♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪#
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪#
Hey Ron what's going on? Hey Noah not too much. How about yourself? Doing pretty good man busy work busy week for me. I'm assuming probably the same for you. Yeah I'm happy to finally get you on and start talking about some of the things that have been happening here.
here on Capitol Hill and beyond. I know about you and I know who you are, but for audience members that haven't heard of you before or not familiar with the work that you've done, you want to give a quick intro into yourself, your background, your career trajectory, how you got into crypto web 3, and what kind of work you're doing currently with the, I believe it's a blockchain association.
Yeah, happy to. The first one again. Thanks for having me know. I really appreciate it. Big fan of the of the actually you're all Swiss bases. You'll doing a fantastic job. So I really appreciate it. For those who don't know me, my name is Ron Hammond. I am the director of government relations over at the blockchance association.
So for those who don't know what that means, it's pretty much the lobbyists for the association. We are crypto trade firm based here in DC representing about 107 companies ranging all over the gambit from NFTs, exchanges, stablecoin issuers, two web three companies, startups,
DC firms and a few others, but crypto native only for our members of the blockchain association. But my role is mostly engage with members of Congress, their staff, and regulators as well here in DC, more understanding about what the technology is, what good regulation looks like, as well as introducing them to a lot of folks
in the community who have either a unique perspective or work on some really incredible things and trying to showcase to the policymakers that this is an incredible space and by all means we want to make sure you thrive here in the United States. So I've been here about three years now. Beforehand I was the in-house lobbyist for Ripple.
And then before that, I spent five years on Capitol Hill. Three of those years I worked with Warren Davidson, who is a member of Congress who replaced John Banner in Ohio. And when I worked with him several years ago, we were looking for a lane for him to really, as a member of Congress trying to expand, where he would really make a name for himself.
And Congress is kind of like high school where everyone has their little niches and their spaces and everyone's really protective of that one issue area that's really important to them. But in 2016, 2017, the ICO boom would just starting up and more in the joking manner, one of the other members of Congress was talking to him about my boss at the time myself and said,
Why don't you look at this crypto thing? And then Warren Davidson, the member of Congress turns and me and goes as a staffer. Why don't you look at this crypto thing? And that's kind of where my journey started in crypto where I knew about it through Silk Road and a few other things, more in the Bitcoin side of things, but it wasn't too heavily involved. And as a congressional staffer,
because candidly they don't get paid that much and so I didn't have the money or bandwidth really to really experiment too much of crypto from that angle but met with a lot of folks in the space, leaned on groups like the blockchain association and several, several others in the industry just to really understand the issue area and try to write legislatively
to protect consumers, but also to make a clear line of what is and is in security. How do you bank this stuff? How do you, how do you custody it? How do you tax it? And so the the culmination that was the token tax on me act, which was the first bipartisan crypto bill. And I spearheaded that for Warren Davidson as a staffer. We had four Republicans, four Democrats.
as we'll discuss later on, like log crypto legislation has fallen to the wayside, but it's still a really important bill because, especially now with politics being so partisan, I wanted to make sure that the first bill in crypto to regulate it was in fact very much bipartisan and we accomplished that goal and I think that's why we're still seeing
a pretty good healthy bipartisan mixed as a porter. So don't get me wrong, there's a lot of skeptics too. I'm getting to that later on, but that's my long story of how I got into the lobbying side of space. Yeah, that's awesome. And so you worked with Warren and kind of figured out a way for part of his lane to be crypto oriented, Web 3 oriented.
We were looking at more capital formation issues, venture capital issues. We were told that there were other members of Congress, ironically one being French Hill, who is now the chairman of the Digital Assets Subcommittee, who had really had that issue on lock. And so, like I said, it's a kind of high school where his member
Congress goes into another members of Congress like wheelhouse of issue areas. They get a little defensive and so this is a brand new policy frontier here. It's kind of weird to think about that but what's really cool about crypto policy is that it's so new, so dynamic and there's not like already parsed
lines of like, well, the Republicans believe this and the Democrats believe this. It's wide open. It speaks to a wide variety of folks, especially the younger generation of members of Congress, younger is still a relative term, but that's for me, that's why I like to say it's so exciting. It's so dynamic, so fast.
And I wrangly enough to all my friends who were on Capitol Hill with me and other offices. At first they were joking about crypto. They gave me a nickname, a Captain Crypto. And then now all of a sudden, here we are, six years later, and every single week there's a crypto hearing. And most of my friends who are on the hill are now
either on the lobbying side for crypto or is there still in capital hill working on crypto policy? So it's twice the how this small niche issue area became now like the top hot topic of capital hill. Yeah, so it's how much the market's grown in short amount of time. I want to definitely dive into some of these hearings specifically to
Gary Ginsler testifying about the SEC's crackdown on the crypto industry. That was an interesting one. I first want to ask you though, give us your thoughts about crypto. I know that you think it's important for obvious reasons to keep crypto bipartisan. Give us your thoughts about crypto becoming a
major talking point in future presidential campaigns elections. Do you see that in the incoming presidential election in 2024? Do you think it's going to be a major talking point or do you think it's going to be something that kind of both sides agree on to a certain degree?
I mean, at least to this stage, you know, at least on the presidential election level, and we've been talking a couple candidates about the cryptocurrency on both sides of the aisle, you know, at least underneath the Biden administration, we've seen a mixed sort, you know, we have the SEC really going pretty outside of
open balance here. There's a lot of regulation by enforcement, not a lot of clear rules. Obviously very anti crypto. But at the same time, we have Democrats like the CFC chair, Benham, as well as the Treasury Department, can't really do a pretty good job of regulating the space, working with policymakers and coming up with good legislation, feeling
regulatory gaps that definitely do exist, that the SEC will say does not exist. So it's funny how that works. So, you know, it's a mix, at least in the current administration of where they stand on crypto policy itself. We have to remember the Republican side, Donald Trump was not a fan of crypto. You even tweet about it. And that's
It's not really shocking at all. I don't think it's going to come up into presidential election candidly. I think what will come up is the central bank digital currency. And that's, you know, tangently related crypto, tangently related stablecoins, but not really. It's a much larger issue. And I think a lot of folks are coming from a different angle.
and it's not as strong of an issue or like a no that gins of emotion like abortion for example or the economy or taxes. There are certain issues you get folks to the polls at the moment it's just not strong enough of the force to be a reason why someone goes to the polls.
