Why the Consensus After-Party Set Crypto Back: DEX in the City

Hi all and welcome to Decks in the City where the wallets are cold and the takes are hot.

Before we get going, remember, we're lawyers, but we're not your lawyers, so nothing you hear on Decks in the City is legal or financial advice and it doesn't create an attorney-client relationship.

For the fine print, check Unchained Crypto.com.

I'm getting really good at that.

First, we have Jesse, Web 3 prosecutor turned Web 3 protector at Ribbet Capital, and the from the SEC to Web 3.

And I'm your host, Katherine KK fluent in Tradfi and conversant in deep tech over at Starkware.

Today, we have a jam-packed episode, but something really, really important happened last week.

And we talked about this a little bit on last week's episode when we had Josh Reisman from GSR on.

But we want to go into slightly more depth, OK, and I wasn't here, so yeah, and Jessie missed it, so we need her take as well.

So obviously we don't have time on this pod to go through the clarity Act in detail, and frankly, no one wants to hear all of the details.

That's probably too much information for most of our listeners, but we are going to very quickly give you a quick and dirty of where we are with clarity and what clarity is about.

So, very quick.

First, I wanna shout out, there's a multitude of great resources that are out to kind of summarize and brief people on the relevant clarity provisions.

Do your homework, understand what affects you, what affects your company, what is going to have an effect on the trickle-down macro, um, environment if it passes.

We'll get to that in a minute.

But I really like a resource from the law firm.

Cahill, and we're gonna put it on the screen and we'll link it in the show notes, but that's a great way to navigate all of the various provisions.

I'm just gonna give you a super quick overview.

There's a bunch of different sections of clarity.

First is responsible securities innovation that has a carve-out for network tokens, reg crypto-exempt offering, insider trading provisions.

Second, Second section, protection, protecting against illicit finance.

So this expands the Bank Secrecy Act to centralized crypto market participants, big deal.

Third, Section 301, this is actually a very powerful one.

This talks about all the powers to the SEC and what the SEC gets as part of clarity.

The 4th section, responsible regulatory innovation.

This creates a CFTC, SEC sandbox.

I love a sandbox, and covers tokenization of securities.

Next, responsible banking innovation, which covers details of yield.

Next, section 5, very important, protecting software developer and software innovation.

So protecting developers.

This is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, the BRCA, which we talked about on last week's episode that protects developers and raises a specific intent standard.

Also the Keep Your Coins Act, the right to self-custody, and also I might add.

The developer protections apply retroactively.

And then last, the rest is consumer protection, FinCE funding, joint SEC CFTC advisory Committee, and the Random Housing Act, the Build Now Act that was slotted in there at the very end.

OK, so now you completely understand clarity, what is going to happen now.

We, I have also found a really fantastic handy chart.

Shout out to Gary Wachtel who shared it on Twitter.

Um, it shows the process that needs to happen before clarity is passed.

To be clear, guys, I'm still at a 35, 40% chance of passage here.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but I still think we have a lot of roadblocks.

It was marked up last week, approved by a vote of 15 to 9.

So two Democrats.

Flipped to support it.

OK.

Now, the Senate has to vote on it.

It needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster.

And for those who aren't aware, filibuster is a mechanism that can effectively block an act.

So you need a higher majority, you need more than half to clear a filibuster.

So that means we need at least 7 Democrats to support it.

Then the draft needs to be reconciled with the House version, which passed in January.

So negotiators from both chambers need to agree on everything, and they need to vote again.

And all of this needs to happen in a pretty limited legislative calendar before everybody kind of checks out for the summer and before the midterm elections potentially change this whole landscape.

And 3 kind of big roadblocks could disrupt this.

We touched on ethics in last week's episode, but basically the Democrats want an ethics provision that the Republicans, we all know, let's not talk about the Democrats wanting it.

A lot of people want an ethics provision in there, and so I don't think that that is a partisan issue, although on the ethics issue, sorry to interrupt you, I think it's important that there were 2 Democrats that voted to get it out of committee, but both of those. said that that is not necessarily a yes on the floor because the ethics provision is holding them back.

And, you know, Warner, one of the Democrats that has been working really, really hard on this, did not vote yes out of committee.

