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The crypto industry's big bet on Trump appearing to pay off, at least so far. Bitcoin prices surging today as investors reacted to the win by Donald Trump after industry groups spent an estimated $130 million on the 200 on the 2024 election. It's been a long day, folks. Joining us now is Far Yard, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer. Sorry about that, Far Yard. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Um, so now that the man who has is broadly seen as the better ally for your industry has been elected to the highest office in the land, what does the industry want to see him prioritize? What is sort of job one for the crypto industry as Trump enters re-enters the Oval Office?

Well, as you know, most of our focus has been on trying to get a more pro-crypto Congress, and that's what a lot of us have been focused on both through the work of individual companies, the work of the community, grassroots organizations, the Super Pack, and so on. But we're completely thrilled that we've got a new president who campaigned on crypto and on keeping the US a leader in the technology. And what we want is really what the rest of the G20 is already well underway in providing, which is the clear rules around crypto intermediation and around stable coin insurance. The US has fallen behind, and hopefully we'll catch up real soon.

How should we think about crypto? You know, it was a political issue in this campaign. Both candidates addressed it. How should we think about crypto going forward as a true kind of political force in this country?

Yeah, I mean, it's funny. You know, I've been in the fight for four years now, and we realized about a year, year and a half ago that there was just a small group of politicians who were demagoguing the issue and were trying to politicize it. And the only way we were going to take the politics out of crypto was to create our own political operation. And so that's why we at Coinbase and a number of others got together, started a almost two million person grassroots organization, and then the largest single issue super pack, I think ever created. And that's actually gone a long way to take the politics out of crypto. And now we have good discussions on the merits. And when you have those discussion on the merits, the outcomes are pretty self-evident. The US needs to be a leader in the space, we need clear rules, consumers need to be protected, investors need to have certainty, and we need the applications for the next generation of the financial system to be developed in the United States. And hopefully, you know, with this election, we're going to be well underway to do that, either in the lame duck or perhaps, you know, next year, but hopefully soon.

It's interesting when you talk about the United States being the leader here, because I know that folks in your industry would say that the US is pretty far behind, right? That we have seen other nations, China included, for example, sort of fostering their native industry. Um, so how far behind are we and how quickly do you think the US can catch up from a regulatory angle?

It's a really good question. I mean, think about it. People have done surveys on this. There was something around 40 plus percent of open source code software developer activity. So this is the base software work that goes into into crypto. About 40 plus percent of it was done in the US just a few years ago. And every year, because of the attacks from regulators and politicians, the share of US contributions to the software development has gone down to the mid to low 20s now. Uh, we're right on the precipice of doing, repeating a historical mistake, like pushing semiconductors outside the United States, or seating leadership on 5G technology and finding ourselves with policymakers wondering what happened and how we got here. It's you had a handful of regulators and a couple politicians who were putting us into yet another version of that semiconductor or cellular 5G moment. I think we're at a moment if Congress acts quickly with the support of the administration to get clear rules out, that we can kind of reverse that trend. But it's a it's a much closer call than people really understand, and the national security implications of it are grave if if we don't stop the slide.