And what they will say is, 'Look, I'm compelled by the technology, but I don't want the next Gary Gensler to change their position.' And Paul Atkins has been incredibly positive, I think, for the United States and certainly for the credibility of the SEC. But there will be another Paul Atkins after Paul who we don't know, you know, which side of this argument they're going to fall on. Hopefully, the trend line has moved far enough we don't go back no matter what. But codifying into law means you kind of can't go back.
I'm not the only one excited to hear from Brad Garlinghouse. Place is filling up. Huge star in our industry and somebody for whom the big news is from you.
No, the big news can be from you. We need another CoinDesk consensus exclusive. So, I want to go right into it. By the way, he has liberty to ask me questions as well. I'm the moderator, but we agreed back, you decided it's going to be a two-way interview.
So, Brad, I want to go back just a bit of an icebreaker. It's actually something I've always wondered. So, for those of you who don't know, Brad had a very successful career, Silicon Valley, was an adviser to Silver Lake. He was well known for some of his strategic antics, and then all of a sudden he takes a job working for the CEO of this company, you know, that nobody's heard of, doing relatively nothing. True. What is it that got you to say, 'I'm going to Ripple in 2015?'
Well, I will tell you one quick story on this. Mike Arrington, who's a kind of well-known pundit as well and now also kind of in the crypto industry, he said to me when I took the Ripple job, he said, 'Brad, in a long list of shitty decisions, this is the worst.' That is a true story. Now, it turned out not to be the worst. Look, I have always been attracted to and drawn to kind of what is the next generation of technology. I was on the bleeding edge of voiceover IP at a company before Skype, before even around the kind of nettophone era. So I've always been drawn to that. And I, you know, at the time I was looking in 2015, I could have gone and taken a safer bet, but it just kind of felt like I want to do something more interesting. I said to friends that I think, you know, you've had some success, you can take a little more risk and I felt like if I just went to another, I had an opportunity to go to be a senior person at Uber. I'd known TK Travis Kalanick for a lot of years and I was like this seems like a way more interesting bet about where the world's going and to put a dent in the universe as the Steve Jobs would say.
Incredible, incredible decision. A little luck, I'm sure, but a little skill. Just a similar situation for me. I started full-time as CEO at Bullish three years ago this past Saturday. And this was a moment if you remember when I agreed when CEOs were in jail or on the run or you know soon to be indicted and my father said to me now you were the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange and now you're doing this. Are you sure son? Are you sure?
And look at you now. I mean so talk about your, I'm going to reverse the interview. I mean your own journey like that was a high risk. People did not know Bullish and even now I think Bullish is emerging and I think this deal you've announced today is only going to accelerate that.
I got a little lucky in the sense that I actually left the New York Stock Exchange for other reasons. I have three young daughters. I had basically forgotten their names. That job, you know, didn't allow me to spend time with them. And so that was largely the reason I left. But I had invested in CoinDesk around this 2015 time. If you remember, I put $10 million of New York Stock Exchange money into it, which is why I was so interested that a lot of people thought that was a dumb investment, but I was interested in blockchain. So, I kind of stepped back. So, for me to then jump into crypto, it wasn't like I was leaving this perch of running the stock exchange, if you know what I mean. It was a lower risk transition.
I agree with that, but I think, you know, I've gotten to know Tom better over the years, but knew him way back when as well. And when he took the job, I remember thinking Tom is an example of the kind of executives we need in crypto to kind of elevate the industry overall, which I also think is relevant as the acquisition you've made. It's an accelerant to the whole industry.
I appreciate you saying that. So, let's get your take on another topic near and dear to my heart as well and many in this room. The Clarity Act. So, I actually we had an investor call this morning. I made some of my own comments which perhaps I'll share alongside you. What should, first of all, are we going to get a Clarity Act? And by what I mean by that is in this year before Congress quite possibly changes and number one and number two how important is it to you and to the industry from your perspective?