So there's a lot of things to work out.

Ethics in my mind is one of the biggest.

OK, I think, no, I'm glad you interrupted.

Yeah, I would say it is the biggest, and it's really important.

That point is this is not necessarily a partisan. thing we've talked in the past about how it's stupid that certain regulators aren't permitted to hold crypto because they should be able to experiment.

Well, I'm just gonna go out there and say it's stupid that there are no ethical limitations on engagement with crypto.

So like there can be somewhere in the middle of reasonability with all of this.

So, so fantastic point, Jesse.

The, the last two potential roadblocks I'll call out is one law enforcement concern.

There's, uh, and I know Jesse didn't want to say something about this, but the question of whether there are illicit finance gaps and how to square that with developer protections, that is not easy because obviously crypto wants those developer protections.

We need those developer protections, but there is a contingent that says by virtue of that, we're creating an environment where bad guys are going to take advantage of this.

So that's kind of a hot button issue.

And then last.

Whether the yield compromise, we got to a point where the banks and crypto compromised over the stablecoin yield, but Patrick Witt said recently that banks had pushed to reopen Genius Act negotiations to ban stablecoin rewards and yield entirely.

So the real question is whether everybody is kind of like tenuous compromises, is gonna hold.

So, let me take a breath.

Jesse, V, give me all of your clarity, alpha.

So, just one quick comment.

I know I said I was at like 90% last week and then the markup happened.

So, you know, what I, what I found interesting was the vote breakdown.

So I think it's great that two Democrats, as you said, voted to get this out of committee.

I was actually hoping for a few more because I do think that that is a good signal of its, of like.

For Democrats or enough Democrats voting for it on the floor to get this thing actually like over the finish line, right?

I think only 2 Democrats voting for it out of committee, and, and on a conditional basis, right?

The saying, this doesn't mean we're going to vote for it on the floor.

Like we need, I think they asked for ethics in the final bill for them to be a yes at the end of the day.

So, I, I think I'm, I, that makes me come down a little bit from 90% to be honest.

Honest.

OK, OK, I can't believe you haven't come up though, because you're 35 was like pre, pre-committee vote, right?

I assumed it was gonna survive the markup.

The markup was never what I was concerned about.

What I'm concerned about is I feel like pragmatically, we're facing a really compressed timeline before everybody gets distracted.

Like if we had several months for this process, I would be a lot more optimistic.

I think non-US listeners and non-policy people may not understand how checked out legislators are during summer break.

So if this doesn't progress quickly, then everyone is going to become distracted by something else.

Yeah, the other timing issue is midterms, right?

So if, if any of the Republicans lose their seats in the midterms, that means that we're going to need more than um.

7 Democrats to support.

Also there is so much else happening.

Like we live in this crypto-focused world.

There is so much else happening in the world that Congress is thinking about and having to address right now, you know, the Iran war, funding for it, and what happens there.

A bunch of other issues have come up recently that we don't want to get into here because they're not financial related, so I don't want to get into that debate.

And what's really interesting about this bill, and I don't really know if it's good or bad, but it tries to do everything.

Like, like KK's overview was a very amazing high level of it, but you can hear it's trying to touch CFTC, SEC, the DOJ.

BSA, so FinCEN Treasury, it's trying to answer every single question.

And when a legislation does that, it's humongously comprehensive, right, and what it's trying to do, but it's not going to be perfect.

And so, in many ways, the way the language is.

Currently written, it would mean that it's not like the right step forward for us all, but you can see like Mika is a great example of legislation that really tried to do almost too much.

And like, so a big question here is like, how are we going to get Congress comfortable with a bill where they have to understand every single part of an Entirely huge financial market and that's where like the different coalitions are gonna play really interesting um pieces of this because the law enforcement coalition, whatever that means, we can get into that for a second.

SEC CFTC, banking, like every little issue is going to be debated, and that's before we even get to ethics.

I, I, I think the attempt to do all of this is actually laudable.

Like it needs to be done in some form, and we do at least have a track record of other vast legislative financial services oriented bills like Dodd-Frank.

I think of this as crypto's Dodd-Frank, except not.

Reactive to some sort of crisis.

It's proactive, and if we implement this legislation, I honestly hope that it will avoid any type of extreme volatility because it will put appropriate rails in place.

