BREAKDOWN: What’s Really Behind SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s Crypto Speech
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Crypto Twitter cannot decide the impact of Gensler’s comments, while others still push to focus on the infrastructure bill.
This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s speech at the Aspen Security Conference has Crypto Twitter in a frenzy. On this episode, NLW covers the latest in regulatory action, including:
- Infrastructure bill update
- Overall take of Gensler’s speech: hostile or bullish?
- More concerning crypto opposition
Gary Gensler’s “Remarks Before the Aspen Security Forum”
Crypto Twitter has not reached an agreement on the tone of Gensler’s comments. While some claim this is as a catalyst for incoming regulation and the most aggressive stance to date, others saw it as a run-of-the-mill conservative, consumer protection-focused take.
Aside from securities definitions discussion, Gensler’s comments did point to a Bitcoin bias and an admiration for some of the ideals behind crypto. This outlook contrasts with the negative perception of crypto from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is attempting to shift to a more negative narrative and from Congressman Don Beyer, who recently dropped a surprise comprehensive crypto bill.
Who will be the biggest adversary to crypto with securities, stablecoins and ‘systemic risk’ on the minds of so many regulators?
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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.
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The Breakdown is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Razor Red” by Sam Barsh. Image credit: Melissa Lyttle/Bloomberg/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The biggest dividing line among politicians who have questions about crypto is whether those |
| 0:04.8 | questions are about things like investor protections, but they remain enthusiastic about possibilities, |
| 0:10.0 | or whether those politicians only see systemic risk and an enemy that must be fought. |
| 0:16.8 | I, at this point, am willing to engage with just about anyone who falls into that first category |
| 0:22.2 | because the second category is where the real existential battles lie. |
| 0:28.4 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 0:32.6 | It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:39.7 | The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 0:46.0 | What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, August 4th, and today we are picking up where we left |
| 0:51.2 | off yesterday and asking what's really behind SEC Chair Gary Gensler's |
| 0:57.1 | crypto speech. |
| 0:58.7 | So, on yesterday's show, I gave the full debrief about the state of the infrastructure |
| 1:04.0 | bill. |
| 1:05.0 | For those playing catch up, at the 11th hour last week, a provision was put into the $550 |
| 1:10.1 | billion infrastructure bill that would change |
| 1:12.3 | tax reporting requirements around crypto. The authors claim that it would generate $28 billion |
| 1:17.5 | in unpaid crypto taxes. And the mechanism for that was changing the definition of broker |
| 1:23.7 | to include effectively anyone involved in facilitating crypto transactions. |
| 1:28.9 | The problem is that while custodial facilitation is what actual brokers do in traditional |
| 1:33.9 | financial systems, in blockchain systems, many actors, including miners, validators, etc., could |
| 1:40.8 | be considered facilitators, especially when you remove, as this definition did, the |
| 1:46.2 | custodial requirement. And that's the problem. These actors are non-custodial and don't even have |
... |
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