 Welcome to Digital Asset News, take a top story in Crypto, Currents and Digital Assets, and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. Today, we've got some really good stuff. First up, Anthony Pompilano of the Pomp Podcast had Chairman Heath Tarbert of the CFTC on, and it was pretty revealing with Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets and mostly Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, how the government needs to catch up. The U.S. wants to be a technological leader, but they need to do a lot of things so they can remain so. Plus, what his plans for the future are for digital assets. Also, before the proved Tarbert's point, the Digital Yuan now accepted in some gas stations in Chinese cities. And this is just one more story where the Chinese government is way, way, way ahead of everybody globally for CBDCs and adoption of cryptocurrencies. And on Bright News, Chainlink now lets you control your Tesla car. And this is a great story about innovation and how Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets are going to be integrated into everybody's everyday life. And finally, a record high backed Bitcoin delivery that exposes institutional frenzy for Bitcoin. And it's a good story, but there's one thing that actually learned about this one, and that is that backed is heavy into physically settled Bitcoin. And we'll get into all that, but first take a look at what's going on the market. So this is our second video of the day. So if you caught the first one, congratulations. That was just okay. This one, I feel, was pretty darn good. So what's going on? Pretty much the same thing. So there is a little issue with OKX, the Cryptocurrency exchange. Apparently there's one person that controls all the private keys, and he has been arrested by the Chinese authorities. So there's a little hiccup going on there, but that doesn't really change anything for the market as far as the fundamentals. However, it will change the prices. So Bitcoin is up only a little 0.2% after a little bit of a tumble there at three. So holding strong at 11.3. Ethereum, down from around 380 to 377, but still 0.7 in the last 24 hours. And we're actually seeing a little bit of a reversal, which is pretty good. XRP is up 1.3 for Binance coin. Everything's up a little bit. Not everything. 1.7 for Cardano. Remember, this is actually after the dip that happened yesterday. So we're going to see a little bit of a rebound, which is not too bad. But again, nothing has changed. Bitcoin hasn't been hacked. No one's come out and said, hey, this is, you know, just everything's going to go to zero and just awful. It's just an exchange that got ahead of itself. And we, of course, depending on how you look at it, I have to pay a price or it's a golden opportunity because for some of you people out there that took some advice and said, hey, you know what, this is a flash sale, I got to get something. And now you're up, you know, who knows, 3, 2, 3%, something like that. But there are some ones that are just laggards. And that's just how it is. So we got, what are the biggest losers? The biggest loser probably would be OKB, which is the token for OKX. Of course, it's down 16% for 24 hours, 32% for the week. And that only makes sense. Anyhow, that's going on the market. Let's jump into today's top stories. So first up, this was fascinating. This was a great interview with Anthony Pompiano and the chairman of the CFTC, Heath Tarbert. And it's, it always amazes me because when I look at Pomp Show, first of all, you have tons of subscribers, 115,000. Good for him. He deserves it. You got a lot of great information out there. But when he has something out like this, I look at him like, well, this should be like, you know, a big news story because we're going to see exactly what the thoughts of the government. When I look down here, I'm like, man, 4,000 views, that's crazy. That was just two days ago. So you would think that there'd be like a ton, as opposed to like the CEO of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor came on and he got like 40, 50, 60,000 views. So it's just a little bit of an oddity. I don't really understand why that is, but maybe it's because people just look at governments and like, well, he just represents government and they're slow and really they're out of touch and who cares. But it was a fantastic interview. And there's a ton of great nuggets and information that really should be put out there. So I'm just going to highlight three points that I thought were the biggest ones. And let's just jump in. So first up, Pomp asked me a good question. He goes, hey, the US wants to be a leader in technology, especially with these CBDCs, these central bank digital coins. Is that in the cards at any time soon before the rest of the globe passes us by? Because we're going to talk about a story about China and digital yuan. They're way ahead of everybody, especially America. So what's going on? And it's just great to kind of look back behind the curtain and see what the thoughts of a high ranking official is and how it's all going to play out. So let's take a listen. It's a great question, Pomp. And really where I stand is I want to see the United States lead in blockchain technology. For me, it's not necessarily something that the government needs to be and