But I do agree with you, Jesse, you don't think this is reactive to crisis?

Yes and no, because, frankly, I think we would have had legislation earlier if not for FTX because you have to consider, now we might have had bad legislation driven by SBF, which is terrifying, but one of the things that created this devastating partisan environment.

You know, for people who haven't been in this space quite as long, is that the Democrats really align themselves, not all Democrats were making generalizations.

Certain Democrats align themselves with Sam Bankman Fried, and so they had egg on their face when he turned out to be a sociopath.

And is that a good reason for why this asset class should be partisan?

Absolutely not.

As we've talked about before, technology should be no.

Partisan, ultimately, the inherent tech in this space is going to make Americans' lives better, access to alpha, etc.

We could go on democratization of finance, all of the good in the space.

But that was a big, that, that kind of crisis, that volatility actually pushed back legislation, in my opinion.

Yeah, I, so I think this is actually a really interesting question, just looking at it historically.

Yeah.

Yes, there have been blowups in crypto and I do think that that has like, is part of the motivation for this like very like landmark, like widely scoped bill.

But I don't, I don't think it like any kind of crisis was on the scale of what has prompted major financial legislation in the past, right?

It's not like the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Federal securities law.

It's not like the, the paperwork crisis of the 1970s that led to the Securities Amendments of 1975.

It's not like Dodd-Frank, which grew out of like one of the biggest like financial collapses we've ever had.

So, it's not like that.

I think it is like a combination of a few blowups that happened including FTX, but I think it was really more just like crypto and blockchain really did represent something fundamentally new.

And innovative, and eventually the lawmakers realized that the existing laws just would not work, given how much the industry has grown.

I think that is definitely a narrative, and I agree with that framework, but I find that narrative to be much more on the Republican side.

The Democrat side.

Much billions of dollars being stolen by DPRK, money being taken related to DeFi hacks, but also just like consumer protection, etc. and so there needs to be regulation.

And so to me maybe that is why it's been difficult to come up with a bill that matches both sides because in my mind like when I Of the Democratic side and the Republican side, it works in my head to go together.

Like, that's why I'm in crypto, because I think it can serve illicit finance features better, and I think that it can serve consumer protection and the financial integrity of our markets better.

But trying to bring that message so that both sides understand that you can get Both of those goals with one bill has been a really interesting conversation and it's even interesting to have here because, you know, we talk about these things a lot and to hear that perspective, like from my mind, I think a lot of Democrats are coming in like we need to do this because we need to stop future crises and stop sort of the flow of illicit finance here.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's a great point.

I mean, I, one of the things I love about this pod is that, I mean, we're not going to disclose our political affiliations, but we do have a degree of diversity in our political beliefs on this pod.

OK.

That's all I'm gonna say.

We don't need to go there.

But I think people know what I am.

I call myself a pro-innovation, pro-technology democrat.

So there you go.

I don't think I need to call myself anything for people to know.

I'm nothing, OK?

I, I just, I'm for America, OK.

I'm not gonna.

This has nothing to do with my politics, but I do have to say somehow my children got a hold, actually my husband admitted he played Toby Keith courtesy of the red, white, and blue.

Oh my God.

I'm from Virginia.

I loved that song.

They've become obsessed with it all day long, you know.

My 5 year old is like, Alexa, play the boot in your ass song, and I'm like, that's a bad word, but anyway my God.

I digress.

You know, I'll just say, God bless America.

We need this bill.

We want this bill.

This bill is good.

This bill is pro-innovation.

It is pro-growth of the American economy.

Like, I think we need to get on this train.

So I hope we get past these roadblocks.

I'm also concerned that if this doesn't happen now, it won't happen during the duration of this administration.

And if it doesn't happen, I think we'll look back and as a like on a macro basis as America and, and regret this from both a crypto and a drat fight perspective.

So on that note, I wanna say, you know, I, I just want to shout out, this isn't our good news, but a huge shout out to all of the people that have been on the policy front lines driving this, educating legislators, educating regulators on the provisions of this bill.

Uh, obviously, the trades, the VCs, and beyond, the individual projects who have been in taking time to educate legislators on the benefits of this bill because we've come a long way, and I think that's one of the reasons we're finally seeing traction.

