Crypto Regulation News! New Bills, Congress Bitcoin ETF, SEC Coinbase & Binance, Vivek Trump CBDCs

Cody Carbone is the Vice President of Policy at the The Chamber of Digital Commerce. We discuss:
– Latest with Crypto Regulation hearings and bills
– Patrick McHenry and House Crypto bills
– SEC Bitcoin ETF launch mess
– Bitcoin ETF impact on Congressional members
– Senator Haggerty & Lummis Bill
– Educating NY Gov Officials about Crypto
– SEC vs Coinbase & Binance
– Vivek Ramaswamy Donald Trump CBDCs & Crypto

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And so now when they know all of these one headlines like bitcoin etfs, they’re live. They were approved. But then they see the names associated, the ones that you listed, Blackrock, Fidelity, Wisdom tree, bitwise. They go, whoa, wait a second. What’s happening here? This is legitimate.

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If you’d like to learn more about uphold, please visit the link in the description. Welcome to the Thinking Crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. With me today is Cody Carbone, who’s the vice president of policy at the Chamber of digital commerce. Cody, great to have you back on.

Tony, always great to be here. Thanks for having me again. For sure, Cody. Look, a lot’s happening in the crypto industry, and I wanted to get your updates on what’s happening in DC. What can we expect with the remainder of this month into February? Now, yesterday since know fresh, and you just got

Back from Albany, tell us about what you and the folks at the chamber were doing in Albany. And I noticed you called it the blockchain Education Day. Yeah, this is a little unique for us. So if you’re familiar with the chamber, we’re a DC

Based trade association, so a lot of our time is focused at the federal level, but we also are paying attention, of course, what’s happening at the states. The states tend to act when Congress doesn’t. And so New York has really been the hub for blockchain regulation, launching the bit license in 2015.

They were really the first movers in this space. And so we think it’s necessary to go up there and to continue to make sure that lawmakers are educated, especially in New York, which, as we know, is not only the financial hub of the US, but really of the world.

And so we spent an awesome day up there, invited a bunch of our members up who have ties to New York state in the state capitol, meeting with the assembly, the Senate and the governor’s office. And it was a full day of education. So just as you said, a blockchain education day.

So the whole day was focused on, hey, this is more than crypto. Crypto is a big part of this, and payments and financial services is a big part of this, and there needs to be a space for that. But there’s a ton of other applications here.

And I think what was so awesome about it is that we were met with healthy skepticism from a lot of folks. But so many folks, I think their eyes were opening for the first time of what this technology is. What is a distributed ledger? What are the benefits of cryptocurrencies

And digital assets, and what are the other applications of blockchain? We met so many folks who had just didn’t know anything except a headline here or there, we got a lot of questions about the etfs, and I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit about that later. But it was an awesome day.

And I encourage all other advocates for this industry to focus more on their state and local governments, because that’s where a lot of the policy moves and moves a lot more quickly than Washington. Oh, yeah. I mean, you guys are doing God’s work here. Like you said, the states move faster, right?

We’ve seen even states move ahead of the federal government, even in contrast to things that have been coming up from the federal government. So I’m a big fan of what you guys are doing and educating these folks. And you mentioned the bit license, and that’s certainly been a pain point for

Many crypto companies over the years. It takes a while to get bit licenses. Was that in any way discussed in detail? A lot of detail. So we expressed our concerns with the bit license, and we’ve done this through a host of comment letters to DFS over the years.

But when we really break it down by the numbers, that there’s only about a little over 30 companies that in the nine years now of the bit license have gotten a bit license, and that it costs on average $100,000 to go through the application process and to actually be able to comply.

And so when you say that number out loud, and I mean, your reaction was. My reaction, how do you expect a startup to come know, grow in New York and then apply for the bit license and be able to operate there? You can’t. It’s not possible.

And so when we brought those numbers to life and we told them how long the process takes right now to get a bit licensed, and to DFS’s credit, it is getting better and the timeline is shortening. But when you hear about those costs and all of the compliance burdens, it’s just not tenable.

And it’s not going to be the way that New York can continue to lead for innovation in this space. And so I think our concerns were heard, and I think that there is a way to fix that and to amend that where it could be a little less costly.

And we can work with, especially startup companies, to give them incentives to stay in New York, but also not sacrifice consumer investor protection. No one wants that. But I think we can get to a middle ground where we can continue to see more and more people be able to get a bit license.

Oh, yeah, that would really be just. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from businesses and many consumers are like, hey, why can’t I access this company or this crypto company in New York? I’m like, well, there’s this thing called a bit license.

