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Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve Plan Sparks Debate | Crypto Town Hall
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Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve Plan Sparks Debate | Crypto Town Hall
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- [00:01]
Scott
Morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. This is crypto town hall five days a week, every weekday, 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Holy crap. We have a headline today that is rocking the community, that has a lot of people scratching their heads, confused. It's sending bitcoin maximalists into an absolute mental gymnastics to figure out what's happened. The headline, if you missed it, this was coming from the New York Post. But reading from the block, Trump receptive to include US based coins in America first crypto reserve. Obviously, we've had a lot of conversation about the odds of a bitcoin strategic reserve being approved either by executive order or through the Cynthia Lummis bill. And the alumnus says things are about to get crazy and in a few days when the inauguration happens, this will be her number one priority. And we're pushing very hard, hard to get a bitcoin strategic reserve. But Trump saying he's receptive to making that a crypto reserve for anything US Based, which includes XRP and Solana. Now, a lot of people going into hysterics. Of course bitcoin maximalists want nothing to do with crypto reserve and are freaking out. But Trump's still their guy, obviously, and I don't think that they will abandon him. And obviously the, you know, you have XRP trading well above $3 now on news like this and, and other things obviously would be very bullish for the other side of the market. But Simon, I got to go to you. You're, you're, you're a bitcoiner. What do you make of this? I have to say I'm not surprised that a guy who launched World Liberty Financial and a couple NFT projects is not a bitcoin maxi.
- [01:55]
Simon
Okay. Yeah. So. All right, well, let me put emotion aside. Obviously, you know, bitcoin as a commodity fits in with the narrative of a strategic reserve. And you know, I do believe that in, in that narrative, it should be bitcoin only. Let's put it there. You know, because of its commodity like features, it's not connected to any founder. No one can be assassinated. It's incredibly hard to change a code. It had a fair launch. It's immaculate conception. Everything that makes bitcoin bitcoin. Having said that, if you are America and America first, and you would like all crypto to be built upon America, then it makes complete sense for you to say, build your crypto in America. We're going to have the best regulatory regime in the world, we're going to have the most liquid assets, and we're also going to have the ability for the American government to build a strategic reserve. Now, where it gets really dicey is does that mean that companies that were built in America and launch on the stock market in America would also be strategic reserves? Does that increase the definition Nvidia reserve? Yeah, exactly. So does this increase the definition that the US treasury is essentially going to become a money manager in a hedge fund? And where do you draw that line? So to me, it may be a bit of semantics. It may be. But look, this is the Trump administration. This is new crypto friendly policies coming to America. And I just don't think we can rule anything out. I think whether you love it or hate it, this is really a sign and indication of what we can expect to come from America. And I don't think anyone knows where this is going to go or what comes next.
- [03:51]
Scott
James, what do you think of Solana as a US Reserve asset next to our gold and petroleum reserves?
- [04:01]
James
James has no opinion on any particular token. I love the lawyers, has maintained that position for a long time. I'll tell you what, as I thought about this, I just thought about what the pushback is going to be. And it is so entirely predictable that the Elizabeth Warren Wang of our political system is going to say, well looky here, we've got Doge trying to cut all of these really important programs that are so important to people and you know, middle class and, and poor and whatever. We know it's going to be positioned that way by people who just don't like cutting spending. And they're going to say in that context, we're going to actually spend taxpayer money to buy up crypto tokens in order to bulk up the bags of the crypto bros who supported Donald Trump in his election. That's what we're going to hear over and over and over again with respect to Bitcoin as a strategic reserve as opposed to these others. It's interesting whether this very, very powerful crypto lobby that coalesced so rapidly with so much money, do they stick together on this or do they splinter? And some say, well, I'm okay with this part of it, not okay with that part of it, and create a little bit of confusion even for those legislators who want to do good for crypto. You know, like, well, what, what am I supposed to do here? What is the message? And if there isn't a unified message that we did have leading up to November, if that splinters, then it's a whole different ball game. And the opposition, you know, of Elizabeth Warren and others get an opening there to pick off people and kind of chip away at initiative. Other initiatives that we think are really important, like getting to the bottom of Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and, and I think SAB, SAB 121 is going to be repealed maybe day one through executive order, you know, and that is going to be a lot bigger than some people are talking about. Because once you tell banks this is an asset that you can hold and start lending against, that's a big deal. That means you're not just sitting there holding it in a, in a safety deposit box like a bar of gold. You can use it and make money from it. When you, when you custody, you know, bitcoin or, or others, they're gonna, they're gonna grab that and run with it and financialize these, these digital assets. So anyway, I don't have an opinion on this thing with respect to the others. I really think that a bit or make sense to me. But I also see where the opposition is going to come from. And unsophisticated people I think are going to respond to this argument of, hey, Doge is cutting. How could we write a new check for 25 billion a year or whatever it might be to build that reserve.
