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Topics covered in this episode:
- Gary Gensler resignation rumors?!
- SEC Commissioner Crenshaw's term expires June 5th
- Two SEC attorneys resign
- Stable coin legislation bill reintroduced
- IRS released the first draft of the 1099-DA
- Bitcoin halving, 4 down, 28 to go
- NYSE considering 24/7 trading
- BlackRock tokenizes a money market fund on Hedera
- SEC v Ripple remedy update
- Greyscale files S-1 for $ETH mini trust
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Weekly Crypto Check-In?
Hosts Robert Swarthout and Andres Sandate cover the last week's worth of crypto news, providing insights and opinions on this quickly evolving space from a fund managers perspective.
Welcome to another episode of the weekly crypto check-in recorded on April 24, 2024. I'm your host, Robert Swartout, and I'm joined by my co host, Andres Andate. How's it going, Andres?
Andres Sandate:Good, Robert. Lots of stuff happening in crypto land. Yeah. We,
Robert Swarthout:gonna have a bunch of speed rounds here. I don't think we get to say more than 5 words about each one and still take 30 minutes here. So why don't we just probably just dive right in?
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Well, I thought the first one you you might need more than 5 words. Is this true? Is Gensler really, potentially gonna resign?
Robert Swarthout:I I think that he was maybe trying to bait, Twitter or crypto Twitter a little bit. I don't know if he's directed at crypto Twitter, but he certainly put it on Twitter. So he tweeted back on the 17th, and it literally reads, it's been an honor to serve as the SEC chair. Over the 3 years, I've seen firsthand the incredible staff, blah blah blah blah, and goes on with this big thread about all of the accomplishments that they've done in his eyes. When I first read that tweet, I, like, read half of it.
Robert Swarthout:I'm like, okay. I gotta start over and reread it again. I was like, is he, like, literally resigning via Twitter? That does not appear to be the case, but he definitely, probably got a little bit, you know maybe maybe this is a glimpse into his sense of humor here. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. He teased something out. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely. But, you know, on the topic of, you know, maybe chairs not being around, you have the chair Crenshaw. Her term is set to expire June 5th. And as from everything that I've seen and read, there is no talk about her replacement or asking you up for, reelection. Obviously, the senate has, I believe, approved that.
Robert Swarthout:And it's a, interesting spot. But, obviously, we're in an election cycle. Like, what does that how does that play into it? And, obviously, it's important to have an odd number when it comes to an SEC, you know, the 5 chairs there, including Gensler, voting on things. And, typically, it's one vote is the deciding vote because it's a 3, 2 vote.
Robert Swarthout:It seems to be pretty popular these days. So I don't know what the plan is. It'll be interesting as we get closer. We're only probably 5 weeks out from that. So
Andres Sandate:Is Crenshaw pro crypto or no?
Robert Swarthout:Very anti. She has been all the no votes. So, you know, you can't have more than you can't be more extreme than a no vote. So may maybe there's a, a glimpse of hope here that we get someone else introduced, and kind of voted on the Senate. And, again, there's plenty of Senate Democrats that are pro crypto that might vote for a chair.
Robert Swarthout:And, obviously, there's more to a chair than just their opinions like crypto, but that's the part that, we tend to focus on the most. So, you know, and I guess the last little piece here in our 3rd bullet point there is 2 attorneys resigned this week. They were a part of the SEC enforcement division, and they, you know, were you know, basically, the court in the debt box case, we won't get into that here, but it was a case where the judge reprimanded ASCC for basically lying in court and gave them a chance to come, clean about it. They chose not to come clean about it. They kinda doubled down, so the court really kind of smacked them around.
Robert Swarthout:And 2 of the attorneys that got basically resigned that were in the middle of that problem, they had only been the SEC a short period of time, one and a half or two years. And one of them literally tweeted. I was one of the SEC lawyers that resigned today. I I joined in 2023 and was in charge of leading the SEC meetings with ETF issuers. So, obviously, this hasn't been approved, any of them.
