August 11, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we look at a recent piece of cryptocurrency legislation from the Trump administration that creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins. This new law, the first of its kind, could also stand to make the President a lot of money. Jeremy is joined by Axios crypto reporter Brady Dale. #crypto #Trump #TrumpCoin #stablecoin #stablecoins #digitalassets #GeniusAct
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Thank you for joining us,
Thank you for reviewing this podcast. If you like it,
that helps us out a lot. And if you follow
the news closely, you see that sometimes the Trump White
House does something big on a Friday, maybe five o'clock
pm on Friday, and then the weekend comes and you
(00:36):
stop paying attention to the news, and by the time
you do pay attention to what they did on Friday,
something else has happened and you forgot to look at
the first thing, which is one of the reasons why
we're doing this weekly podcast is to make sure that
we take the time to cover each one of these
things that's happening, and we don't let it slip under
the rug. And we do it in a non partisan
way with a smart journalist who, as we say, knows
what they're talking about. So something that happened on a
(00:56):
Friday a few weeks back was that President Trump signed
something called the Genius Act that stands for guiding and
establishing National Innovation for US stable coins. Stable Coins are
digital currencies that are backed by a physical asset like
the dollar, and the Genius Act is the first major
legislation designed around cryptocurrency to be passed in the United States.
(01:19):
Here are some of the President's comments after signing the
bill into law last month, and he's speaking here to
people from the crypto industry.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Let me say, the entire crypto community, for years, you
were mocked and dismissed and counted out. You accounted out
as little as a year and a half ago. But
this signing is a massive validation. And even before this signing,
over the last year year and a half, I think
your stuff has gone up more than any stock, or
just about more a couple of stocks that were pretty good,
(01:48):
I will say, but you have certainly as an industry.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Gone up more than anybody.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Nobody's gained the respect in such a short period of time.
But this signing is a massive validation of your hard
work and your pioneering spirit and your ability to never
give up. You've made our dollar look really good and
strong and powerful. It's good for the dollar, and it's
good for the country. And that's why I'm back to
you at an early stage. And I also did it
for the votes, because you did come out and vote.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I will have a lot there, and we're going to
talk about what this means for the dollar. Joining me
now is Axios Crypto reporter Brady Dale. Brady, thanks for being.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
On, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so this is a complicated topic for everyone, including
people who have spent some time focused on cryptocurrency. Let's
start with the basics. Bitcoin and ether and stuff like that.
These are not stable coins, right.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's right, yep, those are like well, those ones you mentioned,
those are native currencies of famous blockchains. There what give
people the incentive to keep them running, But they are
definitely not stable.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So what are stable coins?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Broadly speaking? Stable coins are cryptocre currencies that have been
designed in some way to have some kind of stable value.
There's been a number of ways to do that. Almost
all of those ways haven't really worked super well over time,
except for one, and that's the only one that is
being dealt with in this legislation, and that is stable
coins that maintain their value because they are actually backed
(03:13):
by dollars or dollar like assets. So that's what we
have under the Genus Act, and that's what the Trump
administration is working to stimulate here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So what does the Genius Act do.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
The Genius Act creates a regulatory authorized pathway to create
and issue stable coins and manage them and operate them
in the United States. So we already have stable coins here,
it's just that they're in a legal gray area. And
big like big banks, big corporations, they don't like things
(03:47):
in legal gray areas. They want things to be very
clear before they're going to deal with them in a
big way. And so that's what the Genius Act does.
It says, yes, this stuff is legal to use, here's
how you use them. If you want to issue your
own stable coin, here's how to do it. So it's
all totally unambiguously above board. That's what the law does.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And in the case of the Genius Act, this is
all about pegging these stable coins to the US dollar.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah. One of the things that Trump administration is really
excited about is they see stable coins as a way
to strengthen the dollars. So if you want to issue
a US stable coin payment stable coin in the United States,
it has to be dollar based. There are other ways
of doing stable coins, Like I said, it can be
based on other assets like the euro or gold, but
that's not in this bill. This bill is all about
(04:33):
US dollars. So for example, all of your reserves need
to be in US treasuries and not just any US treasuries.
They can't be long term treasures. They have to be
short term treasuries a little bit of cash to just
to manage redemptions. So it is very specifically a law
about authorizing payment stable coins that are based on US dollars,
you know, one for.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
One, And by the way, the dollar has been dropping
in value ever since President Trump came back into office.
I can tell you that from experience, because I was
just in Europe and the UK and my money did
not go as far as it you.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Oh, sorry about that.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And I know that other countries are worried about this,
about the US sort of pegging these stable coins to
the dollar. They've launched their own legislation around stable coins.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. I don't have a lot of hope for those
other countries' efforts. I mean, the truth is, the world
has shown that it wants dollars. They understand what dollars are.
Stable coins are very popular. You know, there's places in
the world that have probably not the places you're talking
abou You're probably talking about Europe there, but like other
parts of the world that have weaker economies, you know,
on the street, people are already using stable coins as
(05:38):
a form of day to day transaction or just to
have a safer place to save money, to earn some yield.
So people want the dollar, you know, like there are,
for example, there's been euro stable coins out in the
field for years now. They're like they're outnumbered by US
stable coins by like ninety nine to one. No one
wants them, you know. I wrote a thing recently where
(05:59):
I said the US ships while Europe frets, and I
think I think that's really the story. I don't think
we're gonna see I don't think we're gonna see anything
but US stable coins as a major part of the
global sphere for a while.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Why would somebody want to use a stable coin instead
of currency right now?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
The origins of stable coins is like, first of all,
back in the day when you were doing crypto trading,
all the base, all the trading pairs were in bitcoin,
so you would trade bitcoin for other things, and what
that meant was like you might make a really good
trade where you earned a lot more bitcoin on a trade.