We're hoping so. We definitely want it to be that issue area, but it's just not as much of a hard, strong issue as some of these other more mainstream topics. And, Ron, in your opinion, as someone in the front lines, why has the SC taken this path to regulate by enforcement rather than rulemaking?
It's really interesting to watch the SEC and I think that we want to remind you folks it's it happened in the Republican SEC as well as the Democrat SEC so I'll talk mostly about the SEC underneath the Biden administration with chair Gensler and the two lines of weird pivots were sitting from the SEC is and
They don't really hold themselves to the same agreements that other regulators do. Case in point, stablecoins. There was an agreement among the banking regulators, SEC, FDIC, Treasury, a bunch of other folks. If you don't know these acronyms, don't worry. There's a lot of banking regulators in DEC. But in short, they said, Congress needs to work on a
a stablecoin bill. And I have to go into that in a second. And it's really important to make sure we regulate stablecoins so things like Terra don't happen. But at the same time, we want to make sure that customers are made whole, they're protected, and there is a regulatory regime when you're issuing a stablecoin. So make sure that we know that it's actually packed one to one, for example, for, you know,
Whether the currency is based off of. But the SEC decided to break that agreement and actually start prosecuting BUSD in Winathor Paxos. And that has really urged folks in a lot of ways on both sides of the aisle here in Congress, especially right now when Congress
is literally working on a bipartisan crypto, uh, stablecoin bill right now. They have been for past couple of months, but the SEC has said, actually, we're just going to, um, go against what our recommendations were with the other big regulators and fall back on this disagreement and go and regulate, uh, or sort of enforce this, uh, regime on Paxos, which they had shut down their entire
maybe a secure or maybe a commodity and then he said now it's the East and all the tens of purposes, even though he didn't supposedly say it in the hearing recently, Chair Gensler, he believes it's a security team's like. And so that's that's definitely no way to regulate industries having, you know, the rules are clear and hit their minds, but if you talk
to literally anyone in Congress, anyone in the crypto industry, anyone that's trying to get into the crypto industry, and the other regulators, they will explicitly say the rules are not clear. So the SCG is the only one who believes that, and it's a little unfortunate. We've seen some members of Congress switch positions going from, we need to regulate the space with legislation.
now taking the SEC's talking points and saying, "You know, actually, never mind, I think the rules are clear. Everything's security." Again, they're the minority here, but we are definitely pushing back on that. And so it's really funny and hilarious to see that pivot from the SEC recently saying, "Actually, we have all the rules. What we said a year ago about needing more
legislation in this space for crypto to regulate it never mind. We think it rules are clear. But that's how the current regime is. And that's why it's important for Congress to step up because we have a lot more transparent of a process when it comes to Congress as opposed to the regulators when they're just going to drop it on a Friday afternoon. Hey, we think this
is wrong, here's a well as notice, like Coinbase, or hey, we are going to go after your business line like Cracket. So like, there's a lot of angles here and it's frustrating, but it's good to see Congress finally stepping up. Yeah, certainly a lot of angles and I want to try to focus on, I mean, there's so much to talk about. I want to focus on the, well,
One, from what I understand a lot of these rules are almost 100 years old. You can make the argument that it's not appropriate to use them for cryptocurrency. What do you think needs to happen for us to shift gears to regulation by rulemaking? What needs to happen for the SEC
to kind of shift their approach and take a slower process but one that would be more fruitful in the long run. Well, we first need to have a process. We don't have that currently right now for the large part. There are some areas that the SEC does have a nose and comment rule making period. I want to bore folks
the policy jargon here, but they do go through some rulemaking process. Even though we just agree with it wholeheartedly with some of the rules proposed, at least the transparent process, the most recent example is custody. It's a pretty bad rule of how do you custody crypto among other assets and a lot of industries are opposed
But the SD's credit they have a rule making process for this. That's how it's supposed to be. For other things like what tokens are securities and what tokens aren't securities, we aren't seeing that same rule making process. Even worse, there's been a couple of core cases, but I'll take the coin base inside our trading case.
that happened a couple months ago. In that actual suit, the SEC said, we're going after NDOJ, they're going to go after this individual, former individual, a corn base who was in star trading. It looked like he was caught in Red Handen. Oh, at the same time, we're also going to say that these six tokens
or not in tokens are actually securities. And so they're accomplishing policy goals, things that should be going through the nose and comment rule making period that we are, I just referenced like the CUSSE rule or things that should go through Congress like we're seeing some legislation right now. They're using lawsuits to achieve their policy goals. And so folks,
our blockchain association, we had to weigh into that case because we said that's no way to regulate industry. And they haven't done that once, they've done it twice in the past six months. And that's a very alarming thing. They said, "Token's one case and they said nine tokens and another case." Again, no comment, no rulemaking, no notice, nothing. They just woke up.
and said, by the way, that token is now all of a sudden deenosecurity because of a coin-based insider trading case, and there's no relation here. And so that's a little frustrating, is to see that approach happening. And again, I want to harp here that we've had Democrats getting even riled up about this. Democrats are calling out their own party. That's
really rare in Congress. You don't want to attack your own party, especially when a presidential election is coming up, you want to make sure your party is united on the fronts. But when you have been so egregious, especially in the S&C's case, that your own party, not one, not two, but several. We're talking half doesn't do it does in Democrats,
in the Senate and the House have publicly said this is not the right approach and it takes a lot to publicly admit that statement. You can say something privately behind the scenes that happens all the time here in DC but to make a public statement and so many, it shows you that it's a losing issue here and our message hopefully to the White House is that. I hope
you guys do realize that this could cause some political problems on the road if your own party is not like in your own choice of the SEC in particular. And that's, again, it's not a good trend right now. We're seeing a lumber folks coming against Gary Genserva from his own party than for him, especially recently. And so for reference,
people that are listening, the SEC, and from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, Ron. But the SEC considers an asset to be a security if there's an identifiable third party that's creating an expectation to profit when folks are investing, right? It's stuck in a company. So in that case, wouldn't it make, or even, he's even gone further to say that like, it's even
stablecoins. I think when French Hill was asking questions on hearing keys, I'd even stablecoins to security and subject it as CEO of Versight, which I think is this a great statement to make. But based on what he's saying, wouldn't most crypto assets fall under the umbrella of a security?