- [07:53]
Scott
Yeah, I'm just wondering if Fart Coin is going to be included or if that was not launched in the United States as a reserve asset. It's very important. Central reserve asset. Dave, you had your hand up. Go ahead.
- [08:05]
Dave
Yeah, actually, you know, I agree with, with James's point, although I think you have to separate into two pieces. Yeah, I agree with him on bitcoin and why that's singular in terms of a reserve asset, but in terms of stockpiling it, someone, you know, when you were talking, one of your guests may have been this morning, made the point about what Texas is doing with bitcoin. I could easily see the United States government saying, listen, you know, we're going to open up the following, you know, tokens to pay taxes with and just make, have a policy that says any tokens that, that they believe they want to hold, that are, you know, us based tokens, just, you know, you pay tax receipts, we'll just hold it as, you know, our assets because we all know that, you know, they're printing money anyway, you know, to pay for all the deficits, you know, what they redo in tax receipts. It's all part of management. You know, going out and writing a check to buy, I think is going to be politically very difficult. Accepting payment in it and saying, well, you know, as part of our asset mix, anything that we'll do, we'll hold it for a certain period of time before we do anything with it. I think that that's something that might be palatable, but in reality, I think that bitcoin is a commodity. And I think that what Simon said and what, and what James said are accurate and it's for a reason. I mean, Bitco Coin, if you believe the digital gold narrative, I actually think it's, you know, it will demonetize gold. We all know that. I think it makes sense. And, you know, I think Cynthia Lummis and what she says is, is a very consistent drumbeat on that. As far as stockpiling, I mean, forget Far Coin, but Solana or XRP or, you know, whatever, that's, that, that's built by US Companies. I mean, there are other ways to encourage that. I think James's second point, which is extraordinarily important, is allowing banks and brokers in the financial system to be able to utilize and, you know, interact in every way with crypto, whether it's custody offering, trading services, whatever. That's the monster change. That's the one that will actually matter for crypto companies and for, for valuations as well as for, you know, American companies being able to do that. I mean, you, you had Matthew Siegel on this morning, Scott, and he made the point that the wirehouses were slow in Bitcoin ETFs, and it's. Yeah, that's true. Because they can't trade around it, they can't do things with it. That is going to change. And when that changes, that's a very big deal. So I do think those are two separate points, but has nothing to do with the strategic reserve. And by the way, that's the same point with regard to Solana or to XRP or to Ethereum. It doesn't matter. I mean, those companies cannot do anything with that. So I think that's really the bigger deal here.
- [10:58]
Scott
We got two Pauls, both had their hands up. PAUL P. You had your hand up first and then we'll go to Paul. PAUL M. Well, hi guys.
- [11:06]
Paul P.
Good morning. And this is definitely what I consider to be very, very positive news for both bitcoin and the crypto ecosystem. I love to see the bitcoiners, generally speaking, kind of melting inside whenever crypto as a whole seems like it's getting traction above and beyond Bitcoin, even though I'm a fan of both from the viewpoint of buying and spending money, in contrast to Doge existing There is obviously the narrative of we can simply sell gold to Peter Schiff's demise. That is an option and we have a stockpile or supposed stockpile of gold that we could be selling in favor of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Now one of the challenges of this idea though is what is a US based crypto to begin with? Does it need to have a company in the US Many of the cryptos that were founded because of how bad the US law was may have created a for profit company in the US to raise investor money, but then spun off an entirely different foundation outside of the US which by and large is the one that inherited a lot of the token reserves that it can then go and spend to drive adoption of ecosystem of a specific chain. Is that now still considered a US cryptocurrency? XRP being kind of a bit of a different beast where Ripple San Francisco US never really spun off other entities, but case in point examples of that Cardano I.O. hK IOHK which had spun off Cardano stands for Input Output Hong Kong rebranded to IOG and they're based in Denver. So this is kind of the inherent challenge and I'm curious how the administration would actually define this and related to that. On Simon's point, he said are we now going to add, are we going to add, what do you call it, shares stock to the stockpile as well? I'll give the benefit out of general cryptocurrencies. Unlike shares, anyone in the world can own and hold and transact a crypto, which makes it at least a lot closer to being a general commodity asset than any share that you'll find on NASDAQ and whatnot. So I think it still has, it leans more to benefit of being in a strategic reserve than any shares and I wouldn't expect shares to fall into that category at all.
- [13:27]
James
Paul.
- [13:29]
Simon
Thanks, Scott.
- [13:30]
Paul M.