be involved with directly, but there could be benefits to that as well. But I really want to see the United States continue to support innovation in this space because I do see other countries coming in and starting to potentially take the lead. And I think it's really important that a democracy such as ours continues to be on the forefront of this for the future of the global financial system. For central bank currencies in particular, I think ultimately I'm going to obviously defer to my fellow colleagues at the Federal Reserve. But what I will say is that I think it is critical that the US dollar remain the world's reserve currency. Certainly it should remain the world's reserve currency based on the fundamental impact of the dollar. And I would hate to see a situation where people are no longer using the US dollar, not because there's been major macroeconomic changes, but rather that the US has fallen behind in technology. So I know the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world are having discussions about central bank digital currencies. And to some extent there's kind of a metaphysical question as to well, should it actually be a digital currency on a blockchain or can we simply speed up our payment systems? But the bottom line is that I think everyone agrees that our payment mechanisms in the United States and in many countries around the world are have not kept case with technology. And so I think we definitely want to put a lot of thought and emphasis into the debate, the discussion. And regardless if we go to an actual central bank digital currency where we just go to a more sophisticated payment system, I agree that something has to be done. So there's a lot to unpack there. And first things first, I will just say at the elephant in the room, it's whatever you're into right now, whatever you're heavily invested into, you just heard that and you thought to yourself, you know what that is? That is V chain. You know what that is? That is Bitcoin. You know what that is? That is XRP. That is Stellar. That is blah, blah, blah. It's just amazing how like whatever you're invested in into that is your thing. And you know what? You could be right. I'm not here to debate what it is or what it isn't. But it is interesting to see, you know, the chairman of the CFTC come onto a podcast, answer some questions about cryptocurrency and digital assets at blockchain in particular, and just really kind of lay it all out there. Can you imagine this happen in 2017? Again, people would have lost their minds and they were like, you know what? To the moon, Lambo and everything else in three short years, three short years, we are already here. And what he just talked about and he said, you know what? I hope that the American government still has the reserve currency of the US dollar and it probably will. But it is weakening and we know that's what's happening. He realizes just what I think everybody realizes that America is losing pace. We are falling far, far behind because we have no clarity and we have no backbone in areas of Congress and the people that are supposed to be put in place to actually get things done. And this is the reason why we are going to fall behind. I mean, I mean, massively behind of what's happening. So I just see a lot of problems coming up. I mean, thankfully we've got this gentleman here, Heath, who really just puts it on and goes, you know what? I want to see America do well. I want to see these things happen. And I want to have a little bit more clarity so we can kind of give a little bit more guidance. And he's going to talk more about that in a little bit. But one last thing, it was pretty interesting to note that he talked about really there's going to be two options, where they're going to go CBDCs, Central Bank Digital Coins or Central Bank Digital Currencies, or we're going to go into an opposite direction and improve the rails that we have and what he's talking about is Swift and just how awful that is. And it just really depends on really who gets a foothold and who realizes and actually who is advocating for it in these these government institutions and says, Hey, we need to do this and we're going to go this route. So right now we are on this path and it can diverse into one or two ways I see it. Either we're going to try to upgrade this old crappy system or it's going to say, you know what, that is just old. Let's just go the new system, which we know is going to work. We can, I mean, it's not going to be perfect. We can fix it as opposed to, you know, put a lipstick on a pig. All right. And the next part blew me away because it was a great question. Anthony says, Hey, you know what? This is the problem with with government is that you guys are slow and crypto is moving at light speed. I mean, look what just happened with DeFi. So how is the CFTC and the rest of the government actually going to keep up and make informed decisions because that is your job. And he answers it perfectly. Let's take a listen that we always want to stay ahead of the curve. So then becomes the question. Well, how do you do that? Particularly, how do you do that in a federal government agency that is required by law to come up with a five year plan? Almost like the Soviet Union, right? And so we do have a very different culture than Silicon Valley. I think the