Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - The Crypto Frontier: Regulatory Frameworks and their Future with Mark Lurie | The TRUTH Podcast #36

In this episode of the podcast from the road, I talk with Mark Lurie about Bitcoin and Bitcoin policy. Mark is one of the leading minds in the country on all things relating to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and he lives in New Hampshire. We talk about Bitcoin's origins, the history of Bitcoin, and the role of government in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We also talk about the role that governments should play in the space, and how they need to respond to the growing concerns that crypto-advocates have about them. Recorded in Boston, MA! See all the great work going on in the Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency space here at The Bitcoin Project, and be sure to check out the excellent work being done by the excellent team at the Bitcoin Foundation and the Bitcoin Center at the Center for Economic Policy and Advocacy at the Mercatus Center at Harvard Law School, where they are leading the charge on Bitcoin and many other topics related to Bitcoin, crypto, and much more. If you're interested in learning more about Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, you can join our bi-monthly Bitcoin and crypto events happening around the world, join us on socials by using the hashtag and tag to be included in the conversation in the tag . if you're a supporter of Bitcoin and/or other crypto-related projects, we'll send you a review! , and we'll get a shoutout in the next week's episode of From the Road podcast episode! We'll be posting it on the next episode of "From the Road" on our socials, where we'll have a live up to date with the latest in the latest episode of The Bitcoin and Currencies podcast, "The Bitcoin And Cryptoconomy podcast! (coming soon! ) , where we cover all things Bitcoin and all sorts of crypto-currencies, crypto-tourism and other things going on around the place where you can expect to learn about Bitcoin, Bitcoin, altcoins, blockchain, and everything else going on across the world of Bitcoin & other things related to crypto, crypto! . Stay tuned for the latest from the Bitcoin & crypto, right here on The Bitcoin & Cryptography. , right here at the "From The Road" on the road! - Tom Connolly Timestamps: 3:30 - What's up? 4:00 - What is Bitcoin? 6:40 - Why is Bitcoin not a currency? 7:15 - What does Bitcoin really mean to you? 8:20 - What are you looking for? 9:00 10:30 11:00 | What's Bitcoin's role in Bitcoin?

00:00:02.000 So, episode of the podcast from the road, I

00:00:26.000 I actually am in New Hampshire and I called up one of my friends who has been actually helping me get educated about cryptocurrency, but also happens to be a guy I went to college with who lives in New Hampshire.

00:00:36.000 So, he came out to the event and we hung out afterwards.

00:00:40.000 We're now upstairs in a conference room after doing a grassroots event here in New Hampshire, which went great with a great audience, but we didn't get any questions about cryptocurrency.

00:00:50.000 Which I think is a good thing because I think that, you know, I think that there are other issues we needed to cover.

00:00:55.000 But a lot of the issues that we did cover related to relate to many of the problems that crypto advocates also share concerns about.

00:01:05.000 Stability of the financial system, integrity of the monetary system.

00:01:09.000 What does it even mean to have full faith and credit backing a currency if the full faith and credit of that government is itself a questionable proposition?

00:01:20.000 So to talk about that, we actually came upstairs and doing a road edition of the podcast with none other than my friend, Mark Lurie, who is one of the leading minds in the country, if you ask me, on issues on all things relating to crypto.

00:01:32.000 He lives in New Hampshire.

00:01:34.000 Here we are close to your hometown.

00:01:35.000 Welcome to the podcast, Mark.

00:01:37.000 Thanks for coming near my home.

00:01:38.000 Yeah, it's good to be here.

00:01:40.000 So we'll just go about 30 minutes, maybe a little less, and just get right into it.

00:01:47.000 So here's the thing that I've been, as you know, struggling with in my framework for developing crypto policy, which is that the initial concept was very tantalizing.

00:02:01.000 And I embrace wholeheartedly of Bitcoin, but I think it's true of blockchain-based systems, but currency in general, which is to say that this created an opt-out.

00:02:13.000 Of the way the normal financial system works, right?

00:02:16.000 That's under the rule of law.

00:02:17.000 You have a government that issues a fiat currency, a government that funds its operations through that fiat currency that also has laws and you abide by that system of norms and rules and regulations.

