Do you know enough about this technology to have a serious debate?
Is that a trick question?
This is the first time Congress is having a hearing about cryptocurrencies.
Oh, that explains why crypto is doing so well until now. As policymakers, we need to understand what we're talking about here.
We haven't done before, but I'm game. When I'm trying to wrap my head around a new topic like cryptocurrencies, I try to relate it back to something I understand, like baseball.
All of the complex topics that fall under the purview of Congress can be boiled down to a folksy baseball analogy.
But there's something about crypto that scares people. The call is coming from inside the House of Representatives.
There are concerns with the use of cryptocurrencies for nefarious activities.
You know what else is used for nefarious activities?
Bottle rockets, nunchucks, ninja throwing stars.
The Patriot Act, my ex-wife.
Subpoena power, wet markets.
Slim congressional majority.
Time Travel Paradox.
A 78 Buick Riviera. Was for me.
Well, my coat dealer doesn't accept Venmo.
I've got several questions for you and then one of them will be from completely left field.
Oh, baseball, what threats or benefits to a blockchain system will come from quantum computing?
That's a weirdly good question.
Well, we'll see what happens there.
That's a weirdly bad answer.
What makes Web3 different is the ability to own the actual network.
Do I need a baseball metaphor to understand this?
The lack of clarity is clear.
The industry has the potential to improve a lot of people's lives.
I'm sure we'll find a way to stop that.
Unfortunately, it would only take a few misguided curveballs, we'll say...
Baseball! ...from Washington to undo some of the progress.
Now, Congress should not be dumb enough...
It is. ... to raise a red flag around this technology revolution.
Reading crypto as a single unitary activity whose main feature is a need for financial regulation would be like treating the original internet in the 1990s as primarily a tax policy issue.
Don't give 'em ideas.
We believe a user-controlled decentralized internet is better than an internet largely controlled by five big companies. Or a government-controlled by two big political parties.
The biggest critics of cryptocurrency have been the biggest banks.
Elizabeth Banks. It is true you try to use a credit card or debit card to buy a sandwich today,
the system takes a percent, half a percent, 50 cents away from the merchant.
Half a percent is 50 cents.
You're buying $100 sandwiches.
You try to use crypto to buy a sandwich today.
I don't know where you can go in Washington to use a bitcoin to buy a sandwich.
Can't be done at all.
Okay, so that's sort of like a balk.
Now, that's not a fair comparison.
I don't understand baseball.
I just want to regulate it.
There's still extreme volatility, it seems, in this marketplace.
Yeah, it goes up and down and up and down while the dollar only goes down.
DeFi is the most dangerous part of the crypto world. Let me guess:
The solution is to give more power and money to unelected experts who share all of your cultural preconceptions,
watch The Handmaid's Tale, and went to the right school.
Is that — that the right thing? Bitcoin could be displaced by Ether, which could be first placed by Doge, which should be replaced by a Hamster coin?
And then there's Cobra coin.
And what could mongoose coin do to crypto coin?
Are you trying to say mongoose?
Will Mongoose coin always have a value?
I don't know.
I just made it up.
It's a joke.
I don't think you know how jokes work.
We often hear that crypto industry is the wild, wild west, where there is no regulation guiding the industry.
Do any of you feel unregulated? That's a little personal, don't you think?
I have satisfied myself.
For the record, I'm not doing anything with that.
OK, I'm just letting that be.
I'm not a monster.
Had the government got in the way of the internet, we would still be using dial-up today.
You realize they still use fax machines here, right?
The central bank needs the ability to match the amount of money in the system to the needs of the economy. Or just to inflate the value away if the government wants to keep spending but doesn't wanna raise taxes.
You think you could sell metal coins and say U.S.
dollar coin on them?
I'm a pretty good salesman.
I think I could sell that. We'll buy anything around here. Like how many we're talking about, like 20,000 units?
I could push 20,000 units.
I could sell you that.
So I guess I'm left incredibly confused. And I'm hoping that we do nothing.
That might be the answer.
Good plan.
Let's do that.
This meeting is adjourned.
Hey!