Robert Swarthout:My job was to stick my fingers in my ears and scream loudly every time they ask us how they can make their application compliant. It's like somebody's a little bitter. Yeah. You know, and assuming he's being truthful, you know, you don't really know. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Man, what a mess. Like, I I you know, prior to running this fund, like, I I remember thinking the SEC was an organization that people feared, but also respectfully feared. Right? Because they were trying to keep the law of the land, and now you have bunch of, like, you know, people picking fights in the in the playground.
Robert Swarthout:Mhmm. It's pretty crazy how things have changed so much. So
Andres Sandate:Well, I I remember watching a special on the regulators. I think it was in relation to the the pharmaceutical industry. It seems like there's a lot of musical chairs that happens between, you know, the whether it's the defense lawyers and their defense law firms or regulators back and forth. So we'll have to see, in a week or 2 where this, this disgruntled lawyer lands. My guess is we'll be basically doing work on the other side of the table, if I had Right.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. He had some experience that is maybe he made himself more valuable on that side of the table. Yeah. We will see. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:It's a bit. So our next topic, kinda comes to the other side of the government. You have the legislators, in this case, senator Loomis from Wyoming and senator Gillibrand from, I believe, the state of New York.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:And, one's Democrat, one's Republican. It's great to see that bipartisan come together, and they've been working on this stable coin bill draft and redraft, and I don't know what number draft they're on. They're probably on draft 8 or 10. It's been multiple years going here, but it's great to see them reintroduce it. And, you know, there's speculation that maybe it can won't get through despite on its own merits.
Robert Swarthout:It may get kinda tagged along in another bill. Apparently, the FAA needs to be reauthorized sometime this summer, an important thing to happen. Yeah. That will happen. So maybe as much as I don't like to see pork on bills, maybe this could be part of a pork on a bill that kinda gets stuck on there and kinda gets to go through.
Robert Swarthout:So we'll see. I when it comes to legislation, I've kind of used to change my opinion. You used to be optimistic about it. Now I'm like, I'll I'll believe you wanna see it. Like, it just doesn't happen.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I it's it's it feels like in the election year that we're in, something of this magnitude ends up, you know, getting maybe some discussion, but ends up, you know, being something that happens in 25. And we'll see. I do remember the, the FAA renewal several years ago, and, that will gather a lot of media attention in the coming weeks.
Robert Swarthout:So I mean, it's it's almost like a similar, like, we need to shut down. You know, the whole government shutdown thing. It's like it's important to be the same as Yeah. Like, it will only get hit the news cycle. So, yeah, it's a I don't know.
Robert Swarthout:I I don't know if they're you know, senator Loomis is the one that I've seen talk about this the most. I don't know if she's using this as an opportunity to try to get some light on the bill, and have people look at it or if it truly actually has potential to do a tag along here. So I don't know. Time will tell. We'll probably know by, I'm guessing, July or something.
Robert Swarthout:I don't know the exact date of the FAA thing. So so another part of the government. It seems like we're only talking about the government in this podcast. I was gonna
Andres Sandate:say that today maybe that's just indicative of where digital assets and crypto is when you're outside of maybe the project side of things and building deep in the tech that so much of this industry is still getting sorted out. Right? Legislation, regulation, taxation. I mean, it's a new asset class. Right?
Andres Sandate:So all these parties are weighing in, you know, because there's there's 1,000,000,000 of dollars, right, at stake. So
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. It's a, you know, it's it feels like it's going at a snail's pace, but, you know, if you would look back over a couple years, probably see progress, but it's, while you're in it, it feels like nothing's happening.
Andres Sandate:So the 1099 d a. A. That seems yeah. Sounds close to the 1099 d I v.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So DA for digital asset. Yeah. Digital asset. The yeah.
Robert Swarthout:At least not the SEC. The IRS, has been kinda going through this drafting process. This this, form does not truly exist yet. There it's currently in draft form as if it would go for tax year 25. I see problems with it personally, and I'm not an expert.
