The current environment for blockchain advocacy and policy work with Chamber of Digital Commerce President Perianne Boring

Frank Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining me for what is a very special episode of The Scoop. I'm joined by--

Perianne The boring episode, I think.

Frank Well, that's true. It's going to be a little "boring" because we are Perianne Boring, the founder of the Chamber of Digital Commerce joining us. It is a blockchain cryptocurrency advocacy organization based down in D.C., founded in 2014. So the idea of the organization is to advocate on behalf of their members to members of Congress, the Senate, and other policymakers there and abroad. So you guys have been at it for a while since 2014. Previously, you were a TV host, and you're an adjunct professor still, right? And you've been around the block in terms of policy and advocacy work. And so I'd like to hear the story that you have in terms of the environment for blockchain advocacy and policy work: how has it changed since your earliest days?

Perianne Well, thanks so much for having me here, Frank.

Frank My pleasure.

Perianne I spent a lot of time thinking about and working in the blockchain policy space. We launched the Chamber of Digital Commerce in July of 2014. So we're about five and a half years old. The journey that set up the chamber was quite interesting. And it goes back to kind of the really early days of crypto in 2013, really being that big year where a lot of the ideas and the foundation of the chamber was built. For those who remember 2013, I would say the positive thing that happened that year is that the Cyprus bailouts. That was really the first time that Bitcoin made international headlines. Cyprus was going through their negotiations with the European Union, and they ended up being bailed out, but during that time, there was a lot of economic uncertainty, and the people of Cyprus started buying Bitcoin. And that caught the international news' attention. And that caused a huge increase in the price of Bitcoin. That's when Bitcoin first hit thirteen hundred dollars. It ended up coming back down, but it was kind of an exciting opportunity for people in this space to really see the use case of Bitcoin being put into practice. That year was also--we also had a couple of scandals that year. So, Silk Road being one of the big ones as well as Mt. Gox, the failure of a Bitcoin exchange in Japan. And those were two very black eyes on the industry. And as someone who was living and working in Washington, D.C. and in policy, to me, it was quite obvious that there was a need to have dedicated professionals who really understood the technology and the industry to go work with policymakers to help them understand what they're reading in the news. You'll get beyond the headline of, you know, "Bitcoin Used to Buy Illegal Drugs" to what's actually happening. And when you have those types of things happening in the news, a lot of times policymakers feel the need to respond, and they did. And that's where the BitLicense came from. If you guys remember, Ben Lawsky said many times that he started the BitLicense process as a direct result of what had happened in Japan with Mt. Gox. So we did feel that it was really necessary that this industry had policy professionals and experts guiding regulators and the way that they're going to address and treat this technology.

Frank To what degree do you think those, as you describe them, black eyes, still leave an impression or a stain on the market in the eyes of policymakers down in Washington?

Perianne We are still in an era of fear of the unknown, anxiety of these headlines. You know, it started with Bitcoin being used to buy illegal drugs to the ICOs boom of, you know, fraud and investor protection issues. And today, I think some of the bigger things of fear are more around national security issues. And we can get into those in a little bit more detail, but fear, anxiety and a lot of skepticism. You know, there's been a lot of hype around "blockchain" and not a ton of applications and implementation of the technology at a wide scale. A lot of promises, but what ultimately is the community and the industry delivering? So we are still in a--we still deal with a lot of fear, anxiety, and skepticism. It has evolved, and the conversations have matured in a very big way.

Frank Well, to a degree, right? The pendulum a lot of times will swing too far down in D.C.. And so, are we seeing it swing back the other way, more middle ground? Maybe Facebook might have--

Perianne I think Facebook is kind of an interesting story because what Facebook ultimately did for the blockchain policy community is it took the conversations to a much higher level within government. So really before Facebook, not a lot of folks were giving these topics much time. They just felt like this was a tiny industry, we have bigger things to deal with, not a priority for us.

Frank Sure.

Perianne Once Facebook made their announcement, that made a lot of people sit in their chairs a lot straighter when we start talking about cryptocurrencies. That's when Treasury Secretary Mnuchin gave a press conference from the White House.

Frank First-time President Donald Trump tweeted about Bitcoin, I'm pretty sure.

