What's up, everyone? This is Anthony pop Leon. Oh, most of you know me as pomp. You're listening to the podcast. Simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off Cynthia. Lummis is a United States senator from Wyoming. She's the first Senator history to own Bitcoin and has become a strong advocate for the digital currency in this conversation. We discuss her passion for Bitcoin how to educate congressmen and Senators the geopolitical landscape the government sentiment on bitcoin and
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Express by pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion this podcast is for informational purposes only. All right guys, bang bang. I have Senator. Lummis here with us. Thank you so much for doing this man.
My pleasure Anthony, it's great to be with you today.
For sure for those that don't know you maybe let's just start with your background before you became a senator kind of. Where did you grow up? And what did
you do?
Well, I'm a ranch girl from Wyoming. I was born near Cheyenne and Ranch there to this day with my brother and my sister. I also have a farm over on the western side of the state we have hay and cattle and then in the fall we take in a lot of horses that are coming in off the pack strings that are on the bridger-teton National Forest in the summer. So my background is primarily ranching, but
I also have a law degree. I practiced law for nine years and and it's been a lot of time in and out of politics. I was in our state legislature work for our governor in Wyoming was State Treasurer in the US House. And now I'm in the US Senate
doing a fantastic job. You've got a passion for Bitcoin. Where did that come from? When did you first come across Bitcoin? And where does that passion and really kind of
come from?
I was State Treasurer in Wyoming during the first part of the 21st century. So I was always looking for a store of value. We have inlay oming permanent funds that are based on extracting minerals and while in gas from the ground, we take a severance tax. It's called from minerals and invested in a Permanent Fund and the concept of that permanent mineral trust fund.
Is that when the minerals are gone, we will still have Revenue left over because we invested the proceeds and continue to invest them in a diversified asset allocation. So while we're taking something valuable from the ground and converting it to cash. I wanted to convert the cash into things that produced income for the short term, but also produced long-term value just like those
Girls did when they were in the ground, so I was always looking for things that had we're a good store of value the more I learned about Bitcoin the more the nomenclature of Bitcoin reminded me of our permanent mineral trust fund Bitcoin is essentially mind. There will only be 21 million Bitcoins mind and because it is a finite resource I see.
It as a very good store of value. So I bought a few Bitcoin in 2013 and 2014 and have continued to pay attention to it ever since and of course, we've seen it, of course be volatile going up and down, but I still think it is an excellent store of value and that it should be part of every individual person's Investment Portfolio now,
If you look at your average, blue-collar worker the guy or gal that's out there laying bricks or building the apartment across the street from these Senate Office Buildings the if they invest just in the US dollar the dollar is designed to be worth less every year. And so if they're saving now, let's say they're in their 20s or 30s now when they get my age
Age that money that they have worked so hard all their lives to save. It's if it's denominated in u.s. Dollars is not going to buy as much as it does now. So trying to help people find things that will capture the value capture the value of their hard work now and make it available to them in the future when they're my age when people start to retire.
That's something that that makes me excited about being back in the US Senate. I was always a fiscal Hawk when I was here before and I am watching us rack up debt to the tune of now 27 trillion. We're talking about another two trillion here with the new Administration. The money is going to buy less and less over time. So looking at things that everyday Americans the person who
works at Walmart the Rancher across the fence for me those people the teachers the firefighters the capital policeman around here who did such a good job here this month. I want to help them find things that will store value so when they get my Edge and they start retiring it's actually worth something.
Yeah, do you think that we're headed towards a situation where eventually every state whether it's the Permanent Fund in Wyoming or other funds that they have will have to look at this as well. I know that we've got kind of individuals. We've got some financial institutions now a couple of Corporations, but we haven't seen lots of movement either at the state local or federal level in government. Do you think that'll change over time or do you think it's more so this asset will be something for individuals?
And corporations but not necessarily
government entities.
I hope it will be for all of the above as part of a fully Diversified asset allocation. So for example, if you are a postal worker, I believe that the postal workers retirement funds should be have the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin not Bitcoin exclusively. But Bitcoin as a wide variety an array of a
assets, I think that should be true of permanent mineral trust funds like Wyoming has New Mexico has Alaska has and and other government funds that are trying to find a slice of their Investments to store value. Now if you want assets that are throwing off income, you know, maybe you want to go to the S&P 500 some spiders some large cap growth strategies, but if you if you want to store value,
A long-term sort of is to protect yourself from inflation. That's where I think that Bitcoin plays an important role now and someday it's role May expand but for this day and age, I really see it as a great store of value for individuals for corporations. And for
government. Yeah, that's great about a year and a half ago. I went and I met with a number of offices in the house and at the time I think my takeaway really wishes.
