← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
Anthony Scaramucci EXPOSES Trump’s Shocking Bitcoin Plan!
00:56:54
Anthony Scaramucci EXPOSES Trump’s Shocking Bitcoin Plan!
Loading summary
Transcript91 lines
- [00:00]
Anthony Scaramucci
But let me just talk a few negatives, if you don't mind. I'm a fossil now in the industry, but Chuck Grassley's 600 years old, Nancy Pelosi's 400. We got to get that mojo back. You know, he tells people that Ukraine started the war and Russia, I guess didn't invade Ukraine. He's got his minions. If he listens to your podcast, probably going to be mad at me. I think you're a very clear thinking person and I get a lot of great insight from your show. Jeff Epstein list. Is Donald Trump on that list?
- [00:32]
Scott Melker
Zero percent chance.
- [00:33]
Anthony Scaramucci
You know, you don't think shit's going to happen your way until it starts happening.
- [00:37]
Scott Melker
Is Donald Trump a pro crypto president? I think you could argue that the people that he's put in place are all pro bitcoin and pro crypto, that his policies are likely to be so. But on the flip side, you have things like the Trump token that gives skeptics a lot of room to speak. Well, today I spoke with one of the most honest and direct people in the industry, Anthony Scaramucci, about all things Trump, whether he is pro bitcoin, pro crypto, about his economic policies, and of course, about the market and crypto in general. You never miss a conversation with the mooch people. Listen in now, let's do. You know, we have, obviously we've been critical of, of Trump politically. We know where you stand on that. But zooming in specifically on crypto, he obviously, in advance of the election, made a very clear pivot to be the candidate that was supporting the industry. We can talk about whether that was genuine or a political maneuver and then perhaps talk about his appointments and what he's done since then. Because I think that you agree that a lot of his appointments have been exceptionally, probably bullish for the industry.
- [02:01]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, well, look, let's be balanced. I'm not just saying, look, bitcoin would probably be 55, 60,000 if Harris was elected. It would have never gotten to the 108 level. You would have been fighting with them over things like Saab121. You would have been fighting with them over various things. Elizabeth Warren would still be in power. Coward. She's been effectively neutered by Donald Trump. So that's a real positive for the industry. I think the choke point issue, the choke point 2.0 issue, I think, is also a big one. I think that is going to get resolved during Trump's time in office, which I think is beneficial. And so there are positives but let me just talk a few negatives, if you don't mind. Okay. The negative number one for me is don't underestimate the introduction of the Trump and Melania meme coins having a negative effect on the industry, having a negative effect on the imagery around meme coins. And, you know, there are reasons why we've sold off the hack is one of the big reasons. But also, this proliferation of meme coins has soured retail investors and has put a lot of junk in the marketplace. And so on the edge, the differential price has gone down because of this stuff. Trump is a contributor to that. His, his friends won't want me to say that, but he is. Moreover, he took 500 million out for himself a few days before the inauguration. That's not normal. That's not normal for people that we're bestowing that office on to do to the American people. He's normalized it, Scott, but it's not normal. And remember that you've got people in Washington that are even older than me. I'm a fossil now in the industry, but Chuck Grassley's 600 years old, Nancy Pelosi's 400.
- [03:59]
Scott Melker
They don't have your hair, though. They don't have your hair.
- [04:01]
Anthony Scaramucci
I still have my hair, thank God. But the point I'm making is you've got 60, 70, 80 and even 90 year olds making regulatory decisions and going to put their names up against a vote related to stablecoin legislation, blockchain legislation, bitcoin related. And the Trump meme coin doesn't help us win that argument. Okay, so you have the positives and you have the negatives. And I'll end with a. I'll end with a positive. The Democrats have had the living scared out of them. They had $250 million deployed into the marketplace, 40 million into the Sherrod Brown race. They knocked a 18 year veteran out of the Senate. And thankfully they did that because he was so negative on crypto. And I think the Democrats are like, whoa, we can't be that anti crypto. And I think you'll end up definitionally getting a piece of stablecoin legislation. Clarity on banking, clarity on custody. And so these are positives. But listen, if you're gonna tariff the American consumer, which Trump says he's going to do, and he tells people that Ukraine started the war and Russia, I guess, didn't invade Ukraine, he's got his minions saying that, and he's telling people that the tariffs are paid for by the countries, which it's not they're paid for at the port by the American consumer and what we know. And if you don't believe me, let's go with one of the richest people I know, Steve Cohen from Point72, macro investor, multibillionaire, owner of the New York Mets, one of the smartest minds in our industry. He's telling people last week, tariffs are a regressive tax and they eat into the disposable income of the poor and they create a vicious cycle which could potentially lead to a recession. So that's not good for bitcoin. It's not good for the blockchain for us to go into a recession right now. So to me, you got this stuff going on co temporaneous with everything else. So, yeah, it's a mixed bag. But I think that, you know, we tried. I mean, Scott, you were there. I went to Washington, met with Anita Dunn, was in the White House with these people with Mark Cuban, begging them to go a little less hard at the industry, begging them to be a little bit more enlightened about the industry, and they wouldn't listen. And so now Donald Trump won. And again, it wasn't just that. It was the inflation and it was the lack of intergenerational transfer of leadership by the Democrats, a failed narrative. You know, Harris was going up the most up against the most famous person in the world at the time of the election. And, and there's a lot of angst in the country. There's angst about the border, angst about inflation, angst about the economy. And he won the popular vote. So, you know, we're here now. I get, I get it. But I am worried. I'm not going to say that I'm not worried. And I was with Tom Lee yesterday and I got people upset with me because I'm telling them this is what, this is what happens when you put tariffs on. And by the way, Glass Steagall exacerbated the recession that led into a depression in the 1929-1934 period of time.
