The Clarity Act & John Deaton - A Bitcoin/Crypto Strategic Reserve - US Digital Asset BOND Issuance

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:02]All right, welcome back. We're sitting here with the one and only. It's the field general to the XRP family and army, John Deon. How you doing?

[00:00:09]>> How you doing, Brad? I'm doing well, man. Always a pleasure to be with you, my friend.

[00:00:13]>> Yes, absolutely. No doubt about it. And thank you for being at XRP Las Vegas. It was incredible. We set it all I think it was a new attendance record, but only by a few people, but in this market, we'll take it.

[00:00:24]>> Hey, absolutely. Listen, it's a tough time that but it just goes to show you like uh and I'm not just saying this.

[00:00:31]I'm being completely honest. I was at the Bitcoin conference which you know preceded the XRP conference and I will tell you that I saw a a a um a lack of enthusiasm compared to you know previous years versus I haven't seen that fall off. You know, like listen, everybody wants price appreciation and in the XRP army, I mean, my god, we've been, you know, suppressed and litigated against and regulatory captured against and and all of these things, but um still the best community uh in crypto by far uh in my in my opinion.

[00:01:13]>> No, I have to agree. And you know, look, I mean, we both hold Bitcoin, you know, I know you hold more Bitcoin than XRP. I certainly hold a meaningful position in Bitcoin in my IRA. Uh let's talk crypto because we do have the crypto legislation coming. But before we get there, let's talk the crypto bitcoin strategic reserve. Now, we've heard Patrick J. Wit talk about in the next handful of weeks. We may see an announcement about that. Now, that also lends the idea of the Clarity Act passing to focus on something else.

[00:01:43]Where are you at with the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve? Do you think we get that? Yeah, I think we get it. I mean, we keep hearing that there's going to be an announcement. Obviously, we've got the executive order. We know that the 300,000 Bitcoin that the US government holds that there is no intent on selling. Uh but I think that they want to do something more affirmative, right?

[00:02:09]Because obviously if we just kept the status quo, if there was a new president who came in in, you know, three years from a different party who had a different perspective on crypto, they might say sell it.

[00:02:22]>> Uh and so I think they want to create infrastructure. Same thing with like the Clarity Act, Brad. Meaning that yes, uh it's a 180 degree difference than it was under Gensler. Things are great, but it's not law, right? other than the Genius Act, you know, the Clarity Act's not law. So, if they can pass it into law, then even if you get a Gary Gensler 2.0, he can't change the law, >> right? It's black and white. Whereas, if we don't get it, then it can be just we could literally just go back and flip-flop and go back to regulation by enforcement and an anti-crypto environment. And I think that applies to the Bitcoin strategic reserve act. I think we're going to see something where I don't know if they'll be as aggressive as buying Bitcoin as far as but possibly you can pay your taxes in Bitcoin and a certain small percentage will go into the reserve. That's a way of budgetneutral accumulation of Bitcoin. Um, obviously there's always been this talk of revaluing gold. I don't know what ever happened to going to Fort Knox. And to be honest with you, remember we go to Fort Knox, we >> do an audit, >> we're going to audit the gold and re-evaluate it at current gold prices, which would add a trillion dollars. Uh, and then there's talk, but I I think that um there's too much capital investment that's been made that they want something more permanent uh that's embedded in the infrastructure. And so I think we will see something.

[00:04:08]>> Well, to that point, uh I gosh, it's going on two years. I know it goes back to 2024 for me. you know, I've been saying like, you know, let me get your take on this and if you like it, you know, hopefully, you know, you win in the Senate in Massachusetts, maybe you could carry this if it's not executed by that point. But I've had the idea that if if these assets that we're moving to this new digital onchain economy, John, I if if this new um these new payment rails are going to be so important that these assets are going to be looked at like rare minerals essentially, like gold and oil, even these these very important commodities for this new digital onchain economy.

[00:04:52]you know, it can't just be confiscation, you know, just to to acquire these things if they're going to be that important over time. So, my thought has been for going on two years now, it's like, can can we get a US digital asset bond issuance for these digital assets?

