← Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Trump’s Crypto Presidency: What It Means For You
01:00:21
President Trump’s affinity for crypto currency has emerged as another vehicle for profit and peddling influence. On today’s episode, we break down the basics of crypto and how the industry infiltrated Trump's world, unpacks the ways this administration is creating a friendly environment for this unregulated market in ways that might impact our economy more broadly, and questions its ethics. Stacey is joined by Zeke Faux, investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, and Annie Lowrey, staff writer at The Atlantic, to explore the good, the bad, and the gray areas of digital currency. Learn & Do More: · If you want to learn more about cryptocurrency and its newly entwined relationship with our government, check out both Annie and Zeke’s work at Bloomberg and The Atlantic. · If you are considering, or know someone else who is thinking of investing in cryptocurrency or other high-risk assets, prioritize safety. Invest in what you understand—avoid following trends blindly. Alway...
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- [00:00]
Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by bookshop.org I love reading across genres, whether it's a great sci fi novel that explains our world by taking me to a different one, an historical romance with a bold and inspiring heroine and a dashing hero, or a policy deep dive by a fellow wonk on a subject that is completely new for me. There is no limit to what I can find@bookshop.org and right now, for no particular reason, I'm reading Survive, Reset, Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times by Rebecca Homkes. When you purchase from bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 2,000 local independent bookstores across the country, ensuring they'll continue to foster culture, curiosity and a love of reading for generations to come. And there's exciting news. Bookshop.org has launched an ebook app. You can now support local independent bookstores even when you read digitally. Use Code stacy to get 10% off your next order@bookshop.org that's code Stacy S T A C e y@bookshop.org welcome to assembly required with Stacey Abrams. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. Before we start today, I wanted to do something. I want to say thank you. Thank you for believing that the individual actions that we can take that sometimes feel too small for the moment can actually work. Across this country, more and more of us are reclaiming the fact that the government is supposed to work for us. From the mail carrier to the national park custodian, to members of Congress and yes, to the people in the White House, they work for us. And your commitment to calling, to emailing, to showing up is making a difference. Of course a handful of awkward town halls will not stop this wholesale assault on our national integrity. But. But it's an important marker and it's an important start. It's one that says we won't be silent and we won't go away because we have to remember, politicians have recognizable triggers. They respond to money, peer pressure and attention. We're going to talk about money in a minute. And peer pressure has to come from within their ranks. But we can bring attention to their complacency, we can bolster their courage, and we can remind them that a job review is coming up in 2026. So thank you for what you've done and let's keep at it. Let's keep insisting now to the issue of money. With Trump's second administration, we are seeing an escalation of the grotesque self enrichment that marked his first term and his post presidency. And it's what got him there in the first place. From foreign dignitaries spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at his Washington D.C. hotel during sensitive moments in their relations with the United States, to a post presidency hawking products like bibles, sneakers, cologne, and profiting from his massive stake in his own social media company, there has been no shortage of efforts to use his status to line his pockets. And it's by no means a new phenomenon. And Trump is not singular nor is he solely responsible for ushering in this political era of state capture, of mixed messages, of money buying power. But he is normalizing a more crooked world. We see this in the way he profits off of his position and doesn't even try to hide it anymore. You may remember his commercial that blasted through network television stations in the thick of the presidential election, one that peddled his limited edition watches that could be yours for the low, low price of $100,000. But what he left out in the ads, and what he forgets to tell us is that these watches are crypto themed and can only be purchased using bitcoin. This isn't the first time that Trump has leane unofficial role as the crypto president. A day before Trump took office, he attached his name to a crypto token, also known as a meme coin, that he called, not surprisingly, the Trump Coin. Negative points for originality, but this move was immediately followed by the launch of First Lady Melania Trump's meme coin, and the crypto ventures didn't stop there. But what has befuddled millions, including a lot of you listening today, is what exactly is crypto? How does it work? And how is Donald Trump scamming America in a whole new way. We'll get into all of this and more during today's episode, including the ways that other people with skin in the game are benefiting from having Trump on their side. There's a reason that multiple billionaire investors with crypto ties donated millions of dollars to his presidential campaign and funded dozens of congressional races. While some applaud the president for embracing digital currency and pushing it mainstream, many of us are rightfully confused, skeptical, or both. So this week, we're doing a deep dive into crypto to explore the good, the bad, and the gray areas. And as always, we'll talk about where you, the listener, come in. To accomplish all of that, we're excited to be joined by two extraordinary guests, Zeke Fox, who is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, and Annie Lowery, who is a staff writer at the Atlantic covering politics and economic policy, both of whom will be here to help demystify crypto right here on Assembly Required. Zeke Fox, Annie Lowry. Welcome to Assembly Required.
- [06:20]
Zeke Fox
Thanks, Stacy.
- [06:21]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [06:23]
Stacey Abrams
Well, I'm delighted to have you here to explain the very vague notion of crypto and why we should care. And so in order to do that, I'm going to start with a few establishing questions for Zeke before we bring you in. Annie. So, Zeke, you've been an investigative reporter for Bloomberg BusinessWeek for 15 years, and you wrote a book on cryptocurrency called Number Go Up Inside Crypto's Wild Ride and Staggering Fall. It is safe to say that you are an expert on digital currency. So here's the basic question. Is crypto real money?