Yeah, I was just kind of thinking about all this in terms of the closing or the farewell address of Biden last night and him imploring or invoking Eisenhower and talking about the military industrial complex. He was warning against that. He says the potential rise of a tech industrial complex that can pose real dangers for all, for our country as well. So you know, he didn't necessarily, he didn't talk about crypto at all, talked about AI, but you know, he's definitely setting up, I guess the Democrats to fight any kind of tech related change that's, that, that, that, that's kind of like, you know, upset the apple cart. Like they definitely, it is going to be a fight. I don't see how. I guess there's a, there's a lot of different, I guess, legal processes that Trump could go through to actually legally have the ability to set up a strategic reserve of bitcoin or crypto. But, you know, it's, it's going to be a fight at every, at, at every level. So, you know, I was just kind of thinking through, you know, listening to, to, to Biden's comments last night and just seeing how that's going to, you know, like, trying to, like, set up the, the, the, the, the, the opposition for the next next four years.
- [14:56]
Scott
I don't even know who to go to yet. So many hands. Ryan.
- [15:01]
James
You intrigued me.
- [15:03]
Ryan
Historically, domestic policy has motivated people to build offshore entities for their token structure.
- [15:09]
James
And I'm eager to see how they plan on incentivizing people to come home.
- [15:14]
Ryan
Or to build future structure in the.
- [15:17]
James
US and what that would look like.
- [15:19]
Ryan
At the end of the day. Historically, we had Delaware companies, but what's it going to look like for crypto.
- [15:23]
James
Companies in the United States?
- [15:28]
Scott
Anyone want to, can. Can jump in and take that, or we can keep going. Lawyer, go ahead. Yeah, yeah.
- [15:35]
Lawyer
To that, to that point, I mean, I think that my gut feeling about Trump is that he's actually very skeptical, skeptical about crypto. I mean, he would have been the one that put the kibosh on the, the DJT token and made his son sort of rugged and like, you know, he may like bitcoin. I appreciate being pandered to in any case, but the reality is, you know, I think that most of this is just talk related to couching all of his ideas in America first.
- [16:01]
James
Right.
- [16:01]
Lawyer
So he's talking about crypto and he's saying, look, that means I care about crypto because I care about building here. And he's going to try to push regulatory trains so it makes sense to build here. And he's telling you, look, if you build here, you might even become part of our strategic crypto reserve. But I think that's talk. I don't think he actually trusts any crypto that isn't bitcoin, nor should he for a strategic reserve. Excuse me. And so, yeah, I wouldn't go ahead and think that maybe there's going to be, like, a bag of Solana held by the government. Well, I mean, sorry for in a, in a strategic reserve form.
- [16:38]
Scott
Yeah, I think the strategic reserve part might just be lip service. Listen, the most cynical view as just looking at any politician is like, look how much money he raised from the crypto industry and saying things like this just means more money from the crypto industry. Right. And, James, I mean, you made a really interesting point before about the lobby. We'd had conversations about this before. Everybody came together, I think, because Biden had to go, right? Not because of common interest, but because of common enemy. So I think that our lobby. And we've had. I think actually Dan Spooler came on. We've had quite. I'm trying to remember, we've had quite a few people from blockchain association, such, literally, the crypto lobbyists come on here and say, listen, it's going to be massive infighting and carnage and Lord of the Flies once he gets elected. And we see the individual crypto companies lobby for their own interest as opposed to as a whole. So I think we can expect that the lobby's cohesiveness. We saw what it was going to do that got Trump elected. But I don't think ripple interest in spending money is a bitcoin strategic reserve, per se. And I think that those interests are going to fracture. Simon, you had your hand up.
- [17:56]
James
Yeah.
- [17:56]
Simon
I was going to say, look, you just got to follow the money. The definition of us is are you paying tax in us? And so Trump will be very familiar. And I actually disagree. I think Trump is actually a shitcoiner before a bitcoiner.
- [18:12]
Scott
I agree with that 100%.
- [18:14]
Simon
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Scott
NFTs, World Liberty Financial. Come on. He found bitcoin after he was already launching NFTs.
- [18:20]
Simon
Exactly.
- [18:20]
Lawyer
But selling things is different than buying them.
- [18:22]
Simon
Well, yeah, but I mean, so, for example, like, if you go Back to the 2017 wave, there were some people that tried to do token sales compliantly in America. And I remember, like Vinnie Lingham, when he did Civic, he actually had to pay a massive tax bill because he classified the token, a utility token. And then when it was sold as a utility token, he booked it as revenue, and that was 100% profit on, like a $30 million token sale or something. And so, you know, that's a massive check for the US if you can start launching these things. And whether they're classified as a fundraising round or revenue based upon utility, that's the type of thing here. But essentially taking a step back of what this actually is. So traditionally we think of a strategic reserve as gold bonds, the local currency, and now it's venturing out into bitcoin. But this is somewhat of a shift to more of a sovereign wealth strategy, somewhat like Saudi Arabia, which is deciding to make strategic investments as a More centralized entity is what is what this kind of shift is. And the implication for the Federal Reserve are profound because we know where this is heading as Bitcoin becomes more and more of an asset. The demand to borrow against your Bitcoin and issue stablecoins is what we heard from Coinbase today. As you know, returning to that old model to try and bring that back again.
- [19:58]
Scott
Luckily it's capped at 100 grand.
