What Donald Trump means for Bitcoin (Feat. Joey Politano) – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett and Cas are joined by Joseph Politano to discuss what Donald Trump's election will mean for cryptocurrency. This video was recorded on November 26th, 2024. Read more: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2025/01/06/episode-159-what-trump-means-for-bitcoin/ Where to find Joseph: Apricitas BlueSky Twitter Additional resources: Pence opposes RFK Jr. Bennett's newsletter about Justin Sun buying tokens Joey's post from November 2022

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Joseph Politano to discuss what Donald Trump’s election will mean for cryptocurrency.

This podcast was recorded on November 26th, 2024.

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English Transcript:

00:00:05:07 - 00:00:11:05
Cas Piancey
Welcome back everyone. I am Cas Piancey. I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett Tomlin. How are you today?

00:00:11:05 - 00:00:12:12
Bennett Tomlin
I'm doing well. How are you?

00:00:12:12 - 00:00:20:21
Cas Piancey
I'm good. We're joined by a special guest today, Joey Politano, who does the Apricitas Economics Substack. He is a,

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:23:09
Cas Piancey
economic analyst and data journalist.

00:00:23:11 - 00:00:25:21
Cas Piancey
Joey, it's wonderful to have you on. How are you?

00:00:25:21 - 00:00:29:00
Joseph Politano
It's amazing to be here. Long time listener. First time,

00:00:29:00 - 00:00:30:11
Joseph Politano
appearance.

00:00:30:11 - 00:00:31:13
Joseph Politano
Yeah. Happy. Happy to be.

00:00:31:13 - 00:00:31:21
Joseph Politano
Here.

00:00:31:21 - 00:00:42:11
Cas Piancey
Awesome. Well, so we wanted to talk to you about the incoming administration and how that is going to possibly affect cryptocurrencies.

00:00:42:11 - 00:00:44:19
Cas Piancey
Maybe including some of our favorites like tether.

00:00:44:19 - 00:01:01:06
Cas Piancey
We know that Lutnick is going to be a part of this administration. We touched on that in one of our previous episodes a bit, but I think you probably know a little bit more about all of these people and can tell us, inform us a little bit more about what to expect in over the next four years.

00:01:01:06 - 00:01:01:15
Cas Piancey
So,

00:01:01:15 - 00:01:06:14
Cas Piancey
yeah, I don't know. I don't know how you want to start it. If you want, you can start with Donald Trump, the man himself, and kind of,

00:01:06:14 - 00:01:10:05
Cas Piancey
what you expect his cryptocurrency policies to be.

00:01:10:05 - 00:01:11:06
Joseph Politano
I think if I was going to start,

00:01:11:06 - 00:01:15:08
Joseph Politano
Should been back, like, a couple years. I remember right about three,

00:01:15:08 - 00:01:30:13
Joseph Politano
years ago, I was. I still am living, near DC. I remember going into Union Station in DC, like the day after FTX failed. And Union Station is so crazy because they have these giant, you know, LED billboards.

00:01:30:18 - 00:01:37:15
Joseph Politano
And so it was like wall to wall Sam Bankman-Fried face on an LED billboard the day after he had been,

00:01:37:15 - 00:01:49:06
Joseph Politano
the day after FTX failed and that we had known that like this, you know, the justice part was going to be going after him, and all of this stuff was going to happen. Before that. There was like a big push in DC to kind of like normalize crypto.

00:01:49:10 - 00:02:05:00
Joseph Politano
You know, they were outside the industry. They were then like regulated. Then you have like, okay, we're doing these big conferences. We're inviting such and such representative. They're trying to like put on a normal face. And the FTX thing just like totally blew all that up. Nobody won. It was like radioactive.

00:02:05:00 - 00:02:11:13
Joseph Politano
And no one wanted to be associated with crypto because association with crypto was indirectly association with FTX, which was, you know,

00:02:11:13 - 00:02:16:08
Joseph Politano
and then fast forward to this was the moment that I, they had this realization this year,

00:02:16:08 - 00:02:20:14
Joseph Politano
I was on the metro and if you're on the DC Metro, you get very weird ads.

00:02:20:14 - 00:02:22:20
Joseph Politano
It's like have defense contractors and like,

00:02:22:20 - 00:02:25:00
Joseph Politano
like you should get an STD check.

00:02:25:02 - 00:02:29:05
Joseph Politano
But I remember going into Capital South, which is right near,

00:02:29:05 - 00:02:33:14
Joseph Politano
Chapel Hill, and seeing like, massive wall to wall ads,

00:02:33:14 - 00:02:34:22
Joseph Politano
from,

00:02:34:22 - 00:02:41:11
Joseph Politano
crypto companies. It was all like it was a collaborative push about like, this is the future of money. And this is 2024.

00:02:41:12 - 00:02:50:04
Joseph Politano
Like, what is this? Who did I travel back in time to 2021? And that was a moment for me where I was like, okay, they're going to be pushing really hard this election. And they really did.

00:02:50:04 - 00:02:56:13
Bennett Tomlin
And so this is something I was excited to talk to you about. I was talking with Cas about this.

00:02:56:13 - 00:03:14:10
Bennett Tomlin
Before we get on, I was reading your article from November 10th, 2022, where you were talking about, like, the failure of FTX right around this same era. And there's a line in there. Bankers, regulators and lawmakers will likely remember Ftx's fall when thinking about crypto for the foreseeable future.

00:03:14:16 - 00:03:26:20
Bennett Tomlin
And at that time, that was very strongly Cas and my stance as well. You can find a whole bunch of me doing long monologues about how I'm like, this might meaningfully change crypto regulation forever because it can't be ignored.

00:03:26:20 - 00:03:31:06
Cas Piancey
We also had one of our good friends, Elizabeth Lobato, who is a journalist at The Verge.

00:03:31:06 - 00:03:45:03
Cas Piancey
We had her on, and she was covering the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. And I think part of what I remember during one of our episodes with her, she specifically said that she thought the if the collapse of FTX was going to be,

00:03:45:03 - 00:03:54:09
Cas Piancey
a moment where it takes years and years and years and years for cryptocurrency to come back at all, if it even ever does in America.

00:03:54:09 - 00:03:55:10
Cas Piancey
And I was like,

00:03:55:10 - 00:03:57:19
Cas Piancey
I'm not sure about that, but I guess we'll see.

00:03:57:19 - 00:03:59:18
Cas Piancey
And lo and behold, here we are.

00:03:59:18 - 00:04:01:05
Bennett Tomlin
And now we have seen.

00:04:01:05 - 00:04:22:23
Bennett Tomlin
And so, like you're talking about, Bitcoin is at a new all time high. Ads are everywhere. And the crypto industry spent heavily on the last election. Was that, like, really the driving force that prevented lawmakers, regulators and stuff like that from dealing with crypto? Was it the crypto industry making it such an election issue?

00:04:23:00 - 00:04:26:03
Bennett Tomlin
Or is there something else you kind of attribute that shift to?

00:04:26:03 - 00:04:31:06
Joseph Politano
I would say in a broad sense, it's clear. Like there's a public opinion. Shift back.

00:04:31:06 - 00:04:33:13
Joseph Politano
This is like. Why, if you remember,

00:04:33:13 - 00:04:38:18
Joseph Politano
Harris, when she was campaigning, said some, like, very weird things that were, like, vaguely pro crypto.

00:04:38:18 - 00:04:41:17
Joseph Politano
You may remember that famous ad where she was like, I'm going to protect,

00:04:41:17 - 00:04:46:15
Joseph Politano
I think it was Latino like households wealth by by, like, security in crypto.

00:04:46:15 - 00:04:55:15
Joseph Politano
And that was such a weird moment. But to me it was like, okay, this is clear. And all of the polling that they're picking up on this, like increased affinity for this stuff again,

00:04:55:15 - 00:05:02:09
Joseph Politano
the second thing is the spending is was like a really big issue, and it was both spending directly,

00:05:02:09 - 00:05:07:15
Joseph Politano
on like competitive partisan elections and also spending on, on primaries.

00:05:07:17 - 00:05:16:02
Joseph Politano
I don't want to say you can't ever say like, the money killed this person's, you know, blah, blah, but like Katie Porter, who is,

00:05:16:02 - 00:05:18:08
Bennett Tomlin
The Money killed her campaign.

00:05:20:18 - 00:05:24:07
Joseph Politano
Katie Porter, who is like, very, very vocal,

00:05:24:07 - 00:05:29:03
Joseph Politano
crypto critic, had a lot of money spent against her in the California primary. Jamaal Bowman is, like, very left wing,

00:05:29:03 - 00:05:34:07
Joseph Politano
crypto guy. Had a lot of money spent on him in the primary. And then as you got towards the general election,

00:05:34:07 - 00:05:35:11
Joseph Politano
you had a ton of like,

00:05:35:11 - 00:05:41:16
Joseph Politano
I would say there was one campaign, like there was lot actually a lot of bipartisan spending on crypto, most of it from a focus on like moderate,

00:05:41:16 - 00:05:44:22
Joseph Politano
people in swing states who can't afford to lose voters.

00:05:45:00 - 00:05:46:14
Joseph Politano
And the examples that I would give,

00:05:46:14 - 00:05:57:15
Joseph Politano
are the two Democrat senators who won. So Slotkin and Gallego, who are very close races, you know, a managed to win states that Harris lost. They did so in part because they had a lot of,

00:05:57:15 - 00:06:00:06
Joseph Politano
crypto money backing them in PACs.

00:06:00:06 - 00:06:09:22
Joseph Politano
And was actually very funny as the day after the election, you saw a lot of people on like crypto Twitter who were like, man, we shouldn't have done this bipartisan nonsense.

00:06:10:00 - 00:06:12:18
Joseph Politano
We should have backed the Republican candidates in every,

00:06:12:18 - 00:06:22:14
Joseph Politano
every race, you know, getting the like crypto moderates on the dem side was a mistake because we may have they may have saved Slotkin. And there you go. Seats. Those races were extremely close.

00:06:22:14 - 00:06:30:22
Joseph Politano
But the other thing that was like a really big example to me was there was a PAC that was basically partisan Republican PAC.

00:06:30:22 - 00:06:40:05
Joseph Politano
But even that, I feel like is almost giving it too much credit. It was the anti Sherrod Brown PAC. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic senator from Ohio.

00:06:40:05 - 00:06:42:07
Bennett Tomlin
Was this defend American jobs?

00:06:42:07 - 00:06:42:17
Joseph Politano
Defend

00:06:42:17 - 00:06:46:22
Joseph Politano
American jobs. Yes. The most brilliant marketing by those.

00:06:47:00 - 00:06:47:20
Joseph Politano
Who came up with that.

00:06:47:20 - 00:06:48:04
Joseph Politano
What

00:06:49:00 - 00:06:50:06
Bennett Tomlin
With with its,

00:06:50:06 - 00:06:51:08
Bennett Tomlin
left with its,

00:06:51:08 - 00:06:53:02
Bennett Tomlin
Democratic correspondent was,

00:06:53:02 - 00:06:55:23
Bennett Tomlin
protect progress, I think. Or something like that.

00:06:55:23 - 00:07:13:06
Joseph Politano
down here. I have, like, a whole. Yes. Protect progress. So the bipartisan one was called fair shake. The the Democratic or mostly Democratic one was called Protect Progress. And then the Republican one was called Defend American Jobs, which and also speaker I'm how it's no one picked up defend American jobs yet. Like how is that still on the table that no one agreed.

00:07:13:06 - 00:07:16:04
Joseph Politano
To the American jobs back. It's been ten years.

00:07:16:04 - 00:07:17:01
Joseph Politano
Since it's been united.

00:07:17:01 - 00:07:18:02
Joseph Politano
Guys. You got

00:07:18:02 - 00:07:21:12
Cas Piancey
Don't hurt. Don't hurt babies. Pac or something, right? Yeah.

