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- [00:00]
A
But it's fucking ridiculous to me that there has not been someone who has come out from the organizing side of this and said this was a mistake. This is not representative of what our crypto industry is. And to top it all off, there have not been big voices or big organizations, trades in crypto that have come forward and said, look, we don't represent this, this as an industry and we want to be inclusive and particularly around the clarity conversations. For someone to not come forward and say like, hey, Congress, maybe just appreciate the fact that we were trying to build a real financial market here for consumers to have additional financial access and not just males that want to go to strip clubs. Everybody. I think all females on this pod, plus many females in crypto who are listening have had horrible experiences at conferences where I personally have been asked if I was an escort that was hired at one of the first conference crypto conferences I went to.
- [01:05]
B
Hi all and welcome to Dex in the City where the wallets are cold and the takes are hot. Before we get going, remember we're lawyers, but we're not your lawyers. So nothing you hear on decks in the City is legal or financial advice and it doesn't create an attorney client relationship. For the fine print, check unchained crypto.com. i'm getting really good at that. First we have Jesse, Web3 prosecutor turned Web3 protector at Ribbit Capital and V from the SEC to Web3. And I'm your host, Katherine KK, fluent in Tradfi and conversant in deep tech over at starkware. Today we have a jam packed episode, but something really, really important happened last week and, and we talked about this a little bit on last week's episode when we had Josh Reisman from GSR on. But we want to go into slightly more depth. Okay.
- [01:53]
A
And I wasn't here so.
- [01:56]
B
And Jesse missed it, so we need her take as well. So obviously we don't have time on this pod to go through the Clarity act in detail and frankly no one
- [02:06]
A
wants to hear all the details.
- [02:08]
B
That's probably too much information for most of our listeners. But we are going to very quickly give you a quick and dirty of where we are with clarity and what clarity is about. So very quick. First I want to shout out, there's a multitude of great resources that are out to kind of summarize and brief people on the relevant clarity provisions. Do your homework. Understand what affects you, what affects your company, what is going to have an effect on the trickle down macro environment if it passes. Get to that in a minute. But I really like a resource from the law firm Cahill and we're going to put it on the screen and we'll link it in the show notes. But that's a great way to navigate all of the various provisions. I'm just going to give you a super quick overview. There's a bunch of different sections of Clarity. First is Responsible Securities Innovation that has a carve out for network tokens reg Crypto exempt offering insider trading provisions. Second, second section protection Protecting against illicit finance. So this expands the Bank Secrecy act to centralized crypto market participants. Big deal. Third, section 301. This is actually a very powerful one. This talks about all the powers to the SEC and what the SEC gets as part of Clarity. The fourth section, Responsible Regulatory Innovation. This creates an CFTC SEC sandbox. I love a sandbox. And covers tokenization of securities. Next, Responsible Banking innovation which covers details of yield. Next, section five very important Protecting Software Developer and software innovation. So protecting developers. This is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty act, the BRCA which we talked about on last week's episode, that pretty much protects developers and raises a specific intent standard. Also the keep your coins act, the right to self custody and also I might add, the developer protections apply retroactively. And then last, the rest is consumer protection, FinCEN funding, joint SEC CFTC advisory committee and the Random Housing act, the Build now act that was slotted in there at the very end. Okay, so now you completely understand Clarity. What is going to happen now? We I have also found a really fantastic handy chart. Shout out to Gary Octel who shared it on Twitter. It shows the process that needs to happen before Clarity is passed. To be clear, guys, I'm still at a 35, 40% of chance of passage here. I'm cautiously optimistic, but I still think we have a lot of roadblocks. It was marked up last week, approved by a vote of 15 to 9. So two Democrats flipped flip to support it. Okay, now the Senate has to vote on it. It needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster. And for those who aren't aware, filibuster is a mechanism that can effectively block an act. So you need a higher majority. You need more than half to clear filibuster. So that means we need at least seven Democrats to support it. Then the draft needs to be reconciled with the House version which passed in January. So negotiators from both chambers need to agree on everything and they need to vote again. And all of this needs to happen in a pretty limited legislative calendar before everybody kind of checks out for the summer and before the midterm elections potentially change this whole landscape. And three kind of big roadblocks could disrupt this. We touched on ethics in last week's episode, but basically the Democrats want an ethics provision that the Republicans.
- [05:43]
A
We all know. Let's not talk about the Democrats wanting it. A lot of people want an ethics provision in there. And so I think that that is a partisan issue. Although on the ethics issue. Sorry to interrupt you. I think it's important that there were two Democrats that voted to get it out of committee, but both of those said that that is not necessarily a yes on the floor because the ethics provision is holding them back. And you know, Warner, one of the Democrats that is has been working really, really hard on this, did not vote yes out of committee. So there is a lot of things to work out. Ethics. And in my mind is one of the biggest.
