22 Burst results for "Brian Brooks"
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"brian brooks" Discussed on Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"I believe there's 5 commissioners in the SEC. Of course, chairman gensler is a top of that. And there's just this convention. Which is interesting that whoever is the majority, I'm sorry, whoever's the party in charge gets three seats. And whoever's the party in the minority gets two seats. And the terms expire a little bit, you know, they're not completely aligned with the presidential terms, but that's generally what happened. So, of course, has to she's from the prior administration's. And her term has not yet expired. Wow. This is not supposed to be political. I'm not political in whether we do Bitcoin or don't or how we regulate it. And yet, unfortunately, that's where we're at. So anyway, without I'll stop complaining about politics, because I suppose, heck wouldn't it be nice if we had unicorns dancing around on rainbows in our backyards too. But yeah, it's an unfortunate side effect of the system we have today. Yeah, and to your point, it really is frustrating with the interpretation by different parties or whoever it may be. Because in addition to the Brian Brooks, OCC example you gave, we see that chair against her refuses to echo the statements of his predecessors about Ethereum being not a security. Now I know there was a merge and things like that, but it's just so frustrating if you're an entrepreneur or a builder because it's like what's going to happen and who's going to get hit next versus let's provide the clear rules and regulations and help innovation to flourish. And you know, Mike, on that note, you were part of web one one O and building and doing great things there and web two. And now we're at web three. The U.S. got it right with the Internet and that did great for us economically and with different companies and jobs and so forth. Are we in danger of losing out on this technology and the benefits as we did with the Internet? I mean, look, I think that question is so broad you could kind of answer in both ways and you'd have a different answer. Look, I'm optimistic that actually this sorts itself out. I'm very happy that regulators and legislators are taking a deep hard look at crypto now. This is a new type of asset, innovation is now able to give us ubiquitous access to assets in a way that never existed before.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"brian brooks" Discussed on Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"And once again, falls back on Congress and you have this clown Gary gens are going around just trying to shake down companies. Now, some interesting news from the H bar foundation, many of you know I hold H bar in my portfolio. I am bullish on it long term. Well, they have added Brian Brooks, who is of course acting former acting controller of the OCC and he was former coinbase CLO and he has joined the H bar foundation board. This is a great pickup for them. I love Brian. He's just a smart guy. He understands his technology and obviously this man, you know, he greenlighted the banks while he was at the OCC to be able to hold crypto, which was just huge, huge news. I remember printing out the tweet and framing it. It was just massive, but we see now there's a lot of fight to undo a lot of his work. And we are definitely in that then they fight you phase. Now, I also, I also own chainlink. I hold that in my portfolio very bullish on chainlink. One of those projects that I absolutely think will do well because there's so many blockchains Tapping into a chain links oracles and solutions. So it's solving problems with other black blockchains. And here chainlink's new platform lets web three projects connect to web two systems like Amazon Web service and meta. So clearly solving a problem there, right? Helping the old world to connect to the new, the new platform chain link functions also lets builders run customizable computation on web two APIs within minutes through its network kemal L muja Hadid. Is that right?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"brian brooks" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"By making custodial wait 19 months, the fed had quote clearly violated its one year statutory deadline. Still, another half year passed before the fed finally issued his decision. On January 27th of this year, of course, a couple months after the FTX collapse, the Federal Reserve announced their denial of custodial application to become part of the Federal Reserve system. This was, I think, in many ways, the first follow-up to the January 3rd joint statement from the Federal Reserve, the federal deposit insurance corporation, or FDIC, and the office of the comptroller of the currency or OCC on the quote crypto asset risks to banking organizations. That statement, while not banning banks from interacting with crypto entirely, did represent a pretty chilling warning, the January 3rd statement effectively increased the political costs and the political risk for banks to interact with crypto companies in crypto assets in general. We've covered this extensively here in my previous episodes on operation choke .2. The comparison is to an Obama era program that used convert political pressure on banks to get them to deny services for out of favor industry. Industries which were legal to be clear, but not politically loved, so think porn, guns, et cetera during the Brian Brooks era, the office of the comptroller of the currency put out a rule saying that banks were not allowed to deny companies based on their industry, but that was literally the first thing the Biden era OCC reversed when that administration came to power. So back to January, the point is that the most important banking regulators in the country put out a joint statement saying that crypto is unlikely to be able to be banked in a safe and sound manner. And that to me certainly looks like the same playbook except much more explicit this time. Bringing it back to using custodia as their first example, the press release from the fed on their denial of custody applications certainly seems to reinforce that connection. They write, the firm's novel business model and proposed focus on crypto assets present significant safety and soundness risks. The board has previously made clear that such crypto activities are highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices. The board also found that custodians risk management framework was insufficient to address concerns regarding the heightened risks associated with its proposed crypto activities. Including its ability to mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing risks. So that was the state of play as of a couple days ago, but custodia has come out swinging on Friday. The company filed an amended complaint in their lawsuit against the Federal Reserve, claiming that the denial of its application was unlawful. Custodia is alleging that the Federal Reserve board colluded with the Biden administration to release a series of public statements to accompany the rejection of custodial application, and that the Federal Reserve board rather than the Kansas City fed, who actually issued the denial of the master services account, was quote pulling the strings. The filing said, quote, defendants had a non discretionary duty to grant custody as master account application and not to discriminate against custodia in its ability to access all bank services using that account. Any other outcome eviscerates the dual banking system that has served our nation since its founding. The amended complaint goes on. Quote, confronted with discovery requests to the Kansas City fed and a looming deadline for the board to produce an administrative record that would have revealed the board's control over the Kansas City fed's decision making process, defendants tried to moot the litigation. On January 27th, 2023, in a coordinated maneuver orchestrated by the board in consultation with The White House and leaked to reporters by board officials the day before it occurred, the Kansas City fed reported the denial of custody as master account application immediately after the board denied custodian's membership application. Now, the cornerstone of custodian's argument is that the fed can not reject their application, noting that the legislation states that fed services quote shall be available to non member depository institutions, of which custodia is won. In a statement a custodial spokesperson said, custodia bank today continued its ongoing lawsuit against the Federal Reserve board of governors and the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank by filing an amended complaint that zeros in on the core legal issue. Whether Congress even granted the fed discretion to decide master accounts at all. Complimenting this announcement was a long and intriguing thread from Caitlin long. On Friday, she wrote, it's time for me to reveal a few things. I've just published a post, shame on Washington, D.C. for shooting a messenger who warned of crypto debacle. First, the revelations. Today on publicly disclosing for the first time that a,
The Breakdown
Python Politics Part 2: Operation Choke Point 2.0 Begins
"Now, first up, I know that there are a ton of things going on right now as I'm recording this on Thursday afternoon actually, it appears as though kraken has made a settlement with the SEC, I will use the weekly recap coming out on Saturday to get into that stuff, but this is part two of this special kind of background series on this broader set of crackdown type actions that we're seeing and that many have been noticing especially this week. If you haven't listened to yesterday's part one yet, I definitely suggest you go do that now. That episode lays out first, the slate of events in the last month and a half or so that show this slow squeeze of crypto via the U.S. banking system. Second, I get into the key recent history of the main U.S. banking regulator, the office of the comptroller of the currency, and specifically Brian Brooks, who headed that office up, who had previously been the GC at coinbase. In our stories so far, we'd seen how Brooks had used his 6 ish months in office to open up crypto custody for nationally regulated banks to ensure that those institutions could work with stablecoin issuers and to try to stop banks from being legally able to prejudice customers based on the industry they operated within. However, where we start now is November and December of 2020, and by that point a key inflection had come and gone. Democrat Joe Biden had beaten Republican president Trump in the general election. And so Washington D.C.'s attention was turning firmly toward the transition. Despite Trump's official nomination of Brooks to a 5 year term as the comptroller, it was pretty clear that that wasn't going to come to a vote before the Democrats came into power. And so, Brooks time was running short. It didn't mean discussion around the OCC had ended, though, no far from it. On December 4th, 2020, House financial services committee chairwoman Maxine waters, who would later become famous for blowing FTX bagman free to kiss after a congressional hearing, wrote to then elect Joe Biden with a number of policy recommendations, saying, quote, I would like to highlight several areas where you and your team should immediately reverse the actions of your predecessors.
