All is quiet in our nation's capital with Christmas just a few days away.
Congress went home for winter break without extending the Obamacare subsidies.
While the Genius Act was the only crypto bill signed into law this year, Senate lawmakers and White House leaders are saying the Clarity Act is close to being passed.
And there's another pro crypto leader in Washington.
Mike Selig has been confirmed as the chairman of the CFTC.
Selleck has supported market structure legislation, but it's unclear how he sees prediction markets.
They have burst onto the scene this year with Coinbase, Gemini, and Robinhood all getting in on the action.
Joining me this morning, Patrick L.
Young, chairman and founder of Exchange Invest.
Welcome to the show, Patrick.
Hello Jeff, it's lovely to be here.
Welcome.
Great to have you on the show.
The crypto industry is celebrating Mike Selleck's confirmation to the CFTC.
What do you think his confirmation means for crypto and capital markets?
Well, it's very interesting.
Selling, of course, has a longtime history with the CFTC.
He was formerly an assistant to the man who became chairman several chairmen chairman ago, Chris Giancarlo.
Also, he was working most recently, Mr.
Sellig as an adviser to the man who's now the SEC Chairman Paul Atkins with various crypto initiatives in Washington.
So undoubtedly a pro crypto candidate.
Don't forget the previous crypto candidate in a sign of something which looked Little bit like a Marxist coup around about the 1920s Stalinist cabinet table was knifed in the back by various interested parties because he wasn't felt to be doctrinaire enough about crypto.
At the same time, it's going to be very interesting because of course Selig comes into office building on the most active acting chairman we've ever seen in the role of the commission, Caroline Pham.
Now the Fmme fatal has left, but we're already in the process of having a one year program which is helping.
Try and bring crypto closer to mainstream markets, but therein, of course, is going to lie a huge problem, something which was also mentioned in confirmation history and hearings.
The NICE, Nasdaq, all the established financial markets, they're very worried about what's going on at the moment because they see that in a certain way crypto might be getting breaks that are not with established markets.
That will of course become a very interesting piece as the ongoing dialogue between the SEC and the CFTC develops.
What's happen there?
Will there be possibly forcing of a merger by President Trump?
It's going to be a very, very interesting situation.
And nonetheless, the good thing is, at least for the world, that Paul Atkins is a pragmatic man.
Selig has worked with Atkins for many years and therefore hopefully we'll at least see decent dialogue between the CFTC and the SEC, which has not necessarily been the case during the 50 year history of the Futures Commodities regulator.
Do you think there's a potential for a merger between the SEC and CFTC?
I think that's a great question, Jeff.
There is potential, but actually the problem is nothing to do with financial markets.
A lot of people pragmatically would say, wow, having one single regulator could be good.
Other people say, Well, the difficulty is the SEC tends to be more rules blind.
The CFTC tends to be more pragmatic in its approaches over time.
But ultimately, here's the problem Washington DC, where have we heard that before on a bipartisan basis.
The difficulty is the Agriculture Committee of the And the House now have enormous power because they oversee the world's derivatives markets via the CFTC.
They're not going to be giving that up to the folks over in the Treasury Committee who oversee the SEC.
So I think the problem with the merger is pragmatically, practically all good reasons for it.
Politically very difficult to see any politician of any party giving up on their influence.
And my, how much influence those senators and also congressmen on the Agriculture Committee hold.
All right, let's turn to geopolitics for a minute here.
The US has seized a second oil tank off the coast of Venezuela.
They're supposedly as of this morning chasing a third.
Tensions with Venezuelan President Maduro have been escalating for months.
What's going on here?
Talk us through the politics.
Well this is a massive political situation, isn't it, Jeff?
I mean, obviously as a former bus driver turned president, I think President Maduro must understand the ramifications of the fact that the end of the line is coming up and clearly somewhere behind the scenes a lot of negotiations are going on.
The problem with the Trump approach is overall attacking drug boats, doing things like that.
I think people are pretty phlegmatic about that overall approach.
It's obviously a tragedy for those who get killed involved, but at the same time, if you're chaperoning a drugs boat through the waters of the Caribbean, you must obviously understand the risks.
The seizing of the oil tankers that starts to become very, very interesting because that's having an impact not just on Venezuela.
But on the geopolitics of the region.
What's the biggest pinch point?