00:07:21:12 - 00:07:22:05
Joseph Politano
Like,

00:07:22:05 - 00:07:22:09
Joseph Politano
but.

00:07:22:09 - 00:07:25:07
Joseph Politano
This is almost all spending against Sherrod Brown.

00:07:25:07 - 00:07:28:10
Joseph Politano
Brown, who is the chair of the Senate Banking Committee.

00:07:28:10 - 00:07:35:10
Joseph Politano
And who is a, I would say prominent crypto skeptic and obviously the man,

00:07:35:10 - 00:07:41:06
Joseph Politano
in charge of writing regulation like he's the most prominent congressional lawmaker for,

00:07:41:06 - 00:07:42:01
Joseph Politano
regulations,

00:07:42:01 - 00:07:45:23
Joseph Politano
in Ohio is a very Republican state. Brown is is a guy who,

00:07:45:23 - 00:07:52:03
Joseph Politano
despite being a Democrat, always ran ahead of Democratic presidents and was able to, you know, hold on in Ohio for, for so long.

00:07:52:05 - 00:07:53:23
Joseph Politano
And that Moreno the guy who beat,

00:07:53:23 - 00:08:03:15
Joseph Politano
Sherrod Brown, it's like he's a car dealership owner, and he founded a crypto company, and he, like, he's the exact kind of guy that you would expect,

00:08:03:15 - 00:08:09:16
Joseph Politano
a crypto PAC to really love. And that was like a really big victory for them as they spent, I think, $40

00:08:09:20 - 00:08:10:23
Bennett Tomlin
40 million.

00:08:10:23 - 00:08:14:05
Joseph Politano
that one race, it dwarfs any other race they competed in. And it

00:08:14:12 - 00:08:20:09
Bennett Tomlin
The. The next. The next closest was, I think, the 10 million or so spent against Katie Porter in the primary.

00:08:20:13 - 00:08:28:02
Joseph Politano
I think one of the Senate races, one of the excuse me, one of the other Senate races might have come close, but there was like, right. It was, you know, serious.

00:08:28:02 - 00:08:37:05
Joseph Politano
And that was like a message that I think some people in Washington heard very clearly, which is that if you're like a marginal, you know,

00:08:37:05 - 00:08:40:12
Joseph Politano
a crypto PAC can't, like, unseat Elizabeth Warren.

00:08:40:14 - 00:08:42:22
Joseph Politano
But if you are a swing state senator

00:08:42:22 - 00:08:46:20
Joseph Politano
who's up for election 2026, they can and will spend a lot of money.

00:08:46:20 - 00:08:48:21
Joseph Politano
If you were, like, not playing ball.

00:08:48:21 - 00:08:59:02
Bennett Tomlin
Would it make you feel better to know that there's reporting today? That fair shake between the money they didn't spend in the donations they've already got as 106 million already for the midterms.

00:08:59:02 - 00:09:00:23
Joseph Politano
feel better.

00:09:01:01 - 00:09:03:10
Joseph Politano
That actually, Bennett, that might.

00:09:03:15 - 00:09:07:00
Bennett Tomlin
That's a lot for one PAC in the midterm elections.

00:09:07:00 - 00:09:07:23
Joseph Politano
Right. Like, the other thing.

00:09:07:23 - 00:09:23:19
Joseph Politano
To to to be clear here is, like, campaign spending can kind of feel like, like money doesn't matter. Like there's just tens of billions of dollars being spent, like, so what is it all matter? That's true at like, a presidential level. You know, Trump raises a zillion dollars.

00:09:23:19 - 00:09:27:19
Joseph Politano
Harris raises a zillion dollars. They spend it against each other, and it kind of cancels out,

00:09:27:19 - 00:09:35:07
Joseph Politano
and but at like a Senate level, even like that amount of spending you can, can move the needle significantly.

00:09:35:07 - 00:09:36:20
Joseph Politano
And so you can imagine, like,

00:09:36:20 - 00:09:37:23
Joseph Politano
imagine your,

00:09:37:23 - 00:09:39:23
Joseph Politano
Senator Rosen, or imagine your,

00:09:39:23 - 00:09:53:20
Joseph Politano
Ossoff, Senator Ossoff in Georgia, who's up for reelection in two years. Georgia is a very swing state. You're like, you know, you're the first Democrat in a long time to have held the seat. Now you got to fight back. Are you a little scared now of like,

00:09:53:20 - 00:09:55:20
Joseph Politano
what if, you know, they run some,

00:09:55:20 - 00:09:57:02
Joseph Politano
psycho crypto?

00:09:57:02 - 00:09:59:00
Joseph Politano
What if they run Perdue and Loeffler?

00:09:59:00 - 00:10:02:22
Joseph Politano
Well, we'll get to it. Senator Loeffler was a very big crypto advocate,

00:10:02:22 - 00:10:06:17
Joseph Politano
who maybe has a personal reasons for being an advocate that we'll get into.

00:10:06:18 - 00:10:12:18
Joseph Politano
But, like, she could plausibly run for Senate again. Do you want to be fighting down her and then, like, a 30 million,

00:10:12:18 - 00:10:15:21
Joseph Politano
spending from whatever fair shake Pac or whatever?

00:10:15:23 - 00:10:25:01
Joseph Politano
Or do you just say, well, I don't actually I don't need to take a stance on crypto regulation issues. Let me like, move on to, to other things.

00:10:25:01 - 00:10:29:15
Cas Piancey
I mean, that that sounds pretty pessimistic, but it's also sounds totally reasonable to me.

00:10:29:15 - 00:10:34:22
Cas Piancey
like. I guess that kind of sounds like this is going to now be one of these issues. That is,

00:10:34:22 - 00:10:41:22
Cas Piancey
at best, for critics and skeptics not touched anymore, not discussed as opposed to like,

00:10:41:22 - 00:10:52:23
Cas Piancey
like you're not going to see like you're saying if you're in if you're somewhere like Ohio or Florida or Pennsylvania, why bother talking about cryptocurrency at all?

00:10:53:01 - 00:11:02:11
Cas Piancey
Like, you know, it seems like you're asking for problems if you're going to be like, well, I think that tether is bad, then why? Like, don't just shut your mouth. You know?

00:11:02:11 - 00:11:06:18
Joseph Politano
I think that's the message that a lot of people are getting, because it's one of those issues where,

00:11:06:18 - 00:11:10:07
Joseph Politano
it's very low salience for most people. You know, people,

00:11:10:07 - 00:11:20:18
Joseph Politano
the say 60% of people who dislike crypto, it's just not a thing that they think about on a day to day basis. And it's not something that they're like forming their voting opinions on, you know,

00:11:20:18 - 00:11:27:02
Joseph Politano
but there's a like, entrenched few percent of people who own a decent amount of crypto assets and have an affinity for,

00:11:27:02 - 00:11:27:13
Joseph Politano
the stuff.

00:11:27:18 - 00:11:32:07
Joseph Politano
And then there's this giant pool of money on it. So, like, why go against a giant pool of money?

00:11:32:07 - 00:11:32:21
Cas Piancey
Right.

00:11:32:21 - 00:11:33:08
Joseph Politano
And it's

00:11:33:08 - 00:11:34:20
Joseph Politano
like at some level,

00:11:34:20 - 00:11:44:21
Joseph Politano
like you're if you're senator from Nevada, you're going to have, like, very weird opinions on gambling that have, you know, little to do with your internal logic on what if gambling is good or not.

00:11:44:21 - 00:11:52:02
Joseph Politano
And a lot to do with whether the fact that you're the senator from Nevada and I think there's going to be like increasing amounts of that, too. This was another thing where,

00:11:52:02 - 00:11:56:17
Joseph Politano
we'll get into. But like, there's a lot of crypto stuff in North Dakota right

00:11:56:22 - 00:11:57:17
Cas Piancey
Sure.

00:11:57:17 - 00:11:59:00
Joseph Politano
and that's like a very

00:11:59:00 - 00:12:00:20
Cas Piancey
Wyoming. North Dakota.

00:12:00:20 - 00:12:01:02
Joseph Politano
another one.

00:12:01:02 - 00:12:15:17
Joseph Politano
Right. So these are very small states that obviously punch way above their weight in the Senate. You know, if you were the senator from North Dakota, do you really want to like bother one of the four industries that, like your state's economy runs off of or are you just going to.

00:12:15:17 - 00:12:23:09
Cas Piancey
don't know if you've heard like, this is one of the things that I remember someone mentioning either. I think it was on blue Sky where they said,

00:12:23:11 - 00:12:34:15
Cas Piancey
Like you don't have to like the robber barons or the train barons, you know, from back in, in history, back in the old days of the, you know, the, the late 1800s or mid 1800s.

00:12:34:17 - 00:12:36:22
Cas Piancey
Yeah. You don't have to hand it to them. Exactly.

00:12:36:22 - 00:12:51:06
Cas Piancey
But one of the things they did was they did create infrastructure and jobs like you. They might not have been the best jobs in the world. They might have been paying people in company scrip. They might have been doing all kinds of shady stuff to make a bunch of money.

00:12:51:11 - 00:13:16:15
Cas Piancey
Right. However, however, again, and you do not have to hand it to them, but they were they were building infrastructure and creating jobs versus you reflect on like these crypto currency CEO billionaires. And there's many of them now who are influencing politics, buying politicians and all this stuff. And it's like, so what are you bringing to Texas? Like 11 jobs to Texas or something?

00:13:16:15 - 00:13:38:06
Cas Piancey
Like, what are you bringing to North Dakota? You're you're you're billions of dollars to give to a bunch of politicians and nothing else. Like it's just to me, it's it's it's really depressing in that it's like, okay, so here's this new class of hyper wealthy people who offer absolutely nothing else besides their wealth.

00:13:38:06 - 00:13:55:04
Joseph Politano
And I think, I mean, part of the tough part is like, if you were the Vanderbilt, you know, a lot of your money was tied up in physical infrastructure. So you had, you know, you built a railway line from Albany to Cincinnati. You now are stuck dealing with the people in Albany and Cincinnati because you own that railway line.

00:13:55:10 - 00:14:08:05
Joseph Politano
If you're, you know, crypto billionaire, like you're explicitly picking places because they're flexible and you can move to them and blah, blah, blah. Like your wealth is wholly transferable. There's very little physical cost. And even the like,

00:14:08:05 - 00:14:11:02
Joseph Politano
data center stuff, which is really big in Texas and,

00:14:11:02 - 00:14:12:06
Joseph Politano
North Dakota,

00:14:12:06 - 00:14:15:06
Joseph Politano
like, that's very movable.

00:14:15:11 - 00:14:15:17
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah.

00:14:15:17 - 00:14:25:16
Cas Piancey
Well. And and and the threat of like like it's like the Elon Musk thing to where he classically right. This whole idea of like I hate California I'm moving to Texas. And it's like okay dude.

00:14:25:16 - 00:14:33:05
Cas Piancey
But I can I can perceive a future where like what you're talking about, essentially these states are being held hostage. Almost. Right.

00:14:33:05 - 00:14:55:20
Cas Piancey
It's like, oh, you don't like the cryptocurrency stuff? Well, do you want the money for your political campaign or not? Like, I, I don't know what to say to you because I'm not going to give you the money if you're opposed to us, I'll give it to your opponent. And now. But but then again. And different things where you can think about taxing them or other stuff where they go like, oh, you're going to raise taxes on the hyper wealthy in North Dakota or something.

00:14:55:20 - 00:15:09:02
Cas Piancey
Well, then I guess I'm just going to fucking leave. And then they do, right? Because all of this money can just be moved around and they can go live in the Bahamas or in the Cayman Islands, and they can transfer it out to wherever the hell they want.

