Well, let's get to the big story breakdown.
The crypto industry's push for new legislation has hit a few speed bumps just days after top executives met with senators to revive bipartisan talks.
Now in the nation's capital, senators are talking to the crypto industry, just not with each other.
Democrats and Republicans held separate roundtables with crypto executives after a bipartisan negotiations stalled earlier this month.
And Senate Banking chair Tim Scott says Republicans are aiming to hold a markup on the crypto market structure bill before Thanksgiving.
Now, despite the US government shutdown Committee leaders say they will press ahead with crypto market structure legislation, and Trump nominated Michael Seig to lead the CFTC.
Seig currently serves as chief counsel for the. crypto task force and previously worked as a crypto attorney.
Now joining me live here at Money 2020 is Steve Messador, who is executive director of the Blockchain Foundation.
Cleve, so great to be with you this morning live from Las Vegas.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
It's exciting to be at Money 20/20 once again.
This is my 3rd, so Very excited about the enthusiasm that I'm feeling already.
Yeah, and you've already been on a panel since day one was yesterday.
So first and foremost, before we get to Money 2020, tell me what's happening in Washington DC and what we can expect, especially when we're having debates on both sides of the table here.
Yeah, I think people expected market structure to be as smooth as the Genius Act was, and the reality is we have debated stablecoin legislation for years.
We should have passed it last Congress, and so we were able to move that forward quickly on a bipartisan basis.
But market structure is a bit more complex.
We saw the House move clarity.
We saw the House Financial Services and Ag Committee work together on one bill, and Democrats overwhelming overwhelmingly voted for clarity Act in the House.
The Senate is a different, different story, and we're we're seeing, you know, the, the Senate making. having their bumps along the way and even Senate A, they're working on their bill right now we haven't seen a draft, but that would be an interesting part as well.
So you know, you mentioned the roundtables that took place last week, you know, we, we saw we saw the comments from Senator Gallego who's very concerned about the leaked early draft.
The reality is that that legislation is a process.
I worked on Capitol Hill.
I worked for Barbara Lee and Betty McCollum, and it's a slug, right?
It's, it requires a lot of negotiations and especially for hot button issues.
You know, ideally if we could have gotten this, the, the, the Senate and and banking committees to come up with one bill, maybe we could be on a path to passing a a legislation by the end of the year, but I think more more likely what's gonna happen is more negotiations.
Staffers on the Senate side will come to the table and then we'll hopefully see some type of package introduced that we could possibly even get a vote for by the end of the year, but I don't think we're gonna pass market structure this year, but.
I'm, I hope I'm wrong.
I really hope I'm wrong.
Yeah, because if we look at the calendar, we only have 2 more months left to 2025.
And speaking of the different meetings that happened both with Democrats and Republicans in the nation's capital last week, there's so many narratives, so many headlines, and so many stories coming out from those gatherings.
And one thing we have to keep in mind is that we are on day 25 of the US government shutdown.
So how is the shutdown affecting progress?
Obviously the shutdown is affecting all aspects of government.
In Congress and in the regulators, we saw that the SEC crypto task force had a privacy briefing, one of their roundtables that had to be canceled, but we did see that the Federal Reserve had their payments conference and So Fed Waller introduced this concept of these skinny wallets, wallet accounts, which might be interesting, but the shutdown has definitely affected activity.
But I think with when you look at the Senate has been in session more so than the House actually has been out of session for a month, but so the The Senate has been in session and conversations are happening even though negotiations are stalled.
So there's a lot of challenges to actually moving forward legislation and certainly the shutdown is one of them.
You mentioned that we have 2 more months at the end of the year, but that's, that is not.
What Congress looks like when you look at when Congress in session, it might as well just be more 2 more weeks when you look at all of the holidays and so there's not enough runway to get as much done as we'd like as we want.
But this is about getting to bipartisanship.
I think the takeaway as the industry left both round tables last Wednesday was that we need more bipartisanship.
We need both, you know, camps to come to the table.
We need, you know, senators to work together and we need them to create a pathway for their staff to start some of those negotiations.
And I think the industry came, walked away thinking, OK, we need to figure out how to get Democrats, you know, some of the provisions that they want, and how to make sure that we're still operating on a timeline, and I'm encouraged that, you know, while these are setbacks, they will get us to a more meaningful process and a more meaningful bill.
Yeah, and speaking of bipartisanship, I do want to ask you not just about the sticking points that are preventing an actual bipartisan deal from happening, but also we did get Trump's nominee for a CFTC pick, which is Michael Selig, and here is someone who has worked not just in the legal industry, but has also worked in finance as well, and he's also worked for Cryptoad.
So what do you make of that pick?
I think it's a great pick.
The industry responded positively, you know, this is somebody who understands crypto, understands regulation, and so this is a great pick, but it's also long, a long time coming, right?
We saw the breakdown of the previous nominee, which was unfortunate, but when you look at and this is another thing that's impacting the Senate crypto market structure bill.
For Democrats, they look at one of the key things that this market structure bill is looking at is what's the commodity, what's the security, what is the role of the SEC?
What is the role of the CFTC?
So as we really imagine and giving more authority to the CFTC, you have to have a functioning CFTC and right now the CFTC is just the, you know, acting chair fam.
So, so from a negotiation perspective.
That doesn't give Democrats a lot of confidence that we can actually negotiate, you know, the the the structure for the CFTC within the market structure bill.
So I think now that we have a candidate and I, and I think you know there'll be a push to move quickly and get, you know, him confirmed and see how we can actually start looking meaningfully at the role that.
CFTC can play as from a commodities perspective as the digital assets industry grows, but I think that was just one of the many challenges.
And now I think the industry in Washington is going to be happy with this pick and hopefully we can get him confirmed and seated soon.
Well, we'll keep a close eye on what develops in the nation's capital, but I do want to shift our focus back to Las Vegas, Nevada because we're Here at Money 2020, right?
Day 2, and a lot of speakers scheduled today, including you yourself.
And I know yesterday you were talking about borderless payments, and today you'll be talking about the great wealth transfer.
It goes without saying that people are living longer.
So tell us about the great wealth transfer.
Yeah, and the great wealth transfer, we think of it as, you know, boomers transferring their money, and who does that go to.
And People living longer, but it's also the fact that the wealth transfer is happening at a time when we have 5 generations in the marketplace, right?
Boomers and Gen Xers will be transferring wealth, but millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, even people born today which are considered Gen beta are part of this robust marketplace.
So I'm excited that that's part of the conversation.
I'll be speaking with Kyle Hopman, who's the regulator at the NCUA.
And interestingly, you know, for the work that CA did as a regulator positioned credit unions to be able to deploy stablecoins.
So as one of the stablecoin laws provisions is that there's a pathway for credit unions to become issuers of stablecoins and There's tons of conversations this money 2020 about that rulemaking, about the role that they'll play.
Even when you look at the wealth transfer, a lot of people will be transferring accounts that are credit unions, and we've seen young people say we want to go back to our smaller institutions, so.
So you trust credit unions and CDFI's and MDIs and neobanks, and so it would be an interesting dynamic.
Well, Cleve, great to have you join us as we kick off Money 2020.
Thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for all of your insights.
Thank you for having me.
