 The State of New York is about to introduce the U.S.'s first cryptocurrency task force. Comprised of stakeholders such as technologists, consumers, investors, blockchain companies and academics, the task force will study the regulation and use of crypto and submit a report by the end of 2020. The announcement was first made by New York State Assembly member Clyde Vanell, who is also chair of the subcommittee on Internet and New Technologies. We interviewed Clyde and asked him to tell us more about the task force. Well, I was interested in Bitcoin. I mean, I think that first heard about it in, I don't know, the early 2010s or something like that. And so, yeah, I heard about it for a very long, you know, a while back. And I used to work for a state senator where, you know, while I was working for him, I used to, you know, look at, we were trying to find out what was going on with Bitcoin. And that was back in 2014, 2013, 2014, when I was blessed enough to get in this position as a New York State Assembly member in 2016, you know, it was, you know, at that time a lot of stuff had been changing in the blockchain space, in the crypto space. So when I first heard of Bitcoin in, you know, around 2010, 2011, Bitcoin was the only token out there. You know, when I got elected, you know, it was a world of, you know, we had, and I also, you know, I also hold coins. I also, you know, have some tokens, so, but a lot have proliferated from them. But one day I was sitting in this office and I said, I wonder what are the different ways, because I heard that there were, I saw that there were some Bitcoin ATMs around New York City. So I said, I wonder if there are any Bitcoin ATMs, it was the closest one to my office. So I typed it in, in Google, and I saw that there was one a block and a half away from here. Is it still there? It's still there. And that's the one I did the episode. I did the episode of me discovering that, that Bitcoin ATM that was all impromptu at the moment where I found that ATM a block and a half away from here. So if you look at a golden, you know, if you look at the fable of a golden goose, there was a goose that laid golden eggs and every day it laid a golden egg. Every day it laid a golden egg. The owner of it was like, wow, this goose is going to make me so much money and it's laying eggs, one egg every day. If I open it up, I want to get all the eggs out. And when he opened it up, he killed the goose, no more eggs. If we over-regulate, we can kill that goose. And cryptocurrency blockchain technology has the potential to lay golden eggs for a very long time. We need to make sure that we take care of the goose so that it can continue to lay eggs. But we don't want it to, we don't want the goose to go around killing other goose, right? We don't, also we don't want to feed the goose too much so it becomes too big. So I think that we have to make sure that we come out with regulations that protect the goose, keep bad stuff from messing up the goose and to allow it also to continue to lay the eggs. We're happy that the governor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, signed into law to be able to put together a cryptocurrency, what we call it, a digital currency task force where we are going to get stakeholders from around the industry, from technologists to exchanges, to coins, to investors, to consumers, to the New York State DFS to be able to get in a room to help figure out what the proper level of regulations are, to help figure out to define what these different tokens are, how do they use, how are they going to be used in New York to define and to figure out how to use blockchain properly in New York and they're going to put together a report to help guide us on the right levels of regulations in this state. What's great is that in conjunction with that task force, California has a blockchain workgroup and that was signed into law around the same time and with California study and New York study and what have you, we could try to figure out the proper level of regulations and the proper use of blockchain for the two biggest states but really for the country and maybe the world. So a lot of people talk about the bit license and speak about it in negative sense or what have you and we have to find the right level of regulations. But New York was the first municipality, government source in the nation and in the world to protect its investors, to protect the regular consumers. Back when New York State came out with the bit license in 2014 when they were looking at it, we were in a world where if you had, if you had, you know, Bitcoin and you purchased Bitcoin on an exchange like Mt. Gox and it was compromised, you had no recourse. None. New York State under the DFS, Department of Financial Services, in a short, you know, deliberately and very smartly came up with the bit license. They had, and people, you know, and there's controversy around it or what have you but I'm happy to be in a state where New Yorkers are protected. If you are, if you're in exchange in New York and New Yorkers buy cryptocurrencies, you are protected here. Now that was four years ago, right? There's a lot changes in four years. So the definition, that was, and at that time, Bitcoin was the only player in town, right? Now we have, I don't know, how many coins, right? How many tokens? Now we have different kinds of tokens. Now we have security tokens. Now we have utility tokens. Now we have, we have a whole host of, you know, so the world has changed a whole lot and so that's why this tax force is important to look at, you know, not where the ball is but where it's going. But I think that New York is a great place for crypto currency. I think New York is a great place for blockchain technology. So the crypto landscape in the U.S. is interesting. So there are certain states that are wide open, that's right? So I don't want to name any, but there are certain states that are wide open and say, look, any blockchain company, any blockchain business, come on, we