00:15:09:02 - 00:15:20:18
Cas Piancey
And it's not it's not exactly what you're talking about, where it's not the same, and I do, I do, I know I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it feels like a crisis in governance and a crisis for America.

00:15:20:18 - 00:16:00:04
Cas Piancey
Truly it does for for me not. There's 100 other, bigger, more important crises that America is facing as well. I don't I don't want to like, disregard that. But I am saying that financial problems and the way that Trump and the administration coming in seem to be looking at not just cryptocurrency, but like fraud and other aspects of finance that I that you that you know about and government where like I see you you talk about government infrastructure, you talk about subways, you talk about, you know, basic things where it's like, yeah, if we build this out correctly, you can see how I always talk about Wuhan, like Wuhan in China didn't have a subway

00:16:00:04 - 00:16:13:07
Cas Piancey
until like 2000 or something. And now it's the ninth most used subway in the world. Why can't we do things like that in America? And it's like, well, because we don't fund the government. We hate the government. And and now that's just going to get worse, right?

00:16:13:09 - 00:16:15:22
Joseph Politano
I think the the the big story,

00:16:15:22 - 00:16:32:08
Joseph Politano
that you could tell of, like, a lot of industries. And I've thought about this a lot. If you think about, like, why is Silicon Valley moving right? Was. Or to be very precise here, it's not Silicon Valley because like tech workers are still very left wing, but like, why is Silicon Valley owners and managers moving rightward?

00:16:32:10 - 00:16:36:08
Joseph Politano
And I think it's to do with like this transition from being,

00:16:36:08 - 00:16:38:05
Joseph Politano
upstart small,

00:16:38:05 - 00:17:02:14
Joseph Politano
very chaotic industry to now, like we're fully entrenched business interests. You know, the tech companies obviously are different than oil companies, but they're now both in that category of like, we are the largest companies in the world. We're much more focused on, like defending what we have than trying to like, create the, you know, brand new product that no one's ever seen before.

00:17:02:16 - 00:17:09:09
Joseph Politano
I think you could tell a story of crypto that's like, also kind of in that lane where you were like, hey, this was a very anti-government,

00:17:09:09 - 00:17:15:08
Joseph Politano
anti-regulation thing. It got so big that now it became enmeshed with all of these, like, corporate,

00:17:15:08 - 00:17:31:07
Joseph Politano
interests and specifically, like, quasi illegal corporate stuff we're talking about, like FTX, we're talking about, like, tether or things where you're like, this may technically follow the laws of the Bahamas and how we deal with international trade, but I really feel like this is, you know, missing the point here.

00:17:31:07 - 00:17:32:00
Joseph Politano
And

00:17:32:00 - 00:17:58:19
Joseph Politano
previously you could say, well, now, you know, I wrote a piece I remember in 2021 talking about this very interesting way where you're like, you could regulate a lot of crypto because the main access points to crypto are large companies that, you know, fundamentally are more close to, like the the, Merrill Lynch than they are to like a decentralized platform and those, you know, centralized actors at one, clearly.

00:17:58:21 - 00:18:07:10
Joseph Politano
But now we're in like the opposite, where the centralized actors have one. So clearly that now they're in control of, like, all of the, the regulations. And we're going to get to like,

00:18:07:10 - 00:18:12:17
Joseph Politano
you know, Trump is a very big crypto guy. You know, personally, he's made a complete 180,

00:18:12:17 - 00:18:13:06
Joseph Politano
he,

00:18:13:06 - 00:18:20:09
Joseph Politano
during the campaign, launched this weird coin that's not quite a coin, but it's like esthetically crypto, the world liberty financial thing.

00:18:20:15 - 00:18:21:22
Joseph Politano
And then Justin Sun,

00:18:21:22 - 00:18:25:06
Joseph Politano
just announced that he's putting like, 30 million into that,

00:18:25:15 - 00:18:31:09
Cas Piancey
We love Justin Sun on Crypto Critics Corner. Huge fans of his. Yeah,

00:18:31:09 - 00:18:39:23
Bennett Tomlin
I literally published a newsletter today about Justin Sun investing in World Liberty Financial, where I might have heavily implied it's a bribe.

00:18:39:23 - 00:18:50:18
Joseph Politano
I say this stuff facetiously, like, all the time, but, like, we made Jimmy Carter, like, put his peanut farm in a trust, and now it's like, first of all, Trump has this weird adjacent,

00:18:50:18 - 00:18:57:01
Joseph Politano
crypto scheme that, like, regular billionaires are just investing. And obviously, like,

00:18:57:01 - 00:19:09:10
Bennett Tomlin
Billionaires who specifically are being sued by the SEC. By as much of the token as they plan to sell in total, unlocking millions of dollars in revenue from the thing that Trump otherwise would not have gotten.

00:19:09:10 - 00:19:11:08
Joseph Politano
Right. And,

00:19:11:08 - 00:19:13:01
Joseph Politano
on the flip side of this is so there is,

00:19:13:01 - 00:19:16:17
Joseph Politano
Trump has this main vehicle that's like the majority of his wealth now is,

00:19:16:17 - 00:19:26:19
Joseph Politano
Truth Social, which is like the great indicator. And I feel like calling it Truth Social is like almost a bit of a misnomer. Like ostensibly it owns true social and that's the business model.

00:19:26:19 - 00:19:33:21
Joseph Politano
But functionally it's just a way to like, gamble on the stock market, on Donald Trump. That the entity

00:19:33:21 - 00:19:38:14
Joseph Politano
and they the financial Times had reporting on that they were in talks to buy

00:19:38:14 - 00:19:41:22
Joseph Politano
Bakkt. Trump saying this. Right, which is a crypto

00:19:42:01 - 00:19:43:03
Cas Piancey
I believe it's Bakkt.

00:19:43:03 - 00:19:47:23
Joseph Politano
I you know what I don't respected enough that I do not regret the error.

00:19:48:01 - 00:19:50:00
Joseph Politano
I do not regret the error.

00:19:50:00 - 00:19:51:10
Joseph Politano
But bucked.

00:19:51:12 - 00:19:54:07
Joseph Politano
Which is a crypto company that's majority owned by,

00:19:54:07 - 00:19:56:07
Joseph Politano
Intercontinental Exchange.

00:19:56:07 - 00:20:06:05
Joseph Politano
Kelly Loeffler, who was the former Republican senator to Georgia who lost the election in 2020. She was the CEO. Her husband,

00:20:06:05 - 00:20:11:21
Joseph Politano
is the CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the company that owns stock. And so that that and,

00:20:11:21 - 00:20:16:05
Joseph Politano
you can pull up the stock chart. I think it's up like 150% over the last,

00:20:16:05 - 00:20:17:01
Joseph Politano
week or two.

00:20:17:01 - 00:20:31:10
Bennett Tomlin
Which is also a little bit wild, because whatever the acquisition is going to be, it's going to be some, like, strange equity for equity deal where the equity holders, at best are getting like Trump media stock. That's going to be hard for them to liquidate. So.

00:20:31:10 - 00:20:33:16
Joseph Politano
doesn't, it doesn't. I'm not trying to say it makes sense.

00:20:33:16 - 00:20:37:04
Bennett Tomlin
Oh no no I just wanted to yell about that briefly.

00:20:37:04 - 00:20:37:15
Joseph Politano
It was, but.

00:20:37:15 - 00:20:55:09
Joseph Politano
It was purely like, okay, this person who donated to Donald Trump and is affiliated with the Republican Party, has this vehicle that can earn them a decent amount of money. Donald Trump has this vehicle that earns him a decent amount of money, like, let's mix those together. And ostensibly there's like crypto connection there in that,

00:20:55:09 - 00:20:57:06
Joseph Politano
like but this does crypto stuff.

00:20:57:06 - 00:21:08:09
Joseph Politano
And then they're going to do, if you remember how Elon Musk was talking about like turning X.com into a payments platform, like they're going to turn social into a crypto payments platform. It's like, sure.

00:21:08:09 - 00:21:16:10
Joseph Politano
But this is the man who is like appointing now the replacement head of the SEC, who is the attorney general, the,

00:21:16:10 - 00:21:20:02
Joseph Politano
heads of commerce and Treasury, which we're going to get into,

00:21:20:02 - 00:21:25:11
Joseph Politano
in a second here, all of whom are much more pro crypto than than any of the Biden administration.

00:21:25:17 - 00:21:26:12
Joseph Politano
Folks were.

00:21:26:12 - 00:21:29:19
Cas Piancey
just want to say, like it's to me. It's crazy. I think. I think it was a tweet from,

00:21:29:19 - 00:21:36:18
Cas Piancey
Brian Armstrong from a couple of weeks ago before I completely exited Twitter X, whatever you want to call it.

00:21:36:18 - 00:21:43:23
Cas Piancey
Where Brian Armstrong said something along the lines of like, how much money was flowing into fair? What is it Fairshake?

00:21:43:23 - 00:21:50:01
Cas Piancey
Shake whatever, whatever, whichever crypto PAC it was. And he was like, this is so powerful. And then I started

00:21:50:04 - 00:21:53:01
Bennett Tomlin
No politics at work, Mr. Armstrong.

00:21:53:01 - 00:22:01:12
Cas Piancey
well, it's just it's so crazy to me that like, originally, if you go back, I think you and you, you've kind of touched on this. Joey is like originally

00:22:01:12 - 00:22:19:18
Cas Piancey
they the whole concept of cryptocurrency and bitcoin like this was the concept of decentralized, decentralized finance, of making it so no nation state was controlling this currency, that you could move across borders with this money fluidly and not have to, you know, not get called out for it.

00:22:19:18 - 00:22:37:04
Cas Piancey
And all the all this stuff and not, not have to deal with banks and this and that. And it's like that was the powerful part of cryptocurrency. But now the powerful part apparently is when you donate hundreds of millions of dollars to super PACs like, hey, sorry, what the fuck are we even doing? Like what? How is that?

00:22:37:06 - 00:22:55:19
Cas Piancey
It's just wild to me, but it's now moved past. Oh, it's not just super PACs being important and, like, trying to win over Senator and stuff. Now it's like, oh, we're going to have a whole fucking administration and cabinet that loves or at worst doesn't care about cryptocurrency.

00:22:55:19 - 00:23:02:15
Cas Piancey
So yeah, let's get like, I would love let's get into some of these names like you just started mentioning, like, let's like, I don't know whoever you want to start with, feel free.

00:23:02:15 - 00:23:03:01
Cas Piancey
Please.

00:23:03:01 - 00:23:03:13
Joseph Politano
I think,

00:23:03:13 - 00:23:06:17
Joseph Politano
best place to start is Commerce secretary.

00:23:06:17 - 00:23:07:22
Bennett Tomlin
Oh, yes.

00:23:07:22 - 00:23:14:23
Joseph Politano
Lutnick is the first of all, to be clear here. This is as far as we were, the most billionaire filled, like, cabinet in history.

00:23:14:23 - 00:23:19:22
Joseph Politano
I think if you totaled up the net worth, it's, like, probably now in the, the closing 100 billion.

00:23:19:22 - 00:23:23:03
Joseph Politano
Obviously, if you added Elon, who's like, shadow president.

00:23:23:03 - 00:23:24:03
Joseph Politano
Or whatever.

00:23:24:05 - 00:23:25:05
Joseph Politano
It goes even higher.

00:23:25:05 - 00:23:26:06
Joseph Politano
But the,

00:23:26:06 - 00:23:34:07
Joseph Politano
Lutnick is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, he has been a very pro crypto person, like from day one from from go,

00:23:34:07 - 00:23:36:08
Joseph Politano
and he's been on this like, train of

00:23:36:08 - 00:23:46:20
Joseph Politano
trying to integrate, like the cryptocurrency ecosystem into the existing Wall Street ecosystem. And he personally has,

00:23:46:20 - 00:23:48:23
Joseph Politano
a ton of dealings, like with tether.