[00:05:08]This way, we could revenue share with the citizens. I'm thinking like World War II wartime bonds. And then everybody gets a little piece of the pie. The US gets to collect the assets. It's neutral. It's actually profit sharing with the citizens. And now you're talking about accumulating these assets at a rate that really proves their importance and rarity as we move into the future. What are your thoughts?

[00:05:29]>> No, I I think that's uh a great way of of thinking about there's there's no doubt that we have to figure out a way to tackle the $ 39 trillion deficit.

[00:05:41]>> Exactly.

[00:05:42]>> We have to.

[00:05:43]>> Exactly. And I mean, you've even had Putin himself has talked about uh how he believes the US government is going to use digital assets in a way to try to wipe out their debt, rewrite their debt or whatever. And what you just described is a creative way. We've got to figure out a way of driving demand for US dollars and US treasuries. Stable coins has been doing that. Tether is like the third or fourth largest US treasury holder in the world. Um, obviously you have other entities as well. And so that's one good thing, but the other thing is trying to to to address that debt. We have to. It is we're we're tacking on a trillion dollars every 180 to 200 days. It's just unsustainable.

[00:06:36]And so everyone talks about a Brenton Woods 2.0 or some kind of sitting back and figuring out how we do it. And I think that's one way that you just described as a way of driving demand. I also believe that um um Larry Frink and the tokenization of real world assets >> that people haven't un that people have underestimated what that is like and and I think of it as a way of participating you know people can't afford a home nowadays that that's a fact I'll tell you Brad in Massachusetts and I'm not exaggerating the average median home price is $670,000 Now, we're just talking about your average home. If you get into the greater Boston area, it's 1.1 million pe dollars. People can't afford. You could be making 150k a year and you can't afford a home.

[00:07:32]>> And so, the tokenization of stuff like real estate where fractional ownership is a way to uh to participate. I tell everybody if you look at 200 since 2008 in the great financial crisis when the career politicians bailed out all the banks and they started pumping liquidity and trillions of dollar deficits. Uh the only people that have done well in our country from 2008 to today are people who've owned things. M >> you owned real estate, could be your home, could be uh Bitcoin, XRP, stocks, you know, obviously Amazon, Nvidia, all of them. Um bonds, uh precious metals, gold, asset appreciation is what's going to continue as we continue to debase the dollar uh while at the same time trying to drive demand. And I think digital assets, tokenization, the bonds you're talking about, accumulization, all of that is going to be part of a multi-puzzle that we got to put together.

[00:08:37]>> Absolutely. And I want to remind people right now, look, uh, John has a QR code right here up on the screen, and you could click that with your phone. It works great. Or you could use the link underneath. Let's help him get in that Senate seat in Massachusetts because we need somebody like John there. We're continuing to have this conversation about crypto as well, but it is important to get John in that seat.

[00:09:01]Anything you could do is going to be helpful. Now, John, let's talk about to your point about this rising mounting debt and the cost getting away from consumers in your state, Massachusetts, and everywhere. Honestly, you know, the Clarity Act now. So, this is about market infrastructure and as Representative French Hill and others have said, you know, having the Genius Act is like a a bill for cell phones and having the market structure bill, Clarity Act, is like having the bill and market infrastructure for cell towers.

[00:09:29]One doesn't work without the other, John. So, this market structure bill has the opportunity to unlock because it brings the velocity of money. They're talking about the tokenization of real world assets. This gets money moving around the world faster, changing hands faster because we need to grow and outpace this fast debt that you just highlighted. Your thoughts?

[00:09:50]>> 100%. Listen, the Clarity Act, obviously, it's not perfect. Obviously, I wish I I hate the banks. I've always hated the banks. Um I wish we had basically um yield going to stable coin passive holders and all that. We don't.

[00:10:09]But what we need is a green light. And for the Charles Schwabs and the Vanguards and all of them to truly come in, they've got to have the the clarity.

[00:10:19]And that's why it's called the Clarity Act. That that a Gensler, even if a Gensler comes back, even if there's a new president and and and there's a new Democratic Senate and Elizabeth Warren becomes the chair person for the Senate committee that they can't just go back to Gensler 2.0. The law is in place.