Correct. And so for those who don't really understand this, like House of Curious Law, like works, don't worry, I'm not a lawyer either. I had a whole crash course with past couple of years on this when I was running the legislation. It stands back to, you know, there's a law passed in 1930s and 1940s on Securities Law, creating regime.
in the wake of the Great Depression, totally makes sense. Those rules are made for candidly in response to a crisis. That's where we're seeing now in the case of Tara and FTX. We're seeing Congress more legislate after a crisis. That's happened. Fast forward into the 40s and
late 40s, there was a court case called a Howie case, and the Howie case basically determined what was a security. Now dealt with the orange groves and trees, but basically the idea was, are you getting an excitation of profit from the orange groves? Now, and that's where we kind of go into the crypto side of things. Are you
At least in the SCS mind, if you're buying Ethereum, for example, are you buying Ethereum for the utility of it to utilize it on certain D5 platforms or what have you? Or are you more using it because your thinking is going to increase in value and that's because of the direct efforts of consensus and other folks who made Ethereum?
they don't believe in the decentralization aspect as well, more so recently after the recent change to proof of sake. So that's been a little concerning from the SEC's perspective. But again, we're talking about one token. There are thousands out there. And at least in the current regime right now, the only
The only way we know that the theory was technically a security or commodity was because of a speech. It was back in 2018 Bill Hammond was at the SEC, he's not there anymore, but he made a speech and from that speech we inferred that the theory was a commodity. And then now we have Chair Gensner making now a force now
and that's a big problem.
business wine. And then we have to make a judgment of like, okay, can companies do this or not? And that's, and if you're wrong in that assessment, that can result in millions of dollars of fines and penalties. I mean, business lines being shuttered. And it can really bankrupt your business. I mean, I think I saw a stat, right? Ripple spent over, they spent over 200,000
$200 million or something to that fact on the court case so far and that's still not resolved. And so a lot of companies that we're talking to a lot of companies we represent are saying, look, there is no way we can are going to deal with this headache here. We're going to go somewhere else, we know where the rules are clear, we can't, can't do, and that's it.
Also, especially in this space, it's really easy to pick up and move to jurisdictions. It's not like we're looking for less regulation. Some folks are, it's why they're going to places like the Bahamas. At the same time, we're seeing a lot of legitimate companies telling us, "We're going to go to Paris. We're going to go to Lisbon. We're going to go to England."
highly regulated G7 nations here and to see that innovation flight happening, I mean it was a joke and consensus, I was talking to a bunch of developers and they were talking this really cool product, I can't unfortunately talk about too much, but at the end I'm like so we're using domicile, like this is really cool and then one guy goes the United States and then the entire room, I start to laughing with all the
developers and they say, "No, actually we're going to go to France." That's where it was really hardening at the same time to hear this because here's a really cool, innovative product and it's the running joke in the developer community that they would start the United States. That's how bad it's gotten. Ron, we've been saying this for a while.
in the industry that innovation is going to pack up and leave the country and it's sad because a century of paradigm shifting innovations came out of the US. Do you think that we're going to get it right in time or do you think that the ship is kind of already sailed? Like you said a lot of companies are already leaving or have already left. I mean the ship is
I think there is also a recognition, especially in Congress, that this needs to stop. And not more in the way of like, we're going to ban the old from leaving the United States, more in the way of, look, we just spent, especially last Congress, the Democrats especially, spent millions, I mean billions of dollars on
read domiciling the chip manufacturing industry. A lot of this has to do with Taiwan and the current geopolitical nature of that. But at the end of the day, the United States and the Biden administration said, look, we need to make sure we have chip manufacturing here in the United States. We used to have it. A lot of folks went overseas. They went to places where there was a lot more cheaper labor.
But this is a national security concern. We need to have not all of these raw materials here. We need to have the folks who are making them. The best and brightest in the chipmating facturing space. To be domiciled here in the United States, we want to be the leaders here. And so that's where it took a lot of efforts. The Democrats really did a good job leading that effort. At the same time, we are seeing blot#
And I'm seeing that first-handed consensus. They just decide it's better to operate elsewhere. And here's the claimant. That's the worst part about it. You can't blame them because, again, they're looking for rules and regulations, not the absence of such. Again, there are sketchy folks too, and we've seen those effects, but it's unfortunate.
when folks like FTX really do poison the well. And now, you know, the average number of Congress things that Coinbase and FTX are pretty much the same thing. It's like, no, that's completely different. Let me tell you why and why there's a lot more regulation at Coinbase. But in that the same time, we have the S&C saying,
Yeah, actually we're going to go after Coinbase now with a Wells notice and then eventually it looks like an enforcement action. That's no way to foster a thriving economy here in the United States. It's no way to operate a business and so a lot of folks are saying why deal with it. Yeah, and you know during the
I believe ask Gary if he had any concern prior to the collapse of FTX and Gary said no. So essentially all of this kind of started with the collapse of FTX. And one question I have for you Ron, one thing that left me scratching my head, I've been scratching my head for a while now, is like what CSCC's aim is to
Because Gary's implied that he does a security before, but then when Patrick McHenry asked him about it, he just danced around the question and he just basically said that I think Patrick asked him whether it's possible for he to be a security anti-commoderate like oil.