Yeah.

OK, so speaking of innovation, it wouldn't be a deck in the City pod without our AI program or AI segment of the week.

Jessie, tell us what's going on, and I'm gonna relate it to clarity.

So don't worry, it's a good.

Flow of the episode.

Um, OK, so AI story of the week, you know, there had to be one.

It's essentially comes down to the fact that AI is not just coming for crypto and Dei code, it's coming for the assumptions that are built into DeFi.

So what the hell do I mean by that?

Essentially, and we'll put it up on screen, but this week Palo Alto Networks had a really interesting piece on the mytho class models and cybersecurity.

They're one of the companies that got access to it when we talked about it's like limited release, and so they've been testing it out.

So they are telling us, like, look under the hood, this is what's happening.

Their basic point is that AI changes the speed of exposure, which is not like totally new, but it's really not about finding more bugs.

Bugs, which went to infrastructure.

It's about finding what is exploitable, what can be chained together, and how systems interact.

And to me, like, all I can think is Mr.

Robot.

Like, did any of you guys watch that show?

Like that's what this all feels like.

So Palo Alto's point is really that security used to work like a backlog, like the kinds of stuff that we think about scan, ticket, triage, etc.

Frontier AI breaks this all because it can identify what's exposed before any human or process catches up.

And crypto and really Dei should care because Dei is just a giant open map, right, if you know how to read it, and that's the beauty of it, that we talk about all the time, open, compostable, transparent, etc.

But DI protocols with this composed stability and interoperability don't live in neat little boxes, right?

They rely on each other.

Now Oracle does not stay politely inside the protocol, and we've talked about this when we've dove into specific hacks, but a weakness in one layer is gonna become someone else's emergency really, really quickly before anyone even knows because that's, that's how these zero day hacks work.

And in a mythos world, this open infrastructure of Dei is like, and maybe I'm just hot today, but it's like ice cream for attackers, right?

So AI was really, really good at finding paths across systems.

And Defi really wants to be this like, don't trust verify, and that's great, largely, but every system is going to have assumptions, assumptions that an oracle is working, assumptions that the bridge message that's sent is valid, assumptions that a front end is working, etc.

But these assumptions are what a mythos and a similarly situated AI attacker is going to go after.

And that is really the problem here, because it's not a.

AI hack operating model for the moment before the hack, because that's what Palo Alto Networks and Web 2 systems are beginning to build.

And what does that look like?

It's like pauses of protocols.

Can users exit?

Can a white hat hacker help move funds?

But the problem with all that and how it plays into clarity is like, how much of that makes a protocol.

No longer decentralized, right?

And clarity is trying to wrestle with that.

The policy question is whether DFI can have real emergency response without smuggling control and the accompanying regulation.

That, you know, KK walkthrough back and baking text, and I'm going to like read this so that I get it right because it says emergency measures do not by themselves make a protocol centralized if they are predefined, temporary, rules-based, limited to a documented security incident or imminent threat, and there's a few other parts of it and that's A great concept in theory, but the new AI systems don't really work with that, right?

Because they're sort of saying you can act in an emergency if there's an imminent threat, but like, what is an imminent threat look like when AI is constantly looking for them and we won't even know what they look like.

And we need more from our DeFI projects, and that's something we've talked about here before, but I think even more so now, Palo Alto Networks is one of the foremost experts on security, and they are shouting out the warning here.

And DeFi security can't just be like, audit, launch, and pray, right?

There needs to be a way to build in an escape hatch for emergencies or potential emergencies that's not a backdoor towards centralization, and that's what we need to really start thinking about.

I think I should, and agents can be transacting in DeFi, but it really, really starts with like DeFi grappling with not just its own development of technology, but what other kinds of technology is being developed alongside of it.

It's fascinating because I think this raises so many risk-oriented questions, and I think the thing is, and I, it would be remiss if I didn't talk about this is an area of passion for Jesse, as you just saw from that overview, but I think anyone who isn't paying attention to this whole landscape is going to be at a serious disadvantage in understanding how this is going to affect so many facets of Defi and beyond.

Um, I also want to shout out, by the way, I mean, it wouldn't be a podcast without some sort of self-promotion for me, OK?