00:02:28.000 And if you want to just opt out of that to sort of create a space in the extra-sovereign world where the rules of the jungle apply and nothing more, then have at it.

00:02:40.000 It's sort of like you put on the VR goggles.

00:02:42.000 It's like a second life.

00:02:44.000 And say, you just do what you do in that space, and you're good to go.

00:02:49.000 And then there was the overreach of government to say, no, no, no, no.

00:02:51.000 That happens under our watch, and we're going to regulate you.

00:02:55.000 And, you know, a lot of crypto advocates and, you know, freedom advocates were sort of saying, no, stay out of our hair.

00:03:02.000 But then it seems like when I look at the modern crypto policy contours, I know there's a lot that happened in between, but that sort of says that, well, actually, we want to participate in the existing legal frameworks and banking system and whatnot.

00:03:18.000 And so we need some level of regulation, but Not all the ones that you apply to other things that look and walk like a duck and quack like a duck, but we don't want to call it security.

00:03:29.000 And so I think that to me is the fundamental tension and interesting issue here.

00:03:34.000 But maybe you want to just riff off of that a little bit and talk about What you see as the original philosophical promise of crypto, and how that can, starting with Bitcoin, but in ways in which we can still preserve that promise against the backdrop of what looks like more of an internecine mess today about what the relationship between regulations and crypto should actually be.

00:03:57.000 Yeah, well, I think that's a good way of starting to frame it.

00:04:01.000 So crypto emerged with Bitcoin after the 2008 financial crisis.

00:04:08.000 And the initial goal was to create an opt-out from the traditional financial system that couldn't be tinkered with by governments, central banks, etc.

00:04:21.000 It was a stable currency, kind of like gold, that Was more portable and secure in many ways by goal.

00:04:30.000 And that would be a check and balance on the traditional financial system just because it existed as an opt-out.

00:04:37.000 Now, crypto has grown a lot from there.

00:04:40.000 And I think one of the things that people struggle with is that it's not actually monolithic anymore, right?

00:04:46.000 It's a whole economy.

00:04:47.000 There's a lot of different things when we think about crypto.

00:04:49.000 It's not just a currency.

00:04:51.000 And so that makes it really confusing to have conversations around crypto because like, well...

00:04:57.000 They are interacting with the traditional financial system, right?

00:05:01.000 They want to do all these things.

00:05:03.000 They want to have no regulations apply.

00:05:06.000 And part of the reason it's hard to grapple with those and it's confusing is because it's not a they, right?

00:05:12.000 It's a diverse set of needs and use cases and purposes, right?

00:05:18.000 And so it's much more than just Bitcoin.

00:05:20.000 Bitcoin is only half of crypto market cap today.

00:05:23.000 Okay, so that's one thing.

00:05:27.000 The other thing is that, you know, this provides an opt-out.

00:05:30.000 There's kind of two ways to think about how crypto can affect the traditional financial system in the world, right?

00:05:36.000 One is, it's a whole different world.

00:05:37.000 You can be in crypto, you can stay in crypto, you use crypto, you don't really have to interact with the traditional financial or economic world.

00:05:48.000 You can be entirely in crypto world if you want to be.

00:05:50.000 So I'm cool with that.

00:05:52.000 Yeah, and there are many purists who still very vehemently believe in doing that, right?

00:05:58.000 Then there's other people who say, well, the goal is to help change the real world.

00:06:02.000 And in order to disrupt the way things are done, you want to interact with the real world.

00:06:08.000 You want to disrupt it.

00:06:09.000 And so that requires interfacing.

00:06:12.000 You know, it's a better way of doing things.

00:06:14.000 Disrupting is sometimes a scary way of describing something, but it can just be a better way of doing things.

00:06:19.000 And so there's no reason you'd want to separate that from the traditional financial system.

00:06:25.000 I think the last thing to say is that there's a lot of people who, it's not necessarily that they want favors.

00:06:33.000 It's not necessarily that they want different treatment.

00:06:35.000 It's that the reasons we created the frameworks around regulation policy that we did for the financial system, as it traditionally is known, are not Relevant.

00:06:46.000 They're not useful for what crypto is, right?

00:06:49.000 They were built for a way of doing things that is different than what crypto enables.