Yes, I love the back and forth between McKenry and Gensler because that was pretty much the opinion of what we've been hearing from several member companies and several companies non-the-blocking association members who go into the SEC as good actors. They said, "Hey, you told us to come in."
to tell us about our product, here's our product, here's what we do. And either A, they get the run around, which you saw that run around with ETH of what their designation was, at least in the public setting. So that was really nice to see, well, this is what the companies are dealing with. Like, I keep in here about this, but now we're seeing this play out in front of a congressional hearing. And then sometimes#
I don't think that's the right thing to do.
come in and talk letters from the SEC saying hey we think you're business down compliance you need to come in and explain your business practices to the SEC and a couple of companies went in some got more follow-ups, other got more legal threats and so I just asked her at the conference like look if you know you were advised
a company here, what would you say? Her answer was, don't go in. That is the weirdest thing to hear from a regulator saying, please don't come in. I advise it's in your best interest to not go in. Anyone DC will say, that's the worst thing to do.
because you want to make sure you're working with the regulator also candidly puts a target on your back if you're trying to snub your nose to the regulators. And in this weird instance, we have folks at the actual agency saying to not comply with my own agency's request. And that was, you know, really odd to hear. I was a little taken aback.
But it shows that this is the current regime that the SEC is there's these bailed come in and talk conversations and they usually end up with a pretty bad legal outcome afterwards whether it be enforcing action or settlement or they decided to read down the cell elsewhere in some case.
So that's unfortunately until Congress steps up and actually reigns in the SEC that's that's the regime we're going to have right now. It looks like Chair Gensler staying click. So Joe Biden does win another term. He will still be there. And that's also why I think it's also important to highlight to the administration that hey, look,
It's not the Republicans only who are attacking the SEC here. It's your own party and a lot of them too. I have a hard time understanding what their angle is, even with all that. I don't know. They do realize that the next big wave of innovation is leaving the country, right?
So that's like I think this is where we're kind of seeing the rise skepticism and a lot more negativity on DC recently But I mean I will say FTX really did a number here in DC I saw SBF all the time on Capitol Hill when he was lobbying
We run to the halls, we chat for a couple of times here and there at the same events and such or in the hallways. And at first I one thought he was a savior, it was nice to have someone who understood how DC worked. It's an education, it's constant, but it was really weird towards midway through the summer of last year.
seeing how their tactics were. It was aggressive, going through different regulators, and also trying to screw over DeFi in some cases where they were trying to apply the regulation that you have for Robinhood and Coinbase and FTX to a DeFi protocol. This is going to make sense that it would have killed the entire DeFi protocol system.
And then X of all things Coinbase joined our side and it was the entire crypto ecosystem versus FTX on the lobbying front. There's a quiet battle. We won out at the end of the day. Largely though, because FTX has collapsed, which really killed that entire legislative effort. But folks in DC
really got close to the SPF, especially in the administration. And now there's this view that, I think this is all a scam. There's been Terra, there were three arrows, there's been a Celsius, all these baddies in 2022. I don't think the promise of crypto is happening. And I've been here in this line a little more recently. We're focused
We're saying, where is the chat GBT retail explosion for crypto? We've seen AI really blown up recently. AI is the new hot topic here in DC that's what everyone's talking about. But I don't see anyone saying that for crypto. We all know here, there's a plenty of US cases. Financial use cases are non-financial use cases.
But in DC, for members of Congress or staff who spend only 30 minutes every day on this issue or every week, you have to explain this message really quickly and concisely. And it's tough, especially on the backstab of all these headlines and all these issues that have happened, especially in 2020.
to. But FTX, all things was by far the worst. And we're seeing a lot more skeptics coming up, especially on the Democrat side, than the older Democrat side saying, "See, I told you, there's nothing here. This is funny money. This is nothing." And then, of course, the bank collapse has already happened right now. So that's not really going well in their favor.
I think the last thing to highlight, which I think is funny, is that now we have Elizabeth Warren, who is the helm of anti-banks and their biggest fierce opponents. The banks are now endorsing her legislation against crypto. The banks are now lobbying for Elizabeth Warren as bill, which is hilarious and it takes
her side on this approach. And the -- it's just weird to see how a space and an issue that came about because of the financial crisis in 2008 is now not the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the -- the --#
turn to hurry, iterating the banks, talking points, and standing up for their business model, which is just hilarious. So that's the weird world of politics we're in right now, where we had the banks going against us, and was it war and joined their efforts? Yeah, I want to talk about the digital asset and team money laundering act.
What was interesting during the hearing was Joyce Betty. She asked Gary some stuff about the climate disclosure rules that affect small businesses or their effect on small businesses and then he gave Gary the rest of the time to talk about whatever he wants. He gifted Gary completely
I think a lot of me and he wanted to highlight that all the banks that have recently collapsed have been working for crypto and that crypto is what caused was a cause of their collapse and caused USDC to lose its peg. I mean, even when it's for us to say that USDC can be a security as well.
I don't know how. So two things. One, what are your thoughts on the stablecoin being a security? I don't, I don't can't make that connection. And then two, I want to dive into the digital asset and team money laundering act. I believe that is something that does been spearheaded by Elizabeth Warren and another politician
whose name that I am that is escaping me. But we'd love to know your thoughts on it. My thoughts on it is that it compels speech. It's unworkable. It's unconstitutional. And you know, Doc Marshall I think was initially the person that introduced it as Republican from Kansas. But anyway, past the mic to you Ron, I know it's a two-part question, but I'm sure you have no problem handling it.
I can talk to a wall as you can probably tell. So yeah, no problem here. It's a lot of us do. So I'll focus on the stablecoin piece first because that's that was definitely concerning. It was good that you highlight know actually the Joyce Bay Atlantic questioning because that was a really important thing. I think actually behind like for me of all things
not hearing, that was the most interesting angle because we know from the regulators themselves that crypto was not the reason why these banks collapse. We know that banks have been hesitant to bank crypto companies and other industries because of reputation risk or pressure from the agencies. The Federal Reserve was making a pretty negative statement
on crypto and we're hinting to banks that they should be very careful of being crypto companies. And so the banks were looking for an out for not banking these firms, these startups, these innovators. We heard that was kind of the statement beforehand, it was basically them giving them a pass pretty much. You can point to this and that's
your way out. But by no means a ban them doing business of banks. But again, Democrats and Bing regulars disagree with the SEC that this was caused by crypto. They have reiterated multiple times. So that was really weird that all things that Chair Gunsler could have talked about. Again, the floor was for anything you want to talk about, not crypto.
