Socialism and Crypto - What We can Expect to See in Crypto Politics Over the Next Few Years

The political space in the United States is changing very rapidly - and the new faces in town - the Socialists - are likely to change the way the world looks at technologies like crypto and the blockchain. A bi-partisan perspective on how things might play out over the next few years.

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Transcript

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Hello everyone. This is Ryan from Tea Cafe. This is episode number six Socialism and Crypto. What we can expect to see in crypto politics over the next few years. I'm going to attempt to unravel a very, very messy topic. That's, you know, anytime you talk about politics, it's going to get very messy. Just for the record, I'm more of a moderate. I have supported uh candidates on both sides of the spectrum. I'm one of those people that like judges people based on individual candidates rather than the party, right? And uh most recently I did support uh mayor Katie Wilson in Seattle, but I was involved. And um I used to be very politically active back in the day, and I saw a lot of overlap between the crypto industry and politics that I think uh might be interesting for some people to kind of know, you know. So uh if you've been paying attention to what's been going on in politics recently, you might have noticed that there has been a swing towards the left uh with like candidates openly admitting that they're socialists. Well, I guess I shouldn't say admitting, because you know they they're they're quite proud of it, right? But it used to be such a huge taboo to even talk about it, you know. If you if you if you said you're a socialist, you'd get laughed out of the room and you would just lose every race, right? And that's been kind of uh the history of American politics up until now. But with like uh Zaran Mamdani and then now Katie Wilson kind of uh taking the center stage, um the script has kind of flipped. It actually kind of started with Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston, who identifies as a progressive and very, very left-leaning candidate, but she actually won in a landslide uh this past cycle because he was just so popular, and so she kind of paved the way for like these newer um left-leaning candidates to uh you know basically win, which was previously impossible. And I wanted to kind of talk about that because if this was like a few years ago and you asked me, hey, there's this socialist running for blah, blah, blah, I'm like, nah, you can get out of here. You know, you know, no, no freaking way, right? But uh I have noticed a big shift in the way um progressives talk about themselves, and they seem to be much more pragmatic, results focused. In the past, they would like post memes about chopping off rich people's heads and like you're gonna go again, the guillotine, eat the rich. That's what their their uh mind shirt was, and then they um oh that's how they ran their campaigns, and they would wonder why no one would vote for them. And it's kind of frustrating because I actually part of me agrees in a lot of the things that they uh believe in, which includes like good governance, right? Who wouldn't want that? Um there are legitimate use cases for public sector institutions and services, a lot of things that rely on. Um live your everyday life is actually something most people can get behind. It's just the way that they did it was just uh and so me going kind of back and forth between like both parties. I was really trying to get them some of their better ideas to really like make its way into the public sector, but it's very hard when you can't win races, right? But what's changed is that they're winning now, and it's gonna be very interesting because it's not only a political shift, it's also a generational shift, and there's a lot of um changes in not only in politics, but in the economy and everything, right? Like everything is changing really fast right now, and it's uh kind of adding a lot of uncertainty. So um at the risk of like opening a can of worms that is just too big to talk about on this platform. I'm gonna stay focused on crypto as kind of uh how is that gonna affect the industry? Because there's gonna be big changes coming down as this uh seesaw pattern, right? Uh the American politics tends to swing right, tends to swing left. Uh it wasn't that long ago when the Democrats hold held all three branches of power and it just got flipped almost overnight, right? The the country is in turmoil and they can't seem to figure out which way they want to go. Part of it is the problem of like the two-party system, right? And then you're often left with like candidates that um nobody really likes, right? That's a different issue altogether, but we're gonna see a uh swing happening leftward in other wake because a lot of people are just kind of tired of Trump and they're seeing like the policies he's enacting is not really doing much, if at all. And uh yeah, and then he's losing his uh popularity very, very quickly, and the result of that is that you have people who identify as socialists outright winning big races in major cities. So um people who don't live in these areas might think that it's not gonna affect them, but they um what happens in a lot of these big cities will affect the