00:00Probably the most interesting one group that I'm meeting with here are other bank CEOs because we are having this moment in D.C.
00:07about getting market structure legislation passed and the bill has made good progress.
00:12It got a strong bipartisan vote in the House. It's now being deliberated in the Senate.
00:15And there was a little bit of a blow up last week. A little bit of a blow up. All right. Let's go there.
00:21Yeah. It seemed like a big blow up. But you pulled your support for the bill.
00:26For that current draft. Yes. Yes. Why?
00:28Well, there was too many giveaways to TradFi, if I can say that.
00:34Our view is that there should be a level playing field for this is allowed, this is not allowed.
00:39And then all the U.S. companies compete. And banks didn't like that.
00:44They were, in my view, like the commercial sides of these banks are very smart and the CEOs get it.
00:48And they're talking to us about integrating crypto. The bank lobbying groups and bank associations are out there trying to ban their competition.
00:56And I have zero tolerance for that. I think it's un-American.
00:59It harms consumers. And the banks need competition. They need to innovate.
01:03We also saw this from some of the securities broker lobbying groups because tokenized equities are a big thing happening in crypto.
01:10So there was three or four kind of red line issues we saw in the draft text.
01:14And as I was in D.C. that day meeting with members of the Senate, I asked them, OK, is there a path to fix this after it comes out of committee?
01:21And they basically told me behind closed doors, if this comes out of committee with a bipartisan vote, we can't really help you on the full Senate floor.
01:28And so I felt like I had to stand up and say something defending our customers' rights.
01:33And I was careful not to opine on what the Senate should do in terms of a markup or not.
01:38And I was careful not to say anything. We don't represent the whole crypto industry.
01:41But from a Coinbase point of view, I was not comfortable with the draft text as written.
01:45And I'm glad that everyone came back for another round of negotiation.
01:49Well, other people have been saying stuff. So since we're going here now, a journalist from Crypto in America said a White House source told her,
01:57this is President Trump's bill, not Brian Armstrong's bill at the end of the day,
02:01and that the White House is going to pull out if you don't come back to the table.
02:04You push back on this. What's really happening?
02:07Oh, yeah, I mean, this is not our bill.
02:09I actually give all the credit really to the Senate.
02:11And certainly President Trump has said that this is a core part of his crypto agenda.
02:16So my impression is that the White House is fully leaned in here and wants to get something done, as do we, as do the bank CEOs that I met with today.
02:25So I'm not seeing any real barriers here.
02:28There's some people who are a little grumpy.
02:29I think they got caught off guard that we didn't support the draft as is.
02:34But it's kind of like that metaphor of, you know, three blind people looking at an elephant and everyone's trying to figure out.
02:39You know, there's probably somebody in the administration who had that point of view, but that's not the people we're speaking with, I don't think, have taken that approach.
02:46They actually very much want to get this done.
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