But then if the value of bitcoin went south right
after you did that, It's like your position is still down,
(06:37):
you know, And so it was hard to know what
your position was as a trader. So stable coins were
better because you could kind of know where you were.
But that wasn't the real use case of stable coins.
The real use case of stable coins then then I
think this actually speaks to why they've become useful in
a broader way is back in the early days of crypto,
prices could get really dislocated between different exchanges, so like
(06:59):
there could just be an actually a different bitcoin price
on one exchange or another, and so that's an opportunity
for what folks call arbitrage. And if your listeners don't
know what arbitrage is, and you'd explain all of it,
but I'll just say, if you spot an arbitrage somewhere
in the market, it is guaranteed profit for you to
trade on that arbitrage. It's there's no risk if you
spot an arbitrage. And so obviously traders were wanting to
(07:20):
trade away these differences, but it was hard to move
money between exchanges because you would have to pull it
out to a bank and then deposit it in another
crypto exchange banks were very skeptical of crypto exchanges. They
might have questions about this, they might make it go
really slowly, they might not let you do it at all.
That was no good. So people invented stable coins as
a way to like quickly move money out of one
exchange and move on to another exchange. And so it
(07:41):
was the first the first tagline for tether was an
easier way to move money, and so that's kind of
where it all started. And so now we're seeing that expands,
you know, across all kinds of things. There's companies, for example,
a lot of small tech startups right they will hire developers,
engineers abroad to like do the basic coding. You know,
there's a lot of like Eastern European coders out there. Well,
(08:04):
stable coins are an easier way for them to pay
those coders and to try to like go through correspondent
banking or companies that are wanting to manage their treasuries
around the world so they have locations in multiple places.
Stable coins do that faster and easier. So this whole
idea of moving money globally is kind of the big
use case that stable coins that proved to be effective
for moving money globally can be slow and expensive under
(08:26):
the existing system, but it's it's really fast and it's
really cheap with stable coins well.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And one of the stated reasons for this legislation is
to prevent people from you know, using this for money
laundering and stuff like that. But why would the government
decide to put through the first major crypto legislation in
its history and not involve the biggest cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No one's too worried about Bitcoin in terms of laws
and regulations at this point, you know, it's everyone kind
of accepts it's not a securities under these Securities and
Exchange Mission, So Bitcoin's okay, I mean stable coin. I
think the reason to start with stable coins is just
because anyone who like looks into the crypto world in
any length at all quickly realizes that stable coins are
just clearly the first killer application of this technology, which
(09:12):
is kind of ironic, right, because it was always supposed
to be about like getting away from the US or
any you know, government based currencies and sort of like
setting money free and all that stuff. But the truth is,
these things just work really well and and people are
really happy with their user experience. For them. So this
is just the first success and it's such a no
(09:32):
brainer for the United States. If the United States wants
to maintain this powerful soft power instrument that it has
and the US dollar, then you know, stable coins just
strengthened that. And so it's very easy for policymakers to
be like, yes, let's go further with this because it's
sort of it's good for us on every level. The
next thing that legislators and the Trump administration wants to
(09:53):
deal with is sort of how to regulate the overall
crypto market, and that is just that's wildly more complicated,
you know. So so I mean, I think they'll get
it done this year. I expect that will happen. But
like stable coins were seen as like.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
The easy, early win, low hanging fruit.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, what did the people who were adamantly against this
legislation say about it?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The one complaint which I honestly just sort of dismiss
out of hand, as people will say stable coins aren't
really safe. It's a they that people using stable coins
are a risk of runs on the bank and that
kind of thing that just doesn't hold up too much scrutiny.
You know, the truth is stable coins are actually just
based on their basic engineering, just genuinely safer than banks.
(10:34):
You know, like you you deposit money in a bank
and it lends it out. Probably your bank is sitting
on like five percent of actual deposits in the bank
at any one time. That's not very much, right, Like,
they can't handle much of a lack of conference. They
candle much of a run. Stable coin has literally all
the money there, like it's it's all just there. The
way the stable coin makers make money is they're buying
(10:54):
all these treasuries and they get to keep the interest
earned on those treasuries. They don't give those to the
stable coin holders. But the stable coin holders are giving
up is you know, they don't get to earn that
direct interest off the deposit. And they're okay with that
because they think they have some idea that will be
more profitable to do with the stable coins. That's okay.
They'll let go of that treasury interest in order to
(11:15):
do the other thing that they want to do with
a stable coin, which is better for them. The second
one makes a little bit more sense, you know, it's
the anti money laundry concerns. There's no question that stable
coins have been wildly useful for criminals. That is just
absolutely true for criminals, terrorists, all those sorts. But the
question that policymakers just always have to ask themselves about
(11:35):
everything is anything that comes into the world that's useful
is going to be use used by criminals, right, And
so like you just always have to strike this balancing act,
like how much do we restrict this thing versus because
the more restrictions you put on it, the less useful
is to everybody else, right, Like bank robbers drive on roads,
drug gangs use cell phones. It's just like everything useful
(11:56):
is used by some kind of miscreant. So stable coins
are the same, and so you need to have some
kind of constraints on them. But if you put too
many on then they'll stop being useful. So that's like
the second objection, which I think that one has at
least at least it's not completely logical like the first one,
there is some real merit there. And then the third one,
it is true that the Trump administration has made a
(12:16):
lot of money off of the crypto world, including stable coin.