way the economy is going, and then if there's new faces in the administration, it's gonna really change like how the government approaches things, and that thing includes crypto as well. Okay, so kind of uh before people talking about it, um we have to kind of like really look at how we got to where we are at this point because it's a lot of the um economic troubles we're seeing now, which includes like AI and you know, people getting laid off. Um I guess I don't have to say it out out loud, right? Like everyone sees it, like we're not doing so well right now economically. But a lot of it uh was in fact predictable, and the biggest, I would argue, the biggest reason why we are here has to do with NIMBYism. So I used to be very, very active in a movement called Yimbi, which stands for yes in my backyard. NIMBY stands for not in my backyard. So it has to do with housing and housing supply. And the short version of it is basically you've been noticing that rents has gone up in the last couple of decades pretty much nonstop, and it's been contributing to the affordability, affordability issue that everyone's talking about right now, right? Both the left and on the right, like they have different solutions for it, but they are talking about affordability because like you see all the people on the streets who can't afford to maintain their home, their apartment, whatever. Rents are rising, and people just can't afford to like buy basic things anymore. And it's a very sad state of affairs, but seems things seem to be getting worse and better, right? And why, right? Why is that happening? And the reason why it's happening has to do with this subject of NIMBYism that both parties pretty much refuse to talk about. So the gist of it is that a lot of people go to big cities for work, right? A lot of the companies that are have high-paying jobs or just like industry in general tend to be centered around city centers, right? That's just like a fact. And what these a lot of these cities do is they try to recruit talent workers, just they try to get people to come. Hey, Seattle's a great place. Hey, LA is the best city in the world. Please come and you know, uh find some work and enjoy yourself, right? There's lots of cool things to do, and that's just kind of the game every city plays. But in the last couple of decades, there's been a pattern of big influxes of workers going to these cities. Uh, I was actually living in the Silicon Air Valley area for a few years, so I saw this in person. But um, all these people wanting to work in tech flooded into the city, and there was a problem, uh, not enough housing. So you would think that as a city, if there's all these people coming in, you would build more housing so that there's more units and people don't have to struggle to find a place just to live, right? But because of the way our uh zoning laws and our uh really local um building laws work, they are basically the people the homeowners in that area have been stonewalling uh housing construction for years and years and years, and that ended up spiking the uh prices of rent and prices of housing. Um when did when you dig a little bit deeper into it, it it's it's basically this. So someone living in a neighborhood from the 70s or uh 60s, back when uh homeownership was still affordable, they got in, they bought their uh home, which you could do on an average salary right back then, and they kind of sit sat on it, right? And uh up until that point, nothing was wrong, right? And then it was like a great time for a lot of people because you could become a homeowner on a modest salary, and who could argue against that, right? That the that was the American dream. But over time, um they did not as the population increased, as more people came into the cities, the uh price prices of uh uh sorry, the home valuations have gotten higher and higher, right? Because due to increased demand, your home prices go up. And as a homeowner, you feel pretty good about that, right? Like, wow, wow, my uh home I bought for 15,000 is now worth over a million, right? That's not unusual to see that uh if you look at the prices today. So um the problem is that one um they didn't want to see their home values tank, so using local laws, they've been uh blocking housing construction in their neighborhood just because they can. So if you're a homeowner living in a certain uh neighborhood, for example, there's a good chance you have the power to block like a construction of an apartment next to your home. And so you can deny like 50 people from having a uh a place to live, basically, right? And uh it gets very, very dirty and gets ugly because these things are tied into like classes some, right? Like, oh, I don't want those people living in my neighborhood. It could be tied into racism, even if it's not intentionally so. It's uh excluding people, especially new people from coming in at the cost at you're you're getting your home values, but at what cost, right? And um, yeah, so it's a very ugly part of American history that nobody really, really wants to talk about. It still goes on today, and the laws are still the same. And even though it's happening independently all over the place, like it is a very common trend you see in American neighborhoods, like all across the country. Now, on top of that, uh so if you're making a modest income or your um like