The Mooch, Andrew Yang, and crypto’s tipping point

Happy Friday everyone. I spent yesterday at Future of Finance in New York, a one-day event where Fortune brings together the big names in traditional finance like BlackRock and Apollo and newer players like PayPal and Robinhood. At the day’s crypto panel, which featured Coinbase, Grayscale, and Ripple, I was impressed by how much company executives came across as part of the financial industry, rather than marginal competitors as in years past. But the most notable moment when it comes to crypto was our dinner keynote featuring Andrew Yang and Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci.

Both men walked the highest corridors of US political power. Yang was a major candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate primaries; Scaramucci, on the other hand, had a brief but memorable stint as Donald Trump’s communications director at the White House. Both have since become strong advocates of crypto. Yang shared his quirky yet intriguing vision, which calls for using blockchain as part of a larger time-banking system that would reward Americans for their wide-ranging efforts, such as child care, which is currently free; This system, he says, will become necessary at a time when artificial intelligence emerges. It is poised to eliminate millions of jobs.

Scaramucci, a crypto investor through his own hedge fund, took a political stance on blockchain, stating that tens of millions of Americans already own blockchain. He added that the current stance of President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders does not make much sense, because even though the number of people who will vote based on cryptocurrency is relatively small, these are still votes that the party can get compared to a solid opposing party. – crypto position that didn’t gain them any new votes.

Their comments come at a time when a growing number of Democrats feel the same way. On Friday, 11 senators joined Republicans in passing a bill that would reverse SEC accounting guidelines that make it impossible for banks to hold cryptocurrency, bucking their party’s official position. They included Majority Leader Charles Schumer and fellow New York senator and Wall Street ally Kirsten Gillibrand.

Biden has signaled he will veto the bill, but given how the tide has turned even within his own party—not to mention poll numbers that suggest he’s on track to lose the election—it wouldn’t be surprising if he changed course. In recent months, it appears that cryptocurrency has reached a tipping point in the United States, and efforts by the White House and its progressive allies to crush it completely are doomed to failure. When times change, the smart move for elected officials is often to change with them.

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Jeff John Roberts
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@jeffjohnroberts

This story first appeared on Fortune.com