So that so World Liberty Financial, which is a company
that its profits primarily flow to the Trump organization has
issued a stable coin. In the grand scheme of things,
it is a very small stable coin. I think it
has like two billion dollars inder management, which sounds like
a lot, but it's really nothing in a sector that's
approaching three hundred billion dollars. And so it bothers a
(12:38):
lot of policymakers that, you know, the Trump family is
going to profit off of this thing that he just
signed a law on, and that is a legitimate concern.
But again it's just a political question. I mean, the
question policymakers have to ask themselves is, yes, it stinks
that the Trump family will make a few bucks off
of it, but is that worth just not doing.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This, having regulation at all and not letting.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Other people profit off of it who are gonna go
much bigger and do much more, you know. So that's
just that's that. But that one is the one that
I would say has slowed this down as the most.
Like if if Trump hadn't launch a meme coin, if
he had at launch a distable coin, I think Genius
would have gotten passed like two months ago. But that
gave a lot of political fodder for slowing it down.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
But it got pasted anyway, and I want to talk
a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
When we continue in just a moment.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
One thing Trump did with Axio's crypto reporter Brady Dale
will be right back. Welcome back to one thing Trump
(13:50):
did exclusively on the Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This episode, we're talking about the passage of the Genius
Act regarding cryptocurrency. I am joined by Axio's crypto reporter
Brady Dale. So Trump made some promises on the campaign trail.
He said he wanted the US to be the crypto
capital of the world. Is he so far giving the
(14:13):
industry everything they wanted?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It's pretty strong so far. Yeah. I mean, you know,
up till now, there had never been a crypto law passed.
When it's gotten passed, he said he would make this
strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which he did the executive order for that.
We haven't gotten more details on it yet, but apparently
that's coming soon. But he did do it. He is
pushing hard on this regulation law, and what I expect
(14:38):
will happen is in September there will be a bunch
of drama around the law like there was around Genius,
and then Trump will yell and stomp and tell his
Republicans to get it sorted out, and then they will
and it'll just keep passing the September much like that's
sort of what happened with Genius, and I expected to
happen again, and he'll just be like, He'll just say
this past, whatever you've got, like just finished now. And
(14:59):
then he just dropped this one hundred and sixty page
crypto report which has just tons of recommendations that are
all directed at how do we, you know, foster growing
this industry faster in this country, how do we make
things easier, you know, how do we catch up with
the way the industry works and not just keep doing
things like the past. So, yeah, it seems like it's
(15:20):
full steam ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
What about Trump's own investments in crypto? You talked about
that a moment ago. But how much money is he
making off of off of all of this.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
He's made a lot of a lot of money. I mean,
some of it's on paper, right, so it's not realized yet.
So for example, he launched this meme coin. It theoretically
means he's worth several billion dollars. That's what the mean
coin is sort of worth in the market. But this
is the Trump coin, the Trump point Yeah, the official
Trump coin. Yeah. If he tried to sell all of
(15:49):
that at once, that the price would tank crazily, So
it's not really worth that. But but you know, there's
estimates that he's made just just by one of the
things you do when you have a coin is you
sort of like seed liquidity around them market and you
can earn money off of people trading. And so he's
done that, and there's estimates that he's earned like three
hundred million dollars off off of providing liquidity, and so
that would be like, you know, free and clear. Like
(16:10):
I said, there's this two billion dollar stable coin. Now
that doesn't mean he has two billion dollars, but that
means he's earning like, you know, four to five percent
interest per year off of two billion dollars, which is
not chump change. His you know, his sons are launching
a bitcoin minor. Trump Media has bought a big pile
of bitcoin and so if bitcoin does well over the
(16:33):
next few years, I'll make a ton of profit off
of that. And where it all started with Trump, the
first place that he made money in the industry is
he launched a line of NFTs and that hasn't been
crazy money or anything. It's been in the millions of dollars.
But you know, it has been nothing but easy profit
for him. So he's earned a ton of money in
a lot of ways. I mean, it might even be
some people have estimated that it's the largest source of
(16:53):
his wealth right now. It sort of depends on how
you estimate these things, but it certainly has has done
very well for him. And it is very weird to
have a sitting president earning money really on anything.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Yeah, any but he is.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And also just when you mentioned the Sun's making money
on it too, I just, I just I feel like
there was a story about the son of President Biden
that became really big and the right wing circles about
how he was making money with a Ukrainian gass. I
can't remember what I was which one that is, but
I feel like, yeah, Trump was pretty upset about that one.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Bitcoin meanwhile, at which you say, is not part of
this stable coin legislation is near a record high right now.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
What is going on there? Why is crypto so hot
right now?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I think the biggest reason actually is just that the
world is coming around on this idea that bitcoin is
digital goal, that it is this place you can stick
money and if you are gonna sit it there over time,
you probably won't lose it, and you'll almost certainly make
a decent amount at least, you know, so far, anyone
(17:59):
who has held bitcoin for four years or longer has
never lost money. You can't find any four year period
on the chart in which someone would have lost money,
and three years it's like almost everyone, you know. And
so I think that's the biggest reason. You know, more
specific reasons. There is now bitcoin etf so people can
buy bitcoin indirectly in their brokerage account. And then there's
(18:19):
this crazy trend going on right now where all these
companies are a lot of them are companies that don't
really do anything anymore, not all of them, but many
of them are buying lots of bitcoin just for the
purpose of saying they're sort of a bitcoin vehicle, and
they're they're issuing stock shares or they're issuing convertible debt
in order to buy more bitcoin, with the theory being
a dollar invested in this company will yield more exposure
(18:43):
to bitcoin over time than just buying bitcoin directly. It's
you know, that's a bet people are making. I don't
know if that's a good bet, but that's driving a
lot of acquisition to bitcoin. Some other sovereign nations are
talking about getting into the bitcoin game alongside the United States.