- [06:21]
B
Okay, no, I'm glad you interrupted. Yeah, I would say it is the biggest and it's really important. That point is this is not necessarily a partisan thing. We've talked in the past about how it's stupid that certain regulators aren't permitted to hold crypto because they should be able to experiment. Well, I'm just going to go out there and say it's stupid that there are no ethical limitations on engagement with crypto. So, like, there can be somewhere in the middle of reasonability with all of this. So. So fantastic point, Jesse. The, the last two potential roadblocks I'll call out is one law enforcement concern. There's. And I know Jesse's gonna want to say something about this, but the question of whether there are illicit finance gaps and how to square that with developer protections, that is not easy because obviously crypto wants those developer protections. We need those developer protections. But there is a contingent that says by virtue of that, we're creating an environment where bad guys are going to take advantage of this. So that's kind of a hot button issue. And then last, whether the yield compromise. We got to a point where the banks and crypto compromised over stablecoin yield. But Patrick Witt said recently that banks had pushed to reopen Genius act negotiations to ban stablecoin rewards and yield entirely. So the real question is whether everybody is kind of like tenuous compromise is going to hold. So let me take a breath. Jesse V. Give me all of your clarity Alpha.
- [07:51]
C
So just one quick comment. I know I said I was at like 90% last week and then the markup happened.
- [07:59]
B
So you know what I, what I
- [08:00]
C
found interesting was the vote breakdown. So I think it's great that two Democrats, as you said, voted to get this out of committee. I was actually hoping for a few more because I do think that that is a good signal of it's of like more Democrats or enough Democrats voting for it on the floor to get this thing actually like over the finish line. Right. I think only two Democrats voting for it out of committee and on a conditional basis. Right. Them saying this doesn't mean we're going to vote for it on the floor like we need. I think they asked for ethics in the final bill for them to be a yes at the end of the day, I, I think I'm, I, that makes me come down a little bit from 90% to be honest.
- [08:43]
B
Okay, Okay.
- [08:44]
C
I can't believe you haven't come up though because you're 35. Was like pre, pre committee vote. Right.
- [08:50]
B
I assumed it was gonna survive the markup. The markup was never what I was concerned about. What I'm concerned about is I feel like pragmatically we're facing a really compressed timeline before everybody gets distracted. Like if we had several months for this process, I would be a lot more optimistic. But I think non US listeners and non policy people may not understand how checked out legislators are during summer break. So if this doesn't progress quickly, then everyone is going to become distracted by something else.
- [09:22]
C
Yeah. The other timing issue is midterms. Right. So if, if any of the Republicans lose their seats in the midterms, that means that we're going to need more than seven Democrats to support.
- [09:37]
A
Also there is so much else happening. Like we live in this crypto focused world. There is so much else happening in the world that Congress is thinking about and having to address right now, you know, the Iran war, funding for it and what happens there. A bunch of other issues have come up recently that we don't want to get into here because they're not financial related. So I don't want to get into that debate. And what's really interesting about this bill, and I don't really know if it's good or bad, but it tries to do everything like, like KK's overview was a very amazing high level of it. But you can hear it's trying to touch CFTC, SEC, the DOJ, BSA, so FinCEN, Treasury. It's trying to answer every single question. And when a legislation does that, it's humongous, humongously comprehensive. Right. And what it's trying to do, but it's not going to Be perfect. And so in many ways the way the language is currently written it mean that it's not like the right step forward for us all but, but you can see like MICA is a great example of legislation that really tried to do almost too much and like so a big question here is like how are we going to get Congress comfortable with a bill where they have to understand every single part of an entirely huge financial market? And that's where like the different coalitions are going to play really interesting pieces of this because law enforcement coalition, whatever that means, we can get into that for a second. Sec, cftc, banking, like every little issue was going to be debated and that's before we even get to ethics.
- [11:23]
B
I am, I think the attempt to do all of this is actually laudable. Like it needs to be done in some form. And we do at least have a track record of other vast legislative financial services oriented bills like Dodd Frank. I think of this as crypto's Dodd Frank except not reactive to some sort of crisis. It's proactive. And if we implement this legislation I honestly hope that it will avoid any type of extreme volatility because it will put appropriate rails in place.
- [11:55]
A
But I do agree with you Jesse Kweke. You don't think this is reactive to crisis.
- [12:01]
B
Yes and no. Because frankly I think we would have had legislation earlier if not for ftx because you have to consider now we might have had bad legislation driven by sbf, which is terrifying. But one of the things that created this devastating partisan environment for people who haven't been in this space quite as long is that the Democrats really align themselves. Not all Democrats, we're making generalizations. Certain Democrats align themselves. Was Sam Bankman fried and so they had egg on their face when he turned out to be a sociopath. And is that a good reason for why this asset class should be partisan? Absolutely not. As we've talked about before, technology should be nonpartisan. Ultimately the inherent tech in this space is going to make Americans lives better. Access to alpha, etc. We could go on democratization of finance, all of the good in this space but that was a big, that that kind of crisis, that volatility actually pushed back legislation in my opinion.