The Coin Bureau Podcast: Crypto Without the Hype
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Coin Bureau Podcast: Crypto Without the Hype
"And the head of binance U.S. was a chap called Brian Brooks. And he only lasted about four months and then a while back kind of resigned, very suddenly, and it was a bit of a big surprise to everyone. Anyhow, it later becomes clear that Brian Brooks has very, very close ties to FTX. And he apparently attended at least one, maybe even more. FTX events sort of very shortly after leaving binance U.S.. Anyhow. So as you can imagine, not only are these two exchanges kind of locked in a lot of rivalry. But binance and Cesar are becoming increasingly pissed off about the fact that FTX is lobbying against them behind the scenes. After investing in them heavily initially. Yeah, so there's the kind of the added kind of element of betrayal, I guess, if you like. But that's very important. We've got to remember that because this is kind of key to what happened next. The fact that binance was a big investor in FTX. So and also, I think these kind of hit pieces on binance. They really reached a low point, not that long ago when Reuters published a number of pieces. That were very critical of finance and CZ, but also kind of mentioned CZ's children. As well in at least one of the articles, and, you know, that, again, like you don't need to be a journalist. You don't need to be an expert on these things. To know that you don't go after, you don't go after people's children. That is just. I mean, are they still children, or are they adults working in the industry? No, they're toddlers, I believe. Well, that's just disgusting. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's just not right. So as you can imagine, CZ by this point is not a happy meal. Curious. Yeah, and who can blame him? Now, going back to the facts that binance was an early investor in FTX. Binance, now FTX, once it sort of, I think it was 20 20 if I remember rightly. 2020 or 2020, and it was 2021. FTX decided that it kind of wanted to sort of part ways with binance. So basically, SPF negotiated to buy back those FTX shares that finance had invested in that binance owned from its initial investment back in 2019. And so in return for these shares in return for selling its stake in FTX binance got a mixture of BUSD, which is binance's own stablecoin. And so it got about $1.5 billion worth of BUSD. And it got $580 million of FTT. Now FTT is FTX exchange token. Okay? So this is this is very important to remember. Basically, finance, this rival exchange that is pissed off with the way that SPF and FTX have been behaving. Has a large chunk and has an influence on what happens at FTX. Is that not what it means?
The Breakdown
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown
"Banks to citizens. Fed now is wholesale. The prospect of real-time payments through fed now raises interesting questions for cryptocurrencies, whose main selling point was the promise of faster cheaper transactions. Of course, crypto wasn't going to totally let people get away with that narrative shift. Brian Brooks who I mentioned before, the former acting comptroller of the currency, and now the CEO at bit fury writes, actually the main selling points include one transactions across decentralized networks, not susceptible to single points of failure, two that are not routed through a bottleneck managed by a government agency, and three that are open to all versus only open to banks. But here's where it starts to get really juicy. Fed governors seem to be increasingly of the opinion that fed now represents the right form of digital rails to suit the U.S. political climate and culture rather than a fully functional consumer facing CBDC. Comments made in early August at a panel at Columbia University by Minnesota fed governor Neil kashkari brought new light to some current thinking on CBDCs. Quote, I'm pretty skeptical. I keep asking anybody at the federal outside the fed to explain to me which problem this is solving. What is it that a CBDC could do that Venmo can't do? All I get is a bunch of hand waving. Maybe it's better for financial inclusion. Maybe it's better for cross border remittances. Maybe is there any evidence that it is? What about China? China is doing it. I can see why China would do it. They want to monitor every one of your transactions that you could do with the CBDC. You can't do that with Venmo. If you wanted to impose negative interest rates, you could do that with a CBDC. You can't do that with Venmo. And if you wanted to directly tax customer accounts, you could do that with a CBDC. You can't do that with Venmo. I get why China would be interested.
The Breakdown
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown
"Dot LY slash breakdown pod. Also, a disclosure as always, in addition to them being a sponsor of the show, I also work with FTX. All right folks, well, yesterday, one of the things that I had right at the top of my list of 38 things I think we've learned in the last year is that while crypto is not going to be banned in the U.S., it is going to be regulated. And oh my have we had an absolute flurry of commentary on what that should look like from senior U.S. officials. In fact, it may take me more than just today to get through all of it. I also wrote about how CBDCs seem to be going a little bit slower than it might have seemed they would go back to 2020, for example. That is going to be the particular focus of a lot of today's discussion. But where we're going to begin is with a speech from Michael su. Michael is the acting head of the office of the comptroller of the currency. This was a position that was formerly held by if you'll remember Brian Brooks, who is now the CEO of bit fury, and was before that general counsel at coinbase. During Brian Brooks short tenure there, the OCC greatly expanded the way that banks and financial institutions could interact with the crypto industry as a whole and specifically stable coins. Sue has been under intense pressure since coming to office to reverse many of the policies that Brian Brooks said in place and start fresh. However, he's taken a pretty concerted middle of the road. Let's learn and see kind of view. In a speech at a clearing house in bank policy institute conference on Wednesday, sue rearticulated the OCC's regulatory position that traditional lenders are required to ask permission for any crypto activity and need to demonstrate that the activity will be entirely safe.
CRYPTO 101
"brian brooks" Discussed on CRYPTO 101
"Was a good value then, why wouldn't you buy it when it's on a Christmas sale at 20? Because you had the same belief then that it was going to go up to whatever it was wherever your cell target was. Now it's even more of a discount. So in my time travel is a consensus, everybody that I talk to was excited to get in cheaper. There are a lot of people that just made money in oil and gas. As prices skyrocketed, especially in real estate. Yes, absolutely. They're saying, my God, we just made all of this money. We don't know where else to put it. Now except crypto. Crypto is finally at a level that we feel comfortable buying in. We still have no clue about it or what to buy or how to buy it, but I'm getting more emails and more phone calls and more messages and more introductions to $100 million funds that have been spun out saying, we don't know what we want or what any of this stuff is, but we're willing to learn and we want to play ball. Oh, that's great. So I don't know where the bottom is going to be. But it's not going to last forever. So I have never been more bullish long-term on crypto, web three, NFTs, all of it. Love it. Now, Sam, before we let you go, we've got just one question, you know, we've got a couple of closing questions we'd like. But I will ask you one of these popular questions. But it's really a simple one. And it's out of all the companies and all the protocols that are out there. If you had to choose just one. And she was just one that was maybe the most impactful to the community or is going to maybe be the most successful. Do you have any hot takes on that? Yeah, I mean, I'll say it from a perspective of probably a company that your viewers may not be as familiar with. Because they're going to be doing something super valuable in the space. And I think spring labs, specifically, there are their product quadrata, which is really tackling a KYC identity passport style a problem. And why I think that's super important. And it's not going to be the most glamorous or the most. The coolest DeFi project, but what they're solving is a problem that, like I mentioned before, that the reason why institutions couldn't get into crypto earlier was there was no rails for them to really play ball. There was no playbook. There was no scorecard. There was no way for them to get into the space. And to me, they are providing the real tools to allow institutional capital to get into the web through space. I don't mean investing. I mean, actually bringing value into those communities. And actually propelling projects and whatever, whether it's tokenizing homes or whether it's doing TV deals or licensing deals or whether it's completely revolutionizing the bond market. These kinds of tools that they are building alongside of course remaster are super, super, super important in order for these kinds of institutions to come in and really start bringing that institutional value to the communities to really bring this space into the value it can provide to the world. And without tools that they're providing in other companies then we're never going to get there. And so I like to give a shout out to those infrastructure companies that sometimes aren't, like I said, they're not the next polka dot or acala or et cetera that have these amazing financial upsides. If you're doing investment properly, but they are a company that's going to provide so much additional and traditional value to the space and they're probably not going to get the limelight they deserve what can they do that. So I wanted to give out a shout out to them. Love it. Spring labs and I'm looking at their site right now, really nice site in their most recent kind of press announcement. It was that Brian Brooks had just joined spring labs and that's a very familiar name because he was the former chief legal officer of coinbase and then he went to go be the nation's chief banking regulator at the office of the comptroller of the currency from the treasury. So Brian Brooks kind of popping over to the private market and I think he also went to he led binance U.S. for a little bit, but it looks like he's at spring labs now. So they got good company there. Yeah, no. I'm very bullish on them. I think they're going to have some phenomenal products and have some phenomenal integrations with some of the larger players that you've heard of over the next year or two. I'm excited to see how this particular niche of the industry progresses and Sam were, you know, Aaron and I are lucky to have hosted you and I think the entire space all the listeners are lucky that we have guys like you that are building super necessary, you know, properties and systems to
The Breakdown with NLW
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown with NLW