- [20:00]
Simon
But yeah, yeah, but if you are the U.S. government, U.S. treasury and you, you're serious about your strategic reserve, you're also venturing out into sovereign, you know, sovereign funds, expanding it further. At some stage you start to explore, well, this is performing significantly greater than the dollar, so why doesn't the treasury just issue its own digital dollar backed by some of the bitcoin and then you get a beta test, much like what JFK did in 63 when he launched a government issued dollar that was convertible into silver, which had to be unwound after his assassination. But you can start to see where this goes. And then if you start to have stablecoins issued as another form of dollar, you then start to ask the question at some point, hey, why are we borrowing with the Fed in the middle when we could just be issuing Treasuries direct and issuing a stablecoin which is complete disruption to the banking system. Again, when you work through the strategy bit by bit, you're going to see a lot of pushback between treasury and Fed as this strategy unfolds.
- [21:18]
Scott
Anyone have comments on that? I mean, I, I tend to agree. It's interesting. Go ahead, lawyer.
- [21:24]
Lawyer
Yeah, I agree. I just want to clarify what I said. I mean, I think that I meant Trump would like Bitcoin as a, you know, as the country being a buyer, as a driver of revenues for a business. I think he likes shitcoins and NFTs more.
- [21:38]
Scott
Yeah, it is really important to differentiate between like what's going to happen with the industry in the United States and if these actually become reserve assets. I don't see it personally. Like, I think it's just lip service. There's no way that he is going to the United States going to start buying Salana. Just, I, I can't see it. I mean, Panos, do you think that this is a possibility? You haven't had the opportunity to talk?
- [22:01]
Panos
No, I think it's just Trump talking. I don't think anyone's going to take that seriously, like adding Solana and XRP to the strategic reserve. I don't see it. And I do think that Trump is a shitcoiner. If you just look at the tokens that his company, the. Was it World Financial Liberty? World Financial, if you look at what they're holding, I mean, they do hold a bit of bitcoin, but they're holding Chain Link, a, a bunch of other altcoins. So I think, I think part of it might be the fact that Ripple did donate some money to him and he's thinking maybe. Hold on a minute. If I start talking like I'm going to add other U.S. companies that are altcoins to the strategic reserve, maybe I'll get some money off of those guys as well. But I don't think he's being serious. I really don't.
- [22:55]
Simon
But this was the World Liberty business model. The business model was sell a governance token fork, some defi code, allow people to wrap their bitcoins into something on Ethereum and then issue a stable coin so people can borrow against in a defi way and allow more and more Treasuries to be sold by being backed by the stablecoin. If you believe what he actually said and what that pitch was when he did the original pitch with his family, the business model his family are setting up with World Liberty Financial is in line with this huge conflict of interest and massive movement towards centralization with a decentralized label slapped on the top, I think.
- [23:52]
Panos
But would you say that that is connected to the strategic reserve or is that something separate?
- [23:59]
Simon
I think it would have been something separate, but again, I don't place much weight onto this. I think Bitcoin strategic reserve is a separate thing. It should be a separate thing. But if we're to believe this and take it at face value, this is a movement towards. As soon as you go beyond Bitcoin and you start looking at what is the XRP strategy, they're wanting to get into stable coins and they want to enable defi. They're trying to do Ethereum Solana. So as soon as you move into these things, you're laying that type of foundation. Now, I don't think that that has any role within government at this stage, but it's certainly the foundation of an experiment.
- [24:45]
Scott
How about the SEC appealing the XRP decision literally on the way out the door? James, I mean, come on, what do you think of this?
- [24:55]
James
Well, you know, the appeal was filed, so it was a foregone conclusion that the initial brief would be submitted yesterday. So there's, there's no surprise. I, I, you know, I went through it, there's nothing new. And that's because you're not supposed to raise anything new on appeal. It's, you know, there's no new evidence. You're really not supposed to raise new issues. So it's a rehash. I believe that ripple's got 90 days from yesterday to file their responsive brief. And so the question becomes, how quickly can Paul Atkins get confirmed by the sec? Because until such time by the Senate. I'm sorry, until such time as he's confirmed, it's 2 to 2 at the commission. And so they can't vote to settle or dismiss the Ripple case until they've got Paul Atkins. And the third vote, however, Trump will appoint either Hester Purse or Mark UADA to be the acting chairman. And that means basically that the staff of the SEC answers to the acting chairman. So there's a lot of debate about, well, what can be achieved in the months between, you know, January 20th and when Paul Atkins is confirmed. You don't have the votes to dismiss cases, and that requires a vote. But there are other things you can do. I think one of the things people are interested in seeing is whether the acting chair will order the release of that SEC Inspector General report on the conflicts of interest of Bill Hinman and the whole ethgate scenario. I think acting chairman can do something like that. But, you know, at a stalemate of two to two, there's unlikely to be new cases brought involving crypto unless they're, you know, really, really clearly fall within the ambit of the SEC's jurisdiction. As far as I know, based on their rule, based on their dissents written over a number of years, I don't believe Hester Purse or Mark Ueda believe that tokens traded on secondary markets are securities. And as such, they don't have jurisdiction over tokens trading on the secondary market if they're not securities. And so it's really, really interesting. We have never in my career, 30 years seen a pivot this dramatic at the SEC going from, let's go full, full speed ahead in all these crypto cases, even ones involving no allegation of fraud whatsoever. Two, we don't think we have jurisdiction over many of these involving the secondary market. Last thing I'll say is I'm watching these nomination confirmation process. It's going fast, even for controversial nominees. Paul Atkins is the least controversial appointment by far. People on the left love Paul Atkins. People who worked with Paul Atkins when he's already done six years as a commissioner at the sec and he was beloved by the staff there and was just the consummate Professional and everybody loved him. So I think he goes through the easiest of any of the nominations. So how quickly they can get him in there, can they get him in there in March or whatever will be interesting to see. But I have never in my career seen a pivot like this where you may see numerous cases either dismissed or settled on very, very favorable terms to the defendant.