00:06:56.000 I mean, that concedes one premise that...

00:06:59.000 Those regulations were largely useful for the thing that they were doing either.

00:07:03.000 They might be equally useless in that context as they are for crypto.

00:07:06.000 Could be, yes.

00:07:06.000 But at least they were designed with that in mind, right?

00:07:09.000 So a lot of our financial regulations hinge around the idea that in order to do anything with money, you pretty much have to give that money to someone.

00:07:17.000 A bank, a payment processor, a brokerage, right?

00:07:22.000 Within the crypto ecosystem, you hold your own money and you can exchange it with other people without going through an intermediary.

00:07:30.000 And so, it's like, well, why would we apply all the rules we created in order to make sure that these custodians didn't run away or do something problematic with their money to an environment where like there's no custodian.

00:07:43.000 It's just in people's wallets, right?

00:07:46.000 There's no concept of fairness where you have to apply the same regulations just because, right?

00:07:52.000 The regulations existed for a reason.

00:07:54.000 If those reasons are different, those regulations shouldn't apply the same.

00:07:57.000 And so I think that's less like- So forget the fairness piece of this because I find that persuasive.

00:08:02.000 It's not like, okay, so you regulate securities this way, so it's only fair if crypto has to compete in the same way.

00:08:07.000 Like what is fairness in that context?

00:08:08.000 It's a meaningless word.

00:08:10.000 But what if the premise is – and I don't – like I have deep skepticism of much of that regulatory apparatus, financial regulation broadly, but that is neither here nor there for the purpose of our discussion.

00:08:23.000 Like what if the bargain is that, okay, in order to have the protections of the rule of law – And protect against things like theft or, you know, whatever, confiscation or, you know, different ways of saying theft, misappropriation, whatever it is.

00:08:38.000 In order for having that legal regime, you have to then opt into feeding the beast.

00:08:43.000 And feeding the beast is that regulatory regime that you create.

00:08:47.000 And so...

00:08:49.000 If you crypto people want, so I'm taking from the standpoint of government here, if you crypto people want some kind of protection according to that same legal regime and rules of property rights and whatever that are enforced by the government, then you have to opt into that same regime. 0.93

00:09:04.000 But if you want rules of the jungle, then we're Operating in parallel ecosystems.

00:09:09.000 Like, what would be the best response to that?

00:09:11.000 I think most crypto people would say, sounds great to me.

00:09:16.000 They would rather- I think so too.

00:09:17.000 Yeah, they would rather operate on their own with some separation than As compared to be subject to a bunch of laws and rules which don't make a ton of sense and are applied because they're there already, not because they achieve the goal they were originally created to achieve.

00:09:36.000 And so if those are the choices, yes, I think most crypto people would say we'd rather separate ourselves.

00:09:43.000 Right.

00:09:44.000 But then now the point is, okay, but so long as your government are going to overreach – That bargain, then let's at least do it in a way that's like sensible.

00:09:52.000 Exactly.

00:09:53.000 Yeah.

00:09:53.000 Okay.

00:09:54.000 Then that's against the status quo.

00:09:55.000 Because I still like the – I don't mind – I quite don't mind the hardline philosophical distinction.

00:10:02.000 But that's never going to happen.

00:10:03.000 And so therefore, let's talk about what reasonable regulatory framework looks like.

00:10:07.000 It's kind of your position.

00:10:08.000 It could happen.

00:10:09.000 I mean, if you could figure out the contours for a separation, I mean, it's feasible that everyone would be happy with that.

00:10:17.000 But that's certainly not on the table right now.

00:10:20.000 And so it's not something that I think most people are grappling with.

00:10:25.000 The other thing is, you know, it is tricky to draw those lines because this economic activity and financial activity is happening in this crypto universe, right?

00:10:35.000 But the people still live in the real world, right?

00:10:39.000 And so, it's impossible to completely separate them, right?

00:10:43.000 I mean, maybe you don't apply financial or securities regulation, right?

00:10:48.000 But you still can't have people like funding terrorists or You know, kidnapping people and holding a gun to their head so they give them crypto, right?

00:10:59.000 Like that's a real world implication.

00:11:01.000 You can't just totally separate, let's say, crime, right?