But, uh, As we've mentioned multiple times before, Jesse and I published an article in October on programmable risk management for DI, right?

And in that article, we mentioned how autonomous agents are going to change landscape, kind of exactly what Jesse is talking about.

Obviously exploits, but so many different facets of agentic uh commerce.

So today, we actually released a follow-up.

Paper to our full paper and it is specifically on programmable risk management for agentic commerce and autonomous agents.

So if you just listen to that overview from Jesse and you were confused, intrigued, interested, all of the above, I mean, I would definitely at least consider.

Our paper through Claude for a summary.

It's very long, but find a way where you can deep dive into the security aspects that you need to be aware of, how you can understand, uh, this, how this agentic activity is gonna change pretty much every facet of our business.

Um, it, it's definitely time for projects to become more conversant and how all of this is gonna change.

So on that note, I think we will wrap and take a minute to hear from our generous sponsors that make this pod possible.

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So we're back and this is a fun one.

So a little background.

I mean, anyone can submit an SEC comment letter, OK?

And for big issues that the regulators ask for feedback on, you will see thousands of comment letters and the commission reads these, you know, they want to hear.

From market participants, well, I required by law to read them.

I think they are required by law.

Thank you.

So I do have to say the three of us spotted what might be the most, how would I term it, entertaining, amusing, interesting SEC comment letter I've ever seen. tell us more.

All right, so are you guys ready for a blast from the past?

So I don't know if you guys remember Wall Street Bets that it's, it's like a group of, uh, Reddit traders from the whole GameStop incident like a, a few years ago.

Um, or if you saw Dumb Money, which was kind of, it's like an, don't watch that movie, don't watch it, right, so they, they recently filed a comment letter responding to the SEC's proposal to move public companies from quarterly reporting to semiannual reporting.

And it's funny because like their argument is actually pretty sophisticated.

They say that quarterly reporting.

Is one of the only things that help retail investors compete with institutions, uh, that institutional investors already have access to things like management and proprietary data and channel checks and analysts and, you know, like the different kinds of private information networks, um.

So retail investors disproportionately rely on public disclosures like 10 cus and that if those disclosures happen less frequently, the information gap between retail and institutions will just widen, right? harming everyday investors.

So, the reason we thought this was so interesting is because it's actually really relevant to crypto and tokenized stocks more than people might realize, right?

I think the Wall Street bet.

Comment letter unintentionally, I don't know if you know, they realize they're doing this.

It actually highlights one of the biggest differences between traditional markets and on-chain markets.

In traditional markets, information is periodically disclosed, right?

And so what that means is stuff that Uh, stuff like financial information and like a company's financial performance can sometimes be really delayed and obviously it depends on an intermediary like gathering that information.

Um, it relies on us, like us trusting that they are disclosing it accurately, that it's being audited, um, appropriately and all of these things, right?

So, what's different about on-chain markets is that a lot of financial and transactional information is continuous, transparent, and machine-readable.

Right?

That, that means that it's actually legible to computers and on-chain systems.

And that's what makes it like interoperable and programmable and just like a lot more dynamic than off-chain reporting and off-chain sys systems.

So, it sounds kind of just, you know, like technical and a little bit boring, but I actually think this distinction. is really profound and a game changer and it becomes super, super important when you're talking about tokenized equities and, and on-chain securities markets, right?

So I think the question for the SEC is if stocks become tokenized and they trade 24/7 globally on chain, does quarterly reporting even make sense anymore?

Like the, the concept of periodic reporting almost feels like quaint and that it's gonna become obsolete in an on-chain.

World, right?

Like as, as crypto people, all of us are already used to things like, you know, real-time proof of reserves and being able to see your balances on chain at any time, um, like flow of funds being transparent, settlement, settlement being instantaneous, getting like live market data.

Um, so if you compare that to, you know, like waiting 90 days for like an earnings report or disclosures that management has like curated or, you know, delayed settlement and things like that, crypto is obviously a huge upgrade.

Um, and it's kind of like the ultimate expression of what Wall Street Beets is arguing, right?

Like real-time transparent disclosure will not just increase reporting, it'll make disclosures like real-time and instant, um.

