The Chopping Block: The Clarity Act, Stablecoins, and a $120K Bitcoin Boom - Ep. 874

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. In this episode, the crew is joined by special guest Rebecca Rettig, Chief Legal Officer at Jito Labs, to unpack the biggest legislative week in crypto history. The Clarity Act, Genius Act, and Anti-CBDC Act all pass Congress, ushering in what some are calling a regulatory renaissance — or at least, the first real rules of the road. Bitcoin breaks $120K, memecoins rip, and Crypto Week sends shockwaves through Washington. But is the Clarity Act really the win the industry’s been waiting for? Rebecca breaks down the legal nuance, Tarun questions the economic reality, and Haseeb points out Ethereum’s bizarre silence during the biggest policy shift of the decade. Has crypto finally grown up — or just gotten better at playing the game? The gang dissects the laws, the loopholes, and the market’s reaction to it all. Show highlights 🔹 Clarity Act Passes the House – Landmark crypto bill advances with bipartisan support, aiming to limit SEC power and define digital asset classifications. 🔹 Stablecoins Get a Path Forward – The Genius Act passes alongside Clarity, offering long-awaited regulatory rails for U.S. stablecoin issuers. 🔹 Congress Goes Full Crypto – Three major bills pass the House in one week, marking a historic show of political support for the industry. 🔹 Rebecca Rettig Returns – Jito Labs Chief Legal Officer breaks down what the legislation really means — and what still isn’t clear. 🔹 SEC in the Hot Seat – With CFTC gaining ground, the SEC’s regulatory grip is questioned across policy circles and crypto Twitter. 🔹 Bitcoin Breaks $120K – Markets rally on regulatory momentum and renewed optimism, with BTC setting a new local high. 🔹 Altcoins Catch Fire – SOL, PENGU, and meme tokens explode as traders rotate into risk-on narratives post-legislation. 🔹 Ethereum’s Silence Raises Eyebrows – Despite being at the heart of stablecoin infrastructure, Ethereum’s core voices stay unusually quiet. 🔹 DeFi’s Legal Gray Zone Remains – Tarun argues the bills may shift political winds, but don’t resolve the underlying protocol risk or enforcement ambiguity. 🔹 Crypto Week Becomes a Real Thing – What started as a Trump slogan turns into one of the most consequential weeks in U.S. crypto history. ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Guest ⭐️ Rebecca Rettig, Jurisprudential Genius at Jito Labs Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:06 The Genius Act 04:38 Tech Companies & Stablecoins 08:38 Predictions for the Future of Stablecoins 26:25 The Clarity Act Breakdown 32:27 Important Definitions 34:38 New Exemptions for Token Sales 41:12 Mature Blockchain Certification Process 45:27 Defi Activity Exemptions & Regulations 48:03 New Categories for Spot Crypto Registrants 55:52 Solana's Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	These people have been working on this for years at this point.
0:04.9	Clarity is a monster, but if you read it, it actually is pretty clear.
0:10.7	Not a dividend.
0:11.9	It's a tale of two fond.
0:13.0	Now, your losses are on someone else's balance.
0:15.8	Generally speaking, air drops are kind of pointless anyways.
0:18.3	I'm into trading firms who are very involved. D5.E. is the ultimate problem. DFI protocols are the antidote to this problem. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the chopping block. Every couple weeks before, us get together and give the industry insider perspective on the crypto topics of the day. So quick intro is first you got Tom, the DFI Maven and Master of Memes. Hello, everyone. Next, we've got Robert, the Cryptoconassur, and Tsar of Super State. Good evening. And we've got Tarun, the Gigubrain, and Grand Puba at Gauntlet. Yo. And joining us today, once again, we have Rebecca Reddigg, the jurisprudential genius of Gito Labs. Oh, that was good. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. And I've received the head hype man to dragonfly. We're early-stage investors in crypto, but I want to caveat that nothing we say here is investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. Please see chopping block.x, y, Z for more disclosures. So it has been a pretty historic week. We have crypto assets rallying Bitcoin at 120K,
1:12.1	all of a sudden they're moving again. You've got Ethereum pumping. You've got Solana pumping.
1:15.7	The entire market is on the move suddenly. And a big part of the reason for this has been the success
1:21.0	of Crypto Week. So Crypto Week, of course, was the week that Trump declared, or sorry,
1:26.0	the GOP declared that they were going to push all of these bills, the three important bills that were in the House, getting through the house, and potentially getting on the president's desk. So the first of those three bills was the Genius Act. The Genius Act is the Stable Coin bill. It's the one that we've been talking about and being excited about for quite a while. There was a little bit of a showdown in the House where things were getting blocked from some
1:47.6	GOP infighting.
1:48.7	The President apparently brought them all into a room, yelled at them, and got everybody to flip.
1:53.4	And so this was able to make it onto the floor of the House and ultimately passed a very big bipartisan vote, 308 to 122. So more than two-thirds margin that this vote ended up
2:05.6	passing. It was then signed by the president on July 18th. So we now have a stable coin bill.
2:11.1	I believe this is basically the first piece of law about crypto in American history. So up till now, we've had nothing. So,
2:20.3	congrats everybody. We've got a stablecoin bill. Now, the important question is,
2:25.0	what does that mean? What does this bill do? I think everyone knows that, okay, it's the stable
2:30.2	coin bill. It's exciting. But what are the implications of this bill? So Rebecca, we have
2:36.1	you here to explain to us what the hell is going on. Walk us through high level. What are the
2:42.0	important points of this bill for everybody to take home about what changes in stable coin land?
2:46.2	Great question. So most of the stable coin issuers to date have registered as what are called
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