- [13:06]
C
Yeah, I, so I think this is actually a really interesting question just looking at it. Historically yes there have been blow ups in crypto and I do think that that has like, is part of the motivation for this like very like landmark like widely scoped bill. But I don't, I don't think it like any, any kind of crisis was on the scale of what has prompted major financial legislation in the past. Right. It's not like the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the federal securities laws. It's not like the, the paperwork crisis of the 1970s that led to the securities Amendments of 1975. It's not like Don Frank, which grew out of like one of the biggest like financial collapses we've ever had. So it's not like that. I think it is like a combination of a few blow ups that happened, including ftx, but I think it was really more just like crypto and blockchain really did represent something fundamentally new and innovative. And eventually the lawmakers realized that the existing laws just would not work given how much the industry has grown.
- [14:10]
A
I think that is definitely a narrative and I agree with that framework. But I find that narrative to be much more on the Republican side side, the Democrat side. Much billions of dollars being stolen by dprk, money being taken, related to defi hacks, but also just like consumer protection, et cetera. And so there needs to be regulation. And so to me, maybe that is why it's been difficult to come up with a bill that meet matches both sides. Because in my mind, like when I hear the Democratic side and the Republican side, it works in my head to go together. Like, that's why I'm in crypto, because I think it can serve illicit finance features better and I think that it can serve consumer protection and the financial integrity of our markets better. But trying to bring that message so that both sides understand that you can get both of those goals with one bill has been a really interesting conversation and it's even interesting to have here because, you know, we talk about these things a lot. And to hear that perspective, like from my mind, I think a lot of Democrats are coming in like we need to do this because we need to stop future crises and stop sort of the flow of illicit finance here.
- [15:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great point. I mean, one of the things I love about this POD is that, I mean, we're not going to disclose our political affiliations, but we do have a degree of diversity in our political beliefs on this pod. Okay. That's all I'm going to say. We don't need to go there, but
- [15:48]
C
I think people know what I am. I call myself a pro innovation, pro technology Democrat.
- [15:54]
A
So there you go.
- [15:56]
C
I don't think I need to call
- [15:57]
A
myself anything for people to know I'm nothing.
- [16:00]
B
Okay? I just, I'm for America. Okay. I'm not gonna. This has nothing to do with my politics. But I do have to say somehow my children got a hold. Actually, my husband admitted he played Toby Keith courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.
- [16:15]
A
Oh my God, I'm from Virginia. I loved that song.
- [16:19]
B
Become obsessed with it all day long. You know, my five year old is like, alexa, play the boot in your ass song. And I'm like, that's a bad word. But oh my God. I digress. You know, I'll just say, God bless America. We need this bill. We want this bill. This bill is good. This bill is pro innovation. It is pro growth of the American economy. Like, I think we need to get on this train. So I hope we get past these roadblocks. I'm also concerned that if this doesn't happen now, it won't happen during the duration of this administration. And if it doesn't happen, I think we'll look back and as a like on a macro basis as America, and regret this from both a crypto and a drive fight perspective. So on that note, I want to say, you know, I just want to shout out, this isn't our good news, but a huge shout out to all of the people that have been on the policy front lines driving this. Educating legislators, educating regulators on the provisions of this bill, obviously the trades, the VCs and beyond the individual projects who have been in taking time to educate legislators on the benefits of this bill. Because we've come a long way and I think that's one of the reasons we're finally seeing traction. Yeah, totally. Okay. So speaking of innovation, it wouldn't be a Dex in the City pod without our AI program or AI segment of the week. Jesse, tell us what's going on.
