Navigating the Crypto Landscape: Insights on the Genius Act and Self-Custody

Mm.

Not your keys.

Well, not your crypto.

That's what some Bitcoiners say about investors who leave their Bitcoin on exchanges instead of transferring to their own private wallets.

The crypto wallets also support stablecoins, and investors keep these tokens there for quick access as well as liquidity.

Meanwhile, stablecoins are also of growing importance after the passage of the Genius Act, as big banks and major companies. launching their own tokens.

So as digital assets adoption becomes more mainstream, more wallets could carry stablecoins.

Well, joining me this morning is Veronica McGregor, chief legal officer at Exodus.

Veronica, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Well, first, let's start out with the passage of the Genius Act.

So what are you watching for the bill to have on the stablecoin industry?

Well, I imagine that we're going to have both federal and state regulators moving to implement, you know, regulations around it.

There is a state pathway to issuance up to 10 billion.

We think state regulators are going to step in there in addition to the feds to compete to create some competition.

You know, to bring, to bring business to their state.

That's the next thing I think.

Yeah Yeah, and I do want to ask you about self-custody legislation.

Now this was introduced on Capitol Hill, so take us through this and give us your perspective on self custody.

Sure, uh, Exodus is, as you know, a self-custody, uh, software wallet, um, and the, you know, uh, the, the original ethos of crypto was very much about financial sovereignty and self-sovereignty, uh, and that goes straight to the key, you know, not your keys, not your coins, um, which is the sort of phrase that you were that you were mentioning.

Um, and Exodus, believes strongly in that that premise, um, and we allow people to interact with their own digital assets without us being able to, uh, you know, access their, their assets.

And for example, if a centralized exchange gets hacked, they could use lose their assets, whereas if we get hacked, we lose our own stuff only.

We don't have access.

Yeah, and Veronica, tell us about the Clarity Act, also known as the Market Structure bill.

What are you watching when it comes to the Clarity Act?

Um, we expect the Senate to, to, uh, make a lot of changes to the existing, uh, market structure legislation which is known as the Clarity Act, um.

But we have to figure out like exactly what regulator is going to be.

Is it going to be a security or a commodity, and you know, once they decide on that, and that is, that is the thing that we've been looking for since, as I have been in crypto since 2011, since 2013, we have been wanting clarity in who is going to be the appropriate regulator and what those regulations will be.

And so that's why we're calling it the Clarity Act, um, or that's why it was named the Clarity Act.

And, uh, so I'm very much looking forward to having some logical, actionable, practical legislation and regulation that, uh, that makes sense for our industry and technology.

Yeah, and Veronica, if you've been in the space for that long, it means you've been through many different seasons of crypto, but with more regulatory clarity, how fast do you expect to see more institutions entering the space?

We're seeing that.

I mean, we're already seeing quite a bit of institutional adoption, which is, you know, sort of funny considering again as I'm getting back to the original ethos of crypto, which is very much self-sovereignty, to see so much institutional adoption is is both great and a little ironic, but it's already happening and it's only going to increase from what I can see, you know, everyone's jumping on this, on this particular wagon right now.

And finally, Veronica, we've seen companies across all sectors start to add crypto to their balance sheets.

So take us through Exodus, Bitcoin strategy, and also the reasoning behind crypto treasuries.

Sure, um, we, Exodus holds a great deal of crypto on our balance sheet.

I don't know the exact number because it changes because we buy more, um, but, uh, we have a substantial amount of Bitcoin in particular.

We have some other, some other assets, digital assets as well.

Um, I, I believe the strategy is just, uh, just to increase the adoption.

Of certain types of crypto and to encourage that sort of investment and it's proven very profitable for us in terms of having Bitcoin on our balance sheet because, you know, when I first got in the space, I want to know what it was at.

But even when I started at Exodus, it was, it was a much, much lower number.

It was 200 or 30,000 for a Bitcoin, and now here we are at almost 120,000.

I haven't looked at it this morning.

So it's proven that, you know, you keep some of this on your, on your balance sheet.

You end up with the bigger treasury.

Well, Veronica, we will have to leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us today and thank you for sharing your perspective.

Thanks for having me.