- [06:58]
Zeke Fox
Certainly some people treat it like it is, but, I mean, the original idea for crypto was that it would be kind of this, like, decentralized money that would live on the Internet and that people would use it for buying and selling, like, everyday items. Like, maybe one day you'd use bitcoin to pay for your coffee. And Bitcoin has actually been around since the beginning of my career. It's as old as WhatsApp, Uber, and all sorts of things that have become part of everyday life. And contrary to those, almost nobody is using Bitcoin for anything these days. And so nowadays, what crypto is is there's thousands of different coins, and each of them represents something slightly different. So some of them are still trying to be like money. Others are more like shares of companies. They're like digital stock. And then other ones are like these meme coins that have been in the news lately are essentially tokens for gambling on that don't really serve any purpose other than that at all.
- [08:08]
Stacey Abrams
So if I'm going to say it back to you, cryptocurrency seems to me to be an amalgamation of monopoly money, poker tokens, and slips that you can get at the racetrack. I don't want to oversimplify, but that's about right.
- [08:23]
Zeke Fox
I mean, I would say the most legitimate ones are basically like stock in the shady offshore casino.
- [08:29]
Stacey Abrams
The cryptocurrency market exists, and we have these traditional financial systems that do have different currency with different valuations, but one has been around for centuries and the other has been around for a decade plus. How intertwined have they become?
- [08:47]
Zeke Fox
So right now, they're still pretty separate. Crypto gambling has become like a pretty decent sized industry. And everyone on Wall street can see, hey, there's a lot of people out there, not everybody, but a decent number of people out there who want to trade crypto to bet on the prices of these different coins. And some of the more traditional players have said, why don't we make some money on that? So they've come up with products that they can offer to you and I to try to steal some of that crypto gambling market from the crypto exchanges like Coinbase. So that's like, right now you can buy shares of a BlackRock Bitcoin ETF. So that's like traditional Wall street offering you a way to invest in crypto. But in terms of, like, big banks, major players making huge bets on crypto themselves, that really hasn't happened so much yet. And Annie actually wrote about in a recent piece that I thought was really good was that one of the risk right now isn't so much that if crypto blows up, it'll take down the traditional financial system. It's more that we've almost created this alternative unregulated financial system, and sketchy players of all types going forward can choose that and say, hey, I'm going to opt out of the regulated stock market. I'm going to do something with crypto. So that could lead to more connections between traditional Wall street and the crypto market. But right now, they're still pretty isolated.
- [10:27]
Stacey Abrams
So, Annie, I want to bring you in on that. So is crypto something that can transform our financial system? It may not do it now, but can it transform our system and turn into something of great import, or is it just a temporarily pervasive way to make money and to scam folks?
- [10:45]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah, as Zeke pointed out, crypto is, at this point, a lot of things. So a lot of these are not really useful as currencies, as mediums of exchange, because they're also speculative assets. So they tend to have an enormous amount of price volatility. And we've even seen that in bitcoin, which is the big and old and established one. It's a speculative asset, much more so than it is a currency. And then you also have all sorts of financial innovation or supposed financial innovation in terms of the way that financial actors might move money around in digital contracts and that kind of thing. So, yeah, right now, I don't think that crypto, even if it's a very large asset class, has much effect on the American financial system. And even now, most Americans don't hold crypto as investments. But I do think that we are entering an era where there is going to be a tremendous amount of risk. And I kind of put it in three buckets. So one is that if you have a White House that is promoting and passing pro crypto legislation, is even creating a strategic bitcoin reserve, more people might see it as being the same kind of thing as investing in the s and P500. The second is that you could start to see much more interconnection between the traditional financial system and the crypto financial system. So crypto assets, crypto businesses, could end up destabilizing financial firms that were heavily invested in them. And then the third, which Zeke was referring to, is the tendency of Wall street institutions to take new regulations and figure out how to use them to their own advantage. And I think that Wall street is going to be enormously creative in doing things like that. They have a lot of money on the line, and a lot of lawyers prepared to figure out how to use these new roles to their advantage. And that, I think, is the biggest financial risk.
- [12:53]
Zeke Fox
So if you remember WeWork, it was like this hot startup, and people were really excited about it. It filed to go public. They wanted to raise money from regular investors so they could grow even bigger. And when you filed to go public on the stock market, you have to file this big prospectus that explains your whole business, all your financial results. And it turned out that wework financial results were totally weird. There were things in there like the company had paid millions of dollars to license the word we from Adam Neumann, who was also the CEO. And the fallout of that was that Newman was forced out and the company had to reorganize and to seek investment a different way. So basically, like, the market rejected this wework filing. And nowadays wework potentially could just say, hey, we're going to sell. We token. And there's no rules about this. We don't need to file all these disclosures. But don't you like WeWork? It's so hot. Look, we got free coffee. All the cool startups are in our office. And so those are the kinds of rules that you could get around if there was, like, this alternative way for companies to raise money with crypto.
- [14:09]
Stacey Abrams
Before we get there, I want to take a few moments to do some primers. So, Zeke, explain what blockchain is.