Robert Swarthout:I would love to know. You know, I was, like, reviewing this with Casey Smith, yesterday recording it for his podcast, and there's, like if you look at the first page of this thing, it's asking for the CUSIP number. There's no CUSIP numbers in crypto. Like, Yeah. It it feels like somebody took the some other form copied it, changed the title of it, and changed a few fields, and be like, here's our first draft.
Robert Swarthout:I know that the crypto industry Yeah.
Andres Sandate:And and crypto folks are gonna highly scrutinize it. Right? Because you got you know, I'm gonna say you guys, we are living in it day to day, and you you come from a big bureaucracy, and they're putting a form together. And I'm sure this is going to go through multiple rounds of comment and feedback and Right. But it's a first draft.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. The first draft, it just feels like they I mean, they they want crypto people to take their taxes seriously. Like, why can't you take the form seriously? I it is it just seems sloppy to me. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:For me, it's easy to pick apart. I get it. It's like I I just have to deal with the form whenever it comes around potentially someday.
Andres Sandate:But the overall purpose of this is to put a tax on digital assets, much like income from stocks, for example.
Robert Swarthout:I I I to me, I haven't seen anything about because I think that would come more from congress about legislation like that's it's taxed at a different rate, what whatever it may be. I think this is just they're trying to gather more information that is specific to crypto. You know, there's parts in here about what's the transaction ID or what's the wallet and those kind of things that make sense. But, you know, even if you were to, like, squint to the CUSIP field and be like, okay. Maybe they're asking for the ticker.
Robert Swarthout:Put okay. Maybe I'll put my ticker in there, but that doesn't make sense because you're not filling out a form for every time you have each crypto. And even if you use tickers, that's a little bit dangerous in crypto because there's some cryptos that use the same ticker. They're just on different chains. And so there's there's a lot here, I think, for them to work through.
Robert Swarthout:But I could also see, you know, this is we're, goodness, a third of the way through the year already. Like, is this form gonna be ready for next year? It could end up being a 2026 form pretty quickly, if it's not ready, I would guess soon. So Yeah. Time will tell.
Robert Swarthout:You know, taxes within the crypto universe are a pain, especially if you're an individual. Because you could buy and sell on different exchanges. They're not helping you fill out cost basis. So there's software that uses it to help track, but the software's buggy. It's, it's a headache.
Robert Swarthout:No one in crypto likes doing taxes even if you owe no money. It's still a pain. Right. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Part of
Andres Sandate:part of this new asset class. A lot of mud to, sort of walk through.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I mean, if, I'll put my software developer hat on here. There's an opportunity for people here to write good software that has yet, seemed to materialize, at least as far as I can see from my perspective. So, so last let's see. 19th.
Robert Swarthout:Was that last Thursday? No. Friday. Yeah. So Friday evening around 9 PM EST.
Robert Swarthout:So, technically, it was 20th, on computer time, bit the Bitcoin having, kinda rolled around. It was an event that people talked about leading up to it, and it was kinda like ho Right? I mean, that's kinda what you want. You don't want there to be some massive explosion or anything like that. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:But, yeah, it was just the 4th having and, 28 more to go. There's 32 total, and we will all be a 140 years old when we see the last one. And the year 2140 is, is the last, projected date for the last Bitcoin to be mined. So that would be quite the way it ways off.
Andres Sandate:So the market, your your reaction the market's reaction is snoozed. Like, does nothing nothing happened?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Nothing happened. Granted, it was a Friday evening. That I think that was part of it. But even if it was, say, a Wednesday, I'm not sure it would have been any different.
Robert Swarthout:It's if anything, it's like a check the box. It's part of the cycle that we're in. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the Bitcoin maximalists seem to make a bigger deal out of the halving than anything else. I read this morning that, you know so now that they were through the halving, the number of Bitcoin being mined each day is 425 down from 950, or 900 excuse me, 900 down to 450, I think.