So there's just a lot of big forces moving in
to this space. And you know, as your listeners may know,
but if they don't, just in case, bitcoin has a
(19:04):
expressly finite supply of twenty one million coins, and so
every time someone buys a coin and says they're not
going to sell it, that shrinks the supply just a
little bit. And you know, supply and demand being what
it is that drives price up. So that's the story.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Do you think that it is important for the average
American to understand all of this and to understand what's
going on with the stable coins and the Genius Act?
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I mean, to an extent, Yeah, you know, I tend
to think this industry is going to continue to be
a big and powerful one, and folks who are looking
for opportunities out there in the world, this industry presents
them for them, you know, I mean, there is a
chance that they could find a place in this world,
and so they should at least if they're looking to
(19:50):
do something different, it's something that they should consider. It's
also very easy to access. There's a lot of normal
people out there who have increased their wealth a decent
amount by carefully investing in the space, are not going
too crazy. So yeah, there's a lot of opportunities, and
I think it's it's not going away. So in that way,
I do think it's important for people to understand it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
The Genius Act prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating its
own stable coin, but it also does allow banks to
create their own stable coins. I know JP Morgan Chase
has already created its own stable coin. Why as an individual,
would I pick one over another?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Why would you pick any particular stable coin.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, Like if I'm like, oh, should I get the
Bank of America's stable coin?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Should I get the Chase stable coin? Should I get
this stable coin to that stable coin?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think eventually you won't really pick one or the other.
I think eventually you'll have no idea. I think I
think that the time will come when we'll stop talking
about them as different, you know, like they will be different.
Kind of on the back end, you could go look
on the blockchain and see which one you have and
stuff like that or whatever. Block there's a bunch of blockchains,
but you could go look and see. But I think
(20:56):
before long it won't matter. There's this concept of the
scene of money, and once people get comfortable enough with
stable coins, they'll just sort of treat them as all
as totally fungible. I mean, that's this gets a little
bit over my head. But as I understand that, this
is kind of how banking works right now. You know,
much of the money out there is sort of created
by banks, and no one asks themselves, you know, is
(21:17):
this wire? Is this payment I just got for my employer?
Is this you know, Chase money? Or is this bank
of American money to just take the money?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
You know?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
So I think that is where it will end up.
You won't pay attention to it, but that is, you know,
that is a few years out.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I'll just pick the stable coin that lets me get
into the best airport lounge. That that's probably what will happen.
I bet that's what will happen. That's it's going to
be like the Chase reserve lounge you can only go
to if you have the Chase stable coin, or you
get more entries per year, more guest visits.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
You talked a little bit about the politics of this
and the people that were opposed to it, but this
bill got bipartisan support in the Senate and the House.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Why what's going on with the politics there?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Just everybody's kind of in favor of this or not everybody,
but people on both sides.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I mean, I think there's two things. You know, there
is a giant bazuka of crypto money out there looking
to ensure that people are supportive of the industry's priorities.
I think that's really important. But I also think it's
true that a lot of lawmakers just realize that this
industry isn't going anywhere and we can either you know,
(22:25):
get on board or be left behind. And I think
I think that's also the idea, and particularly on stable coins,
like I mean, this is one I understand people have
a lot of skepticism about the crypto world as someone
who has been following stable coins since back in the
era in which people thought issuing stable coins on blockchains
would actually be impossible and there was no point in
doing it, and has watched them get to where they
are now and has followed many of the ebbs and
(22:47):
flows along the way. It's just it's really hard for
me to make a good case for like why the
world shouldn't have stable coins. I it just they do
make things work better. Correspondent banking is problematic in a
ton of ways, like stable points route around it. I
don't know. I just think it's gonna save the globe
a lot of money soon, and that seems like probably good.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So, Britty, now that this is past, what's the next
thing on your radar on the crypto beat.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I mean it's this. It's this market structure legislation,
you know. So that's the do date from Trump to
get that done is the end of September. So let's
see if that happens. I think it will. I think
we'll be a bunch of changes and stuff and it
will be a lot of discussion, but I think it'll happen.
And then the other thing I'm watching is, you know, Bohinds,
the Trump's crypto guy, said during the discussions around this
(23:36):
report that he just released that the plan for the
Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is coming out soon. I don't really
know how important that is to the globe. Ultimately, but
it's eye catching and I'm interested in it so like
I want to see what our plan is on like
the US government owning bitcoin. But yeah, the most important
thing is this market structural legislation that's being worked on
(23:58):
in the center.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Right now, it's Brady Dale, who covers cryptocurrency for Axios. Brady,
thank you so much, great to talk to you. Yeah,
thanks for having and thanks to you for listening to
One Thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode is coming to your podcast feed
later this week. We're going to be asking you this
is a good one if you are afraid to speak
your mind right now, and we're going to be joined
by political commentator Camille Foster along with philosopher and former
(24:21):
presidential candidate Cornell West.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
You will not want to miss that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And if you like this podcast, please rate it, write
us a review. Our theme music was composed by Noah Haidu.
