regulating or safely avoiding these kinds of catastrophes that we've
seen at FTSE X and the guy and guy from Dwight D X was spot on the goalie?
He didn't say was that when you look back over the last several years, all of
these major meltdowns have all been in the centralized area.
Right. Divide doesn't do this by its nature.
It makes it really, really difficult for this to happen.
Any spot on. Correct.
The issue is how does d fine go mainstream?
That's where Aster comes in, because you can sort of BD file you want to, but if
you want to be a major player, if you want to be a real financial services
provider, you're going to have to sort of figure out a way to get yourself into
the existing regulatory scheme. That means no, your customer that need
means anti money laundering. That's the stuff that defy can't do
defies really good at preventing these major types of meltdowns.
But they're not good. Yeah, they're playing by the rules,
which is one of the things that Astro can do.
So I do think is a great future for DIY. I agree with young man from DIY DMX that
by the time he's my age. Decentralized D D fi might be big bigger
than the ordinary financial services market, but it has to grow up now.
At some point it has to learn to play by the rules that are both here now and
then are inevitably coming as a result of RTX.
Exactly. And then how are we as consumers or how
are regulators in Washington to separate the properly written, decentralized
finance protocols that will guarantee financial safety for everyone involved
from the rug, rug poles and Ponzi schemes that have been written about so
broadly? And how do you keep more?
I think the question is, is this how do you keep them doing the wrong type of
regulation? The industry's been asking for
regulation since I started the blocks in caucus in 2013.
Believe it or not, we were just looking for guidance on what is crypto, what
type of acid is it? We've been asking that question now for
almost 10 years. I your question is, is that how do we
make sure the regs that we get and that the industry needs are the ones that
promote stability, promote growth and don't retard the industry?
I do think there's a chance for that. There's not a lot of people on the hill
who understand this face. But there's enough now.
Thanks. Large part of the industry outreach to
sort of understand what's going on, to make sure that we don't screw this up
again. Am I being too optimistic?
But I know a little bit about Washington, I do think a chance to do
this problem. Well, you talk about industry outreach.
A big man behind that was Sam Bank Mentoring.
He was a massive donor in the midterms election cycle.
He was a vocal advocate for more regulation, specifically the CFTC having
a larger role. It seemed his voice was being heard.
I wonder if that changes because of any trust that may have been lost over the
course of this episode. And if ultimately it's going to be
putting more power back into the S.E.C. hands just because SPF was advocating
for the CFTC. That's real.
There's no question about. That's just human nature.
Right? If you lie to me and are you trying to
sell me something, then you end up being a complete criminal that I'm not likely
to believe you again next time. That's that probably makes sense.
But the reason I'm a little bit more sanguine about that is it?
Yeah, well, Sam was on the hill a lot. He got a lot of the attention because
he's one of those types of personalities.
Right. There's folks on the hill every single
day trying to educate their individual member of Congress there.
They're their chiefs of staff, the staff folks, as a group called the Digital
Chamber of Commerce. And I've actually been involved with now
for several years. I'm in some ways since their founding.
They are doing this average every single day.
We're doing a decent job as an industry. The industry is growing up.
There was a bill, I think two years ago that we were working on in the Senate.
Somebody wrote me and said, I want you to go tell Senator Portman to go eff
itself. And you know what?
That's just how it works in Washington, D.C.
You have to sort of recognize that you want to be a more mature industry and
define crypto blocking and getting there.
And I think it's going to serve serve them well in the long run.