an average pay, your take-home pay is like an average salary, right? And you see your um property values go up. On one hand, you're really happy, but on the other hand, at the end of the tax year, you see a big property tax because your home is worth more. So therefore, you should pay more taxes. Now, what happened is that uh they wanted it both ways. A lot of them actually lost their homes when the price appreciated because they just couldn't keep up with with the taxes, and uh so that did keep became a problem for for a lot of people, and they started introducing legislations to protect people. So, Prop 13 in California is a good example. There's a lot written about that everywhere. And if you're interested in top this topic, I would suggest uh taking a look at that. But um, yeah, so basically it was kind of Prop 13 was the idea of protecting senior citizens who are on fixed income, and uh they saw their home values rise and they couldn't keep up with the payments, and uh they said that was unfair. Yes and no, because on one hand, you still own the home. It sucks to have to sell, but you still have a lot of money, right? It's not like you're going broke, but they wanted it both ways. They wanted low taxes and high valuation, so they gave themselves nice little tax cuts that uh so they didn't have to pay. So for seniors on fixed income, maybe you can say, okay, all right, well, we're in you're not paying your share, but maybe we'll make an exception for you just because you're seniors and blah, blah, blah. It can be very like that's where it gets very messy, right? Because you don't want to be the guy that kicked old people out of their homes, right? But I mean considering fairness, right? Um, that gets a little bit more complicated. Now, up until that point, Prop 13 was probably like okay for most people, but the problem was that uh other interests have started to expand that policy. So corporations sort of abused a loophole where they could apply it to commercial properties, even though it has nothing to do with like if you can't pay the taxes, you should not own a commercial property. But um, hey, if you're in it, what whatever. So there's a lot of big corporations have nothing to do with senior citizens who are basically paying almost zero property taxes on commercial properties. So that that is a tax dodge, it's a loophole. Uh, they've been trying to. I actually was involved with um trying to close that loophole, but they they wouldn't even do it. Liberal California said no to taxes, kind of bizarre, right? Um, and the other part is that uh now I think you can like pass it on to your heirs, like uh and yeah, people, it's free money, right? It's like it's basically free money if you're a homeowner. It's just like you're just getting this free money from the government uh just by not paying. And all of that tax burden goes to non-homeowners, the poor, i.e. the poor, or newer homeowners who don't have that status. So it became this big generational thing as well, because um it only really applies to people who saw their tax burden increase over time when they bought in early. It really is kind of a uh a nice tax cut for older homeowners, uh excluding the the abuses and here and there, right? So it's really like this is it took a lot a while to explain the whole thing because it is pretty complicated. But there's a lot of people out there that are home rich but cash poor. Right, they're barely making their mortgage payments, they're barely making their taxes, and so they have a really, really nice house. But if you look at if you get a chance to see their balance sheets, they might not be doing that well. Um, but but it's just like if you've been living in a home for like 30 plus years, you're gonna be very resistant to letting it go, especially in a market right now where it's very difficult to get back in, right? And the fact that we haven't built enough housing to meet population levels, you would think that was like a very basic thing, makes it worse because once you're out there in the markets, how are you gonna how you're gonna get back in, right? It's very scary. Some of it is like irrational, but um, you can maybe understand where the fear is coming from, right? So all that mixed in, and here we are. People aren't paying their taxes, our infrastructure is falling apart, there's less money for education, health, uh basic services, the roads are probably falling apart. And because property taxes is by far the biggest revenue source for uh public sector things, um, yeah, not having that has really driven our country into the ground. And and we did it to ourselves. That's what people don't want to admit to it. Both parties did not talk about it. Um, when you bring it up in among the homeowners, uh most of the time they're not even aware of what's going on, and they really don't want to talk about it. So, yeah, so that's why it's uh the issue has been sitting in limbo for years and years and decades, and all the way back, like it goes all the way, all the way back. This is something that's been building up for a whole generation. Now, 2008 was an opportunity to kind of flush all that out, at least financially. But you know what happened then? They bailed him out, right? They used the the levers of politics and kind of kept the engine running, even though it's running out of fuel. So that's where the