Robert Swarthout:And, you know, just this morning, for the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, I think they bought, like, 360 just for that one ETF. So, like, it it the the new supply kind of matters, kinda doesn't matter. These ETFs are consuming. We've talked this many times. Consuming way more than, is being created new, so it has to be sellers elsewhere
Andres Sandate:in the market. So Yeah. The yeah. I think I mentioned to you yesterday, there was a, I guess, one of the one of the individuals that's out, you know, very much a crypto bowl, you know, talked about Bitcoin at over 400,000. And I know you and I are highly skeptical when we hear these prices, you know, because it's like, what time frame are we talking about?
Andres Sandate:Like, is it a 100 year time frame or is it, you know, a 10 year time frame? Remains to be seen. The models to support those claims are out there.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Big eye roll for me when I hear price predictions without even some relative time frame on it. It's kinda like Yeah. Yeah. You're probably gonna be right.
Robert Swarthout:You just thought that you gotta wait a while. Yeah. So
Andres Sandate:So the the NYSE is considering, round the clock trading?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. For equities. And, you know, I I'm so again, so focused on the crypto world. I read this read this, headline, and the first thing that came to mind was like, oh, duh. It's all gonna be on a blockchain, and these things work 247.
Robert Swarthout:What's the big deal? And then I kinda had to step back, and I'm like, wait. Most people aren't gonna think that. Most people are gonna be like, oh, the markets are open, you know, from what? 9:30 to 4.
Robert Swarthout:Got holidays, all those things. I I think there's a lot to be figured out here. Obviously, the the equities market is much bigger, than could the crypto market is at this point. And I think that they're, you know, going to 247, even if it's 5 days a week, not even 7 days a week, I think could have impacts that certainly need thought through around the news cycle. Right?
Robert Swarthout:I mean, like, the market shutdown and kinda get a chance to breathe. I think part of the reason why the crypto market can be so vicious is the 247 nature of it. Like, there's just no break. Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:And there's no circuit breakers and all those things that are kind of built into, you know, what we know is the equities market these days. So what you you have any thoughts around this one?
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, there's such a when you go back and look at, and understand, like, the functions of market makers. And a lot of this comes through when you're a licensed professional. Like, if you have different securities licenses, you really have to, you know, pass these licensing exams. And part of that is understanding market structure
Robert Swarthout:Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:And all the different participants that are involved in the market. And, of course, I think the everyday individual, if if they, if if they, you know, put an order in for a stock, let's say they go and do it through, their their own brokerage account or, you know, they they go on an app. You know? There's you can now do it through Robinhood, for example. Like, that order goes, and the number of parties that touch that order, for 10 shares of, you know, x or y stock
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:Is so is there's so many parties involved, that you have to think over time that we get a t t plus 3, which is the settlement time. We get that down to, you know I don't know if it's a day.
Robert Swarthout:I think it's t plus 1 now.
Andres Sandate:But, yeah, t plus 1, I know, on Robinhood, but you think that that gets down to potentially, like, a much, you know, smaller, lower amount of time. And I think that the idea of, like, round the clock trading, I could see my immediate thought is market not manipulation, because there's a lot of safeguards built in. But when you think about volatility in the crypto market and then volatility in, you know, your S and P 500 stock
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:It'd be interesting to see, you know, if this would be rolled out on a beta. But, you know, the markets are global, and Yeah. I I think the technology clearly is there.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, it's Or coming. In a lot of ways, I kind of use the analogy in my head of the way the markets work to the way that the SWIFT wire transfer system works now. It's it's all about messaging, and then you have this settlement that's on some other schedule. Right?
Robert Swarthout:Like
Andres Sandate:Yeah. T plus
Robert Swarthout:1, t plus 2, t plus 3. Or in SWIFT, it could be 5 or 6. And then you kind of bring into, like, a blockchain world, assuming in kind of news that way, it's functionally atomic in the moment that it happens. So you go to basically t plus 0.0. It's, you know, maybe measured in seconds or minutes, whatever that blockchain's block cycle is, typically in seconds.