And unfortunately, these companies will love to serve you there, but they got to go through the process. Now, New York has had a history of being against bitcoin mining at certain parts of it. Was that also discussed? Oh, yeah. So we brought up one of our awesome members,

Coin Mint, who has a facility in New York. And what we communicated through Coin Mint is how much bitcoin miners are actually doing for the environment. That almost 60% of the industry and the energy use in the industry comes from renewable energies? I don’t think any other industry can say that right now.

And so our company, Coin Mint, that is located in New York, upstate New York, they took over an old Alcoa smelting plant. It had been dilapidated and desolate for a long time. Now they’re working with the local native american tribe. They’re employing people, they’revitalizing the community, and they’re working off of renewable energy.

They’re working off hydropower from the dam. And so when you actually bring those stories to light and you talk about all of the good that bitcoin miners are doing for their communities, eyes opened up. And the amount of times, Tony, I kid you not,

Where they would go, wait, so there’s no actual mining? And I was like, man, our industry has some problem with some terms and there’s a lot of misnomers. And I was like, no actual mining. These are data centers and we probably should call them that and that’s a whole other problem.

But to see that and just like the power of just having conversations and be like, hey, here’s actually what we do. You probably read about bitcoin mining or you hear it from some stakeholders who might not have the best intentions and we talk about what we’re actually that we’re doing

And the power of it and the benefit. And then these are just data centers like all these other tech companies use. Eyes open up. And so that was a real focus of the day and I think we changed some hearts and minds. That’s great to hear.

And I’ve heard stories similar to that, whether it be in Texas or Georgia with different bitcoin miners and meeting with their local representatives and explaining hey, here’s what we do. And to your know they have know old idea of mining and a coal mine or something, right. And demolition.

They’re expecting the black soot on their faces and the hard hat and they’re like this is what my great grandpa did. And it’s so bad for the environment. Yeah. So there’s none of that. These are computers in a warehouse and these are like technicians and high paying quality jobs

Of the folks that are working here. People just don’t know that. And the only way that they know that is if you have to go in there and talk to them. And so that’s why these days are so important. Oh, I love great work that you guys are doing.

Now the chamber recently sent a comment letter to Finsen regarding crypto mixers. And we know we have the tornado cash situation still ongoing. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, absolutely. So Fincent came out with this notice of proposed rulemaking back in October, trying to regulate what they

Call CVC mixers or convertible virtual currency mixers. And as you said, it came really from tornado cash and all of the issues they’ve had with treasury and OFAC and Fincen. And so we issued a comment, as I know many other of our peers in the industry issued a comment

And ours says like, hey, we appreciate what you’re trying to do here and you’re trying to make this safe and this is a new and nascent technology and mixers people don’t really understand, but what you’re proposing is so overburdensome, it’s so ambiguous that you’re really just regulating so

Much more than traditional mixing and tumbling. And when you do that, it creates a really slippery slope of just a massive expansion of regulatory powers where then Finsant can really regulate all transactions that are moving on the blockchain. And that’s a little hyperbolic. But we said, hey, this really needs to be narrow.

This needs to be super narrow. So we’re only trying to combat and to correct the illicit activity that we all want to combat and correct. No one wants money going through a mixer to a bad actor, to a terrorist group, to an adversary like North Korea.

And so can we focus on that, please? And not just group in every transaction, because there’s a lot of beneficial uses for mixers. There’s a lot of good uses for mixers that are people like, if I want to send money on the blockchain to

A political candidate or to a charity, and I don’t want to be doxed or if I want to get my paycheck on the blockchain, and I don’t want my friends or my family or anyone knowing how much money I’m making, right. There’s benefits here. And we have this issue across the whole industry

With a lot of these proposals, whether it be on the agency side or in Congress. Let’s not go so broad where we try to regulate it all almost out of existence, and let’s be super narrow and thoughtful. And that’s essentially what our comment says.

And it gives a few proposals on how to do that. Yeah, that’s great. And to your point, it’s happening across multiple agencies where they go too broad. And it’s just like the technology can’t even exist based on what you guys are proposing. So great that you’re educating them and

Sending these letters and so forth. And I will give Vincent credit because I appreciate the opportunity to comment and to educate, unlike some other agencies, which I think everyone knows, the one three letter agency I’m talking to that says, you know what, rulemaking’s not for. Like, we don’t really care what you say.

We’re just bringing an enforcement action. So I appreciate Finsen and some of the other agencies who are like, hey, we want the industry’s feedback because this is complicated and this is a new technology. So I just got to put that plug in there and that little dig.