- [17:51]
A
And I'm going to relate it to Clarity. So don't worry, it's a good flow of the episode. Okay, so AI story of the week. You know, there had to be one. It's essentially comes down to the fact that AI is not just coming for crypto and defi code. It's coming for the assumptions that are built into defi. So what the hell do I mean by that? Essentially. And we'll put it up on screen. But this week Palo Alto Networks have had a really interesting piece on the Mytho class models and cybersecurity. They're one of the companies that got access to it when we talked about its like limited release. And so they've been testing it out. So they are telling us like, look under the hood. This is what's happening. Their basic point is that AI changes the speed of exposure, which is not like totally new. But it's really not about finding more
- [18:40]
B
bugs,
- [18:44]
A
Bugs which Web two infrastructure. It's about finding what is exploitable, what can be chained together and how systems interact. And to me, like all I can think is Mr. Robot, like did any of you guys watch that show? Like that's what this all feels like. So Palo Alto's point is really that security used to work like a backlog, like the kinds of stuff that we think about, scan, ticket, triage, et cetera. Frontier. AI breaks this all because it can identify what's exploring exposed before any human or process catches up. And crypto and really Defi should care because Defi is just a giant open map, right? If you know how to read it. And that's the beauty of it that we talk about all the time. Open, compostable, transparent, etc. But DeFi protocols with this compostability and interoperability don't live in neat little boxes, right? They rely on each other. Now Oracle does not stay politely inside the protocol. And we've talked about this when we dove into specific hacks, but a weakness in one layer is going to become someone else's emergency really, really quickly, before anyone even knows. Because that's how these zero day hacks work. And in a mythos world, this open infrastructure of Defi is like, and maybe I'm just hot today, but it's like ice cream for attackers, right? So AI was really, really good at finding paths across systems. And Defi really wants to be this like, don't trust, verify. And that's great largely. But every system is going to have assumptions, assumptions that an Oracle is working, assumptions that the bridge message that's sent is valid, assumptions that a front end is working, etc. But these assumptions are what a mythos and a similarly situated AI attacker is going to go after. And that is really the problem here because it's not a hacked operating model for the moment before the hack, because that's what Palo Alto Networks and Web2 Systems are beginning to build. And what does that look like? It's like polygon pauses of protocols. Can users exit? Can a white hat hacker help move funds? But the problem with all that and how it plays into Clarity is like how much of that makes a protocol no longer decentralized, right? And Clarity is trying to wrestle with that. The policy question is whether Defi can have real emergency response without smuggling control and the accompanying regulation. That, you know, KK walkthrough backing text and I'M gonna like read this so that I get it, right? Because it says emergency measures do not by themselves make a protocol centralized if they are predefined, temporary, rules based, limited to a documented security incident or imminent threat. And there's a few other parts of it. And that's a great concept in theory, but the new AI systems don't really work with that. Right? Because it's sort of saying you can act in an emergency if there's an imminent threat. But like what does an imminent threat look like when AI is constantly looking for them and we won't even know what they look like? And we need more from our DEFI projects and that's something we've talked about here before, but I think even more so now. Palo Alto Alto Networks is one of the foremost experts on security and they are shouting out the warning here. And DEFI security can't just be like audit, launch and pray, right? There needs to be a way to build in an escape hatch for emergencies or potential emergencies. That's not a backdoor towards centralization. And that's what we need to really start thinking about. I think why should an agent can be transacting in DeFi, but it really, really starts with like DEFI grappling with not just its own development of technology, but what other kinds of technology is being developed alongside of it.
- [22:53]
B
It's fascinating because I think this raises so many risk oriented questions. And I think the thing is, and I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this is an area of passion for Jesse, as you just saw from that overview. But I think anyone who isn't paying attention to this whole landscape is going to be at a serious disadvantage in understanding how this is going to affect so many facets of DEFI and beyond. I also want to shout out by the way, I mean it wouldn't be a podcast without some sort of self promotion from me. Okay, but as we've mentioned multiple times before, Jesse and I published an article in October on programmable risk management for DeFi. Right? And in that article we mentioned how autonomous agents are going to change landscape. Kind of exactly what Jesse's talking about. Obviously exploits put so many different facets of agent to commerce. So today we actually released a follow up paper to our fall paper and it is specific, specifically on programmable risk management for agentic commerce and autonomous agents. So if you just listen to that overview from Jesse and you were confused, intrigued, interested, all of the above. I mean I would definitely at least consider running our paper through Claude for a summary. It's very long but find a way where you can deep dive into the security aspects the that you need to be aware of. How you can understand this, how this agentic activity is going to change pretty much every facet of our business. It's definitely time for projects to become more conversant in how all of this is going to change. So on that note, I think we will wrap and take a minute to hear from our generous sponsors that make this pod possible.
- [24:49]
D
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- [26:34]
B
So we're back and this is a fun one. So a little background. I mean anyone can submit an SEC comment letter. Okay. And for big issues that the regulators ask for feedback on, you will see thousands of comment letters and the commission reads these. You know they want to hear from market participants.
- [26:55]
C
No, they're required by law to read them.
- [26:58]
B
They are required by law. Thank you. So I do have to say the three of us spotted what might be the most, how would I term it? Entertaining, amusing, interesting SEC comment letter I've ever seen. V. Tell us more.
- [27:16]
C
All right, so are you guys ready for a blast from the past? So I don't know if you guys remember Wall street bets, that it's like a group of Reddit traders From the whole GameStop incident like a, a few years ago, or if you saw Dumb
- [27:32]
B
Money, which was kind of. It's like an.
- [27:34]
A
Don't watch that movie. Don't watch.
- [27:38]
C
Right.