Perianne I took those tweets and I printed them out and I put them in gold frames, and they are the crown jewels of our office now.

Frank Well, it's pretty significant. And I think what Facebook did was it brought the conversation from "Is Bitcoin good or evil?" This thing, Bitcoin, which was conflated for everything under the sun in this market, to, "Okay, what happens when one of the largest technology firms decides it's going to create something different with money and possibly create its own version of money that could then rival the dollar?" And so, it goes from congresspeople, legislators being nervous about this tool that's being used by illicit characters to, "Woah, this could be something serious that can be used to either make a lot of money or change the world from a financial inclusion perspective, and maybe not just Facebook, but China or the European Union," and it becomes something much more serious to talk about.

Perianne Yeah, the geopolitical issues are actually quite interesting. Looking around the world of what other governments are doing in this space, it's quite amazing. In the United States, the tone, you know, again, fear, anxiety, skepticism, and the way regulators are approaching this space is very much through enforcement. So the mass majority of the conversations that are happening in D.C. today are about going after the bad actors and mitigating against the risk of the technology. So that's--.

Frank A very defensive approach as opposed to a more proactive.

Perianne Very different than other areas of the world. And it is quite telling to see that we have major developed economies that are taking proactive steps to, one, invite innovators into their jurisdiction to build companies that are building on blockchain, and to develop the technology for government purposes, central bank digital currency being one of those, but probably one of the more interesting topics.

Frank The People's Bank of China has been researching and looking into a digital currency.

Perianne Not just researching, building! For years. At least five years. At least five years.

Frank Yeah. Going back to 2014. And so, this isn't something that's new, obviously, but there is a Fortune headline that I've read that described, you know--essentially we're in the final steps--those final steps as a wakeup call for the United States. And I think when you look at some of the folks down in Washington, there is now a newfound anxiety about China getting ahead on developing, building out and dominating in this space. You guys have done a ton of research into what China is doing. But first, before we get into that, I'd like to know what is the sentiment down on Capitol Hill about the sort of China versus U.S. dominance question when it comes to blockchain and digital currencies?

Perianne There's a lot of intense conversations happening right now between the United States and China, broadly. Where blockchain fits into that, or if it even fits into that--it was not a part of the trade deal that we just finalized, but there--the United States, in general, has a lot of issues with the Chinese government and the Chinese economy. What I think we really should be focused on is being a leader in this space. And there is absolutely no question that China is a or the leader in blockchain and central bank digital currency. And we have, the United States has so much to lose if we just cede its technological leadership to any other jurisdiction. And there are a number of people that understand that and recognize that. There's not enough. You know, look at Congress. You have five hundred and thirty-five members of Congress, you know, 100 senators, 435 members in the House.

Frank Nice civics lesson for our listeners.

Perianne Yes, for those who don't remember. You need a lot of people to actually get something done in Congress. And there are lots of people throughout Washington, D.C. that are big supporters of blockchain. But it's the process of getting--

Frank But what is more powerful, Perianne, what to them is more powerful? The notion of, "We want to protect consumers and investors from a big monster like Facebook," the sort of Maxine Waters of the world vs. the folks who don't want to get beat by China? Which sentiment is stronger at this point?

Perianne And it's not, "We don't want to get beat by China," it's protecting our national security. And that is always the trump card. And I don't mean that--no pun intended.

Frank Sure. So what do you mean by that?

Perianne As soon as our national security comes into question--.

Frank Rather, is this being viewed as a national security issue in earnest?

Perianne I think it's very easy to make a national security argument out of this. I don't think the national security community is quite turned onto it yet, but I bet they will be it.

Frank And that's an argument that I presume you're making to the folks you're advocating to. So how do you present that argument?

Perianne Well, I think when it comes to central bank digital currency, it's quite simple. The United States has benefited greatly from the US dollar being the world reserve currency. The dollar is constantly under attack by many countries around the world. One of the ways the dollar is being attacked is through technology. And if we do not have the best technology that's underpinning our financial system and another country leap-frogs our infrastructure, that could very well jeopardize our standing on the world stage. That is a long way away, I don't think that's going to happen this year or next year. But I do think that is a possibility.