ESG, disclosures, what have you, he chose that weird line. So that was a very odd thing. So I'm glad you picked that up. On the stable coin front, we've seen him, the SEC trying to expand their jurisdiction. And I think that's the Paxa situation is a good example of that where they say, look, see these are securities. Therefore, we have jurisdiction
and oh, by the way, shut this down. That's really how it went. And again, that directly conflicts with other Democrat, current Democrat regulators, like CFTC, who said USDC, I should have said Tether in particular was a commodity. So there have been stablecoins called commodities, most of them are doing commodities.
through other efforts from being regulators. We still need that clarity though, so I think that's why Congress is working on a stablecoin bill to provide that clarity. But by no means are these things securities. Some folks try to link them to money market funds, which are securities. But that we've seen, especially in the case of USDC in particular, if that's not the case.
And then pivoting here to the second question actually the Warren Marshall bill. It hasn't come out yet. It needs to be reintroduced. It means when the new Congress starts after election, which you know, new Congress started in January for us here, they have to reintroduce every single bill and there's over 6,000 bills that
get introduced in each chamber. So when I say most legislation doesn't go anywhere, because there's a lot of legislation that gets introduced. And this is probably one of those bills actually. You know, behind the scenes what's happening here is a large focus on the Axi and Fendi hack. For those who may not remember, the last
was utilizing the tornado cash situation or during a cash mixer to try to fund their nuclear program and using the Axi and Pheniacs funds to do so. What's happening is that members of Congress are gaining these special briefings.
They get this all the time. They're closed door. They're intelligent briefings from National Security folks, defense folks, the most independent on about emerging threats. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and North Korea, allegedly there was an accident, any briefing on the situation. And you know, it's folks in DC what they're
hearing is, look, the North Korea has now funds to fund their nuclear program. It came from this mixer. We don't really have the jurisdiction to go after North Korea to get these funds back. And a lot of these national security hawks, again, as you're seeing this case, both sides of the aisle are saying, well, what do we need to do to shut it down? And
That's where we see them going after tornado cash. That's where we see legislation like Warren Marshall. And our approach is, hey, look, by the way, the traditional financial system is way worse for money laundering. You don't hear about the articles of them utilizing the traditional system that I'm often because it's very opaque. It's hard to track. It's hard to track.
And crypto, you're seeing all those headlines because we found them. Chain houses, TRM, Sol, this would have you. They are able to find these companies and that's why these transactions, these elicit finance because it's on the blockchain and that's why you're seeing these articles. And so that's kind of a problem because I talked to a lot of the senior centers and these are members again who probably
dedicate 10 minutes max of their entire month to crypto. They have a lot going on. They represent a lot of people. And they're saying, well, I'm just seeing these headlines. And he said, yes, you're seeing these headlines because they caught them. That's how it works. There wouldn't be a story if they didn't catch them. Otherwise, you're waiting for another Panama papers or something to that effect.
I want to reiterate, the FBI has stats back this up. 0.25% of all crypto transactions are illicit. That's a very, very, very steep difference. The digital financial system is way more.
folks and industry not be fans of them, but at least from the regular side, they've been very helpful for cracking down on this illicit violence. And I think we're doing a good job of showing folks in Congress and as well as in the regulators that if you are criminal, you're rising crypto to fund illicit transactions, you're pretty dumb because you're
I think it's a two-part thing and this also is probably going to play more into the bill itself. First is, you know, Elizabeth Warren, she built a brand of being a stalwart on consumer protection. She goes after the bank, she goes after private equity, she goes after crypto, she just, she, she,
I'm going to say she's a hater. She believes she's doing this for the average American who just can't represent themselves or doesn't have access to such or doesn't know all the rules and regulations. And so we need to make sure we stand up for the consumer. That's a very practical sense. I'm not sure if she really pro anything, but at least in financial services, she
She sends a lot of letters and shakes a lot of boots to folks in various industries, especially in finance. So it wasn't too shocked actually when she got involved in the crypto space. I knew it would be negative. But I think this also emboldened her a little bit in why we're seeing a lot more engagements from her office in particular. It's in this crypto
Twitter. It's a lot of the engagement. You can talk about how you or she had a good line of questioning to certain other centers or to banks and you know it'll make the rounds on social media. You'll get a headline here or there from Forbes or other publications but man if you do it on crypto
You have traditional media crypto media crypto Twitter You have engagement through all sorts of mediums because you know this in this community really does thrive on Twitter and other places like discord And so I think that's why we've seen her really dig deeper It's kind of like in cannelly it's time backfiring for crypto Twitter is that the matter folks you are
talking about Elizabeth Warren and the negative she's doing is actually making her want to do it more. And so that's why I'm telling folks, look, let's work on positive solutions here. Well, you know, it's easy to hate. I think it's also better to be focused on positive things like making a really regulatory framework that the folks in the house are doing on both sides of the aisle because that's the tough stuff. It's easy to be a#
hate her. It's tough to be the person that finds a way to get legislation done and gets things over the finish line. That's why less than 1% of bills get passed. That's why Elizabeth Warren really hasn't passed that many bills because she is more of an oversight side of things. I think it's important that we lift up members on both sides of the aisle who are tackling the
hard stuff and not looking for just a little social media cloud. Well put. So it seems to me like they're beginning to do the hard work over in Europe with Micah and I would assume that we're starting on that angle as well. I know that the US House, the financial services can
a draft version of a potential landmark stablecoin bill. Can you tell us a bit about that, the TLDR from a high level, what's in it, how you feel about it, and whether it is in fact the step in the right direction? Yeah, you know, we've been asking for regulation
and clear regulation because otherwise we are subject to as I highlighted in the past 40 minutes random regulators in particular the SEC coming in saying actually this is our jurisdiction you thought it was this jurisdiction it's actually our jurisdiction oh and by the way you're out compliance you have to pay us million dollars for settling I mean that's and that's what you know regulation
We make sure it's crystal clear what you can and can't do. And a lot of what's happening in the stablecoin realm, kind of like the other laws are referenced earlier that are older, like the securities laws in the 1930s, 1940s, this is in response to Terra. Terra in particular, really messable lot of things, Libra as well too, actually I think Libra really
was the first kick start here and a lot of members of Congress were not happy with the idea of a major social media company having a payment rail stablecoin-esque approach. But also we saw the tarot when the collapse and DPEC happens. They're saying, "Okay, we need to make sure this never happens again." The other effort legislatively is happening.
and the hearing is about tomorrow, that's about making sure FTX does not happen again. So, then that's what happens in Congress. Congress responds to crises and make sure they make a framework usually to avoid that happening again or hoping to avoid that happening again. And so, the stablecoin front, you know, it's still got a long ways to go.