"We don't discuss how this is actually too critiques in one. First, that Bitcoin is bad for the environment. But second, implicitly, that the Bitcoin industry is worse than other industries for the environment. This is a really, really important note. We talk constantly about which country or state or city or whatever Bitcoin consumes as much energy as. But we don't talk about how it compares to other industries that we value and that we don't have the same critiques for. Part of the issue is that Bitcoin is transparent. And so it's easier to calculate than other industries, but being more transparent and easier to calculate doesn't mean it should have the highest burden. You see a little bit of this in the house memo and mainstream media around this Bitcoin network uses the same energy as Argentina. However, that's much less shocking if we put that in terms of other industries, where gold mining uses about 2.5 argentinas. U.S. household appliances nearly 15 argentinas, and U.S. air conditioning boy oh boy, 30 Argentina's. Nick writes in his newsweek piece, why worry about an industry that consumes approximately 0.55% of global electricity production? After all, energy associated with Bitcoin mining is roughly equivalent to the energy consumption of zinc mining and refinery, and less than the energy associated with the extraction of either copper or gold. It consumes the rough equivalent of the energy associated with running domestic tumble dryers in the U.S. alone. And one 5th the energy used for domestic refrigeration. Brian Brooks and his prepared testimony makes an even more direct comparison saying even more stark is the contrast with the banking system. The market capitalization of Bitcoin over the past 6 months has fluctuated between about 800,000,000,001.2 trillion. The market cap of the global banking system is approximately 8.6 trillion. The banking system consumed just over 4900 terawatt hours to produce that market capitalization, Bitcoin mining consumed 188 terawatt hours to produce its market cap. Put differently the banking system requires 573 terawatt hours of power to produce 1 trillion of value. That is about 2.5 times the amount of power required to produce the same amount of value in Bitcoin. Nexto is a trusted and easy to use crypto platform, where you can buy cryptocurrencies at the touch of a button and start earning up to 17% annual interest that is paid out daily. They support all of the major assets on the market, and even allow you to swap one asset for another or borrow cash against your crypto without selling it. Nearly 3 million people in over 200 countries trust nexo with their digital assets. So whether you're just getting started or you're a seasoned pro, get the most of your crypto today. With nexo, at NE XO dot IO. Today's episode is sponsored by abra. Join over 1 million users and conquer crypto, with abra, and all in one simple and secure app where you can trade over 110 cryptocurrencies. Get 0% interest loans using your crypto as collateral, and earn interest, with up to 14% APY on stablecoins, and 8.15% APY on Bitcoin. Visit aber dot com or download the app from the Google Play or Apple App Store today. Abra, conquer crypto. The breakdown is sponsored by FTX. FTX is the safe regulated way to buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital assets. Trade crypto with up to 85% lower fees than top competitors. FTX U.S. is also the only leading exchange that supports both Ethereum and Solana NFTs. You can trade NFTs with no gas on FTX U.S. and gases subsidized when you withdraw off the platform. Help support the breakdown and visit FTX U.S. today. That's FTX U.S.. Category two government interference in markets. There is another underlying assumption in many of the critiques of Bitcoin mining that governments get to determine how private markets use energy. Something I've said frequently on this show often around NFTs just based on where the crypto conversation is right now, is some version of the idea that just because you think a thing is stupid doesn't mean it's not a thing. I think you can apply something similar to Bitcoin when it comes to policymakers and critics. Just because it's not valuable to you doesn't mean it's not valuable. Not to trot out the old tired example of Christmas lights, but there are huge parts of the country and world who don't celebrate Christmas, and so who definitionally don't care at all, but you don't see them calling for a banning. I really like what Brian Brooks had to say about this and his testimony. Quote, from a public policy perspective, the most relevant question should be energy production rather than energy consumption. If the people's representatives decide, we should eliminate or reduce a particular source of energy such as coal or oil. You were elected to do that. But once the energy mix has been established in a market economy like the United States markets, meaning the aggregate decisions of American consumers and businesses should decide the most productive use of the energy that is produced. There is another important discussion to pair this with, which is an acknowledgment of the role that Bitcoin has potentially to play in the maturation of renewable energy markets. In a report from last May, galaxy digital rights, critics often consume that the energy expended by minors is either stolen from more productive use cases, or results in increased energy consumption. But because of inefficiencies in the energy market, Bitcoin miners are incentivized to utilize non rival energy that may otherwise be wasted or underutilized as this electricity tends to be the cheapest. Though the revenue associated with mining varies, miners have the luxury of flexibility with the option to switch their equipment on or off any time. This makes Bitcoin mining the ideal energy sync, anyone anywhere can monetize excess energy by plugging in equipment and switching it off at their convenience. Brian Brooks goes deeper into this problem in his testimony, saying that access production with renewables is often the challenge. Quote, in 2020 in California alone, 1.5 million megawatt hours of solar production, 5% of the total, was curtailed because production exceeded demand. And this figure understates the true extent of the problem at certain peak production hours, California solar projects have as much as 15% excess capacity. This is one reason why solar and wind power as a category have generally been unprofitable and have required government subsidies. Nick Carter's newsweek peace explains this as well, saying the reality is that electricity infrastructure is geographically constrained, and pockets of free negatively priced energy routinely emerge on the grid. Over the last decade negative prices a signal of energy over abundance have become much more common, particularly in the windy vertical corridor stretching from Texas to the dakotas. It's the stranded islands of energy growing in size every year as solar and wind account for more generation while transmission lags that are particularly ripe for Bitcoin miners. And far from driving up prices if a minor is buying energy that no one else wants, he's actually fortifying the grid, making energy available if other industrial consumers move in. Or if transmission lines are built to transport it elsewhere. This is due to the remarkable properties of mining itself. Each individual computation is statistically independent of the last one, meaning that the process of mining can be stopped at any moment without a loss of progress. This allows minors to dial down their usage on short notice if necessary. Grid operators love this as they reckon with increasingly unstable grids due to an influx of wind and solar. Normally great operators have to keep fast reacting natural gas power plants and reserve in order to backstop unreliable wind and solar, but with flexible load coming in the form of Bitcoin mining, these operators have a new tool. They can simply ask miners to produce their consumption to offset a loss of supply and miners gladly do within seconds. Today, the vast majority of Bitcoin miners in North America participate in these demand response programs. So the point of all of this is that the memo was kind of saying all of these issues, which we've seen trotted out over and over again, and some of the testimony as well as other sources like Nick Carter's news week piece have good answers for all of them. But ultimately, the question is what actually happened in the session? And the answer is honest to God not much. The block really nailed it with the title of their summary piece, no fireworks at house's Bitcoin mining hearing. So here's what I noticed personally. First we saw an actual distinction being made between proof of work and proof of stake. On the one hand this led to some why can't Bitcoin just be proof of stake instead type questions. But frankly, I don't think it's a bad thing that Congress is honing in on and judging these technologies on their own merits. Second and very related, there were a lot of basic questions. Of.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"brian brooks" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Currently cryptocurrency markets have no overarching or centralized regulatory framework leaving investments in the digital aspects space Vulnerable to fraud manipulation and abuse Let's dispel the rumor now that digital asset technologies are looming threat to our financial system I would argue that the nascent technology we're discussing today will have just as much impact on our daily lives Perhaps more And that's why we must get this right U.S. House lawmakers holding yet another hearing on the hill with some of the biggest names in crypto including Sam begun freed CEO of the FTX derivatives exchange and Brian Brooks who now runs crypto minor bit fury The hearing focused on the challenges of financial innovation Quote unquote for more let's get to Bloomberg intelligence is Mike mcgloin who was watching the hearing and Mike what are your key takeaways about what this could mean for the future of crypto regulation Well what I see is they're going down the rabbit hole They're being educated They're learning They're learning from some of the leaders in this space This entrepreneurs that are actually changing the world are creating jobs and a revenue in the space So I think the one of the key things that I really struck me is when I go down and talk about coins which are really digital crypto dollars because that's people where Bitcoin usurper in the dollar and they really approach that and point crypto dollars are becoming dominant on the planet The dollars becoming dominant through So I think that's one thing that was really really important they addressed And what I sense overall is really going down as they see in space the rabbit hole and learning about this area and learning how important technology and really helping bank the unbanked of the world Well they also talked about how many crypto startups are moving overseas because of the uncertainty about regulation into the United States Could that force the hand of U.S. regulators or even lead to potentially global regulation Yes I'm glad you captured that Because I heard Brian Brooks make a canon is moving ahead of us to Europe's moving ahead of us and there's even fun It's Canada and things because ETFs I think it was important to make that point that would fall behind And I think the regulators are getting I did not hear mention about from China and the U.S. should be adopt doing the opposite but to me that's a good valid point The U.S. should be this leader in free market capitalism as long as we regulate it properly All right Mike McLean for us there Thanks for breaking that hearing down Appreciate it Coming up planet labs goes public on the NYSE We're going to talk to CEO will Marshall about his vision and the future of the satellite imaging.