couple of keys to that number one is education, education, education. And so we've created lab CFTC a few years ago when I came in, we actually elevated lab CFTC our innovation arm to report directly to the chairman. And it is essentially a liaison between the regulator and those that are be regulated as well as those that developing new technologies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in California and all over the world. And so we want to learn as much as we can. And we want to listen to the right to the blockchain community. And at the same time, we hope the blockchain community would listen to us to learn a little bit about our regulatory framework. So there truly is a meeting of the minds. But in terms of education, just during the pandemic, our lab CFTC has held something like 60 different courses. And I myself have had have taken tutorials. So for a series of six to eight weeks, every Wednesday and Thursday night, I would sit down and I have a course on various types of technologies. I'd learned the, you know, the Shaw 256, how the algorithm works really get into the details because I feel like, look, at the end of the day, this is under my purview. And I owe it to to the blockchain community to at least understand it to a level that I can make informed policy decisions. And then the final thing I would say is in Washington, there's a mantra personnel is policy. It all comes down to the people in many cases. So we've looked and I've tried to hire people that come from the tech community. So our new head of lab CFTC, she came from a Silicon Valley based company to one person in my office, as well as one of our division directors came from a cryptocurrency exchange. And then finally, we just hired one of the few PhD Ivy League economists in the world with a background in crypto. So it's really important that we have those people in the agency. And so why won't we're never going to have the kind of innovative culture that Silicon Valley based firm has, for example, we can at least have people that are familiar with the technology that want to learn and they're willing to take risks. Would you have ever expected an answer like that to come from anybody high up in the US government, as far as cryptocurrency assets and what they're actually doing to stay ahead of the curve? When I listen to that, I listen to it four times, at least four times, I'm blown away. And I listen to again, I'm like, I can't believe that is really the answer that this is that has come out of this guy's mouth. I mean, what this is saying to me is that there is some, some, and I'm not gonna say all, there are some very educated people in in the government that are have our best interests at heart. And when he talked about, you know, it's at the end of the day, it's about, you know, understanding what's going on in the cryptocurrency community. And then hopefully, they will listen to us about policy. So there is a give and take. And I have to say, it's very impressive just to hear what's going on. So the last part, Anthony Pompliano just says, Hey, there's a new bill coming up through the drafts. It's called the Digital Commodity Exchange Act 2020. How will the CFTC implement the this rule if it does get passed, as far as and then, as far as other regulations that are going to come out of the pipe to give clarity to the United States, because that's really what we're all asking for. It's not a really hard thing to do. It's just a, it's a hard thing to actually get there and just iron it out. But once it's there, it's set, how is the CFTC, how is the CFTC going to actually implement this and how can they make it happen? Well, when I talk to the blockchain community and the crypto community, there are two things that I think I always hear. And number one, there's a lack of clarity. There's a lack of clarity as to how these things should be regulated. And the first threshold is, is it a security or is it a commodity? Very different. There are sort of two diversion paths on the road. One leads to the SEC and a very different type of regulation. The other, if it's a commodity, leads into our space, which is a more principles-based approach. And I think in some cases is favored by many people in the crypto community. So that's one thing. And so we need clarity at some point. We need a lot more clarity, so people as they're designing products, as they're experimenting with products, can really kind of understand how they will be regulated in the end because it could very well affect the value as well as how it performs and how it's set up. The second big issue I hear is that because there's some, there's the uncertainty, overlaying that is the fact that there's complete fragmentation with our 50 states. So if you're a cryptocurrency exchange now, you have to deal with every single jurisdiction, not only in the United States, but abroad, but certainly in the U.S. where you must have to register, there are requirements. And so the founding fathers going way back, talking about innovation, well I think 1787 was a great year for innovation because it was the year of our Constitution. But one of the things the founding fathers I think got right is federalism. And the idea that if something is in interstate commerce, it should be regulated federally so we could have a national economy. And then