- [07:26]
Scott Melker
Steve Cohen's not the only person who's been critical of tariffs, kind of famously. Ken Griffin, I just brought up the quote from my vantage point, the bombastic rhetoric. The damage has already been done. And it's a huge mistake to resort to this form of rhetoric when you're trying to drive a bargain because it sears into the minds of CEOs and policymakers that, yes, such and such, but obviously we have quite a few of the biggest names, smartest, most respected people on Wall street saying that this is a poor strategy. So I guess, do we think that him approaching the rest of the world in this manner with tariffs has been part of the reason for this sort of drawdown in crypto? I also point to the Trump token. I want to dig more deeply into that. But in context of the macro, do we think that his economic policies could actually end up being bad for crypto, even though he's obviously pro crypto and we could see legislation and pro crypto regulators? Obviously we've seen that already. So how do we find the balance there? Which one is going to carry more weight?
- [08:25]
Anthony Scaramucci
So I think that his policies are hurting the overall stock market. I think the people are now pricing in a mild to maybe more than mild recession. I love bitcoin. You know, I love bitcoin, Just wrote a book about bitcoin. I don't see bitcoin as a store of value at this moment. I think it can become a store of value as it's adopted by the world's citizens and it's at a 6, 7% adoption rate right now. So it's still very nascent. Bitcoin is still. And people get mad at me. But just tell you what, I think it's still a risk asset. It's still a technology that needs to be more fully understood by its critics. And it's still something that is going to be extremely volatile. And I would Compare it to web one stocks like Amazon, which experienced 50, 60% moves up or down over long periods of time before it eventually seasoned and became part of the foundational structure of the S&P 500, where now it has the same beta of the overall stock market. But in the beginning it didn't. And so bitcoin's there and so risk off for Bitcoin, plus a hack in the system at Bybit, plus concerns about meme coins and the exhaustion of the gambling of that that's taken place in retail. And you've created a 20ish percent, 25% correction in Bitcoin and a 40 to 40, 60% correction in other coins. Let's call them altcoins and the big daddy Ethereum and the second Big Daddy Solana, you know, they've been smacked around hard here as a result of all this. But again, again, if you said to me net net, will the team that Trump put in place from a regulatory perspective and from a potentially legislative perspective be beneficial to Bitcoin and the blockchain? I believe they will be. But up against that if you're going to fight with your allies. And you're going to put misinformation out in the marketplace from the White House that the Ukrainians started the war. And you're going to vote with the Chinese and you're going to vote with the Russians at the UN against your allies. I think it's very naive to think that you haven't raised the risk premium and you haven't raised the level of unpredictability in the marketplace. So let me just say this to you, and I think you get this. I'm 36 years doing this. Markets like stability. They like predictability. They like governments that are in the background. Okay? They don't like governments that are gnashing their teeth all day. It just creates too much stress, you know. You know, Donald Trump is having a press briefing almost every day in the Oval Office. He's got lights, cameras, microphones. He's running the presidency like a reality show. And what do you get in reality shows? You get conflict. And so Trump had a 15 year reality show, very well rated reality shows. Bang, boom, smash, let's have some conflict. And so Trump's trying to create that. It draws people's attention. You know, he's taken in 35 days just over a thousand questions from the press. I think in four years, Joe Biden took 150 questions. Now he's spewing nonsense, but he's quote, unquote, accessible. But this is all part of the whole programming nature of it. You have to think about it as Trump does. He thinks about it as a programmer. I'm a programmer. What can I do to create potential conflict? What can I do to get people riled? Is that great for Bitcoin?
- [12:16]
Scott Melker
No.
- [12:16]
Anthony Scaramucci
What would be great for Bitcoin is a moderate politician who sees the future of this technology, sees the wonderful applications that this technology could yield in terms of cost savings, which could unleash economic innovation and lots of growth. It would be literally like a second piece dividend, if you will, for the world. $7 trillion globally per year is spent on transaction verification. That's your credit card fees, wire fees, your lawyers getting together to make sure that your documents are okay. On a transfer of property, transfer of art, there's $7 trillion spent per year. And this would cut that. This would make that, this would make that go into the economy, the way the Internet cut a lot of the friction in the economy. And it unleashed a lot of productivity gains. So look, I mean, moderate politician, not left or right, said, what are the right or wrong things to do as opposed to left or Right. For bitcoin and the blockchain, we would be way better off. But we're here now. We're here.
- [13:27]
Scott Melker
So the Trump Token obviously launched in mid January. You mentioned it before. It's been effectively down only for Solana since that time. Right. So we can point to the broader trends in the market, but clearly Solana, which was being viewed as the Meme Coin casino, has suffered since that day. Whether a causation or correlation, we can discuss. But the Trump Token was launched, you know, days before the inauguration. He sort of threaded the needle in this time after Gary Gensler, before there was any new regulation and taking advantage of the Meme Coins or collectibles sort of ethos that exists in crypto. But Trump was bad. Melania was worse. I was one of the most critical people of this publicly, much to the, you know, to the dismay of the community. But my first take was this is probably good for crypto because it brings new people in, but terrible for humanity. I quickly revised that to bad for crypto. Bad for humanity. Right.