The Breakdown with NLW
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown with NLW
"Of regulation as whether Bitcoin or crypto lives or dies has always been silly, but I still contend that this next phase of the industry is going to be shaped by how the current regulatory discussions play out. And going back to China for a second, I do think that the actions of this year have now set the relevant context. The U.S. has jumped almost by accident into a potential leadership role by virtue of China's bow out. And in many ways, what the U.S. regulatory regime decides to do next will shape whether this polity builds on that lead, or whether crypto and crypto companies and crypto entrepreneurs flow to other places that have a different take. Within that, one of the most important quandaries in the U.S. is, of course, who regulates what. For as long as I've been in this industry, there's been a classic trope of discussion around U.S. regulation where the IRS sees crypto as property, the CFTC sees crypto as commodities, the SEC sees crypto as securities and you get the joke. Everyone sees in the crypto industry, their thing, the thing that they are tasked with regulating and keeping track of. So perhaps that it's not surprising that there has been behind the scenes something of a regulatory turf war. The CFTC has done the most actual regulating. Previous leaders in the CFTC have said that ether and Bitcoin were in their estimation commodities. During the end of the Trump administration, the OCC, the office of the comptroller of the currency, which is the U.S.'s biggest bank regulator emerged as a major player in the crypto regulation space, particularly around stable coins. Brian Brooks, who was at the time running the OCC and who was, of course, the former general counsel at coinbase and would go on to be very temporarily the CEO of finance U.S., made it much easier for banks and financial institutions to interact with stable coins, which was obviously transformative in how those instruments were being used in both the crypto economy as well as finding their way into the traditional economy. The SEC has of course been for a long time if you were just to look at Bitcoin and crypto Twitter, the arch nemesis, right? The great villain of this industry. For the Bitcoin or specifically that's been about their unwillingness to consider instruments like a Bitcoin ETF for fear of volatility or market manipulation, and for everyone else, for.
The Breakdown with NLW
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown with NLW
"The fourth part assumes that the people who are buying tokens don't have involvement in creating the network and maintaining the network and making the network. What it is that. They have no hand in the common enterprise and this is where it gets complicated. This is certainly not to say that. Every terrible bitcoin out there has a strong network where the people who hold the token are actually network participants. But there's a reason that gets they're never brings up this fourth prong of the. How test is because it's the one where they're the clearest and biggest questions around whether this framework really can apply to a new type of asset but at this point let's zoom up and out the. Sec has been the office office with the greatest scrutiny from crypto for the last half decade because it is said everything is a security and it hasn't been willing to engage with proposals like the safe harbor basically. They've been up in our face so we've been up in. There's the reality is that there are many many regulatory bodies who have a big hand in crypto. How many of us really started to get to know what the office of the comptroller of the currency did only last year. When brian brooks the former general counsel of coin base went in and actually started making it work for the crypto industry. At least for a time. Now when it comes to the sec. I clearly have issues. With the way we think about investor protections or rather they think about investor protections. Anyone who's listening to this show for more than one or two definitely has heard that. I also think it's a completely fair criticism to accuse the sec of regulation by enforcement. It seems vanishingly. Simple to give their specific. Legal logic around particular tokens. But they don't because that opens themselves up for challenge in a way that would be extremely time consuming and costly. They seem content to move on their merry way going after the biggest infringers and supporting the agenda of others like the treasury department which makes me increasingly think that the issue isn't gansler or the sec. Being out to get crypto but instead just the simple lethargy of bureaucrats he's basically saying in every testimony look they all look like securities to me. If you don't think so congress ugo figure it out and then tell me what to do. Now a cynical take is that. He's not doing the work to engage with alternative thinking about all of this such as that of commissioner hester purse a charitable take though is that gessler is right that ultimately. It's the job of congress. Decide on new frameworks for these types of significant changes. Indeed that's why it was so frustrating during the infrastructure bill process when we learned that it was the not so invisible hand of the treasury department having their way with this bill that was supposed to be written by elected officials elected officials who are accountable to their constituencies rather than appointed officials who are not look. There are bills clearly everywhere. Now with new approaches to how we regulate crypto that are running through congress but the issue is getting them voted upon. If we want. Patrick mchenry's bills or tom emmer bills to actually get a fair shake. We have to engage with the political process. That's just the only way otherwise. All we have are the bureaucrats the folks who are going to rule their specific little part of the world based on their specific little mandate. That's clearly suboptimal. So i hope we have a chance to actually debate this in a much bigger way and on a much bigger stage for now guys. I appreciate you listening and until tomorrow be safe and take care of each other piece..
The Breakdown with NLW
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown with NLW
"All the other things in crypto. Take away from that. I'm kind of two minds about this. I think in the context of any shorter period. There is perhaps a bit of that. There is at any given time x amount of participants in x. amount of attention. They have an x. Amount of resources they have and that can flow more or less to bitcoin. Based on where in the cycle we are and what else people are interested in or making money from in the long run. I think that we are in a much. More of a rising tides lifts all boats situation which can be frustrating. If you're a bitcoin or who's really only interested in that super hard money goal. But either way i think net net over the course of ten years. Everything that even sort of resembles crypto is going to be massively massively huger than it is now capturing a massively bigger share of global attention having a massively bigger percentage of populations invested etc etc etc anyways. That's all set up to this idea of this fall being bitcoin season and so we're back to that first. Category where in the context of any given moment at any given quarter and even six month period. There's going to be within this. Larger crypto milieu. Things that have more or less attention on them. Although bitcoins institutional fall was brewing last summer for example the attention in this industry was squarely focused on defy. You get what i'm saying. So why then might be. Coined be uniquely positioned to claim more narrative. Share this fault. There's a bunch of reasons. The first is what seems like is going to be increasing regulatory pressure on stable coins and defy. Anyone who's been reading the tea leaves of coming. Regulatory animosity has got to have seen that. Almost all of the attention is focused. Not on bitcoin. But in these other categories there is a ton on stable coins. And that has been the case. Since last year when. Brian brooks the former coin based lawyer and then acting comptroller at the office of the comptroller of the currency made it so much easier for banks to interact with sable coins that raise the ire of democrats. Who countered with the stable act and these concerns and questions around stable coins have been ever present throughout the national discourse this year..