- [29:14]
Scott
So any action being taken right now is just nonsense. I mean, even though it was already filed, but it's, it's almost a nothing burger because it's going to be a completely different environment.
- [29:26]
James
That's right. I guess an example, you know, is this Elon Musk filing for being 11 days late on filing a Form 13D. I did some quick research on that one. White and Case, very, very well respected law firm, did a study of the 13D cases brought by the SEC in the past fiscal year. Listen to this. I'm doing this from memory. There were 28 cases. The range of lateness in the 28 cases was from nine days to on the outside, 16 years late filing a 13D. The range of penalties for these late filings of 13Ds went from $10,000 to $200,000. So when Paul Atkins gets in, you know, they'll take a look at it. If it's a legit complaint, things gonna be settled for like $50,000 of less. So it was ridiculous late filing just to, you know, set up this argument where people who don't know where what they're talking about will say, wow, look what just happened. Elon Musk, who has the ear of, of Donald Trump, just got this big SEC case dismissed against him for $25,000 fine. You know, this is how Washington works when in reality the case should never have been brought or it could have been settled, like I said, for 25 grand.
- [31:17]
Scott
Yeah, just such posturing. It's, it's pretty unbelievable. I mean, when you, when you take a look at it, buzz up here on stage. I haven't even checked. We didn't even talk about the actual price of Bitcoin. Obviously yesterday was back above 100,000, now dipped down to 98,750 and 2. But I think fact that we were below 90 on Monday and here we are back at 98. I mean, Dave, did you care that we're not above 100 today? You know, does it matter if we close above 100? Is there a line or. I know the answer, by the way, but have fun.
- [31:51]
Dave
I mean, I've said this so many times. I mean, I'm getting tired of it. This week I expected a range between 102 and 92 and where the hell it is in that range. I mean the only thing that matters is the, if we did manage to break out the top of the range before the inauguration, that increases the chance of a sell the news sort of event. The likelihood is that it won't be that and that whatever executive orders do go out on day one will get magnified and you know, we're going to see. I mean the problem with this is we're talking about, and James said it, people do not understand the magnitude of the change in the overall regulatory and government approach. It's massive. It really is massive. And markets try to anticipate these moves, but most of them are not priced in. And so in the crypto world we're sitting here trying to trade every minute based upon year long trends that are going to start to evolve and trying to jump the gun and see who's going to come in with me. And so you get lots of people jumping in with leverage longs. I mean I find it staggering that here we are at 98,000 plus and still if you look over the last month to two months, it's three to one in terms of longs being liquidated more than shorts. Just think about that. What is that telling you? It's telling you that the cryptoverse have hummingbird like attention spans and we see this all the time. So yes, when you talk with any of the guys you talk with in the chart basis, they're going to tell you what the setups are and why and they're talking about these exact patterns. So no, I do not think it matters. I think that we probably should be bubbling towards 102 when the inauguration happens. And then it depends on what he proposes. So one thing I wanted to say before, which I think is interesting, is there's one way they could do a bitcoin strategic reserve that I don't think people have talked about. That's sort of a hybrid compromise and that is, you know, there have been these, this I think very, very bullish but very, very unlikely idea not to tax bitcoin capital gains. I think that seems highly unlikely despite the fact that, you know, you can.
- [34:11]
Scott
Make an argument, you know, that was reported but we'd never heard it from Trump's mouth. It was one of those weird things that went viral on Twitter that nobody could really source. But he also, not only on bitcoin that the same rumor, whether valid or not, also said on once again, anything US based.
- [34:26]
Dave
But now think about this as a compromise because this actually makes sense. Today you can contribute appreciated stock and pay no capital gains taxes on that appreciation to charities and get the full value of that appreciation as a tax write off that's already established. So what if instead of the US Government buying a bitcoin strategic reserve, it says, okay, you can pay your income taxes or whatever in bitcoin and if it's appreciated, so what?