Which, like I said, I think that is a huge game changer.

And so, I just, I thought it was kind of funny, and I guess this was kind of my hot take too.

Like, it feels like the SEC is actually inadvertently moving in the opposite direction of where markets are actually going.

I thought it was, yeah.

I think that's such an interesting take.

Yeah, I think that's such an interesting take.

And also I was fascinated by this and went down a rabbit hole of like reading like Reddit posts associated with it because it really brought me back to pre-COVID or around COVID time when I spent a lot of time on my computer.

But the truth is, is like, I sort of see that too, like the SEC going in two separate directions because tokenized securities is And the transparency all the time, when like reducing reporting for the rest of the markets just doesn't give us much transparency.

And I thought it was also really interesting, and Matt Levine, Levine, I never know, brought this up, so I don't take too much credit for like reading the footnotes of the SEC releases, but essentially they quoted an academic paper that is, you know, did a study of like whether uh quarterly reporting really has an impact on companies and It was a very minimal regulatory reporting was a very minimal reason of why companies did not go public, so it actually does not have the big impact that they thought, and it reduces transparency, maybe.

I think what's interesting about token.

Securities is cool to me, to be honest, um, in the way that you expressed me of like full transparency on all the time access everywhere when you need it, because that's the whole point that we're all here, right?

But I still don't really know how this vision is gonna work if not everything is tokenized, right?

So like if there are Different ledger dealing with stocks here and tokenized over here like, is that going to actually reduce information for that intermediary period because they won't be aligned or people won't really know what's happening.

I'm not sure.

So I want to know, I think what could happen, sorry, just to follow up on that real quick, what I think could happen is you'll have like a transition period where you do have issuers that are on chain and like maybe even like IPOing on chain.

And their disclosures will be like we said, real-time continuous, but you'll still have obviously issue, issuers that live in the off-chain world and then the market will kind of decide, right?

Like, which model serves investors better.

Like I, that is kind of what I see happening because it's not going to happen overnight.

But I think it'll be a really interesting case study in like, um, consumer choice.

Right?

And like which model prevails because it really is better for not just investors, but market integrity.

I just wanna say, I loved this comment letter so much.

Like, I think everyone should read it because this is the American people speaking through Wall Street Bets.

Like, I loved so much language in this.

First of all, it was written, it was on the screen a few minutes ago, I think.

But take a look at it.

I mean, they made so much sense.

They're like, we have the 10Q.

We have the 10Q, and we have a Discord server, and we have each other.

Take away the 10Q and you have not eliminated the information.

You have just made sure the only people who have it are the ones who are going to outperform us anyway.

There's so much common sense in this, OK?

And then the other thing that they said is, look, like, We're not lawyers.

We are people who own stock.

We would like to keep being able to find out what is happening at the companies whose stock we own more than twice a year.

Uh, I, it's a beautiful thing.

Like, I just like that so much of us, and I say this, uh, so many lawyers, so many regulators, so many legislators, we focus so much on the technical history of the law, the architecture of the law, we get very granular.

A lot of that analysis is important.

But it's also equally important to occasionally zoom out and say what is going to be best for the retail investor, and not in a paternalistic fashion.

I've always loved like disclosure as the degree to equality, you know, it's again one of the original tenets of crypto, transparency and disclosure arguably levels the playing field.

And I think that's what Wall Street Beets is saying, like, we're the little guy, don't cut us off from the information.

We need it, we want it.

So the other thing I was gonna shout out, having absolutely nothing to do with Wall Street Beets comment letter, is there's actually a lot of other stuff going on at the SEC right now.

And I wanted to turn it back to UV real quick to tease something else very exciting.

We don't have the specifics, but there's been a lot of talk about it in the past 24 hours.

Tell us more.

Yeah, so, I mean, I guess this kind of is related to the last thing we were just talking about, but news came out today that the SEC's innovation exemption, right, which they've been teasing for, oh God, I don't even know how long now, months and months, that it might actually be coming out as early as next week and it's, it's going to relate to Um, tokenized equities and the ability to issue tokenized equities and, uh, interestingly, I think it might also allow for basically third-party issuance of tokenized equities.

So, you know, like these wrapped versions of them that you've kind of been seeing on the market.