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"brian brooks" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This is basically the story with finance everywhere right now. Regulators saying you probably broke some of our laws. You gotta stop. That finance for their part is not shirking away in his trying to aggressively signal a shift to a more above board business along those lines. There's also a report making news today. That in an interview with the information ceesay said that finance dot. Us is just going to do what coin based did aka go public. What's the timeline. This is a quote from cc so if the business can grow consistently over the next three years than three years should be sufficient for an ipo. If there's a prolonged bear market for. I don't know maybe three to five years then it may be a little bit longer for now by nance. Us's main focus is writing the ship after former us comptroller of the currency. Brian brooks left his role as ceo. After only a few months brooks left in the midst of a nine figure funding round that was designed in part to reduce disease control. So when it comes to finance the story continues. Let's shift now to another embattled player. Christiane carlo the former head of the commodity futures trading commission has resigned from block board of directors after just four months which is just about the same amount of time as brooks had his stint as c. o. at finance dot. Us giancarlo did not comment on the news but after the news broke blocked by quickly released a press. Release saying that he had been replaced by ellen blair tube a managing director in client services. Officer at william blair. They said that giancarlo will quote. Continue to provide strategic counsel to the firm in an advisory role. This can't but feel like more bad news or perhaps it is just reflective of tough string of bad news for block fi multiple. Us states are accusing block vice flagship products. Which is their interest accounts of being unregistered securities. These legal battles are all at various stages of progress with the first state to come after them new jersey's now multiple times delayed cease-and-desist order going into effect on september thirtieth those legal troubles or perhaps the bad press also caused chaos for an intended financing round that would value the company at five billion dollars according to venture capital focused reporter. Eric newcomer lead investor. Third point pulled out of that block fire round. If you're interested in more on that. I did a whole show about it. Matthew semi denia professor at arizona state university that studies corporate. Governance put giancarlos departure. This way it's like somebody putting an offer on a home doing the inspection taking a look at the inspection and saying yeah. I'll pass on the house. Ouch finally on the brief today. Such a random one remember bit connect that scheme and scam for more than four years ago. The scam that literally is synonymous with scams in the crypto memory. While the sec has filed a new complaint against bit connect claiming that the people behind it conducted a fraudulent and unregistered securities offering to the tune of two billion dollars the three hundred twenty five thousand bitcoin that it took in were worth two billion then around fifteen billion today. This is the second complaint against bit connect this year. The sec also filed one against five promoters earlier in the year and won a twelve million dollar judgment against two of them in august the associate regional director of the sec's new york. Regional office said we alleged that these defendants stole billions of dollars from retail investors around the world by exploiting their interest in digital assets. We will aggressively pursue and hold accountable. Those who engage in misconduct and the digital asset space. So here's the thing about this. I'm completely fine with the long arm of the law being long. It's more like though if they really wanna protect investors enforcement actions for years later without ever actually articulating a framework other than continuing to insist that the howie test is fine. Seems pretty more urban to me. Of course something like bit. Connect with the scheme. That's obvious the question is all the projects that rightly or wrongly are engaging in good faith. Meanwhile sec chief. Gary genzer spoke in front of the european parliament yesterday and it was a pretty clear..
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"brian brooks" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Numerous banks withdrew their support. For the dakota access pipeline. And this tone extends to the very top while the brian brooks lead office of the comptroller of the currency under then president. Donald trump pass a fair access rule designed to prohibit chokepoint style selective platforming by banks the biden. Occ promptly rolled back the rule disbelief. That financial services should be weaponized for policy. Outcomes explains enthusiasm for central bank digital currencies among progressives who worryingly extol the virtues of chinese social credit scheme with american characteristics chokepoint was just an appetizer. This dismal future portends a world where. It's not just alex. Jones and nick fuentes who are kicked off the financial internet but any conservative expressing subversive thoughts online. Naturally the would be architects of these schemes did not devote much to the risk of holy politicized payment system falling into the hands of their political opponents. Trump was not particularly interested in deputising financial infrastructure for political adventurism but his successor biden certainly is liberals decrying. The only fans ban should consider it a mere taste of what a holy politicized financial sector might look like had trump and more competent. He might have sought to use such underhanded tactics to d platform abortion clinics progressive nonprofits educational institutions pedal in critical race. Theory teachers unions or other causes. He politically objected to it. Just so happens that the instruments of state power in this context have largely been wielded against conservative so far but that may not last forever. If there's a silver lining in the only fans episode it's a reminder that it can happen to you to the only plans. D platforming is an exception in that for once. It was a liberal. 'cause that was threatened with bank exclusion the current anti-sex sex worker agenda despite a solidly blue administration is simply a reminder that censorship once normalized always strays from its initial confines. If cho- pointing knowledge is it's unacknowledged revival under biden the progressives who by and large support selective financial exclusion just witnessed the jubilation when writers platforms like gavin parlor. Have their payment. Relationships stripped should consider what a similar program might look like under a president. Cotton descent or holly. The bottom line is that platforms like only fans shouldn't be marginalized via an opaque process involving legal guidance emanating from unaccountable bureaucrats regulators. We're still nominally. A nation of laws and constitutional constraints instead of petitioning the state to ban ones ideological enemies from financial infrastructure and being taken by surprise when the political pendulum swings back. We ought to embrace neutral apolitical financial infrastructure. Only fans is a potent reminder. You simply never know when you'll be on the receiving end of the stick all right back then. L. w. i've now talked about the only fans dust up enough at this point that you probably have a pretty good sense of my feelings about it and instead what. I wanna honing on about knicks piece. Which is the thing. That i find myself so fiercely agreeing with is the sort of ends justify the means thinking that people always always always throat history fall into when it comes to politics the point of laws of democratic process of all of these things that have allowed america to become what it is and to lasts for so long are they apply equally when your people are in power or when the other folks are in power when we allowed these sort of extra political means of making policy by default to become the norm. We risk normalizing the very thing that might undermine the system as a whole. I believe that progressives even those who wished to fight as hard as they can the second amendment i think nick puts it perfectly under obama. It was guns under someone else. It's going to be something else and something else that might really matter to progressives this comes back to why the entire affair around the infrastructure bill has been so frustrating to me by passing that law unamended. They've effectively ceded the authority that was given to them by their electorates to a group of people who weren't elected but instead were appointed there will inevitably be some of that in the way that things are actually run in the american democratic process. But that's not something we should strive for. We want laws to be written by those who can be held accountable for the laws that they right. Not those who can just give. Anonymous quotes to papers. And tell us that everything's gonna be fine and just trust us but for now. I hope this was an interesting. Look into a part of the weaponization financial history that we don't talk about too much and i hope you're having a great weekend until tomorrow guys be safe and take care of each other piece..