- [27:38]
A
So they, they recently filed a comment
- [27:41]
C
letter responding to the SEC's proposal to move public companies from quarterly reporting to semiannual reporting. And it's funny because, like, their argument is actually pretty sophisticated. They say that quarterly reporting is one of the only things that help retail investors compete with institutions that institutional investors already have access to things like management and proprietary data and channel checks and analysts and, you know, like the different kinds of private information networks. So retail investors disproportionately would rely on public disclosures like 10Qs and that if those disclosures happen less frequently, the information gap between retail and institutions will just widen. Right. Harming everyday investors. So the reason we thought this was so interesting is because it's actually really relevant to crypto and tokenized stocks more than people might realize. Right. I think the Wall street bet comment letter unintentionally, I don't know if they realize they're doing this. It actually highlights one of the biggest differences between traditional markets and on chain markets. In traditional markets, information is periodically disclosed. Right? And so what that means is stuff that stuff like financial information and like a company's financial performance can sometimes be really delayed. And obviously it depends on an intermediary like gathering that information. It relies on us like us trusting that they are disclosing it accurately, that it's being audited appropriately, and all of these things. Right. So what's different about on chain markets is that a lot of financial and transactional information is continuous, transparent, and machine readable. Right. That means that it's actually legible to computers and on chain systems. And that's what makes it interoperable and programmable and just a lot more dynamic than off chain reporting and off chain systems. So it sounds kind of just know, like technical and a little bit boring. But I actually think this distinction is really profound and a game changer. And it becomes super, super important when you're talking about tokenized equities and, and on chain securities Markets, Right. So I think the question for the SEC is if stocks become tokenized and they trade 24,7 globally on chain, does quarterly reporting even make sense anymore? Like the, the concept of periodic reporting almost feels like quaint and that it's going to become obsolete in an on chain world, right? Like as, as crypto people, all of us are already used to things like, you know, real time proof of reserves and being able to see your balances on chain at any time. Like flow of funds being transparent settlement, settlement being instantaneous getting like live market data. So if you compare that to waiting 90 days for an earnings report or disclosures that management has curated or delayed settlement and things like that, crypto is obviously a huge upgrade. And it's kind of like the ultimate expression of what Wall street bets is arguing, right? Like, real time transparent disclosure will not just increase reporting, it'll make disclosures like real time and instant. Which, like I said, I think that is a huge game changer. And so I just, I thought it was kind of funny and I guess this was kind of my hot take too. Like it feels like the SEC is actually inadvertently moving in the opposite direction of where markets are actually going.
- [31:36]
B
I thought it was.
- [31:37]
A
Yeah, I think that, yeah, I think that's such an interesting take. And also I was fascinated by this and went down a rabbit hole of like reading like Reddit posts associated with it because it really brought me back to pre Covid or around Covid time when I spent a lot of time on my computer. But the truth is, is like I sort of see that too. Like the SEC going in two separate directions because tokenized securities in. The video, transparency all the time when like reducing reporting for the rest of the markets just doesn't give us much transparency. And I thought it was also really interesting. And Matt Levine, Levine, I never know, brought this up. So I don't take too much credit for like reading the footnotes of the SEC releases, but essentially they quoted an academic paper that is, you know, did a study of like whether quarterly reporting really has an impact on companies. And it was a very minimal regulatory reporting was a very minimal reason of why companies did not go public. So it actually does not have the big impact that they thought and it reduces transparency maybe. I think what's interesting about tokenized
- [33:01]
B
securities
- [33:02]
A
is to me, to be honest, in the way that you express rest v of like full transparency on all the time access everywhere when you need it. Because that's the whole point that we're all here, right? But I still don't really know how this vision is going to work if not everything is tokenized, right? So like if there are. Different ledger dealing with stocks here and tokenized over here, like is that going to actually reduce information for that intermediary period because they won't be aligned or people won't really know what's happening? I'm not sure.
- [33:43]
C
I think what could happen. Sorry, just to follow up on that real quick. What I think could happen is you'll have like a transition period where you do have issuers that are on chain and like maybe even like ipoing on chain and their disclosures will be like we said, real time, continuous. But you'll still have obviously issuers that live in the off chain world and then the market will kind of decide, right, like which model serves investors better. Like that is kind of what I see happening because it's not going to happen overnight. But I think it'll be a really interesting case study in like consumer choice. Right. And like which model prevails because it really is better for not just investors, but market integrity.
- [34:28]
B
I just want to say I loved this comment letter so much. Like I think everyone should read it because this is the American people speaking through Wall street bets. Like I loved so much language in this. First of all, it was written, it was on the screen a few minutes ago, I think. But take a look at it. I mean they made so much sense. They're like we have the 10Q. We have the 10Q and we have a Discord server and we have each other. Take away the 10Q and you have not eliminated the information. You have just made sure the only people who have it are the ones who are going to outperform us anyway. There's so much common sense in this. Okay. And then the other thing that they said is, look like we are not lawyers. We are people who own stock. We would like to keep being able to find out what is happening at the companies whose stock we own more than twice a year. A year. It's a beautiful thing. Like I just like that so much of us, and I say this, us, so many lawyers, so many regulators, so many legislators, we focus so much on the technical history of the law, the architecture of the law. We get very granular. A lot of that analysis is important, but it's also equally important to occasionally zoom out and say what is going to be best for the retail investor and not in a paternalistic fashion. I've always loved like disclosure as the degree to equality. You know, it's again one of the original Tenets of crypto transparency and disclosure arguably levels the playing field. And I think that's what WallStreetBets is saying. Like, we're the little guy. Don't cut us off from the information. We need it, we want it. So the other thing I was going to shout out, having absolutely nothing to do with WallStreetBets comment letter, is there's actually a lot of other stuff going on at the sec, and I wanted to turn it back to you V real quick to tease something else. Very exciting. We don't have the specifics, but there's been a lot of talk about it in the past 24 hours. Tell us more.