- [14:18]
Zeke Fox
So I like to picture a big Google sheet in the sky, and it's got two columns. And in column A, it's got people's names. And so it'd be like, Zeke, Stacy, and Annie. And in column B, it's got a number. And so let's say one for me, three for Stacy, and six for Annie. And that's how many bitcoins you got, and that's the blockchain. It's this spreadsheet. And the bitcoins don't really exist in any other sense of the word. They're just sort of numbers in this spreadsheet. And if we were talking about Ethereum, then the numbers would represent Ethereum or Solana. Those are Solana. And the reason people think this is cool is that the big innovation of crypto is that you can maintain this Google sheet collectively, like the users of the cryptocurrency, keep track of who's got what without any one powerful central counterparty. A bank kind of works like a Google sheet like this too, where a bank is keeping track of how much money each person has and who's sending money to who. But the way that banks work, you need to trust the bank and count on the bank to keep track of everybody's money. And with crypto, it's like the computers that run this network cooperate to keep track.
- [15:54]
Stacey Abrams
That's excellent. And so, Andy, I'm going to put it on you. What are NFTs?
- [15:58]
Annie Lowrey
So non fungible tokens. These are just like little digital assets. They're often kind of silly. They're often images or GIFs or something, and they have a unique identifier. And that's it. I don't know if you have thoughts about that, Zeke. I think if you had somebody who was invested in that economy, they would describe it somewhat differently than I did.
- [16:24]
Zeke Fox
No, that's about right. What makes it NFT crypto is just that there are these cartoons and you keep track of who owns the cartoons on one of these blockchains in a spreadsheet.
- [16:40]
Stacey Abrams
Okay, so I'm gonna give us a concrete example. So during the campaign, then candidate now President Trump sold the Trump watch, which could only be purchased using Bitcoin. And we know that Trump and Melania each have their own meme coins. So what you're telling me is that the only thing that is actually tangible in this whole sentence or paragraph that I just said is, is the watch.
- [17:07]
Zeke Fox
Yes. And have we seen those watches? I mean, do we know that you really get the watch?
- [17:12]
Stacey Abrams
Look, look, you're undercutting my argument here. At least the watch. We've seen watches. Okay, so I want to shift into the political, because I think that's the important part of today's conversation. But first I want to say thank you, because that is the most cogent explanation of crypto blockchain NFTs that I've been able to find. So thank you both. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by Helix. With all of my travel, few things are better than returning to the comforts of home. Ever since I got my Helix mattress, the experience of coming back to my own bed has only gotten more luxurious. With Helix, I can sleep through the night and wake up more refreshed and ready to go. Designed with the sleeper in mind, hello. Helix offers quality rest and makes it easier for me to try and make my bedtime. Check out Helix for a better sleeping experience and use a special code for the listeners of assembly required. Go to helixsleep.com assembly for 27% off sitewide that's helixsleep.com assembly for27% off sitewide helixsleep.com assembly Andy, I want you to talk for a second about how cryptocurrency first started making its way into the political world. How do we chart its path from what were basically the fringes to Silicon Valley and now to D.C. where we know that crypto's biggest super PACs poured 131 million million into congressional races last cycle.
- [18:56]
Annie Lowrey
Absolutely. This has been a really remarkable transition because one of the initial ethos of crypto and crypto folks was this idea that with these decentralized, managed Google sheets that Zeke is talking about, that you would be able to fly above the traditional banking infrastructure and, and away from governments, that you could have a transnational financial system with less regulation, with more trust, without the influence of government, away from the traditional financial system. And so you might say, okay, well, why do you want a fancy spreadsheet that's managed in a decentralized fashion as opposed to one that is regulated by the American government and foreign governments, foreign partners, that is backed by, by federal insurance in some cases, and federal protections where you have the protection of American courts, of American prosecutors and investigators. And the idea was that kind of sort of radical new world one. And in the intervening years, we've seen a remarkable, remarkable movement closer and closer to governments. Governments have gotten excited about bringing crypto investment home into their, into their economies, creating a stable base for this supposed financial technology of the future, investing in crypto, even. And I think that you've seen the crypto industry recognize that it actually needs government regulation and political support in order to keep growing, that your average American doesn't want to invest in a fringe financial asset with no security from the government. Right. It's really nice having like an FDIC insured bank account. And we've seen a lot of crypto firms kind of imply that they have fdic insurance when they don't. And so the money and the political power is all actually really centralized in Washington and New York. And I think that's why you've seen the entire industry basically start to lobby, and now it finds itself with a very friendly Congress and an extraordinarily friendly. And I also want to emphasize this deeply conflicted, financially conflicted administration.
- [21:22]
Stacey Abrams
So, Zeke, you recently wrote a Bloomberg article, and you reported that Trump called bitcoin a scam as recently as 2021. And then he dove headfirst into these crypto ventures, which Annie's referring to. In addition, he has, the parent company of a social media platform, announced plans to invest 250 million into new financial products, including buying bitcoin. So can you explain a bit about this evolution in Trump from crypto skeptic to enthusiast, but also talk about Annie's concern about the interwoven, deeply concerning conflicts that have emerged?
