SBF、Gensler、Warren：加密游说者揭秘华盛顿内幕

I'm here with Ron Hammond. He is the head of policy and advocacy over at Wintermute. Ron, welcome to the show.

David, it's been a while. I hope everything's going well and looking forward getting to all of it, man. There's a lot to talk cover right now, so.

Yeah, there is there has a been a growing history of crypto in DC. Um maybe just for back context, uh 95% of our time together has been in just signal chat asking you about like what does this mean, what's going on, what's the truth here when it comes to like me and Ryan trying to figure out what the hell's going on in Capitol Hill because there's the version of Capitol Hill, crypto in Capitol Hill that they want you to see, and then there's the version that's like kind of kind of going on under the hood.

And those two things don't really line up. Maybe to set the table, uh just how long have you been in DC?

Uh so, it's been 10 years. And actually for this uh new job

all of them.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, like since crypto policy was a thing, like it's been like me and like three other people who've been on the staff side involved in this stuff. And uh like for example, he's on Capitol Hill when I worked there. So, I I started working there in 2015, uh left in 2019 to go uh work at Ripple. Uh and come to that, you know, later on. But I worked for Warren Davidson from Ohio. Uh and he was a freshman member, uh and everyone's It's kind of like high school.

Everyone's trying to find their own certain lane in policy. And he was trying to do more venture capital issues, but then he had a whole conversation with the leadership a couple hours. Um and I'm like 24 at the time. Uh but apparently, like it's like, "Hey, you're a freshman. You're kind of getting the bottom rung in the issues. Just do crypto or something." And he really like took that to heart. He went over to me and said, "Hey, Ron, like do you know anything about crypto?"

And I'm like, "Well, you know, I may or may or may not bought an ific ID on the Silk Road in college, but like that's pretty much all [laughter] I know about crypto." And he goes, "Congratulations. You're the guy that is now in charge of crypto policy." Uh so, like that's like how it happened. Me at 24 like getting like dumped that on my desk. But at the same time, it was like it's kind of cool because it's like the most brand new territory.

Like there's no like left versus right. There's no like policy lines. There's no like policy in general. So, so like that's kind of how I got in this space. I worked on it with a couple Democrats and Republicans on the Token Taxonomy Act, which is like the first crypto regulatory market structure bill. You know, back then it was like what? About 20 pages or so. And the Clarity Act is like 309 pages or whatever. But like the kind of the early stages of Clarity Act that we're going to talk about probably pretty soon.

That was the Token Taxonomy Act and several other bills down the road. But like that's what I worked on. It was the first bipartisan bill on market structure, which is I was really adamant about like making sure we had to keep this bipartisan because it's the first of its kind. And then after that I decided to go over to In-House. So, I can give you more in-depth kind of like, you know, everything where we ended up at including the Blockchain Association and now where I view it, but it's been a fun ride, man.

I've been kind of seeing it from all angles here. It's been exciting.

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Yeah, and I suppose it uh parallels the growth of crypto as a whole. Like if you're if you are early crypto in Capitol Hill, you're kind of like doing the the rebel thing that the count you're the counterculture young uh participant. You're just in DC and somebody needs a crypto guy and you're the crypto guy. And now here we are in 2026.

I'm sure it's just wildly different. What's it like now?

My favorite stories are from friends in Capitol Hill. They call me Captain Crypto because of where the congressmen crypto and all we did was crypto. So when Janet Yellen would come in uh you know, talk about you know, what's happening up with the markets, like we're going to be asking about crypto. Everyone just kind of eye rolled at us at the time. But then there's that that famous time where these two kids and I remember being on the side of the hearing room when it happened.

These two kids brought up the buy Bitcoin sign in front of Janet Yellen and

Oh, yeah. What's his name? Uh uh Christian? Is his name?

I I never met the guy. So uh I

Yeah, I met I met him a couple times. Yeah.

It's crazy. So I was there and all my friends who are working always like congressmen like they usually hang out on the side of the room of the hearings. They all just beelined right at me like these are your people, aren't they, Ron? [laughter]

I like

These are not my people, but

He's not my guy.

So yeah, I've seen it like like from [clears throat] back in the day when like no one was doing this stuff. You know, I was there during the SBF days, too. Like holy crap, that's another different story that you and I can

talk about as well. Uh and then yeah, now it's more on the kind of market side. Uh and now I'm in New York as well and DC uh going back and forth. So and I had a Miami stint between, too. So like it's uh I've just kind of seen the different phases of crypto.

Uh

How would you describe this phase now versus Is it Is this like peak crypto activity in DC? How was it more active maybe I don't know post SBF? Like what's the vibe now? And like how would you kind of like name the flavor of whatever's going on in Capitol Hill with crypto?

So, we were no one gave a crap about us at all for like years. Again, like everyone just crapped on me all the time. And I was like, "How the hell?" But, 2020 when the when the COVID happened, 2021, that's when I started getting the calls being like, "Hey, Captain Crypto, we'd love to talk to you about this crypto thing. What the hell is it?" And like that's kind of where my role I came in just being like, and everyone calls lobbyist kind of like a dirty term, but like my job was more as like, "Let me explain why XRP and Bitcoin are two different things."

So, like that was kind of conversations back then.

Your job was to just explain things to regulators who were too old to get it themselves.

Exactly. And usually they would kick it over to the staffers, too, which is a unique area of crypto. Since there's no like lines drawn stuff, they would usually kick it over to the the 25, 28-ye

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