00:23:48:23 - 00:23:55:19
Joseph Politano
And this was like the very interesting thing tether, obviously, is in that, like, quasi legal gray area.

00:23:55:20 - 00:23:57:10
Joseph Politano
They have been,

00:23:57:10 - 00:23:59:12
Joseph Politano
they've been prosecuted by, like, this. Yeah. I'm trying

00:24:00:10 - 00:24:03:03
Bennett Tomlin
There's a backlog. We've got a playlist. Go!

00:24:03:05 - 00:24:07:23
Joseph Politano
There's a lot of the tether lore. But they're not the most sane actor.

00:24:07:23 - 00:24:09:04
Joseph Politano
And they've been, you know,

00:24:09:04 - 00:24:12:17
Joseph Politano
prosecuted by arms of the United States government in the past over,

00:24:12:17 - 00:24:15:12
Joseph Politano
things that have been investigated continually.

00:24:15:12 - 00:24:19:20
Joseph Politano
And then, Lutnick is at, at Commerce is one of the main,

00:24:19:20 - 00:24:24:04
Joseph Politano
arms of the US government concerned with, like, regulating international trade.

00:24:24:04 - 00:24:26:00
Joseph Politano
Lutnick, by the way, like Turbo Tariff Guy.

00:24:26:00 - 00:24:28:04
Joseph Politano
He loves them. So get ready for that one.

00:24:28:04 - 00:24:36:04
Joseph Politano
But then immediately after this, now there's rumors swirling that, like, Cantor Fitzgerald is trying to set up some sort of very large bitcoin lending fund,

00:24:36:04 - 00:24:37:12
Joseph Politano
with tether.

00:24:37:12 - 00:24:40:05
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. They've been working on it for the last couple months.

00:24:40:05 - 00:24:42:02
Joseph Politano
right. And so this is something that's,

00:24:42:02 - 00:24:48:20
Joseph Politano
like should be obvious conflict of interest in some sense of like, here's the cabinet secretary working with,

00:24:48:20 - 00:24:51:05
Joseph Politano
this legally dubious,

00:24:51:05 - 00:24:54:04
Joseph Politano
organizing option offshore to, to,

00:24:54:04 - 00:24:57:04
Joseph Politano
for their cumulative monetary gain.

00:24:57:04 - 00:25:16:19
Cas Piancey
And to be clear. Just to. So everyone is aware, Howard, Lutnick, won't stay the CEO and head of Cantor Fitzgerald when he takes this role. But his son is apparently in line to take over at Cantor Fitzgerald. So the idea that, like, he won't have any influence is fucking insane. He's going to have total

00:25:17:10 - 00:25:22:00
Bennett Tomlin
Do not get me started on multi-billion dollar family businesses who?

00:25:22:10 - 00:25:33:15
Joseph Politano
Right. And I mean, similar thing of, like, ostensibly there is a separation between Donald Trump the man and Donald Trump like the business enterprise that Donald Trump, the president. But in

00:25:33:17 - 00:25:34:17
Bennett Tomlin
Is there?

00:25:34:17 - 00:25:36:16
Joseph Politano
they're much less obvious

00:25:36:16 - 00:25:48:03
Bennett Tomlin
Like. Like the. Like there's not. There's barely even any pretext of pretending there's distinctions between those anymore. There was a little bit more of a distinction. Eight years ago. Like people wanted there to be a distinction.

00:25:48:03 - 00:25:59:03
Cas Piancey
want you to there to be any distinction like they are to him. They're the same to us. They're the same like I don't think he the only time he doesn't want you to conflate the two is during legal proceedings. So.

00:25:59:03 - 00:26:02:00
Joseph Politano
Right. But so the example I would give is like, okay,

00:26:02:00 - 00:26:07:19
Joseph Politano
going back to, to Loeffler, the Georgia senator, she was CEO of Bakkt, which was like owned by,

00:26:07:19 - 00:26:23:13
Joseph Politano
Intercontinental Exchange, where her husband is the CEO. And then when she got appointed to the US Senate, she just, like, resigned the position. And then if you remember, like, immediately did insider trading it, you know, it was had to be investigated for,

00:26:23:13 - 00:26:28:00
Joseph Politano
the actions that she took in, like within seconds of getting to the Senate.

00:26:28:02 - 00:26:31:02
Joseph Politano
And that's part of the reason she lost the election, was because people,

00:26:31:02 - 00:26:34:03
Joseph Politano
wrote like that. That election was Loeffler and Perdue were both,

00:26:34:03 - 00:26:36:09
Joseph Politano
like in this enmeshed in this investigation.

00:26:36:09 - 00:26:55:06
Cas Piancey
It was insane. I like, I just I would love I wish we had covered it more. I don't think we've covered it very much when it was going on, but, like. Yeah, just the idea that this woman gets appointed essentially to the Senate seat and then immediately does corruption, like immediately and instantly sits down and does corruption

00:26:55:06 - 00:27:11:04
Bennett Tomlin
It was a little bit like that domino meme. Just in terms of how it changed the politics of that state. Like nominate this random CEO for this few months in the Senate, and. Oh, no. One thing leads to another.

00:27:11:13 - 00:27:16:18
Joseph Politano
I think of the like. Do you remember the David Perdue? No wrongdoing. Totally exonerated.

00:27:16:18 - 00:27:17:14
Joseph Politano
I think about that

00:27:17:23 - 00:27:19:12
Bennett Tomlin
I don't.

00:27:19:12 - 00:27:20:20
Joseph Politano
so funny. It was one of the,

00:27:20:20 - 00:27:24:21
Joseph Politano
It was one of the PACs in this election because he was also part of this this,

00:27:24:21 - 00:27:33:04
Joseph Politano
investigation. And like I said, the investigation did not turn up criminal insider trading, to be clear.

00:27:33:06 - 00:27:35:10
Joseph Politano
But like, you know,

00:27:35:10 - 00:27:35:16
Joseph Politano
so,

00:27:35:23 - 00:27:39:16
Bennett Tomlin
Ethical lines were crossed at the minimum.

00:27:39:16 - 00:27:41:11
Joseph Politano
of the United States Senate was.

00:27:41:17 - 00:27:42:09
Joseph Politano
Violated a.

00:27:42:09 - 00:27:43:23
Joseph Politano
Little bit. Whatever remains that.

00:27:43:23 - 00:27:44:08
Joseph Politano
And.

00:27:45:10 - 00:27:50:09
Bennett Tomlin
I do agree that the sanctity of the United States Senate has been violated before.

00:27:52:05 - 00:27:58:08
Joseph Politano
But Perdue ran this ad that was, like, totally exonerated. No wrongdoing. It's a picture of him, like, at a farm, like, smiling with his.

00:27:58:08 - 00:28:00:14
Joseph Politano
Kids, like looking. I think it's almost ready.

00:28:00:19 - 00:28:03:11
Joseph Politano
And so I have people use that all the time as, like a,

00:28:03:11 - 00:28:04:07
Joseph Politano
my,

00:28:04:07 - 00:28:09:12
Joseph Politano
not involved in human trafficking. Sure. That's why people ask it. Because it's already answered by my shirt.

00:28:10:00 - 00:28:17:10
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. There, there does feel like there's a risk of reaching a low information voter there who's, like, exonerated of what?

00:28:19:04 - 00:28:25:08
Joseph Politano
But Nick is what Nick is there at at Commerce. So we coming back the Treasury? Nam, who was just announced,

00:28:25:08 - 00:28:26:06
Joseph Politano
was,

00:28:26:06 - 00:28:38:01
Joseph Politano
is Bassett. And I think the key part to to realize here is there was, like, kind of a chain. Lutnick wanted to be Treasury because Treasury is, like, normally the more powerful position.

00:28:38:02 - 00:28:41:11
Joseph Politano
I think Trump personally doesn't like Lutnick, which is really funny.

00:28:41:11 - 00:28:44:07
Joseph Politano
Like just annoyed with the guy interpersonally.

00:28:44:07 - 00:28:46:18
Cas Piancey
Right. Yeah. They're apparently having fights. And also,

00:28:46:18 - 00:28:49:18
Cas Piancey
Besson and. And Lineker apparently having a lot of fights.

00:28:49:21 - 00:28:53:15
Bennett Tomlin
Trump and Nix egos are too similar for them to get along.

00:28:53:19 - 00:28:56:00
Joseph Politano
Yeah. This is going to be a recurring problem for.

00:28:56:02 - 00:28:57:17
Joseph Politano
The next four years.

00:28:57:18 - 00:29:05:18
Joseph Politano
Is, so Bassett, who is as far as Trump world goes more normal.

00:29:05:22 - 00:29:08:09
Cas Piancey
Like one of the more sane individuals. Yeah.

00:29:08:09 - 00:29:17:15
Joseph Politano
the bar is in the floor. But he is like, I was happy when he got nominated because he staved off, like, much worse. Other outcomes. He's not I'm not endorsing

00:29:17:15 - 00:29:22:07
Cas Piancey
much worse being Lutnick. Basically. The other option was Lutnick. So if so, for what it's worth. Yeah.

00:29:22:07 - 00:29:37:10
Joseph Politano
there were there's other attempts. They were going to do something funky with trying to have, like, a shadow fed chair at Treasury. That's, an insane plan that they come up with because they don't like Jerome Powell anymore. Even though you'll remember that Donald Trump is the man who appointed Jerome

00:29:37:10 - 00:29:38:03
Cas Piancey
I just

00:29:38:07 - 00:29:41:04
Bennett Tomlin
Jerome Powell, famous leftist.

00:29:41:04 - 00:29:50:10
Cas Piancey
I know, I know how popular it is to hate on the Federal Reserve. And I get it like it is. It's a it's a weird, shadowy organization. I understand that

00:29:50:12 - 00:29:53:00
Bennett Tomlin
It's easy to hate what you don't understand.

00:29:53:00 - 00:30:05:12
Cas Piancey
It's easy to it's easy to have issues with it. I totally get that. But also like the way that they've navigated 2020 on, it's hard for me to point to a bunch of misfires.

00:30:05:12 - 00:30:13:04
Cas Piancey
It's like, well, we're doing pretty all right. So like, why do we hate Jerome Powell right now? Is it just because it's easy and fun?

00:30:13:04 - 00:30:14:18
Joseph Politano
it's kind of funny because,

00:30:14:18 - 00:30:33:15
Joseph Politano
during the Trump administration, you remember, like, Trump was constantly at odds with Powell because Powell was raising interest rates at the time. And Trump is like wanted interest rates to be lower, to just tweet that like it's bad that they're raising interest rates, which you're not supposed to do. That's not the president is not supposed to directly like, say, where

00:30:33:15 - 00:30:36:10
Cas Piancey
Try to influence the Federal Reserve. Yeah. Yeah.

00:30:36:20 - 00:30:42:03
Bennett Tomlin
Are you suggesting Donald Trump does not believe in a true and independent Federal Reserve?

00:30:42:10 - 00:30:43:07
Joseph Politano
I'm, I'm

00:30:43:07 - 00:30:48:04
Cas Piancey
Well, he. What he doesn't want one is what is what he. Yeah. It's not a whether he believes it, he doesn't want it.

00:30:48:04 - 00:31:08:09
Joseph Politano
But what was really funny to me was like, when Powell was appointed, that was actually like a a break with tradition. You're supposed to in theoretically, both sets that are just supposed to reappoint the fed chair unless they've done something real bad, you know, unless there's a, like massive like the economy's in a recession or like they've done, you know, crime like that's the.

00:31:08:15 - 00:31:16:11
Joseph Politano
And so Trump not renominated Yellen was actually like a big break with tradition. And then Biden renominated Powell.

00:31:16:11 - 00:31:23:18
Joseph Politano
To try to keep this this chain going. And I think like, you know, there's actually not that much light between,

00:31:23:18 - 00:31:27:23
Joseph Politano
Powell and Yellen on the very specific narrow issues of like where interest rates should be.