I'm Jeremy Hobson and I'll talk to you soon.
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Thank you for joining us,
Thank you for reviewing this podcast. If you like it,
that helps us out a lot. And if you follow
the news closely, you see that sometimes the Trump White
House does something big on a Friday, maybe five o'clock
pm on Friday, and then the weekend comes and you
(00:36):
stop paying attention to the news, and by the time
you do pay attention to what they did on Friday,
something else has happened and you forgot to look at
the first thing, which is one of the reasons why
we're doing this weekly podcast is to make sure that
we take the time to cover each one of these
things that's happening, and we don't let it slip under
the rug. And we do it in a non partisan
way with a smart journalist who, as we say, knows
what they're talking about. So something that happened on a
(00:56):
Friday a few weeks back was that President Trump signed
something called the Genius Act that stands for guiding and
establishing National Innovation for US stable coins. Stable Coins are
digital currencies that are backed by a physical asset like
the dollar, and the Genius Act is the first major
legislation designed around cryptocurrency to be passed in the United States.
(01:19):
Here are some of the President's comments after signing the
bill into law last month, and he's speaking here to
people from the crypto industry.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Let me say, the entire crypto community, for years, you
were mocked and dismissed and counted out. You accounted out
as little as a year and a half ago. But
this signing is a massive validation. And even before this signing,
over the last year year and a half, I think
your stuff has gone up more than any stock, or
just about more a couple of stocks that were pretty good,
(01:48):
I will say, but you have certainly as an industry.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Gone up more than anybody.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Nobody's gained the respect in such a short period of time.
But this signing is a massive validation of your hard
work and your pioneering spirit and your ability to never
give up. You've made our dollar look really good and
strong and powerful. It's good for the dollar, and it's
good for the country. And that's why I'm back to
you at an early stage. And I also did it
for the votes, because you did come out and vote.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I will have a lot there, and we're going to
talk about what this means for the dollar. Joining me
now is Axios Crypto reporter Brady Dale. Brady, thanks for being.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
On, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so this is a complicated topic for everyone, including
people who have spent some time focused on cryptocurrency. Let's
start with the basics. Bitcoin and ether and stuff like that.
These are not stable coins, right.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's right, yep, those are like well, those ones you mentioned,
those are native currencies of famous blockchains. There what give
people the incentive to keep them running, But they are
definitely not stable.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So what are stable coins?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Broadly speaking? Stable coins are cryptocre currencies that have been
designed in some way to have some kind of stable value.
There's been a number of ways to do that. Almost
all of those ways haven't really worked super well over time,
except for one, and that's the only one that is
being dealt with in this legislation, and that is stable
coins that maintain their value because they are actually backed
(03:13):
by dollars or dollar like assets. So that's what we
have under the Genus Act, and that's what the Trump
administration is working to stimulate here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So what does the Genius Act do.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
The Genius Act creates a regulatory authorized pathway to create
and issue stable coins and manage them and operate them
in the United States. So we already have stable coins here,
it's just that they're in a legal gray area. And
big like big banks, big corporations, they don't like things
(03:47):
in legal gray areas. They want things to be very
clear before they're going to deal with them in a
big way. And so that's what the Genius Act does.
It says, yes, this stuff is legal to use, here's
how you use them. If you want to issue your
own stable coin, here's how to do it. So it's
all totally unambiguously above board. That's what the law does.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And in the case of the Genius Act, this is
all about pegging these stable coins to the US dollar.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah. One of the things that Trump administration is really
excited about is they see stable coins as a way
to strengthen the dollars. So if you want to issue
a US stable coin payment stable coin in the United States,
it has to be dollar based. There are other ways
of doing stable coins, Like I said, it can be
based on other assets like the euro or gold, but
that's not in this bill. This bill is all about
(04:33):
US dollars. So for example, all of your reserves need
to be in US treasuries and not just any US treasuries.
They can't be long term treasures. They have to be
short term treasuries a little bit of cash to just
to manage redemptions. So it is very specifically a law
about authorizing payment stable coins that are based on US dollars,
you know, one for.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
One, And by the way, the dollar has been dropping
in value ever since President Trump came back into office.
I can tell you that from experience, because I was
just in Europe and the UK and my money did
not go as far as it you.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Oh, sorry about that.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And I know that other countries are worried about this,
about the US sort of pegging these stable coins to
the dollar. They've launched their own legislation around stable coins.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. I don't have a lot of hope for those
other countries' efforts. I mean, the truth is, the world
has shown that it wants dollars. They understand what dollars are.
Stable coins are very popular. You know, there's places in
the world that have probably not the places you're talking
abou You're probably talking about Europe there, but like other
parts of the world that have weaker economies, you know,
on the street, people are already using stable coins as
(05:38):
a form of day to day transaction or just to
have a safer place to save money, to earn some yield.
So people want the dollar, you know, like there are,
for example, there's been euro stable coins out in the
field for years now. They're like they're outnumbered by US
stable coins by like ninety nine to one. No one
wants them, you know. I wrote a thing recently where
(05:59):
I said the US ships while Europe frets, and I
think I think that's really the story. I don't think
we're gonna see I don't think we're gonna see anything
but US stable coins as a major part of the
global sphere for a while.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Why would somebody want to use a stable coin instead
of currency right now?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
The origins of stable coins is like, first of all,
back in the day when you were doing crypto trading,
all the base, all the trading pairs were in bitcoin,
so you would trade bitcoin for other things, and what
that meant was like you might make a really good
trade where you earned a lot more bitcoin on a trade.