- [14:23]
Anthony Scaramucci
So again, you know, you, this is why you and I mean, look, I can't say that you like me, but I genuinely like you and I follow you around because I think you're a very clear thinking person and I get a lot of great insight from your show and I heard you saying all this stuff and not only did I agree with you, I said from day one it was bad for the industry because it sullies the industry and it gives you this backdrop of haze in dealing with older people that are going to make regulatory decisions. So wait a minute. The President of the United States is going to grift $500 million off his followers days before the inauguration? This whole industry must suck. Let me vote no on the regulation and the promise of the industry, but let's go to Solana for a second. Solana peaks three days after the Trump Meme Coin is handling the transaction activity pretty well. Maybe it slowed down, maybe it broke once, but it was tremendous volume of activity on Solana. So in a positive way, showing the capability and the sturdiness of Solana, it peaks at 293. Okay, I just want you to think about that for a second. And so it's at 293 on January 19, 2025, few days after the meme coins launched. It's at 137 now. So we cut it to ribbons. We're down 55%. I don't know, is that good for the industry? I don't think it's Good for the industry. And by the way, Solana's up on the year. And so if you're measuring Solana from year over year, we've done very well. It's up 28, 30% on the year now and it's certainly up from the 10 or 12 that you and I saw it post FTX. And so, you know, if you're holder, long term holder of Solana, you've done well. But here's what happens. You get a chop, my brother, because people will come in at 290, they get hit, they start selling and then you get a churn down and then you get an oversold position in Solana. I'm a long term holder, I don't care. I'm going to shut my eyes and I'm going to look at it five years from now. But you don't need this type of damage and this type of brain damage. It slows down development, it slows down application, it slows down regulation. And, but, but here's something I would tell your viewers and listeners and never forget this with Donald Trump, you get the entire buffet table, Scott. You're force fed the whole table. You can't go up to the table with your little dish and say, you know, I would like those tax cuts. Could you give me a half a scoop of deregulation? I like that pro crypto narrative. I'll take that on the plate. No, no, no. You get the grift, you get the tariffs, you get that Governor TRUDEAU in the 51st state, you get the threatened takeover of Greenland and the Panama Canal and you get that the Ukrainians started the war versus Russia and you get the demeaning rhetoric towards our allies and you get the vote with the Russians and the Chinese at the UN So in other words, you get the whole buffet table. You're force fed everything at the table. You don't just get what you like. And I think people are going to get tired of it. You know, we're 35 days in. I think people are going to be like, this is just a little bit too much. It's just crazy. And by the way, he's weakening the judiciary, he's weakening the legislative branch. And if anybody here thinks you're going to get the full Epstein list from Pam Bondi, you know, there's crack dens in East Harlem that you could hang out in or, you know, you can smoke crystal meth somewhere because you're not going to get that. You know that and I know that.
- [18:26]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I agree. So what I want to drill into more even than the Solana price action, which I agree to you with you. Obviously, you know, a near 60% drop in five or six weeks damaging for any asset. It's not what any of us want to see, and we're seeing this kind of across the board with altcoins. But you've mentioned over and over again the retail perception of what happened with Trump. Right. I think we all agree that retail is not really participating in crypto right now. Those who were likely got washed out on Trump and Melania, or even Libra or Meme coins in general, have seen the altcoin positions they did buy drop 50, 60% in a matter of weeks, even seen their bitcoin positions drop. You're on Wall street, you're talking to institutional investors every single day. We have a sentiment that institutional investors have been somewhat blind to that side of the market. Are those things that you feel like you have to answer for when you're having conversations with big institutions about either investing in skybridge, looking at your performance, whether they're going to start purchasing Bitcoin spot ETFs, like, do we have this bifurcation of Bitcoin and everything else as a joke? I just, I'm curious how much you're having to sort of answer for it in your conversations or if it's more of a retail focused issue.
- [19:42]
Anthony Scaramucci
I would say that it's a retail focused issue. I would say that when I'm in the marketplace talking to institutions or I'm out with guys at BlackRock that put together this wonderful PowerPoint presentation that they're using to explain to people that they need to own some of this. And I would say that the sovereigns, some of which have already announced that they own some, some of these positions in the etf. I would say that it's understood from the first Trump administration that unfortunately with Donald Trump, we're going to get this noise and this petulance and this nonsense. And so then the real question is, is this a real asset class that I need to be a part of? Do I understand this asset class well enough now to be a part of it? And I would say to you, on the increment, the slope of that is moving in the direction that you and I would like $450 million into Mubadala, couple hundred million dollars into the state of Wisconsin, other players are in the game. You mentioned Ken Sit, Ken Griffin at Citadel. Ken has said to people, I've got to go where the puck is. I got to start making markets in this asset known as bitcoin. And so when I hear that, and I listen to Larry Fink and I listen to Ray Dalio and I listen to Abigail Johnson from Fidelity and Jenny Johnson from Franklin Templeton, no relation, both named Johnson, I say that the institutional age is upon us and it'll happen quickly. And you're going to be staring down the barrel of $200,000 bitcoin by this time next year. And people are like, no, we shouldn't be that it got whacked from 108 to 84. Imagine you and I a few years ago saying, oh, we're really upset, Scott. We crashed a year ago, okay? We crashed from 108 to 84. Or imagine when I was getting my, you know, Watt kicked from Sam Bankman fried, and Bitcoin was at 12,000, and thankfully I held every bitcoin and actually added to it, and now it's crashing down to 84,000. So, I mean, to me, people got to take a chill. They got to understand the nature of the. The asset. And then you have to ask yourself, is this asset what I think it is? Is this asset a form of digital gold long term? Is this asset an immutable, fully decentralized, fully transparent spreadsheet that's accessible to everybody? Is this asset for the underbanked? Is this a populous asset? Is this an institutional asset? Is this what Saylor calls it, the operating software? The operating software for money in the future? And if it is, then you got to sit tight and you got to ride it out and you got to let the governments and you got to let the institutions catch up. But I think the noise in the marketplace is scaring retail investors more than it is institutions at this point.
- [22:55]
Scott Melker
I recall a previous conversation where you told me your Larry Fink story because I asked you if he had truly been orange peeled or if he was just, you know, as you sort of said, skating to where the puck was. There was obvious money to be made in this groundswell around it. You basically told this incredible story about going to the Four Seasons. He told you you were an idiot. And then he came around a couple years later, truly orange pilled. How do you view a Ken Griffin.
