all right, this is the first of what will be a series of episodes where we have Amira back to co-host with us. Welcome back, Amira. Thanks, Austin. It's good to be back. For those of you who haven't shadowed with, I'm the head of policy at the Salana Foundation. Excellent. So, talk to me a little bit about why you're joining us to host these next few episodes. Well, we have an incredibly eventful few months ahead of us if you're living in the United States or really all over the world. And that's because we have an election coming up this fall. And so, people ask me all the time how I'm thinking about the election and how we should think about the various crypto stances that different politicians are taking. And you know, we have a couple of folks who are big in the crypto ecosystem in DC joining us. And so, we get a chance to listen directly from politicians about how they feel about the issue for these next couple of

IDs, yeah you and I have a, I'd say, pretty non-standard background for folks who now work in web 3. I started off originally in journalism. You worked, uh, in the White House before. So I think one of the things you and I have been feeling for a while as we've talked about this is that there isn't a lot of great understanding of, on the ground, what do politicians, especially in the United States, actually think about crypto beyond the sort of sound bites you see flying around on Twitter. And so this is sort of an attempt to take a little bit more of a, a long-form approach and figure out what, uh, you know, these people actually think as we head into the selection cycle. That's right. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding out there on both sides. I think, you know, folks in DC don't necessarily understand, um, a lot of the, uh, nuances of web 3, and folks in web 3 don't really understand, sort of, what's happening in Washington and the best way.

to bridge that gap, I think is by good conversation and actually paying attention and listening to what people have to say. So, for today's episode and the one that's going to drop tomorrow, we've taken a special look at CBDCs. And so, we have two members of Congress. Today, we have Congressman Tom Emmer. Tom will have Congressman Bill Foster. And both of these folks have different stances on CBDCs and crypto more generally, but are both pretty well-versed in the industry. And so, we'll get to hear directly from them and talk a bit about CBDCs but also other things that are on their mind in this space. Excellent. Well, before we dive in, if you happen to be a politician listening in and want to get in touch with us, validated at s.org. And let's jump into this conversation today. Let's do it. Congressman Emmer, thank you for joining us today on validated. Great to be with both of you. Yeah, we really appreciate your time. And my colleague Amira is

joining as co-host for this episode as well. It's awesome. Great to be with you, Austin. Amira, great to be with you. So we're excited you're here, and obviously it's been a pretty eventful couple of weeks in all things crypto policy, and we wanted to dig in, particularly to a piece of legislation that you championed that passed the house last week, the CBDC Anti-Surveillance Act. I'm curious just to kick us off, could you tell us a little bit about the act and what it's aimed at achieving? I'm happy to do it, and it's something that I've been working on. I've been working in this space for close to a decade, long before any of many, I shouldn't, I shouldn't say Amira, any of my colleagues, but I went to my first Blockchain Caucus meeting years ago, and the two co-chairs were The Odd Couple of the century. It was Jared Polis, current governor of Colorado, and Mick

Mulaney was the Republican. I mean, it's like, and I think out of the people who were there, there were maybe a half a dozen of us. I, the only one who's left with me, is a guy named David Schwier from out of uh Arizona. So I, it's been a long time coming, about three years ago, three or four years ago, uh, I started to become very concerned about uh Central Bank digital currencies that have been deployed in other places in the world, and primarily it crystallized as we watched uh the development of the digital Yuan and what they're doing with that. So I don't believe that the uh American value system wants a government surveillance tool that is going to collect all of their financial data, uh, is going to be able to use that that financial data, by the way. I, they say they won't. I'm sure I, I wouldn't trust that. I, you, uh, you got to make sure in my position as a policy maker that you're putting in the checks and balances.