00:31:27:23 - 00:31:29:01
Joseph Politano
And now Trump's back in office.

00:31:29:01 - 00:31:31:04
Joseph Politano
And the guy that he appointed last time to break traditions.

00:31:31:04 - 00:31:34:16
Joseph Politano
When he's like, no, I don't like them anymore.

00:31:34:18 - 00:31:35:07
Joseph Politano
And

00:31:35:07 - 00:31:38:03
Joseph Politano
but it's Bassett. We're going back to Bassett. Bassett staved.

00:31:38:03 - 00:31:38:16
Joseph Politano
Off that.

00:31:38:16 - 00:31:43:20
Joseph Politano
There was a talk of like nominating this this guy who is going to probably be a,

00:31:43:20 - 00:31:52:05
Joseph Politano
Trump's Fed pick to Treasury and having a be like, shadow fed chair when he was Treasury and peasant is not going to do that. And so that that was what I was thankful for.

00:31:52:05 - 00:31:54:18
Joseph Politano
But Bassett is also a very pro crypto guy.

00:31:54:20 - 00:32:02:18
Joseph Politano
He's not like overly so, but he is also he's another hedge fund billionaire. He's another guy who's been very early on in the crypto ecosystem.

00:32:02:18 - 00:32:14:03
Joseph Politano
And he again saying by Trump world standards. But like very appropriately I and being at Treasury you have a lot more control over

00:32:14:03 - 00:32:17:00
Joseph Politano
U.S. policy, especially on like sanctions and stuff.

00:32:17:02 - 00:32:23:00
Joseph Politano
So the Office of Foreign Asset Control is like a big way in which the US government tries to rein in,

00:32:23:00 - 00:32:28:04
Joseph Politano
let's call it non-American actors, people in the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands or Singapore or whatever who are,

00:32:28:04 - 00:32:33:17
Joseph Politano
doing things that we think aren't quite legal. And so sanctions enforcement,

00:32:33:17 - 00:32:36:17
Joseph Politano
and like money laundering enforcement that falls under Treasury.

00:32:36:17 - 00:32:39:12
Joseph Politano
And you have a guy who's like very pro crypto,

00:32:39:12 - 00:32:40:18
Joseph Politano
in that position.

00:32:40:21 - 00:32:44:09
Cas Piancey
And let's just say pro offshore money.

00:32:44:11 - 00:32:44:19
Cas Piancey
In.

00:32:44:19 - 00:32:45:20
Cas Piancey
General. So.

00:32:45:20 - 00:32:49:23
Joseph Politano
And Trump is also going to get to nominate someone for

00:32:49:23 - 00:32:50:13
Joseph Politano
SEC.

00:32:50:13 - 00:32:53:00
Cas Piancey
Yeah. We don't know who that will be. Do we?

00:32:53:00 - 00:32:54:18
Joseph Politano
don't know who that will be.

00:32:54:21 - 00:32:56:18
Bennett Tomlin
None of the rumors are good.

00:32:56:18 - 00:32:57:10
Joseph Politano
None of the.

00:32:57:11 - 00:32:59:16
Joseph Politano
Yeah.

00:32:59:18 - 00:33:03:09
Joseph Politano
I was gonna say it's all bad options. So don't get your hopes up.

00:33:03:09 - 00:33:10:14
Cas Piancey
To be fair, I think Gary Gensler has been very ineffectual. I think that's kind of on from. I think both sides feel that he's has

00:33:10:14 - 00:33:17:18
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. And we've talked about it on here before, but the SEC structurally has some difficulties in terms of becoming an effective regulator.

00:33:17:18 - 00:33:18:16
Cas Piancey
That's true.

00:33:18:16 - 00:33:19:17
Joseph Politano
Yes.

00:33:19:19 - 00:33:27:19
Joseph Politano
But I think the the the, like competing influences are now at SEC. The competing influences are Donald Trump

00:33:27:19 - 00:33:39:11
Joseph Politano
owns a massive publicly traded company that has, like, kind of funky business value that he doesn't want regulated. Elon Musk owns a massive publicly traded company which has

00:33:39:16 - 00:33:40:20
Cas Piancey
And private companies.

00:33:41:07 - 00:33:43:13
Bennett Tomlin
And a defense contractor. Yeah.

00:33:43:13 - 00:33:44:14
Cas Piancey
contractor.

00:33:44:14 - 00:33:49:23
Joseph Politano
is personally beefing with the SEC on like a weekly basis.

00:33:50:01 - 00:33:54:13
Bennett Tomlin
Is actively violating his settlement terms on a daily basis.

00:33:54:13 - 00:33:55:06
Joseph Politano
I think about all.

00:33:55:06 - 00:33:58:13
Joseph Politano
The time how he's supposed to have a lawyer read all of his tweets

00:33:58:16 - 00:34:00:13
Bennett Tomlin
And he does, presumably. Right.

00:34:00:13 - 00:34:03:19
Joseph Politano
There's someone who's paid to be a lawyer and read all of his tweets.

00:34:03:19 - 00:34:05:21
Cas Piancey
And sit in the room? Sure. Yeah.

00:34:05:21 - 00:34:06:17
Joseph Politano
don't believe

00:34:06:17 - 00:34:22:18
Bennett Tomlin
It happens after the fact. So when when when he was pushed on this in the follow up to the original lawsuit, they admitted like they review it eventually most of the time, sometimes in the lawyer will sometimes say things to Elon and he ignores them most of the time. All of the time.

00:34:23:01 - 00:34:37:23
Joseph Politano
And then third of all, there are this large crypto lobby that is very mad at Gensler because he took, like, very moderate steps towards regulating crypto or preventing all cryptocurrencies from, like, being on the New York Stock Exchange.

00:34:37:23 - 00:34:48:02
Joseph Politano
And so they're going to, like you said, all the names are bad. They're going to replace him with somebody who is much more crypto friendly and much less like enforcement of,

00:34:48:02 - 00:34:50:22
Joseph Politano
rules against large publicly traded companies, friendly,

00:34:50:22 - 00:35:00:22
Cas Piancey
Yeah. And this. This actually extends further than just the cabinet, for what it's worth, because we just had the resignation of Damian Williams, who is at the Southern District of New York.

00:35:00:22 - 00:35:03:02
Cas Piancey
Because Trump has already said he's going to,

00:35:03:02 - 00:35:06:22
Cas Piancey
he's going to appoint Jay Clayton, I believe, to the Southern District of New York.

00:35:06:22 - 00:35:07:17
Cas Piancey
If you're unfamiliar with Jay

00:35:07:18 - 00:35:13:22
Bennett Tomlin
I mean, with a record like Jay Clayton's. How can you not want him in charge of America's white collar crime prosecutions?

00:35:13:22 - 00:35:17:03
Cas Piancey
you're unfamiliar with Jay Clayton, the reason that Bennett is saying this is because,

00:35:17:03 - 00:35:18:08
Cas Piancey
Jay, not and not usually.

00:35:18:08 - 00:35:19:07
Cas Piancey
I'm talking to the audience.

00:35:19:07 - 00:35:20:01
Cas Piancey
Jay Clayton is,

00:35:20:01 - 00:35:23:02
Cas Piancey
was running the SEC and under his tutelage,

00:35:23:02 - 00:35:25:09
Cas Piancey
if you think Gary Gensler didn't do anything.

00:35:25:10 - 00:35:31:02
Bennett Tomlin
They brought one case, the most obvious case in all of crypto against ripple and lost.

00:35:31:02 - 00:35:33:17
Cas Piancey
And lost. Yeah, yeah. So if you if you

00:35:33:21 - 00:35:37:06
Bennett Tomlin
Plus asterisk. But fuck it, it's a loss.

00:35:37:06 - 00:35:55:14
Cas Piancey
Jay Clayton was the most ineffectual. So I think we're going to start seeing, like, some pretty egregious stuff. Just get ignored. And it's not just, again, not just on a cabinet level where you're like deciding policy. Now we're talking about like laws being enforced, which is crazy.

00:35:55:14 - 00:35:57:23
Joseph Politano
And I will say. Okay. I have a whole, like,

00:35:57:23 - 00:36:03:17
Joseph Politano
the like It's Always Sunny board drawn up in a notebook. I try to remember everyone is.

00:36:03:20 - 00:36:04:18
Joseph Politano
But like, ripple was.

00:36:04:23 - 00:36:08:07
Joseph Politano
I think the number two or number three donor to all of these PACs.

00:36:08:13 - 00:36:15:02
Bennett Tomlin
Yes. And? And they're the one. Them and A16z are the two who've started to contribute to the midterms already.

00:36:15:02 - 00:36:15:15
Cas Piancey
Oh.

00:36:15:17 - 00:36:37:15
Cas Piancey
God. I hate, like, even hearing a16z. I just get, like, I just they are just the worst. They are the worst they have. No, there is no all of these guys, man, I this is this is another discussion that I wanted us to have at some point. Joey is just this idea that I'm I'm also very pro generally like me.

00:36:37:15 - 00:36:56:05
Cas Piancey
I'm like, I want things to get built. I want I want government to make new things. I want infrastructure projects. I want us to use nuclear power. I let's, let's do all the things. And then when it's like, oh, well, us billionaires, we're going to build a whole new city in the middle of California. How about that? And you're just like, wait, no, not yes to this.

00:36:56:05 - 00:37:00:18
Cas Piancey
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah. Exactly,

00:37:00:18 - 00:37:05:14
Joseph Politano
it's frustrating to me that they have, like, occupy this space because,

00:37:05:14 - 00:37:20:15
Joseph Politano
like, they're not going to the, I feel like people have kind of bought this. It's like, okay, well, Trump sometimes says things that are just blatantly not true. And people have like, adopted the style and the example that the give all the time is on the All In podcast.

00:37:20:15 - 00:37:30:16
Joseph Politano
Jason brought up like, oh, we need more high skilled immigration in the US. And Trump said, like, yeah, anyone who gets a a college degree in the US should have an automatic green card.

00:37:30:16 - 00:37:37:00
Joseph Politano
Like those were the exact words. And I was like, first of all, that would be like the most liberal immigration system of almost any country on the planet.

00:37:37:02 - 00:37:39:16
Joseph Politano
Second of all, like you were president before and.

00:37:39:17 - 00:37:42:17
Joseph Politano
You like, you cut legal immigration.

00:37:42:17 - 00:37:43:09
Joseph Politano
You made it harder.

00:37:43:09 - 00:37:58:13
Joseph Politano
And people on this podcast, you like, you said this knowing that what you did, you know, four years ago, is the complete opposite. And people on the podcast are like, I don't I don't think they believe him, but they're trying to project this idea that other people should believe him when he says, oh, actually, I care about abundance.

00:37:58:13 - 00:38:03:11
Joseph Politano
Therefore, I think we should have like the best immigration system. And, like, they're not going to fix

00:38:03:11 - 00:38:05:23
Joseph Politano
California high speed rail. You know, they don't.

00:38:05:23 - 00:38:07:15
Joseph Politano
They.

00:38:07:17 - 00:38:13:23
Joseph Politano
It's it's bad that it takes a long, but like, they, they also don't have any interest in, like, fixing the New York City subway.

00:38:13:23 - 00:38:14:17
Joseph Politano
And

00:38:14:17 - 00:38:21:03
Joseph Politano
so, I don't know, frustrating that they try to occupy that issue space and, and recent in particular. Yeah, I know we're we're going

00:38:21:09 - 00:38:23:10
Cas Piancey
Sorry. Yeah, I apologize.

00:38:23:10 - 00:38:25:00
Joseph Politano
like he wrote that big yimby,

00:38:25:00 - 00:38:25:09
Joseph Politano
thing and

00:38:25:13 - 00:38:27:07
Bennett Tomlin
It's time to build or whatever.

