00:00Let's talk to Clem Chambers, the finance author and CEO of Online Blockchain, which specializes in blockchain development.
00:07Clem, welcome back. Good to see you.
00:09CUS Crypto Week starting, the stablecoin bill set to pass through the House of Representatives.
00:15It's gone through the Senate.
00:17In your view, what are the key arguments for and against?
00:22Well, I mean, crypto is simply private sector money in the same way as dollars is public sector money.
00:29And these bills are basically locking the stablecoins into the American treasury bond market so that if someone issues a stablecoin, they have to buy an American treasury bond.
00:42So it kind of cements that as money, which is backed by dollars.
00:47And it cements stablecoins in the main to be a dollar donated token.
00:53A Republican representative said recently, the golden age of digital assets is here. Is it?
01:01Well, I mean, we already live in the golden age of digital assets. Most people's money are digital assets.
01:06How many people hold their money in paper anymore? It's all digital assets.
01:12It's all, that's what the bank does. That's what they hold. They hold your money as digital assets.
01:15So I think that's just a little bit of a misnomer.
01:18The world is already digital money, but it's government issued digital money.
01:22This is private sector digital money.
01:25What do all these changes mean for the wider American public?
01:29Well, what's happened, because the environment of regulation has been extremely hostile to crypto over the last few years, it's completely stunted the development of things attached to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins and various other things, which means that the full promise of blockchain has been basically put back or held back a long way.
01:53Blockchain and crypto can do lots of amazing things, but up until recently, anybody trying to do that risked going to prison, basically.
02:01So really, only the most brave people have been developing anything new.
02:05And you can see that in the crypto market over the last couple of years.
02:09There's nothing particularly new.
02:11Now that they're going to regulate it, there will be a blossoming of applications for crypto, and that could be a very exciting development.
02:17There may well be, but how do you really increase confidence and improve reputation, given what's gone through in the last few years?
02:27Well, I mean, I think there's no shortage of people who love crypto, particularly amongst the young.
02:32I mean, it is a very wild area, and it is a very volatile area, and a lot of people have been hurting it, and a lot of people have made a lot of money.
02:39In fact, many people find that aspect of it very attractive, because excitement is what drives economies.
02:46And, you know, nobody can say that crypto isn't exciting.
02:49Trouble is, there's been no great regulatorial structure to enable it to become a mainstream activity, and that is now coming about, at least in America.
02:59But it might not stop it being something that's not looked upon favorably elsewhere in the world.
03:04And how much is this, the story of demographic confidence, in that young people are more confident about doing business this way, maybe older people not so much?
03:18Well, I mean, I was in Dubai recently, and some young kid pulls out his telephone and buys, you know, a multi-thousand-pound watch with USDT.
03:27I would never do that, and most people my age wouldn't even know how to do it, let alone do it.
03:31But, you know, crypto does have its applications, and obviously the younger you are, the more into this latest technology you are, and the more comfortable you are with it.
03:40So there is a shift, a generational shift, with crypto, and it's hard for people who are older to understand.
03:47And the youngsters, you know, it's just like all these chat products you see coming out, and you go, what are you doing that for?
03:53Or, you know, all the different social medias that people over a certain age find mysterious.
03:58Crypto is the rock and roll of this young generation.
04:02We're both sitting in Europe.
04:04Let me ask you to compare and contrast.
04:06How does the United States' digital assets and crypto policy compare to perhaps those in Europe?
04:12Well, Europe's been just going slow about things, not particularly positive, but just kind of grinding things out slowly over the last few years.
04:22America's been absolutely hostile, terribly, terribly hostile, suing everybody that moves because of crypto.
04:28And now they've stopped that, and they're going the other way.
04:32They're being positive and accommodating and encouraging.
04:35So you're getting the volatility from America you'd expect from the American way, and you're getting the sluggish, dogged, slow, grinding moves that you'd expect from Europe.