beforehand because uh people if they're given a tool, they're going to use it. And right now, if you look at uh the digital Yuan, China is using this as a surveillance tool. They're literally collecting data, uh buying data, track all data that you need to negotiate with currency, and they're building social scores, the good, the bad. I we we don't believe in that in this country, we don't want that. And this bill, very simply put, error just says our government cannot create a central bank digital currency unless and until it can emulate cash. I mean it's more detailed than this, but it literally is open, transparent, and private with a capital P, and it's that last one, uh, that they have not accomplished yet. So this doesn't say never, this just says until we can guarantee that it will comport with the values when it comes to individual liberty and uh self-determination, uh, that we believe in in this country, uh, we don't want our central government doing it. So I love to

hear you saying this one of our elected representatives talking this way um but but I would I would sort of say most of the current way that Finance works on the internet and in real life. I mean I'm 33 my Coming of Age experience was 911 and the Patriot Act following that where we saw a massively expanded surveillance State and and in today's regulatory regime I I'm not sure if cash were invented today it would be considered legal. This is something actually Austin if cash were invented today they would try to make it illegal and by the way they already have they're in the process of trying to do it in different places in this country already it's uh I I love your story you know you're 33 uh you came of age when uh we have 911 and then the Patriot Act I you should know if you don't already I'm not a fan of the Patriot Act I believe we can become prisoners of our own Safety and Security. I look I'd rather make those decisions for me and

my family when it comes to our Safety and Security. I do not want to entrust that to the government, but I know there are people on the other side of this that they feel very strongly that government uh can provide better protection, etc. It's somewhere between our two points of view where this uh where this line should be drawn, and right now I think it's h you got a lot of dinosaurs in Congress. I when I say dinosaurs, they're people like me, but they haven't studied this for the last 10 years. They're still working off a central Authority with a top-down approach, and yes, our Legacy two-tier banking system is uh its own uh uh what challenge, but the job here for people like me should be to make sure that this uh disruptive and destructive potentially technology that is uh the digital asset space that we protect the existing two-tier Legacy Financial system but not at the expense of the development of the 21st century uh Financial system rather to allow the existing two-tier Legacy banking system.

to evolve into 21st century finance. So it's funny that you brought up the Patriot Act because obviously at my core, it has a lot to do with this. So I want to, I want to us out a little bit because I appreciate the way that you talked about how you've positioned the act as making sure that the development of CBDC doesn't come about unless it can operate like cash. And I want to hear how you think about pieces of legislation like yours in the broader global context. So you know, we're in a situation where I think 130 countries are exploring CBDCs. These include places like China, like unan, but also the European Union, India, major global economies. And right now, they're sort of steaming ahead in the development of the CBDCs and setting standards for how CBDCs will work globally. And I'd love to hear how you think about making sure that the United States can be a part of that new global financial system where

it feels like CBDCs are inevitably going to be a major part of um while also balancing against, you know, a piece of legislation like yours or sort of your perspective on how we can do this in a way that's privacy preserving. Because I think there's, there's the um, there's the practical way that we could pursue this, which is trying to find that in between of where I think your legislation is and where maybe some folks that are more in favor of a, a more, uh, or less privacy preserving CBDC is. And then there's, there's sort of the idealist, the idealist version of doing it and like how do we thread that needle. I, uh, first off, I, I, I will not compromise on individual privacy. I mean, I, I, I understand we have collective, uh, interest in safety and security and that, uh, there has to be that debate, but just so you know where I come from, I fall on the side of the individual that says no, no, that's my data, that's me, it's my person, it.

doesn't belong to you uh by the way it goes with all this stuff you said 130 countries uh we're not falling behind I mean unless I I could make this argument Amira unless you believe in the Cent Central Authority if that's what you believe in yeah okay then we're falling behind they're way ahead of us because they are consolidating their authority over the people that they're actually representing and in this country that's not the way it works in Europe they're used to this kind of top down uh whatever and and by the way they've got many different flavors of uh governments from uh monarchies to uh you know what we've seen in the Soviet Union uh Etc that's not this country we need to lead all and when we talk about this again you can do a central bank digital currency as long as it emulates cash but your bigger concern about how we participate in the uh World Market stable coins you got to create a and that should be our next big step around

here uh We've we've got the market structure bill in place uh you know reluctantly we've got a uh I would say a corrupt SEC chair who is reluctantly approved a couple of ETFs which you know have really shown us uh how vibrant this Market is I how they didn't know that beforehand when you've got a 1.2 or 1.3 trillion doll market cap this is not going away this is not a fly by night but stable coins and I'll give you two sides uh stable coins first if we put together legislation that we cane agree on as Republicans and Democrats and others with a dollar backed stable coin that can be created anywhere in the world not just here in the US uh the cab driver in Brazil would love to do business in US Dollars can't do it right now but you know what you create a dollar back stable coin that you allow it to be created whatever uh entity does but they can back up the uh the dollar Reserve uh great I think that's going to