00:11:05.000 And so I think it's a little more difficult than it seems to draw that line where you just separate the two worlds.

00:11:10.000 Well, I mean, crime is unrelated to crypto is the point.

00:11:15.000 Like I'm saying, if somebody does a hack, it's internal to crypto, and steals crypto out of your wallet, then you're operating under rules of the jungle, and sorry, you opted out of the regulatory regime, no police coming in and sort of restoring your money.

00:11:27.000 Yeah, I would agree with you.

00:11:28.000 But if you kidnap somebody and you're holding ransom, like, I don't think that that's – the essence of that act isn't the currency you're demanding the ransom on, it's – I agree.

00:11:38.000 So maybe that's one place where you can draw that separation and like everyone agrees on.

00:11:43.000 But I think you have to work through a lot of those issues because it's not always so cut and dry.

00:11:48.000 Right?

00:11:48.000 I mean, what about money laundering?

00:11:50.000 Yeah.

00:11:51.000 So if you could snap your fingers and sort of lay out – Three to four crypto policy tenets that you think get us to a better place relative to the status quo in a way that's actually achievable for, say, the next president of the United States, what would it be?

00:12:09.000 I think there are two in particular.

00:12:15.000 The first is revising the Bank Secrecy Act.

00:12:19.000 Okay.

00:12:21.000 The second is...

00:12:22.000 So say more about that one.

00:12:24.000 So the money laundering, the namesake of money laundering is Al Capone, right?

00:12:29.000 Who, during Prohibition, laundered, like, pretended money was coming through laundromats instead of alcohol sales.

00:12:35.000 And, you know, it's a very complex process to launder money.

00:12:40.000 Yep.

00:12:40.000 And so, obviously, we don't want criminals to be doing that.

00:12:45.000 Trial traffickers are bad.

00:12:47.000 Cartels are bad.

00:12:48.000 You know, terrorism is bad.

00:12:50.000 And so, we created this framework that basically said, okay, it assumes that money has to go through some sort of intermediary, a bank, a brokerage, a money transmitter, what have you.

00:13:04.000 You know, obviously, there's cash, but people don't walk around with millions of dollars in their cash, you know, in their pocket normally.

00:13:10.000 Yeah.

00:13:12.000 And so we created this framework where it's like, okay, all financial institutions, you have to do KYC on your customers so you know who they are, right?

00:13:20.000 You look at their IDs.

00:13:22.000 And then second, you know, you have to kind of monitor transactions.

00:13:25.000 And if you see any suspicious transactions, you have to report them to the government.

00:13:29.000 So you would revise that how?

00:13:30.000 Okay.

00:13:31.000 So the way I would revise it is say, look...

00:13:36.000 The goal is to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

00:13:41.000 Any means to do that that is effective should be allowable.

00:13:47.000 In crypto, it's really hard to know who the people holding money are, but it's really easy to trace the transactions.

00:13:57.000 It's like imagine if all the money in the world were in a bank vault, right?

00:14:05.000 Everyone had the key to their safe deposit boxes and all the safety deposit boxes were clear, right?

00:14:10.000 And the bank logged the transfers between every safety deposit box.

00:14:16.000 It'd be pretty easy to stop money laundering because you can follow the money.

00:14:19.000 You don't know who's who, but you can follow the money.

00:14:22.000 And it turns out like following the money net-net is like kind of more effective than like knowing, screening each person each time they go to each different bank.

00:14:31.000 I like it.

00:14:31.000 Really hard to know who owns the money.

00:14:33.000 Really easy to follow the transactions.

00:14:34.000 Yes.

00:14:35.000 And so KYT, you know, your transaction, you know, would be probably more effective eventually than KYC. And it would prevent a lot of the problems which create friction between the crypto world and the traditional financial world today.

00:14:53.000 So that's number one.

00:14:55.000 The second is securities legislation.

00:15:01.000 So, in general, securities law assumes that if you are buying something, you're giving money to someone else.

00:15:11.000 And so, there's always an issuer, right?

00:15:16.000 They're holding their money for you, and they're producing value for you.

00:15:23.000 In crypto, you have this concept of smart contracts, which is basically you have code, which you kind of set up the rules, like what trades should be done when and how to calculate prices.