progressives come in. Because uh when I was doing my housing advocacy back in the day, it was a mix of a lot of different people. It was on both sides of the spectrum. I talked to libertarians, I talked to conservatives, right? The over government overreach libertarians for the same reason. Um the on the left, it was like, hey, we're redlining, right? Like excluding uh loans based on race and but that sort of ugly history that has happened before. Um and then of course homelessness, and man, I don't have any money because everything's going to my rent, right? And it was a thing that was uh pretty popular among her among younger people because they're the ones that were feeling it the most, right? The the the damage of these sorts of policies. So we had a uh kind of coalition going based on the idea of housing affordability, and this was like back in 2018 or so, and it was pretty brutal, I gotta say, because like it getting anyone to even talk about it, like I said, it was hard. And I would like to think that we were pretty successful in at least getting people to acknowledge the problem, but getting like winning races and getting people to actually do something was a whole issue altogether because all the the special interests, in this case, homeowners and corporations, and you know, they had this unholy alliance of hey, I don't want to pay taxes, and this includes people on the left too, you know. They're like, Oh, yeah, tax the rich, just not me, right? Not in my backyard, right? Uh, yeah, tax someone else, but not me. And they go around like posting like Black Lives Matter posters like as if it was just so kind of eye-opening in a kind of pretty ugly way, but but it is what it is. Now, okay, so up until a couple years ago, a lot of the socialists and the left-leaning uh politicians, I don't want to say exclusively, but a lot of them actually came from well-to-do families that really like they understood what to do, but they were too comfortable in their positions that they were not willing to sacrifice that. So they'll come in in and be like, yeah, build more housing, just not capitalist housing. It's uh yeah, they they see those big apartment buildings being construction, constructed, and they sort of have a reactionary response to the capital part of it, right? These big developers are like uh uh trying to take over the neighborhood with their big buildings and lots and lots of units for people to live in, but for them it wasn't good enough. So they wanted um basically they wanted public housing project. They wanted the government to do that for them. And that part I actually agree with. I think there could be more public housing projects out there and and just contribute. I would take any housing at this point, right? Public, private, it doesn't matter. But they didn't even do that either. They they wouldn't even show up to a lot of the meetings or the events or the key policy moments. So that's kind of why a lot of people just sort of wrote them off and they weren't being taken seriously, and they would lose every single race every time. And it was just it just turned into this thing that was kind of like okay, maybe you you did it for a year or two when you're in college, but after that it get real, right? So okay, but that being said, they're winning now, and that is a thing that most people have not noticed yet. Because I see like this prop propaganda, they're trying to attack the socialists, like, oh man, like talking about Cuba and USSR, and it's like, man, where did you get this script from, man? It's just like sounds like something from like like 75 years ago during the Cold War, right? Like, is this like 2025? So the the uh those attacks aren't working anymore because they're starting to win, and it's not just the mayor race, it's it's the uh they're winning city council seats too, where this NIMBY issue is that's where the problem is. It's on a local level, it's not on the um federal level. We'll see if a new president, if we get a socialist new president, or I don't know, probably a Democrat. We'll see after Trump. But um, but the problem really is at the local level. And if you look on social media, if you look on the the TV and such, you're not gonna really see it because this is kind of an invisible war that is going on right now. It's invisible, but it's also arguably one of the most important. So um the big I don't know what caused this shift. It might be a just a time thing. Maybe the people running the races like it, they got tired of losing every time. So maybe they they started thinking of different ways. I've noticed that the guillotine thing is not as prominent. Even the like Mam Dani and uh Wilson and Woo, they they very often say they're willing to talk to people across the aisle, which is pretty refreshing to see. Um, and that's why I got involved to begin with, because if they were still being partisan about it, I would have been like, eh. No thanks. But but they have gotten better, and I have to give them credit for that. Uh Wilson is actually uh I asked um one of their staff members, like straight up, like, it does Wilson believe in housing supply, right? Uh did they do private developers have a place in in addressing the housing issue? And they would say, like, yes. And I'm like, okay, I'm in it. It wasn't the case a couple years ago. Like they would have they would have, I