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What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, October 23rd, and today we are talking about a meeting between crypto executives and Democrats that went poorly. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it. Give it a rating, give it a review, and if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod.

All right, friends, well, crypto executives were in Washington to meet with Senate Democrats,

and it seems the roundtable went exceptionally poorly. The meeting was arranged by Senator Gillibrand

to settle disagreements over the market structure bill. Democrats had circulated their own

market structure framework to the industry last week, and that framework was leaked to the press and met with widespread industry criticism.

Primarily, crypto folks voiced concern over an anti-money laundering provision that would apply to

defy protocols and appear to function as a de facto ban. The pushback was so bad that senators

on both side of the aisle walked away from negotiations, leaving the bill in limbo.

Heading into Wednesday's meeting, there was a sense that executives would be able to explain why the Democrat proposal was a non-starter and suggest a more workable compromise. A source familiar with the meeting said the roundtable began with 30 minutes of introductions from industry figures, who offered nothing more than top-level discussions of what they wanted to see in the bill. Senator Ruben Gallego reportedly told the executives, I'm really effing pissed about what happened last week. Don't be an arm of the Republican Party. They used you all and your megaphones to F us. Obviously, that has been censored for polite conversation. Now, a source commented that while trust had been broken, Democrats still want to get a bill done. They presented the view that Democrats aren't interested in slow walking the process.

However, another Democrat senator said during the meeting, if something happened similar to what

happened last week, it's going to set us back again.

The bill requires around eight Democrat senators to join with Republicans to pass, so some

level of agreement is required.

And while the president's

crypto businesses are a prominent complaint for Democrats, the compliance issue seemed to be the

real sticking point. Of note, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was present at the meeting.

Elizabeth Warren, who leads the banking committee that will mark up the bill, was not.

Crypto lobbyist Kristen Smith, now president of the Salana Policy Institute, briefed the press following the meeting. She called it a necessary step at this time and reaffirmed the Democrats want to get a bill done. However, she added, my takeaway was that there's a group of Democratic senators who really do want to get this done, and they've been really held up on maybe process to date. The good news is that there is a lot of interest there in going deeper in working to get this right. The process in question refers to a Democrat demand of participating

in initial drafting of the bill rather than only having input via amendments during a markup hearing.

Smith continued, overall, there was a little bit of frustration from some of the members about

...