TRON DAO's Fight for US Crypto Regulation | Adrian Wall - Thinking Crypto News & Interviews

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, folks, we're recording at Chainlink's smart con and joining
me today is Adrian Wall, who is the senior director
of US Policy at tron Dow.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Adrian, great to have.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You, Thank you, it's great to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
So Adrian, tell us about yourself and what is the
tron Dow sure.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
So, as you mentioned, I am the senior director of
Policy for TRONDW. What that means is, I'm focused on
the policy side of what are those implications whenever we're
talking about emerging tech, crypto, stable coin, blockchain, how should
legislators be thinking about it? How do they need to
be taking that information so that they can turn it

(00:39):
into ethical and responsible policy that's also going to be effective,
not an easy task. And then how do I bridge
that gap between legislators and the public. So it's actually
there's quite a bit into it. Tron has been incredible
when it comes to wanting to engage with both sides,
not just both sides of the aisle from a government perspective,

(01:01):
but also both public and policy. So wanting to connect
the community and what their needs are with what the
legislator should be thinking about on Capitol Hill, right, and
when you talk about what is Tron. Tron is one
of the world's largest and most prolific blockchains, yep, right,
And I think what's and that's both by transaction transaction

(01:22):
volume and user base. Sure, And I think what's really
interesting about Tron is their governance structure. So it's run
as a DOW, a decentralized autonomous organization. And so what
that means is the users, those who have the native
coin trx, are the ones who are really in control
of making decisions when it comes to infrastructure, how spending
is down, in security and things like that. So I

(01:42):
think it's a it's a fantastic model for what a
DOW really should be. And on top of that, the
last thing I'll say, it's built for speed, built for efficiency,
built for security. So that's why it's one of the
most popular in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
The DOW setup is very fascinating and very unique because
Tron being you know, one of the blockchains getting a
lot of transactions, stable coin transaction so far, having a
DOW setup is very different from what everybody else is doing,
which is really great, and it gives the community more
skin in the game, more ability to have a voice
and things like that.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's a paradigm for what
the future ought to look like when you talk about
real decentralized models, decentralized finance. This is what we really
mean when we refer to those types of terms. So
I think tron Is it's always been visionary, It's always
been ahead of the curve when it comes to basically
setting the tone of what where the industry is going towards.

(02:40):
So this is no exception.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Now, recently I noticed, well I shouldn't say recently, but
as far as my introduction into the amount of volume
of like tether stable coins on tront, it's been pretty incredible.
So it seems like tron Is or tel uses a
tront a lot from an issuing standpoint, can tell us
a bit about that. And are you working closely with
tether or you know, as far as how that's done

(03:04):
and all that.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I think the best part about it
is it's the market that speaks. It's the users that
choose to use tron to do their USDT transactions and
why because of the reasons we just mentioned right the
now governance is a big part of it. That transparency,
that user control, the speed, the low cost the security.

(03:26):
All those things are what people want and they find
it on the Tron blockchain, So that's it's a very
natural and organic. We have a great relationship with the
Tether team, but nobody is forcing anybody to do their
trans you do use USDT on Tron, nobody's forcing them
to do that. It's a choice, sure, and I love

(03:46):
that It's a choice people can choose, and so the
market decides what is the best way to do things,
what is the best product?

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So as far as use cases, is Tron you know
as a blockchain being used for to organization, meeting, coins, NFTs,
things like that.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Can people do all those things on.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Tron trying can be used for a wide range of applications.
In this case, I think you're going to see as
we see tokenization start to take off and become more
and more mainstream, you're going to see a lot more
of those types of transactions on Tron because whether you're
doing stable coin or you're doing tokenization, it's the underlying
rail that is the same, safe, secure, and low cost,

(04:28):
and I think you're going to see a lot of
especially if we talk about I love tokenization because it's
all about liquidity. It's all about taking real world assets
and then putting them on rails, right, and so now
we can get really creative. I mean, people are always
talking about short term investments, short term instruments, tea bills,
tokenizing tea bills, et cetera. But where is traditionally liquidity

(04:53):
really hard to find? Real estate for example. Yeah, I
saw a little bit of the fine art NFTs. Anywhere
where you have traditionally very difficult to find liquidity access,
it's perfect for tokenization. And so I think that's where
we're going to see a lot of innovation that's exciting.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
And I've noticed a lot of building on TRON, not
just in the United States but outside the United States.
So trying seems to be very popular in certain markets.
You know, tell us a bit about the international strategy
and getting and meeting with different folks in different countries
to build on TRONT.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
One of the things I love about Tron is that
they are very intentional when they think about the needs
of their users, right, but at the same time, they
want to make sure that the users are the ones
that are validating that thought process or those deliberate actions.
So they may have these ideas that are very specific

(05:52):
to the developing countries in Africa or Southeast Asia or
Latin America. The same time, there has to be some
thought into the sort of the hyperlocalization that comes along
with those each of those geographies. So TRON on one
hand is being very deliberate about their expansion strategy, but
at the same time, everything comes down to the user base.