- [34:57]
Ryan
That's it.
- [34:57]
Dave
You don't have to worry about that. Now all of a sudden you have people who are making money who have bitcoin that is significantly appreciated, saying, now, you know, they actually might do it. I mean, bitcoiners are. If you just say we accept bitcoin for taxes without that gain, without that. I mean, bitcoiners are going to say, wait a minute, the whole point of holding bitcoin isn't to spend it for fiat. But if, let's say you're holding on Bitcoin from 1000 bucks or from wherever and you can sell a small fraction of your holdings to pay your income taxes for your other businesses, I think people will do it. That kind of compromise is the kind of thing that people will start talking about. It's not going to happen necessarily. I have no idea. I'm not inside, I don't know. But that sort of idea will get floated. It just, it just makes too much sense.
- [35:44]
Scott
And that is the technical strategy you were talking about before. Well, that's what Matt Siege was saying.
- [35:50]
Dave
But the issue is the tax status. So if you kind of want to go to that level, you could get there. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, but can you imagine what happens to the price of bitcoin if that rumor happens? Because it would all, it would certainly work and it would be much, much harder politically to argue against it because at that point, to use James's word, no Democrat would say, you're writing a check and they already allowed to, you can already, right now, today contribute appreciated bitcoin to charity without paying the capital gains taxes. So, you know, it's, this is the kind of stuff we're going to see. We're going to get stories like this. Just, just remember this, this conversation in four months or whatever, you're going to start seeing stories about people coming up with ideas like this. The reason I'm pointing it out, Scott, is this is a process and we're talking about minute by minute trading. All I can say is minute by minute trading, nothing that's going to happen over the next two years or a lot of it is priced in and I'll just leave it at that.
- [36:51]
Scott
Totally agree. Any final thoughts on this topic from anyone I know? Buzz is going to jump in in a minute, so if anybody has some concluding thoughts here on the reserve, have at it. Otherwise, I'm going to let Buzz take over.
- [37:06]
Simon
I'll say one thing, I think it's just, look, everyone just watch the contrast. Like, I think it's very symbolic that, you know, the one administration, the sec, is trying to hold on to suing Ripple while the other administration is talking about rumors of making XRP a strategic reserve. One administration is trying to take credit for a ceasefire deal when everybody knows that the only reason a ceasefire might happen is because of the new administration. One administration is alleviating their sons for alleged crimes while the other administration, it seems like court is dropping all of those things that were the alleged crimes. I think it's either symbolic of two things, a wild change or actually what happens when you follow the money and lobby actually does determine the future of much politics in America because everyone needs to adjust their strategy as soon as the money's going in a different direction. But I think it's very symbolic and interesting to watch.
- [38:14]
Scott
Agree. All right, Buzz, go ahead, man.
- [38:18]
Ryan
Yeah, we have a sponsor today. Going to be kind of a stark contrast. In a change of conversation, we have the Dogs community which is a meme coin on the TON network. So before we get started, just a disclaimer that Mario's company, IBC does marketing, incubation and investing. Sponsors on the show are sponsors working with ibc. Not necessarily crypto Town Hall Scott specifically, or even myself. And IBC is hiring for writers, journalists and moderators. So if you are looking to join a really great team or your project wanting to do an AMA just like this, like dogs just DM Mario's account who's up here in a co host slot. So I know I see that we do have the Dogs account up here. I'm not sure who to who to reference but Dog's account. Would you like to give a an overview of exactly what the meme coin is there?
- [39:08]
Alex
Guys? Alex from Dogs. Lovely to be here.
- [39:12]
Simon
Sorry.
- [39:14]
Alex
Likewise. So in a nutshell, Doggs is indeed the largest meme coin on Torn. But we want to believe that it's far beyond meme coin. We are the Coin with a mission really. So from you know, from the very beginning with 53 active users on the Telegram app, to systematic support of charitable initiatives, we're trying to build A narrative of how crypto can and should be used for good. And just a few words about us. So we are, as I said, leading Telegram native Meme Coin. We have a massive user engagement with over 53 million mini app users. We have become third in global meme Coin rankings by transaction volume after our airdrop and we held a record breaking token generation. And more than 5 million users are actually holding our tokens on chain right now with far more on taxes as well. And yeah, we, a very important part of our mission is the charity narrative. We support charities worldwide, obviously mostly related to animal welfare, but also we do support local orphanages across the world helping children in need. And last year we donated more than half a million dollars and this year we are donating $4.5 million to different charities across the world. And last but not least last week CoinMarketCap has kindly recognized us as one of the most noteworthy projects of the year and well alongside the TOM ecosystem itself being kind of the rising star of the year.