But then if the value of bitcoin went south right
after you did that, It's like your position is still down,
(06:37):
you know, And so it was hard to know what
your position was as a trader. So stable coins were
better because you could kind of know where you were.
But that wasn't the real use case of stable coins.
The real use case of stable coins then then I
think this actually speaks to why they've become useful in
a broader way is back in the early days of crypto,
prices could get really dislocated between different exchanges, so like
(06:59):
there could just be an actually a different bitcoin price
on one exchange or another, and so that's an opportunity
for what folks call arbitrage. And if your listeners don't
know what arbitrage is, and you'd explain all of it,
but I'll just say, if you spot an arbitrage somewhere
in the market, it is guaranteed profit for you to
trade on that arbitrage. It's there's no risk if you
spot an arbitrage. And so obviously traders were wanting to
(07:20):
trade away these differences, but it was hard to move
money between exchanges because you would have to pull it
out to a bank and then deposit it in another
crypto exchange banks were very skeptical of crypto exchanges. They
might have questions about this, they might make it go
really slowly, they might not let you do it at all.
That was no good. So people invented stable coins as
a way to like quickly move money out of one
exchange and move on to another exchange. And so it
(07:41):
was the first the first tagline for tether was an
easier way to move money, and so that's kind of
where it all started. And so now we're seeing that expands,
you know, across all kinds of things. There's companies, for example,
a lot of small tech startups right they will hire developers,
engineers abroad to like do the basic coding. You know,
there's a lot of like Eastern European coders out there. Well,
(08:04):
stable coins are an easier way for them to pay
those coders and to try to like go through correspondent
banking or companies that are wanting to manage their treasuries
around the world so they have locations in multiple places.
Stable coins do that faster and easier. So this whole
idea of moving money globally is kind of the big
use case that stable coins that proved to be effective
for moving money globally can be slow and expensive under
(08:26):
the existing system, but it's it's really fast and it's
really cheap with stable coins well.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And one of the stated reasons for this legislation is
to prevent people from you know, using this for money
laundering and stuff like that. But why would the government
decide to put through the first major crypto legislation in
its history and not involve the biggest cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No one's too worried about Bitcoin in terms of laws
and regulations at this point, you know, it's everyone kind
of accepts it's not a securities under these Securities and
Exchange Mission, So Bitcoin's okay, I mean stable coin. I
think the reason to start with stable coins is just
because anyone who like looks into the crypto world in
any length at all quickly realizes that stable coins are
just clearly the first killer application of this technology, which
(09:12):
is kind of ironic, right, because it was always supposed
to be about like getting away from the US or
any you know, government based currencies and sort of like
setting money free and all that stuff. But the truth is,
these things just work really well and and people are
really happy with their user experience. For them. So this
is just the first success and it's such a no
(09:32):
brainer for the United States. If the United States wants
to maintain this powerful soft power instrument that it has
and the US dollar, then you know, stable coins just
strengthened that. And so it's very easy for policymakers to
be like, yes, let's go further with this because it's
sort of it's good for us on every level. The
next thing that legislators and the Trump administration wants to
(09:53):
deal with is sort of how to regulate the overall
crypto market, and that is just that's wildly more complicated,
you know. So so I mean, I think they'll get
it done this year. I expect that will happen. But
like stable coins were seen as like.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
The easy, early win, low hanging fruit.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, what did the people who were adamantly against this
legislation say about it?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The one complaint which I honestly just sort of dismiss
out of hand, as people will say stable coins aren't
really safe. It's a they that people using stable coins
are a risk of runs on the bank and that
kind of thing that just doesn't hold up too much scrutiny.
You know, the truth is stable coins are actually just
based on their basic engineering, just genuinely safer than banks.
(10:34):
You know, like you you deposit money in a bank
and it lends it out. Probably your bank is sitting
on like five percent of actual deposits in the bank
at any one time. That's not very much, right, Like,
they can't handle much of a lack of conference. They
candle much of a run. Stable coin has literally all
the money there, like it's it's all just there. The
way the stable coin makers make money is they're buying
(10:54):
all these treasuries and they get to keep the interest
earned on those treasuries. They don't give those to the
stable coin holders. But the stable coin holders are giving
up is you know, they don't get to earn that
direct interest off the deposit. And they're okay with that
because they think they have some idea that will be
more profitable to do with the stable coins. That's okay.
They'll let go of that treasury interest in order to
(11:15):
do the other thing that they want to do with
a stable coin, which is better for them. The second
one makes a little bit more sense, you know, it's
the anti money laundry concerns. There's no question that stable
coins have been wildly useful for criminals. That is just
absolutely true for criminals, terrorists, all those sorts. But the
question that policymakers just always have to ask themselves about
(11:35):
everything is anything that comes into the world that's useful
is going to be use used by criminals, right, And
so like you just always have to strike this balancing act,
like how much do we restrict this thing versus because
the more restrictions you put on it, the less useful
is to everybody else, right, Like bank robbers drive on roads,
drug gangs use cell phones. It's just like everything useful
(11:56):
is used by some kind of miscreant. So stable coins
are the same, and so you need to have some
kind of constraints on them. But if you put too
many on then they'll stop being useful. So that's like
the second objection, which I think that one has at
least at least it's not completely logical like the first one,
there is some real merit there. And then the third one,
it is true that the Trump administration has made a
(12:16):
lot of money off of the crypto world, including stable coin.