Actually, the closest pinch point is going to be Cuba.
Havana has got to be sweating it because they've been reliant upon cheap Venezuelan oil for decades.
Could that actually see the point at which the Caribbean turns itself upside down and effectively the largest nation in the region, Cuba, is actually pushed back towards something that's a more democratic form of government.
I don't know.
But it's certainly something to look for on our radar for 2026.
In a broader ramification, obviously China is enjoying the benefits of Venezuelan oil.
The possibility of that being stopped is going to be a problem.
On a broader basis, however, we've got to think about what the Trump administration has been doing here, and I don't know that this is actually entirely 100% helpful to the aims of what President Trump is trying to do closing off airspace. in Venezuela has actually been a boon to the Maduro regime.
Why?
Because millions of Venezuelans have been pushed out of their own country due to the appalling economics of Chavez and Maduro, and that's led to vast expatriate communities who now cannot get home.
They can't get home for Christmas, and that's annoying everybody, which is ultimately strengthening Maduro regime.
So in some ways what appeared like clever politics.
Blocking Venezuela off the face of the earth in terms of transport is actually backfiring at the domestic level.
The US may need to calibrate depending on what they want to do going forward with the Maduro regime.
And finally, it also lessens pressure within the region.
Guyana is certainly, I think, breathing somewhat of a sigh of relief right at the moment because unless Maduro decides to do a Hail Mary pass invasion, the possibility of the territorial disputes with Guyana, which suddenly have broken out as a result after a century of more or less torpor as a result of oil claims of Guyana.
Guyana probably is going to be much, much of a safer place in the near future because if nothing else, I suspect any attack on Guyana would signal a full frontal response from the United States of America, and that's a full frontal nobody in their right mind wants to be in front of Jeff.
I hear you.
Let's lighten up the mood a little bit and jump into the K-pop Demon Hunters.
This year, its song has spent months at the top of the Billboard movie charts with Christmas coming.
What connection to global affairs can you make here?
Multiple connections apart from the fact that it's a happy, wonderful, and incredible thing to talk about, apart from the fact that there's a beautiful story here of women managing to succeed and the incredible EJ and her story of redemption.
What do we see about the rise of Korea?
Well, first of all, there's a great message in here for North and South Korean relations.
K-pop, ladies and gentlemen, represents a tiny fraction of the South Korean economy.
It represents, on the other hand, the equivalent of somewhere between 15 to 25% of the entire economy of North Korea.
If that doesn't tell you that communism doesn't work, I don't know what does.
But more importantly, look at the way K-pop demon hunters is the thing that's on everybody's lips this Christmas, fabulous Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving Day with all of the demon hunters out there, demons and everything like that represented by the balloons.
But really, and here's the soda pop and the golden point of what we're talking about is ultimately Korea has got here.
Without a breathtaking bubble, you'll remember, Jeff, what it was like in 1989-1990.
We were all turning Japanese.
Japan was going to own the entirety of California's golf courses within the next 6 months, and actually what happened was ultimately it was a mega bubble.
The South Korean economy looks a lot more sustainable and therefore into the future, K-pop demon hunters, that's just the start of an incredible Korea wave of culture, and I welcome it.
And indeed I think everybody should open a quick soda pop to celebrate.
All right, well, you're talking about predictions a little bit with what can happen with this market.
Let's talk about prediction in the market specifically.
They're popping up everywhere with Coinbase announcing plans to launch them.
Kalsi and Polymarket already have billion dollar valuations.
What do you make of the rise this year and also how do you think selling CFTC is going to regulate these prediction markets?
Selling CFTC is ultimately unclear, but he's a deregulator, so therefore it's probably good for prediction markets.
I speak with a bittersweet experience having been a pioneer of these markets 30 years ago when nobody wanted to listen to them.
Nobody wanted to regulate, and the US was threatening to throw us all in jail.
But prediction markets are here for one very, very.
Simple reason.
2 out of people on the high street today care about where the bond market is.
4 or 5 people care where gold is.
6 or 7 people ahead of the Santa Claus rally probably care where the stock market is.
But ahead of the Super Bowl, 11 out of 10 people, they're interested in who's going to win the Super Bowl.
That's why prediction markets matter, baby.
Thank you so much for being on the show this morning, Patrick.
It's been a true pleasure.
Have a happy, healthy holiday.