00:38:27:07 - 00:38:28:20
Joseph Politano
wrote it's Time to build and he wrote a letter.

00:38:28:20 - 00:38:31:19
Joseph Politano
It's like the Atherton City Council being like, you shouldn't allow this.

00:38:32:01 - 00:38:33:02
Joseph Politano
Like two storey

00:38:33:02 - 00:38:42:05
Bennett Tomlin
No, no. Buildings over 25ft. It's going to cast a shadow near the street I sometimes walk on. You can't do that.

00:38:42:05 - 00:38:49:10
Cas Piancey
for what it's worth. It's not just Marc Andreessen. It's the whole. Every partner there pretty much is just like, the worst kind of individual

00:38:49:12 - 00:38:51:07
Bennett Tomlin
Devoid of humanity.

00:38:51:07 - 00:38:54:06
Cas Piancey
Yep. Sorry for that tangent. I'm sorry I took us there. I didn't

00:38:54:20 - 00:38:56:14
Bennett Tomlin
So, nominees and appointees.

00:38:56:14 - 00:38:59:21
Joseph Politano
Now we got we got through it. And Lutnick, those are the two weapons. But,

00:38:59:21 - 00:39:04:06
Joseph Politano
keep in mind, so we just we talked a bit way earlier about, like, North Dakota crypto stuff.

00:39:04:06 - 00:39:08:03
Joseph Politano
But Doug Burgum, who's like, very tech adjacent,

00:39:08:03 - 00:39:09:21
Joseph Politano
North Dakota governor,

00:39:09:21 - 00:39:10:10
Joseph Politano
is

00:39:10:10 - 00:39:12:09
Joseph Politano
going to be at interior,

00:39:12:09 - 00:39:21:06
Joseph Politano
and he it like the purpose of him being an interior is very has little to do with crypto, but this is like a build me first story.

00:39:21:08 - 00:39:23:15
Joseph Politano
Chavez dreamer who is the,

00:39:23:15 - 00:39:27:08
Joseph Politano
perennial election loser who continues to, like, get appointed.

00:39:27:08 - 00:39:28:20
Joseph Politano
Higher and higher positions.

00:39:28:22 - 00:39:35:07
Joseph Politano
She lost the election for a congressional seat in Oregon, and she's now the secretary of labor. She was backed by these,

00:39:35:07 - 00:39:37:14
Cas Piancey
Definition of failing up. Right. There you go.

00:39:37:14 - 00:39:49:02
Joseph Politano
It's very funny. If you if you go into look into her, Laura, she's lost the same woman like, three times. She lost for, like, an audit, like an Oregon state Senate race and then an Oregon like state Assembly race.

00:39:49:02 - 00:39:52:06
Joseph Politano
And then now this Oregon congressional race is the same person.

00:39:52:08 - 00:40:01:05
Bennett Tomlin
And she keeps getting appointed. And then the appointment ends and she's like. Well, time to run again. But I gotta run for the next level up. I can't run for the house again. Gotta run for Senate now.

00:40:01:05 - 00:40:03:16
Joseph Politano
And thankfully, she. I don't think she can win an Oregon Senate race. I

00:40:03:20 - 00:40:05:00
Bennett Tomlin
No. Probably not.

00:40:05:00 - 00:40:06:12
Joseph Politano
to something else, but,

00:40:06:12 - 00:40:11:08
Joseph Politano
Kristi. No. Who is the the governor of South Dakota? And you will learn both the Dakotas very

00:40:11:13 - 00:40:12:10
Bennett Tomlin
Animal lover.

00:40:12:10 - 00:40:15:09
Joseph Politano
And she was she was one of the people who, like,

00:40:15:09 - 00:40:26:04
Joseph Politano
as governor, she vetoed, like, crypto regulations that a Republican South Dakota, you know, state Assembly and Senate passed like this is the level that we're at.

00:40:26:06 - 00:40:29:01
Joseph Politano
And then, of course, are who could forget RFK junior,

00:40:29:01 - 00:40:29:13
Joseph Politano
HHS

00:40:29:13 - 00:40:31:13
Joseph Politano
who thankfully, I don't think HHS does.

00:40:31:13 - 00:40:32:04
Joseph Politano
Anything related.

00:40:32:04 - 00:40:32:08
Joseph Politano
To

00:40:32:11 - 00:40:40:22
Cas Piancey
Maybe soon. Let's. Let's. Soon enough. Let's get those medical. Let's get all our medical records on the blockchain. Folks. It's time. It's finally time.

00:40:41:16 - 00:40:51:14
Bennett Tomlin
First of all, we stop CMS from paying for any drugs RFK Jr doesn't personally believe in. And then we take that money and we send it directly to the strategic Bitcoin reserve.

00:40:51:14 - 00:40:53:10
Cas Piancey
for anyone.

00:40:54:07 - 00:41:00:04
Bennett Tomlin
Who needs Adderall when you can send people to forced labor camps? And that is literally in RFK junior position.

00:41:00:04 - 00:41:05:16
Cas Piancey
it. Well, the ADHD will go away if we take the fluoride out of the water. Guys, don't you understand how this works?

00:41:05:16 - 00:41:06:07
Joseph Politano
It's so funny to.

00:41:06:07 - 00:41:08:13
Joseph Politano
Me that, like, the fluoride stuff was like,

00:41:08:13 - 00:41:22:22
Joseph Politano
the butt of jokes in, like, the 70s already, you know? And we're back to that. But RFK is, like, also a big crypto guy. He's gone to a ton of their conferences. He claims that his entire net worth is in crypto. And I kind of believe him.

00:41:23:06 - 00:41:24:03
Bennett Tomlin
I don't.

00:41:24:18 - 00:41:25:19
Cas Piancey
The brain worms are talking

00:41:25:19 - 00:41:41:11
Bennett Tomlin
I don't think RFK junior has access to most of his net worth. Like, I think being a Kennedy at this point, he he sees an account and he's probably taken money out of that account and put it in crypto. But I don't think like, from a legal sense, that's his net worth. You know?

00:41:41:11 - 00:41:45:18
Joseph Politano
you brought up the the strategic Bitcoin reserve, which I hate, that I have to

00:41:45:18 - 00:41:51:20
Cas Piancey
Oh yeah. That's right. Cynthia, Cynthia Lummis has been talking about this. She is a senator from Wyoming. She's been really

00:41:51:23 - 00:41:54:17
Bennett Tomlin
And if anyone's a good faith actor, it's Cynthia

00:41:54:17 - 00:41:57:10
Cas Piancey
Yeah I definitely and she for what it's worth, I think,

00:41:57:10 - 00:41:59:05
Cas Piancey
part of her pitch here for this,

00:41:59:05 - 00:42:01:11
Cas Piancey
strategic Bitcoin reserve, part of her,

00:42:01:11 - 00:42:06:23
Cas Piancey
pitch is that we sell off our gold reserves and move it into Bitcoin,

00:42:06:23 - 00:42:07:13
Cas Piancey
which

00:42:08:03 - 00:42:10:07
Bennett Tomlin
Those massive American gold reserves.

00:42:10:07 - 00:42:15:23
Cas Piancey
crazy I do it. Funny enough, we do have the I believe the largest gold reserves in the world are,

00:42:15:23 - 00:42:17:06
Cas Piancey
American our American.

00:42:17:11 - 00:42:19:16
Bennett Tomlin
Are they really? I thought that we'd been passed up.

00:42:19:16 - 00:42:20:08
Cas Piancey
I believe so.

00:42:20:08 - 00:42:22:08
Joseph Politano
it's just it's just like vaults at

00:42:22:08 - 00:42:23:08
Cas Piancey
Fort Knox.

00:42:23:08 - 00:42:25:20
Joseph Politano
York Fed that we in Fort Knox that we like though,

00:42:25:20 - 00:42:27:08
Joseph Politano
we don't do really anything with

00:42:27:08 - 00:42:28:22
Bennett Tomlin
Oh, we are still in first place.

00:42:28:22 - 00:42:33:01
Cas Piancey
this is so funny because it's like you should sell. Think like. Like I remember when,

00:42:33:01 - 00:42:41:10
Cas Piancey
Biden sold part of our our strategic oil reserve, and it was like, yeah, that lowered gas prices like, this is it was very effective.

00:42:41:12 - 00:42:57:12
Cas Piancey
It's like, yeah, I don't hate the idea of selling some of our strategic gold reserve. What good is it otherwise? Right. Like, what do we even need the gold for selling some of that is great. Selling it. And then immediately taking that money and putting it into Bitcoin. It's like, what the fuck are we doing? What?

00:42:57:20 - 00:43:01:15
Bennett Tomlin
On bitcoins like gold. But it's digital cash. Have you heard of this?

00:43:01:15 - 00:43:03:22
Cas Piancey
that. Thank you know okay. Now makes sense.

00:43:03:22 - 00:43:04:09
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

00:43:04:09 - 00:43:13:21
Joseph Politano
funny because, like, why do you why do normal countries that aren't the United States, like, have foreign currency reserves? It's like because usually their currency if you're

00:43:14:00 - 00:43:16:04
Bennett Tomlin
Because they don't have the dollar.

00:43:16:04 - 00:43:18:02
Joseph Politano
don't have the dollar I'm picking on,

00:43:18:02 - 00:43:24:23
Joseph Politano
like, you could pick on Malawi or something. And it's like it's tough because there's very little external demand for their currency.

00:43:25:01 - 00:43:32:18
Joseph Politano
So they have to have some reserves as both a like way to manage the currency and also a way to, like, hedge against risks.

00:43:32:18 - 00:43:42:19
Joseph Politano
If you're the United States, you don't really need that because when, if there's a disaster like it's if there's a disaster globally, like people in Malawi want US dollars if there's a disaster,

00:43:42:19 - 00:43:44:21
Joseph Politano
in the United States, people in United States want us out.

00:43:44:21 - 00:43:50:10
Joseph Politano
So you are the safe asset. Like you don't need to then hold another like gold is riskier than the US

00:43:50:10 - 00:43:55:06
Cas Piancey
No. You're going to need the gold bar in in in an emergency. Don't you understand?

00:43:55:06 - 00:43:56:11
Bennett Tomlin
It's so shiny.

00:43:57:13 - 00:44:05:20
Joseph Politano
taking this like, like seriously. I don't think that this is going to to happen. I mean, it's not going to happen by an act of Congress, I can tell you that much.

00:44:05:20 - 00:44:10:03
Joseph Politano
But it's possible, you know, like, we just had a lot they can have,

00:44:10:03 - 00:44:11:02
Joseph Politano
are very poor crypto.

00:44:11:07 - 00:44:14:09
Joseph Politano
It's possible that they could flex some of,

00:44:14:09 - 00:44:32:09
Joseph Politano
the exchange Stabilization fund is an example of like, we have these funds that the US that are supposed to be at the discretion of the president and the cabinet in the event of, like, a break glass in place of emergency thing, like, oh, Congress can't act fast enough, you have this money just in case it's possible they could like, try to flex some of that into crypto.

00:44:32:09 - 00:44:37:14
Joseph Politano
I again look at bringing this up. No one's tried that before, so we don't know what the legal,

00:44:37:14 - 00:44:38:10
Joseph Politano
ideas with this are.

00:44:38:13 - 00:44:41:07
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. We'll have to wait and see what the Supreme Court says.

00:44:41:07 - 00:44:42:00
Joseph Politano
Oh, man.

00:44:42:00 - 00:44:58:08
Joseph Politano
But I think the bigger story is like, I fully expect them to be really, like, to annoyingly talk about this incrementally. I would fully expect Donald Trump to at some point post on free social like, we we're going to make a strategic Bitcoin reserve and then not like follow it up with.

00:44:58:08 - 00:44:58:18
Joseph Politano
Anything.