[00:10:41]They'd have to completely rechange the law, get, you know, get a new bill that revamps this bill and change it. That's not going to happen. And so, uh, I I I come along with the Garling House view as it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. So, let's get it done so that we can get all that liquidity and capital into this market and and start uh solving some of these problems.

[00:11:05]>> And where are you at in your stance personally and politically too, because you are running for Senate. So, where are you at in your stance on a permanent ban on central bank digital currencies?

[00:11:16]shot.

[00:11:17]>> I'm It's a hill that I'll die on as far as a consumerbased >> central bank digital currency where they can control it's programmable money.

[00:11:27]They can turn it off, Brad. If they think you donate it to something that they think is suspicious, what they're going to turn your money off if they can limit your money geographically. The reality is if they control your money, they control your life. Period. and financial freedom isn't by using a Federal Reserve issued consumerbased CBDC, right? If they want to create a a intraank thing that just operates between central banks or something like that, that's one thing. But what I'm talking about is a consumer-based digital uh currency that that I will never, you know, want to ever see.

[00:12:06]That's George Orwell coming to life.

[00:12:09]>> Yeah. That Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah.

[00:12:12]again, scan the QR code. Very good.

[00:12:14]John's not not going to allow per he's not going to allow permanent retail uh central bank digital currency. That's no good stuff. Uh now, let's talk about the Clarity Act uh specifically, John. So, here we are. We're four days away. This is going to committee. Some of the senators that are on the floor every day talking about this thing. And to be perfectly honest, some of them that have been the point of contention to getting this done are now saying they have the votes needed to get this out of the Senate Banking Committee, but it's still got to be married with the A committee and what they've passed. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, I think that um if we go back from I think what was it a couple months ago, Brad Garlinghouse had like 80% belief that Clarity Act was going to pass.

[00:13:02]>> Yep.

[00:13:03]>> Then the banks obviously through a monkey wrench and then Coinbase and Brian Armstrong, but from what I've seen, Brian Armstrong's on board, Ripple's on board. Uh just about every major A&16Z, I believe, is on board. So, you've got the major players on board and they're talking a lot more positive than uh than I thought they would be.

[00:13:28]So, I'm hopeful. You know, there's still this talk that the Democrats may insist on a poison pill of ethics that prevents the family members of the president or someone to to not benefit.

[00:13:43]My fear is that we go down that road and then it just becomes another political football. Yeah.

[00:13:48]>> Right. And that they're like, "Oh, unless the president sign agrees to this, knowing that he may never agree to it." You know, that's the only thing that I see that could derail this.

[00:14:00]Otherwise, I agree with you. They They're talking like they got the votes and that it's going to come out of committee this week and I believe it's Thursday and uh and then and then we have a green light to to go forward.

[00:14:14]>> Yeah. And hopefully we don't see too much of this ethics uh fight get too deep and get too political here.

[00:14:20]Although we know it is a political issue, right? The crony capitalism of Trump's sons getting in this space, investing heavily in this space. It is something, as much as I'm an advocate and supporter of the president and the administration, what they're doing for crypto. It is something I do wish they would have waited on until we got the legislation so we wouldn't give that kind of argument or ammunition to the anti-crypto army that's out here. But here we are. We're days away. We are more than likely in a position where we can get this thing out of committee.

[00:14:51]Hopefully they can marry these two bills or you know drafts of these bills from the committees and get something to the floor if this bill passes all in done passes. What do you see for this space going forward?

[00:15:06]>> Uh I see finally that green light. I mean just imagine without um without clarity the act what you basically have is an orange light under Elizabeth Warren and Gensler it was a red light we couldn't move forward as an industry right now we have an orange light uh that's a permanent orange light because of the genius act um but um once they know once institutions like Charles Schwab know for a fact that even if the president changes, even if the Senate flips to Democrat and the House flips to Dem Democrat, it's written into law. You know, they have the absolute legal clarity. They're not worried about being sued by the SEC for selling an unregistered security. You know what I mean? They can get into it. And I think you're going to see more and more. I think it's good news for XRP. I think it's good news for Ethereum. And I think it's good news for Bitcoin and and and a and a few others. You know what I mean?