Frank To what degree do you think members of Congress or the Senate appreciate that argument or have come to terms with it?

Perianne There is a handful that understand that, you know, a handful. And I'll even say we have a member that's based in New York. It's an investment company, they're making investments throughout the blockchain ecosystem, and one of their principles has been in China recently and has been spending time out there, and they have an office there. And they are so concerned that they are coming to D.C., and they're gonna give a private briefing to a group of members of Congress, really anybody that will come, just to share with them what they're seeing on the ground in terms of how serious China is taking this and their concerns about how serious we're not taking it. Not only that, we're discouraging innovation through our regulatory approaches. So there's a lot of people that understand how important this is. But ultimately, to get things done in Washington is an incredibly complicated process. And of course, right now, you know, all the oxygen is being sucked out on the impeachment process, which, you know, really doesn't do much to advance any policy goals.

Frank "Collusion delusion." You guys have sifted through the ninety-four filings, patent filings, that the Chinese government has made?

Perianne Eighty-four. People's Bank of China has filed over eighty-four patterns on behalf of the Chinese government just on their central bank digital currency project.

Frank What is the main takeaway, or what are the main takeaways of those filings? Does it paint a picture of what they're creating? How many questions are left unanswered or have been answered by some of these patents?

Perianne So we are looking patent applications, so they're not patents yet, but it does give a very strong look into what they've built and how they've designed their central bank digital currency platform. The biggest takeaway is that it's essentially fully integrated into their existing financial system. The digital currency wallets, they're going to be bound to conventional bank accounts in a dynamic manner. Digital currency circulation will be managed by the central bank system. Payments and deposits will be processed through the commercial banks. Users will be pseudo-anonymous, which means they'll be anonymous on a user basis, but the government will likely have full transparency, so I would actually argue there's a large lack of transparency and regulators will be able to track all transaction information, including the identity of the transacting parties, processing the way data will be transacted in various ways and with a very high degree of regulatory oversight. So what we found actually was not quite surprising to us that, again, this is gonna be highly integrated into their banking system. The banks will play a big role in this, and there's a degree of privacy concerns. So out of these eighty-four patents, there's really four categories we put them into. The digital currency management circulation and interbank settlement is one, digital currency wallets, processing payments and deposits, and distributed ledger transactions and technology.

Frank Aside from the privacy concerns, is there anything that, you know, could be considered as a positive or actually moving the needle forward in terms of blockchain innovation? Anything that's particularly striking as a development?

Perianne Well, really, the government of China has approached the blockchain, I think that's the biggest takeaway. And it really started even before we started looking into their central bank digital currency platform. Blockchain is part of China's five-year plan. This is one major part of that plan, but they're integrating blockchain all across the government. We have been following what they've publicly put out in the news for several years, and we have pages and pages and pages of articles and speeches and statements. It is quite amazing just the level of investment and development. China is making into blockchain technology. I think that's a massive sign that this technology is as important as we think it is at the Chamber to have governments taking this as seriously as China is. I think there's certainly concerns about how governments could use this technology. I mean, given China's history of privacy and other issues, you know, of course, we wouldn't want blockchain to be a way to create greater abuses within the system, but it certainly validates. It's a huge validation to blockchain technology if it's in the right hands. One other thing that kind of jogs my memory as their army said, they made a public statement saying that they were looking at blockchain for grey warfare, for espionage. So, again, getting back to those national security considerations, if there's other governments that are looking to use blockchain as a part of their defense strategy, shouldn't the U.S. government also be looking at this technology?

Frank How would that work? How could blockchain be used to enhance espionage?

Perianne Well, look at the 5G arguments, where these 5G instruments have back doors in them and they're, you know, China is giving away all sorts of technology to other countries around the world, and it turns out these systems are tampered with. So you know, would they do that with other technologies? Maybe.

Frank That's pretty interesting and a bit scary. Here in the US, though, you know, we have folks who are trying to champion this idea of getting not just the private sector involved, but the public sector, the government. Former CFTC chairman Chris Giancarlo recently unveiled his digital dollar project. I think you guys are involved to some extent with that?