So I think yes we're going to get the Clarity Act. I said a little bit controversially maybe in February that I thought the chances were around 80%. Notably the prediction markets now put it at about 80%. So, I'm feeling vindicated a little bit because it took a dip along the way. Look, it's still not a done deal. I do think in context of the timing, the key is going to be the next two weeks. Does it get into a markup process in the Senate Banking Committee that hasn't been scheduled yet, but there's talk that it'll happen either week of next week, May 11th, or the week of May 18th. Candidly, if it doesn't happen, then I think the likelihood's going to drop precipitously because I think if it gets into midterms, it's going to be too much of a loaded issue. And then if post the elections in the fall, I think the likelihood that it gets picked up is even lower. So, either I think something happens in the next couple weeks, meaning it gets out of committee to the Senate floor, or it doesn't, will be very telling.
But how important is it? So like we there's two scenarios you just laid out. One is we get it and the other is we don't get it. Does it matter? What, you know, how important is that?
I think it matters a lot for the industry. And I think, you know, you and I get the privilege of meeting with senior people at investment banks, commercial banks in the US and what they will say is look I'm compelled by the technology but I don't want the next Gary Gensler to change their position. And Paul Atkins has been incredibly positive, I think, for the United States and certainly for the credibility of the SEC. But there will be another Paul Atkins after Paul who we don't know, you know, which side of this argument they're going to fall on. Hopefully the trend line has moved far enough we don't go back no matter what. But codifying into law means you kind of can't go back. Now, I will say as an odd dynamic here, although Ripple has been a very vocal and I personally have spent a lot of time in DC advocating for this, we have clarity for XRP. We fought $150 million legal battle over four years with the SEC to have a federal judge write in her decision, XRP is not a security. That's clarity for XRP. But I think for the industry to really move forward in the United States, you need something like the Clarity Act to make it clear about other digital assets as not being securities. I'm curious what you said though on your investor call.
Just a quick anecdote before I tell you that. I grew up, my father is actually a federal judge and for those of you who aren't aware to take the federal government to court and win a final decision, did anybody see the Knicks beat the Hawks in game six. They beat him by like 60 points. That's the kind of ass-kicking we're talking about that Ripple gave the SEC and that was a...
I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.
It needed to happen and it needed to happen. I won't say more. I'll tell you what I said on my investor call and I'm curious to get your reaction to it. I'm close to what's going on in Washington as well and I do think this stablecoin yield portion of the bill was quite important. There's been a compromise that's been reached. I don't love it. I'm sure the big banks don't love it. That probably means it landed in a relatively okay place. But I get the sense our brothers and sisters in the digital asset space are continuing to actively fight almost against this bill just because they can't rally around say, 'Okay, now's the time. Let's get it done. Let's finalize the DeFi language. Let's finalize the ethics language.' And I think it's time as an industry we kind of shut the hell up in terms of fighting against this bill and we say, 'Okay, it's time to move. Call our local senator and get this done.' I'm curious what your reaction is.
I mean, Tom, you and I are in violent agreement on this. You know, in January I tweeted out something to the effect of, you know, perfection is the enemy of progress. I agree with you. Do I think the Clarity Act as drafted is, it's moved a little bit since January, but do I think it's perfect? Hell no. I challenge you to show me any piece of legislation that we would call perfect. And there's trade-offs and compromises, but I do think clarity is better than chaos. And we have been living particularly with a I think a not well-intended SEC under Gary Gensler. We've been living with chaos where it's just, you know, regulation through enforcement and you didn't know where they were going to focus their enforcement battle. And as you already pointed out, taking on the federal government, you have an unlimited budget of the federal government to come after you. And a lot of players other than Ripple would have folded. In fact, a story that I don't think is well told is one of the key strategic mistakes the SEC made was picking on Ripple because we were strong enough to stand up to them. It still took some cojones to do that, but you know, I think they made a bad strategic decision as opposed to building more case law, going after weaker players and getting them to fold, capitulate.
So Brad, you have built a company that's very innovative and growthy and you've used inorganic growth, so-called inorganic growth M&A to build your portfolio. We too in our own smaller, more humble way but exciting way.