[00:16:09]Most likely, but for the big caps in crypto, I think it's going to be huge news. You know, now whether or not that translates immediately into a bull run and right and and you know, Bitcoin's at $126,000 and XRP's at five, I don't know if that's going to happen, but I think that you're going to see more. Then also retirement accounts, right?

[00:16:33]retirement uh accounts being able to get exposure. You have you're going to see more of what we see from Morgan Stanley, which is, you know, right now saying 1 to 5% of your portfolio should be in the asset class. Mhm.

[00:16:49]>> And then you're going to see like uh family offices, uh teachers unions, things like that owning, you know, XRP ETF along with ETH and and Salana or Bitcoin. And it just becomes more and more stabilized. The more stabilized it becomes, the more accepted it becomes. I mean, people got to realize, you know, here in Massachusetts, we have about 7 million people. It's estimated between 1 and 1.1 million people have crypto.

[00:17:22]>> Now, I would imagine if you count the Bitcoin ETF, it's probably more like 1.5 million.

[00:17:29]>> But, you know, that's one out of seven.

[00:17:31]Now, imagine the growth in a state like this. It could double easily and you still are at, you know, no more than 3540% of the population.

[00:17:42]>> Yeah. Can you talk about like how digital assets could affect the lower population, the ones that are not as fortunate when it comes to wages, and you touched on this earlier in our conversation, but how they could really turn the tables for theirelves and their families by acquiring assets.

[00:17:59]>> Yeah. I think fractional ownership is a a future for people of lower income.

[00:18:06]Right now, when I was young, you know, part of the American dream was you could own a house. Yeah.

[00:18:12]>> And maybe you own a rental property or something like that as as your part of your retirement. Well, that's been excluded. People have been excluded from that asset class, but you you know, you can imagine an apartment building and that apartment building where each apartment, you know, in New York is a million dollars plus. Well, you can't afford that, but you could afford a fractional ownership of that. And so if you tokenize that and now you know one token is equal to 1% right of the house or whatever uh you could see the tokenization of of athletes contracts the next LeBron James or the next s soccer super player tokenize parts of theirs and you get a piece of that and you get a you know fractional ownership on lots of things you tokenized would allow people to own things. Again, we're going back to the only people that have done well are people who've owned appreciable assets. So, the more appreciable assets that we can get in people's hands, the more wealth people can build, you know, and fractional ownership such as real estate, such as other types of uh assets is one way to accomplish that.

[00:19:25]>> Well, look, I I think that says everything that anyone needs to know inside or out of Massachusetts. You have the ability to help John Deon get in that Senate seat in Massachusetts. And I tell you, there's no greater feeling if you just scan that QR code or click the link down underneath this video. Do what you can. It doesn't have to be a massive donation, but every little thing helps.

[00:19:47]You won't believe how much it helps.

[00:19:49]John, final thought this thing for everybody out here.

[00:19:52]>> Yeah, listen. A successful campaign comes down to three things. It comes down to money, message, and work ethic.

[00:19:58]I, you know, if you know me, you know they won't outwork me. The message is on point. Um, so it really comes down to money and it's tough, man. I I hate trying to ask people for money. Uh, because, you know, we're in hard times.

[00:20:13]But what you said does mean a lot. If I could finance the whole thing myself, I could, but I can't. So, even if it's 50 bucks, if I've done something that you liked, whether it's on the XRP case or the link to case or anything else, uh, if you can afford to donate, even 50 bucks, 100 bucks, 10 bucks, it'll go a long way, man.

[00:20:32]>> Absolutely. And I want to give a shout out too to Fair Shake. I want to give a shout out to all the big players behind Fair Shake, the crypto super PAC out here, the A16Zs, the the the Coinbases of the world, Brian Armstrongs. I really want to give all of them a shout out and go look this is the guy we have a chance in Massachusetts to put this guy in here to make sure we have another pro advocate crypto seat as well as somebody who's going to fight tooth and nail for every single person that lives in Massachusetts. John Deon, thank you so much brother.

[00:21:05]>> Thank you Brad. I appreciate you and appreciate everyone out there.

[00:21:08]>> You got it. We'll talk soon.