- [23:19]
Anthony Scaramucci
Who'S coming in and saying almarion Island? I can tell you exactly where it was. It was during Abu Dhabi Finance Week. We were standing in the lobby together. And I give. I give him a lot of credit. I think I said to you in that podcast, this is a real leader. Real leaders change their opinion as facts are unfolding or they get More knowledge about something. Right. You know, you know, when Galileo figured out we were rotating around the sun and we weren't in a geocentric position where the Earth and everything was moving around the Earth, he spoke about it. Now the real leadership would have embraced it. The Pope told me he needed to apologize. You know, I think Fink is a real leader. I have a lot of respect for him.
- [24:04]
Scott Melker
So what about the Jamie Dimons and the Ken Griffin? So we obviously see what Jamie Dimon says, but we see what J.P. morgan does. Right. And they're very heavily invested in this market, offering it to their wealthy clients, obviously utilizing the technology. And now you have Ken Griffin from Citadel saying, we're going to make markets in this space. Making markets smells to me of, and not in a negative way, but we need to be in there because there's money to be made and somebody has to do it. That doesn't seem like the Larry Fink, orange pilled school of bitcoin thought. And maybe Jamie Dimon is the same and just hates it, but wants to make money on it. But these other leaders of these huge institutions, do you think they go full fink or do you think that they're just here for the money?
- [24:49]
Anthony Scaramucci
Well, it's probably a combination of both. But I mean, let me, let me give you my personal observation because I know these people. I think in Jamie's case, one of the smartest people I know in the world of financial services, arguably the most successful financial services CEO, but he's under tremendous regulatory scrutiny. And so him being negative, saying that he's negative on bitcoin while pursuing a bitcoin research, bitcoin growth, bitcoin tokenization, JP Morgan coin and doing all this stuff for the blockchain at the same time. I don't think it's that bad of a strategy. If I was his chief political officer, I would say, stay, stay right where you are, Jamie. There's no reason for you to do anything different. Moreover, Jamie's out there praising Doge. Jamie's out there praising Trump. Jamie's a lifelong Democrat. I think he's very smart, quite corporate operative. And he's like, why do I need to get into a fight with Elon Musk or Donald Trump at this stage of my career? Or, or why do I need to put pressure on my company? It's a very, very successful, if not the most successful American bank in U.S. history. So that's Jamie. He may dislike bitcoin.
- [26:01]
Scott Melker
He's well hedged.
- [26:02]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yes, he may dislike bitcoin, but the Flip side is he's not stupid. He's smart enough to know that bitcoin has a future. At this point, I think zero's off the table. Ken is a different story. I think Ken built a business. You have to be very careful when you're Ken Griffin, because if you've built this amazing business, okay, let's say you're the biggest typewriter manufacturer in the world, and you're manufacturing these great electric typewriters, and you're sending them everywhere, and then all of a sudden, this word processing system comes into place. It's very, very hard to shoot the typewriter business. Just very, very hard. Steve Jobs, he was asked something. I think it was 2008, maybe 2009. He killed a very successful product called the ipod. You remember the ipod. You're old enough, of course. And so what the hell did you do? Why'd you kill the ipod? He said, well, I had to. I shot the ipod and I put it in the iPhone, because if I didn't do it, somebody else was going to do it. And these are brilliant business leaders, brilliant business executives that are adapting. And so this man has built a great business on stocks, clearing them, trading them lightning fast, electronic trading, et cetera. He's built a hedge fund business, and he's a brilliant guy. But now there's a new world, and he's got to embrace the new world, and I applaud him for seeing it. Now, he may be a skeptic, because I started as a skeptic, Scott. If you met me in 2018, 2019, I thought, oh, you know what I would have said to you? Ready? You'll love this cliche. Ready? I would have said, oh, I hate bitcoin, Scott, but the blockchain has promise. Jamie, what's that?
- [27:53]
Scott Melker
That's Jamie Dimon.
- [27:54]
Anthony Scaramucci
These days, when I hear that, when I hear, oh, I hate bitcoin, but the blockchain. Bitcoin, no. Blockchain, yes. I'm like, okay, this son of a bitch is seven years later than me to the starting block. That's what I hear when somebody says that. So. So that, you know, I don't. I don't blame these guys. I mean, they've made fortunes in the typewriter business. And so now they've got word processing. They got to make an adjustment.
- [28:21]
Scott Melker
So the adjustment starts with incorporating it into their core business. Obviously, market making. Just, you know, that's free money, obviously providing a tight. A tight spread. But at what point does a citadel then start to view it as a fundamentally important Asset class and maybe start to incorporate the technology itself. Because on the one that's an opportunity to make a bunch of money, it's another asset. There's volume, right, Easy. But on the other, it's, oh, crap, this is peer to peer transacting. There's not going to be third parties like us in between. There's going to be immediate settlement and not T plus one. And this disrupts our core business. Right. Is this like Kodak and the digital camera comes along and Kodak doesn't react?
- [29:03]
Anthony Scaramucci
Kodak invented it. Yeah, Kodak invented it. They told the scientists that Kodak put that away. We're selling the film. Kodak invented the digital camera. Let me. Let me flip it back to you for a second. Okay? You're a man that owns Bitcoin, and if I told you right now Bitcoin is going to trade to 50,000 or 150,000, are you honestly going to be surprised by either of those two prices?
- [29:28]
Scott Melker
Not even if it was next month.
- [29:29]
Anthony Scaramucci
Okay, Right. In the next 10 trading days. Okay. But if you're Ken Griffin and you made your money through market making, you made your money through gradualism, and you made your money through hedge bets around the world, and you looked at an asset that had that bandwidth, you may not be as comfortable with it as you or I are, right? You, you, you. You're looking at that saying, okay, I get that that's going to go 50 to 150 on its way to 450. And I just have to be patient. The world's going to see what I see. You know, I was, I was at. I was at breakfast. If he listens to your podcast, probably going to be mad at me. I was at breakfast with Sean Ford. Do you know Sean Ford is.