other things were left to the states. Well I can't think of anything more emblematic of interstate commerce than blockchain. And so if we're able to have a single federal regulatory regime, that will create what's called preemption also in the Constitution, which basically allows federal law to be supreme, but you have one law to comply with and therefore you don't have to worry about the patchwork of 50 different states. And so it may very well be that for some areas certain consumer protections, it makes sense to have the states involved and the states play an important role. But for other aspects, it may make far more sense to have a single federal regime that will allow innovation, provide clarity, and then also allow this to grow in a way that it can in other countries because they don't have the fragmentation. So again, that's all we're asking for is a little clarity. So if they can push through bills and they actually make things happen, so much the better. I know some people out there are like, I don't want the government involved because cryptocurrency is, you know, should be for the people and see centralized. Look, I get it. I understand. That's how a lot of us got into it. But in all honesty, it's a lot easier to start a revolution from the inside going out than from the outside going in. So we need these types of things to actually push the innovation and actually push cryptocurrency assets into the public consciousness to where it actually should be for the people. And I got to tell you, I got to tell you, I think this is actually a great thing and a step in the right direction. Now he does talk and he says specifically blockchain. He says that many times, but throughout the whole interview, and I cut some things out, obviously, he does talk about Bitcoin Ethereum specifically. So if you want to watch this entire interview, I'm going to link that in the description of this video. And let me know what you think. I mean, to me, I think this is awesome. I think this is exactly what we should be doing. We should be talking to these people. We should be seeing what the government wants to do so we can actually get things moving. Because we need clarity and we need government officials who are actually educated in what is going on in this space. Because just like you and me, once they get educated and they figure out how great it is, then it's just a snowball effect and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. All right, I'm going to think in the comment section, let's move on. So in that vein of what just happened as far as like the US is falling behind because of the CBDCs, here's the exact opposite of what's happening. The digital yuan is now accepted in gas stations in Chinese cities. So congratulations, China. You're kicking the tar out of everybody. So Chinese city, Shenzhen seems to have kicked the launch of the digital yuan into a frenzy after a discovery that some gas stations in the city have started accepting the digital currency. The report made it known that the state owned petroleum firm, Guangdong Petroleum, pretty sure I nailed it, is at the helm of the affairs of this implementation. Gas stations who are currently accepting digital yuan currency have a barcode which citizens just have to scan to make their payment. And just to be crystal clear, this is a central bank issued currency. They have been working with this for over a year now. They rolled it out into certain cities, Shenzhen being one of them. I think it's actually that that's the only part and in certain provinces. So this is actually live. It's actually being used. They're proving that it can be done. And of course in China, it's just all about control, more control, more control. I'm not going to get into that whole discussion. The big thing to me is they pulled it off. They pulled it off, they did it, and they did it before anybody else did it. So lastly, the state owned petroleum firm also made it known that it would be looking to spread the services to other self-operating gas stations before this month ends. The firm noted that the level of feedback it had gotten from the small scale implementation has been largely positive as the process was praised for being fast and efficient. And you better believe it, because look, all you got to do is just scan a barcode and know if you go. And then everything is just, it's in this little app and they can just check to see what you're spending, when you're spending, where you're spending. Of course, fantastic control. Again, don't care about that. I'm just telling you that, hey, they got it done. So my final thoughts are this. This is how I see it. This is a national security issue for the United States. And I mean, I know you may not be United States, maybe in Canada, Europe, Australia, India, places like that. Maybe you're watching from China, I don't know, but it's just a reminder to everybody. And I think this is one of the things that Tarbert is really thinking about the CFTC chairman we just talked about, the SEC chairman, probably people higher up in the government, all the way up to who knows, they realize that they have to start doing something because if this keeps happening, which it will, it will only spread faster and faster. You can circumvent sanctions and tariffs and everything else. If you can use your own digital