00:44:58:23 - 00:45:01:02
Joseph Politano
But that would like launch the price. You know

00:45:01:02 - 00:45:19:13
Bennett Tomlin
my gut instinct is they're going to look for some kind of Bitcoin that's been seized that realistically, like, is never going to be returned to anyone else. Isn't like reasonably tied into restitution. And they're going to pull whatever tiny bitcoins they can find that the government has that fit that description and call that the reserve if you want my guess.

00:45:19:18 - 00:45:24:10
Bennett Tomlin
I don't think they're actually going to spend much money on it. They're going to find quarters in the couch.

00:45:24:10 - 00:45:40:12
Cas Piancey
think one of the dangers of this is that you, you many of us have been like, yeah, well, fucking Donald Trump won't do the thing that he says he's going to do. And then he and then he does exactly what he said he was going to do. So I like the idea that he's like, yeah, strategic Bitcoin reserve.

00:45:40:13 - 00:45:41:03
Cas Piancey
Hahaha.

00:45:41:03 - 00:45:48:14
Cas Piancey
And every all of us are like, oh he's just being stupid and and loud. But like, no, I could definitely see him making this somehow happen. You know?

00:45:48:14 - 00:45:58:06
Joseph Politano
I think it's the the gap. The frustration I have is like, he'll say something that is directionally, correctly. He's going to do that in that direction. And then,

00:45:58:06 - 00:46:11:18
Joseph Politano
people, like, treat you as crazy if he doesn't do exactly what he said. So I'm giving example, just as this was literally yesterday. And this is like my ally Trump posted that he was going to put a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada.

00:46:11:20 - 00:46:17:03
Joseph Politano
If they didn't, like, fix the border and stop fentanyl. And again, poor Justin Trudeau, like.

00:46:17:03 - 00:46:17:18
Joseph Politano
Oh.

00:46:18:00 - 00:46:18:17
Joseph Politano
You know,

00:46:18:17 - 00:46:21:06
Joseph Politano
I feel bad for him. He's not doing anything in this. But,

00:46:21:06 - 00:46:39:17
Joseph Politano
like, I don't think he's going to do that because, you know, just automakers would be furious, absolutely devastated if they attempted this. But I think I do directionally think that he will get in office on his first day as president. United States, that he will sign some sort of trade,

00:46:39:17 - 00:46:43:05
Joseph Politano
restriction or tariff on Mexico over immigration.

00:46:43:06 - 00:47:04:01
Joseph Politano
And so it's like on the one hand, I don't believe that there's doing the 25%. On the other hand, it's ridiculous that like, he's the he's going to be the president. United States, we have to take what he says seriously because he's going to do some portion of it. And it's always like directionally correct. So when they say like, oh, we're going to do a strategic Bitcoin reserve, I think they're going to try something flashy.

00:47:04:03 - 00:47:13:07
Joseph Politano
I think my point there is like both like you're it's debasing to have the man behind the Resolute Desk be like shilling, you know shit coins.

00:47:13:07 - 00:47:15:01
Joseph Politano
I'm sorry I'm not used to cursing. I'm. But.

00:47:15:03 - 00:47:17:22
Joseph Politano
So it's amazing to have him like shilling.

00:47:17:22 - 00:47:29:01
Joseph Politano
Shit coins secondarily. Like to say it's it's so antithetical to all of what crypto is ostensibly for that. Like we're getting you're getting bailed out by the taxpayer.

00:47:29:01 - 00:47:33:00
Joseph Politano
You're getting like, juiced by, you know, public funds if it happens,

00:47:33:00 - 00:47:41:17
Joseph Politano
or you're advocating for it to happen, you're like, why? Why? As a senator, sitting senator from Wyoming, why are you advocating for the US government to be like gambling money on this?

00:47:41:17 - 00:47:45:14
Joseph Politano
And then from a third point, it's like it's going to be bad because

00:47:45:14 - 00:47:54:06
Joseph Politano
like, Elon Musk is going to tweet about the strategic Bitcoin reserve and it's going to make the price of Bitcoin go up. And like plausibly there will be people who know about that who will make money from it. And

00:47:54:06 - 00:47:55:18
Joseph Politano
like we have an entire,

00:47:55:18 - 00:47:59:19
Joseph Politano
the Department of Government Efficiency thing is like, it's not a department.

00:47:59:19 - 00:48:08:00
Joseph Politano
First of all, that's not how that works. But second of all, it's like the name is entirely there because Elon Musk thinks like doge is funny.

00:48:08:00 - 00:48:21:22
Joseph Politano
And it's like, increase the price of Dogecoin a lot. And now there's a Senate Doge caucus. There is going to be a House Doge focus led by Marjorie Taylor Greene. And I'm like, we're we're forced to like, take some of this stuff seriously.

00:48:21:22 - 00:48:25:10
Joseph Politano
I'm forced to say Senate Doge caucus because that exists now.

00:48:25:10 - 00:48:32:06
Bennett Tomlin
and Elon Musk has never been able to explain why his fixer was listed on the board for the Dogecoin Foundation on their website.

00:48:32:06 - 00:48:33:12
Joseph Politano
it's this,

00:48:33:12 - 00:48:35:09
Joseph Politano
stuff where you're like, even if there is

00:48:35:09 - 00:48:39:22
Joseph Politano
a you didn't, like, legally the doge thing, it's not like invested in

00:48:40:03 - 00:48:40:15
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah.

00:48:40:15 - 00:48:44:21
Joseph Politano
people. Excuse me. It's not told people to invest in douchebag. It's like we all know what you're doing here.

00:48:45:06 - 00:48:45:20
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah.

00:48:45:20 - 00:48:47:06
Joseph Politano
And it's it's just very,

00:48:47:06 - 00:48:48:11
Joseph Politano
it's

00:48:48:14 - 00:48:49:07
Bennett Tomlin
Corrupt.

00:48:49:07 - 00:48:51:08
Joseph Politano
people are like, there's a lot of,

00:48:51:08 - 00:48:53:13
Joseph Politano
it's one thing to be like, there's a lot of corruption.

00:48:53:13 - 00:48:59:09
Joseph Politano
But I think the other tough part is, like, there's a lot of people who are just going to, like, gamble and lose money off this,

00:48:59:09 - 00:49:10:16
Joseph Politano
who are mostly innocent because they think Elon Musk is cool and they think that this is like an easy way to make money. You know, I don't have sympathy for people who are like sophisticated fund managers who lose money on crypto.

00:49:10:16 - 00:49:15:14
Joseph Politano
But I have sympathy for people who are like, haha, Dogecoin, I'm going to put $2,000 in it.

00:49:15:14 - 00:49:34:17
Bennett Tomlin
and I do worry about the sports gambling industry seeing how effective the cryptocurrency industry is. Big pile of money. Was it making regulating the industry basically impossible in Congress? I don't think it's a great thing that the sports gambling industry just saw that example in the last election.

00:49:34:17 - 00:49:35:08
Joseph Politano
Or like,

00:49:35:08 - 00:49:36:20
Joseph Politano
any of the like

00:49:36:20 - 00:49:37:15
Joseph Politano
like Zen

00:49:37:15 - 00:49:40:08
Joseph Politano
is another. Another one where like, that's, you know,

00:49:40:08 - 00:49:40:14
Joseph Politano
highly

00:49:40:14 - 00:49:43:06
Bennett Tomlin
Any highly profitable Vice industry really?

00:49:43:06 - 00:49:44:00
Cas Piancey
Tobacco.

00:49:44:00 - 00:49:48:11
Joseph Politano
be and tobacco's much more regulated advertising space but they're, they're, you know,

00:49:48:13 - 00:49:49:07
Bennett Tomlin
For now.

00:49:49:07 - 00:49:54:17
Joseph Politano
by that and also say for now, and, and they're frustrated by that. And like the

00:49:54:17 - 00:49:58:10
Joseph Politano
Trump has like, weird regulatory,

00:49:58:10 - 00:50:00:10
Joseph Politano
beliefs sometimes.

00:50:00:12 - 00:50:02:00
Joseph Politano
You remember it was his,

00:50:02:00 - 00:50:11:11
Joseph Politano
administration that like put some of the first restriction on Google, but like he flips all the time. You know, he was like pro TikTok ban. Now he's like antidote for ban because he

00:50:11:15 - 00:50:13:08
Bennett Tomlin
Because he's popular, is what he says.

00:50:15:11 - 00:50:15:18
Joseph Politano
But it's

00:50:15:18 - 00:50:17:16
Joseph Politano
unclear. And,

00:50:17:16 - 00:50:33:14
Joseph Politano
I don't know. I do think it is like from, from a pure perspective of if you are a rational imagine like you were totally amoral being and you just cared about getting reelected to the Senate. That was your only goal in life.

00:50:33:14 - 00:50:41:17
Joseph Politano
Like, yeah, you're going to talk down cryptocurrency regulation a ton over the next few years because you saw how effective a lot of this is.

00:50:41:19 - 00:50:43:19
Joseph Politano
And I will say, like, it's becoming.

00:50:43:19 - 00:51:03:09
Joseph Politano
The fact that it it is a more bipartisan issue, it's like on the one hand, it's partisan, like this is a new president. He's going to be much more pro crypto than the previous president. But on the other hand, it's like one of those issues where the seemingly the only people that are like going to be,

00:51:03:09 - 00:51:07:04
Joseph Politano
pro crypto regulation are like Elizabeth Warren.

00:51:07:06 - 00:51:15:15
Joseph Politano
Category. Well, I'm just saying that category of person like Warren obviously has a lot of personal beliefs about financial regulation. Like that's hurt her like baby.

00:51:15:15 - 00:51:25:14
Joseph Politano
But I just meant that category of person who is in like a D plus 20 C who doesn't actually have to care about, like, winning reelection because they're going to win reelection because they're popular at home in a very liberal state.

00:51:25:16 - 00:51:35:02
Joseph Politano
Are you going to be the people who who care about cryptocurrency regulation? If you're someone who's like, oh my God, I have to win a state that's actually competitive like you, it immediately gets dropped.

00:51:35:02 - 00:51:39:22
Joseph Politano
And again, like we saw this with Paris where like that was part of the strategy was like a,

00:51:39:22 - 00:51:42:18
Joseph Politano
peace offering towards the crypto industry,

00:51:42:18 - 00:51:47:23
Joseph Politano
to try to prevent, like, them from spending so much money on electing Donald Trump.

00:51:48:01 - 00:51:59:22
Joseph Politano
That's the other thing. They stayed out of the presidential election, you know, obviously not entirely people who are like Andreessen. Marc Andreessen is like very pro Donald Trump. But,

00:51:59:22 - 00:52:06:18
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. The Winklevii were making their big illegal donations, which immediately get refunded to them after they got their headlines.

00:52:06:18 - 00:52:19:02
Joseph Politano
But like the big crypto PAC stayed out of the presidential election. Like that's not a guarantee in 2028. You know, that's the strategy they took this time. That might not be the strategy they take,

00:52:19:02 - 00:52:26:23
Joseph Politano
four years from now. And I think if you're JD Vance, for example, who's going to be presumably the Republican nominee for president in 2028,

00:52:26:23 - 00:52:27:23
Joseph Politano
it might be Trump Jr.

00:52:27:23 - 00:52:29:04
Joseph Politano
If you're JD Vance, like,

00:52:29:04 - 00:52:31:08
Cas Piancey
might be Donald Trump. Let's be real. You know,

00:52:31:08 - 00:52:32:20
Cas Piancey
change some rules.

00:52:32:20 - 00:52:33:11
Joseph Politano
run on

00:52:33:11 - 00:52:42:17
Joseph Politano
do you say like, hey, you know, if I make enough overtures to the crypto industry as vice president, like, they'll back me with a very ridiculous amount of money,

00:52:43:00 - 00:52:49:09
Bennett Tomlin
And Peter Thiel is deep in crypto, so it's not even hard for him to, like, find the connections and make that look convincing.