So that so World Liberty Financial, which is a company
that its profits primarily flow to the Trump organization has
issued a stable coin. In the grand scheme of things,
it is a very small stable coin. I think it
has like two billion dollars inder management, which sounds like
a lot, but it's really nothing in a sector that's
approaching three hundred billion dollars. And so it bothers a
(12:38):
lot of policymakers that, you know, the Trump family is
going to profit off of this thing that he just
signed a law on, and that is a legitimate concern.
But again it's just a political question. I mean, the
question policymakers have to ask themselves is, yes, it stinks
that the Trump family will make a few bucks off
of it, but is that worth just not doing.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This, having regulation at all and not letting.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Other people profit off of it who are gonna go
much bigger and do much more, you know. So that's
just that's that. But that one is the one that
I would say has slowed this down as the most.
Like if if Trump hadn't launch a meme coin, if
he had at launch a distable coin, I think Genius
would have gotten passed like two months ago. But that
gave a lot of political fodder for slowing it down.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
But it got pasted anyway, and I want to talk
a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
When we continue in just a moment.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
One thing Trump did with Axio's crypto reporter Brady Dale
will be right back. Welcome back to one thing Trump
(13:50):
did exclusively on the Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This episode, we're talking about the passage of the Genius
Act regarding cryptocurrency. I am joined by Axio's crypto reporter
Brady Dale. So Trump made some promises on the campaign trail.
He said he wanted the US to be the crypto
capital of the world. Is he so far giving the
(14:13):
industry everything they wanted?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It's pretty strong so far. Yeah. I mean, you know,
up till now, there had never been a crypto law passed.
When it's gotten passed, he said he would make this
strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which he did the executive order for that.
We haven't gotten more details on it yet, but apparently
that's coming soon. But he did do it. He is
pushing hard on this regulation law, and what I expect
(14:38):
will happen is in September there will be a bunch
of drama around the law like there was around Genius,
and then Trump will yell and stomp and tell his
Republicans to get it sorted out, and then they will
and it'll just keep passing the September much like that's
sort of what happened with Genius, and I expected to
happen again, and he'll just be like, He'll just say
this past, whatever you've got, like just finished now. And
(14:59):
then he just dropped this one hundred and sixty page
crypto report which has just tons of recommendations that are
all directed at how do we, you know, foster growing
this industry faster in this country, how do we make
things easier, you know, how do we catch up with
the way the industry works and not just keep doing
things like the past. So, yeah, it seems like it's
(15:20):
full steam ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
What about Trump's own investments in crypto? You talked about
that a moment ago. But how much money is he
making off of off of all of this.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
He's made a lot of a lot of money. I mean,
some of it's on paper, right, so it's not realized yet.
So for example, he launched this meme coin. It theoretically
means he's worth several billion dollars. That's what the mean
coin is sort of worth in the market. But this
is the Trump coin, the Trump point Yeah, the official
Trump coin. Yeah. If he tried to sell all of
(15:49):
that at once, that the price would tank crazily, So
it's not really worth that. But but you know, there's
estimates that he's made just just by one of the
things you do when you have a coin is you
sort of like seed liquidity around them market and you
can earn money off of people trading. And so he's
done that, and there's estimates that he's earned like three
hundred million dollars off off of providing liquidity, and so
that would be like, you know, free and clear. Like
(16:10):
I said, there's this two billion dollar stable coin. Now
that doesn't mean he has two billion dollars, but that
means he's earning like, you know, four to five percent
interest per year off of two billion dollars, which is
not chump change. His you know, his sons are launching
a bitcoin minor. Trump Media has bought a big pile
of bitcoin and so if bitcoin does well over the
(16:33):
next few years, I'll make a ton of profit off
of that. And where it all started with Trump, the
first place that he made money in the industry is
he launched a line of NFTs and that hasn't been
crazy money or anything. It's been in the millions of dollars.
But you know, it has been nothing but easy profit
for him. So he's earned a ton of money in
a lot of ways. I mean, it might even be
some people have estimated that it's the largest source of
(16:53):
his wealth right now. It sort of depends on how
you estimate these things, but it certainly has has done
very well for him. And it is very weird to
have a sitting president earning money really on anything.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Yeah, any but he is.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And also just when you mentioned the Sun's making money
on it too, I just, I just I feel like
there was a story about the son of President Biden
that became really big and the right wing circles about
how he was making money with a Ukrainian gass. I
can't remember what I was which one that is, but
I feel like, yeah, Trump was pretty upset about that one.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Bitcoin meanwhile, at which you say, is not part of
this stable coin legislation is near a record high right now.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
What is going on there? Why is crypto so hot
right now?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I think the biggest reason actually is just that the
world is coming around on this idea that bitcoin is
digital goal, that it is this place you can stick
money and if you are gonna sit it there over time,
you probably won't lose it, and you'll almost certainly make
a decent amount at least, you know, so far, anyone
(17:59):
who has held bitcoin for four years or longer has
never lost money. You can't find any four year period
on the chart in which someone would have lost money,
and three years it's like almost everyone, you know. And
so I think that's the biggest reason. You know, more
specific reasons. There is now bitcoin etf so people can
buy bitcoin indirectly in their brokerage account. And then there's
(18:19):
this crazy trend going on right now where all these
companies are a lot of them are companies that don't
really do anything anymore, not all of them, but many
of them are buying lots of bitcoin just for the
purpose of saying they're sort of a bitcoin vehicle, and
they're they're issuing stock shares or they're issuing convertible debt
in order to buy more bitcoin, with the theory being
a dollar invested in this company will yield more exposure
(18:43):
to bitcoin over time than just buying bitcoin directly. It's
you know, that's a bet people are making. I don't
know if that's a good bet, but that's driving a
lot of acquisition to bitcoin. Some other sovereign nations are
talking about getting into the bitcoin game alongside the United States.