- [36:30]
C
Yeah, so, I mean, I guess this kind of is related to the last thing we were just talking about, but news came out today that the SEC's innovation exemption. Right. Which they've been teasing for. Oh, God, I don't even know how long now, months and months, that it might actually be coming out as early as next week. And it's going to relate to tokenized equities and the ability to issue tokenized equities. And interestingly, I think it might also allow for basically third party issuance of tokenized equities. So, you know, like these wrapped versions of them that you've kind of been seeing on the market, supposedly it's going to allow for some version of that, which I think would be a really interesting development. But like KK said, we don't know the details yet. When it drops, obviously we'll talk about it more on this pod. So stay tuned.
- [37:17]
B
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, FYI, we have not lost Jesse. She is struggling with too many AI tools open at once. No, just kidding. That was a joke.
- [37:27]
A
I blame New York City.
- [37:28]
B
Yeah.
- [37:30]
A
How do you be able to do it?
- [37:32]
B
That's substandard New York City WI Fi. And she likes this picture, backwater city. Anyway, so she's still with us. And thank goodness she's with us because we need her perspective for the final topic of today. And okay, we debated whether we were going to talk about this and then we decided that we needed to talk about it because as I said, I think in the first episode, one of the drivers for this pod was amplifying female voices in crypto. And the three of us have spent a lot of time. I can definitely say I have spent a lot of time, a lot of advocacy, a lot of arguments, and I use arguments intellectually saying that this space is not filled with crypto bros. I hate that terminology. It's still used on the reg by legislators and it drives me nuts. Obviously, the three of us are the farthest thing from a crypto bro you can get. I mean, I am a Midwestern mom. Okay, so not a bro. But what happened last week, I think everybody may have seen this news. If you didn't, we're going to tell you about it. Consensus. A fantastic conference. It really was excellent. Great vibes, high quality attendance. I really like and respect the CoinDesk team. I think that their reporting is excellent. I have nothing but good things to say about consensus. Substantively, this is not about consensus, the conference. This is about crypto holistically, on a cultural question. Meaning what happened last week is that the official consensus after party, as we mentioned on last week's pod very briefly, was held at a club with strippers. Just going to pause there for a second. Here's the problem with this. The strippers are not the problem. We are not demonizing the strippers. I have nothing wrong with sex work. Okay? That's not what this podcast is about. The problem is that the official after party included strippers at the venue. Why is that problematic? Because culturally, crypto should be inclusive. Crypto should be about people. Every kind of people, every gender, every persuasion. Here for the underlying technology, not here for the parties. And strippers are going to make people uncomfortable. Not just women, I may add. There are men that.
- [39:53]
A
Sorry to interrupt. It's not strippers that make people uncomfortable. It's having an official sanctioned party at a club that is not considering all the types of people that are involved in crypto. And let's like, let me just be clear here. We should not have to get on this pod and explain why this is inappropriate and wrong. There are so many amazing people in crypto that. That are not comfortable in that kind of situation. And they're not just females. But let's just start there because that's the kind of pod that this is. And the fact not only that this happened, like stuff like this happens and people, like make mistakes and the planning is wrong. The fact that there has been zero accountability for this is what is really grinding my gears. And Unchained told me I was allowed to curse as much as I want on this.
- [40:46]
B
Odd.
- [40:46]
A
So that may come out, but it's ridiculous to me that there has not been someone who has come out from the organizing side of this and said this was a mistake. This is not representative of what our crypto industry is. And to top it all off, there have not been big voices or big organizations, trades in crypto that have come forward and said, look, we don't represent this as an industry and we want to be inclusive and particularly around the clarity conversations, for someone to not come forward and say, like, hey, Congress, maybe just appreciate the fact that we are trying to build a real financial market here for consumers to have additional financial access and not just males that want to go to strip clubs. Everybody, I think all females on this pod, plus many females in crypto who are listening, have had horrible experiences at conferences where I personally have been asked if I was an escort that was hired at one of the first conference crypto conferences I went to. And we tolerate so, so much. And it's just part of being in the industry, unfortunately. But when you don't have the organizations that you support, support and you work for every single day, coming forward and saying, hey, we are the trade of crypto and we think this is wrong. It's just, it's ridiculous to me not to mention that, like, the organizers couldn't come forward.