Well, Cody, since we’re talking about that, and of course, it’s the SEC, what a mess with this bitcoin spot, ETF launch. Certainly it was historic that these ETFs went live, but what a disaster. Fake tweets, documents being put up, then pulled down. It just seemed like amateur hour. It was unbelievable.

You would think an agency that has such strict rules and has just released a proposal on cybersecurity would have two factor authentication. I’m so perplexed. I’ve got a lot of words for it. It was a mess. It was a complete mess. I don’t understand how one, just like

An announcement could be so just bungled. And then just to know, after we get these approvals and you get a three to two vote and you have chair Gensler voting with the two republican commissioners in person. UETA. The statements from the democratic commissioners, from the chairman himself, just completely ripping the

Industry apart and saying it’s full of fraud and non compliance. After they got taken to task in court and pretty much were told, you need to do this in the grayscale case because you are not acting in the spirit of the law, you are not acting fairly.

And then to really almost just cry about it, like, okay, we’re going to approve this, but then we’re just going to cry because we’re right and this shouldn’t be out there. And if this goes wrong, don’t come crying to us. It was a total mess. I don’t understand it.

But at the same time, they’re live. We got them. We got them. So at the end of the day, I think it’s a nice little win, a big win, I should say, for the crypto industry. So with the big names like Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin, Templeton, and many more who got their etfs approved,

And I’m curious, how is this echoing in DC? Are members of Congress or other folks now like, whoa, what’s going on here? In a positive way, of course. Are you hearing comments around the etfs? Yeah, absolutely. And I’m going to steal this from Michael Saylor,

But he called it so what it did, it really brought additional legitimacy to so many members who I think just get their information on this industry from headlines, from the media. And so now when they see all of these one headlines like bitcoin etfs, they’re live. They were approved.

But then they see the names associated, the ones that you listed, blackrock, fidelity, wisdom tree, bitwise, they go, whoa, wait a second. What’s happening here? This is legitimate. And I’ve heard from several members of Congress who know nothing about bitcoin blockchain technology, and I’m trying to change that and rectify that.

And they’re like, oh, so I love etfs. And so now I can have exposure to bitcoin and I don’t have to go through that whole wallet rigmarole and try to figure that out and go on an exchange. But now I can get exposure. That’s pretty cool.

I’ve been investing in ETS for years, and I’m like, okay, there’s light bulbs going off. And so I think the sentiment has been that this is overwhelmingly positive. I know the market hasn’t looked great in the last two weeks since they went live, but members

Of Congress, for the first time, the ones I’m referring to are the ones off the committees. We always talk about the financial services committee, the act committee, the ones that are doing this. It’s those members on other committees who haven’t been paying attention, and they’ve only paid attention when they

Hear, like, FTX or now Elizabeth Warren is saying something, but they like money and they hear about something that they’ve invested in forever, and now they’ve got exposure to this new asset class that people are talking about forever. And now it makes sense to them for the first time.

It’s not this foreign concept and it’s not complicated and it’s not this new technology. It’s something that they know and that they relate to and that they already have experience investing in. And so I think it creates a positive perception, which is the best possible thing. So I think it’s honestly doing wonders.

And I think we’ll see that play out as more legislative debates happen throughout the year and into next year. That’s great to hear. And I think just in general, the etFs, to your point, it just breaks down a psychological barrier because it’s something familiar with folks

And then the brands that are behind it. Right. They know fidelity already. You know Blackrock, and it’s just becoming more accessible to all investors now via retirement accounts, pensions, whatever it is. Now, you mentioned crypto legislation, and Patrick McHenry was on CNBC this morning, and he talked about he

Wants to push through those bills in the House. What are you hearing as far as hearings or anything that’s upcoming that might be around the corner? Hi, everyone. Pardon the interruption. I’m Tony Edward, the founder and host of the Thinking Crypto podcast. I have a huge favor to ask you.

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It allows me to bring great quality content to you. Thank you for your support, and I’ll let you get back to the content. Yeah, and I watched that CNBC interview this morning, and he alluded to a little bit of a delay because of all the other nonsense that Congress has had to

Tackle and we still have to tackle. We still have to fund the government. We just keep kicking the can down the road. And so that’s taken up all of the time, and it’s really sucked all of the air out of the room in moving crypto legislation. But Patrick McHenry, as you said, he’s

Dedicated, and this is his last year. And so you’ve got a chairman who’s extremely powerful, he’s extremely influential, and he’s motivated because this is his last chance to move these bills that he cares deeply about. And so when it comes to legislation, it has been a little bit of a lull.