00:15:34.000 And it kind of runs on its own, right, on the blockchain.

00:15:37.000 And you can't really stop it.

00:15:39.000 You can put your money in the code, but no one else can kind of take that money out.

00:15:42.000 And so, it doesn't really fit into securities legislation because there's no issuer.

00:15:52.000 Right?

00:15:53.000 You're not giving your money to anyone else, and yet you're still required to adhere to the securities laws.

00:16:00.000 Is that the current state of play right now?

00:16:02.000 Yes.

00:16:03.000 Okay, that even like Ethereum or whatever is regulated under the Securities Act of 1933 or whatever.

00:16:10.000 Gensler, who's the chair of the SEC, has said he thinks everything except Bitcoin is a security.

00:16:16.000 The CFTC has said they think- Why does he give Bitcoin that's fast?

00:16:22.000 Because it behaves more like a commodity.

00:16:24.000 There really is no one to point to who's behind it.

00:16:27.000 No one even knows the founder.

00:16:29.000 Okay, fair enough.

00:16:29.000 Okay.

00:16:30.000 You know, it's decentralized enough.

00:16:32.000 Yeah, I at least understand the point.

00:16:33.000 Yeah.

00:16:33.000 Ethereum is probably the number two.

00:16:35.000 That's like maybe 20% of crypto market cap.

00:16:38.000 But he thinks everything other than Bitcoin is treated as security.

00:16:40.000 You know, that's what he says.

00:16:41.000 But the people he's gone after have tended to be the bad actors.

00:16:45.000 Mm-hmm.

00:16:45.000 Right?

00:16:46.000 And he's kind of caught between a rock and a hard place where it's like, you know, he doesn't really have the tools to regulate and protect investors in a good way.

00:16:54.000 So, he has to talk a big talk and then go after the bad actors.

00:16:57.000 But that creates uncertainty, which hurts everyone.

00:17:00.000 And so, you know, obviously, there's a lot of crypto that is not a security, right?

00:17:06.000 Crypto You can create these tokens.

00:17:10.000 A token is a representation of something, right?

00:17:12.000 A gift card is a representation of something.

00:17:16.000 A artwork is a representation of the history of that artwork, right?

00:17:20.000 It's why the Mona Lisa is worth more than a copy, right?

00:17:24.000 You know, my membership cards, my AAA card is a representation of my membership in AAA. And there are tokens That fill all those different purposes.

00:17:35.000 It is self-evident that many of those are not securities, right?

00:17:39.000 But they get painted with a broad brush and then it hurts a lot of innovation.

00:17:45.000 So what would you do with the securities law then?

00:17:48.000 Just not treat it as security basically?

00:17:52.000 This is really useful.

00:17:53.000 Revise the Bank Securities Act.

00:17:55.000 Very specific.

00:17:56.000 Securities laws are the issue.

00:17:57.000 What would you do with it?

00:17:59.000 Say you're the new Gensler.

00:18:00.000 Not offering a job, but...

00:18:01.000 Yeah.

00:18:02.000 I think the principle behind the securities laws we have now is disclosure, right?

00:18:11.000 Honesty and disclosure.

00:18:12.000 I think those principles are great, right?

00:18:15.000 Anyone who's doing anything should disclose a lot of stuff about what they're doing and be honest about it, right?

00:18:20.000 But the mechanics of what form they have to fill out, Right?

00:18:25.000 What liability they have to take.

00:18:28.000 How they have to sell things.

00:18:29.000 These things just kind of need to be, like, rethought.

00:18:34.000 And probably the most effective way to do that is to, like you suggested, ring-fence a lot of crypto and say, like, hey, it's the Wild West.

00:18:43.000 We're not ready to deal with this.

00:18:45.000 As it matures, like, we'll re-engage and we'll come up with common sense regulation that applies.

00:18:52.000 There's a list of, you know, specific things that I think could help, but I really think the securities acts need to be revised themselves.

00:19:06.000 It's certainly not something that can happen at the regulatory level.

00:19:10.000 It has to be the legislative level.

00:19:11.000 I agree with that in a way that has – What is that?

00:19:12.000 Right?

00:19:12.000 Yeah, legislative level.