- [30:13]
Scott Melker
I don't know Sean.
- [30:14]
Anthony Scaramucci
Okay. Sean Ford was one of the early investors in Al Have a position there. And I said to Sean, you and I see something, okay? But I don't see myself as the smartest person in the room. In fact, I know I'm not the smartest person in the room. And I said to Sean, you and I see something. There's some really smart people that don't see it. Warren Buffett, this guy's ba ba. A lot of guys don't see it. So then are we stupid or are they stupid? Or what do we see that they don't see? And why do we see it and they don't see it? Okay, so you want to hear what he said?
- [30:49]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I'd love to.
- [30:50]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah. He said that sometimes in life, you don't want to overthink something. Sometimes in life, you see something in its simplicity. This is something Sailor said to me. He said, you know, when I finally got the satoshi white paper, it was so elegant and it was so simple. It's like, okay, this can't be this. It's. This is too good to be true. Anthony, I've received the final exam, answers to the final exam. It's two days before college graduation. I've got all the answers to the test two nights before the exam. That's the satoshi white paper. And so sometimes you can be so smart, Scott Melker, that you could overthink something and it may require you not to be that smart. You may need to be just seeing the obvious for what it is and accepting it as obvious.
- [31:49]
Scott Melker
Do you think that that is what Trump and his family have seen? Or circling back to that, and do you think that that's why he became so bullish on the asset class and why he continues to talk about it and put people in place place who are bullish around it? Or do you think that it's more of the ability to make money? I thought that they were a little more on board before the Trump token, by the way. And then the Trump token kind of changed. Changed my opinion. But you do have World Liberty Financial that is still strategically buying a number of assets across the asset class. And to his credit, as I said, the people he's putting in power largely do understand this asset class and are bullish on it or invested in it themselves.
- [32:34]
Anthony Scaramucci
So I was at the bitcoin event in Mena. I was. I don't know. You were there.
- [32:39]
Scott Melker
I missed it. I was supposed to go for Formula one in Abu Dhabi, but, yeah, I didn't make it.
- [32:43]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, I know you and I were at token 2049 together in Singapore, but I was there and I actually stayed to hear Eric Trump's speech. You know, I spoke after him, actually. I got there early and I listened to Eric Trump's speech. And I would say to you, again, I'm being objective. Whatever my like or dislike for Eric's father, I would say to you that he does get it. The speech that he gave is something that somebody that's actually looked at it and understands it. I would see Eric as a bitcoiner. Donald Trump, I think, is a different beast. I think Donald Trump, again, like or dislike him. He's very politically astute. He has great. And again, like or dislike him, he has got great sense for politics. He's got Great political instincts. And he saw an opening. One side hated bitcoin. And there was a group of very smart people, the Winklevoss's, Mike Novogratz picked the people. Pick the people. And he said, wait a minute. These super smart people like it. These guys don't like it. What am I missing? Wait a minute. They're going to light me up with hundreds of millions of dollars. I like it. And Trump, is that transactional? I don't like TikTok. I want to ban TikTok. He got 81 Republicans to vote against TikTok and have it banned. They came to see him. They switched the algorithm to benefit him. I like TikTok. What do you say to the 80 guys you left? You know what I mean? So that's Trump. He's a shark moving through the water, and he's very, very transactional. And he said something at the bitcoin conference in Nashville. I met the both of them. I went to the one in Mena in Abu Dhabi, one in Nashville. He said something at the end of his speech. It literally almost laughed out loud when he said it. He said, and I quote, have fun with your bitcoin. Do you remember him saying that?
- [34:30]
Scott Melker
I think have fun playing with your bitcoin.
- [34:33]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, yeah, something. Have fun playing with your bitcoin. And so this tells you everything you need to know. It's like, guys, fuck off. I don't really give a shit. You're with me, I'm with you. Right. And so the question is, could he get changed? Could he get influence to be against it? And I don't think the. I don't. I don't think we 100% know, but I think the answer is no. If you asked me to guess.
- [35:00]
Scott Melker
Too much money on the other side, Even with the most cynical view.
- [35:03]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, yeah. And I think there's too many people in his field of vision that like it, you know?
- [35:09]
Scott Melker
So let's take him out of the equation, then. We have Atkins at the SEC. Right? Likely. And we've already seen now what the SEC is doing it. Actually, we're recording here on Thursday, February 27th. And as we're recording, the SEC just dropped their case against consensus. I don't know if you saw that, but in a week when they've also dropped against Robin Hood, Unis Swap, Gemini Coinbase last week.
- [35:30]
Anthony Scaramucci
Ripple.
- [35:30]
Scott Melker
Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, we know that the sec.
- [35:33]
Anthony Scaramucci
I'm hoping they drop the case against Kraken because I'm. I'm tight with those guys and I like Those guys.
- [35:38]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I'm hoping that that's all coming as well. So clearly, you know, the SEC, Hester purse overturned SAB121. She puts a committee together, they're dropping all these enforcement actions. Seems that they're going to be focused on fraud and not what is or is not a security. So that has to be regardless of whether it's Trump or not, because of the people moving into the sec. A huge net positive for crypto percent obviously was an owner of crypto. Is it treasury you got? Whether we agree with tariffs or not, we know that Lutnik is a fan of bitcoin. He's an investor in Tether. It seems that every position, whether financially related or not, RFK and Health and Human Services right across the board are people who are pro bitcoin one way or another and who are legitimately pro bitcoin, have done the work, not tourists. So that seems to be a massive tailwind for the industry.