- [22:03]
Zeke Fox
Yeah. So Trump's first administration was not that friendly to crypto. They initiated some lawsuits against crypto companies that got the industry so upset. But during this new campaign, he first signaled that he might be open to some crypto stuff because he sold NFTs. These were like digital images of Trump looking really jacked or hunting or he's an astronaut. And they lived on the blockchain. They cost $99. And so the crypto guys, they started thinking, hey, maybe this Trump guy could be on our side. And about a couple dozen of the top bitcoin investors got together and maxed out to Trump. And this is what it was, sort of an effort organized by David Bailey, the chief executive officer of Bitcoin magazine. And this is what he said about it. The campaign. They're used to bullshit artists all the time trying to sell them shit. If you want it to progress, you got to show them the money. And these guys gave Trump about $25 million collectively. And he flew down to their conference in Nashville last July. And I was in the audience there. I was shocked because I thought maybe. I don't know, I understand much about politics, but I didn't think. I thought maybe you'd get a video message for Trump. Like, he waves thanks for the 25 million. No, he came in person and he delivered almost all of their talking points and said he announced this plan to have the bitcoin strategic reserve. He said, if bitcoin's going to go to the moon, I want to lead the way. And he said that he would fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the sec, who's really hated by the industry because he's tried to regulate it. And Bailey himself had said that he was pretty surprised by how effective this was.
- [24:02]
Stacey Abrams
I mean, I would point out that this is the same person who did Trump steaks, Trump wine, Trump University, Trump casinos. He is very susceptible to fly by night ideas that he thinks he can brand. And I think it's been deeply problematic given that almost every venture I just mentioned has failed.
- [24:27]
Zeke Fox
Well, this kind of annoyed the bitcoin people because they really loved the speech and they loved the idea that the US Government would spend tons of money to buy bitcoin, which would push the price up and make them richer. But within a few weeks after the speech, Trump announced that he was going to do his own crypto venture.
- [24:48]
Stacey Abrams
That's World Liberty Financial.
- [24:51]
Zeke Fox
Yes, this was World Liberty Financial. And the bitcoin people, I think it was a little rich of them to complain that they wanted him to promote Trump to promote their coins and not his own coin. I think that Trump, basically, he quickly realized something that is true about crypto, which is that the best way to make money in crypto is to sell your own made up coin because it costs nothing to create and you get real money for it. Buying someone else's coin is kind of for suckers. This World Liberty, it's a huge conflict of interest because the way this cryptocurrency is set up, it's unclear what it does, but he's offering to sell these World Liberty tokens. And if you buy them, 75% of the money goes straight into the Trump Organization's pocket as a licensing fee. So basically, anyone who might want to give Trump money can buy these tokens and then announce that they have and tell Trump, hey, just bought a bunch of your tokens. You know, here are my ideas for the crypto industry. And pretty soon after this started, some players in crypto did just that.
- [26:08]
Stacey Abrams
I mean, one of the players in crypto would be Justin Sun. And for context, Justin Sun's purchase into an entity where Trump directly benefits financially has raised concerns because of the potential conflicts of interest and ethics because his company has an alleged use of militant groups and pending charges against him by US Security regulators. So, Andy, how should we think about Trump's involvement with sun given his various entanglements?
- [26:37]
Annie Lowrey
I think that people, including people who support the crypto industry, who want crypto to thrive, who want Congress to pass crypto friendly regulations, who want to get the SEC off of the crypto industries back, should be furious about this. This is a absolutely wild, wild opportunity for Graft that we know has already led to foreign nationals essentially buying off the president and his family. This is just a remarkably corrupt infrastructure. And President Trump and his family and the people that he's brought into government as external advisors or even within government have shown a remarkable carelessness about maintaining the, the, a lack of conflict, of real conflicts of interest, of not opening themselves to this kind of industry purchasing, again, including from people who are under investigation or even charged by American regulators or the legal system to foreign actors. And also they're not making any effort to eliminate the appearance of conflicts here either. I don't think that he cares. He clearly doesn't care. And so, you know, I really, I really, really worry about this, especially given that we're going to go into this enormously fertile period of legal and regulatory change.
- [28:08]
Stacey Abrams
Well, speaking of which, part of what Trump did was to name David Sachs as the first ever. And I'm using air quotes for people who can't see me. Crypto czar. So, Andy, who is he and how will he shape the administration's crypto agenda?
- [28:23]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah, so he is one of many folks within the Trump orbit, again, both within government formally and outside of government, who are both pro crypto folks and in some cases are actually invested personally in crypto. So Scott Besant, the Treasury secretary, is pro Bitcoin. He's a hedge fund manager. And Howard Lutnick, who's at Commerce, he ran a financial firm called Kantor Fitzgerald, which is very, very heavily and has deep ties to Tether, which is a crypto firm. And Marc Andreessen, who is kind of Silicon Valley luminary and a huge crypto booster, has proven, even though he's not in government, enormously influential in placing lower level employees into a broad variety of agencies and including the kind of DOGE type efforts. And so I really see this. You know, he's, he's one guy and, you know, the AI in crypto czar, that's not a job with a lot of power. I would be looking more to who Trump is putting at treasury, who he's putting at cftc, SEC and these other agencies with a lot of authority, as well as what he's going to do with the Fed, which is another very big question looming here.