don't know what they would say, but it wouldn't have been good. But but uh yeah, so I've noticed that the campaign and they're much more they're winning now, right? They're much more efficient, they're more results driven, and uh both momdani and wilson they're very, very smart people, and maybe it can work, maybe it can work. Like what I got to lose at this point, seriously, right? So I hope that that turns up the way I want to, because it really needs to happen, it needs to happen soon, or it's it's gonna get worse and worse over time. And he most people can see that at this point, right? So the reason why it can work is because a lot of these uh their support comes from younger people and who have basically been excluded from the American dream. We didn't build enough housing. Even if you can't afford a single-family home, a condo is a very viable alternative. Nothing wrong with like owning a condo. It's different, but it's still, you still get a stake, right? And uh, but we have this huge population of young, disaffected because they have no stake in the future of the country. Most of them do not own homes, it's out of the reach. Um most of them don't work for these big corporations who are milking this stuff for all it's worth. So they're not gonna have any sympathy for the homeowners who have been basically dodging taxes for the last couple decades. And it really is an opportunity to correct the markets. Tax increases on the ultra wealthy are more likely. Even some conservatives are saying that out loud now because I think they're afraid. Now that uh Trump is cutting food benefits, you know what they say, right? When the population goes hungry, oh, they're gonna come after, right? And if you're wise enough to like understand that even though, even on a very basic level, uh yeah, you're probably gonna wanna change your tone a bit, right? Being tone-deaf in this environment is almost is really dumb. Regardless of what you think about the economic policy, like if people are hungry, then they're not thinking rationally, right? They're gonna uh so yeah, um it's really gotten to that point. It really is not um like we're already seeing the violence in some of the political assassinations we've been seeing. Even like you could argue school shootings are a result of uh NIMYism because it puts even people living in quote nice neighborhoods, many of them are in financial distress. You just don't see it. And it shows up in that kind of form, right? If someone's home is home is struggling and then they pass it on to the kids, and the kids are just right, and so that's that's part of the reason why these things are happening now. It really is the everything problem. Oh, excuse me. Okay, so this is a huge ass problem. It's probably the biggest problem in the United States right now. Uh nobody is talking about, and that's why there's this feeling of things getting worse, but you don't know why. But this is why. Because no one's talking about it. And so I do think so. What are the socialists gonna do about it? Right now, it's unclear because a lot of them are new, they're young, they're due to the political space. A lot of the criticisms against um these newer candidates is that they lost lack experience, right? But how are you supposed to get experience if you won't like let you in, right? Like that that's the catch 22. But they're finally making their mark now, and they're kind of going into the political system, really just kind of trying to figure things out. It's gonna be very difficult for really both sides. Um but but uh the reason why I decide to support these near candidates is because, well, maybe they can learn, right? They're gonna have to learn a lot on the job anyway. But if they can uh uh it's a devil we don't know versus the one we know. The one devil we know is not gonna do anything. We already know that they've proven themselves that they're not gonna do anything. So maybe there's a chance here to make some changes that are actually positive. But they the the the problem is so huge now, it it's just like it tied into housing, it's also the AI bubble, tariffs, uh the devaluation of the US dollar, all going on at the same time. And there's only so much you can do, even if you have all uh parties or all uh branches of the government. Like these this has been a bipartisan effort to kind of America to screw itself. And turning that around is not going to be very easy, it's not gonna happen within one or a few cycles, and it's gonna be very, very messy. And we're that's we're already seeing that with the bouncing back and forth, right, with the um political parties. People are just like, come on, someone do something, you know. But uh maybe this time there'll be something. So what can they do? Now that's the I'm gonna finally start going into crypto stuff because uh that there's so many things to talk about, but this is the thing that I know the most. So so okay, so well, the last time this sort of thing happened was the Great Depression. The government is broke, as you know, we're running up huge deficits, inflation is going out of control, and the markets are are tanking. And uh that posed an existential threat to the US government back back in the day in the 1930s, and during that time uh they had a similar pattern where people were swinging left because they were just like not sure of economic