There have been buy-in from Democrats and Republicans, and it's a pretty balanced bill. You know, again, as the industry, on the lobbying side here, the industry did not get everything that we wanted at the same time. The consumer groups didn't get everything they wanted. And there's still a little question about what's the role of the states versus the federal regulators, but overall it's a really balanced
bill. And that's a good buy of cars and products. So even though there's some things that folks on both sides, y'all might not like entirely, that's what a finished product looks like. And I think that's what good regulation looks like. It's a very balanced approach. So we're hoping that Bill gets going forward. I think we're going to see some more hearings on it in the coming weeks.
I think we're hoping to make sure that the SC topping point of the rules are clear doesn't percolate to other members of Congress because as we've discussed past 45 minutes, the rules aren't clear. And a lot of companies have said we're going to go elsewhere. And I think that's why we're seeing also pivot a little bit from circle going to more of the euro space with their
It's just that's been happening more and more and that's because the rules and regulations are clear so So we'll see how that plans through again There've been some hiccups in the past couple days on the stablecoin front on the legislation But it's politics that's what happens when you have Democrats Republicans working together
sure league politics gets in a way sometimes and our hope is at least at the blockchain association is to work at both sides saying let's see that you know let's see the force of the trees here let's make sure we get this done because of all things we really need to make sure that we have a framework here so we can keep these companies here but also making sure consumers know what they can you know what they're protected by and business can know what they
USC die that are not doing anything illegal. They're protocols that exist for people to use. I would love to know what that would mean for decentralized stablecoins, like those two or decentralized stablecoins that are backed by you'll bearing assets or other crypto assets or baskets of goods.
That's a great position there. One of the funny things about lobbying and talking policymakers is that a lot of the terms that we utilize in the industry sometimes don't translate too well when it comes to policy or legal jargon. For example, the number of times early on, I talked about crypto mining and
members of congress are like, so where is the mine? I want to know where it is. Where is the hole in the ground? And you have to explain, no sir, man, the mining, that's not what it's like, it's way different. Like, well why'd you guys call it mining? That's really dumb. Like, if I can make a choice, what is my terminology, but that's what the industry calls it. Same thing#
transactions on the blockchain. I've had that's a happy a lot recently or members of Congress say so transactions so every single transaction is financial right? No, it's not financial transaction every single time and they think they want to apply in the case of the war in Marshall they want to apply all these rules and regulations to every single time the blockchain's up
because they hear the word transaction. So there's a little issue with that right now in DC that we have to navigate so little tough. But to your point on other indexed tablecoins and decentralized tablecoins, that was actually one of the main issues we had to grapple with back in the fall of last year.
we're working with the Democrats and Republicans. We wanted to make sure things were like die were protected. But there was an overwhelming view from both sides of the aisle that Tara should not exist or that should not, that this line should not be a thing. And so we had to make sure we navigate in such a way that die and others were
to every detail, you might run to a little trouble there because Algos are not viewed favorably on Capitol Hill. To be fair, I don't blame them. There's also a proposal to request a study for central bank digital currencies, right?
see other countries start to roll these out. Ron here in the U.S. I feel like there are citizens that know the negatives, right, that the dangers of CBDCs. What are some of the positives in your opinion? Also, when a CBDC is rolled out, and I believe it will inevitably
be rolled out, what can citizens do to one opt out or even push back on their banks? Because I believe the banks would have to adopt the CBDC infrastructure. What would citizens have to do to fight back and even opt out to participate in that ecosystem?
Yeah, the CBDC issues is a current it's pretty curious one, you know again I mentioned the represential candidates you've been really fired up most of the Republicans side like Ron to Santa is saying we're gonna ban all CBDCs It's a little short side of Candle Lee to your point, you know we main thing that we're seeing
right now is folks like China are utilizing their CBDC, the digital one, as a way to have soft power influence on the global scale. They're trying to influence payments. They're trying to expand the Belt and Road initiative by encouraging their vendors and other countries to take the digital one. So they're expanding the flip
of the digital one. And that being digital does provide the ability to be a lot more faster and can't really a lot more surveillance from the Chinese Communist Party, which is a concern from both sides of the aisle. At the same time, I think especially on the Republican side, they really gravitate
to the Canadian trucker situation back during the COVID days where their bank accounts were shut down. For many on the Republican side, that was a red line and that's where a lot of the CmedEc hate started coming, saying, "Well, they can do this through our bank accounts and our neighbor just to the north. They can easily do that here in
States. And I'll say that's a little over hyped. I don't think it's to that extent. But, you know, there is concerns and there has been present where the government's done something to that. Either they don't like a certain industry. We saw that with marijuana, for example, and sex workers and pay lenders where they've gone after them and try to debank them.
So, you know, there are some fears that are warranted, but, you know, at least in my personal belief, you know, I think that we're going to probably see a CBDC, but it's going to be behind the scenes. I don't think we're going to have a situation where citizens are actively paying for, you know, goods and services with a digital doll.
are most considered at a privacy. And actually, I run into the Republicans of all do a pivot on things like cash. I saw five years ago Republicans are all in on digital payments. And now I've seen a lot more pivot and I've seen this on progressive as well pivot and realize that cash is great because cash
is the most private form of money. If I gave someone a $5 bill, there's not a block chain out there that's going to record that transaction. It's very, very private. And there are benefits and there are costs of that. So I'll say, though, that this issue, the good news is that, and this is what's important.
Congress. You can talk to their staff. I think that's very important. And we should always advocate for things that happen at the congressional level, rather than through regulators or the admin, because that's when all takes one or two people or power people in a case like the SEC to make a decision
and that has huge ramifications. So I saw a pause there, but just think as long as it's in Congress's court, then I think it's where robust debate can happen. - Okay, so you don't think that CBDCs will be rolled out in as invasive as a way that a lot of people are speculating they will be.
