 Do you know enough about this technology to have a serious debate? Is that a trick question? This is the first time Congress is having a hearing about cryptocurrencies. Oh, that explains why crypto is doing so well until now. Because policy makers, we need to understand what we're talking about here. We haven't done it before, but I'm game. When I'm trying to wrap my head around a new topic like cryptocurrencies, I try to relate it back to something I understand, like baseball. All of the complex topics that fall under the purview of Congress can be boiled down to a folksy baseball analogy. But there's something about crypto that scares people. A call is coming from inside the House of Representatives. There are concerns with the use of cryptocurrencies for nefarious activities. You know what else is used for nefarious activities? Bottle rockets. Nunchucks. Ninja throwing stars. The Petri Act. My ex-wife. Sapina power. Wet markets. Slim congressional majorities. Time travel paradoxes. A 78 Buick Riviera. What's for me? Cash. Well, my Coke dealer doesn't accept Venmo. I've got several questions for you, and then one of them will be from completely left field. Oh, baseball! What threats or benefits to a blockchain system will come from quantum computing? That's a weirdly good question. Well, we'll see what happens there. That's a weirdly bad answer. What makes Web 3 different is the ability to own the actual network. Do I need a baseball metaphor to understand this? The lack of clarity is clear. The eye industry has the potential to improve a lot of people's lives. I'm sure we'll find a way to stop that. Unfortunately, it would only take a few misguided curveballs, we'll say. Baseball! From Washington to undo some of the progress. Now, Congress should not be dumb enough to raise a red flag around this technology revolution. Treating crypto as a single unitary activity whose main feature is a need for financial regulation would be like treating the original internet in the 1990s as primarily a tax policy issue. Don't give them ideas. Do we believe a user-controlled, decentralized internet is better than an internet largely controlled by five big companies? Or a government controlled by two big political parties? The biggest critics of cryptocurrency have been the biggest banks. Elizabeth Banks. It is true. You try to use a credit card or debit card to buy a sandwich today. The system takes a percent, half a percent, 50 cents away from the merchant. Wait, half a percent is 50 cents? You're buying $100 sandwiches? You try to use crypto to buy a sandwich today. I don't know where you can go in Washington to use a bitcoin to buy a sandwich. Can't be done at all. Okay. So that's sort of like a bulk. Now that's not a fair comparison. I don't understand baseball. I just want to regulate it. There's still extreme volatility it seems in this marketplace. Yeah, it goes up and down and up and down while the dollar only goes down. DeFi is the most dangerous part of the crypto world. Let me guess. The solution is to give more power and money to unelected experts who share all of your cultural preconceptions, watch the handmade tail and went to the right school. Is that the right thing? Bitcoin could be displaced by Ether, which could be displaced by Dodge, which could be displaced by Hamstercoin. And then there's Cobra Coin. And what could Mongo's coin do to crypto coin? Are you trying to say Mongoose? Will Mongo's coin always have a value? I don't know. I just made it up. It's a joke. I don't think you know how jokes work. We often hear that crypto industry is the wild, wild West where there is no regulation guiding the industry. Do any of you feel unregulated? It's a little personal, don't you think? I have satisfied myself. For the record, I'm not doing anything with that. Okay, I'm just letting that be. I'm not a monster. Had the government gotten the way of the internet, we would still be using dial-up today. You realize they still use fax machines here, right? The central bank needs the ability to match the amount of money in the system to the needs of the economy. Or just to inflate the value away if the government wants to keep spending but doesn't want to raise taxes. Do you think you could sell metal coins that say US dollar coin on them? I'm a pretty good salesman. I think I could sell them. We'll buy anything around here. I mean, how many are we talking about? Like 20,000 units? I could push 20,000 units. I can sell you that. So I guess I'm left incredibly confused. And I'm hoping that we do nothing. That might be the answer. Good plan. Let's do that. This meeting is adjourned.