- [42:18]
B
Yep. I just want to say before V has a chance to weigh in as well, this is unacceptable. It's unacceptable. There's no other word for it. I think particularly as a female who's been in crypto for years, I'm certainly comfortable with a male dominated, dominated environment. You know, I was a partner at a law firm in the white collar defense practice. Also a male dominated environment. Can't even count how many dinners I've been at where it's me and a bunch of men. There's nothing pro, there's nothing problematic about it, but all the male listeners. I would like you to put yourself in an environment where you were at a club and you were one of the only men at the club. Fine. Okay. A little weird, but fine. Maybe you're having fun and then there's a whole bunch of naked men dancing around you. How would you feel? Would you feel like you were in an inclusive environment or would you feel like this was an uncomfortable environment and you needed to maintain your professionalism? Gender put aside, this is just an unprofessional environment. No one is saying that the consensus attendees couldn't go to a strip club after consensus. Or someone could host a side event that had strippers find. I mean, this is America. God bless America. People could do whatever they want, but it's, it's a lack of professionalism. V, you've maintained very quiet, you know, demeanor. Get, get, get angry with us.
- [43:36]
C
Yeah, I, I agree with everything you guys just said. The reason I'm being quiet is because it's shocking to me that this isn't all incredibly obvious. Like, the organizations that represent the industry all should have made statements that would have shown leadership and courage. I'm disappointed that that didn't happen. You know, this like. Like you were saying, right? This is not a knock on the club. I actually think it's a really cool club. I've been there a few times, and the club is very unique. It's very neat. The workers there are awesome. So this is not about that. It's about. Like you said, it's about holding an industry event, a professional event in that sort of environment is wildly inappropriate, appropriate. So I don't have much to add. I mean, I got a ton of texts from friends who are not in crypto asking me, did this actually happen? And it was embarrassing. I was like, yes, it did actually happen. I wasn't there, but I could see why. It seems unbelievable to you, but yes. So agree with everything you guys said. I don't have that much to add because, like I said, I think all of this should go without saying, saying that this was not okay.
- [44:49]
B
And I think two excuses that have been levied about not coming out with statements damning this are, A, it's the. Now I'm forgetting the specific term for it, but, you know, if you give more attention, you'll draw more attention by making statements to this. So, like, let's just let this go away. I think that's a cop out, unfortunately. And B, obviously, the timing of the clarity markup happened pretty much immediately after this. I will say that second excuse is somewhat more valid to me. Like, we need to focus on clarity. We need to focus on this, on something positive as opposed to something negative. However, I would also like to remind people how much this narrative of official crypto conference after parties with strippers hurts our policy efforts because it feeds into this misperception, or what should be a misperception that many partisan naysayers have about our industry. So nothing good came of this. So a moment of silence there, but really,
- [45:52]
A
I can do that one all day, but I don't. I just agree with you. I think courage is the right word, V. And I'm just embarrassed by the lack of courage that, you know, people will just tweet all day about every single thing on their mind or any sort of potential regulatory news, but they can't stand up for our industry. And, you know, people that say it's not going to make a difference to stand up at this point, it will make a difference. I think we're all explaining why right now.
- [46:20]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, on that note, I'd like to turn this to the positive side of things. Our crypto good news is just the fact that there are a. A whole bunch of companies out there, including Shout out to Consensus, the Metamask Consensus, that somehow there was some signage at the club. They came out with a very strong statement saying that this was unacceptable. So Shout out to Metamask Consensus and the other organizations which, you know, spoke up about this. But B, there's a lot of really fantastic companies that seek to add all forms of diversity and different perspectives in their ranks. B, there are still a ton of really incredible women in this space, despite the fact that we need to hang out with strippers to work in this industry, despite the fact that I once went to a side event that turned out to be held at a. At a sex shop. That was also fun. I mean, we could go on and on with stories here, but I want to say to the women who are still here, to the allies who are still here that find this unacceptable and, you know, do what they can to increase the inclusivity in this space, that is for everyone, Shout out to you. You are our good news for the week. So I would say spread the word, do a good deed, you know, hug a woman this week. Actually don't hug a woman
- [47:49]
A
she would like.
- [47:52]
B
If she consents to it, then it's, yeah, ask her if she consents to a hug. Maybe just a high five or a wave or a smile or retweet. So spread the good word. And that's it for this week of Decks and the City. We'll see you next week where hopefully we'll be more optimistic and less angry.
- [48:48]
A
But it's ridiculous to me that there has not been someone who has come out from the organizing side of this and said, this was a mistake. This is not representative of what our crypto industry is. And to top it all off, there have not been big voices or big organizations, trades in crypto that have come forward and said, look, we don't represent this as an industry and we want to be inclusive and particularly around the clarity conversations, for someone to not come forward and say, like, hey, Congress, maybe just appreciate the fact that we are trying to build a real financial market here for consumers to have additional financial access and not just males that want to go to strip clubs, everybody, I think all females on this pod, plus many females in crypto who are listening, have had horrible experiences at conferences where I personally have been asked if I was an escort that Was hired at one of the first conference crypto conferences I went to. But it's fucking ridiculous to me that there has not been someone who has come out from the organizing side of this and said, this was a mistake. This is not representative of what our crypto industry is. And to top it all off, there have not been big voices or big organizations, trades in crypto that have come forward and said, look, we don't represent this as an industry and we want to be inclusive and particularly around the clarity conversations, for someone to not come forward and say, like, hey, Congress, maybe just appreciate the fact that we are trying to build a real financial market here for consumers to have additional financial access and not just males that want to go to strip clubs. Everybody, I think all females on this pod, plus many females in crypto who are listening, have had horrible experiences at conferences where I personally have been asked if I was an escort that was hired at one of the first conference crypto conferences I went to. And we tolerate so, so much. And it's just part of being in the industry, unfortunately. But when you don't have the organizations that you support and you work for every single day coming forward and saying, hey, we are the trade of crypto and we think this is wrong, it's just, it's ridiculous to me not to mention that, like, the organizers couldn't come forward.