Robert Swarthout:And you kind of it it really changes the idea, of how money moves, and the ability the this whole idea, do they have to, you know I think maybe some people get caught with their pants down initially because, they they don't have, maybe they're trying to float it. I don't know if how much regulations are on that kind of stuff, but could be interesting. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I you know, I step back and look at this. When you you look at the news cycle and what we're covering in these crypto check ins, like I said before we started, what what jumps out to me, unless you're in more the building of the projects, you know, which is part of this whole industry, right, before a token is issued. Right. What you realize is, yeah, when we look back in 10 years and the person that doesn't, you know, probably appreciate the history and the time and the work that went in, you'll look and say, god.
Andres Sandate:Why'd that take so long? Right. But at the end of the day, I mean, I feel like all these news headlines and check ins, because it's legal regulation, uncertainty projects, it's so much of it is about establishing the framework and foundation. And, I think that's you know, it's encouraging on the one sense that all these entities, governments, corporations, parties are looking at and and thinking about, the future of structures and markets, but at the same time, you know, when you're living in a day to day, right, and you live in such a short term world, like, you you kinda sometimes ask yourself, like, man, is this, you know, stuff actually gonna happen?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And, you know, admittedly, it can be exhausting. Like, I Yeah. It is news. I mean, it is happening, but always having to talk about what congress is doing or more specifically what the SEC is not doing, or doing to the industry, like, is it's kind of like a broken record sometimes, it feels like.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Well, the, you know, the money management industry, as we saw, you know, the asset managers, when they see opportunity and, be an opportunity to make money, they will create products. So Yeah. You know, BlackRock did that with ETFs, and now it looks like they're doing that, with the money market fund.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So they their money market fund, which is the let me get the ticker of that one. That one is the sorry. Is the ICS is its ticker. I think, it's a treasury fund if I'm not mistaken.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And it's a so the the the bullet point is may if you're watching this, it's potentially a little bit misleading. So it did end up on Hedera. BlackRock is not the one that put it on Hedera. They were using a consultant that had a platform that runs on Hedera, to be Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely clear. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a big deal. You know, admittedly, part of the thesis that I have around crypto is commercial use cases come first. You kinda get the replumbing behind the scenes.
Robert Swarthout:And BlackRock is when they went from being super quiet about crypto to having an ETF to literally that same day Larry on be being on CNBC excuse me, Larry Fink being on CNBC saying that, you know, what what is next is tokenization, and, man, they're moving much quicker than I would have ever expected. And, you know, this is to me, this is like a no duh. Like, this was gonna happen. I wouldn't have said it would happen with this ticker in particular, but, like, it was gonna happen. And we are, I don't know if we're off to the races yet, but, like, they're definitely, you know, stretching, getting in their blocks ready to kinda really start running, I think, doing some tests here, more than anything else, testing the public market for that matter.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah. You know, I they made a acquisition. You and I have talked about this before. They made they being BlackRock made an acquisition of a a big, global infrastructure group.
Andres Sandate:It was their single largest acquisition in their history. And to me, that fits in. The the acquisition of this big global infrastructure manager, fits in with this whole overall theme that we've been talking about around real world asset tokenization, RWA.
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:The idea that you could tokenize physical assets. We talked about real estate. We've talked about securities. We've talked about fund interest. So, you know, why can't you tokenize a toll road?
Andres Sandate:Why can't you tokenize a bridge? And the most liquid markets are, you know, treasuries, money markets, you know, these these types of instruments. So I I think it's happening. It it's a matter of time, and the, you know, the biggest or 2nd largest asset manager in the world, you know, leading the charge. I I think we're gonna see a a real ramp up in activity over the next 3 to 5 years in this in this area.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I, I'm in agreement. Hopefully, it's, sooner than 3 to 5 years is the only thing that I think I would change on that. So Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Well
Andres Sandate:We we
Robert Swarthout:could be disappointed, but, maybe I'll be hopeful on this one. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah. So
Robert Swarthout:so we got We can't do
Andres Sandate:a crypto check-in without a ripple update. Correct.