00:52:51:01 - 00:53:01:08
Joseph Politano
And so, like, I think that this is, this election was a lot about like, the crypto entering space as, like, entrenched business interest,

00:53:01:08 - 00:53:03:06
Joseph Politano
more so than than ever before.

00:53:03:06 - 00:53:14:04
Bennett Tomlin
Well, and I think what you said there about how this election, it was bipartisan, but that may not be true in the future, is something we may see very strongly in like 2026, in the midterms.

00:53:14:04 - 00:53:16:13
Bennett Tomlin
Especially if they're worried that like the,

00:53:16:13 - 00:53:27:15
Bennett Tomlin
the anti-incumbency narrative becomes like corruption, things fraud, the things that are easy to tie and Donald Trump in that way.

00:53:27:17 - 00:53:48:17
Bennett Tomlin
I can imagine the crypto industry wanting to prevent things from swinging the other way. And so I think it's quite plausible we'll see them to play way more to Republicans and stuff like that, to keep that. Because you were even alluding to earlier in this conversation, there were people who, when they saw a fair shake, helped get two Democrats elected.

00:53:48:17 - 00:53:57:20
Bennett Tomlin
They were like, oh, maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe it's better actually to have O from one party, which is categorically against regulations. Maybe that'll be cleaner.

00:53:57:20 - 00:53:59:01
Joseph Politano
Right. I was like,

00:53:59:01 - 00:54:12:23
Joseph Politano
Okay. Go. And Slotkin, as much as any other person like, owe their victory to crypto donations. Those those elections were just so tight that you could point to anything that they did that would have lost them. Votes would have could do them. And if you're,

00:54:12:23 - 00:54:19:12
Joseph Politano
like in Pennsylvania, the Democratic senator lost. If you're that are you like looking at this like, you know, if only I was like Slotkin.

00:54:19:14 - 00:54:23:16
Joseph Politano
If only they had given me more money, maybe I could have won. Maybe I could have pulled this one over.

00:54:23:16 - 00:54:29:15
Joseph Politano
And, conversely. But like you said, conversely, if you're the donors, you said you

00:54:29:15 - 00:54:34:08
Joseph Politano
feel like I was the deciding factor. I got two sitting U.S. senators elected,

00:54:34:08 - 00:54:36:18
Joseph Politano
maybe next time I should decide the other way.

00:54:36:19 - 00:54:44:19
Joseph Politano
And, like, that's that can be dangerous, I think. I think that they're likely to try to keep this,

00:54:44:19 - 00:54:49:00
Joseph Politano
as bipartisan as possible for the next, like, two years.

00:54:49:00 - 00:54:54:11
Joseph Politano
But it's possible, like, the other thing is the Senate math. And now we're getting, like, way too much in,

00:54:54:11 - 00:55:02:17
Joseph Politano
the in 2026, I believe the Democrats could. And if you ask me to bet right now, I would say they're likely to regain control of the House.

00:55:02:22 - 00:55:06:16
Joseph Politano
That's just like anti-incumbency bias. Democrats tend to do better in off,

00:55:06:16 - 00:55:08:13
Joseph Politano
year elections nowadays.

00:55:08:13 - 00:55:09:02
Joseph Politano
But the Senate

00:55:09:02 - 00:55:11:18
Bennett Tomlin
Republicans are bad at governing.

00:55:12:10 - 00:55:14:04
Joseph Politano
People people are going to be reminded.

00:55:14:04 - 00:55:17:08
Joseph Politano
Wait a minute. I didn't like Donald Trump.

00:55:17:10 - 00:55:17:19
Joseph Politano
But,

00:55:17:19 - 00:55:23:16
Bennett Tomlin
Great. That's what I voted for. I remember him, no. He was on TV years ago.

00:55:23:16 - 00:55:30:02
Joseph Politano
But the Senate math is, like, very brutal. Like the Democrats have to defend very close seats in, in,

00:55:30:02 - 00:55:38:01
Joseph Politano
Georgia and Michigan. And they don't they only have a couple states where you could plausibly, like, win, like North Carolina. And so it's possible if, you know,

00:55:38:01 - 00:55:44:23
Joseph Politano
if I was a crypto PAC, I would be very interested in this idea that you could, like, maintain the Republican Senate majority,

00:55:44:23 - 00:55:46:18
Joseph Politano
pretty easily.

00:55:46:20 - 00:55:51:18
Joseph Politano
And if you lost control of the House, like, well, you still have, you know, two out of three ain't bad.

00:55:51:18 - 00:55:52:23
Joseph Politano
And,

00:55:52:23 - 00:56:04:02
Joseph Politano
so I would not be surprised. And like you said, they've they're already raising money. I, I want to stress again that this is like, there are lots of super PACs spend a ton of money on the scale of super PACs that spend a ton of money.

00:56:04:02 - 00:56:10:21
Joseph Politano
This is up there. This is not like, haha. This is like the money that the American Petroleum Institute throws. Where into into

00:56:11:00 - 00:56:20:03
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. And the other thing I want to add. We should wrap this conversation up soon. Probably. But like, the other thing that always strikes me is that in many Senate,

00:56:20:03 - 00:56:42:02
Bennett Tomlin
in many senses, the best regulation for the cryptocurrency industry, at least they believe, is effectively no regulation. And so, like these cryptocurrency pacts and things like that are incentivized to like split the House and the Senate, split the House and the presidency, like create situations where legislation, regulations, things like that are divisive, can't be advanced.

00:56:42:02 - 00:57:02:09
Bennett Tomlin
Coalitions can't be built because their goal is for nothing to happen. The longer nothing happens, the longer they get to grow unfettered and take advantage of more people. And so like that makes like the the metagame of their political donations like darker in a certain sense than like other industries which are trying to capture and get favorable regulation is.

00:57:02:09 - 00:57:02:20
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

00:57:02:23 - 00:57:04:15
Joseph Politano
Right, right. Yeah. I mean,

00:57:04:15 - 00:57:15:01
Joseph Politano
like, we have a in in the United States. This is like a core problem where this is like you as president, it's rare to get a trifecta.

00:57:15:01 - 00:57:24:18
Joseph Politano
Joe Biden had a very, very, very thin governing majority when he was first elected and managed to do a ton with it relative to the size of the governing majority.

00:57:24:18 - 00:57:27:07
Joseph Politano
You know, the amount of spending it like the Chips act, the Inflation

00:57:27:09 - 00:57:31:01
Bennett Tomlin
Especially considering Manchin and Synema exist as human beings.

00:57:31:01 - 00:57:32:22
Joseph Politano
So,

00:57:33:00 - 00:57:41:11
Joseph Politano
But if you're like, oh, well, you know, all that needs to get like Manchin’s gone, you know, there's we're talking about,

00:57:41:11 - 00:57:42:23
Joseph Politano
when we're talking about these nominees,

00:57:42:23 - 00:57:51:11
Joseph Politano
maybe should I maybe should have mentioned this earlier, but like, most of these nominees for the economic positions are going to go through pretty easily.

00:57:51:11 - 00:57:53:16
Joseph Politano
It's kind of amazing that, like

00:57:53:16 - 00:57:56:06
Joseph Politano
Bassett is we're going to go through easily.

00:57:56:08 - 00:58:08:23
Joseph Politano
But, like, people don't believe that RFK junior can be torpedoed because you need to peel off for five Republicans and you're like, okay, you start calling counting senators and you can't find like any,

00:58:08:23 - 00:58:33:04
Bennett Tomlin
Pence is trying. It's it's. It's a little bit hilarious to me that, like, right now, one of the people trying hardest to torpedo RFK Jr. Is Mike pence, the former president's vice PE. Yeah, because RFK Jr has historically been too liberal on abortion. And so pence is running hard line like to all the pro-life senators to try to get them to defect from RFK junior.

00:58:33:04 - 00:58:33:20
Joseph Politano
that's really funny.

00:58:33:20 - 00:58:36:08
Joseph Politano
And, let.

00:58:36:08 - 00:58:37:15
Joseph Politano
Them fight on that one.

00:58:37:15 - 00:58:46:19
Joseph Politano
But like, RFK has very, like, you know, crazy, dangerous ideas on what should be normally bipartisan issues. You can't do that. And, like or even Tulsi Gabbard,

00:58:46:19 - 00:58:49:18
Joseph Politano
who is the director? National intelligence.

00:58:49:20 - 00:58:50:20
Joseph Politano
Like, she.

00:58:50:22 - 00:59:02:16
Joseph Politano
In most she's a former Democrat. She has posed this giant security risk she has been friends with, like Putin and Assad. And whatever you think that you could, like, find five Republicans that would be like, I don't know about this one.

00:59:02:18 - 00:59:03:05
Joseph Politano
You know.

00:59:03:07 - 00:59:10:05
Joseph Politano
But it's really tough. And so in a world in which, you know, Republicans control the Senate, cabinet appointees are like,

00:59:10:05 - 00:59:14:07
Joseph Politano
checkbox unless they've committed, like horrible sexual assault. And even then,

00:59:14:07 - 00:59:14:15
Joseph Politano
and

00:59:14:15 - 00:59:17:14
Bennett Tomlin
Yes. Because we just said we can't torpedo RFK.

00:59:17:14 - 00:59:22:18
Joseph Politano
We can't repeat RFK Hegseth is is possibly going to get the nomination for the Department of Defense.

00:59:22:18 - 00:59:27:05
Joseph Politano
But the like I was just saying, gates was the one person so far has been nuked.

00:59:27:05 - 00:59:37:20
Joseph Politano
But like a world in which Republican controlled Senate, you can appoint whoever you want to executive positions in the judiciary, but Democrats control the House, and therefore you can't actually pass any like, legislation that meaningfully does anything.

00:59:37:20 - 00:59:45:03
Joseph Politano
Is like one in which like to your point, there be a lot of you could appoint friendly regulators. Nobody's going to write a law in Congress.

00:59:45:03 - 00:59:48:15
Joseph Politano
They'll hold some hearings in the House. That would be annoying. And like,

00:59:48:15 - 00:59:50:17
Joseph Politano
that's a that's a good outcome.

00:59:50:17 - 01:00:00:15
Joseph Politano
For a lot of like the, the if I was to say like closing remark is like crypto people feel really happy about how this election went and like the executives especially,

01:00:00:15 - 01:00:01:13
Joseph Politano
and that's very tough.

01:00:01:13 - 01:00:02:04
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

01:00:02:06 - 01:00:04:13
Cas Piancey
I yeah, I fully agree with all of that. We,

01:00:04:13 - 01:00:12:23
Cas Piancey
we have a crypto executive right here, and all she's been saying is how happy she is that cash coin is going to be possibly a new,

01:00:12:23 - 01:00:17:05
Cas Piancey
central bank digital currency for the upcoming administration. So,

01:00:17:05 - 01:00:28:02
Cas Piancey
yeah, I think that's that's a pretty accurate and fair description of how the entire cryptocurrency community has been feeling since the Trump election.

01:00:28:02 - 01:00:30:19
Cas Piancey
I think you can just look at the price of Bitcoin and probably figure that out.

3 responses to “Episode 159 – What Donald Trump’s election means for Bitcoin (feat. Joseph Politano)”

Episode 160 – CBDCs are Dead; Long Live $TRUMP – Crypto Critics' Corner says:

January 27, 2025 at 9:19 am

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Episode 161 – Is there one good regulator between the SEC and the CFTC? (feat. Sean Tuffy) – Crypto Critics' Corner says:

January 29, 2025 at 10:21 am

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Episode 162 – Humiliate your local billionaire (feat. Ed Zitron) – Crypto Critics' Corner says:

February 3, 2025 at 8:44 am

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