uncertainty, right? What FDR did back in those days, he did this pretty insane strategy of the gold buyback thing. So what he basically did, he he went across and he confiscated all the gold in the country that was the buyback. Uh compliance was not optional, it was mandatory. So he basically uh centralized all the gold all over the country, 99% of it, and then manually repriced it from 20 bucks to 35 bucks or something like that. The economics gets a little complicated, but the gist of it is that that allowed the US government to erase a lot of the um debt that they were holding because they priced the gold in their favor, right? And there's nothing anyone could have done about it because you were the monopoly, right? It's very controversial. It's really like an example of how the government can totally just change the economy on a dime if they're willing to go that far with it, right? So is a similar thing coming for America? Are they gonna try to do something insane like that to try to save their uh fledgling currency? Um, I'm not so sure because one the gold ownership now among Americans is very, very low. And if they even if they tried to do something similar, it would be very difficult. I don't even know how you would logistically pull that off. And then the percentage of um Americans owning gold is like less than one percent. Uh I don't know. It I can check, but last time I checked, it was really, really low. So is it gonna really have an effect? The other thing that crypto people are talking about is using Bitcoin as a national reserve. Now, I think most people don't even really understand what that means. A lot of uh Bitcoin, uh the government has already seized some Bitcoin from you know criminal raids and uh things that they've done in the past. Even in Hawaii, they actually shut down the crypto thing and it just basically took the money. You know, I was there when it happened. I'm not very happy with how that went down. But um well, they have some, but you but but they can't really reprice. Bitcoin like they did with um gold because it's a global currency. And yeah, we live in a different time. Like if you lived in America during the Great Depression, America was the world, as far as you know, right? And there's no way the average person could like go, oh well, they're selling gold for this much right now, but oh, maybe I'll just go to China, right? Like, you had you couldn't do that back in the day. Now you can. Now it's really easy to find if if Bitcoin's too expensive in America, you can just go somewhere else. It's like not that hard. And if it the price goes up too much, uh, people will do that. And there's nothing anyone can stop me. So this is why I'm a little bit skeptical of um the idea that the socialists might be able to quote solve the economy. And as much as uh I want them to succeed, really, I have no you know, I don't have a um uh like stake in either side winning politically. I really don't care. But I want them to do good if they can, but I'm looking, it's just the problem is just way too big. It's not gonna happen. Yeah, and so no matter how radical of an idea there is, I'm not sure if it's possible. Most likely is is what's gonna happen is that it's just gonna things will fall, the chips will fall, you know, the what's gonna happen is gonna happen, and then we're just gonna see what the aftermat is. And the aftermath is most likely gonna be the Chinese Yuan being the next world currency just because they lot of a lot of people are switching over already, and because they're not as uh aggressive with like bombing other countries like we are, uh they're seen as more stable now, at least relative to what's happening here, right? And that's that's that's pr pretty much what the writing is on the wall. So um interesting thing is uh how does this do relate to socialism, right? In the in the US. So in the US, American socialists' opinions on China is very mixed, because on one hand, they have sympathies ideologically, right, on that end of the spectrum, even though most people don't don't consider this themselves communist, but they're at least kind of sympathetic to the idea of like government-driven projects or initiatives. But you also know, like, hey, there's human rights civilization. Is is China really communist? Because it's look at all the capitalist things, right? That so it's very messy over there, and it's it's hard to they don't really have a solid agreement on what to do about China, and but at some point they're gonna have to confront it if they start winning, especially. Uh so right now it's like kind of question mark. A lot of the races that they're winning on are local level, not federal, and so it never really goes into uh foreign policy, but it'd be interesting to see if they get enough of a momentum to kind of push it in that direction. So for crypto, um, you might have seen uh Elizabeth Warren hanging out with the socialist candidates. She uh Bitcoin people hate her, they really do not like her because she was the one who was spearheading the anti-crypto uh regulations that were going down in previous cycles. I was there and she was going pretty hard at it, and it's part of the reason why um crypto got banned or was made illegal. And if you're like a free market libertarian, you were not having it, right? So uh being the good moderate that I am, I I've I saw there