Robert Swarthout:At least at least these days. It was quiet for many, many months before we were doing these. So a month ago, the SEC filed their their request for penalty and the things that they think should happen to Ripple. Like, there should be, disgorgement. There should be an injunction, all these different things.
Robert Swarthout:And then just as a recap, the SEC asked for a collective between penalties, disgorgement, and interest of just shy of $2,000,000,000, like, 1,950,000,000 from Ripple. And everyone just thought that number was absurd, but, you know, it's the SEC. And they also wanted an injunction saying, they could not use their ODL product, be sold to US customers. So Ripple had 30 days to respond. They filed it on the, I think, the 30th day effectively.
Robert Swarthout:That would that was Monday. And, they they went through all the reasons why the SEC is wrong, and all the things. And Ripple's basically said they came up with $10,000,000 with an m, and even the SEC is at 1,900,000,000 with a b. It's, you know, they obviously can't be much farther apart than they are. Right.
Robert Swarthout:If you kinda go through it, there was a case that happened in the last November, I think it was, handled, and it was the, actually, in the debt box case of all things. We were talking about the attorneys there. Part of what came out of that, and it's in the same circuit is this court is handling this case in, so it actually is precedence that the court should follow. And, basically, they came down to if you're trying to do disgorgement in in all the things that the SEC is asking for, you have to prove that, a, the person that got sold the XRP by Ripple actually lost money. That is the SEC has not been able to show a single case of that.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And it has to be within the US. So you start really narrowing down what the SEC thought that they were after to the point where, like, I mean, this is unlikely to happen, but it could turn into that the, that for previous past sales that Ripple did, it turns into a $0 penalty because they nobody nobody lost money, at least that has been publicly shared. And, you know, again, there's, you know, it's just funny how it's working. Right?
Robert Swarthout:So then you flip through, okay, there's no way, I don't think, that the the judge allows Ripple of Scot Free on this. Like, I think they're gonna have to, like, hand over something. So that's where the penalty stage comes in, and they could be like, here this sounds crazy. Here's a token $100,000,000 penalty. Right?
Robert Swarthout:And we can all be done with this. Would the SEC appeal, would Ripple appeal? My guess is if they only had to walk away and pay a $100,000,000, Ripple would be thrilled. Write the check and, you know, get it done with the SEC. I would guess appeals just because they seem to but this has been very personal for them.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It's, we're getting towards the end of this one. We should probably know the answer to this, because the, the SEC has the chance by, I think, early May to reply to what Ripple wrote, and then the judge kinda gets to decide from there.
Robert Swarthout:And I think by July or August, we'll probably hear from the judge. So
Andres Sandate:the judge I wanna ask you about this before we go to our final topic for the day. If if a normal company, like, just that had a, a non digital asset or crypto regulator, Would they look to settle, in your opinion? I mean, you're you're not a lawyer. I'm asking you kind of a legal question. But Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Is this benefiting Ripple to win this case, and or pay I mean, money's money. Right? But, like, if they paid a 50 or a $100,000,000 fine, does that clear up uncertainty that unlocks a substantial, you know, path of growth for them?
