Elizabeth Warren Tried to ‘Destroy’ the GENIUS Act: Sen. Hagerty

**Bill Hagerty** (0:00)
But the night before, at about 11:58 p.m., ahead of a 9:30 a.m. hearing, Senator Warren, the ranking member, dropped over 80 amendments on the floor to basically destroy the bill.
And she and I went back and forth, and there were other of our colleagues involved too, but primarily it was like a tennis match between Senator Warren and myself for over four hours of her launching these amendments and me rebutting them. My team did not sleep that night.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
Introducing Realfi, a smarter stable coin that's backed by real world assets. Launching August 2026, join the waitlist at realfi.co. Ledn just launched its lowest loan rates ever. The larger the loan, the lower the rate. Plus your Bitcoin stays protected, never lent out for interest. With auto top-ups, LTV alerts and more, you're always in control. Learn more at ledn.io. JPEG Trading is a global proprietary trading firm operating across cryptocurrency and DeFi markets, specializing in providing liquidity. Follow JPEG Trading on X for more.

**Rebecca Rettig** (1:05)
Welcome to The Policy Protocol, your weekly espresso shot of the latest in crypto law and policy.
Not just what happened, but what actually matters.
I'm Rebecca Rettig and I'm here with a special guest co-host this week, Ryan VanGrack, the newly minted Vice Chairman of Coinbase. Welcome, Ryan.

**Ryan VanGrack** (1:22)
Thanks. Thrilled to be here and trying to fill Renato's massive shoes, trying not to destroy all the things you all have put together.

**Rebecca Rettig** (1:31)
And for Vice Chair, do I curtsy? Do I salute? What do we do for?

**Ryan VanGrack** (1:35)
All the above. A gentle bow will also do.

**Rebecca Rettig** (1:38)
Well, Coinbase had a big week last week. Tell us a little bit about your new role and all the mix up there, shift up, whatever the right word is.

**Ryan VanGrack** (1:45)
Absolutely. Well, excited for the new role and excited for what this means for Coinbase.
It represents a new chapter for the company because, as you know, Rebecca, all too well, we have been fighting the war on crypto for so long, but we prevailed. It's important to stop playing defense and pivot instead of being reactive to being proactive. In the context of a bunch of leadership changes, including Paul Gray, while our long-term exceptional CLO leaving the company, we're using this opportunity to change the focus of the company and of the leadership. In terms of me becoming vice chair, what that means is working hand in glove with Brian Armstrong, our CEO, Emily Choi, our president, and our board in order to advance our desire to build the future of finance. As vice chair, that means helping tackle risks and opportunities across the company, and also representing on behalf of the company in front of clients, shareholders, and policymakers around the world in order to accelerate our vision to become the everything exchange. And so I'm thrilled to step into the new scene and even more thrilled to see what comes next for Coinbase.

**Rebecca Rettig** (2:58)
Well, we're super excited to see all that you do. I'm so thrilled that you were able to join us this week. Tell us what is your hot topic of the week?

**Ryan VanGrack** (3:06)
Yeah, so, you know, as if the prediction market space couldn't get any interesting, we got a curveball thrown our way because Kalshi has been placed somewhere between a rock and a hard place by the state of Michigan. What happened this week is a Michigan court had ordered Kalshi to stop offering sport related event contracts and importantly, and to unwind certain trades. So, Kalshi made certain filings with the CFTC in order to effectuate that order and to unwind those trades, but the CFTC rejected that request and ordered Kalshi to proceed and honor those trades in direct defiance of what the court had had requested, and I want to underscore, Rebecca, the unprecedented nature of what has happened here because there's a lot of litigation and ongoing battles with the states, but here this is something new. States have frequently been bringing enforcement actions against DCMs like Kalshi, but here you have a state for the first time trying to intervene directly into an executed transaction. So as anticipated, the CFTC, which has continued to flex its muscle, has intervened to protect its jurisdiction, which makes sense because you don't want your jurisdiction to kind of cannibalize with death by 50 states. If you allow this to persist, you have to be worried about the cascading effect. And yet that puts Kalshi in a bit of a catch-22.
Do you listen to the states or do you listen to your federal regulator? And it reinforces a problem that has been demonstrated time and again in these lawsuits, which is states are requiring DCMs to take steps that are incompatible with the national regime, incompatible with the CFTC's vision and efforts to create a national marketplace.