Kristin Smith：Clarity法案虽死但监管窗口已开

So I wanted to bring in something Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, told us when he was on our show last week. He's now the co chair of the OKX Venture, and he came on before the news broke. So it's more, about the overall path ahead now that Clarity has an act rather than, tokenization. Let's just take a listen to what he told us. Okay. You know, we've been talking about digital assets and the fact that digital assets are the future of finance for over a decade.

And when clarity failed, ambiguity wins and unpredictability wins. And that's the last thing the industry can actually tolerate. And you're seeing jurisdictions all around the world that are actually putting in regulations and, compliance so companies know the rules of the game. Just tell me the rules of the game. And it is passing us by. Alright. So that was Andrew Crumpton when he was on our program after the failure of clarity.

Clearly, agencies like the CFTC and SEC need to push forward with their own guidelines in the absence of actual durable legislation. For companies, does this fact change, how companies proceed given that whatever rulemaking happens is not permanent, but at least it's something? Yeah. Well, let's let's go back in time a little bit. So first, I wanna say, I think crypto as an industry and a technology is winning right now Washington.

When I started in this space back in 2018, all the industry wanted was for regulators to issue guidance and regulation. Instead, the industry got attacked by the government with regulation by enforcement, with criminal investigations, with debanking. The crypto industry responded strongly with a strong political movement, which led to congress getting involved, and congress got some wins. They got the Genius Act. They changed the IRS broker rule.

And even though they didn't get clarity across the finish line with a big c, the agencies now have the political cover to move. And we would not be seeing so much activity out of the SEC and the CFTC right now if clarity hadn't made it as far as we did. So I'm feeling really good. And I think the reality is there are two worlds. There's a sort of slightly unregulated world that much of crypto is operating in today, and then there's this world of new regulations that are gonna be put on the books in the next two years.

Nobody's gonna wanna undo that because these regulations protect consumers. They make... Give clarity to the industry. And, yes, there might be some tweaks around the edges in a future administration, but they're not gonna be able to roll them back. Christine, if I could just ask a follow-up question on that. So where does this leave us in terms of the durability of what the SEC and CFTC is passing? Like, does it all get overturned when the Democrats, if they win and control both the house and the senate and maybe two years down the line?

Well, I think that's why this rule making process is so important. You know, it can take anywhere between eighteen and twenty four months to get completely through the process. There are different notice and comment periods. They go back and forth with different drafts. It's really important that we get as many of those rules done as possible before the congressional review act window, so sometime before the summer of twenty twenty eight.

I think anything that gets across the finish by... Finish line by then is going be durable. We could see a change of administration or not. We could see, you know, changes in congress or not. We don't exactly know where that world's gonna be, but I think it's so rare to have the chairman of the SEC and the CFTC working so closely with one unified vision. I think we wanna take advantage of this moment, and we want them, to get as much in place.

And, again, once the rules are there, traditional finance is gonna come in. Companies are gonna come from overseas into The US. There's gonna be a bunch of activity that depends on those rules. Nobody's gonna wanna upend that. You're not gonna be able to put the the toothpaste back in the tube. Like, this is this is gonna be out there, and people will be relying on that. So we don't have clarity with a big c, but we have clarity with a little c.

Exactly. Do you think that the Clarity Act is completely dead? I mean, could anything happen before the midterm elections? I Even during the lame duck period? I think it's unlikely. It's on a 0% chance. I think that there really is genuine interest on both sides of the aisle, but, you know, there's a couple reasons Clarity wasn't able to get forward... Move forward. You know, one of those has to do with the president and his family's business with crypto.

I don't know how that issue gets solved for for Democrats between now and the end of the year. I think there's also this moment right now where the banks are, not yet fully on board with the integration of crypto technology. I think a couple years from now, the banks will be on board with this, and they'll be supportive once they see how it plays out. But I don't see those two issues getting solved before the end of the year, and so I think that's why it's really important that the regulators are running through.

Now if that does change and clarity does come along, I think that's great because there are a couple things that clarity does that the regulators can't do today. But I think, you know, I think we're gonna be okay either way. Crystal, one one quick question about your role. You're back at the Blockchain Association. You also run the Solana Policy Institute. Talk a little bit about how do you sort of juggle those two jobs.

Yeah. Well, you know, I don't have children, and I don't have a spouse, so I got a lot of time on my hands. But... No. Listen. I was the of the Blockchain Association for almost seven years. This is an interim position. We are looking for someone new, and we're going to go through that process. And so, I'm happy to jump in. It's an amazing team, amazing group of people in this industry. You know, this this industry has been through battles together.

We are... Where it's like war buddies, you know, regulatory war buddies. And so it's an amazing group of people, and, you know, I'm really excited to to step in for a couple months until we move on to the next chapter.