I personally don't listen to these conversations that I'm having right now. And again, I'm talking to folks also the MIT and the Boston Fed who are working on these conversations and they will fully admit they don't even know if this is going to be viable. And there's all things like zero-knowledge proofs, you know, foreign technology that are developed or still in the infancy stage.
that would address some of the issues that a lot of folks in both sides have, especially around privacy. Now, the only downside also about privacy is that in Congress, this is that Congress can take a long time to do things and we don't have a federal privacy laws yet because it's taken over almost a decade now to try to have privacy
standards and it's just such a complex issue and given our values as Americans that we really haven't moved forward on that for better for worse. So I think that's a long debate but I don't see a situation. I think we're going to end up somewhere in the middle where we have this digital payment infrastructure that CBDC
could provide, but I think a lot of citizens are going to opt for privacy elements like cash that, you know, so they just don't want to have it on a credit card or other form that can be traced and potentially damaging for whatever cause you may have concern. One last question.
on this, a buddy of mine speculates that he thinks that if CBDCs become too prevalent, it's actually going to lead to crypto adoption, higher crypto adoption. People are going to notice it's decentralized alternative and they're going to opt into that rather than the CBDC centralized federal issued a digital dollar.
I think first of all, I think that's why we saw China move to ban crypto entirely because a lot of it was just to get their citizens on this digital one payment system. And that's there was a threat that crypto and alternative payments like crypto could upend that.
So if you want to have a social credit score, if you want to have a unified front for soft power influence, you need to have a large majority of your business and citizens on that CBC. And that's the approach I'm trying to tuck. And that's not the approach United States has, you know, we have different moral compass, we have a different culture.
and such and so I don't think that's going to happen. But it's fair to say that if that were to happen in the United States again, I don't think it will, we could see crypto adoption skyrocket more than this right now. - Rhonda, as you just earlier, but I'm going to reiterate it, do you think we're going to get it right?
I think we are. I think we're going to get it right. But it's going to take, it's hard work. Cryptopolicy is not for the week. It's fast moving, it changes every day, and there's a lot to keep track of. So I will say the good thing is that the industry is recognizing
that DC is important and we need to send the best surprise here to DC to engage with policymakers to educate and to tell their stories. I mean the number of times as a Hill staffer 25 years old that was sitting in a meeting and this CEO while working on the really brilliant business model the way
he was talking, I could not understand a single word he was saying. And if I could understand it, 25, I'm sure the 75 year old member of Congress next to me had no idea either. So DC talks a different way. I mentioned a whole like transactions and mining, like they just don't think in a techie way, sorts.
But at the same time, one of the cool things we've been noticing is that there's not really a partisan to biome crypto, it's generational. DC does reward in more seniority, folks who've been here longer tend to be in positions of power whether it be in the White House or in Congress, but the younger members of Congress can serve
I think we got it right, you know, let's not up end the current system because we can create a 2008 all over again. And that's probably the biggest thing and hurdle in most folks' minds is 2008. We just do not want that to happen again. But we're doing that at the expense now of innovation and the United States being a leader.
just like we were for the internet. Now mind you get remember the Democrats were the ones who led the internet policy in 1994 1996 they were the party that said no Republican stopped being closed minded this is all porn this is actually a really cool innovation so in what we've seen maybe more
Republicans this time being the part of more pro innovation, it's more generational than anything. It's an important note to highlight. Okay, so Ron, we skipped over this earlier, but the Wells notice, the Wells notice and Coinbase's counter, kind of counter-suing
of the SEC. I would love to hear your thoughts about that. From what I understand, apart from pending cases, the SEC has not lost a single case. They're undefeated when it comes to pursuing crypto projects. So what are your thoughts on the whole SEC versus Coinbase? Showdown, and how do you think it's going to end up?
One of the curious factors of the SEC, especially underneath the current regime, is how engaged in the media impress they are. It might not be obvious, a lot of it is behind the scenes, but the SEC is very aggressive on the media front. They've got a lot of stories planted, they get a lot of their talking points re-iterated.
through media or through members of Congress. And I've not seen that in quite some time. So, you know, get props that are communications team to do a good job, gain their message out. Where we see to your point, the talking point that's really emerged in the past, I'd say about two months now, is
So the SEC, the crypto is out of compliance, the rules are clear, and the SEC has not lost the core case. And that pretty much is a shot across the ballot coin base saying, go for it. We dare you to sue us if you think this well is known as an potential enforcement actions wrong, but we have not lost yet.
the SCC is going to probably lose if we have the gray scale case as well as the ripple case. I'm not a legal expert so I won't go to the merits of either here but it's looking at a lot of folks both in the legal community as well as here in the industry and DC. Especially in the gray scale case, it's looking
A little more in favor of grayscale than the SEC and ripple, you know, it depends a week. There's a lot of developments in that case too, and there's going to probably be a appeal regardless of the outcome. But the SEC keeps reiterating like we never lose. I heard some of the similar talking points with the Ministry of Law judges that was over at the SEC.
And they actually lost that Cork case in the Supreme Court, which is huge. That was another issue I led on before crypto. So I think that, you know, the SD is going to keep re-itering that. They're going to keep telling the crypto industry don't try to fight us because we will win. Don't try to
You're out of compliance. You just have to settle or you have to completely change your business model. And I think that's going to backfire pretty soon when they start losing some of these cases. And especially if they go after Coinbase, which is the juggernaut and all of this, Coinbase has said they are willing to fight. We didn't really see that with the
crack in and a few other ones in the past on the settlement side. It could be for a variety of reasons, but that has definitely shifted the SEC's messaging and that's why they didn't reiterate it's more directly coin based. Don't try to do as you're going to lose, but I think they're going to find out pretty quickly that they might not have a perfect track record.
as I think they do. And just to highlight everyone, a victory for Coinbase, for Ripple, for Grayscale would be a massive victory for the entire industry. Adam, I know you've been waiting patiently. Ron, I'm going to let a community member Adam ask a quick question, and I'm running out of time here. Adam, the Mike Seoras, and then I'm going to circle back.
