[00:00:01] Welcome to Crypto Talk Radio, the podcast for everyday investors like you. Visit us on the
[email protected] and now here's your host, Leister.
[00:00:13] Thank you for that Bailey and welcome everybody out there in Crypto Talk radio
[email protected] a very good evening or afternoon, whatever's relevant in your specific locale.
[00:00:25] I am going to be chatting up some news bits, some of which pissed people off.
[00:00:30] Nothing I can do about the fact you got pissed off, but I'll do the best I can to provide my thoughts. I think.
[00:00:37] And I know that you know we don't have gamers, which is mind boggling to me, but we don't have gamers. But Fire Emblem Fortunes we comes out in two days.
[00:00:47] Trails in the sky second Sensor is coming out in two days, actually officially tomorrow. So we got a lot of games coming on deck and then Akaria Times coming at some point. We got a lot in the games realm. That's where my focus was by the way, other than ijob.
[00:01:03] Let's talk the news bits again. I don't know that I'll help you feel any better about it, but I will provide the coverage the best I can.
[00:01:18] Coinmarketcap.com will zoom out to the month chart starting with Bitcoin, currently hovering just shy of 76,000 doll dollars as I record, it had a little bit of up leading into the Clarity Act. Initial voting, then dipped, did not go significantly down. I'll be talking about the Clarity here in a little bit, but the big story Bitcoin held pretty strong. It did not significantly lose despite the news that we would hear a little bit later and some other factors that were happening in the industry I'm gonna cover immediately after the price discussion. Ethereum, currently hovering about the $2,400 mark, also had the same it didn't have that strong run up prior to the vote, but it did have a steeper dip down but held pretty strong. It's holding in a sideways motion. I think there's optimism, general optimism that everything's going to be all right now. I don't know that I share that, but everything looks generally positive. It's just that recent news has caused people to be a little bit on the cautious side and I think volumes are down.
[00:02:23] It's more that versus sells and a lot of it's on the retail side in terms of the cells that are there.
[00:02:31] I would argue that the Clarity act, the bigger news but in lesser big news. Still big news, but somewhat lesser big News that I'll be talking about have to do with exchanges.
[00:02:41] We're going to start with Coin X. If you have any assets in Coin X you may or may not know, but they, they're tossing in the towel, they're quitting, they're shutting down, winding down their operations. After nine years of being active, the spot trading ends at the end of the month and then withdrawals end at basically at the end of the year.
[00:03:01] And what they said was that given the regulatory, they've been, they've had some issues, you know, they had to pull out the US and they've had a lot of issues keeping up regulatory compliance. And as a result they were losing money at points and they're not able to get into the larger markets. So they blamed a kind of a combination of these things. I simply share the message that you'll want to, if you are in Coinx, anything Coinx, you're going to want to take action to get your assets. Some people are claiming that there are some freezes, they're not able to get their withdrawals. I suspect it's a rush on assets, likely temporary will pass. Coinex seems like they were reasonably ethical when you did need to get stuff like this happening. But I just think that they're, I think they're a victim of the times.
[00:03:47] Bitmex is another one that's shutting down. If you're in Bitmex, I don't think anybody is, but if you are, they're another one shutting down at the end of the month. So it's, it's a rough time for exchanges. We've seen quite a few exchanges, Sendex, BitMEX, CoinX, notice all the X's, but all these exchanges shutting down. So it's, it's a rough time for exchanges. The large ones seem like they're pretty stable, at least right now.
[00:04:08] But I once told people, you know, the easy way for people to restrict crypto's growth is to restrict central exchanges because that's the main way you can exchange assets when you're dealing with cross chain or going to or from stable or out to fiat. So by killing off exchanges, whether incidentally or purposefully, by virtue, it kind of hurts crypto and the larger picture of the, the puzzle. So I think it's a larger conversation.
[00:04:38] I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a one off. I think it's a trend and I think the trend simply is it's going to take longer for the bigger ones to be impacted by the trend, but I think it's a trend. I don't think it's a one off. I think you're going to see more of these sometime in the near future.
[00:04:55] Now I'm going to talk about another exchange does not affect US traders. It really affects those in the United Arab Emirates.
[00:05:04] I wasn't aware of this because I'm not in the United Arab Emirates countries but ultimately Kraken, the one of the larger exchanges that's based in the United States, they're going to be shutting down withdrawals for specific assets for UAE customers and that started yesterday and it's ongoing and they're going to be liquidating what's remainder? The reason I'm covering that here is because of the specific assets. At least two of the assets that were covered here I thought were they were good to talk about Monero.
[00:05:34] Monero's been under attack by various exchanges. Here's yet another situation where it's under attack. That's the privacy based cryptocurrency.
[00:05:41] Zcash is one of the few that's left that you could actually mine.
[00:05:45] A Dash is another one that's available. That's it's Dash is one of those. I don't want to say it's an unsung hero, but it's intriguing and it never really got the attention I think it deserved.