Perianne So, Chris Giancarlo joined our Board of Advisors several months ago. The digital dollar project is Chris's project, it's separate of the Chamber. Kind of the way we're looking at it is one, our mission at the Chamber is to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies. So we support blockchain innovation in the public and the private sectors. And there is certainly a role for both. The idea of having a digital dollar is something that I think is important and exciting but is also something that's inevitable. If you look around the world, there's over 70 percent of all central banks today are either interested in or already pursuing central bank digital currency.

Frank As a casual, you know, country podcaster, if you will, I might not fully appreciate the benefit of a digital dollar. What does it change for the ordinary person? You know, how does it make the way I interact on a daily basis better? Why do we need a dollar that's digitized? Putting the national security issues that you've mentioned aside, from a practical, micro- level, does it benefit Frank any more than what we currently have?

Perianne I mean, I would argue the dollar is already digitized. I mean, we interact with money in a digital way every day on the Internet. This is what Al Gore and Bill Clinton did during that administration.

Frank Al Gore built the Internet.

Perianne That, well, he led the public policy initiatives that encouraged innovation in the United States to develop the commercialization of the Internet. And look at how the U.S. has benefited from that. The largest companies in the world today are Internet-related companies.

Frank By our estimates, at least 18 countries are examining or developing their own digital currencies. Eighteen central banks, that is, there could be a potential kind of war, right? Not an arms war, but a money war, right, going into 2020 and beyond. How do you see that playing out?

Perianne Wow, that's going to be a big question. Yeah. There is a study by the Bank of International Settlements and they said about 70 central banks are interested or are already pursuing central bank digital currency. I don't see the United States taking this lightly. I mean, they certainly don't. If you go back to that press conference from Secretary Mnuchin in response to Libra, and what he was talking about in terms of cryptocurrency is he said, "Take note, we take the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency very seriously," and they will protect that at all costs. So it's a matter of helping the government understand how important this technology is and how it is really evolving the financial and the monetary systems internationally. And there's some other kind of, you know, geopolitical things which we should look at. If you remember at Jackson Hole meetings last year, where Mark Carney called for an alternative to the US dollar. And he said the system's not working, and it doesn't work for a lot of countries. So money is changing and money is evolving. And where we are today is a product of our past. And I think one of the most exciting things that Facebook has done is create an international awakening and conversation about what money is. Just seventy-five years ago, the world came together after World War 2 and created the Bretton Woods system. The Bretton Woods system was a type of gold standard. And just to kind of give you an idea of what that looked like, what everyone agreed to is that gold would be priced at thirty-five dollars an ounce, the U.S. dollar would be the world reserve currency, all other currencies would be pegged to the dollar, and they could legally demand gold from the U.S. Treasury. And look where we are today. There's no gold standard, everyone is on these floating exchange rates, and the financial and monetary system has evolved so much in just seventy-five years. And now we have more advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, the Internet. You think about how much more money is going to evolve over the next seventy-five years. And I think that's really exciting. But what I think is more exciting is the idea that we can actually get back to sound money. And I think a lot of people are starting to demand that with being educated on what money is and wanting something that that works for everybody. So how is this going to end up? Nobody knows the answer to that. But I would bet--.

Frank But are we too far behind? I mean, China's been jimmying away at this for five years.

Perianne I don't think we're too far behind. The US is really good at catching up. You know, the American private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit of the United States is so powerful and massive. And this goes back to Chris Giancarlo's, op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. He said, "We could put a man on the moon. Let's put the dollar in cyberspace." When we put the first man on the moon, it was partnerships with the public and the private sector that got us there, and we won the space race. I don't see why we can't win this if we're focused and we do it in a way that encourages innovation within the private sector, which is not the approach China is necessarily taking.

Frank Well, let's then pivot over to the private sector and talk about some of the concerns and impediments that exist there. In terms of your members, what are some of the biggest impediments for them in terms of building out their respective businesses, and how are you advocating to change that?

Perianne So the federal government is an incredibly complicated organism and we have a fragmented approach to regulation, specifically financial regulation. So the SEC, you know, regulating securities. The CFTC regulating derivatives. You have Treasury, with their anti-money laundering statutes, and IRS with tax. And there really is no coordinated approach to regulation, oversight, and/or if the government was going to build on this technology, there's no coordination there either. So, what we have proposed at the Chamber is a national action plan for blockchain. We are concerned that, one, we are not leaders, and two, we have no way to get there today. We need an office of blockchain technology who is responsible for understanding this technology and building a plan to make the United States a leader in this technology, which would include coordinating the regulatory oversight of companies that are operating in this space.