- [29:54]
Stacey Abrams
So last week on Assembly Required, we talked a little bit about state capture, and that's the phenomenon when private interest basically take over government. And what you two have just described is a Congress that was essentially purchased for about $131 million in crypto investment. At least some members are beholden to the cryptocurrency guys for their seats. You have a president who has his own crypto scheme that is wide ranging and rife with conflicts. And you have administrators from the Treasury Department which controls all payments and all of the money that we give the irs, all of the money that comes from Social Security, all of the money that's currently being held captive by Dodge. You've got what's happening over as you pointed at Commerce, which is, it's in the name, it's how we make money in this country and think about how money gets made. And you've got Saks. We've got two thirds of our three legged stool that is now under the auspices of this cryptocurrency administration. Let's talk a little bit about the press conference from last week. Sachs tried to talk about crypto and what it means to have in Congress a joint working group that's going to be formed between the House and the Senate to advance crypto legislation. Given all that I just said, Zeke, then Annie, why should we be terrified?
- [31:35]
Zeke Fox
So the Trump administration has said they're going to totally rework crypto regulation, but they're still opposed to fraud. They said we're still going to fight crypto fraud. However, there's a big problem with their, the way their plans are shaping up. What are the areas right now that people are most concerned about in crypto, like the crypto people themselves think think is very scammy is meme coins. These are the Trump token. Kanye west is talking about doing one right now that's truly horrible. But these are just, it's believed to be kind of a rigged market where people lose a lot of money. So you might say, hey, this should be regulated. The SEC usually is the regulator that handles these types of things. They should make up some rules for this. Well, the SEC has come out and said after all this crypto lobbying, we don't think that cryptocurrencies are securities. We're the securities and Exchange Commission. Basically this is none of our business. It's gonna be very hard for them to police fraud if they don't have the authority to oversee the market at all. Plus the President is doing a meme coin right now. Is the SEC gonna make rules that would affect the President's meme coin negatively? Probably not. So it's just hard to imagine that they're going to come up with effective rules to really rein in crypto fraud, which even people in the industry would agree is rampant.
- [33:09]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah. And I would note that the Trump Administration has gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which again, whatever you think about it politically, it existed to collect consumer complaints about rip offs and frauds. You know, if you got ripped off by, by somebody who is regulated by the sec. It's not that the SEC didn't have public facing options, but the CFPB was really, really oriented towards people who didn't quite understand why they were getting scammed. It was a very friendly organization and it proved actually pretty effective at tamping down on things. They would go after companies, they would help people recover money. It's been completely gutted. We haven't had crypto specific legislation in the United States. And so the crypto industry has indicated that this has created regulatory uncertainty. It's prevented investment from investment banks and Main street banks into crypto. It has failed to give consumers confidence about these products. And in some cases there have been kind of confused, confusing rules and jurisdictional issues about what should be regulated, where and where it should be regulated. And the crypto industry had kind of complained that what had happened was that the government had been doing regulation by enforcement, which basically means that the SEC was sort of creating rules by going after individual bad actors. And so, you know, I'm not even actually sure that there's a good argument for broad crypto legislation because I think that the regulatory regime that we had in some ways was working okay even if the crypto industry didn't love it. And the worst of all worlds would be to create crypto friendly regulations that in fact loosen the entire architecture of financial regulation, including for non crypto products. I do think there's some good things that could come out of it. It looks like we're going to get stablecoin regulation, which would be really great. These are coins that are meant to be tethered to the dollar. We've had some spectacular cases, so it makes them useful as a medium of exchange and they've become a really important part of infrastructure. But yeah, I'm trying to think of other positive things that could come out of this and I'm sure that there are some, but I would say that that's the main one. But yeah, I'm really, really worried.
- [35:35]
Stacey Abrams
So I want to focus on one thing you said. Can you remind folks what precipitated the creation of the cfpb?
- [35:44]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah, so the CFPB was created by Dodd Frank. Right. And it was created in the wake of the last major crisis. There was a feeling that, so there's a, there's a kind of interesting tendency for fraud to increase before big financial crashes, which is in part understood to be because firms kind of start skirting the rules in order to make more money and also because fraud itself can be kind of, you know, if you're scamming people, that can be a sign that there's just froth in the market and people aren't paying attention. But there was this feeling after Dodd Frank that there needed to be a consumer focused agency that could help people if they were being scammed or even if they were just being charged extortionate interest rates, that kind of thing. And so this independent watchdog was created as an additional agency along with the cftc, the sec, Treasury, Fed, all of the other financial regulators, of which there are many.
- [36:45]
Stacey Abrams
So the reason I wanted to focus on that is that one concern that both you, Zeke, and you, Annie, have noticed is that there is a concern that a crypto bubble is forming and that this increased interest from the administration is actually precipitating the very crisis that we are anticipating. So can you, both of you discuss, and I'll start with you, Zeke, what are the implications to the economy right now of what's happening with crypto? And using Annie's phrase, the froth that's being created in the market, if this.
