Making America Pro-Crypto | Congressman French Hill

Bankless Nation, the question today, is the United States of America flipping pro-crypto? I certainly hope so. The US has been either anti-crypto or neutral since the birth of Bitcoin. And that's starting to change. Feels like for the first time we actually have momentum in DC. By we, I mean the crypto movement. That's not to say there's not going to be battles ahead. There will certainly be battles, but right now crypto is actually making some progress. The question for today is what would a pro-crypto America look like? And what laws do we need to get us there? Who do we need to convince? How close are we? Today we have pro-crypto Congressman French Hill who gives us his take on how to get there. We discuss a few things today. Number one, Trump's new vice president, his name is J.D. Vance. Would he be a crypto-friendly vice president? Number two, what we learned from the SAB 121 repeal, the vote that got passed in Congress, and then Biden's veto of it. Number three, the legislative roadmap for crypto in the United States. Number four, Gary Gensler and the administrative state. Number five, how to keep crypto bipartisan. Number six, the impact of a Trump presidency on crypto. I want to do our usual political disclaimer before we get in today. Bankless, as you know, is not a political podcast. We don't divide on red or blue lines. We have no party affinity in the US or any other country around the world. What we do care about is the values of decentralization and autonomy and power to the people that underlie this technology of crypto. And to the extent those values are political, so are we. But they don't necessarily divide on party lines. We'll continue to give a voice to those values, no matter what political party they come from.

So let me just say clearly, anyone from any party is welcome on Bankless. And lastly, on a personal note, I started this conversation asking Representative Hill about the impact of the Trump assassination attempt. It was just top of mind for me. I couldn't escape it. And I can tell you in preparing for this interview, the words assassination attempt against Trump were just surreal to write. And they were even surreal to ask in the conversation. I almost had to will myself to say the words. It's like my brain couldn't fully accept the gravity of what actually happened. There really was an assassination attempt against the current presidential nominee, and it was almost successful. If there was a slight change in the wind, a different turn of the head, we'd have an assassinated president killed in broad daylight and witnessed by the entire world. These are just the times we're living in. And through them, I'm hopeful we find ways to unify on the values that made this country great.

We have disputes settled by protocols instead of political violence. The Constitution itself is a nonviolent coordination technology. Just like crypto. The best American values are also crypto values, and that's what today's episode reminds us of.

All right, let's get right to the conversation with Representative Hill. But before we do, I want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Bankless Nation, Representative French Hill is a Republican congressman. He's representing Arkansas's 2nd District. And I think of particular interest to crypto listeners. Representative Hill is the vice chairman of the influential House Financial Services Committee. Uh, and he leads the subcommittee on digital assets. So that's us in crypto and financial technology. He's also had a history in banking and in finance, something that we affectionately in crypto call TradFi. And he's previously served in the US Treasury. Representative Hill, welcome to Bankless.

It's great to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.

Uh, we're excited to talk to you. And uh, these are very interesting times. May you live uh in interesting times, as the saying goes. I actually uh think we need to start here, though, because this is on everyone's mind as we're entering uh this episode. I definitely want to talk crypto and legislation, let that be the bulk of the episode. But there was a recent assassination attempt against President Trump during an election event on Saturday. So this is uh political violence in America. I can speak for myself. I was in absolute shock as this happened. I feel like many Americans were as well, uh, concerned at the fallout from this. Before we talk about crypto, just as you zoom out, what are the implications of Saturday's assassination attempt, uh just like for the future of this country? Like, what do you see on the horizon?

Well, unfortunately, through our 248 years of existence as a country,

um our country's been no stranger to violence and been no stranger to violent attacks on our

political candidates and and presidents. I mean, uh at sometimes it seemed like it was a routine experience from Lincoln to Garfield to McKinley in the last quarter of a century in the nineteenth century.

To of course my youth, where

uh Jack Kennedy,

Martin Luther King, and and and uh Robert F. Kennedy were all murdered in an assassination attempt. So

I think it's part of our culture. We've got to recognize that.

Uh I feel true uh horrified for the people at the event, the firefighter from Buffalo who was killed protecting his family, others that were injured. And as somebody who's been in around presidential politics literally since the late 1970s and having done presidential uh advance for events before, I also as a member of Congress was.

uh shocked and appalled

by the lack of preparation

by the uh

campaign advance team and the Secret Service

for leaving those vulnerable cutaway shot

windows open.