[00:05:57] US Digital dollar, which is an ironic name and I'm surprised that that one's delisted but so be it. Dai, that one surprises me. That's another of those trying to be privacy USDs and Athena USD.
[00:06:14] The pattern I see is that a lot of these lean heavily towards privacy. That's the pattern I see. I don't know 100% that's the only reason but it seems like that's the pattern. Is anything that's close to privacy in what they do.
[00:06:28] Likely people that are listening to the show CryptoTalk FM are not in the UAE. I share it because it has a downstream again I think it's a trend about exchanges in general regardless of country. I think it's a trend. I think it simply takes more time for certain assets versus others and we will see more of these over the next couple years. It's my gut speaking. I could be completely wrong.
[00:06:56] For the remainder of the episode we're going to talk about the Clarity act and what happened with the Clarity Act. I think it's important to give a little bit of background best I can. There's a lot to it so bear with me.
[00:07:08] But I know that like I've seen a couple of YouTubers that were kind of hyping people up and telling them that the Clarity acts of given, we're on our way, we're going to the moon. You know, all the usual platitudes. And I've been kind of. I don't want to say bearish. I'm more realistic. It's like, I don't see anything with the Clarity Act. I don't see that's going to go anywhere. I think it's going to have a hard time.
[00:07:28] Anybody listening to me for a while heard me say that the events recently, it's not. It's not that I'm taking a victory lap. I want you to understand kind of what's at play, because you're actually being duped. Believe it or not, it's important you understand the background of what's going on with Clarity, because it all centers around President Donald Trump. At the end of the day, the Clarity act, as written, includes clauses that are designed to prevent what people perceive as corruption and being enriched off crypto.
[00:08:05] Now, a lot of what's written, which Republicans agree to, is designed to keep people from being enriched off crypto. But when we say people, what they really mean is Donald Trump.
[00:08:19] Everything is around Trump because of the numbers they see of Trump getting billions of dollars off of cryptocurrency, which there's nothing saying that he cannot right now. That's their beef. There's nothing preventing him from doing so.
[00:08:33] A number of Democrats were part of the negotiations that went into this bill that was presented where it failed and will not be presented to the Senate floor for the full vote for implementation.
[00:08:46] A lot of these Democrats, they were at first advocates of the current version of it, and then when it came to a vote, they shot it down. And then Bernie Sanders went on his rant, shooting it down. We obviously know how old Bernie Sanders is.
[00:09:01] There's others that claim, and this is back to the old Gary Gensler narrative, there's others that claim that cryptocurrency is just promoting crime, it's promoting terrorism, it's promoting North Korea.
[00:09:17] They're now finding reasons not to support, essentially support cryptocurrency. That's basically what they're talking about. They'll all say in private quarters, we're open to negotiations. What they really mean is what I said that they were going to want to do, which is to lock cryptocurrency down, keep it from being anything other than a carbon copy of Fiat. That's what they want. They want Excessive oversight. They want excessive lockdown, excessive constraints. The complete polar opposite of the decentralization that started the whole thing. They don't want that world of freedom of use of assets. They want it to be completely locked down. That's what they want. They don't say that, but that's really what they want.
[00:10:01] And the reason they're so adamant about it is because of the numbers that Donald Trump's allegedly pushing in his enrichment, which he's entitled to, by the way.
[00:10:12] They say they're trying to prevent all possibility in the future. Remember, Nancy Pelosi had major bags. Ted Cruz has major bags. But all the conversation, none of the conversation was talking about Nancy Pelosi, who had major bags of crypto.
[00:10:29] It's all about Donald Trump. And I want you to understand their motives are not pure. Their motives are not the country. Their motives are not the government. Their motives are about Donald Trump.
[00:10:41] Despite multiple in public office who have been enriched off of crypto and other things.
[00:10:49] Let's not forget the Obamas came in office, not necessarily wealthy, left office, wealthier than most should do.
[00:10:58] Nothing was said about them.
[00:11:01] Nothing.
[00:11:02] AOC was a bartender.
[00:11:05] She's not broke.
[00:11:07] None of the conversation is around general enrichment and how they're. Because many of their salaries are nowhere at the level where they should be that much better off when they leave office. But the system allows certain of these loopholes. Trump is no different.
[00:11:26] But the narrative is always about Trump.
[00:11:28] That's their, that's their play.
[00:11:31] Now, will that hurt them come elections? I don't know.
[00:11:35] I honestly don't. It depends on how serious the American people are about adopting cryptocurrency. Because if you're just trying to get something passed, I think you've lost the plot.
[00:11:47] If you're trying to get something that maintains the stability and the freedom of it, and we understand that that's going to make it less appealing to the banks, and you're fine with that, then I think we're good. But if you're just trying to create another fiat that they can control, lockdown and halt during trading periods and the whole nine that they do right now, I think you're part of the problem, to be too honest. You know, I don't know where the Clarity act goes from here because it'll be hard for them to reproduce it right now because there's not much more that they can give. There's not much more they can change if they gut all the other things that are in it.
[00:12:28] There's no reason to have the act because you're just back. You're basically formalizing Gary Gensler's approach at that point. It's my read of it, but it didn't seem to hurt cryptocurrency overall. And I think the main reason that's true is because most people feel we'll just stack off dips for now, institutionals in particular, and in the meantime, we'll just wait it out because we knew it's going to take a while for us to get to any sort of solvency with this thing.
[00:12:58] I suspect Donald Trump would have to either die in office or reach the end of his term before we see anything like this get any sort of traction. That's my theory. I don't think it's. I don't think this gets passed during his term or his lifetime.
[00:13:16] So I'm spitballing. You can hold me honest. You know, it's, it's a statement. I don't have any backing. It's just a gut feeling that I think because you have those people, the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Sanders is, you know, you have those people in office who they've always been stalls to progress.
[00:13:36] Nothing's really changed. And the reason nothing's really changed is because the voters keep voting those people in. The more you keep voting those people in, nothing's going to change.
[00:13:48] We have to at some point accept our role in why we don't get progress.
[00:13:53] We don't get progress because we don't hold those people accountable. We have to understand people in office right now are the same people that voted against us.
[00:14:02] They're the same people that were supportive of the Gary Gensler abrasive approach.
[00:14:07] When you saw them supporting that, you should have immediately voted them out of office and you did not.
[00:14:13] We have to understand the process.
[00:14:15] So if you don't like what's happening, you have to vote them out of office. You have to speak up and say you don't want them in office.
[00:14:23] And I believe that our system of voting has lost people's confidence, not because of Trump winning, not because of Electoral College, but simply because there are so many people in so many states that simply will not flip like California simply will not get a clue. They won't get a clue. They just will. Not that I think people are disenfranchised. They look at it and say, there's just no reason to do this because I'm not seeing the vast majority of people getting a clue about the damage that's being done. And so then it demoralizes them. Where they don't show up.
[00:15:00] I understand.
[00:15:03] I'm simply saying that if you don't like things like this, it's important that you vote those people out.
[00:15:11] So if you're in one of the locations where these people are supposed to be your representative and I know Nevada is one of them, and I'll get to the list here in a second.
[00:15:22] Speak with your vote, make sure that you are out there speaking with your vote and contact them. Contact them and tell them how disappointed you are and what they did.
[00:15:32] If they answer to you, they can't just go rogue. They answer to you. If nobody says anything negative, they're going to keep thinking they're doing the right thing.
[00:15:43] Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, of course, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela. Also Brooks and Catherine Cortez Masto. Catherine Cortez Masto's Nevada. I know that for sure because Nevada is a hellhole and I remember her name. So if any of these names are one of your representatives, you need to contact that person and let them know if you're dissatisfied with their vote and make sure you vote properly to get them out of office because they're not representing you, they're representing people who are paying them.
[00:16:24] You don't have anywhere near enough money to combat that.
[00:16:29] So you can't fight with your money. You have to fight with your vote and yet fight with your voice because they're the, they're more powerful arguably than the dollar. But we are talking very high level interest groups at least play like I suspect what we're really dealing with in the shoot down of the Clarity Act.
[00:16:47] I suspect big banks are playing a part in it, but I think it's mostly this core set of radical Democrats that don't want to see Donald Trump have any sort of financial enrichment. I think that's really what stalled this one because you did have quite a few on the bipartisan.
[00:17:05] It's just this pocket that held it back from getting the 60 votes necessary to move forward. Forward.
[00:17:11] In summary, I don't know what tell you in terms of what to do about it because everybody's got to make up their own decision.
[00:17:21] I'll maintain.
[00:17:22] I do think that the ETFs are a safe bet.
[00:17:25] I do think that ETFs are the confident way to move forward in the short term and the long term as part of diverse portfolio.
[00:17:35] But the big picture of cryptocurrency, we need better answers and crypto's in a very uncertain space right now. All you're hearing is strategy, buying.
[00:17:44] All you're hearing is the Clarity act needs to pass. All you're hearing is blackrock is stacking stuff. You're not really hearing true adoption of anything. You're not.
[00:17:55] Because you're not hearing true adoption of anything. No adoption really is happening.
[00:18:00] It's all a game. You're being strung along.
[00:18:03] And I think that's intentional. I think it's intentional because what they're trying to do is they're trying to change the laws to implement their oversight, to lock it down to where it's not really of any benefit. It's just another form of. It's essentially a digital currency. That's what I think they're trying to do with it with the same restrictions you would have with paper currency. Anybody that's against paper currency is shame on you.
[00:18:26] Because this is what I think they want to move towards, is you don't really have control of your assets. They can be frozen anytime they feel like it. They can be accused without any due process. That's, I think, what they're trying to work on. And they're trying to slow the wheels of progress. Tinfoil though I might be.
[00:18:52] Sam.
