The Right Digital Asset Policy Is A $100 Trillion Opportunity For The U.S.

Next guest is one of Wallsweets's most vocal bitcoin bulls recently meeting with members of the House Financial Services Committee to discuss what he calls his digital assets framework to help the US become the global crypto leader joining us now in a CNBC exclusive strategy co-founder executive chairman Michael Taylor strategy announcing this weekend it delivered a bitcoin gain of $2.6 billion so far this year.

Michael it's paid to keep buying no matter what my question is how much are you involved because I know you've you've met with members of the Trump administration cabinet family members I think the president himself so are you involved in advising around this strategic crypto reserve?

I've met with a bunch of senators on the Democratic and the Republican side a bunch of Congress people few members of cabinet you know a few members of the administration and anybody that wants to talk you know me for the last four and a half years I'm willing to talk about bitcoin to anybody anywhere in the world every day.

Yes and we appreciate that talking to our audience about it so we're you surprised that in the announcement over the weekend the president mentioned other smaller coins like XRP Salana and Cardano as well as bitcoin for the strategic crypto fund.

I'm not surprised I mean I think there there's no way to interpret this other than this is bullish for bitcoin and is bullish for the entire US crypto industry you know there are conservatives that view.

The right path forward is just a bitcoin only policy because bitcoin is a commodity and asset without an issuer neutral asset there's no controversy but the president's adopted a more liberal economic policy and that's his right he's president on the states.

Yeah no I'm sure you would have preferred it though if it was a bitcoin only fund.

You know I believe that the best thing for the country is to move forward with an enlightened progressive policy toward digital assets I think it's worth a hundred trillion dollars to the United States and ultimately there's there's four different assets that people need to come to grips with a digital commodity like bitcoin and asset without an issuer back by digital power a digital currency like a state.

A currency like a stable coin backed by a fiat currency equivalent a digital security an asset with an issuer backed by a stock or a bond so we can tokenize Wall Street and then a digital token which is an asset with an issuer that's backed by digital utility I think everybody's trying to come to grips with that taxonomy and as the market gets more educated we're going to see more progressive constructive policy engagement.

The president relates to the crypto fund I guess one thing people are going to try to figure out and what the White House is going to have to explain is why we need that I get that you you think the price of bitcoin is going up sharply and you've definitely put your money where your mouth is but it is still a speculative asset so is it just about investment gains for the US government or is there another strategic reason say like oil we have that where we would need this.

The key to keep in mind is that bitcoin is not competing with the dollar it's competing with international real estate global equities expensive money managers on Wall Street and any long range investment that somebody makes and so right now we're about two trillion dollars in bitcoin it's going to 20 trillion then it's going to 200 trillion then it's growing 20% a year and that capital is coming from overseas it's coming from China from Russia from Europe from Africa from Asia from the US.

So it's compelling about it is if the United States takes a position in the emerging crypto economy it buys up 10 20% of the bitcoin network we're going to pay off the national debt and so why wouldn't that be in the interest of the United States.

Yes the question would be we're dealing with instruments that historically Michael have had draw downs of you name it I mean 20 40 50% how much risk or what would that do to sentiment if in fact that was a paper loss even momentarily for the government.

I don't think anybody's ever lost money in the bitcoin network holding four years.

The United States best investments are Alaska Mexico California and Louisiana they worst and Manhattan we're still holding them hundreds of years later it's a nation state so presumably you want to buy bitcoin you want to hold it for a hundred years you know where the future is going the a eyes the foreigners the European the 20th century capital is they're all going to cyberspace and so the United States has the ability to buy this for a nickel and pay off the net.

The United States is going to be the most powerful country in the country and the most powerful country in the country.

How do you think it gets funded.

I mean I think that I leave that to the president's working group they'll eventually decide what they want to do and the scale they want to do it.

There are a dozen people on it the head of the treasury the SEC the CFTC commerce the attorney general the president I'm sure will opine.

We have leadership from Tim Scott and French Hill both the Republicans and the Democrats everybody's going to have their opinions it's a part of my pay grade to decide but I would what I would say is this we bought Manhattan for 60 guilders it was a good trade we bought Alaska for six million bucks it was a good trade we paid 40 million dollars for 75% of this country it's a good trade we can afford it we should buy the future.

I mean it's but what and you've done this before you've talked about this before but comparing.

A cryptocurrency digital asset that is still considered highly spec speculative to American cities and states.

Well a bit points not highly speculated to the 500 million people in the crypto economy it's the best performing asset in the past 15 years and generally the best performing asset every single year.

My company's gone from a 250 million dollar investment to almost a 50 billion dollar position in 48 months so clearly there's enormous economic energy in this asset it is probably the most certain thing in the financial universe if you have a long time horizon.

I have another sort of and this might be like a legal question but as this becomes more adopted and if we're talking about a strategic Bitcoin reserve or crypto reserve how do you prevent insider trading front running you know there's no insider trading laws because they're not securities so Trump can just you know tweet about X coin and someone can front run it.

The reason that there's so much support for a commodity like Bitcoin is it is an asset without an issuer no entity controls it no entity runs the network no entity can change the protocol no entity has enough power to impact the market trading of that protocol.

That's actually why most of the focus is on is on the digital commodity and that's what makes Bitcoin special the Satoshi was the insider he left a million Bitcoin for all of humanity forever and walked away without ever benefiting and that's what makes Bitcoin special.

Do you think that any other asset should be in the strategic crypto reserve.

You know I think if you're looking out over the next hundred years try to figure out how do you capitalize a nation state or a country what you want is a digital commodity but if you have a sovereign wealth fund then I think it's well within the rights of the leader of the nation to decide to put you know proprietary assets securities tokens and the like into it.

And of course the decision will eventually be made through a fairly fairly comprehensive political process over the next six months we have till July 22nd when the digital assets framework and recommendations in the executive order or do on the president's desk it should be interesting to watch what happens between now and then.

Well Michael we certainly appreciate you coming on to talk us through how you're thinking about all this.

Thank you.

That's one of the biggest proponents Michael Saylor from strategy.