(06:13):
What are they really looking for And there's a lot
of commonality so on the you know, in developing nations.
Stable coin is a fantastic way for users to have
access to financial markets that they wouldn't normally have. TRON
is always talking about banking the unbanked. Sure, yeah, and
so I always like to say that financial literacy financial inclusion.

(06:36):
I always like to say financial inclusion without financial literacy
is a bridge to nowhere. It's access without empowerment and
so on TRON there's the opportunity for that access. But
through a lot of the initiatives that TRON has, there
are so many educational resources out there, and that's another
one of the things that I do at TRON as

(06:56):
the senior policy director is I'm also working on some
of that education con and making sure that everybody has
access to understand how to really best leverage these technologies.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh absolutely, And education is such a core piece because
we're so early, you know, it's kind of analogous to
the early days of the Internet, where everybody's like, what
is the internet?

Speaker 2 (07:14):
How do I use the email? I have to dial up?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
It feels like we're very much here because there's billions
of people who don't understand.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
This one hundred percent. And so the way I look
at it, on one hand, you can think that's a
daunting task. There are a billion people or way more
than that, actually, way more they need to learn this.
But on the other hand, it's like the sky's the
limit at this point, right, and so we have the
opportunity to get in at the ground level and offer
people an alternative. And not just in developing world, this

(07:43):
stuff is really relevant here in the US.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
So I do a lot of work with without naming names,
I do a lot of work with legislators on both
sides of the aisle in congressional districts, working with community
leaders to make sure that they have the understanding and
the education of all these technologies. They can then pass
that message on to their community. Members of their community
because it's one thing if I were to go in

(08:07):
and say, you know, stable coins can help you do this.
DeFi can help you do this if you don't have
documentation and you don't have access to a bank, here's
an alternative. But that message is so much stronger if
you get a local community leader. He really understands the
pain points and the challenges that they have to go
through on a day to day basis, and they can

(08:29):
take that material and sort of put it through that
kind of lens. That message hits home really hard. And
then now you start to see that kind of adoption
increase dramatically. In those places where we've done that work,
we've seen huge jumps in adoption.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Oh yeah, talk to us about what you're seeing here
in the United States, because I mean, this year has
been incredible for crypto from a regulation and policy standpoint.
We get the Genius Act that passed, you have a
favorable environment, and you got the Market Structure Bill in
the Senate.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
What are you seeing in DC and what are you
hearing now?

Speaker 3 (09:01):
You're talking my language, all right, So let's talk Genius
Actor real Q huge incredible momentum that we had getting
that pass that was a watershed moment for the industry.
It was an easier to tackle, easier topic to tackle
because stable coins fundamentally are easier to understand for the legislators,
which was a perfect way for them to kind of
get their feet wet. We did a lot of work

(09:23):
on Capitol Hill, meeting with legislators and their staffers, getting
everybody up to speed on the potential and the possibilities.
Some took to it like a duck to water. Some
needed a little bit more I wouldn't say coaxing, but
they need a little bit more help. So we spent
a little bit more time in their offers, and then
some of them were just meh, Okay, this is not
top of mind for me because I've got so many

(09:44):
other priorities in my whether it's state or district. Sure,
but those meetings were were all there, everybody was listening.
Compare that to I'd say, four years ago, even if
you got in the door, I mean by the ears
were close, ears were shut, eyes were shut, nobody was
paying attention. So genius was fantastic. Now clarity, my take

(10:09):
on it is a little different to I think most
people in the industry. I'm actually quite optimistic that we're
going to get Clarity passed this year. Probably not. We're
probably looking at Q one Q two of next year. Sure,
but I know for a fact that there are legislators
on both sides of the Aisle right now as we speak,
that are working on this on the Clarity Act, drafting

(10:32):
new language to make sure that both sides their concerns
are being heard. They're doing it. BIPARTI is in reaching
across the aisle in good faith, and that gives me
a lot of encouragement. The government shut down, yeah, it
didn't help, kind of slowed things down, right, but whereas
I think a lot of people are are very pessimistic
and they think Clarity is dead, it is not dead

