00:00There are a couple of things that are kind of delaying the Clarity Act, but from where you sit,
00:05is ethics the single biggest obstacle to the Senate passing the Clarity Act?
00:10I think we're getting there in ethics. We seem to be on the kind of the 10-yard line here.
00:17The right players are working on it. They've had good discussions, good negotiations,
00:23and I think that we are headed in a direction where we're going to get a good vote on this
00:28bill.
00:28But as you've mentioned, you've said ethics are the elephant in the room blocking the Clarity Act.
00:32You've also said, though, the industry isn't trying to dictate ethics provisions and what they should look like.
00:37The president, we should note, disclosed a $1.4 billion in personal crypto income.
00:42His family runs World Liberty Financial, plus a meme coin.
00:48Democrats will not vote without these new guardrails.
00:50Can the industry really afford to stay neutral on ethics when ethics could be the thing that kills it?
00:56I think that it's up to the government officials.
01:01You know, this is an ethics agreement that will impact all of the elected officials,
01:06and so that's something that they need to work out together.
01:09Again, the right people are having the right conversations, and so we're headed in a good direction.
01:14And from crypto's side, you know, we just really encourage them to keep talking
01:18so that we can get this across the finish line.
01:20But from an ethics perspective, what gets it across the finish line?
01:26Like, who has to give here?
01:29I think where the two senators, Tos and Gallego, where it sounds like they are headed,
01:37probably is the right direction.
01:39You know, at the end of the day, we are still waiting for Democrats to say that they support this
01:45bill,
01:45and I'm hopeful that this is what gets them to yes.
01:48I wonder also about the context.
01:51Cryptocurrencies have been mired in a slump.
01:53People call it a crypto winter.
01:54If Bitcoin were trading above $100,000 rather than holding at around $60,000,
01:59do you think there would be more urgency for both Democrats and Republicans to reach some kind of compromise?
02:04Because right now, both sides probably feel that they have time on their side to press their cases.
02:11I think what both sides recognize is the status quo is not working, that they have to get something done.
02:19And the longer it takes to get something done, the longer we are without certain customer protections,
02:26without law enforcement tools.
02:28And so I think there's this recognition that, you know, we need to get something done sooner rather than later.
02:34The status quo is not going to work in the long term.
02:37And, you know, if the opportunity is now, let's take advantage of it.
02:41You say that something needs to get done for consumers, those who either invest in or trade crypto or are
02:50trying to move on chain.
02:51What's in it for them?
02:52How is Clarity Act going to change how they proceed, how they move forward?
02:56Yeah, absolutely.
02:57There's a number of disclosures.
02:59A disclosure regime that does not exist right now will be in place.
03:04You will also have regulators overseeing these markets.
03:07And that means you're going to have people in there examining them, making sure they know where the money is.
03:13Right now, you don't have requirements for customer fund segregation.
03:19So there's no protection from bankruptcy.
03:21This is something that the bill will do is ensure that customer funds are kept safely and remote from any
03:27bankruptcy proceedings.
03:28So there's a lot in this bill that makes it a strong customer protection law.
03:35In a previous lifetime, you were a longtime senior advisor to Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
03:40Can your relationship with him, with his office, get this across the finish line?
03:47You know, we're both from small towns in South Dakota.
03:51And I think what he would say and what I would say is independent thinking is in our blood.
03:57So I have no illusions that, you know, my voice is going to be what makes him come to a
04:06conclusion.
04:06He's working closely with his caucus, with the minority leader, and all of the other kind of issues that are
04:13out there are playing together as far as timing.
04:16But, yeah, he's an independent thinker.
04:18And that's part of the reason I enjoyed working for him is that he does things the right way in
04:25his own, you know, with his own reasoning.
04:28Have you spoken to him about this?
04:30You know, I have spoken to some of his staff.
04:33We keep in close contact with them.
04:35Mostly it's kind of coordinating.
04:37The Blockchain Association has done a ton of grassroots work in the last month.
04:43We've had hundreds of meetings in the Senate.
04:45We created a new website called clarityforamerica.com.
04:49And that's where you can go and send a constituent, unique constituent letters to senators.
04:54So making sure they know the efforts that we are putting in, where we see maybe offices that have questions
05:03that need to be clarified, it really is we're working hand in hand to get this done.
05:09And before we let you go, Summer, I just want to get a sense, again, of, based on your years
05:15of experience in Washington, understanding the legislative calendar, explain to us why this is kind of the last window of
05:22opportunity for the Senate to move forward with Clarity Act.
05:25Because if it doesn't get it done before the recess, then what does the calendar look like in the fall
05:30and post-midterm elections?
05:33Yeah, I mean, I think this is an ideal time.
05:36You know, a lot of times, in my experience, the Senate does perform best when there are timelines in place,
05:44when there's a deadline of some sort.
05:46And I think we're facing that right now with the upcoming August recess.
05:50And, you know, things just get harder around midterm elections.
05:55Things are really hard to do in lame duck sessions.
05:58So I'm not saying it's impossible.
06:01But, you know, right now, the timing is right.
06:04Right. We're so close.
06:06And, you know, given my years of experience in the Senate and on Capitol Hill, I think we're going to
06:11get there.
06:12When?
06:15By the end of the week.
06:16I think we'll at least have some kind of cloture vote, at least, to see where, you know, to see
06:22where everyone is, to see if we can, you know, move ahead with the bill.
06:27There might be a break in between when you get cloture on the motion to proceed and when you actually
06:32have final passage.
06:34But that's OK, because crypto is not going to go away.
06:37We're going to keep pushing around this.
06:39We're going to stay on the Hill.
06:40We're going to keep having these conversations, sending these letters and making sure that no one forgets that this is
06:46critically important to their crypto voters in the United States.
06:51We're going to stay on the Hill.
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