By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
US officials including Vice President JD Vance, White House Cryptozar, David Sachs and Senator Cynthia Lumis are attending the Bitcoin conference now underway in Las Vegas. Joining us now to break down what the administration’s crypto stance means for the broader industry. We’ve got Brady Dale, he is Axios’s crypto reporter. Brady, great to have you in studio here. Just talk to me about what you are hearing from sources about the biggest news that’s potentially going to come from the Bitcoin conference this week.
00:33 Brady Dale
Uh, well, I think it’s interesting that today the Labor Department announced that they’re backing off their guidance that you shouldn’t hold Bitcoin in retirement accounts, you know. And I can’t help but feel that that announcement was timed somewhat to this big Bitcoin week. Um, yesterday David Sachs talked about all the things the administration has done, and we’ll hear from JD Vance today. Maybe he’ll preview something big for us, but we don’t, we haven’t gotten clues about that yet.
01:05 Speaker B
When you hear about the roster of people that are coming to speak there, the profiles where we’re trying to figure out if crypto ultimately does still need a figure head around it, or is that something where after FTX, after Justin Sun, after all of those previous figures that had really been pioneers and then also wanted to have their faces be annexed to the entire crypto movement, does crypto need a face of the movement itself?
02:00 Brady Dale
I don’t think it does anymore, and I think what it’s going to have, if like stable coin legislation passes, is figures like Bank of America and Citi Group as they launch stable coins, you know? And then we’ll see all kinds of things going over blockchains, and you know, we won’t need any more Vitalics at that point. I mean, Vitalic is great and he can still do his thing, but he won’t be needed anymore.
02:34 Speaker A
Well, talk to me about how all of this nets out because we’re in such an interesting moment for your beat where there’s so much legitimizing of crypto going on with those firms that you mentioned, but then you have the president hosting dinners where the top contributors to his meme coin are invited. Like, where does that net out on how everyday investors might be feeling about crypto as a legitimate asset?
03:13 Brady Dale
I mean, I think by and large everyday investors who are leaning crypto are getting more and more into it. I know those of us in the chattering class see a lot of ethical problems with the things Trump is doing, and that’s correct. Um, but I think for the average person, it’s like the president’s buying Bitcoin, I’m going to buy some Bitcoin, you know? Like, I think that’s the way it’s going, so, yeah.
03:49 Speaker A
But there is some regulatory pushback as well. I know that you’ve written about Maxine Waters’s stop Trump policy, for example. What are your thoughts on that legislation having an impact?
04:09 Brady Dale
I think crypto legislation will get through, but you know, if Trump hadn’t have launched a meme coin and his own stable coin through the company World Liberty Finance, I think like the stable coin bill would have been passed by now. You know, he’s just really given a lot of ammunition to the Democrats who want to make a point about problems with the Trump administration. They’ve made it, he’s made it pretty easy for them to make that point. And so, it has definitely slowed down the stable coin legislation. I still expect it passes, but it’s harder and they’re going to get more compromises out of it because of the moves the White House has made.
04:59 Speaker B
So, should investors feel comfortable buying into companies that are basically implementing the MicroStrategy, formerly MicroStrategy, now strategy, strategy, if you will, which is just hold a bunch of Bitcoin on your balance sheet, as is the case for DJT now announcing their offering to buy more Bitcoin and to hold onto that, as is the case with GameStop as of this morning.
05:37 Brady Dale
You are anticipating the question that I plan to work on later today when I leave the studio. But I think the thing that investors should look at on those stories is if a company is just buying some Bitcoin with its extra money, I mean, that may or may not be the best strategy for it, but probably no harm. If they’re buying it on leverage, watch out. You know, because if they’re buying it on leverage, there is a price at which if Bitcoin drops enough, and we know Bitcoin has a way of dropping in price,
06:18 Speaker B
that they’re major sellers of it.
06:21 Brady Dale
Yeah, then there’ll be margin calls, and there could be big dumps of Bitcoin. And I don’t think that’ll kill Bitcoin, but I don’t think that’d be great for an investor’s portfolio, especially if you bought a heavily leveraged stock.
06:43 Speaker A
Brady, about a minute left here, but just wanted to get a chance to get your thoughts on this crypto investor who was charged with kidnapping and torturing in New York City. Yeah, I’m just curious like, is that something that leads to a little bit of poisoning of investor sentiment around crypto?
07:10 Brady Dale
Uh, well, no one wants to be kidnapped. I mean, you know, yeah, this is the dicey thing about crypto, right? It’s like it is a bearer asset. So if you can get your hands on it, it’s hard to get it back. And it’s not, that’s like the only recent kidnapping we’ve seen. So I guess my advice to your viewers, if you’re going to buy a bunch of crypto, don’t advertise that to the world. Don’t let everyone know, especially if you’re holding it yourself.
07:43 Speaker A
Yeah. Brady, good to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time.
07:46 Brady Dale
Thank you.