Frank Sure, so that action plan would include building on an agency that would be the sole--.

Perianne Not an agency, an office.

Frank So what is the difference between an agency and an office?

Perianne Well, we're not advocating for a whole new agency, The Agency of Blockchain. We just think there should be a person.

Frank But, that would sound so cool.

Perianne Well, we don't want expand the government that much. We just think someone in government should be responsible.

Frank Small government, I like it. 

Perianne Yeah. I mean, getting a new agency, I don't think that's absolutely necessary.

Frank So it wouldn't be on par with the CFTC, the SEC, but maybe an office within one of those.

Perianne Yeah, an office within the White House would be the ideal place to put it.

Frank Why in the White House?

Perianne Because the White House serves as a coordinator of the agencies already, and also the White House has executive authority, so you could see a executive order being issued for blockchain. We modeled our national action plan for blockchain off of the Internet, the plan that was done for the Internet. And we even brought in and talked to the teams that worked on that to advise us on, you know, how do we build a national action plan for blockchain?

Frank All right. Walk us through what that would look like.

Perianne It's very simple. We're calling for two things. One, we want a positive statement on behalf of the U.S. government about the importance of blockchain and encouraging the private sector to develop on blockchain in the United States of America. And then two, that Office of Blockchain that's responsible for building the action plan and coordinating the different agencies and departments that all have equities in this technology.

Frank Okay, I see. And so it would sort of sit between the different regulatory bodies that have oversight over whether it's crypto companies, crypto assets, crypto derivatives and kind of ensure--

Perianne But it's not limited to that. So there already is some degree of coordination that's happening out of FSC. And it's just the financial services regulators. Great. But blockchain is much bigger than just financial services applications; there are all sorts of groups that are innovating in other ways, and they need to be a part of the conversation as well.

Frank Interesting. And so, once--how do you get those things to come to fruition? I mean, what does that look like on the ground? Cold calling Donald Trump?

Perianne Well, sending tweets and DMs to President Trump.

Frank Have you done that?

Perianne So, there's two ways we can go about it. One is you have the White House create the office or go to Congress. And there has been a number of members of the blockchain caucus that wrote a letter to the White House urging them to do just this.

Frank But it would be difficult now with that Brad Sherman guy who I think--.

Perianne He's just one of five hundred thirty-five.

Frank But he's the chair now of that subcommittee.

Perianne Yeah, but this subcommittee wouldn't be responsible. This wouldn't need to go through that subcommittee.

Frank What would it need to go through?

Perianne So likely, potentially energy and commerce. And he's on financial services.

Frank That's right. Yeah. And is that core to the Chamber's plans for 2020 or is it kind of a pipe dream?

Perianne It's not a pipe dream. This is a real project that we think should happen. I am and there's a few other things that we're looking at. Of course, we want the US to be the leader in blockchain technology. And encouraging the US to develop a national action plan for blockchain is one. Two is we're doing a lot of work in AML. So Treasury has issued new guidance around the travel rules. So we have some deadlines coming up this summer, taking that very seriously and ensuring that companies have the tools they need to be in compliant there. And then three is all things around tokens. So continuing to work on clarifying the jurisdiction of digital tokens, digital securities laws and regulations around the digital securities market, and the taxation of digital tokens as well.

Frank We've talked a lot about CBDCs. The government and private sector being involved in blockchain technology and working towards making that a simpler process. What about Bitcoin? Bitcoin specifically as a store of value, as a digital gold, as a new form of payment and seamless transaction. Since the Chamber was founded, how has the idea of Bitcoin in Washington changed and has that improved? I mean, is it still brought down by those black eyes that we talked about at the beginning of the show.