The Breakdown with NLW
"brian brooks" Discussed on The Breakdown with NLW
"What's going on guys. It is saturday. August twenty first. And that means it's time for the weekly recap. Let's do a good old fashioned news roundup and let's start with some exchange news. I on binavince. News broke a couple days ago. That former coin base general counsel and former acting comptroller of the currency. Brian brooks was leaving the ceo role of beleaguered by nance he tweeted greetings. Crypto community letting. You all know that. I've resigned as ceo of finance us despite differences over strategic direction. I wish my former colleagues much success exciting new things to come now a couple of weeks later were getting a little more inside info about what was going on if you remember brooks had done an interview with forbes where he won tried to draw a clear distinction from finance the parent company saying that finance. Us just license the name and shared a board member agencies e and to. He said that they were in the middle of a big fundraise that suddenly seemingly days later. Who's now according to bloomberg in the new york times those strategic differences were about the inability to complete that raise by ans-. Us was apparently trying to raise about one hundred million dollars but could not get investors comfortable with legal questions hanging over the head of binavince. They were worried about current investigations and couldn't get over the fact that sees e had a ninety percent ownership stake in by nance us. So that's that and the saga continues. Meanwhile finance also just announced yesterday that it would now be switching its model and all users would be required to submit. Kyc this is of course a big shift from just a few months ago and shows how much the regulatory landscape for these exchanges has changed with increased scrutiny this year. Let's now switch over to the big exchange that finance. Us is trying to supplant coin base coin announced yesterday that they'd gotten the green light from their board of directors to purchase more than five hundred million dollars worth of crypto for their balance sheet. This came after it was revealed. That coin base has around four point. Four billion in cash and cash equivalents stored in case of a prolonged crypto winter in addition to the five hundred million dollars up front coin base will also be investing ten percent of future profits in crypto and see brian armstrong. Said in a tweet. I expect this percentage to keep growing over time. As this crypto economy matures now people have been asking for some time if coin base was going to be a leader and put its money where its mouth was when it came to building out. A crypto economic system by putting crypto on its balance sheet indeed. Cfo eliza haass's blog post about this news as much as said that she wrote. We believe in the crypto economy a future where economic transactions buying selling spending earning. We'll be based on crypto assets are products strive to make that vision reality by making crypto trusted and easy to use for customers around the world today the majority of coin based corporate financial transactions. Such as how we pay our vendors employees or investcorp cash remain heavily weighted and fiat. We're in a strong position to lead by example and double down on how we can enable crypto adoption in utility starting with how we operate our business now what about which assets will be invested in while haas had this to say quote we will become the first publicly traded company to hold a theory theorem proof of stake. Assets defy tokens and many other crypto acids supported for trading on our platform in addition to bitcoin on our balance sheet. It's clear that this is not exactly a michael sailor. Melting ice cube.
106.1 FM WTKK
"brian brooks" Discussed on 106.1 FM WTKK
"To the wreck Elements show We've been talking about Bitcoin and digital assets and a big question. Everybody has Is this going to survive? Government scrutiny our regulators or Congress gonna outlaw this? Well, there's already a lot of regulation of both the federal and state level as well as governments around the world and the regulatory environment is going to increase. Governments are now taking the attitude that Bitcoin isn't going to go away. Instead, they need to get control of it. They need to regulate it the way they do other assets and other industries. Deutsche Bank, in fact, just released of 18 page study, saying governments are going to start regulating Bitcoin this year. The paper says Bitcoin is quote too important to ignore and that its price quote could continue to rise. As I said managers and companies continue to enter the market, George Banks says Bitcoin will remain quote Ultra volatile in the short term. And as a result, regulation is to be expected. But as I mentioned, we're beginning to see players in the government circle that are not anti Bitcoin. In fact, they're really rather favorable. Gary against Lor, the new chair of the SEC. He taught courses on digital assets and Blockchain at M I t clearly this is someone who knows the space really well. Cynthia Loomis. She's a senator from Wyoming, a strong supporter of digital assets. She was just appointed to the Senate Banking Committee and cinema Today Asia who you've heard on this radio show, she's the former head of digital assets a TD Ameritrade. She was just appointed by the Federal Reserve as that organization's chief innovation officer. Yeah, the Federal Reserve focusing on innovation. How about the comptroller of the currency? They just gave a national trust charter toe Anchorage Bank, A custodian for Bitcoin. Anchorage is the first national bank That is a digital asset bank. The safekeeping management trading of digital assets has been an issue for years. But this is a step making it go away. And the zero CC the office of the Comptroller of the Currency says it's applying the same standards to this charter application like for any bank. Federal has also okay. The purchase of a broker dealer by a digital currency firm and Iowa is recognizing Blockchain smart contracts, saying the digital contracts will now have the same legal status is regular contracts. But more regulation can be expected. In fact, there's a bill pending in Congress, authored by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Glen Thompson in Pennsylvania and Ted, but of North Carolina and Warren Davidson of Ohio. They've introduced legislation to have the SEC and the CFTC improved regulation of digital assets. What's the bill called the eliminate barriers to Innovation Act. They want to improve the market for digital assets, including their fairness, orderliness, integrity, efficiency, transparency, availability and efficacy. So very clearly we're seeing that the government is slowly but surely embracing digital assets. It's not going away, so they're going to grab this tiger by the tail. Oh, and it's not just experts joining the government in decision making roles. We have former government officials going into the private sector. Brian Brooks, who was the acting head of the Office of Controller of the currency under the Trump Administration, He's the new CEO of by Nance and Christopher Jan Carlo, who was the former chair of the CFTC. Is now on the board of blocked by so, Yeah, we're seeing the leadership, making it very clear in both government and corporate America. And now a visit from Gene at a woman with her weekly segment and a special nod to this week's topic. Hi, everyone and a happy Mother's Day to everybody out there for aunts and sisters and dog moms and kept moms and horse Mom's Everybody out there. Happy, Happy Mother's Day. So what a fun show this is this week, Rick Is so excited to talk about this topic more deeply. He's been talking to me about it for years. I still don't understand it, but I give it a good shot when I can But it is very exciting to really think about our Children and future generations what their lives are going to be like they're going to know driverless cars. Their interaction and how they know money is going to be so different from our parents. Our grandparent's even us. I mean, we're in the middle of this transition. It's hard. It's scary, but it's also so exciting. And so I don't want to take a lot of time from Rick. So I just thought I would share and give him his own word of the week. And of course, can you think what it's going to be? It's going to be Bitcoin. So the B is for believe this pandemic had many downsized, but I always like to look for the upside and it really, really made us look at ourselves in our society. What can we change? And currency is one of them, and it pushed us into the 21st century. So we need to believe in that new technology that we're living with telemedicine. Everything and look it like all the online shopping and insta card that made our lives so much easier while we were quarantining. We're swiping our phones to pay for something instead of touching a credit card machine and using dirty money. I mean, who would have thought so? The bees for believe, believe in this change, believe in what's coming. Eyes for innovation to introduce something new and make changes to what is established and re create this world around us. We have so much opportunity. In front of us. It's exciting. Teas for technology. So many businesses. Yes, we lost many. But so many figured themselves out how to perform during the pandemic and how to retool themselves how to stay in business and be better. Added. So the teas for technology sees for change. Love change. It is an opportunity to see our lives in a new light. It is hard, but it's so healthy. It's so healthy..