- [37:18]
Zeke Fox
Or when this current crypto bubble pops, a lot of people will lose money and it's terrible. I don't think it's going to lead to some sort of cascading effect into the normal financial system or that it would have huge impact on the American economy. There was something that Paul Atkins, who Trump's pick to be the new head of the sec, said that's really stuck with me about the Trump administration's approach. He was on a podcast and he was talking about their regulatory philosophy and he said, speaking about investors, they may lose all the money by investing in something, but that's their right. And it's like this move away from this idea that we should protect investors, that we should look out for them. It's more like everyone for themselves and do your own research, as the crypto people say. And I think that's really pernicious because who's got time for that? I don't want to read every credit card contract that I sign. It would be a huge drag on the economy if we all had to read every piece of fine print we ever got. We rely on companies to not be scamming us all the time.
- [38:44]
Stacey Abrams
So, Annie, is there an example out there of a country that's approaching crypto regulation the right way? That's protecting its people the right way.
- [38:53]
Annie Lowrey
So I would note that this has been an issue for a lot of countries, including the United States. A lot of crypto firms are not based in jurisdictions with strong financial regulations. Of course, one of the elements of the crypto market is that you do have state investment into crypto for dangerous purposes. So we actually just last week saw North Korean hackers steal, supposedly North Korean hackers steal $1.5 billion off of a crypto exchange, which caused another wave of redemptions destabilizing the business. We have evidence of countries like Iran using crypto to evade things like sanctions or, you know, some other countries. It's actually been a little bit hard to subject some of these firms to stronger regulations where they have existed. And so, you know, the world's largest crypto exchange right now, Binance, it. It refuses to even say which jurisdiction it's based in. And so that's just one problem that we've had. But, yes, other countries, I think, have had stronger crypto legislative regimes. And I think that we've seen this kind of push and pull between countries wanting to protect consumers, wanting to protect their existing financial infrastructures, and also wanting to get in on the big cash grab, wanting to support whatever financial innovation might come out of this. And I think the United States is now sort of the strongest example of that.
- [40:37]
Stacey Abrams
The SEC just asked the federal court to pause its case against Binance, which, as you pointed out, is the world's largest crypto exchange. And that happened because leadership, our federal government, is rethinking its past enforcement actions. Can one of you break down just a little bit more the Binance lawsuit and what this pause could mean? And one piece that I'm thinking about is when you talk about what happened in North Korea, when we think about the foreign actors who are involved, but when you also sit it side by side with the anarchy happening right now in our own financial systems under the Dodge Committee, is there a possibility that Trump could move any taxpayer dollars into crypto? And sort of. How does that intersect with the issue with Binance?
- [41:28]
Zeke Fox
On Binance, it's amazing to see this case paused. It seemed like a real layup of a case. Basically, the SEC has sued almost all of the biggest crypto exchanges in the US and their SEC's argument is that some of the things you're offering are securities. You should have been following our rules, therefore, you're an unlicensed securities exchange. And the case against Binance was helped by some internal communications that the federal authorities obtained. There's one where one guy at Binance is texting another guy, and he said, bro, we are operating an unlicensed securities exchange.
- [42:11]
Annie Lowrey
There's an additional word in there, Z.
- [42:16]
Stacey Abrams
I think we can put. We can fill in the dots.
- [42:18]
Zeke Fox
Yeah. But even the cases without these text messages honestly seem pretty obvious. Even if you offer one illegal security, you violated the SEC's rules. And so the SEC now, under Trump, has not just put the Binance case on hold, but they've signaled to the other big crypto players they're going to stop those cases. They're basically saying, hands off. Like, this isn't. We're not going to regulate crypto exchanges. So it's just kind of crazy to see that they would abandon this, this altogether on the Trump administration. Investing in crypto. That's this bitcoin strategic reserve, which Trump mentioned in his speech and has said that he's going to do a couple times. Since then, one Republican senator has talked about investing $100 billion into Bitcoin. Annie, do you think this has any chance of happening?
- [43:23]
Annie Lowrey
I kind of think so. I don't know. So you got. You got a Republican House, got a Republican Senate. They are not particularly focused on it, it seems to me. Right. Like, they're really focusing on tax legislation and sort of broader spending legislation. And I think that there's probably going to be other legislative priorities, although I do think that they will push crypto stuff this year, you know, so if you look at the bills that were proposed for this, the idea was like to buy crypto and then at some point use it to retire the national debt. This is not like a great way to go about that. There's a lot of ways to retire the national debt. You do not need to be invested in a highly speculative cryptocurrency in order to do it. So, yeah, I don't. I. Crazier things have happened. I bet they'll do it. What's $100 billion? You know, go. Go for it. Sure.
- [44:17]
Zeke Fox
What's $100 billion? Right. For the government, it's not enough to achieve its goal. Like, if we wanted to retire the national debt by taking our money to the casino, we would need to bet like $17 trillion and hope that we double it. But $100 billion is enough to make the price of bitcoin go up. And even just talking about this has been great for the price of bitcoin. And like I was saying at the beginning, people aren't really using bitcoin for stuff, but people are betting lots of money on the Price going up. So for the bitcoiners, it's really important to bring in new pools of money that can buy bitcoin. And like, this is the biggest pool of money around. So it means a lot to them if the US Government does it.