was a middle ground somewhere where yeah, there it makes sense to have some common sense regulations. If you are using crypto to do um financial transactions using the dollar, especially between the dollar, uh it should be subject to oversight, like we do with terrorism and uh drug trafficking and all those sorts of things. But as as the tech industry tends to do, they resist it and they come up with all these reasons and and uh eventually they lost, as they usually do too. But but it took a while, right? And in the meantime, a lot of people got away with a lot of things, and uh some of what is still happening with right now, and uh you can check the uh recent case against Solana where like a big crackdown may be already in motion. Uh, I do think some people are gonna go to jail, like, and maybe that's what our industry needs right now because it's just the reputation is not great. So, but barring that, uh, if if the so in the upcoming years, uh we basically had sort of like a free-for-all. Hey, do whatever you want, mean coin mania, yeah. Borrow money, bet on crypto, go broke. Oops, not our foe. Um, yeah, buy buy trump coin. Oh, wow, you lost this. There's a big sell-off at the beginning. You know, it's a Ponzi, right? Like it's just a bleeding Ponzi that people seem to fall for over and over and over. Yeah, I don't get it, but but it didn't people have a thing for just like losing money because they're just addicted to the uh dopamine hits, right? So there's gonna be a bigger crackdown on stuff like that. I think meme coins in general are gonna be less popular. It'll still be around, but it's they're gonna have they're gonna make it harder for you to get away with some of the more egregious things. That's gonna be probably coming down. And and what I'm hoping on the positive side is that crypto is supposed to be decentralized and transparent, right? If it's working correctly. You know what that you know what also needs that the government. The government needs to be decentralized. You can't have a single branch, right? That's why we split the um it into three different branches, and it also needs to be transparent because you need to be transparent with your taxpayers about what the fuck you're doing. But uh that's not what we've been doing up until now, you know. And I think I think there's a lot of naivety in the way earlier crypto projects presented itself because it was assuming that people want to do the right thing. And it's very hard when you have like half the population dodging taxes and they don't want anyone knowing about that. So they kind of entertained the idea of it of using crypto for like elections, for voting, for accounting, budgeting. These are huge, huge budgets that could be a huge boon to the industry if they played the cards right. But the political will to do that just wasn't there, and still really isn't, even now. That might change with new faces in the in the administration or in the public sector, because they don't have any attachments to these old money or these like ulterior motives, and they might do it in good faith or at least give it a shot, right? But right now, if you're being honest, the general public does not trust the crypto industry as a whole just because of the way it's be been behaving the last couple years, and so it's gonna be a challenge to kind of bridge that gap of people on both sides arguing in good faith about how this technology can be used. But the opportunity is still there, and I don't I'm not as politically active now than I used to, but if there's a chance, I will make that pitch. See what they think. But for the most part, I don't think most places are ready yet. So in conclusion, there's uh the things to pay attention to in the next couple years is really in general, just see how they react to certain things happening. Uh the mayors in Seattle, New York, and Boston are good um test cases to see how these uh newcomers are gonna deal with certain problems coming down the line because there's a lot. It's not just crypto, it's just like freaking everything. But I like to think that a fresh face and they're very smart people, they're gonna take the problem seriously and do the things that the incumbents up to now haven't been doing it. But specific specifically for the crypto sector, right now they're not really talking about anything because it is kind of a toxic subject. It has leans towards being unpopular and smarter for them just not to talk about it at all, honestly, right? For uh but when the economic conditions get to a point of no return, which I think is gonna come very soon, they may be open to new ideas. And if that's the case, uh we gotta be ready for that, you know. So the new term starts in a couple weeks. The new year, 2026, is gonna bring new ideas, new people, new approaches. Um I do honestly think that a lot of the things that the crypto industry has to been talking about up until now, a lot of that's just gonna kind of go away because we're gonna be in a new environment. And uh we have to adapt. That's the only way. Not everyone's gonna do it, but uh if we want this crypto thing to stay a thing, we gotta stay flexible, you know. So that really is just the whole point of this post here, this uh podcast, and I hope people will consider it. So, okay, well, that's it. Hope you found it interesting. And yep, see you in the next one.