The Breakdown with NLW
Stablecoins in the Hot Seat: Powell Calls Bitcoin a Substitute for Gold
"There was an absolute flurry of content and commentary yesterday around the place of bitcoin. Stable coins defy and the digital asset industry as a whole vis-a-vis. Us government regulation as well as how a digital dollar might shake that all up before we get into it. Let's at the terms of the debate. One of the competitors for this cycles top fudd is the government will ban it if it gets sufficiently threatening now to be clear banning depending on your sister could mean anything from an outright ban of use in holding too forceful seizure too limiting access to on and off ramps to the more benign from a commercial standpoint but no less threatening from a privacy standpoint integration of the full crypto infrastructure into the am l. kyc. Money surveillance apparatus. I've spent some time on this show looking into global versions where this fudd seems to be playing out in particular. We've been watching the evolving situation in india and nigeria india which seems gearing up for a bill that would have some sort of outright ban although at least one finance minister says that that's not the case and nigeria. Where the central bank of nigeria. I reiterated that banks should not be working with crypto users which they've then subsequently rolled back just a little bit either way however really what everyone has been focused on is the us particularly in the context of a new administration. The last administration had friends and foes alike when it came to bitcoin and crypto trump. Famously tweeted that he did not like bitcoin or crypto. But we didn't really take that seriously as a threat because it was so clearly about zuckerberg and libra mnuchin was a much bigger enemy. Probably wrote that text for trump's tweet even and clearly wanted to tighten the reins in his final act. He was trying to require exchanges to collect more information. When users transferred crypto to their own wallets on the flip side however there was brian brooks who was absolutely revolutionary at the office of the comptroller of the currency. The changes he oversaw are a huge reason. Why so many big institutions are now playing in this space. Why so many big traditional banks feel like they have to race to catch up to allow people to offer their customers crypto services however as we know from physics every action has a reaction and to some extent one reason why observers are so keenly watching the biden administration is to see how much they're going to respond or try to walk back with brooks in the occ changed on top of that. As the biden administration has come to power the price and volume around bitcoin stable coins and the rest of the digital asset industries have made them much more on ignore -able last time joe biden was in office. Bitcoin is about four hundred and thirty bucks. Now it's been over fifty thousand dollars for sixteen days in a row tether was barely out of diapers now. It has a market supply above forty billion in his doing upwards of one hundred billion dollars in volume per day combined with us dc. And you've got over. Fifty billion dollars of usd approximates there so lot more is at stake with that. People have been watching. Two things has come in and what they're saying on the who has come inside. Janet yellen is back for another round although this time is treasury secretary rather than as he chair gary genzer to is back. Although this time is as he c- chair. Instead of cftc chair of these two there is much more optimism around gessler who has done a pretty fair bit of work to understand where the crypto industry is coming from even teaching a course at mit about bitcoin and blockchain. And of course we have someone who still around in the form. Of jay powell. The federal reserve chairman. His ex factor. And all these discussions is the potential of a central bank digital currency a digital dollar. That could potentially shift the us's relationship with these projects now in terms of what we've seen these actors say so far over the last few months up until now it's been pretty standard fare one part. There's a lot of exciting potential here. One part we have to protect investors though and one part but it's also used by criminals over the last couple of days however we've gotten both comments and news that could shift as into our next phase of understanding what the us is relationship with. Bitcoin stable coins and other digital assets is going to look going forward. So let's talk about powell speaking about cdc's and cryptos at a bank for international settlements panel yesterday. Let's talk about the announcement of digital dollar prototypes coming this summer. And let's talk about new draft fat. If guidelines around cryptocurrencies. I up powell. Did a session yesterday with leaders from the bank for international settlements including augustine carstens. We talked about last week. He was asked about crypto currencies. And whether he saw them as a threat. And here's what he said. We call them crypto assets. You know. they're they're highly volatile. See bitcoin and therefore not real useful as a store of value in there not backed by anything. They're more of an asset for speculation. So they're also not particularly in use as a means of payment. It's more speculative asset. That's it's essentially a substitute for gold rather than for the dollar. And i think with crypto acids the the the public needs to understand the risks. The principle thing is there's the volatility there's also the outsized energy requirements requirement for for mining. And the fact that they're not backed by anything so let's break out these three reasons that he wasn't particularly impressed by cryptos. I this idea of volatility or that. It's just an asset for speculation. Basically he's dismissing bitcoin and any other crypto as something that he does not have to stress about or really factor into his consideration around global monetary competition while many. Bitcoin is grabbed onto the essentially a substitute for gold piece as a great tweet and knocked to the gold bugs. Who they're trying to convert or at least undermined powell was saying this more. Like a giant shooing away. A fly gold is to him clearly. Irrelevant an unimportant antiquated part of the fiat system that he sits at the helm of in that way a substitute for that thing does not present a threat
Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
"brian brooks" Discussed on Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
"The second impeachment trial of donald trump begins this afternoon. The hill reports party meters came to agreement monday. And how it will go. The hill knows under the time line. It would allow the trial to wrap up as early as next week if both sides agreed not to call witnesses under the deal. The senate will debate and vote tuesday on whether the trawlers unconstitutional. That is basically a nonstarter on wednesday. They'll be opening arguments under the deal. The house impeachment managers and trump's team will have sixteen hours over two days each to present their case to the senate meantime a fourteen year old black boy in north carolina was handcuffed in place to the back of a police car in front of his home while repeatedly asking for his father who was inside the home. The voice family community advocates are questioning local. Police protocol involving juvenile's malcolm ziglar had recently purchased a motorbike from a face bookseller and was unaware. The bike was stolen after police officers showed up at his home. He complied with requests from law. Enforcement was released ties ziegler. Malcolm's mother says her son like many other. Young black youths has experienced firsthand. The trauma caused by negative interactions with police. She says she's concerned that despite repeatedly asking for his father his request was denied by the officers. She's demanding policy and procedural changes for interactions involving minors. So what i'm looking for is change. That is what i'm advocating. Or because i don't want their child to ask for parent and be denied. I'm nadia ramleh. Gone some of west. Virginia's lawmakers proposing abolishing the state's personal income tax during this year's legislative session social services advocates. Say the move would be devastating for children and families. The lost income would total more than two billion dollars for signature cuts to state agencies including the bureau for children and families. According to jim mckay with prevent child abuse west virginia. The state's child protective services. Division is still struggling to catch up from budget cuts during the great recession. He says he points out. Mingo county still has only one. Cps worker for the entire area who handles cases for more than seventy children. That's just heartbreaking. We know there are across the state in child protection services. And if there's budget cuts of the nature that it's being proposed. Many of those positions will remain on fills with devastating consequences. Lawmakers say that eliminating personal income tax would attract more people to live and work in west virginia. I'm diane bernard this is p. Ns electric buses and other heavy vehicles or taking to the streets. Nationwide lily bulky reports for soundbite source. Many of them are powered with batteries manufactured in south carolina. David clayton with clemson. University's international center for automotive research says the fleet services sector appears to be among the first to turn away from diesel internal combustion engines in favor of going electric that includes companies such as fedex and amazon but also port operations the cranes in vehicles. That handle cargo vote because it makes sense for their business. It's more cost effective approach in some cases but you know. They have sustainability mandates and targets that they're trying to achieve per tara the electric battery and charging station manufacturer with one plant in greenville and another near los angeles also is working with leading construction equipment manufacturer to electrify off road equipment just last month president. Joe biden announced plans to replace the government's fleet with electric vehicles wyoming lawmakers considering a proposal. That would require a governor's order before any of the state's winter. Ilk feedlots can be phased out. Jonathan rattener with the western watersheds project says the move ignores basic science and warrants. It would make it much more difficult to address. The potential for permanent chronic wasting disease contamination across western wyoming. They're making it much harder to solve this problem. By some ending in the current status quo which was developed approximately a hundred years ago prior to any understanding of disease transmission issues or wildlife management ethics conservationists sworn that feedlots where large numbers of l. Gathering close quarters potential super spreading events for the disease livestock producers and outfitters defended winter. Lots to keep elk away from cattle feed and maintain large herd numbers. I'm eric gladys and finally eric ticket off has been talking with an idaho congressman who may have taken the first step on tangling the tricky dot of dams in the northwest and their effects on salmon representative mike simpson has laid out a thirty three billion dollar columbia font while it includes breaching the four lower snake river dams. It also addresses replacing their benefits such as energy and irrigation for local agriculture. Brian brooks has the idaho wildlife federation. He says it's a critical lifeline for the region's endangered salmon and steelhead finally. Finally someone giving us attention to this issue because it is such a big problem and it's gonna require a big solution. Simpson is giving the attention. It serves simpson has been working on the plan for three years and held three hundred meetings with stakeholders over that time. More than a dozen fish species have become endangered since the dams were constructed. This is by clifford. Four public news service. We are members of the supported her on great radio stations.