- [45:06]
Annie Lowrey
Yeah, it's so worth noting and just stepping back to say that the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is only tied to demand for those currencies. And early holders benefit enormously from having new holders come in. That's the way that they make money. Right. So, and again, maybe this is simplistic, but most financial assets, their worth is derived from an income strength, from a mortgage, from corporate profits. And so something like bitcoin, it's much more like owning an artwork or something that's not going to generate any income, but the value is just only determined by the amount of money put in, which is, as Zeke points out, exactly why people want governments to get in on it. And it's also why price stability, which is a really important component of cryptocurrencies, would be bad for bitcoin. Bitcoin holders, they want the price to go up. Right.
- [46:08]
Stacey Abrams
Which is why it is deeply problematic and highly concerning that the President of the United States stands to benefit financially to an order of magnitude if the Congress passes a law that allows the investment, in fact, compels the investment of $100 billion into essentially an ephemeral value that will generate more money for him. Assembly required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by ZBiotics sugar to fiber. Crooked media listeners have heard great things about ZBiotics pre alcohol probiotic. Now there's an exciting new product to help with everyday challenges. Let's face it, it's tough to always eat a balanced diet. Extra sugar is found in so many foods, and no matter how hard I try, I'm not eating as much fiber as I'd like. Enter sugar to fiber probiotic mix. The PhD microbiologists over at ZBiotics understand that extra sugar is all but impossible to avoid these days. And 95% of Americans don't get enough fiber. So they genetically engineered a probiotic to convert some extra sugar from our everyday diet into a prebiotic fiber called Levin. This leads to a more balanced microbiome, the key to a healthy gut. One stick pack of sugar to fiber, and you will get a daily dose of fiber from the foods you already eat. Drinking sugar to fiber is an easy way to bring more fiber into your diet without having to make major additions to what I eat every day. With other issues on my mind. Sugar to Fiber can help me achieve my goals without going out of my way, and it helps move me towards a healthier outcome. Even if I'm not making the perfect choices in 2025, I'm prioritizing my microbiome. Sugar to Fiber is daily insurance that fiber is on the checklist. Go to ZBiotics.com assembly and use assembly at checkout for 15% off of any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. ZBiotics has a 100% money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money, no questions asked. Thank you zebiotics for sponsoring this episode, in addition to the excellent reporting from both of you on the subject. And I can't thank you enough for just how thoughtful you've both been about this. And I encourage folks to go and look up all of your writings on this. What are other resources that you recommend that our listeners go to to stay up to date and informed? Because like so much, things are moving fast. And I'm going to go with you, Annie.
- [48:56]
Annie Lowrey
First, it's so hard because sorry not to like push the I'm, I'm often, I'm like, if you have any option to just put your head in the sand and go outside and touch grass and try not to absorb what's going on, I think it might be better for your long term mental health to do that. But one nice thing, I guess, about watching crypto legislation go through the House and the Senate is that it is going to take some time and there is going to be a lot of lobbying. And so that process, I think, is not going to be lightning fast in the way that we've seen some other executive actions be.
- [49:32]
Zeke Fox
The crypto world is kind of impenetrable by design and it's so full of jargon that is frankly not worth your time to try to understand. And I would say, like I spent years going all around the world trying to answer this question. It can't really be this dumb, as dumb as it seems, is it? And what I would say after investigating a giant crypto bubble in the Philippines and crypto fueled human trafficking in Cambodia, I've realized that not only is it even dumber than I ever imagined, but it actually has a lot of bad effects on the real world. But I would say the crypto guys always say do your own research. And I would say it's honestly kind of a dangerous thing. Some of these ideas are superficially appealing and I would say, before you get involved with this, really watch out and look at what's happened to the last three crypto bubbles.
- [50:46]
Stacey Abrams
So I'm going to summarize both of you with this. Crypto is dumb, but dumb is dangerous. And what we need to do is keep paying attention to the people in charge and letting them know that we don't want them to do dangerous, dumb things to our country. Does that make sense? Perfect.
- [51:04]
Zeke Fox
I like it.
- [51:06]
Stacey Abrams
Zeke, Fox, Annie, thank you both so very much for being on this episode of Assembly Required.
- [51:16]
Annie Lowrey
Thanks for having me.
- [51:18]
Zeke Fox
Thanks a lot, Stacy.
- [51:19]
Stacey Abrams
Absolutely. As always on Assembly Required, we like to give our audience actionable tools for facing the challenges of today. So here's this week's toolkit in which we encourage you, as always, to be curious, solve problems, and do good. So first, if you want to learn more about cryptocurrency and its newly entwined relationship with our government, check out both Annie and Zeke's work at Bloomberg and the Atlantic. Number two, if you're considering or know someone else who is thinking of investing in cryptocurrency or other high risk assets, please encourage them to prioritize safety. Invest in what you understand, as Zeke pointed out, and avoid following trends blindly. Always research companies, funds or assets before committing your money and encourage other people in your life to do the same, especially those who may be the most vulnerable to financial losses. It's not worth the danger. And three, start asking questions of your elected officials. Since we're showing up in their inboxes and at their town halls, let's put them to the test. Ask about their positions on crypto and pay attention to how they respond. Yes, we have a number of urgent issues, but we can't afford to let this one escape our attention or theirs. Remember, you can find the toolkit recommendations online for each topic because we know it's hard to remember everything, especially if you're listening on the go. So on the podcast website, click View Episode for all the details. And if you're watching the show on YouTube@YouTube.com assemblyrequiredpodcast just expand the episode description and you will find recommendations to learn more and do more. I am delighted to welcome Farrah back to the show.
