1. Great success doesn’t require gathering only the best people,it requires people moving in the same direction.
A team full of highly talented individuals, each pulling in a different direction, will quickly become divided.
More than a year ago, the House passed the Clarity Act.
There’s been progress since — thousands of hours of bipartisan negotiations took place at the staff and Member levels. The Senate Committees on Banking and Agriculture advanced their respective titles. And Senate Republicans produced a floor-ready product that, as I type this, is waiting for a vote.
It’s disappointing — but not surprising — that Senate Democrats are choosing politics on the cusp of a major victory for American leadership. Find another instance in history where Congress, when given the choice, opted to push an industry out of the United States rather than smartly regulate it. American Exceptionalism was once a bipartisan goal; if Clarity fails, I have serious doubts.
These same Democrats — many of whom have taken millions of dollars from the crypto industry — proclaim that Clarity lacks safeguards for consumers and falls short in countering illicit finance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Titles II and III materially uplift regulatory and compliance obligations for digital asset intermediaries, placing them on similar footing with traditional financial institutions. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act — which Washington lobbyists have spun up as a boogeyman for certain groups of prosecutors and law enforcement — does nothing other than codify longstanding Treasury Department policy that’s remained consistent across Administrations: non-custodial builders and developers are not, and have never been, subject to registration obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. And at this point, major law enforcement trades that once opposed the bill, including the Fraternal Order of Police, have now endorsed it.
The Senate needs to vote NOW on this landmark legislation. The truth is that Senate Democrats are afraid to advance the Clarity Act as they fear Senator Warren and the “Anti-Crypto Army” she once promised to build. In the days ahead, Leader Thune will put this theory to the test. Will Senate Democrats be on the side of American Exceptionalism, or will they opt to cede American leadership of a global industry for fear of the bespectacled squirrel’s Left flank?
America will lead or America won’t. It’s not more complicated than that. I believe Satoshi once said it best:
“If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.”
Sergio Agüero on Enzo Fernández’s red card in the FIFA World Cup Final.
🗣️ “The moment Enzo was sent off, the manager should have taken him straight off the pitch if he could. You’ve completely let your teammates down. This isn’t a league game it’s a World Cup final. You cannot lose control when an entire nation is depending on you.”
“I don’t care how frustrated you are. Every Argentine player knows what this shirt represents. You fight until the end, but you fight with your head. One reckless decision has thrown Argentina’s entire game plan into chaos and handed Spain a huge advantage.”
“The players who stayed on the pitch now have to run twice as hard because of one unnecessary mistake. That’s unfair. They’ve sacrificed everything to reach this final, and now they’re paying the price for something that should never have happened.”
“There are mistakes you can forgive, and there are mistakes that change history. A red card in a World Cup final is unforgivable. If Argentina lose this trophy, everyone will remember the moment Enzo lost his discipline. You cannot betray your teammates like that on football’s biggest stage.”