I haven’t heard anything in terms of expected hearings or anything to anticipate. However, when it comes to the market structure bill that one has been moving. And negotiators have been talking behind the scenes and they’re now finally talking to other members on the committees, the House financial services and House ag committees.

And so the lead drafters of this have been working to take all of the suggestions from that markup all the way back in July, where there was a lot of democratic proposed amendments, there were some republican proposed amendments to make this more robust and to bring more members to support the bill.

And so what the drafters have been doing is trying to work with all of those folks who proposed amendments who voted no out of the markup, but said, hey, I would consider it if you added whistleblower protections or you added some other priority of mine.

And so the drafters have been working really hard, and I think, I know they’re at a place now where they’re feeling confident, and so they’re starting to finally socialize this new product, this fit for the 21st century act with all the members of the various committees.

And so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a new draft of that very soon. Now, what does that mean for timing? I think based off of and what Patrick McHenry said this morning and just based off the other factors that I mentioned

Earlier about government funding and a whole host of other priorities, and we’re in an election season, so members are going to be out of DC more and more. This probably gets pushed a little bit. And so start to look towards late spring. If we can fund the government in

Early March, maybe end of March, April, May, maybe it gets pushed into summer. There’s going to be an effort to move this before August recess, after August recess in an election year, no one’s really working in DC. No one really will be working, but no one, in

Terms of the ones who are making the laws will be working because they’ll be focused solely on getting reelected or at the general election, the top. So I think that’s an awesome development. I think we’ll probably, and fingers crossed, see that new text really soon and then just look for a window

Where you’re like, hey, some of these things have started to come together in terms of the other priorities. Maybe this is the time now that Patrick McHenry says, okay, let’s get this in now let’s come to a full house floorboat. That’s crazy here, that things are moving behind the scenes

And like, you know, hopefully they can squeeze it in around spring or a little bit after and get something through because that would be a big win. As we head into the further into this next macro bull market. Now, we got some cases going on, sec versus Coinbase and of course, binance.

I’m personally hoping Coinbase comes out a big know. Binance is a little bit different because they have a token and a whole bunch of other things going on. What are your thoughts on how know, we had the hearings recently, how those hearings have been going? Yeah, so we had the oral arguments and

Two different judges, two different courts, one in New York, one in Washington, and Washington being Binance, Coinbase being New York. So in terms of the oral arguments, it looks like Coinbase did a great job. It looks like it was a slam dunk. From everything I’ve read, from all of the testimony that

I listened to and from the questions back and forth with the judge, it looks like they did really well. The one thing, and people are going to call me a party pooper. The one thing I will just caution everyone, is that the bar for getting a motion to dismiss

Approved, especially against a government agency, is extremely high. It is very difficult. It means that essentially there’s no question of fact or law. And so when the bar is that high, it’s usually the judge’s best interest to just let this case proceed and to hear more oral arguments, to hear more motions.

And so I wouldn’t be surprised if the motion to dismiss isn’t granted. But I also don’t want anyone to take that as that hurts Coinbase’s chances anyway. I think from looking at the facts and we filed an amicus brief in this case. And from hearing the judge, the facts

Are on Coinbase’s side, but the law is more importantly on Coinbase’s side. And so I would be shocked if they didn’t come out the ultimate victor. Whether it’s now or sometime soon with the motion to dismiss or it’s later on throughout the trial, I think Coinbase has a really good case.

Binance, as you mentioned, is different. There’s a lot more at play there. They have their own token. There’s also a fraud element that is included in the larger case, so that one’s trickier. I think that one goes on for quite a bit, and that means not months, but possibly years.

And so I think that’s really going to take a long time to play out. I mean, we all watched the ripple case take a really long time. I could see this being a similar timeline. I think Coinbase probably gets resolved much more quickly because, again, theirs is pretty straightforward to me, and

It seems to the judge, and I think the law and the facts are on their side. Binance. I think we’re looking at a longer timeline. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Now, there was a bill by Senator Hagerty and Lumis to fight bad actors and bad actors in crypto and other industries.

Can you tell us a bit about that bill and what they’re trying to achieve there? Yeah, this is a great bill. It’s really cool. So what this bill does is it focuses and prioritizes the industry and the technology to solve issues of illicit finance, which I think is awesome.

It’s not just saying, like so many other illicit finance national security bills we’ve seen, where it’s just like, you know what? Let’s ban the technology or limit it. No, why don’t we use the technology to our advantage? Because that’s the beauty of the blockchain, is it helps law enforcement find bad actors.