Perianne So I think, you know, kind of what's been interesting is seeing the Fed's evolution of their thinking on Bitcoin. So the first time anyone at the Fed publicly talked about Bitcoin, it was Janet Yellen in a congressional hearing in I think it was 2013, and Chuck Schumer, who was calling for a ban on Bitcoin in response to all the Silk Road stuff. He asked her during the hearing if she would ban Bitcoin, and her response was, "We do not have jurisdiction over Bitcoin. Next question, please." She did not want to talk about it at all, and she kind of shut the question down. But it was crazy is the whole industry was all like, why didn't the Fed think of Bitcoin? And that's the only thing we got. And it wasn't for several more years, she said something else later. And the next statement she made, which was in 2016, she gave a talk and she said central bankers around the world should be doing everything they can to understand blockchain technology. And so they've given a lot of talks, both Janet Yellen as well as Governor Lael Brainard, who's kind of deemed like the fintech governor over at the board of governors on blockchain and its use within the greater financial system and kind of addressing how banks are innovating with blockchain technology. But the next statement about Bitcoin came from the new chair, Powell, and he was just asked recently about Bitcoin and he said it's like digital gold. And that was, I think, one of the most exciting things that we had really seen come out of the Fed, where you had the chair really acknowledge one of the most important use cases for Bitcoin as a store of value. So their thinking, and the way that they're even willing to talk about it publicly, has changed dramatically, which I do think gives a nod to the importance of this technology.

Frank Perianne, when something like that happens, how does the Chamber respond? When you have a positive development like that, do you go out and, you know, sort of notify everyone and try to build a message around that. You know, what is the on the ground activism look like when something like that happens?

Perianne Well, of course, we keep a collection of all speeches and statements that come from either regulators or policy-makers or policy leaders around digital assets, as well as blockchain technology. And we archive some of those on our Web site so people can see the positive things our nation's leaders are saying about this technology. We also use it to help companies understand the regulatory landscape. So because we don't always have regulatory clarity, sometimes companies have to use speeches and statements to inform their thinking on how they regulate old regulations will apply to this new technology. So sometimes it will make its way into legal memos and or other documents that are used to build regulatory plans or programs for companies. And then we can also use those and share them with other agencies. So different agencies may not be aware of the Fed's statements on blockchain or digital currencies. Again, because you don't have that central coordinating function. We end up doing that, coordinating ourselves, going back and forth to make sure people are aware of the landscape and are aware of the work that's being done and ensuring that you don't have conflict of law situations arise as well.

Frank When you think about the different avenues by which you can impact the regulatory landscape, obviously there is, you know, through enforcement actions or through an act of Congress, maybe through executive power. What is the most effective in your view?

Perianne Well, the easiest thing is always if the agencies can issue new rules or regulations--.

Frank Something like Hinman coming on saying ETH is likely--

Perianne So that would be a be--this is actually getting out one of the heart of the issues, especially with the SEC is you have speeches and statements. Those are not binding to the commission itself. So it's not actual guidance. It's not binding guidance, but that's kind of what we have today. The best thing is if you have--

Frank And why are they doing that? Why would they come out and sort of give statements, and sort of convoluted statements, honestly, versus, hey, here's what this is.

Perianne Sometimes they contradict, right? You may have one commissioner that says one thing and another commissioner that said something else. And in the absence of having guidance, it's, well which one is it?

Frank Sure. So how do you not how do you navigate that? But honestly, what is the impetus of that? What is the reason for it?

Perianne Well, logic and reason do not always persist in policy, especially in Washington. One of the results of that is you have different bodies getting involved in the legal process. So there is a lot of companies that are not happy with the current state of regulation. And so they've gone to Congress. And now Congress is starting to introduce all sorts of legislative proposals to fix some of those challenges and then is also going to the courts. So there's also companies that are involved in litigation and all the courts are gonna be weighing in. So you have the courts, you have the agencies, you have Congress. It's getting quite complex.

Frank When you have the chamber of Digital Commerce sitting in between all of it, trying to figure out how they can advance the space, logic and reason do not always persist in policy. Such a great quote to end the show. I firmly agree. I think it was a Ronald Reagan quote, who said--or no, I think it might have been older than that, "The point of bureaucracy is to improve the state of bureaucracy." But in any case, Perianne, thank you so much for joining us. We hope to have you on again soon, and safe flight back to D.C.!

Perianne Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Frank My pleasure. Thank you. That was great fun.

Perianne Very fun.