- [51:24]
B
Yeah. I just want to say before V has a chance to weigh in as well, this is unacceptable. It's unacceptable. There's no other word for it. I think, particularly as a female who's been in crypto for years, I'm certainly comfortable with a male dominated, dominated environment. I was a partner at a law firm in the white collar defense practice, also a male dominated environment. Can't even count how many dinners I've been at where it's me and a bunch of men. There's nothing problematic about it. But all the male listeners. I would like you to put yourself in an environment where you were at a club and you were one of the only men at the club. Fine. Okay, little weird. Fine. Maybe you're having fun and then there's a whole bunch of naked men dancing around you. How would you feel? Would you feel like you were in an inclusive environment or would you feel like this was an uncomfortable environment and you needed to maintain your professionalism? Gender put aside, this is just an unprofessional environment. No one is saying that the consensus attendees couldn't go to a strip club after consensus. Or someone could host a side event that had strippers Fine. I mean, this is America. God bless America. People could do whatever they want, but it's. It's a lack of professionalism. V, you've maintained very quiet, you know, demeanor. Get. Get angry with us.
- [52:42]
C
Yeah, I. I agree with everything you guys just said. The reason I'm being quiet is because it's shocking to me that this isn't all incredibly obvious. Like, the organizations that represent the industry all should have made statements that would have shown leadership and courage. I'm disappointed that that didn't happen. You know, this, like. Like you were saying, right? This is not a knock on the club. I actually think it's a really cool club. I've been there a few times, and the club is very unique. It's very neat. The workers there are awesome. So this is not about that. It's about. Like you said, it's about holding an industry event. A professional event in that sort of environment is wildly inappropriate. So I don't have much to add. I mean, I got a ton of texts from friends who are not in crypto asking me, did this actually happen? And it was embarrassing. I was like, yes, it did actually happen. I wasn't there, but I could see why. It seems unbelievable to you, but yes. So agree with everything you guys said. I don't have that much to add because, like I said, I think all of this should go without saying that this was not okay.
- [53:55]
B
And I think two excuses that have been levied about not coming out with statements damning this are, A, it's the. Now I'm forgetting the specific term for it, but, you know, if you give more attention, you'll draw more attention by making statements to this. So, like, let's just let this go away. I think that's a cop out, unfortunately. And B, obviously, the timing of the Clarity markup happened pretty much immediately after this. I will say that second excuse is somewhat more valid to me. Like, we need to focus on clarity. We need to focus on this, on something positive as opposed to something negative. However, I would also like to remind people how much this narrative of official crypto conference after parties with strippers hurts our policy efforts because it feeds into this misperception, or what should be a misperception that many partisan naysayers have about our industry. So nothing good came of this. So a moment of silence there. But really,
- [54:58]
A
I can do that one all day, but I don't. I just agree with you. I think courage is the right word, V. And I'm just embarrassed by the lack of courage. Courage that, you know, people will just tweet all day about every single thing on their mind or any sort of potential regulatory news, but they can't stand up for our industry. And, you know, people that say it's not going to make a difference to stand up at this point, it will make a difference. I think we're all explaining why right now.
- [55:26]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, on that note, I'd like to turn this to the positive side of things. Our crypto good news is just the fact that there are a. A whole bunch of companies out there, including Shout out to Consensus, the Metamask Consensus, that somehow there was some signage at the club. They came out with a very strong statement saying that this was unacceptable. So Shout out to Metamask Consensus and the other organizations which, you know, spoke up about this. But B, there's a lot of really fantastic companies that seek to add all forms of diversity and different perspectives in their ranks. B, there are still a ton of really incredible women in this space, despite the fact that we need to hang out with strippers to work in this industry, despite the fact that I once went to side event that turned out to be held at a. A sex shop. That was also fun. I mean, we could go on and on with stories here, but I want to say to the women who are still here, to the allies who are still here that find this unacceptable and, you know, do what they can to increase the inclusivity in this space, that is for everyone. Shout out to you. You are our good news for the week. So I would say spread the word, do a good deed, you know, hug a woman this week. Actually, don't hug a woman
- [56:55]
A
she would like.
- [56:58]
C
If she consents to it, then it's okay.
- [57:00]
B
Yeah, ask her if she consents to a hug. Maybe just a high five or a wave or a smile or retweet. So spread the good word. And that's it for this week of Decks in the City. We'll see you next week where hopefully we'll be more optimistic and less angry. Sa.