00:19:13.000 I mean, the problem with the securities acts, one of them, is that they're purposefully vaguely written.

00:19:19.000 Right?

00:19:19.000 I mean, one of the things that bothers the heck out of me, this has nothing to do with crypto, has nothing to do with crypto, is that insider trading is nowhere defined in the securities laws.

00:19:30.000 And anytime someone's pushed to define it in the securities laws gets who objects.

00:19:35.000 The SEC, because they actually want them to be written vaguely.

00:19:38.000 That's one example among many, that's a famous example.

00:19:41.000 But, you know, I think that in some ways the vagueness again, as it applies to crypto, in that to use that analogy, may not be what they see as a bug, right?

00:19:52.000 They see that as a feature because it gives the Genslers of the world more authority than the people who are actually elected to Congress or the Senate to pass statutes. 0.98

00:20:01.000 The insider trading example is interesting because there was congressmen and senators, et cetera, that had – thinks that we need to change legislation on this.

00:20:09.000 Certainly, there are people who have called for greater clarity in industry and yet the SEC opposes the efforts to define it statutorily.

00:20:17.000 It would not surprise me if that same pattern of behavior actually purposefully what you're describing as just like a problem and assuming a well-intentioned, oh, well, like let's just all work together and fix it, I think presumes a sort of – Purity of intention that I don't think exists in most of the administrative state.

00:20:40.000 Not only does it not – And I think they like the vagueness, actually.

00:20:43.000 Yeah, not only – So Congress has to act, but they don't want Congress to act because that means they can't decide to do whatever the heck they want to do, which is what most of these bureaucrats actually – how they derive their power in their sense of what they call discretion, but what really is just arbitrariness, undermining the idea that we're a nation built on the rule of law when they actually would prefer it just be a nation of men.

00:21:01.000 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:21:02.000 And the irony is, you know, these agencies are set up to accomplish a mission, right?

00:21:09.000 And they are going to Fulfill that mission.

00:21:12.000 If it's protecting investors, they're going to focus on protecting investors, right?

00:21:16.000 And they're going to say that they evaluate the trade-offs incrementally between their, you know, capital formation and encouraging economic growth.

00:21:23.000 But really, like, when things like FTX happened, right?

00:21:27.000 Or Madoff happens, like, it makes them really look bad.

00:21:29.000 They focus mostly on preventing bad actions, not encouraging good actions.

00:21:34.000 And striking that balance, you know...

00:21:37.000 That's hard and they were set up so that there is a check and balance on that.

00:21:41.000 They're set off on this mission and then the legislature and, you know, the executive branch check and balance them, right?

00:21:49.000 And when that falls away, you just get the mission, even if well-intentioned, and you don't have the check and balance.

00:21:55.000 And I'm not sure it's fair for them to check and balance themselves.

00:21:58.000 Yeah.

00:21:59.000 Yeah, I'm sure it's not fair, actually, because that's part of the problem with the fourth branch of the government is it's designed to exist outside of the bounds of checks and balances.

00:22:13.000 That's exactly why it was sort of a demonic creation of sort of a quiet bargain of the executive branch and the legislative branch.

00:22:24.000 Nobody wanted to actually be held politically accountable Even though they were politically empowered.

00:22:28.000 And so they decided to sort of kick it outside.

00:22:31.000 And so actually, it's this weird analogy to where we began the discussion, actually.

00:22:34.000 Right?

00:22:36.000 Is that we've got the Constitution, but we want the rules of the jungle.

00:22:38.000 We'll kick it off to the administrative state.

00:22:41.000 And that effectively exists as a parallel morass that Actually, occasionally interfaces with the legal system, but more or less increasingly has nothing to do with it.

00:22:56.000 About the statutes that are passed versus the regulations that go through in, you know, pick your favorite part of the alphabet soup, SEC to FDA to, you know, God knows what, TSA to FTC to, you know, whatever.

00:23:09.000 And I think that's kind of an analogy with what we do with the crypto system is like this system, like they said, Congress is so broken, let's just kick it out and create this new thing.

00:23:17.000 Called the administrative state.

00:23:18.000 It's sort of like the financial system is so broken.

00:23:20.000 Let's just sort of like, you know, that the good – this is almost a good version of it.