- [36:27]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, I accept that. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think all of that is really good. And I think that, you know, that would have never happened under Harris. Never. And Gary Gensler, he may have been at the SEC or left the sec. He would have had a lot of influence on the process. And I maintain, viciously maintain this, that those two, Gensler and Warren were tied to the Bankman Fried family and they were really helping Sam. And when Sam blew up, in order to eclipse the potential media attention against them carrying the Bankman Fried water, they went indiscriminately hard at the entire industry. And I'll tell you who shares that view because he stated it publicly on Fox Business and that's Scott Besant, the Secretary of the Treasury. He basically said as much as what I'm saying to you right now.
- [37:19]
Scott Melker
Interesting that Sam Bankman Fried then thinks there's a chance he could get pardoned by the Trump administration and his parents are out on the road trail trying to make that happen. It seems like his parents would not want to be shining a brighter light on themselves right now.
- [37:33]
Anthony Scaramucci
You know, it's a difficult push because, you know, Sam was anti Trump, the parents were anti Trump. They had political action committees very publicly facing progressive left leaning political action committees. But anything's possible in Trump world, you know, and I don't, I don't. Again, Sam, you know, is just a terrible thing that happened there. And I think his lack of checks and balances or whatever he did to influence negatively the FTX saga he's paying for. He's 25 years is being taken from his life. But, you know, just think about what's going on there. You know, the assets did recover. Anthropic was very valuable. Sui and Mistim Laz, very valuable. Lots of assets. Solana, very valuable. And it's just unfortunate that he was bookkeeping those things fraudulently. I'm not trying to make light of it. He's fraudulently bookkeeping these things in a way that hurt him because he had. If he had just done things in the right way, maybe he'd be worth $10 billion, not 50. But, I mean, what the hell? What the hell?
- [38:40]
Scott Melker
Saddest story, man. The guy owned the casino. The house always wins. All he had to do was keep running the casino.
- [38:45]
Anthony Scaramucci
Right, Exactly. You're saying it better than me and more simplistically. But, but I, I, to me, I'm. I'm shocked by what he did and how it went down.
- [38:52]
Scott Melker
Yeah. I mean, the most simplistic view is that he owned the house. The house always wins. But he decided to send the money from the house back to play on the tables at the. At the house. Right. And so Alameda was terrible at trading, but could have been very good at running the casino. It's a, It's. It's very sad. Do you foresee, with that in mind, it's always sort of been one of these people that flies too close to the sun, the main character in crypto who sort of explodes the industry or triggers a bear market or a downturn? Yeah, we washed a lot of that out last cycle, obviously. Do Kwon at Luna. Sam Mashinsky, Voyager went under. Not that there was any crime there, necessarily, but do you. Is there anything on your radar that concerns you now? A lot of people actually have said sailor. That doesn't concern me that much. But is there any sort of froth or anything that's coming up that you think could end up being a danger to the industry?
- [39:53]
Anthony Scaramucci
To me, it's the obvious things. I don't think I have anything sensational to say. If you said to me, could we do without these meme coins? I would be like, yeah, that would be really beneficial. The great irony there, and I know you know this, is that Gensler created a lot of these meme coins. They couldn't put through coins at the SEC that had real use cases, but meme coins, because of the way the law was written, the SEC really didn't have a lot of regulatory oversight about them, and he incentivized the meme coin mess, if you will. But I would Say to you there's nothing out there right at this second. I would also say to you something beautiful about bitcoin and the blockchain is we cracked it in 2022. We had trillions of dollars get spilled and yet there was no bailout, there was no TARP Money. Imagine if $2 trillion of market capitalization got taken out of the banking industry or the assets that the banks held went down 80%. Imagine these balance sheets getting crippled the way our industry got crippled. And it just speaks to the sturdiness, the anti fragility of the industry. But I want you to think about this before we go to another question or another idea. But Lynn Alden said something to me the other day and maybe she shared it with you. We developed an ability to speak to each other at the speed of light in the 1840s. That was when the first Morse code transmission took place. Yet in the 1840s, we were carrying our money by stagecoach. Okay, so we had silver or gold bars and a stagecoach. The messaging's moving at the speed of light. The money's moving by stagecoach. The money now moves at the speed of light alongside of the messaging. And that's what bitcoin and the blockchain did for our society. And the question is, will our leaders, will our governments, will our regulators catch up to that idea and get the rest of the world comfortable with it now? I think they will. You obviously think they will, which is why we're long the asset, despite the resistance that we see from the naysayers.
- [42:14]
Scott Melker
So you floated the idea obviously that Warren and Gensler were in bed with the bankman fried. We certainly know that whether they were or were not, they were the tip of the spear for the anti crypto army, which is a term that she coined herself. She's still the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Right. So I mean banking, there's a world. Certainly very rarely does one party hold both houses and the presidency at midterms. Right. Just very hard to govern. And to be consistent, I think a lot of people think the House would be more likely to go Democrat than the Senate. But there's a world. There's something I talked to John Deaton about recently where she becomes the head of the Senate Finance Committee. Again, if the Democrats flip the House, what does that look like after a year and a half or two years of deregulating, of a healthier industry, of all of these cases being dropped, of operation choke point 2.0 being over? What happens if she's back at the head?
- [43:14]
Anthony Scaramucci
So I'm going to be a little bit of a contrarian on this. Okay. I actually think she got the shit scared out of her. And I watched those debates, those Deaton Warren debates, they weren't the Lincoln Douglas debates, but I watched them. And I'm laughing because they asked her about her war on crypto, and she really couldn't answer it.
- [43:35]
Scott Melker
Not only that, she pretended there wasn't one.
