Clarity Act未通过，SEC新规填补监管真空

How about crypto? Are we doing great? Is this the best thing that happens to this investment class? Is a failure in Washington? If you talk to the crypto sector, this is the second best thing that could happen. I mean, look, let's let's talk about what happened here is that Clarity Act failed, didn't get through the Senate. We consider it done. You know, it's not going to be a lame duck, even though some of the Senate Democrats have said, let's talk about the lame duck session.

We don't think so. So what has happened is the SEC and the CFTC has come out with several rulemaking for the CFTC case. It's coming out to try and fill the void. Now the SEC has a regulation out there called regulation. Crypto assets allows small issuers to essentially avoid IPO like disclosures. It's good. It's not like the most material thing. And then just last week the SEC released its innovation exemption guidance.

This would allow digitalization tokenization of trading securities. Yet on the blockchain um there are certain rules around it. You know, the company has to give permission. It has to come with dividends and buy in rights and so forth like that. Um, but essentially it's setting up the future for this crypto world. Now, the problem here is, is that. This is all just guidance rule makings. A future Democrat can change this and alter it.

That's why the clarity was so important. But if you play out the game, look, a Democrat would have to win in 2028. A Democrat would have to name an SEC chair that would want to unwind. These Democrat would then have to go through the rulemaking process. So you get about 4 to 5 years of quote unquote, clarity for the industry to essentially cement its status. That's what the crypto sector is saying now is, look, we got four years to figure this out.

Let's figure it out. Let's get it in a way that makes it so difficult. The Democrats can't unwind it if they want to. Okay. So that's why there's a lot of optimism right now. Well even the you know Coinbase is starting to get its legs back here. There does seem to be a feel like we survived something. Will there be another swing at this or is this Congress done. It will only be a swing at it if the Republicans take the both House in the Senate.

I mean, for the rest of this lame duck, though, you're right, lame duck. As Patrick Henry said on this program, lame ducks are lame, you know, so we don't think the Clarity Act is going to come back. And because senators soon had the cloture vote. And because people went on the record and because the SEC has already come out and said, fine, if you're not going to do your job, we're going to do it for you. We think the Democrats come back and say, no, we're not interested.

I mean, ultimately what happened here is the Democrats are more afraid of a democratic socialist running against them in 2026 and 2028 over a failed, you know, a crypto vote that could lead to something else versus the crypto political action committees. The Democrats ultimately just and that's just I'm partly saying that. But like ultimately the Democrats decided it was better to walk away. Can I ask, what does banking think of this?

What what what does that. Because this was a huge deal more for stablecoin than ethics, of course, but to not see any regulations go in place means what? For banks? So there's two things really keep in mind. One is the stablecoin piece. Obviously the stablecoin stablecoin yield was a huge stablecoin yield is a huge deal. There's no deal over it right now. You could be prohibited from paying interest on stablecoins, but you can often reward programs through what we see the deposit flight.

We will. It's interesting because the office of the Comptroller of the currency has a regulation out there that actually goes a little bit further than the genius act language, and it's in the bank's favor. So we're still waiting for that to be finalized. We think a lawsuit would come if the OCC finalizes it is yeah, that's the first issue. The second is this tokenization of digital securities. This is putting up essentially DeFi versus trad fi.

And you're getting into a scenario where if people begin to trade equities on off, unchained blockchain programs that sort of fall outside of things like the consolidated audit trail and other things, it's a lot cheaper. So if I'm Citadel, why would I be paying up all these fees and costs and so forth? Right. When you could go to Coinbase and not pay it, that's going to create a real headache for the industry over the next couple of years.

And I think the regulators are going to be the front of that. Does crypto maintain the lobbying presence that we see now in Washington, if we're just kind of turning away from Capitol Hill? Well, look, at the end of the day when you have a check like you when you can put millions of dollars into a politician's PAC. Yeah, you're going to have a lobbying effort. You're going to have a strong lobbying effort. But I think what happens here is there's two things to keep in mind is you have the crypto currencies and then you have the infrastructure behind it.

So for Bitcoin it's already a commodity. So if you're looking at this from the investor perspective you have to essentially say is this action in Washington helping the underlying currency. Or is this action helping the platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood and so forth? The lobbying dollars are going to be spent more on Coinbase and Robinhood, and on the idea of what does the crypto decentralized finance sector look like over the next few years versus the underlying currencies?

The underlying currencies are just going to continue to do what they do. The real focus is going to be on those equities that are in this space. Spending time with Nathan Deane from Bloomberg Intelligence. As I look at the price of gas today. 447 do you think up over the weekend, uh, things a little bit? 651 if you put in diesel and I'm guessing you're not in the car. Um, but a lot of trucks are. And as we say, this is the fuel that drives the economy.

Uh, it's generating a new call on Capitol Hill for a diesel export ban. This is something that we've been bandying about. But now actually lawmakers are starting to take a stand here. Look no further than Chuck Grassley with diesel. 657 In Iowa, he says, why doesn't Trump put an embargo on diesel exports? Like presidents in the 70s put embargoes on ag products because food prices were inflated, he says high diesel prices all caps are killing farmers income.

The governor of Louisiana today called for this as well. Jeff Landry, a big ally of Trump, does it because it happened. I think we got legislation here, not some legislation I wouldn't expect. I would expect President Trump to try and do something else to you. Yeah. The reason being is there was a reason why Vice President Advance was in Iowa this weekend. You know, the Republicans need to address affordability. And this is an easy thing that President Trump can try at least make a message on.

Now, the legality of it still has to be questioned out. But I think, you know, obviously, you know, we think the president would be able to do this. Um, but it's another move without Congress being involved. But that's exactly where Trump's going to go for the next two and a half years. All we have been the Democrats take, the House, take Congress out of this. I mean, as much as I love Capitol Hill, the focus is going to be over on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue for the next two and a half years.

So President Trump has an affordability issue. There aren't a lot of tools that he can actually pull to address affordability. This may be one. And so if this is going to help Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, those states where they're Republicans should be doing really well, but sort of toss up. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the president does it. Absolutely. Uh, wild. I don't know how this would work. Mike McGlone his head must be exploding.

Thinking about this.