currency between other countries, why do you need the US dollar reserve currency? What's the point? I've got this digital you on. I've got this digital euro. I've got this digital pound. I don't really care about this stuff. And we can complete transactions between countries at our own native currency because we all have central bank digital currency. So we don't need your dollar. And just one of those things where this could actually happen, you know, in all honesty, maybe it should because if I'm a country, I want to be beholden to anybody else. I want to be my own sovereign state. So why do I need you? And before I get off in that tangent, let's move on to the next section. But before I go, let me know what you think of the comment section about this one. This is an interesting case and it'll be ever developing. All right, let's move on. Next up, this was interesting. Actually, it's really fascinating. I'm, I feel like I'm a futurist. I like to see what is out there and what could be. At least, I like to see what could actually make my life and everybody's life easier. And that's what technology is all about. So this article was fantastic. It states, chain link now lets you control your Tesla car. Fantastic. So what's going on here? An external adapter that allows getting access to Tesla cars and change their state has become available on the chain link market. I was like, I don't know what that is. So there's a link to it and here it is chain link market. So they have all different types of things, data sources and APIs, I suppose, where you can actually start to plug into different environments or into different activities that make chain link work and how can actually work better. So I think it looks great and it's innovation on the cutting edge. So what's happening here? Chain link powered car renting external adopters allow adding customize functionality. There's no need to run your own chain link node. Given that external adapters can be hosted by their nodes in order to ensure decentralization. Perich Asus, he was the one that actually created this or the Perich Asus adopter dubbed link my ride was created with the help of Tesla's feature rich API that allows interacting with the car manufacturers vehicles and other devices such as powerwall batteries. Can you imagine this actually happening 10 years ago, five years ago? I mean, that's amazing. You can you can build a connection between a blockchain and a Tesla car to do certain functionalities. That's great stuff. And like I said before, there are things that we can't even imagine right now or think about are what's going to happen the next two, three, 10, 20 years. It's going to look like a whole different civilization. I mean, imagine the internet 20 years ago, things sure have changed. Anyhow, the adapter supports such API calls as authentication, locking unlocking the vehicle and honking the horn, just among others, I'm sure. Papachurus says that around 20 API endpoints are yet to be added. One of the possible applications of link my ride is decentralized car renting, which is demonstrated in this video. It could save up to 30% of revenue for car owners and it states, and this is probably from from the creator. He states, traditional vehicle rental platforms, the vehicle renter relies on the brand power of the company renting the vehicles and trust that the bond they submit will be returned if they adhere to the conditions. And as a vehicle owner provider, going through a trusted centralized platform usually requires sacrificing approximately 30% of revenue earned. So when I first read this, and when you read this, you're like, yeah, centralation sucks. Not so fast, because what he's talking about is not just not ride share apps like Uber, but ride rental apps, something like Turo. So Turo, you can actually put your car on this and you can rent out your vehicle for, you know, as long as you want to. So say, for instance, you're like, okay, we have two cars, we don't need that car too much, and we're going to rent it out. Or let's say we're going on vacation for a week and the car is going to sit there. Might as well have it actually working for us. You can rent it out. It's like Airbnb, but for cars. But here's the thing. So somebody signs up, right? They take your car and then they get into a massive accident. So for some insurance companies, they will cover it for deductible. However, on some policies, they will not. They'll say, hey, you rent through a person you really didn't know. It was not your friend. It wasn't a relative, it wasn't family. So we're not going to cover that. Or here's an even worse example. Let's say you do it the other way, all decentralized and someone puts it in and they give a fake ID and they give you a credit card that is prepaid. And then they're just gone. They're gone with your car. So what do you do now? Now I'm sure there's workarounds and everything else. Of course, there's, you know, anything can be solved. But it's one of those things that really has to be thought about. I mean, thought about well before you actually start to do these things. And this is one of the things with DeFi. I mean, we wanted to do all we wanted to get away from centralized finance. We created decentralized finance and say, you know what we're going to do everything. And we don't need a middleman. And