love you. There are states that are saying, you know, you want to pay taxes in crypto? No problem. You want to pay whatever, you know, in crypto? No problem. And there are states that are not speaking about it at all. So you have the whole gamut, right? You have the whole gamut that's out there. New York is the empire state. I know, we like to brag about that, but I think we are. We're the big apple with the empire state. But there's no doubt we are the financial capital of the world. So we can't be the wild, wild west. We can't say, whatever goes here, goes here, right? Because the world is watching, not only are other states watching, the world is watching, right? When we came out, the bit license has been used by many states and many countries as a model for regulations. So being that that's the case, being that we have to be careful, deliberate, and exacting on how we come out with these, with regulations and our approach toward, you know, toward cryptocurrency and our approach toward blockchain. I can't speak on the SEC, that's federal government. I can't speak on the SEC's potential decision on allowing Bitcoin electronic traded funds. But I will say that in the space of cryptocurrency trading, you've seen two years ago the commodities exchange in Chicago, right, trade in Bitcoin. You've seen the New York Stock Exchange relax their view towards cryptocurrency. You've seen many of the established financial institutions have and include cryptocurrency and blockchain related divisions. So in a relatively short time, that can be, it seems like a long time for folks, for the impatient young people in the space. But in a relatively short time, the acceptance of cryptocurrency in traditional finance, it's been happening on a very fast pace. I know people are impatient, people think it's taking a long time, but it's not really taking a long time. Keep in mind, we have to look at the context. This is an asset, if I can call it that, that is 10 years old. That's a new thing, right, that was developed very fast and that's changing very fast. So for the SEC, for these established older financial institutions to adopt these assets at this point is unheard of. So Wyoming did it. I think Ohio just recently said okay. I think, so it's interesting if you look at my YouTube episode where I tried to buy pizza with Bitcoin, when I actually went to go buy it, I couldn't do it because I didn't want to spend my Bitcoin on a $2 pizza and then have it be $10 later on. So what's interesting is that I don't think crypto is in a place for currency, and this is my personal opinion. This is my personal opinion, this is not the opinion of the government. I don't think crypto is in this place until, but what's interesting, generally speaking, generally speaking, there are tokens that are called stable tokens that are, I think they're called stable tokens. I think that's what they're called, excuse me if I'm wrong, but there are tokens that are pegged towards with the dollar, for example, right, that don't have the volatility. If that's kind of tokenized, then I can see that huge is currency easier. But also I don't see, I don't know if Bitcoin would be the standard to use as currency. When I went there, when I went to go buy the pizza, I would be more willing to spend Lite Coin on a pizza than Bitcoin. So saying all that, I don't know if we're in a place yet to have general acceptance of accepting crypto for taxes. How long do you think it will take? I don't know. I'm looking at these stable coins and seeing that that's interesting to me, to see if you have these tokens that are pegged towards, I say the US dollar or some other kind of fiat currency, what that means. So people are investing in people investing significant amounts in cryptocurrency. These are wrapping their business around that technology. So because that's the case, it's very important to protect folks' investments, right? So whether you invest in something big or small, it's important for you on one hand for consumer protection and for investor protection to make sure that you guys are properly protected. So that's one thing. That I don't think is too small for us to regulate. And they probably meant larger scale, wider scale. I don't know what the context of that question was because I respect the folks and I respect that conference. Another thing also is that also companies that are doing activities around the space also want to make sure that they are properly protected and that they can grow. So I think finding the right kind of, the right level of regulation for them is important and I don't think it's too small for us to talk about and think about. I don't want to assure people one thing or not. Like I said, as how I define the way I view crypto, I view crypto as a great potential that has a great potential, a great potential in the technology, great potential to be able to exchange value with and I think that it's a golden goose. And the way I view it is saying things that we properly, we find the right level of regulations so that we don't kill it and that it will continue to provide eggs for us. But this is not a new thing, I'm sorry, it's not new that we're dealing with new technology. I can imagine us having this same interview back in 1996, talking about the internet and you can say, oh my gosh, what are you going to do about the internet? Or how are we going to start, what's the proper level of regulations? Now keep in mind, we're in the internet world maybe 20 years into the internet world and we're still trying to figure out what to do with privacy. We're still trying to figure out what the right levels of protections you need and what are your rights with your personal data, right? California just came out with a set of regulations. Europe came out with a set of GDPR less than a year ago. So 20 years later, we're still trying to figure out the internet and we have to figure this out. 20 years later, it's still relatively new so with crypto, I think we're in a similar space but even earlier.