- [43:38]
Anthony Scaramucci
Right. And then she said there was money laundering. Well, she said there wasn't a choke point 2.0, but she did say that bitcoin was a fountain of money laundering and illegal drug activity, blah, blah, blah. And of course, Deaton refuted it and she just looked like a fish out of water. But I think that that ship has sailed for them. I think that the Bankman Frieds are in the distance. I think that the Gilip brands and the Schumers, who I know personally and I've talked to, the way you and I are talking right now, although actually face to face, they want stablecoin legislation. They want clarity on banking and custody. They want to bring Bitcoin into the community of bipartisanship. And this is something I give Sachs a lot of credit for. You mentioned, like, people that I respect that are in the administration. David is one of them. David basically said, let's get this executive order to give us six months to examine Bitcoin. Because what I don't want to have happen is bitcoin becomes a political hot potato. It goes into the reserve, comes out of the reserve, depending on who's in office. There's nothing in our reserve right now that is political. Right. We have 27 different elements in our reserve, including lithium, petroleum, gold, rare earth materials, uranium. We have 27 different reserves. There's no Democrats saying, you know, I hate uranium. We got to get it out of the reserve, you know, or geez, well, we got, you know, the Republicans like oil. Let's remove it from the reserve. You follow what I'm saying?
- [45:18]
Scott Melker
Yeah, it's ridiculous in that context.
- [45:21]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah, it's ridiculous. And I think David is saying we don't want this to be Trump's bitcoin reserve. He comes out of office, the Democrat comes in and does what Joe Biden did at the border, blows up some good policy. Right. See, the problem is people dislike Trump so much that if he comes up with a good idea, ba boom, they hit him and they want to remove the idea. And so he doesn't want that, you know, and you know, Trump is right about certain things. You know, the Europeans have to spend more on their defense spending today. He is right about that. You know, Trump is right that we need to get a bigger commitment from them. He, you know, he's talking about a strategic bitcoin reserve. I think he's right about it. Perhaps you think he's right about it. I would like to see bitcoin in that reserve for lots of different reasons. I think it would bolster the dollar, strengthen the dollar. Stablecoin legislation that has real definition to it would bolster the dollar, Scott. And so, so I think the ship is sail for Warren. I don't, I don't think that's a dog fight that she wants to be in if she becomes the head of the Finance Committee now at this point, it was a losing fight for her. They could not find one anti crypto voter in a House or Senate race or the presidential race in 2024. You know, why did I vote for while I'm anti crypto? I voted for. No, didn't. It didn't happen. People vote for things got. Most of the time they don't vote against it.
- [46:53]
Scott Melker
Absolutely right. And I agree that it's become politically unpalatable and there's just no reason for them to die on that hill at this point. But I think it does. Does clearly, though, when you think about what could happen at the midterms, it feels like the Republicans need to get some of this legislation done politically for themselves. But for crypto now. Right. While there is some popularity, some push from the Democratic side, at least stablecoins, market structure, some of these basics, get them on the books. I think there's a lot of fear. People were actually bearish on Sachs's sort of view of the executive order because they wanted the reserve now. Right. Our echo chamber wants everything now. And so since we didn't get it in the first month of the presidency, they don't think it's going to happen. I think it's smart to take a measured strategy, but you also have a time limit on it.
- [47:51]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yeah. And by the way, let me ask you a question. I know it's your podcast. Let me ask you a question. Do you think we'll get a strategic bitcoin reserve?
- [47:58]
Scott Melker
I think there's a strong possibility we'll get some language that we won't sell what exists. I think it's an extreme long shot that the United States government will buy bitcoin right now. So I think that it's a nuanced question because if you view a reserve as let's not sell what we hold anymore, then I think 75% chance we get that. I think there's a sub 10% chance that the United States government starts actively buying bitcoin in the coming years.
- [48:24]
Anthony Scaramucci
Years. Okay.
- [48:27]
Scott Melker
All right.
- [48:27]
Anthony Scaramucci
But, I mean, that's a win for.
- [48:29]
Scott Melker
Wouldn't you say that it doesn't matter how many you buy. It matters that we say it. It's the signal that causes the game theory around the world with central banks and other governments. So that's just as impactful. Do you agree? I mean, what. How would you handicap.
- [48:41]
Anthony Scaramucci
I. I'm on. I mean, that's probably the most likely outcome. I'm probably. I don't know. Maybe I'm listening to the wrong people. I'm probably more optimistic than that. I actually think we may end up buying some bitcoin. I've spent some time with Senator Lummis and Tim Scott, and I've spent some time with people that really understand bitcoin and see it as a strategic reserve asset. If you read Jason Lowry's book software, which he got in sort of a little bit of trouble for, and it's now become a $300 paperback on Amazon because he's had to take it out of circulation. But if you read the book, you'd be like, okay, the US probably will want to own some of it, you know.
- [49:21]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I 100 agree. I just. You would know better than me, actually. I mean, if you're talking to them. I'm actually working on. On Lummis now. She's certainly in the position of power to push it through. Maybe I'm just one of those same people who. If it hasn't happened yet, somewhere in my mind, I have this bias that it's. It's not going to. I just can't imagine the, like, mental gymnastics for me of, you know, like, I'm a bitcoiner.
- [49:45]
Anthony Scaramucci
You're a bitcoiner. Yeah. You're like. You're like a Boston Red Sox fan during the curse. I mean, you don't think shit's going to happen your way until it starts happening.
- [49:54]
Scott Melker
It's called ptsd. It's a real thing. Right. But I think there's a lot of ways they could skin that cat. The notion that we would continue to print money to buy bitcoin is kind of. I see the irony in that. But if it's coming from somewhere else, perhaps kind of like the Texas proposal, if people could pay their taxes in bitcoin and the government held that. Pay their taxes on bitcoin and bitcoin There's a lot of ways the United States could accumulate Bitcoin without necessarily having to go into a major buying program.
- [50:23]
Anthony Scaramucci
Makes sense. But that still takes supply out of the marketplace and it still sends a single to people that we see this as a long term asset connected into the, again, the operating system for money. And the US would want to own a piece of that, I think.