then look what happens sometimes. Well, contracts don't aren't made perfect. And the people that actually create it, they leave holes into it and it gets hacked. And then people lose their money. The same thing here. So these are going to be growing pains, but just something to actually think about before we're like, yeah, let's do all this stuff for what is centralized. Whoa, just hold on. A lot of things to work out. A lot more complex. I think people think. Anyhow, let me know what you think about in the comment section. Let's move on. And last up, record high backed Bitcoin delivery exposed institutional frenzy for Bitcoin. And we know this is happening, but there's a little wrinkle to this little caveat that even I was wrong about. And I was, I had to actually correct myself. So this is what's happening. Data from Arcane Research shows backed Bitcoin exchange. So another record high month from September 20th to October 20th. I think that's odd because it's October 17th. I don't know if this is written in the future. And I'm a time traveler. I'm not for sure. But I guessing that it's kind of lumping this all together. Anyhow, this follows a noticeable rise in institutional demand for Bitcoin from public companies in recent months. And we can see from here's October, 2019. Here's October, 2020. That's pretty massive. Of course, you have to remember that back was started somewhere around here. So then we have this, you know, big jump up here. Looks about the normal, right? March, 2020. Wow, look at March. That was a bad month. But of course, April, it's slumped down, but look, this is for right now. I will take this W. So backed, the digital asset payment platform and derivatives exchange is tailored for institutional investors in the US. It is operated by the ICE. We're in a kind of exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. I have to tell you, I got to tell you, when one back came out, it was the biggest thing ever. Because we're like, this is fantastic. It's going to be physically settle Bitcoin, futures, institutional investors are going to come in and just crush it. And it started off like nothing was like such a dud. But just like all businesses or sometimes businesses, they just take a little bit of time to actually get moving. Any other states according to analysts at Arcane Research, 400 Bitcoin contracts are set to expire in October at backed month over month. The data shows a 14% jump from September. So that's huge. I mean, if we can go, we keep doing that, we're going to be in the massive money and finishing up at top the high trading activity on backed, LMAX digital and CME are also continuously posting large demands. So here's my final thoughts. This is always good. It's always good when we start to hear a lot of always good, but it's great news when we see that more people, even those institutional investors, getting into Bitcoin and digital assets, that's always great. And Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy and Jack Dorsey from Twitter and Square, they're the ones that really kicked it off. No one wants to be first, but nobody wants to be last. And once you get those first people rolled in the door, it starts to have that snowball effect and I'm waiting for that. But when I'm reading this article, I'm like, yeah, this is cool and everything. But I mean, backed isn't physically settled Bitcoin. However, I am wrong. So this in May 2020, it says backed physical Bitcoin features beat cash that have major CME expiry. So according to analytics resources skew, latest data for which data is available in May, produce 34 million for backs physically settled Bitcoin futures. Cash settled Bitcoin futures was 9.3 million. And meanwhile, daily record for physically settled futures at backed at 43 million. So I remember hearing about backs, I remember hearing we're supposed to be physically settled, then they went to fiat and something must have changed because now it's all physically, mostly physically settled Bitcoin, which I think is good for us. We don't really want to have this, you know, paper tiger out there that is just, you know, paper money or paper Bitcoin, we want the actual real thing. Because as people are snatching that up, hopefully it will increase demand. So again, institutionals are institution investors are here, things are moving fast. But there was something interesting I learned a couple days ago. Actually, I learned this a couple weeks ago. And I talked about this, I did do a quick video yesterday, but I put it on digital asset news clips. And it just talks about why institutional investors have a massive advantage over you. That's really what it is. And it's really about data and how they process edit, how they get it, and how they're crushing everything and how they're ahead of the game. So check that out if you got time. It's interesting. It's kind of depressing at first, but there's options out there. So that is it for today. So I want to say thanks for sticking with me to the very end. I really appreciate it. If you like these types of videos, there's going to be two more on your left and right. I'm going to probably put one up there and then YouTube does the other one. And so check those out when you got time. Other than that, thanks for sticking with me. I super appreciate it. And I'll see you on the next one.