- [53:15]
Farrah
Hi Stacy, excited to be back on. So before we dive into this week's listener question, I want to talk a little bit about cultural diversity. So we're nearing the end of Black History Month and as a Black woman, I do my best to celebrate it to my fullest extent every single year. Which looks anything like me going to a museum or an art installation that has an emphasis on like black culture or honestly, just having like picnic with my friends in the park. But I feel this year the celebration of blackness, black history and black culture was extra important to me. We're coming off the heels of a black woman losing the presidential election to a man who has been publicly racist and sexist, who has also spent months of his presidency rolling back civil rights and DEI policies and programs, which you discussed in an incredible episode with Kenji Yoshino, which everyone should go listen to right after this. So my question is a two parter. How do we continue to celebrate the diversity and difference of people in the world, especially in the United States, when people of color are actively being pitted against each other in this administration? And my second question, which is a little more lighthearted, is what are your favorite black owned businesses that people can support all year round?
- [54:24]
Stacey Abrams
Vera, thank you for the question. And I know it's particularly salient as we end Black History Month, which has been decommissioned basically by this administration or at least, least actively ignored, unless it's to his benefit. But the role of a president should not overshadow the role of the people. And your question is exactly right. We can celebrate diversity and difference by actually talking about it. They can only pit us against each other if we agree to fight each other and we don't have to. We can celebrate one another, we can lift up each other's cultures, we can lift up our differences and be intentional about saying why we're doing it. When I was in the state legislature, I was there at a time there was only one Latino who was a Democrat and he often had to go to the well to speak about every issue that engaged the conversation of the Hispanic population. And I didn't think that was right. And so I made it my business to always speak up when he was going to have to speak up. That was a small thing to do, but it was critically important to me because he needed to know that even if he was just one, he was not alone. This is a moment where we have the responsibility of community, because the best way to celebrate diversity and difference is to build community using those differences as the thing that binds us together. That's what I try to do every day. That's what this podcast is about, that's what my work is about. And what we cannot do is let an administration that only has four years take away what we've managed to build in this country over the last 250. Now, your second question about my favorite black owned businesses I will tell you I am a fan of Actively black. It's a small business that creates incredibly comfortable athleisure wear. In fact, I'm wearing their pants. And it gives back to their community in meaningful ways. And if you live here in Georgia, I want you to try out the boutique Squash Blossom, which is in Decatur. They make amazing stuff. It's really fun to visit. Also, if you'd like a directory of many black owned businesses, visit the directory at byblack Us. That is by B L A C K us. So thank you, thank you, thank you for asking the question.
- [56:50]
Farrah
Yeah, of course. Well, actually, I'm really excited about the Athleisure brand because I'm in my hot yoga era, so this is gonna be really fun for me. And I will buy all of their clothing.
- [56:59]
Stacey Abrams
There you go.
- [57:00]
Zeke Fox
Okay.
- [57:00]
Farrah
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. This week's listener question comes from Chloe, who emailed us last week. So, Chloe is a green card resident and she wrote in that she hears so many people like yourself say to contact your congressman to advocate for issues that matter to you. But she says that she's always been hesitant to do this because she's not sure if her voice or opinions would matter to a congressperson because she can't legally vote. She's also cautious of the political environment and scared to put her family at risk. So her question is, are there ways for non citizens to engage politically while not putting ourselves at risk?
- [57:37]
Stacey Abrams
Absolutely. And Chloe, thank you first for the question and for wanting to do something even though it feels dangerous. As a green card holder, you are here legally and you are impacted. You may not be able to vote, but I'm absolutely certain we have. You pay taxes, therefore your voice matters. It's taxation without representation that we oppose. And so you have the absolute right to call your congressperson, to call your city council member, to call your school board and make your opinion heard. You don't have to give them your citizenship status to say something out loud, but you should also be careful. And I think that's an important point to emphasize in this moment. Do not give information you don't need to give. Do not share details about your address. Sometimes we feel the best way to make people believe that we have the right to say something is to validate ourselves. You are validated because you're here. You're validated because you're speaking up on behalf of those who feel they have to be silent. And so be careful about the information you share. Except for your opinions, those you have the right to share well, amazing.
- [58:44]
Farrah
Thank you so much for that.
- [58:46]
Stacey Abrams
Absolutely. Well, Farrah, thank you once again for helping us dive into our listener questions. And thank you for being one of our listener questions yourself.
- [58:54]
Farrah
Yeah, of course. Well, see you next time.
- [58:56]
Stacey Abrams
Take care. Now, a reminder, we can be found wherever you get your podcast, including on YouTube. And if you want to tell us what you've learned or what you've solved, send us an email@assemblyrequiredirkit.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod. Our number is 213-293-9509. That wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Am meet you here next week. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a Crooked Media production. Our lead show producer is Ilona Minkowski and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco. Kiril Palaviv is our video producer. This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Our theme song is by Vasilius Fotopoulos. Thank you to Matt de Groat, Kyle Sec, Tyler Boozer, and Samantha Slosberg for production support. Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Herringer, and me, Stacey Abrams. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.