This is just a violation of what I call advance 101 for a political event or any event for that matter, if you're interested, if it if there's a security risk,

which is that you don't leave an open line of sight to the stage for a

political event from any direction. And so there'll be a major investigation. Speaker Mike Johnson has announced that.

But look, let's all turn to each other, to our neighbors, to our friends, uh, and uh really work to dial down the

Uh demonization of the

uh people who don't agree with us on every topic. I mean, by golly, I mean, we agree with on 90% of stuff, and there's just no reason to demonize

people because they're in a different political party. I mean, it really this is a new thing to me. I mean, I'm 67 years old, so I've been around the block.

And I didn't pick who I went canoeing with or backpacking with or mountain climbing or playing golf on a Saturday morning with who what their political party was. I didn't even know what political party they were or what religion they were.

And uh this kind of obsession with this

in the last 10 or 15 years has gotten really tiresome, and it lends itself to environments like we witnessed uh over the weekend.

Yeah, well well said, particularly on the point about uh unity. I guess political violence has been in the past in America. It is new for kind of a new generation who hasn't experienced it, but certainly not new for America. And speaking of new generations, so uh Trump's VP nominee was announced yesterday, uh gentleman by the name of uh JD Vance. Uh curious, what do you think of this candidate? So he's on the millennial side, you know, like skewing towards maybe crypto interested. I think he's like 39 years old. If elected, would uh Vance be a crypto friendly vice president?

I think the short answer to that is uh yes.

Um

he has asked a lot of questions in recent weeks in the Senate.

About the prospects for

uh crypto-related

uh bills. He's been drafting one of his own,

and we've tried to provide

everyone in the Senate a full look at what we've done for the past four years on this topic,

both in stable coins and in creating a market structure bill, a regulatory framework bill

for digital assets. Um

And I I suddenly see some interest in the Senate. Uh, Senator Vance is one of those people, but Senator Haggerty of Tennessee. Obviously, Senators Loomis and Gillibrand have been leaders uh for uh several years. And then just last week, uh Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and John Bozeman of Arkansas, my senior senator in my home state,

had an ag committee hearing

with Chairman Benham from the CFTC, the Commodity Future Trading Commission, on uh the spot market for uh Bitcoin. And also just and and I think Chairman Benham did a great job outlining.

His general support for a regulatory framework. So we're making progress over there. I think Vance would be a pro, lean pro

uh crypto

participant if he's elected vice president. As you know, he's a Yale graduate. He's a former venture capital in Silicon Valley, venture capitalist from Silicon Valley.

And uh President Trump has uh made some positive comments about.

Our market structure and crypto uh innovation. So

I think I think that would be good. And we've made, for those of you listening who are big Biden supporters or uh Democratic administration supporters, we've really worked hard the last three three years, three and a half years, building a consensus in the Biden administration

that a stable coin regime and a market structure bill like FIT 21 that I wrote with uh GT Thompson and my colleagues is exactly the approach that we need to take to move innovation, venture capital, blockchain usage forward in our country.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And uh as we move into kind of the legislation, I want to ask a higher level question of you, Representative Hill. So you get an A on a website that we often refer to. It's called the Stand with Crypto website for your track record on crypto. And it's because you've co-sponsored the SAB 121 uh repeal bill, also co-sponsored FIT21, also co-sponsored the Uniform Treatment of Custodial Assets Act, also co sponsored the anti CBDC uh bill. So you've got the receipts. You were you were in crypto and doing things here with respect to legislation before it was cool. And I'm glad other uh members of Congress have have joined you recently. I want to ask you though, at the highest level, why is crypto important to you? Why do you support it?

Well, for my whole career, I've always had a uh

interest in financial services. Obviously, I started my financial services career back in 1979. I was a bond, a bond trader and a uh bank uh analyst uh early in my career.

Uh but I've also been on the operation side of of banking and finance, and that's where my interest was peaked.

I'm a huge believer in a blockchain operating system,

that it resolves so many of the concerns that I've always had in my career. What are those?

How do you have a more efficient system?

How do you reduce errors? How do you have less fraud and less confusion?

How do you compress agency costs in the distribution of a product, thereby offering consumers business to business or business to consumer?