00:23:24.000 That was the perverted version.

00:23:25.000 This is the good version of it.

00:23:26.000 Kick it out and create sort of a parallel system.

00:23:29.000 But in one case, I think it's a betrayal of the constitutional system of self-governance.

00:23:35.000 Whereas in the other case, we'll find out how that experiment turns out.

00:23:39.000 It's still only 10 years in.

00:23:41.000 Yeah, I think there's – I mean, you pointed out a lot that organizations have a tendency to metastasize, right?

00:23:48.000 It's just the nature of organizations.

00:23:49.000 They want to do more, right?

00:23:51.000 And that happens.

00:23:52.000 And so the – you know, in the Constitution, we build in checks and balances to try to prevent that, right?

00:23:59.000 So like the Second Amendment is an example where, you know, you can say a lot of things about it, but there's kind of a hard check on the – Encroachment of the police state because, you know, people might have guns, right?

00:24:12.000 And that prevents a certain amount of creep of the state.

00:24:19.000 In the financial sphere and in the legal sphere, we tried to solve that problem with checks and balances, right?

00:24:26.000 Right?

00:24:27.000 But crypto in many ways, you know, and this, I think, goes back to what we were initially talking about, is an opt-out.

00:24:33.000 And because it's an opt-out, it puts a check and balance on the natural growth and encroachment of the administrative state, right?

00:24:40.000 Someone great comes in and they say, okay, we're going to reform the administrative state.

00:24:43.000 Great.

00:24:44.000 It's a little bit of a unicorn, right?

00:24:46.000 Yeah.

00:24:47.000 I hope you're that unicorn.

00:24:48.000 But like, tough thing to find.

00:24:49.000 Doesn't come around very often.

00:24:51.000 Yeah.

00:24:52.000 What would enforce that problem, enforce, you know, a limit on that problem is an opt-out.

00:25:02.000 So in this case of money, it is, you know, something like Bitcoin, which is kind of like gold.

00:25:07.000 Gold serves that purpose.

00:25:08.000 You can only do so much to inflate your currency, you know, to solve your problems before people really start opting out.

00:25:15.000 And that's a hard limit that countries come up against sometimes.

00:25:20.000 In the same way, the legal system can encroach, right?

00:25:27.000 And encoding your rules of organization with other people in code on a blockchain can provide an opt-out jurisdiction if you don't want to be part of the current legal system.

00:25:40.000 And that is a check and balance on the legal system that actually might make things better for us.

00:25:44.000 In the same way that when file sharing came out, right, it forced the music industry to convert to things like streaming and Spotify.

00:25:51.000 No one uses Napster anymore, but because of Napster, we have Spotify, right?

00:25:56.000 And in the same way, because of the Second Amendment, We have a lot of freedoms.

00:26:02.000 And because of Bitcoin, we may have a more constrained Fed.

00:26:06.000 And there wasn't really a good way to do that otherwise.

00:26:09.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:26:09.000 And I think the constrained Fed is – I mean, that would be a boon to economic growth in this country.

00:26:15.000 And if cryptocurrency advocates played a role in creating the competitive pressure – To deliver that result, we would owe crypto advocates a debt of gratitude in this country because as you know, that's a big part of my focus in the presidency is to put the Fed back in its place.

00:26:33.000 And I think that's a very long-term goal, right?

00:26:36.000 Obviously, that's not where it is today.

00:26:38.000 As our crypto is not cryptos today.

00:26:39.000 Believe me, putting the Fed back in its place, I think that is a nearer-term goal, to be clear.

00:26:43.000 Sure, but crypto is not going to accomplish that next year, right?

00:26:46.000 But I think encouraging that kernel of a check and balance, that doesn't come around very often.

00:26:52.000 Yeah.

00:26:52.000 And the ability to foster that is a long-term boon to all of our freedoms, right?

00:27:01.000 Ambitious, lofty, but I think I could buy the possibility of that.

00:27:05.000 But even still, you don't have to think about it on the scale of centuries, even in the short run and the way it shapes the terms of debate that I buy.

00:27:11.000 And I think it's- I mean, we're talking about it.

00:27:13.000 Exactly.

00:27:13.000 We're already seeing some of that.