Supposedly it's going to allow for some version of that, which I think would be a really interesting development.

But, um, like KK said, we don't know the details yet.

When it drops, obviously we'll talk about it more on this pod, so stay tuned.

Yeah, yeah, and by the way, FYI we have not lost Jesse.

Uh, she is struggling with too many AI tools open at once.

I'm just kidding.

That was a joke.

I blame New York City.

Yeah, how do you even be able to do it.

That's substandard New York City Wi Fi, and she likes this picture of water anyway, so she's still with us, um, and thank goodness she's with us because we need her perspective for the final topic of today, and, OK.

We debated whether we were gonna talk about this, and then we decided that we needed to talk about it.

Because as I said, I think in the first episode, one of the drivers for this pod was amplifying female voices in crypto.

And the three of us have spent a lot of time.

I can definitely say I've spent a lot of time, a lot of advocacy, a lot of arguments, and I use arguments intellectually.

Saying that this space is not filled with crypto bros.

I hate that terminology.

It's still used on the reg by legislators, and it drives me nuts.

Obviously, the three of us are the farthest thing from a crypto bro you can get.

I mean, I am a Midwestern mom, OK, so not a bro.

Uh, but what happened last week?

I think everybody may have seen this news.

If you didn't, we're gonna tell you about it.

Consensus, a fantastic conference.

It really was excellent, great vibes, high quality attendance.

I really like and respect the Coin desk team.

Um, I think that their reporting is excellent.

I have nothing but good things to say about consensus substantively.

This is not about consensus, the conference.

This is about crypto holistically on a cultural question, meaning what happened last week is that the official consensus afterparty, as we mentioned on last week's pod very briefly, was held at a club with strippers.

Just gonna pause there for a second.

Here's the problem with this.

The strippers are not the problem.

We are not demonizing the strippers.

I have nothing wrong with sex work, OK?

That's not what this podcast is about.

The problem is that the official afterparty.

Included strippers at the venue.

Why is that problematic?

Because culturally, crypto should be inclusive.

Crypto should be about people, every kind of people, every gender, every persuasion here for the underlying technology, not here for the parties.

And strippers are going to make people uncomfortable, not just women, I may add.

There are men that sorry to interrupt.

It's not strippers that make people uncomfortable.

It's having an official sanctioned party at a club that is not considering all the types of people that are involved in crypto.

And let's, like, let me just be clear here.

We should not have to get on this pod and explain why this is inappropriate and wrong.

There are so many amazing people in crypto that are not comfortable in that kind of situation, and they're not just females, but let's Just start there, because that's the kind of pod that this is.

And the fact, not only that this happened, like, stuff like this happens, and people, like, make mistakes and the planning is wrong, the fact that there has been zero accountability for this is what is really grinding my gears, and Unchained told me I was allowed to curse as much as I want on this pod, so that may come out, but it's fucking ridiculous to me that there has not been someone who has come.

Out from the organizing side of this and said this was a mistake.

This is not representative of what our crypto industry is.

And to top it all off, there have not been big voices or big organizations trades in crypto that have come forward and said, look, we don't represent this as an industry, and we want to be inclusive, and particularly around the clarity conversation.

For someone to not come forward and say, like, hey, Congress, maybe just appreciate the fact that we are trying to build a real financial market here for consumers to have additional financial access.

And not just males that want to go to strip clubs, everybody.

I think all females on this pod, plus many females in crypto who are listening, have had horrible experiences at conferences where I personally have been asked if I was an escort.

That was hired at one of the first conference, crypto conferences I went to.

And we tolerate so, so much, and it's just part of being in the industry, unfortunately, but when you don't have the organizations that you support and you work for every single day, coming forward and saying, hey, we are the trade of crypto, and we think this is wrong, it's just, it's ridiculous to me, not to mention that like the organizers couldn't come forward.

Yeah.

I just want to say before V has a chance to weigh in as well, this is unacceptable.

It's unacceptable.

There's no other word for it.

I think, particularly as a female who's been in crypto for years, I'm certainly comfortable with a male dominated, dominated environment.

You know, I was a partner at a law firm in the white-collar defense practice, also a male-dominated environment.

Can't even count how many dinners I've been at where it's me and a bunch of men.