- [50:39]
Scott Melker
Yeah, that's why I think the messaging is more important than the amount. Right. I mean, if we start a sovereign wealth fund, I would love your thoughts on that. What do you think of the United States starting a sovereign wealth fund? And could that be sort of a back door to a bitcoin reserve of sorts if they added bitcoin to the sovereign wealth fund?
- [50:57]
Anthony Scaramucci
Well, again, you're talking about borrowing money. And so the United States to create a sovereign wealth fund would have to borrow money. The proposal would be to figure out a way to create a $7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which would be the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. But also it would be consistent with what our GDP is.
- [51:17]
Scott Melker
Right.
- [51:18]
Anthony Scaramucci
Like in other words, if you look at Abu Dhabi or these other places, Singapore, you'd want, you know, the US would have to have multiples of trillions of dollars to have it have meaning. And I guess we have a cost of capital. You tell me it's between, depending on how we're borrowing, is between four and a quarter, 5%. And so let's call it a 4.5% cost of capital. You got to come up with some big money. You have to come up with a capital benchmark threshold that you need to make more of. And can you find $7 trillion worth of assets out there that you could make you make more of. And I would argue that it would come with volatility if you're going to make more than that because it's above the risk free rate of return. And, and so it gets dicey. If they're going to do it, they've got to come up with an idea and a story to create that threshold. Okay. So I'm not saying they're not going to do it. They've signed a executive order saying they're going to do it. Howard Lutnick is apparently going to run it. Run it. But how do you fund it? And so, and so to me, someone said to me, doge is going to be great. It's going to save us a trillion. I would actually prefer that it doesn't get dividended out to anybody. What gets into the bond market to pay off debt because if you pay off some of the debt, strengthens the dollar, healthier for the system, less crowding out. So we'll have to see what happens. But the Doge thing is recessionary. You have to know that it's austerity. Look at countries that go to austerity. Great Britain as an example. Austerity governments lead to slow growing economies. And so you want to pull 500 or a trillion dollars out of the federal budget. I gotcha. You know, I would freeze the goddamn thing before I pulled it, you know, because again, remember, if you had $4.5 trillion budget spending in 2019, it's now 7, you are taking in $4.5 trillion of tax revenue. So if you froze it or you lowered the expenditures, the growth of the expenditures, or you froze most of it and gave a half a percent increase on certain things, you could catch up if your economy continues to grow. So I think there's things you can do that represent economic gradualism as opposed to chainsaw. When I see Milei out there with the chainsaw and Mosque out there with the chainsaw, I'm like, guys, it's the United States. It's not Argentina. We don't need the chainsaw. Okay? Okay. And maybe we need something bigger than a scalpel, but it should be sharp like a scalpel.
- [54:04]
Scott Melker
Well, it's interesting because I think everybody, politics aside, should agree that Americans should know where their tax dollars are going and waste should be cut. But of course, we can't just do that in the normal and measured way that you just mentioned.
- [54:20]
Anthony Scaramucci
But I mean, that's what Clinton did, though. Clinton said, we're gonna cut it. He got Republicans and Democrats together, he had people look at it, and then he created a fair and judicial process inside the spirit of the Constitution and the democracy to cut it. Donald Trump and Elon. You know, Elon's tweeting today that if you're a really smart, mature air traffic controller, we're sorry we let you go, could you please come back to work? Okay, so that's utter and total ill planned chaos. And I'm telling you, that contributes to market anxiety and it raises the risk premium in the market.
- [55:00]
Scott Melker
Do you think they'd actually abolish the irs?
- [55:05]
Anthony Scaramucci
I mean, there's a lot of things that are going to happen. Let me ask you this. Do you think Trump's name is on Epstein's list?
- [55:11]
Scott Melker
Oh, yes. That doesn't mean he's done. I can't speak to what he did, but we know that they were friends and he Went to his island and.
- [55:20]
Anthony Scaramucci
Let me rephrase it. Let me rephrase it. The list that Pam Bondi is going to release from the Department of Justice, that is, quote, unquote, Jeff Epstein list. Is Donald Trump on that list?
- [55:33]
Scott Melker
Zero percent chance.
- [55:36]
Anthony Scaramucci
You and I or I. I mean, I don't even know the guy. You and I are. Higher likelihood to be on that list because, you know, I'm an antagonist to Trump, you know, and they'll want to find things to antagonize us back because that's what Trump wants them to do.
- [55:49]
Scott Melker
And I can't believe that we just burnt through an hour. It's always so much fun doing this. Anything I might have missed that you want to mention?
- [55:55]
Anthony Scaramucci
You're the man. I appreciate. I'm very grateful for you to bring me on. You're the man. And I'm on time. I'm in my office. I'm not in the back of a car.
- [56:03]
Scott Melker
I like the car interviews, though. It could be, you know, like, they have the car karaoke. We could do a car interview series. I think it'd be really good.
- [56:10]
Anthony Scaramucci
Sorry, something caught in my throat. But the car interviews at least were during a bull market, you know, they weren't.
- [56:16]
Scott Melker
That's right.
- [56:16]
Anthony Scaramucci
Was it when bitcoin Was going from 20,000 to 50,000? You were very happy to interview me in the car. You know, we got to get that mojo back. I don't like those prices anymore. I like the 80s now in the hundreds. But, yeah, let's get that mojo back.
- [56:31]
Scott Melker
Let's not do 50. All right, man. I'm looking forward to doing this next time.
- [56:34]
Anthony Scaramucci
Thanks, bro.
- [56:35]
Scott Melker
Hopefully, I will make it happen. Thanks so much.
- [56:36]
Anthony Scaramucci
All right, we'll see you soon, man. God bless. Let's do.