So just give a little bit of highlight and then ask the question. So I posted a couple computers, a couple articles from Bleeding Computer, sorry about that. So, you know,
posted what was happening in North Korea. I pulled the article from 2019 and this is still happening. I mean, so you know, we watched people from Robinhood, people from wherever it might
be going in front of Congress and it is very difficult as Ron said and I've heard a couple other people say you know they don't quite understand so like is it
My question would be, you know, cybersecurity is a major issue here. Number one, two, we have FTX, SBI. But like when they say they've never lost, like I would say like, give me
an example where they've never lost, where the SEC has ever lost. Now obviously I don't want to make any ruckus here, you know, so to speak, but I'm just saying like, I'm not familiar with any actual court case. I was doing some searches, the other
I was looking all over the place. I know Elizabeth Holmes from Thernos, the original company has lost. That has nothing to do with anything we're talking about, of course.
of like give me a case that we've lost that or you know crypt our the block change that stack is lost and I would say in terms of that I remember
Remember, just before going to that, I'll sum it up with this. I would just say, I remember when Coinbase did go public, wasn't there a market cap 100 billion, and now it's down to around like 18 or maybe
14 billion, 14 to 18 billion are on there. The CEO, founder, was worth that amount. - Adam, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Adam. It's a great question. I want to let Ron jump in and answer them and I want to be cognizant of his time as well. - Thank you, thank you. - I really appreciate it.
No, thanks Adam. I appreciate the question here. So the funny part is the SEC will count settlements as wins too. So the count the crack and settlement on their staking as a service, they count that as a win. The library case was another recent example they have wanting in court there. And I think that's why we know it's fine that we
We are all in this together. I know there's tribalism among certain tokens. Trust me. I know I'm working at a rip. We'll be back in the day. But I think that's why groups like the Blodgett Association, Coin Center, DeFi Education Fund, all these entities that we have here in DC are so important because we are all in this
together. I coordinate with the policy teams, lobbying teams of all these other companies and organizations, even those in some of the traditional finance because sometimes, I know we talk about the banks for against us, but sometimes we are actually with the banks on certain fights. A good example is from accounting provisions and the SEC is trying to push that
it nearly impossible for banks to Custy crypto. We are with the banks on this fight saying that's a pretty messed up rule SEC. And so it's weird that we have these groups here. But I say, look, if you're not in, you know, there's a lot of folks who work at companies here and some folks are engaged with our organization.
or other like that mentioned earlier like the blockchain foundation or coin center and such. But if you're an individual person, I think one other way to get involved with A) is to engage your member of Congress because again, engage the member that represents you. Don't call Blizzard Ward if you don't live in Massachusetts because I was a Hill staffer that stuff gets shut all to the
or you want to get engaged in crypto. One idea is actually I think this is ending up today, but we're part of it with getcoin as well as Coinbase to do a round here. They basically would just fund a lot of the projects that and teams are here in DC would have begun the blockchain found
or blockchain association or coin center. They do fantastic work on Bitcoin, central policy and privacy. We've seen fight to the future, which is more of a progressive group. They do a lot more on privacy issues. They have been fantastic. And so we work with all of these groups. So I highly recommend to go to our Twitter page.
There's actually a link there for get coin rounds so feel free to go through that and understand again We are all in this together. We are all on the same side We might have certain views on certain tokens or certain businesses or certain companies, but I think that the strong we are united the harder is to go against us and I got to be honest it is sometimes
really nice to hear, senders who are anti crypto or members of congress who are anti crypto say, man the crypto lobbying is so strong and reality, especially two years ago, it was like six of us and now it's over 40 of us and we are still drastically outnumbered.
compared to the banks. But we are punching above our weight because we have great folks in the industry, we have a huge awesome Twitter engagement and folks like y'all who really engage heavily in our caring about policy. And can also too, these get coin rounds are really important. So there's multiple ways here to engage, but I'd say
There's a lot of help we need here in DC. A lot's on the line and to know it's your point to end it. I hope we get this right. There's a lot of pressure. So bring your best in Bryce at DC. Yeah, and Ron, you said that we can find some I wanted to mention the the get coin advocacy round. I think that's really important and where can we find some of these
links. You said your Twitter page. The blockchain association Twitter page? Yeah, the blockchain association Twitter page. Actually, I'll just tweet myself personally after this so you can see this well. But yeah, we appreciate any help. Again, it doesn't go just to the blockchain association. It goes to all these other groups we coordinate with and work with.
single day to have certain specialities because like I said, we're heavily outnumbered here but we punch above our weights and we, you know, as he says, he might win court cases because we're going to win the policy war so I'm all for a little challenge. Let's go. Ron, once you make that tweet or once you send
that out, send it over to me and DMs and I can get us to retweet it as well to get maximum viewage on it or maximum exposure to it. One last question for you before you head out today. You're young, lobbyist, you're doing a lot of great work over in Capitol Hill and I feel like a future is bright for you. What are your aspirations? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Hopefully we'll have most of these ball solts here. I can't even open mine. I really love this space. That's why it shows a lobby in it. Because again, you know, as much as Capitol Hill doesn't pay too well, I also was torn between doing all the healthcare issues. I was torn between doing all financial
services. There's just so much happening in a lot of those issues. I just did a bandwidth to deal with all these really complex issues. I mean, if you think crypto is complicated, I have a whole three notebooks dedicated just acronyms that are completely different for healthcare. It's a lot. So I like the space.
I really like the Blockchain Association. We'll see, but I think right now it's a great spot to be in. We're at the forefront of a lot of policy fights, a lot more to come. If the SEC remains on the Youth Gary Gensert after 20 years,
24 I will have plenty of work ahead of me during his tenure and probably after his tenure making sure we can get back on track so so yeah I think it's gonna be DC for a while for me so anytime folks drop in DC and and once you add or hear the link
I'm always happy to try to focus in the industry. Right on ladies and gentlemen, that was Ron Hammond. You guys are listening to another episode of the aquarium brought to you by Whale Cointalk. Remember, everything you hear on this broadcast, remember educational purposes only, nothing is financial advice. So be safe out there and we'll see you on the next one. Take care.