Unconfirmed: Insights and Analysis From the Top Minds in Crypto
Protection of Personal Data in Blockchain Technology
"Zor. Res- asks what do you think about. Privacy designed blockchain so. It's kind of interesting because these blockchain's are sort of under attack. I guess you could say from regulation right now. A melted mirrors actually talked about this in the episode that he did with her and lynn alton Where she said that. That's kind of the main thing she'll be looking out for twenty twenty one and i think You know we at this moment that i'm recording this. We only have rumors about what type of regulation it was that Treasury secretary steve mnuchin wanted to put on crypto right. Now because i think actually you privacy coins were in the crosshairs and this was something night. Jessie liu who came on unconfirmed talked about She was the what was it. Former attorney for dc. She's prosecuted a ton of cases are around some of the biggest ones involving illegal. Use bitcoin and via actor state actors like north korea or by the child porn website in in korea. Welcome to video. And and some of the other big criminals like terrorists and stuff and weight point. Is she highlighted by a something that she was noticing in. I can't remember it was the dot enforcement framework actually and I do think you know this is going to be something that comes up again because brian brooks the action control of the currency. Also kind of you know. When i asked him about what how he thought the. Us might regulate privacy. He said oh well you know the. Us is different from other countries because we're We're the victims of terrorism or or were subject to terrorism or something like that and he said that he thought people would be willing to make a trade off for that. Which i thought was very interesting. A really was curious to know what the crypt communities reaction was to that comment. But yeah so. I think we're going to see that kind of come up as a battle and i actually. I would be surprised. If in the end there wasn't some way to have Blockchain side feature privacy prominently because in a way. I can't imagine the technology really taking off in all the ways that it could take off if there wasn't such a feature and you even see that like in a forthcoming episode. I have unconfirmed. It's a panel discussion but there is somebody from the federal reserve who talks about building systems for central bank digital currencies. Who says you know flat out like you can't design these systems unless you have privacy you as a consideration from the beginning he said it cannot be an afterthought and and he's talking about for central bank digital currency so. I really do think that you'd at least some of these vaccines will have to feature it prominently and i. I don't think that we're going to end up with blockchain set it at all. I would be surprised on a long enough time scale. I do think in the in the beginning. There might be a bit of a battle. But i think after we got real adoption then i would be very surprised if we don't start to see more privacy
Unconfirmed: Insights and Analysis From the Top Minds in Crypto
What the Crypto Industry Could See Under a Biden Administration
"So to the question. I'm sure everybody's wondering about. He had asked for advocating on behalf of the industry or the community. How will that change. And to describe that sort of set the baseline by describing how or what. The strategy was the trump administration. And how you think that will change under a potential biden administration. Yes you have to remember. The biggest barrier to getting better policy in washington is an education barrier. This is a really new emerging fast emerging space. It's complicated it's difficult for policy makers to find the time to to learn the ins and outs of how it works Another challenge we have. Is that most of your everyday. Average consumers don't really do much with crypto yet. And so it's not top of mind. For policymakers by our strategy over the past couple of years has been to grow the base of champions on these issues and work with them to put forth. What we think are thoughtful. Good solutions Another important piece of what we do. Is we try to stop bad things from happening. Which we've succeeded. Add a couple of times on the legislative side because it's just as important to stop bad things than it is to get good things going forward and i would they an example if well there've been a couple bills that have been floated introduced like a very early version of the manage stable coins or securities. Act for example. You know that would have defined stable coins in a way that it wasn't intended to so the spirit of the legislation might might not have actually been not terrible but the way it was drafted was was would have been very hurtful to the industry and so we were able to work with that office get some of those definitions change but ultimately it stalled into able to prevent that from going forward the the because these are such niche issues. For policymakers we really had to rely heavily on those who have a personal passion for this space. So you know has to pursue. You've interviewed multiple times brian brooks. They've been fantastic. Allies champions to have and having them in those spots heads you know not only have they been able to put forth their own ideas. But they've been able to educate their peers their regulatory regulator peers on on cryptos that. That's positive any congress we. Have you know some good champions that are continuing to put ideas forward but the reality is it's a long way towards actually getting big comprehensive package across the finish line so as we look to the biden administration is if that is indeed dealing with. I mean who knows anything could change. I actually think the combination of a biden administration with the republican senate. Which i think is where we're going but again that could change too but those that is really really good for crypto and there are couple of reasons for that that the trump administration is a little bit mixed. Right as i mentioned we have. Has we have brian. They're great we'll secretary mnuchin. Who's not a big fan of the space Trump himself We have jay clayton. Who has been a skeptic Those are you know mnuchin. Clayton are appointed by trump And they've been standing in the way of getting something so as we look to the biden administration were hoping to be able to get educated crypto educated regulators in key positions in the sec. The cftc sec and doing what we can to try to influence those choices and in survivable played important role in picking. Those people are but because we have a republican senate. Those choices i think. We're going to be much more moderate than they would have. If if the democrats take the senate Under a democrat controlled senate than the progressives Have a little bit more of a say in who those. Those people are but If the senate banking committee is controlled by pat toomey mitch mcconnell's running the senate floor. Those guys are not going to approve of somebody. That's two left and they're gonna need to get some republican votes for those positions. So i think that's good for crypto because the support we've had from democrats tends to be those that are a little bit more to business that are open to You know private sector innovation. And i think that that that is actually a winning combination in. There's potential to get some great great
Unconfirmed: Insights and Analysis From the Top Minds in Crypto
Will Coinbase Do a Token Offering When It Goes Public?
"Big News coming out of this week. Coin base is exploring going public. Tell us more about this news. Hell firm, it is and how and when they Mico public. I don't know if this would count as big news 'cause. There's a kind of a Genera in reporting. You say big startup is rumored to go Public Co.. Of course there are that supplant we own point base is going public. Insist like writing things saying Robin Hood is expected to go public maybe this year. You know I mean there's ten companies you could write that headline about and I. Mean You know I. Don't WanNa. Be ungracious by thought that story. It was Kinda thin because I don't think. There's anything to it I mean coin basis is been rumored to go public this year for a long time, and is he? They're going to happen late this year or next year, so I'm not really sure what the news is here. Yeah I guess. You did mention I'd when we talked about your book. The last thing you came on the show so I mean just in terms of. White Reuters reported how firm. was what they were reporting in terms of like any SEC registrations or anything more formal like that. Talk to a couple of sources close to the company, and initially Reuters was going to try to run with the you know saying that like Morgan. Stanley had was going to be the underwriter and that's clearly not true. And them, saying there's a direct listing I mean. I think that could be possible, but I think the most interesting thing is can be what serve IPO. Is it the? because I know it went talked to fritters from recently one of the cofounders Aucoin base. He hinted strongly this some sort of token issue, and so I think it could be America's First Combo ICO AN IPO which would be super cool, so that's what I'm waiting to hear about. You know in terms of whether they're going public. Yeah, of course, they are but I think that part of the story is what's most interesting to me and so for that. Do you have any more details on what that might look like? Would it be kind of? You know I for some reason. I don't get the feeling. It's going to be the kind of issues that we saw in two thousand seventeen bio. There are these will. Does that have been happening the initial exchange offerings any details on what form might take. Now they're playing cards close to the best on that and I know I think as base has got more corporate a you know. I think there's a push Gillette appeal everyone does, but I think a lot of the people at the company including the light coders who work there are real believers in Crypto, and it would be sort of lame if they just did A. A Garden Variety IPO, so but in terms that regulatory part. That's hard I mean. Are they going to do a cell tokens to accredited investors, and then the cell general shares to the public, or can they get the sec to bless some token, and which could happen because we've been watching coin basic, really been spending a lot of energy hiring Washington insiders. You saw just hired. Judge Paul Gruel who's fairly prominent, a former federal judge, and then they have their former child council Brian Brooks went to be the head of the Worcester called the office of the comptroller. The currency control. Pronounced, controller I learned that. We should notice been our I should know by now. But. That's you know they oversee all the banks, so you can obviously see them. Trying to put a political lobbying pushed onto kinda. Get a blessing for this and censor the most mainstream crypto company. You know who knows maybe they will get You know they will get a blessing to do a token offering, but I'm pretty sure whatever's going on. They're gonNA cold. It really tightly 'cause leaking. The stuff is just going to piss off the regulators and could imperil. Enlisting so this is speculation. I mean who knows maybe they'll chicken out. Just raise the cashier ordinary way. I think a lot of Crypto community. Hope to do something more ambitious.