Is it Game Over for the CLARITY Act? | Bitcoin Policy Hour Ep 41

**Ken Egan** (0:00)
I'm now more than marginally bearish on BRCA being included in a forum that is acceptable to us. It's sort of us talking about the importance of software developer freedoms, sort of abstract constitutional issues, up against prosecutors, up against law enforcement organizations, and apparently now up against Catholic nuns.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the world's number one Bitcoin Policy Podcast. My name is Ken Egan. I'm head of government affairs at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. I'm very happy to be joined by my boys, my Zachs. Zach Cohen. Say hello, Zach.

**Zach Cohen** (0:39)
What's up?

**Ken Egan** (0:41)
The man himself is Zach Shapiro. Gentlemen, how are things?

**Zach Shapiro** (0:44)
Good.

**Zach Cohen** (0:45)
Doing well. Happy Wednesday.

**Zach Shapiro** (0:47)
I think this is now the best Bitcoin Podcast. I think we're just going for it.

**Ken Egan** (0:50)
I think so too.

**Zach Cohen** (0:52)
The world's number one Bitcoin Podcast?

**Ken Egan** (0:54)
I think so too.

**Zach Cohen** (0:56)
I like it.

**Ken Egan** (0:56)
Yeah, I know. Yeah. Don't tell Marty that.
Friend of the pod, Marty Benn, friend of the pod.

**Zach Cohen** (1:05)
Friend of the pod. All right. Well, thanks for doing the intro, Ken.

**Ken Egan** (1:08)
Got you.

**Zach Cohen** (1:10)
I'm sure the audience loves it when you do that. We'll mix it in every once in a while, but let's jump into it.
We've got a little bit more of a balance today. I think the last episode we did was very AI-focused, which was great. I enjoyed it. I hope the audience did too. We're going to return to some of our usual Bitcoin policy content. We're going to go over what's going on with the Clarity Act, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. There was a new form of opposition this week that came out, which is sort of hilarious and also concerning. We'll get into that. There was a crypto tax bill in Illinois that raised some pretty major red flags. Obviously, we didn't record last week, so we're dipping back on the news a little bit. But once we go through all that, we'll return to the AI conversation. Big news most recently was the SpaceX IPO and the situation with Anthropic and Fable.
Lots to dig into today. Stay tuned for all of that, but let's start as we usually do with our Clarity Act situation. Ken, I'm going to open it up to you. I think the thing everyone's probably wondering though is, we're coming up on our July 4th deadline.
What's your thinking on the status of things and the odds that it actually gets done pretty soon here?

**Ken Egan** (2:39)
So I've been marginally bullish over the past couple of months.
I'm now more than marginally bearish on BRCA being included in a forum that is acceptable to us.
There's just been, I think that the delay in getting this bill passed, which started out with the stable coin yield discussion has now bled into BRCA, has just given the opposition way too much time to rally. And I think we're seeing the effects of that. And I think the problem we're having is that there's no real, it's sort of us talking about the importance of software developer freedoms about sort of abstract constitutional issues aren't abstract to us, but are abstract in sort of the practical political sense, up against prosecutors, up against law enforcement organizations, and apparently now up against Catholic nuns. So there's just been a sort of, I think that there's been too much friction in the process and we find ourselves now at a place where I think there's even some concern that some Republicans are willing to raise the white flag on BRCA and just to get a bill done. So I think we're in a pretty, I think a question is then what does the BRCA portion look like? And nobody really knows. I'll be honest, like the days of like we talked about this before, I've spent a lot of shoe leather on the hill.
Zack has been in a lot of calls with people. We've been doing a lot of, there was a lot of like advocacy and a lot of discussions and education about the importance of this. That's kind of over at this point. Now, this is really like a negotiation behind closed doors, behind with Senate leadership, with the White House trying to hammer these things out. With still the constant drip, the constant pressure from law enforcement, and a very just sort of strange collection of organizations and interest groups that oppose BRCA for all, oppose, well, they frankly, they oppose the bill for all kinds of reasons. But BRCA in particular, it's really just devolved into sort of a free for all. We're past the point where Senate staffers aren't even really taking meetings anymore. Like, hey, let me come talk to you about why software developer protections are important. They're just past it. Most of the staff are telling me now, it's like, Ken, listen, leadership is negotiating this. Like, we're looking, we're waiting for cues from leadership at this point. Sort of the battle lines are set and it really is sort of an old-fashioned DC negotiation, horse trading.