BITCOIN SEASON 2: Are there too many crypto lobbyists in DC?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Crypto is now on the offensive in our nation’s capital – there are over a dozen crypto lobbyists in DC. Are there too many cooks in the kitchen?
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Charlie and Colin dive into the growing presence of crypto lobbying in Washington, D.C., analyzing CoinDesk's coverage and the staggering $119 million spent by the industry in 2024. They contrast national lobbying orgs like the Bitcoin Policy Institute with state-level players like the Satoshi Action Fund, discussing their roles, motivations, and effectiveness. The hosts also reflect on their own grassroots efforts in Oklahoma, the risks of regulatory capture, and the long-term implications of industry money shaping public policy.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro: Are there too many crypto lobbyists?
0:42 Offensive lobbying: Crypto enters DC with money and momentum
1:50 From defense to offense: Lobbying works
3:13 CoinDesk chart: $119M spent by crypto in 2024
5:20 How past regulatory scares galvanized the industry
7:20 Two types of lobbying: Good faith vs regulatory capture
10:21 Inside look: Local lobbying efforts in Oklahoma
21:20 Arch
22:34 National vs state: Satoshi Action Fund vs Bitcoin Policy Institute
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are there too many lobbyists in DC? Well, the answer is obviously yes, but are there too many |
| 0:04.6 | crypto lobbyists in DC? And the answer is, who knows? That is the topic of discussion for today's |
| 0:11.7 | writer's room here on Bitcoin season two. Colin and I review the latest Coin Desk piece describing |
| 0:18.4 | the state of Bitcoin and crypto lobbying in our nation's capital. |
| 0:22.7 | We go through the numbers, the names, and the who, what's and wins, and where do we go from here? |
| 0:28.0 | Bitcoin Season 2 is brought to by Arch Network, the platform building bridgeless apps on Bitcoin. |
| 0:33.6 | More on Arch later on the show. Let's kick it off. |
| 0:42.5 | Thank you. More on Arch later on the show. Let's kick it off. Welcome back to Bitcoin Season 2. This is Charlie and Kahn. We are talking Bitcoin |
| 0:47.2 | crypto lobbying today. We may actually say the word blockchain today. We might say the word |
| 0:52.9 | blockchain. We might say the word digital asset. |
| 0:55.7 | These crypto companies are slowly morphing into lizard people. |
| 0:59.4 | They are conforming to the natural forms of those in the swamp. |
| 1:05.4 | And they want to see it at the table. |
| 1:07.5 | And Charlie had a really good observation about the kind of lobbying efforts that we're seeing |
| 1:11.8 | now versus what we've seen in the past 16 years as we have a more friendly administration |
| 1:18.2 | and a more friendly congressional and regulatory environment. |
| 1:21.7 | Yeah, what I'm seeing, I just mentioned this before we hit go, but you can think of it, listener like this. |
| 1:28.7 | The past 16 years of Bitcoin and Crypto has been us on the defensive. |
| 1:35.5 | And now what we're seeing is the industry shifting to offensive. |
| 1:39.5 | We saw crypto broadly raise the most money of any other single issue group in the last election |
| 1:49.1 | cycle. And we saw that it worked. You saw seats flip all across the country. You saw the first |
| 1:56.4 | pro-crypto candidate in the White House. And now you see that we've realized that the money actually works. |
... |
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