uh uh actually expand not only protect the reserve currency status but it's going to expand the reach of the dollar beyond anything that you and I can uh imagine. And then lastly, I told you at the very beginning of this answer that I sure we're falling behind. If you believe in a central top-down Authority that literally has a tool to collect all of your personal data, if you're where I'm at, we're at a dangerous crossroads right now. The internet was originally created to be a decentralized uh entity that we would all connect with, and what's happened is we've got a handful of big tech companies in this country that are taking in all of our data, by the way, that belongs to me, and when you're going to make money off of it, which they're making, I would argue billions of dollars, uh with our personal information, uh that's when we got to get back to decentralizing the system. And that that's what's so exciting to me about the digital asset space is it is

literally facilitating the Next Generation of the web, which is already here, but it's going to flourish if we allow it to in this country, and that's going to be good not only for our values but for our economy. Can I push a little bit further here and I'll copy this by saying like I wouldn't be in this space if I didn't believe in the decentralization of power, um, but don't you think that there's room for the United States to be able to establish the rules of the game for CBDC in a way that really proxies democratic values, in other words, we can be the standard setter for the world in figuring out how to construct CBDCs that are privacy preserving. Um, and I put that in contrast, I'm going to get in trouble here with my Contra my colleagues who are at stablecoin insurers, but might contrast that with the circles and the stablecoin issuers in the world that are centralized companies that are

doing issu in so how do you think about that tug there like is there is there an opportunity that we should be pursuing as a country um to help promote this technology in a way that comports with with American values I I think that's why we drafted the bill that uh we did was because I right now you can't do it and what I'm very concerned about is is you've probably picked up and I I didn't mean to go after your values or anybody's I so pushing back is not an issue for me I no no no I like that we're having this conversation here this is what're here for yeah I you know I'm from Minnesota we didn't invent passive aggressive behavior we just perfected it I happen to be a little bit more aggressive aggressive I but the uh Central Bank digital currency what I'm definitely afraid of is this argument that we hear much too often by the way it crosses party lines both ways I this isn't a partisan issue it should never

be about partisan politics, but this idea that we're falling behind, so we need to rush ahead and do something that we're not ready to do if we're going to lead, if we're going to set those standards. Amira, I think you're going to find out, you and I, much like we have throughout history, that when the US does solve this issue and makes it open, uh, transparent, and private, everybody's going to want to do business in our Central Bank digital currency because they're not going to want their governments tracking them. So I, I just, I think the future is bright for the US. I think we just have to be very careful with these, uh, older, uh, members. You know, it's 18 to 40 years old is the sweet spot. Austin is in it, that's what he's talking about. This is the group of people, you two. Amira, you're, you're living on the internet, this is what you know. I'm a 63-year-old guy with seven kids, ages 33 to almost 23. They think different from me, they process

information different from me. They view their relationships through the internet much differently than I do. Mine is basically a one and two-dimensional world. You guys are in a multi-dimensional world and you are abstracting way in ways human beings haven't up till now. I think we need to recognize that, rather than trying to slow that down. We need to stay out of the place where government is going to have too much control over this thing and do what we did in the 90s when we let the internet blossom in this country. Everybody talks about, I mean everybody in the economics world loves to talk about the Reagan Administration and the changes that made to tax policy and cutting government, not so much but they definitely squeezed it. The Clinton Administration took that on and kept it going. It was 25 years that has been referred to as the boom economy. It's the single greatest period of wealth creation the world has ever known. And what I would argue is that wasn't just because of what somebody did.

in Washington DC or at local government levels that literally happened because the internet was allowed to develop in the United States of America. If we're going to lead, we have to let the next iteration of the internet blossom and develop in this country. And then we need to look at, uh, you know, how we can make, uh, Central Bank digital currencies emulate cash, if we can. And I do believe we need to promote stable, uh, dollar-backed stable coins, absolutely. And I don't think there's a tug there for me. No, I, I, I would agree with you that, you know, one of the things that made the US such a powerhouse in the 80s and 90s and the 2000s with the internet is creating, you know, frameworks that allowed companies to develop new technologies. And, you know, Section 230 is not the most popular thing on the hill these days, but that did create room for companies to build new frameworks and new models, uh, on the internet. So when we actually talk to companies that are looking at building