Robert Swarthout:I think it allows them to to do their on demand liquidity product in the US. So almost a certain yes to your answer there. I also think that Ripple, in some sense, is fighting for the industry. They've shown a path to how to beat the SEC. Most people just don't have the funds to fight, so they roll over, pay the fine early on.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:And the SEC kinda gets this precedent even though it's not legally binding, but they kinda have a gun that they can hold to other companies' heads. Right? So you kinda have both things going on. Ripple, last I had heard, is paid, or assuming not paid, it spends $200,000,000 in legal fees fighting this. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So then you add in whatever they have to pay at the end. So I mean, they they Brad Garlinghouse publicly said, he's the CEO, saying they will take this all the way to supreme court.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:They're in it, and they're going to the mat. I I think part of that is the confidence knowing that they've made some good progress here. They feel like they can continue to beat up the SEC that's maybe not on the best footing. But I think part of it is, you know, it's the current SEC way of thinking. If you have a different president in a different, you know, someone at the head of the SEC, maybe things are different and all this kind of goes away.
Robert Swarthout:You know, obviously, that money can't be unspent that was been spent on this fight, but you can kinda stop doing some of these fights that are ongoing. You have the Coinbase one, which we haven't talked about in a while, but it's still ongoing. And, who knows? I mean, they've been sniffing around Ethereum a little bit and I don't know. It's, I'm ready to be through this stage in this gigantic, book of crypto that is the SEC's chapter.
Robert Swarthout:Ready for that part to be over. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't feel like it's it's anywhere near around the corner. Well, the last update, grayscale. We've we've talked about grayscale.
Andres Sandate:They filed an s one that came out, believe it was yesterday. Yes. So it's available on the SEC's website, for folks that wanna go out and pull it down, and it's for an Ethereum mini trust.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So they also recently filed for a mini Bitcoin trust. I admittedly, I don't understand the difference in the product between their trust and their mini trust. I think the fees are different from all of that I've seen, but, like, what's the difference? It's not an ETF to be clear.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. They've also filed for an ETF. Like, it's just I don't know. My guess is this is a bit of like, they're playing chess around the ETF applications and they're trying to move their pawns around. Would be my assumption, but I literally have no basis for that besides just trying to come up with a reason.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Do you have any thoughts?
Andres Sandate:Well, I was just gonna say, I I think there's, there's legal and I would say gainsmanship. There's legal strategy at work, I think, in a lot of this where you're innovating. There is about I think it's about trying to establish precedent, and I think there's a good, probably a good, you know, podcast episode that we ought to do on, how the Bitcoin ETF ultimately got approved. I know you have your theories, but I was explained, you know, one one process where, you know, the issuer starts with a specific type of product then gets to a second product, and, ultimately, all of that was done over multiple years in order to get to the final product, which is what they really wanted all along. Sure.
Andres Sandate:But in order to establish this process, it's kind of like you have to go through these steps. And I don't wanna say you box the SEC in, but you get, you know, you kinda get the goal, get to the final objective in more of a roundabout way.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. It's, I just wonder, like, how different it would be if you just had it, you know, an SEC. I don't care if it's republican or democrat focused, but, like, in an SEC that wanted to work with an industry and, like, went through this, would you be able to cut out 2 of the 3 steps? Like or is or the all those steps required and we just have to maybe we can go through them quicker. I don't know.
Robert Swarthout:It's it would be something that I'm not qualified to probably answer, but it'd be a great conversation to have with somebody.
Andres Sandate:So Yeah. I think we'd need a historian to talk about, you know, the the the beginning of, you know, the securities industry. Go back to 30, you know, the thirties. Go back to what was it like to get the 33 and 34 and 40 act in place, from the time of the the great panic, right, in 29 to when that legislation came out. And then I think another thing would be look at mutual funds.
Andres Sandate:What was that like? What was the ETF industry like? I mean, these are different things because we're talking about, crypto and digital assets versus, like, a wrapper around, for example, a digital asset. But I think, yeah, market structure, legal, regulatory, there's so many issues to kinda wade through. So Yep.
Andres Sandate:But, nevertheless, a full week of headlines in crypto land. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
Robert Swarthout:that's a wrap. So thanks for joining us on this episode of the weekly crypto check-in. If you want to stay updated on future episodes, you can find us in any podcast player by searching Teton Crypto Capital or weekly crypto check-in. Take care. Good to
Andres Sandate:see you, Robert.