So there's just a lot of big forces moving in
to this space. And you know, as your listeners may know,
but if they don't, just in case, bitcoin has a
(19:04):
expressly finite supply of twenty one million coins, and so
every time someone buys a coin and says they're not
going to sell it, that shrinks the supply just a
little bit. And you know, supply and demand being what
it is that drives price up. So that's the story.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Do you think that it is important for the average
American to understand all of this and to understand what's
going on with the stable coins and the Genius Act?
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I mean, to an extent, Yeah, you know, I tend
to think this industry is going to continue to be
a big and powerful one, and folks who are looking
for opportunities out there in the world, this industry presents
them for them, you know, I mean, there is a
chance that they could find a place in this world,
and so they should at least if they're looking to
(19:50):
do something different, it's something that they should consider. It's
also very easy to access. There's a lot of normal
people out there who have increased their wealth a decent
amount by carefully investing in the space, are not going
too crazy. So yeah, there's a lot of opportunities, and
I think it's it's not going away. So in that way,
I do think it's important for people to understand it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
The Genius Act prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating its
own stable coin, but it also does allow banks to
create their own stable coins. I know JP Morgan Chase
has already created its own stable coin. Why as an individual,
would I pick one over another?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Why would you pick any particular stable coin.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, Like if I'm like, oh, should I get the
Bank of America's stable coin?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Should I get the Chase stable coin? Should I get
this stable coin to that stable coin?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think eventually you won't really pick one or the other.
I think eventually you'll have no idea. I think I
think that the time will come when we'll stop talking
about them as different, you know, like they will be different.
Kind of on the back end, you could go look
on the blockchain and see which one you have and
stuff like that or whatever. Block there's a bunch of blockchains,
but you could go look and see. But I think
(20:56):
before long it won't matter. There's this concept of the
scene of money, and once people get comfortable enough with
stable coins, they'll just sort of treat them as all
as totally fungible. I mean, that's this gets a little
bit over my head. But as I understand that, this
is kind of how banking works right now. You know,
much of the money out there is sort of created
by banks, and no one asks themselves, you know, is
(21:17):
this wire? Is this payment I just got for my employer?
Is this you know, Chase money? Or is this bank
of American money to just take the money?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
You know?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
So I think that is where it will end up.
You won't pay attention to it, but that is, you know,
that is a few years out.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I'll just pick the stable coin that lets me get
into the best airport lounge. That that's probably what will happen.
I bet that's what will happen. That's it's going to
be like the Chase reserve lounge you can only go
to if you have the Chase stable coin, or you
get more entries per year, more guest visits.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
You talked a little bit about the politics of this
and the people that were opposed to it, but this
bill got bipartisan support in the Senate and the House.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Why what's going on with the politics there?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Just everybody's kind of in favor of this or not everybody,
but people on both sides.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I mean, I think there's two things. You know, there
is a giant bazuka of crypto money out there looking
to ensure that people are supportive of the industry's priorities.
I think that's really important. But I also think it's
true that a lot of lawmakers just realize that this
industry isn't going anywhere and we can either you know,
(22:25):
get on board or be left behind. And I think
I think that's also the idea, and particularly on stable coins,
like I mean, this is one I understand people have
a lot of skepticism about the crypto world as someone
who has been following stable coins since back in the
era in which people thought issuing stable coins on blockchains
would actually be impossible and there was no point in
doing it, and has watched them get to where they
are now and has followed many of the ebbs and
(22:47):
flows along the way. It's just it's really hard for
me to make a good case for like why the
world shouldn't have stable coins. I it just they do
make things work better. Correspondent banking is problematic in a
ton of ways, like stable points route around it. I
don't know. I just think it's gonna save the globe
a lot of money soon, and that seems like probably good.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So, Britty, now that this is past, what's the next
thing on your radar on the crypto beat.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I mean it's this. It's this market structure legislation,
you know. So that's the do date from Trump to
get that done is the end of September. So let's
see if that happens. I think it will. I think
we'll be a bunch of changes and stuff and it
will be a lot of discussion, but I think it'll happen.
And then the other thing I'm watching is, you know, Bohinds,
the Trump's crypto guy, said during the discussions around this
(23:36):
report that he just released that the plan for the
Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is coming out soon. I don't really
know how important that is to the globe. Ultimately, but
it's eye catching and I'm interested in it so like
I want to see what our plan is on like
the US government owning bitcoin. But yeah, the most important
thing is this market structural legislation that's being worked on
(23:58):
in the center.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Right now, it's Brady Dale, who covers cryptocurrency for Axios. Brady,
thank you so much, great to talk to you. Yeah,
thanks for having and thanks to you for listening to
One Thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode is coming to your podcast feed
later this week. We're going to be asking you this
is a good one if you are afraid to speak
your mind right now, and we're going to be joined
by political commentator Camille Foster along with philosopher and former
(24:21):
presidential candidate Cornell West.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
You will not want to miss that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And if you like this podcast, please rate it, write
us a review. Our theme music was composed by Noah Haidu.
I'm Jeremy Hobson and I'll talk to you soon.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!