privacy Technologies into blockchain. They are terrified of enforcement, and they're terrified of enforcement because they've seen what's happened with something like tornado cache. Um, and so I'm kind of curious from your perspective, you know, if we were to be able to create stable coins that have privacy built into them, um, there would be a lot of regulatory challenges towards something like that. Do you see any path forward for creating carve-outs for companies to begin experimenting with privacy-preserving Technologies on blockchains without running afoul of regulators? Yeah, I've always believed in, uh, safe harbors, as call them or, uh, you know, retroactive tax application once you know, uh, and when I say retroactive, not that you get taxed but, uh, literally once we know what it is and we see there's a revenue stream, then the government can get involved in that. I do want to put out a warning flare to your, uh, listeners about section 230 that people love to talk about how awful this is and we should be able to sue people.

who are putting misinformation out or things that we disagree with. Everybody who's listening better keep in mind that we're going to have to figure out how to do that the right way because if you were just to eliminate section 230 today, it would be a gift to my trial lawyer friends. They would start suing all over the place, which is great. I mean, full employment for lawyers. We're not going to complain about that, but the bigger problem for me is the big boys and girls. They'll be able to spend the money defending themselves. It's all the people you're referring to, these, you know, the people who are innovating and creating things. The little guys and gals are going to get crushed out of business because they won't be able to deal with that if somebody comes after them. And I know that I, I, this is conspiracy-minded, but don't be so surprised if some of the big fish don't actually encourage some of the hunting of the little fish. So we got to figure out how to keep that

entrepreneurial startup creation right here in the US. Yeah, I mean we are seeing today that, you know, there's this developer report that comes out every year by a group called Electric Capital. What we're seeing is over the last few years, there's about a 10% market share decrease in Founders founding blockchain companies in the United States. They're leaving for other jurisdictions because there are those regulatory carve outs that exist. I mean in the United States, like states are supposed to be Laboratories of democracy, but you know, even when you talk to States that are looking at this sort of thing, they don't feel like they have the ability to kind of create carve outs to do what you're talking about, to create these areas for folks to stay in the United States. How do we get back to a place where that's something that is possible here? I think some states have already been active in this space. Wyoming comes to mind, Nebraska comes to mind, Colorado in some respects, obviously New York, but these are

creating uh uh sandboxes. I hate the term because it's so childish, but it's like creating a sandbox for someone to start to play in and create whatever the next great idea is. And then safe harbors that we were talking about before. I don't consider those carve-outs. I think that's uh looking at a much bigger uh uh opportunity and saying, Hey, we want this to get started. We don't want to snuff something out by mistake before it ever gets moving. And really, uh, the other problem you got is the regulatory state in the country, the uh administrative state here in Washington DC. When you have an SEC chair who says, I have an open door policy. Come on in, tell me about your project. And then I'm going to send you Wells notice. And then I'm going to sue you. Uh, that's not an open door policy. That's a crushing economic opportunity in uh, in uh, uh development. And I last one I give you is this had we had an administrative state that was set up or operating.

the way it was set up, which is if Austin's got a great idea and he goes to the SEC, the idea is they work with you. You're not there to work for them. They work with you, and they want to make sure that you can blossom and that the customers, the people that you want to serve, that they are well served by your development. Had we had an administrative state that was working on behalf of our citizens, I would argue you never would have had FTX. You never would have had a crook going to Singapore and then ending up in the Bahamas out of the supervision, supervisory umbrella of the United States. And I just, it, we were asleep at the wheel, the people that are in the administration while this was going on. And it's literally because we drive these people off our Shores. We need to keep them here under that umbrella. We need to let the states do what the states do best, which is look at these from their perspective because every state can improve on what another.

state has done, and every state can learn from the mistakes of another state. The federal government's not going to get you give you the best result so look using that to pivot back to the conversation about CBDC a bit, and then you know starting to close this out. I'm curious, you know, I'm hearing you that you say that we really want to focus on privately issued stable coins, and one of the best ways that we can do that is through stable coin legislation, and I completely agree. One of the biggest unlocks for dollar dominance is great payment stable coin legislation, but if we think about the role of the FED here, you know, we see the FED doing a little bit when it comes to CBDC right now. We see projects like Project Hamilton, a little bit of experimentation on cross wholesale CBDC, and I'd love to hear from you what you think the FED should keep doing. You know, do you think that they should be shutting down all those projects, or do you think some light experimentation of