00:27:15.000 If I'm successful, I'll be, by definition, influenced by- Ongoing debates like this one forced by cryptocurrency as an alternative that otherwise caused us to have a discussion about the Federal Reserve that we might not be having in the same way but for it.

00:27:28.000 So that's already – that's already the best proof we need that it's tilting the scales of discussion about Fed reform at least for the better.

00:27:37.000 Quick question.

00:27:38.000 So you live in New Hampshire, you're in Nashua, right?

00:27:40.000 Salem.

00:27:40.000 You're in Salem.

00:27:41.000 Oh, yeah.

00:27:41.000 Okay, okay.

00:27:42.000 So we're in Salem County now, but you're in Salem.

00:27:44.000 Yeah, Salem's the next town over.

00:27:46.000 Next town over.

00:27:46.000 We're in Wyndham, but...

00:27:47.000 Yes, good.

00:27:49.000 Are you pretty plugged into the Republican primary at all, or like, not really?

00:27:54.000 I probably am not.

00:27:55.000 You know, I moved to New Hampshire a year ago.

00:27:57.000 I'm a Boston native and a New England born and bred New Englander.

00:28:01.000 I was going to ask you what your pulse on the ground, but I know you're not super politics-y.

00:28:05.000 What I have noticed so far is that it is more politically vibrant than any other place I've ever lived, right?

00:28:10.000 It is, right?

00:28:11.000 It makes me really appreciate the primary system we have because everyone you meet is more willing to be engaged with these issues and takes it upon themselves to go see the candidates.

00:28:20.000 That is just not something you get in You know, deep blue and deep red states.

00:28:25.000 What was your takeaway from tonight?

00:28:27.000 From tonight?

00:28:28.000 Yeah.

00:28:28.000 Anything interesting?

00:28:29.000 You were at most of the event, right?

00:28:30.000 Yeah.

00:28:31.000 So what was something interesting?

00:28:34.000 You know, I haven't been to a lot of other candidates' political events, so it's hard for me to compare.

00:28:39.000 Someone cried.

00:28:41.000 I mean, I think...

00:28:44.000 You know, I think the stuff you say resonates.

00:28:47.000 You know, I'd say, like, personally, 85% in agreement, which is, like, way above the bar.

00:28:55.000 Phenomenal.

00:28:56.000 Yeah.

00:28:56.000 You know what I mean?

00:28:56.000 100 would be weird.

00:28:57.000 It would be weird, yeah.

00:28:58.000 And, you know, and I think people seem to get energized.

00:29:03.000 To me, you know, it's a basement with a breath of fresh air.

00:29:08.000 And so, you know, I'm very happy to be here.

00:29:12.000 I appreciate that, man.

00:29:13.000 I'm glad you came out.

00:29:14.000 And I've learned a lot from you on crypto.

00:29:15.000 And I think that...

00:29:18.000 Like most things, I think it requires delving into the complexity a little bit to get it right.

00:29:22.000 I think there's no hiding from it.

00:29:24.000 And at least our thesis in this campaign is that we're not going to hide from the complexity.

00:29:29.000 We're going to get our hands dirty.

00:29:31.000 And, you know, hopefully that's going to actually put us in a best position, not just to deliver slogans, but actually to deliver a result.

00:29:39.000 I look forward to watching it.

00:29:41.000 And, you know, I think in general, a lot of things you say are very aligned with a lot of the ethos of the crypto community.

00:29:48.000 It's generally a libertarian group, right?

00:29:51.000 And so I hope they learn more about you and, you know.

00:29:56.000 And follow your trail.

00:29:58.000 Cool.

00:29:58.000 And I'm going to be learning more about the issues affecting them as well.

00:30:01.000 It's been a good learning already so far.

00:30:03.000 Thanks for helping me get there.

00:30:04.000 We'll probably do this again maybe in a few months when I'm further along.

00:30:07.000 Sounds good.

00:30:07.000 But it's good to see you, man.

00:30:09.000 Likewise.

00:30:09.000 Thanks a lot.

00:30:10.000 I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - July 13, 2023

The Crypto Frontier: Regulatory Frameworks and their Future with Mark Lurie | The TRUTH Podcast #36

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