(10:54):
at all.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
That is for next year. Absolutely, that's great to hear.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
That is some progress happening despite even government shut down.
And boy, if we can have that the latest Q
one twenty twenty s or like you said, Q two,
that would be amazing. And you know, once that's passed,
are you expecting like a boom and innovation and more
entrepreneurs and innovators and things like that.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
One hundred percent. I mean, people are just lined up
waiting for this stuff for this legislation of pass, then
the innovation is just going to exponentially skyrocket. It's going
to be a hockey stick curve.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh and I.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Cannot wait for it because even the things that I
hear just at conferences like this, I mean there's there
are some wildly innovative ideas. I used to think streaming
payments was like hot shit, but like, and I don't
know if I can say that on here, but I
used streaming payments was hot shit. No, man, not at
all that that's like that was you know yesterday. If

(11:44):
you're still talking streaming payments, I mean you're behind right.
These people are taking programmability to the next level, and
I think it's incredibly cool what's coming down the pipeline. So, yes,
I'm in policy. I should mention that I'm also the
managing director of Digital Sovereignty Alliance DSA. For sure, it's
a nonprofit based in DC that does the education and

(12:04):
advocacy work for crypto for AI a lot of this
work that we're doing. Capitol Hill and tront is also
a huge supporter of that initiative as well. But I
also come from an investment background, and so I've looked
at I've spent decades looking at investment opportunities in crypto,
in emerging tech, sure, and now the time has never

(12:28):
been better than now for really interesting innovative ideas at
reasonable valuations. And so it's an exciting time all around
for everybody.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And I mean certainly appreciate all the great work you're doing, DC,
because it's so crucial to get these policy makers and
the politicians up to speed and what's happening in the
potential of this technology and much more. It feels like,
you know, the nineties where Bill Clinton and Al Gore
and you know they did the right thing and finding
the balance not over regulating the Internet, well, letting it flour. Yes,

(13:00):
you have to put some guardrails in place, but we
know the rest is history and what came out of that.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Call me crazy, but I think this, I think crypto
presents an opportunity to actually repair some of that hostility
that you're seeing between the two parties right now. I
can't speak for all topics. I mean there's some real
rancor out there, right but everyone can get behind the
idea of safer, faster, better payment rails. Yeah, and an

(13:29):
opportunity to lift people who are in marginalized communities, who
are struggling financially to learn a new way of balancing
their budgets, of making the financial system work for them.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right, everyone can get behind that, absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
So I feel like once and they're listening, So both
sides of the aisle now, I think this is an
area where they can come together.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
And even just a simple fact of you know you,
in addition to what you're saying, you can create a
lot of jobs and boot you know, help boost the economy.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
It's not just gonna be crypto. It's gonna be AI
and other things.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
But if we're at the dawn of the next tech boom, right,
like we've seen Web two and then Web one before that,
we got to embrace this and open it up so
people can work and make money.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
And you know, one hundred percent and to that point,
trad fight, get your act together, bro, you know what
I mean, fucking get your shit together, and like let's
go stop playing defense and stop being a stick in
the mud and get on board with like where the
rest of the world is going. And and I've seen
a lot of it there. I don't want to I
don't want to, like shame the entire industry. I am

(14:34):
starting to see it's not so much exploration as it
was a year ago. It's a trad file was kind
of exploring the idea of crypto. Now they're integrating. You're
seeing stable coin payments being integrated into mainstream banks. You
are seeing DeFi access being integrated on a smaller extent.

(14:54):
But you're seeing tokenization. Tokenized deposits is a hot topic now.
So I like where that's going. We need more of that.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
So I don't know if you can how much desaers
you can share here. But is TRON approaching these institutions
who are looking to tokenize and do all these things
to try to, you know, be the rail so to speak,
for them to build on.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
So I, without going to too much detail, TRON is
being very supportive of first policy. Let's get the policy
right without kind of getting ahead of ourselves. Sure, because
if we don't get that right, any energy we spend
going directly to Fi's and saying, hey, you know, we're
the blockchain you should use.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Sure, it's a moot point. Sure.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
And the other thing. As I said at the beginning
of this, TRON is fantastic when it comes to letting
the user, letting the customer decide what makes the most
sense for them. There's no we are putting out what
we think is the best product. If I put my
Tron hat on, we're putting out what we think is
the best product, and it's up to the market to
decide whether we made the right choice or not. I
think we're going to take that same approach in the

(15:54):
US in the development as we have in other places.
It's worked out everywhere else. Sure, no reason why it
wouldn't work out here.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
It's exciting times, Adrian, and I'm looking forward to the
passing of the Market Structure Bill and even future updates
are on tron.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Thank you so much for joining Sure my pleasure anytime.

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TRON DAO's Fight for US Crypto Regulation | Adrian Wall

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