Wholesale CBDCs. Privacy-preserving CBDCs are appropriate. I'm not a fan of the FED. I think they should get out of this business because they're not good at it. All they do is cause problems and everything that they want to do is drawn from the FED looking out again. I think the uh and and we've got people, by the way, who have drafted stablecoin legislation around here that says, hey, we're going to maintain the state-based system, but it all has to be approved through the FED. That is directly contrary, and I would argue the FED has been part of the problem. Has anybody ever asked themselves why it is that uh the FED gets to determine that you and I and, more importantly, our parents and grandparents who have uh pension accounts are paying a 2% tax at least uh because they wanted to create uh an inflation of 2% is what they want to do. Well, obviously we've had a lot worse than that for the last couple of years, but no, I'm not a fan of the FED.

the people that are there, I'm sure, are really good people. I've had one who's in a leadership position H say to me that crypto, oh geez, isn't that kind of like wamp them and I it was all I could do biting my lip not to respond and say uh yes sir, I suppose, but didn't we buy the state of New York with Wampum. I mean it's it's about uh creating value, it's about how we trade it, uh we're moving into the 21st century and I'm going to argue that you guys who who are in that 18 to 40 uh uh range, you are the ones that are doing this and you're creating it as we go. I've got people that are in my age group, go from 41 to you know whatever 80 unless we can move it up to 50 because you know that in the 40s it's back and forth on this issue but my peers are investing, they want to make a dollar off of this, your

peers don't look at this as just a way to make money. They look at this as a way to make the world a much better place for everybody who lives in it. To once again recognize what our Founders intended, which is we all are given the same right to success. The good Lord grants that directly to us, and it's how we use it through our own hard work, our own initiative, how we can succeed. That's what this country was built on, and literally that's what this technology offers us, is the opportunity to get back to recognizing an individual is responsible for him or herself and gets to make their own decisions. I, you know, I just, it's as simple as that to me, yeah. You, you know, I don't think you'll find any love loss for the FED in most of the crypto Community, but one of the things that they did create, which did unblock a huge amount of problems in the fintech space, was the ACH system was the

fact that we can take a digital and this really enabled Robin Hood, and all the other fintech revolutions we saw of kind of the early 2000s. Do you think there's just no room for something like that today when it comes to blockchain? So, I would say to you, Austin, that I've shown you already in our Central Bank digital currency thing. Let me start at this way. If everyone would just agree with me, I think the world would be a much better place, right? But that's not going to happen. So, I give you my perspective. The reason we drafted the Central Bank digital currency legislation the way we did is because you know what this could Evol and if I'm truly invested in seeing it Blossom, then we've got to leave room for that. And my other problem with the FED is they're just that their actions have shown the dishonesty of their words. I've got a Fed chair who has said he needs Congressional authorization. He's also

said he doesn't need Congressional off authorization. I've had a Fed chare who and others who have said oh, we're not doing anything in this space, and yet I've got a slide deck that was presented in the first month of this Congress more than a year ago, showing that one of the Fed's, the FED, believes one of its primary things that it's responsible for is a CBDC. So, if you're not doing anything with it, why are you telling everybody this is your responsibility? And the list goes on. You've also got a White House who put out this, what was it, December 22nd, or I can't remember the date now, but they put about the executive order that says this is an urgent need, we've got to get this done. Look, Congress was elected to do this stuff. We do not have a monarchy in this country. We've got to return, we've got to restore the art of constitutional governance back to the people that are duly elected by the citizens. And I, these guys, I'm not going

to say they're doing a bad job, they're doing their job, but my job is to make sure that we keep that in line with service to the public instead of H believing that the public works for our government. Um, Congressman, I know we're out of time, but I want to say thank you so so much for joining us here today, for talking about the bill, for being very game to, uh, uh, roll with the push back, and then also for all the work that you've done to keep an eye on putting together really strong digital assets policy in Congress. You know, we're moving forward and figuring out how to appropriately regulate the space, and you're a big part of that, so thank you for joining us. W appreciate you guys and thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for what you're doing. Just keep, uh, exposing this to more and more people. Thank you. We'll do our best. Take care and thank you again. All right, guys. See you. [Music]

The CBDC Debate (Part 1) w/ Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN)

The CBDC Debate (Part 1) w/ Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN)