Well, I now have the additional privilege and pleasure of introducing a short interview we recorded earlier with the AI and Cryptozar, David Sacks. I think to many of you in this room and watching all over the world, David Sacks is no stranger. I'll just highlight that in just a few months, we've seen a complete change in the tone and substance of the conversation around crypto in Washington. And I think a large part of the credit for that goes to David Sacks. So without any further ado, I give to you the AI and Cryptozar, David Sacks.
Hi everyone. I'm Paul Grewal. I'm the chief legal officer at Coinbase. And today I'm honored to be speaking with the venerable David Sacks who serves as the White House AI and Cryptozar, putting him at the helm of building a pro-crypto infrastructure for the United States and fulfilling the vision of President Trump of making the United States the crypto capital of the world. David, I think we can both agree crypto is at an unprecedented moment. We've had years of regulatory uncertainty and chaos under the previous administration. And now we have an administration that is committed to making America, as I said, the crypto capital of the world and critically a Congress that sees the potential of this industry and of this innovation and taking bipartisan action to make that happen. There are so many debates and discussions that are unfolding right now in Washington that are going to shape the path of this transformational technology for years to come. I'd love to get your views on where we are, where things are headed, and anything else that this important audience needs to understand in order to make this vision a reality. So, let me first of all just start again by saying thank you David Sacks for joining us.
Well, Paul, good to be here and I think we are at an incredible moment because we're about to get stable coin legislation passed through the Senate. The Genius Act just passed a very important procedural milestone which is the closure vote, which means that it got over 60 votes in the Senate and so that means there won't be a filibuster. I think it's on track to pass and just getting any kind of crypto legislation passed through Congress with enough bipartisan support to again exceed that critical 60 vote threshold in the Senate. So it's on its way to the president's desk. I mean, this is a pretty incredible moment for the crypto community. And I think that not only will we get the stable coin bill done, I think that the market structure legislation is coming up next. And I think there's a very good chance we'll get that done. And then separate from all of that is all the things we're doing on the regulatory side with all the departments and agencies. It's really been an incredible transition from where we were, let's say, a year ago when the crypto community was under assault. Crypto founders were being debanked. Not only were their companies unable to get bank accounts, but they were being debanked personally as part of Operation Chokepoint 2.0. When we did the crypto summit at the White House a couple of months ago, there were founders who said that a year ago, they thought it was more likely that they'd be in the big house than the White House. I mean, they thought that, you know, they were all being prosecuted and because the SEC and the DOJ under Biden had taken this regulation through prosecution approach, they wouldn't tell founders what the rules were. They would just start prosecuting them and then founders would have to figure out, okay, well, I guess, you know, we can't do this anymore. So, you know, it was very unfair and I think the president really, you know, sympathized with the crypto community. He himself had experienced unprecedented lawfare and he could see that this lawfare approach was being taken with the crypto community and he really wanted to stop it and provide regulatory clarity. And you know, that's the thing that I've heard the most from the crypto community over the past couple of years is look, just tell us what the rules are. We're happy to abide by the rules. We just want legal clarity. And the Biden administration was never willing to provide that. And as a result of that, all the innovation was being driven offshore. And so I think, you know, it's our view at the Trump administration is we just want the rules to be clear. We want them to be fair. We want founders and companies to be able to easily abide by those rules. We want to protect consumers. And as a result of that, we want the crypto industry to blossom on shore and for the innovation to happen here. And I think we're well on our way to making that a reality.
Yeah. Clear rules that everybody can follow. Doesn't seem like a terribly controversial goal, you know, with so much progress in such a short period of time since taking office. What's the mood like right now inside the office when it comes to crypto and crypto policy?
I mean, I think it's very positive. You know, I think again we're about to get legislation passed. I think we've made huge progress inside the agencies with rulemaking and I think it's very positive. I mean, everyone's very optimistic right now. Things have gone as well as we could have hoped. I mean, I knew that President Trump would be extremely supportive towards crypto. What we couldn't have known was how much bipartisan support we would get. And it looks to me like the stable coin bill, the Genius Act, will be the first piece of bipartisan legislation that's able to pass in years. I mean, I can't remember the last time a bill got through the Senate with bipartisan support, you know, enough to get 60 votes. So I mean, I think things are going incredibly well for the crypto community and I think it all started with President Trump's victory in the election and his leadership on this issue and his support for the crypto community. I think President Trump's leadership is unquestionable.
Can I ask you David just taking a small step back? You're someone who's worked in so many cutting edge industries and on so many innovations throughout your career. When it comes to crypto, you know, what convinced you that this was an important technology worth championing at the highest levels of government? So much so that you've made all kinds of sacrifices to personally make that happen.
Well, I bought my first Bitcoin, I think it was like in 2010 or 2011. I think I bought it when it was, I think I remember the price, I think it was like a hundred or $120 per coin. And so I mean this is something that I've been interested in and been tracking for a long time. And you know, crypto was one of the areas that I invested in. I was not, you know, a full-time like exclusive crypto investor but it was definitely something that I was tracking and would invest in founders that I believed in. And I just thought this is an important area of innovation. Back in 2017, I actually helped co-found a company called Harbor, which was trying to do tokenized securities on the blockchain. I think back then it was just too early an idea. And the company ended up getting acquired, but it was something that, you know, it was a use of blockchains that I thought was very natural and I can still see happening. I know a lot of people are trying to make that happen now. And I think the timing for that might have finally arrived. But, you know, this is a technology that I've always been interested in and think should be explored by founders and, you know, we want companies thriving in the space and I saw what was happening to a lot of these founders being driven offshore and I thought it was very unfair and I just thought it should get fixed. And when this, you know, I didn't expect to be going into government, you know, I supported President Trump during the campaign. It was actually just a little over a year ago that we did an event for him in San Francisco and we actually had a lot of crypto founders there and we essentially helped kind of broker some of these introductions. And then you know I got offered this position again not expecting to go into government or anything like that but I just thought it was a role where I could just help the crypto community and help the country because ultimately again we want this innovation happening here.