- [41:11]
Ryan
So I do consider myself a meme coin degen, but I admittedly have not traded meme coins on the TON network. Can you kind of go into what, what the Meme Coin ecosystem looks like over there? Like, how is it, how is it different? Or maybe what's its evolution cycle compared to something like Solana or Base?
- [41:32]
Alex
So realistically, TON meme coins are inevitably very closely related to Telegram in a way that they onboard the users because most of the TON meme coins and coins on TON in general, they all have a mini app on Telegram which helps them on board the users in the simplest way possible. And don't forget Telegram is one of the most, if not the most crypto friendly social media app or a messenger at least. And many of the users there are already very crypto savvy and those who are not for them, Telegram is an ideal platform to kind of be onboarded where Telegram becomes their first step in their crypto journey, if you will. So for us, basically that's what we did. We rewarded the early users for the time they, you know, for the, for the account, you know, the time they spent on the Telegram account, for the actions they've made on Telegram. For their premium status, they got like extra, you know, bonuses and whatnot and viral mechanics that are built into Telegram helped us get that 53 million active users in what, in a, in a month and a half and two months. So that really is as simple as it sounds. There are, you know, just tools that let you, you know, invite so many users at One time. Those are real users, they're not bots that we can see that from the on chain metrics and these kind of things. They, you know we were one of the first obviously. But now the Tonico system is, is growing far beyond that. They have recently appointed a new president actually to, to expand in the US further. So we hope that you guys will start, start hearing a lot more about on projects really.
- [43:34]
Ryan
One of the first things I noticed because I'm the development advocate for for Shiba Inu is that in looking at your guys account, you guys have 3.5 million followers behind the account that's currently up here. And notably I immediately made the connection. Well wow, like Shib only has, I think it's 3.8 or 3.9 million followers. What would you say was the big catalyst for that, that social growth? And I mean I think you had referenced more than 50 million. I'm not sure if it was token holders or users as well, but, but what was behind that is that deeply rooted into the, the mini games that, that are very popular on Telegram and those growth mechanisms.
- [44:13]
Alex
Yeah, that's one of the things. So within those games we implemented a series of very, very simple tasks and I do mean simple such as subscribe here, read our story, share that piece of news, etc. We obviously had to so remember that these kind of users, these kind of first time, you know, the people who, who just were onboarded in crypto, they needed inevitably need to be educated and that's what we did. We shared educational content across platforms. We wanted to make sure that they, they not just follow our journey but they also become more crypto savvy as they progress and by sharing this educational, yes, fun obviously we're a meme coin after all. But educational content by sharing tips on how to, you know, interact with the ecosystem, how to use an, you know, a cold wallet or whatever, but by actually creating the content that a resonated with the users but also that educated them. Plus for you know, by simply rewarding them for, you know, making sure they, they familiarize themselves with that, with that, with that content and just being transparent really in how we'll distribute the airdrop, how we'll distribute the rewards in the end. Yeah, that helped us build trust first and foremost and second, yes, get distraction. That helped us, you know, helped us after all get listed on Binance and all those, you know, 10, 10 or so exchanges in less than two months.
- [45:55]
Ryan
Yeah, that was again my information gathering journey to, to speak with you today that I mean first place people go to, right, is CoinMarketCap immediately recognize the Binance listing. Bybit, okx. Tell us a little bit about how those came to be. Were those organic, maybe these exchanges recognizing the number of users?
- [46:18]
Alex
Indeed. So I think for ton ecosystem, obviously we weren't the first project that gained their attraction. It was NotCoin who really paved the way for ecosystem in terms of use cases and simple onboarding for users. But indeed. So what they did see is the number of active users. And on Telegram, it's very easy, actually to see active users for any app during any point of time. So they could see the channels, all social media channels are growing, that they're real. You can easily check for the number of bots in any account, especially for us, because on Telegram, we have this, you know, something called premium subscription. It's very similar to what Twitter has, but effectively it's very easy to derive the bots from the real people. And when you see how many real people interact with that content, how many people connected their wallets, their real wallets to the app, and that's what they did. And these kind of metrics help, I think, help exchanges understand how many people are actually interacting with your product and how many are bots that, you know, are sitting somewhere in the, you know, from 50 or thousands of accounts. So, indeed, yes, we got a lot of interest from them. And I would say the process of listing was relatively smooth in terms of, you know, the process itself. And now that, you know, ton has appointed a new president and us has appointed a new president, we are hoping to move on with, you know, further listings in the US as well.
- [48:08]
Ryan
Is there a specific relationship or partnership with ncoin?
- [48:13]
Alex
Well, they are very good friends of ours. Indeed, we do partner for at least one big project. I would say it's called the Telegram NFT sticker store. So we're all familiar with NFTs here, but what we're doing here is I think stickers in Telegram are an important piece of communication, right? It's how many users not just share their emotions, which is obvious, but also their kind of support of the community they're representing. And NFT sticker store is something we built together with NotCoin. Well, what it says on the tin really is a sticker store where people can buy limited stickers, both from dogs from other web. Three projects, such as Pudding Penguins, for example, have come up with the collection that was sold out in under an hour. I think There were other NFTs featured on the store. We have more than 10 collections coming later. And yeah, I think that's one of the biggest collaborations for us. More than, I think 150,000 dock stickers have been sold in a few weeks. And, and for us, I think that's one of the most valuable partnerships also because it's not just, it's obviously a crypto friendly project and people will be able to mint those stickers and sell them on the aftermarket with dogs tokens. But it's also kind of taps into the Web2 side of things because quite a few Web2 native brands are now joining that journey. And we feel like we're not only onboarding regular users to web3, but also web2 brands. We help them bridge that gap.
- [50:04]
Ryan
Very cool. What are you guys working on here in Q1 that you guys are very bullish on that's going to positively impact the community and the token.
- [50:14]
Alex
So I think one of the most important things, we're building a large set of games and I do mean large, where dogstalking will be obviously one of the important in game mechanics will be built into one of the in game mechanics. But I guess the thing that I'm more bullish on is just the community itself because our community is massive and it's growing every day as well. We've been launching localized groups in every language possible across the globe and we'll keep doing that. And we also building kind of local initiatives with them where they can go to a local charity and support, you know, their local orphanage or their local dogs or, or just in general animal welfare, you know, charity. And we will be rewarding them for, for that as well. Not just with, you know, budgets for their efforts, but with like a secret, it's called Docs Pass, some sort of SBT where they will be able to get access to those funds, helping their local communities with the meetups obviously in real life. And we are hoping to become far, far more global than even we are right now.
- [51:38]
Ryan
Speaking specifically on the charitable endeavors that you, that you guys are doing, what specific causes and organizations are you supporting right now or maybe look to support in the future?
- [51:50]
Alex
Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a good question. So in general, as it's quite obvious, we are supporting a lot of animal welfare organizations, but also we actually help orphans and children in general. And the reason for that is our image, our mascot, it stems from an image that was drawn for a charity auction by Pavel Dorohev himself, the founder of Telegram. And that charity auction was to raise funds for local orphanages. So obviously we kind of take pride in that history. And we kind of are building on that history to support children in need in the future as well. But I guess one of the most notable partners we have, official partners we have is Best Friends Animal Society. They're currently helping animals that are misplaced because of the LA fires. And we're very proud to work with them and keep working with them together to help find those animals new home. But I think from in this quarter we are starting far more localized approach as well with not just large charities, very well established charities, but we're also looking for, I guess smaller charities that are doing nonetheless very important work, but kind of, you know, more on the ground on a more localized level.
- [53:26]
Ryan
That's amazing. And speaking specifically of the capital allocated to these organizations, four and a half million dollars, where is this coming from? Is this tokens that are being that given to these organizations, are they then liquidating, like maybe talk a little bit behind the scenes of how these donations actually get made?
- [53:46]
Alex
Yeah. So first and foremost, I think it's important to remember where that's coming from. And it's the most decentralized thing ever. Right. So once we, you know, the airdrop was concluded, we realized obviously quite a lot of tokens got unclaimed and we faced this hard decision like what do we do with these tokens? Do we just burn them? Do we keep them? What do we do? So we put a simple vote for the community inside our app. Guys, what are we doing with those tokens? And they had a very simple kind of three option answer. It's either burn them, donate them to charity or build more stuff with them. And according to their final vote, we basically allocated tokens. We burned more than 2.5 million of tokens because the community asked for that. But incredibly, I think more than the total charity budget was I think around 5 million. We just donated 500 already. And incredibly the community, yes, they voted like, hey guys, it was a great airdrop and quite a lot of people actually got quite a lot of money for, you know, for how much efforts it was needed. But yeah, those, those members of community, they voted to donate quite a lot to charity. And we did ask them, you know, what sort of charities should we donate? And this is also incredibly shaping up our charity strategy in the future as well.
- [55:28]
Ryan
Very cool. Well, as we're wrapping up, what would your call to action be for the people who are tuning in? We have about 4,100 listeners here right now, which is awesome. So shout out to the IBC team for putting together great spaces like this one. What would your call to action to those users be?
- [55:47]
Alex
Well, obviously follow us on Twitter ealdogshouse, also on Telegram T me Dogs. And you will be here a lot more about our local charity initiatives as well as community initiatives. So do do tune in. Do keep in mind that we will be doing far more here at Dogs.
- [56:13]
Ryan
Awesome. Well, thanks for joining. I do invite the audience to give Dogs a follow. Add to that 3.1 million followers that that is on that account. They're very impressive. So I congratulate you guys for what you've been able to accomplish thus far and hope that we hear from you guys again and have you on the show again here shortly as you guys are working through that Q1 roadmap. So kudos to you guys.
- [56:37]
Alex
Most pleasure. Thank you.
- [56:40]
Ryan
Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in and have a wonderful Thursday.