I, there's nothing there's nothing problematic about it, about it.

But all the male listeners, I would like you to put yourself in a Environment where you were at a club, and you were one of the only men at the club.

Fine.

OK.

A little weird, fine, maybe you're having fun.

And then there's a whole bunch of naked men dancing around you.

How would you feel?

Would you feel like you were in an inclusive environment?

Or would you feel like this was an uncomfortable environment, and you needed to maintain Your professionalism, gender put aside, this is just an unprofessional environment.

No one is saying that the consensus attendees couldn't go to a strip club after consensus, or someone could host a side event that had strippers.

Fine.

I mean, this is America.

God bless America.

People could do whatever they want, but it's, it's a lack of professionalism.

You've maintained very quiet, uh, you know, I mean demeanor, get, get, get angry with us.

I, I agree with everything you guys just said.

The reason I'm being quiet is because it's shocking to me that this isn't all incredibly obvious.

Like the organizations that represent the industry all should have made statements that would have shown leadership and courage.

Um, I'm disappointed that that didn't happen.

Um, you know, this, like, like you were saying, right?

This is not a knock on the club.

I actually think it's a really cool club.

I've been there, um, a few times.

And the club is very unique.

It's very neat.

The workers there are awesome.

Um, so this is not about that.

It's about, like you said, it's about holding.

Hosting an industry event, a professional event in that sort of environment is wildly inappropriate.

So, I don't have much to add.

I mean, I got a ton of texts from friends who are not in crypto, asking me, did this actually happen?

And it was embarrassing.

I was like, yes, it did actually happen.

I wasn't there, but um.

I could see why it seems unbelievable to you.

But yes, so I agree with everything you guys said.

I don't have that much to add because like I said, I think all of this should go without saying that this is not OK.

And I think two excuses that have been levied about not coming out with statements damning this are, a, it's the, uh, now I'm forgetting the specific term for it, but you know, if you give more attention, you'll draw more attention by making statements to this.

So like, let's just let this go away.

I, I think that's a cop out, unfortunately.

And B, obviously the timing of the clarity markup happened pretty much immediately after this.

I will say that second excuse is, is someone.

More valid to me, like we, we need to focus on clarity.

We need to focus on this, on something positive as opposed to something negative.

However, I would also like to remind people how much this narrative of official crypto conference after parties with strippers hurts our policy efforts because it feeds into this misperception or what should be a misperception that many partisan naysayers have about our industry.

So, nothing good came of this.

So a moment of silence there, but really.

I can do that one all day, but I don't, I don't, I just agree with you.

I think courage is the right word, V, and I'm just embarrassed by the lack of courage, um, that, you know, people will just tweet all day about every single thing on their mind or any sort of potential regulatory news, but they can't stand up for our industry, and, you know, people that say it's not going to make a difference to stand up at this point, it will make a difference.

I think we're all explaining why right now.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So on that note, I'd like to turn this to the positive side of things.

Our crypto good news is just the fact that there are a, a whole bunch of companies out there, including shout out to Consensus, the MetaMass Consensus that somehow there was some signage at the club.

They came out with a very strong statement saying that this was unacceptable.

So shout out to MetaMass Consensus and the other.

Organizations, which, you know, spoke up about this.

But B, there's a lot of really fantastic companies that seek to add all forms of diversity and different perspectives, uh, in their ranks.

Um, B, there are still a ton of really incredible women in this space, despite the fact that we need to hang out with strippers to work in this industry.

Uh, despite the fact that I once went to a side event that turned out to be held at a, at a sex shop, that was also fun.

I mean, we could go on and on with stories here.

But I want to say to the women who are still here, to the allies who are still here that find this unacceptable, and, you know, do what they can to increase the inclusivity in this space that is for everyone.

Shout out to you.

You are our good news for the week.

Um, so I would say spread the word, do a good deed, you know, hug a woman this week.

Actually, don't hug a woman.

She would like a hug if she consents to it, then it's OK.

Yeah, ask her if she consents to a hug, maybe just a high five or a wave or a smile or a retweet.

Uh, so spread the good word.

And that's it for this week of Sex in the City.

We'll see you next week where hopefully we'll be more optimistic and less angry.