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This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Carol, the amount of money from the crypto industry that's gone into this election has just been staggering. Yeah, we're talking about fair Shake. It's the political action committee which supports crypto friendly candidates from both parties. It was poised to spend as much as well more than forty million in the final weeks of the twenty twenty four US elections, after already deploying one hundred and
forty million on dozens of congressional races nationwide. They're already thinking about twenty twenty six. It's one of the most powerful packs in Washington. They've now have more than thirty million in the bank, forty eight million in commitments for next election cycle. Yeah, we're talking about the twenty twenty six midterms already.
Yeah, it's not like there's something at stake, although we know there is, and we know that crypto has certainly been something that has come up among the presidential candidates. Stephen mccluk is CEO at the digital asset focused investment firm Canary capital and Ken. Thank you all, Rod I wanted to say correctly, or I wanted you too. Its co founder and chief experience officer at Solidus Labs, which calls itself quote first crypto native Security and Compliance hub
tailored for digital assets. We talk a lot about crypto, Tim and I do both joining us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Let me ask Steven. Let me start with you in terms of you, guys are digitally asset, you're investing. How are you thinking about the elections and the election outcome, and it's not just elections but potentially congressional elections that might have some thoughts in terms of
regulatory oversight and in terms of where crypto goes. How are you thinking about the outcomes?
Yeah, no, thank you and thanks for having us well. First of all, I do believe that the congressional races are going to be more important than the presidential races this time because right now the Senate.
UH.
If the Senate changes and the Senate it begins to support crypto, particularly the Senate Banking Committee, that's the most important thing right now. We could see a thriving crypto industry in the US if we get some changes in the Senate. Congress is already supportive, or the House is already supportive. We just need to get the Senate supportive as well.
Kind I'm going to get to you in a second, but I want to follow up Steven with you for a minute. Why should the Senate support crypto? I mean, people think about this from the perspective. I think, if you're not deeply involved in the industry as an industry that's rife with scam and grift. There are people behind bars right now as a result of some of these scams in grift, it's something that's.
Used for.
Buying stuff on the dark web, ransomware and the like, why should the Senate be supporting it?
Yeah, Well, to back up a little bit, let's just talk about bitcoin for a moment. Bitcoin actually makes it easy for law enforcement to track monetary trans actions. So the FBI has has software that they track every single movement that is made on the bitcoin network, every single wallet. They were spoken in the folks from Chanalysis in the past. Yeah, absolutely, and Chanalysis is full full of x FBI agents and so so Bitcoin actually makes it possible to track down criminals.
But the reason why, you know, about transactions on the dark web, and the reason why people are in jail and the reason why people are being caught is because of these transactions. FTX is another good example of of of a massive fraud that occurred. But if people had only looked at the chainalysis of what was going on, they would see that not everything equated to what to what the executives that FTS are saying. So so bitcoin is actually really good for law enforcement in my opinion,
first of all. Second of all, as an industry, it's it's it's really on the cutting edge of technology. Even if you look like a big coin mining which essentially data centers, a lot of those data centers are being transformed into AI data centers, which is you know, obviously the future after seeing some of the results today. So we want to be leading that in the US. We don't want it to be offshore. We don't want it to be in China, we don't want it to be in the Bahamas. We want it to be in the US.
Ken come on in on, thanks, because I'm curious what's at stake for you based on the election outcome?
Right, So, first of all, I just want to agree with Steven. I mean crypto has issues. It's a new industry. People are still learning about it. I think that technology is still being battle tested. There's fraud, there's scams. There are issues, but let us not forget that those still exist in traditional finance as well. And just to kind of echo Stephen's points, the largest recovery of funds ever in the history of the Department of Justice actually happened
thanks to bitcoin, four point one billion dollars. It was the bitfoinix hack. A few years later they were able to trace it despite thousands of transactions. So there are issues, there are also a lot of opportunities, and I think today most law enforcement I agree with Stephen you'd speak with would tell you that it actually, you know, in a lot of ways, provides opportunities to make finance safer, automatically detect stems.
How does it stay true to what it's supposed to be kind of something that is not part of the traditional establi establishment with so many different hands and layers in it, So how does it stay true to that? But then get the proper transparency and regulatory oversight that many would say is necessary that the traditional you know, financial system.
Has already financialism has and yet you know, once every few years we have a madeof or we have a Lehman Brothers like just to say, you know, you know, wherever there's money to make, some people would probably make some bad decisions and hurt others. But you know, first of all, you know, one of the fundamental ideas of an asset like bitcoin, no government can print it. So you know that's that's a really important fundamental idea. You know,
as an inflation hedge, et cetera. You can even today working with centralized companies, they can support you in setting up a wallet that is yours and they cannot control. So there are a lot of different ways in which this allows people already to control their money better. And you know, and I'm just mentioning a few examples.
I get the control. But where's then the oversight? Right? If the whole idea of cryptocurrencies is this currency that is, you know, not part of the establishment, right and kind of cleaner in terms of the thoroughfare, if you will, then how but then many would argue, after FTX and SBF that we do need some oversight. It's a regulatory oversit. So we're how do you mesh those two.
So I guess I'll say a couple of things, and I'll connect it also to the other question. You know, first of all, from you know, if you look at FTX, for example, a lot of people got hurt. I think there's a very strong argument that can be made that had it been regulated, less people would get hurt. In New York, for example, FDx could not get a New York license because there's a clear regulatory framework that the New York Department.
Of one of these guys were outside of the United States rights.
And one should ask not regulating it and instead just looking to enforce but not regulating, which means that ultimately Americans who want it. There are surveys ahead of the elections that's say that thirty to forty percent of Americans have engaged with digital assets. One out of seven of every likely voter sees it as an important issue. There's a question that needs to be asked that I think
people in Washington should ask themselves. By not regulating it, regulating it, are you protecting Americans or are you abdicating responsibility. N FTX is a great example for that.
Well, speaking of regulating this, I talked to a lot of folks who agree on one thing in the crypto industry, and that's their universal unapproval of Gary Gensler, the SEC chairman. I'm wondering if you think that Gary Gensler will leave if Kamala Harris wins, and if so, do you think a new SEC chair would take a different approach toward crypto.
Yeah, I do think a new chair would take a different approach. I was actually one of the few people that was a fan of Gary Ginsler's.
Really, I was, Okay, tell us why you're like the first person I've talked to you in weeks in the crypto community who say.
That, Yeah, I mean so, by the way, I agree with all the questions that you guys are asking on regulation and oversight. This is the whole reason why I fought for the last seven years to get a bitcoin spotty TF And obviously it was one of the one of the ones that launched one with Valkyrie, and but if you remember, we didn't get a spot bitcoin ETF until Gary Ginsler was the chair. Now a lot of people will say, okay, there's a lot of other different reasons of why that I've heard.
I've said that on Aaron. People have pushed back, and they've said, well, it was the lawsuits that did it, it was the legal system that allowed it.
Yeah, I mean the lawsuits did definitely push it over the edge. But but Gary Ginsler has been a fan of bitcoin all along. He's working under, you know, and an administration that doesn't want to allow it, primarily coming from the Senate, coming from Elizabeth Warren, who's on the Senate Banking Committee, which is the most you know, powerful organization in the Senate when it comes to regulating things
like banks and bitcoin, but and and the sec. But I believe that Gary Ginsler has been wanting this all along, and he's been asked to hold off. So I've I've been a fan. We've gotten a big quarte.
Are you a fan?
Well, you know, I'm not going to make any predictions. The Jewish Tom Wood says prophecies were for the full right. But but I will remind people that when Gary Ginsler, again to echo Steve, when Gary Ganster was appointed, the industry celebrated. The industry thought he was a bit of a messiah. He taught, of course, it was a professor at MIT for blockchain. So I'll just remind people that whoever gets appointed next, like, it gets more complicated when
someone is in the position. There's a lot of interests in politics you need to cater to, you know, knowne as a messiah. But I think there's generally I thin I think I speak for the industry for many industry, and I say that the general sentiment is that whoever wins, things are going to be different after the elections. It's in part because the crypto industry has organized and you know, you know, you talk about all the money that crypto has been pouring into this. Crypto is not making this up.
It's just joining a lot of other industries that are doing that as well, right, But it's also it's more than that. It's it's also that people want this. I mentioned one out of seven likely voters according to a survey by what do.
They wanted for that? Because I think there's still a debate about what exactly is it. Well, I don't see a lot of people transacting with it.
True, and there's still a lot of development of various use cases and products. But I think that you know, you know, people want to try new things, and and also sometimes it's not necessarily the role of the government to ask why do they want it, you know, I think one fundamental reason why the Senate should care for this is because it's innovation and we're trying new things. We're challenging things that you know, the traditional financial industry.
I'm not saying that all of this will replace traditional finance, but it's already pushing very you know, old incumbenty institutions to think differently, to try differently. I don't necessarily think all of us will be paying each other in bitcoin. I don't think that's the point. I think the point is giving giving opportunities to create, to offer people more ways to engage with finance, more decentralized, less decentralized, more intermediate, less, less,
more disintermediated. Uh and and why do people want it? There are a lot of different reasons. I mentioned inflation, hedge, I mentioned just curiosity. But is that really an important question? If the people want it?
We only have like ten seconds left, So one word answers from each of you. Who's better for crypto Harris or Trump?
Trump?
By a mile?
Harris or Trump.
I'm not going to pick aside. I'm also not going to disagree, but I will say that the industry has to be a nonpartisan here. This is too important to make his political. The Democrats have been catching up with their farm attacks since Harris was nominated, and whoever wins, they made a lot of promises that they need to fulfill to our industry.
Would say it also has to be global in terms of the approach and make sure that they're working with global leaders. Steve mclerk and Horad, thank you so much.