BlackRock & Strategy Unite for Bitcoin!

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
Good morning, everyone. Sorry, I was muted and talking like an idiot into my muted microphone. It's a beautiful day here, and crypto markets are kind of sitting in the same spot. We've reached 64,000, so I guess it's time to get out the the pails and start bailing water out of our failing market. Now, I mean, obviously, I don't think anything is different than the last couple of times that we've talked about this, except we're seeing even more stupidity from the legacy financial institutions, from the Clarity Act, and we're seeing more nonsense around things like you get people trotting out retired generals to talk about national security, despite not a shred, and I mean not a shred of evidence, to indicate that any of the rules that they want, that they propose would do anything. Moreover, that crypto, Bitcoin in particular, isn't actually easier to trace than the nonsense in the current financial system where billions of dollars are used for illicit purposes. I mean, it's borderline insane, some of the stuff. Then of course, we get the nonsense from the Chamber of Commerce and the community banks and all this other crap. Meanwhile, without clarity, assuming genius is enforced, they're actually far more screwed.
Very, very hard to understand how dumb you have to be. I mean, I did a post yesterday where I basically said, how did I phrase it?
I'd pay to see someone to force Elizabeth Warren to explain how no regulation is better for protecting investors in a robust framework. You should keep saying it. And it's just like, you have a senator, and it's one thing to be dumb. I mean, we kind of expect our politicians to say stupid things, but usually, there's a veneer of truth or something they can point to, to twist and turn it. But in this case, what she's saying is just completely the opposite of the truth. I mean, literally impossible.

**David Zuckerman** (1:49)
And it's not so much that she's dumb, David. She's not dumb.

**Jamie Irlicht** (1:52)
She's very well-educated.

**Scott Melker** (1:54)
No, she's, she's evil. She's pandering.

**David Zuckerman** (1:57)
She's pandering in a very disingenuous way, and she's not telling the full story. And it's ridiculous.

**Scott Melker** (2:02)
No, it's not pandering. I mean, pandering is she's getting paid for it. This is naked power, a naked power play. She wants, someone phrased it well, I can't remember who, it was either John Deaton or Scaramucci or somebody. She wants bank oligopoly that she can put her thumb on the scales and her and her political allies can control the economy. I mean, she is a Maoist. Let's call it what it is. She almost dresses like that. The fact is, however, Mao wouldn't have listened to her because she was a woman, so she's a modern Maoist, but whatever.
When you believe that you are smarter than everybody else and that you should have all that power, you will say anything to get it. And she's one of those people. And that's what's going on here. And that's why it just, it aggravates me. But honestly, this too shall pass because at this point, I think it's pretty clear where the roles are. The banks are starting to come in the line on this. So it will happen, whatever. I mean, whether it happens this year, whether it happens during the midterm year, whether it happens after the Democrats win in the midterms, it isn't going to matter.
The Democrats aren't going to allow it to be a political issue in 2028 So we're going to get there. It's just a question of when. That's my contrarian take. Anybody agree, disagree, or think before we move on to real topics?

**David Zuckerman** (3:24)
I agree.
I think actually it's got a shot at passing, despite all the negative reporting that we're seeing, because the Dems that pushed back against it don't like the current version of it, and they're actually writing their own version. And I think there is room somewhere in there for compromise, David. And I agree with you, it is vitally important that this gets done. Every sector at this point in finance understands that.
Every sector understands that this is all going to go on chain. And I think that these takes that are coming from Warren, and this negative perspective on all of this, is finally just the desperation that we all expected we'd see at this level, and at this stage of the legislative process. I actually wrote a piece this week, where I talked about the fact that, despite the fact that clarity probably goes against my own self-interest, because as a lawyer, I probably stand to get more work from the ambiguity that comes from the lack of crypto clarity in regulation. I want to see it pass, because I think the net upside for the entire sector, for the country, far outweighs what the lawyers are making right now. And I think that in the end, even the lawyers want to see regulatory clarity, because this is not sustainable. And the more regulatory ambiguity we have, the more victims we generate, which is the exact opposite of what Warren built her entire career on, protecting consumers, but now going around saying that we should keep this deregulated and keep it a gray area.