Why don’t we use that to our advantage to curtail or combat illicit finance and crime? And so what the bill does is it tasks the attorney general with creating a public private partnership. And so it says, attorney general, I want you to get 20 companies together, ten money service businesses.

So those crypto companies, like exchanges, that are registered with Finsen already and already have to do BS, bank Secrecy act requirements, the KYC requirements, take ten of those, as well as take ten other entities in the crypto ecosystem. So I’m thinking that’s probably like blockchain analytic companies.

Take them and you’ve got this cohort and use them to help one combat illicit finance build off their expertise, but also come into an agreement with them that the government can then go to these actors. If the government sees anything suspicious, they can go to these actors, be like, hey, I want you

To know something weird is going on here. I want you to look into it. And it also allows those companies to go to the government and be like, hey, I think something’s weird here. I want to work with you and I want to look into it. And it creates a liability protection.

So there’s a lot of information sharing and free flowing information going back and forth, and no one needs to fear any prosecution. It’s really just opening up a safe space is the best way I can put it for government and the industry to work together to combat illicit finance.

And so now if I’m in exchange, and I’m fearful that, hey, if I maybe have something weird going on, do I want to go to Department of justice or the FBI? With everything that’s been happening now, you’ve got a safe space, you’ve got liability protections, and

Hopefully it creates more dialogue and it creates more opportunity for us to leverage the technology to combat crime instead of trying to limit the technology here in the US. That’s great. Especially we’ve seen Elizabeth Warren and her narratives and fud. So, like you said, creating a safe space. That’s really great to hear.

That’s a great bill. It’s awesome. And so, yeah, Senator Hagerty and Senator Lumis, as you said, it’s nice to see these types of bills that are not only thoughtful, but just really forward thinking. And I can’t stress it enough. We’ve got this technology that inherently has built

In, almost like this protection where we can view everything on the public blockchain. And obviously, there are exceptions to that with some of the mixers and tumblers. But there’s a quote from a FBI special agent that we use all the time in our work. And it’s like the best thing any criminal can

Do is commit a crime on the blockchain, because we will find you, and we do find you. And so leveraging this technology for our benefit and our advantage to make the market safer for all of us, I give them kudos. It’s an awesome bill, and I hope it moves forward.

Final item here, we have many political candidates who are aware of crypto. They’re for crypto like Vivek Ram, Swami RFK Jr, Ron DeSantis, and so forth. Vivek stepped out of the race. He has seemingly partnered with Trump. And it seems that when he went to meet with Trump.

He spoke to him about crypto and CBdcs and so forth. Is that having any impact in DC, that Trump is coming out against cbdcs? He also has, like, nfts that will be issued on the bitcoin portals and things like that. It was so cool to see him say

Something about that because Trump was not the biggest fan of crypto when he was president. He had many tweets bashing the industry. And so Vivek clearly has influence with him, and he’s got his ear. And so I would not be surprised at all if

Vivek has ran his crypto platform by him and said, this is an industry we really need to embrace. Now, do I think Trump is going to come out and be like, I love crypto? Probably not. But what he did in his last administration, even when he didn’t publicly like crypto, he empowered his

Agency heads and his cabinet, those who liked crypto, to create a favorable regulatory framework for the industry so innovation can grow here, it can flourish. We can see all the possibilities. We can see what works under the protection of our regulatory system. Vec getting very close to Trump, as you

Said, from my perspective, it looks like he’s trying to find a role in the administration. And wouldn’t that be great if we had Vivek, who has this pro crypto platform? And he wants to see it regulated, but he wants to see it regulated thoughtfully. As a treasury secretary, as the head of the

OCC, as commerce secretary, head of the SEC. I don’t know. I’m just throwing these out there, but that’s what I’m looking forward to. And I think that’s the best possible thing, is the more and more people that can go to Trump and every candidate, Nikki Haley, Joe Biden, and get in their

Ear about the positives of this technology. It can only do good things for us. And so I’m hopeful that this leads to good policy if it’s his administration. And I think that’s a step in the right direction. And to the other point of your question, what impact is this having in DC?

I haven’t seen any direct impact. It’s pretty new. He said this, what? This earlier this week. But from everything I know about Donald Trump and his impact in DC is that congressional republicans will follow him blindly. And so if he comes out and he’s got a pro crypto platform, we are going

To see many republicans lead on this issue. And my only fear is that it becomes partisan. And we just need to make sure that’s not the case, but it’s a good thing. I think, overall that more and more people who are the most powerful people in the

Country are speaking out favorably for crypto. Yeah, absolutely. Cody, always great information, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me. No, this is awesome. Thanks so much for having me again, Tony.