Speaker unverified: prediction

Transcript context

…This was not a crazy sentiment in the country at the time. No, this was kind of how people felt. Bill Clinton actually provided the right leadership there where he said, first, do no harm. Let's let this thing breathe. Let's see where it goes. Once we understand it better, then we can propose a set of regulations that makes sense for the space given what it's becoming. It won't always be nasty chat rooms. And he was right. Slowly but surely, we worked up on the regulatory apparatus. Did we get it perfect? No, of course not. Congress is infinitely fallible. We never get everything perfect. But I think that was ultimately the right playbook for that time and space. I would argue the same mantra should exist today. Are there things that are bad that happened in crypto? Absolutely. We talked on one—tax evasion. Does that happen? Certainly it happens. Of course, it happens. As you said, it's probably the default. You have to decide that you're going to pay taxes. That's something we need to work on, and there are other areas as well. But should the response be to destroy the entire industry before most people understand it and before it's even had a chance to really develop in anything? Certainly not. My view is the mantra should be do no harm and take bite-sized pieces as they become obvious, but don't overreach. I suspect that's how Congress will behave. I do fear that the administration will take a more heavy-handed path, mainly because the SEC chair’s pretty hostile at times in his public comments on crypto. That's (I think) where the give and take will be. But that's also why it's so important that Congress actually puts laws forward, even if they don't pass, but just by showing there's bipartisan support for a set of principles. That in and of itself will send a message to the regulators that, hey, we're actually pretty far away from where Congress is, and that's not a good place to be. The last thing you want to do as a regulator, you propose a set of regulations and then Congress just flips them on you. My hope is that the energy we're seeing, which is becoming more and more bipartisan by the day, will ultimately lead us more down that ‘do no harm’ path, as opposed to the heavy-handed path. What do you think the bite-sized early regulation will be sort of on the steps to getting a more complete regulatory framework?…

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