Us there hadn't been a lot of Education of elected officials when they came to bitcoin the pros and the cons the technology kind of the impact that something like this could have across society and kind of the American economy with you kind of sitting now within a elected role. How do you think about educating your colleagues and kind of spending time talking to them and getting them up to speed without just being you know, hope she's the one who's always kind of talking about Bitcoin and
The kind of tune you out. Like how do you think about the education that you can do now that you're actually in the room as a colleague rather than someone in the outside.
So that's a great question Anthony and I want to reach out to the people who are listening to your podcast to help with this. We're forming a financial Innovations caucus in the Senate. We hope to use it as a springboard to educate members of the US Senate and their staff about
Out Bitcoin specifically but about other opportunities for cryptocurrencies and financial Innovation and blockchain uses a blockchain. And so I'm interested in knowing how the people are listening to your podcast would expose members of the US Senate to that kind of information. What is pithy what works what worked with them what resonates with your
Listeners that I can use to help educate and inform the people that I work with about financial Innovation, so to the extent that anybody is interested. I'm at at essien lummis
settlements. Maybe let's talk a little bit about kind of the sentiment among your colleagues when it comes to bitcoin and or Central Bank digital currencies, right? There's a lot of talk about Bitcoin.
Usually tied to kind of price and I think sentiment Falls price a little bit but there's also a lot of talk about Central Bank digital currencies and even potentially digitizing the dollar how have you seen the sentiment and kind of what are people talking about within Congress in the Senate when it comes to these two types of kind of financial
Innovations?
Well, I think one of the first things that we're going to be working on is fighting a narrative about digital assets and crypto being used for money laundering because that is that, you know game stopper right from the beginning. So now what we know is according to chain analysis cryptocurrency related crime is smaller than criminal activity with cash and crypto regulations need to leave room for innovation.
Even so among the things we're going to want to do while we're informing people is to make sure that we have the opportunity to innovate and that includes in the area of things like stable coin. For example Facebook, I think has stable coin in a pilot in Switzerland or something and the Federal Reserve is looking to create its own digital currency. So we'll want to be visiting with the Federal Reserve.
About what their plans are how they want to roll it out what we can do to help them innovate and the the innovation in this area could help companies through faster transactions than typical wire transfers. For example, it takes a long time to clear a wire transfer when you're sending money internationally. And so we want to have the opportunity to use
Advanced Financial Technologies to make those kinds of opportunities more available. So Commerce can be more robust than it is today. I visited with Janet Yellen the new treasury secretary on the phone the other day before her confirmation hearing and she this is an area where I think that she has an open mind. She's she has some of the same concerns that most do in financial.
You there are concerned about criminal or a nefarious use of of cryptocurrency. So it's going to take a lot of work to get to where we can have an open dialogue that is free from the Clutter of seeing this knee-jerk reaction to the concern that all crypto is subject to criminal activity to a very large degree now, there's some areas.
Where we've been working with a we were working prior to the transition to the Biden Administration with secretary minuchin about the bank secrecy act and about the digital asset Rule and I was happy that they were willing to extend the comment period for that. And now that the Biden Administration is in place rulemaking has been frozen in definitely so
That should give us more time to comment and help them on how to make it more consistent with existing law how to make sure that we're not talking about knowing your customers customer and pushing them too far out on the Spectrum to to make it reasonable. This is a complex rule. I don't even understand it all. That's why I have great advisors around me and I'm looking.
Forward to working with Treasury and with state and federal financial regulators and with industry to ensure the rules recognized the critical role of innovation including digital assets. And America's Financial future is going to be very much tied to this. I we're seeing China get way ahead of us in this area and lots of other areas Anthony that that we need to make sure that we can
Dominate and be effective in the way that we innovate but at the same time guard against Financial Innovation being used by the Chinese Communist party. So I think it's really important that the United States not take too long on the education piece that we get it we learn it and then we move forward because this is an area where
My Park competing countries around the world in the financial Arena are going to struggle.
So I think what was really interesting about what you're talking about here is like one I think most people who don't understand this. Oh cryptocurrencies that has this kind of, you know, Place psychologically in people's minds that nefarious people use it right as we know with other Technologies whether it was be per cell phones internet Etc.
People who are doing bad things or nefarious things always adopt these Technologies first. That doesn't make the technology bad that just means that we should tell the bad people not to do bad things with it. So I think you're right there the other thing that seems to be coming up more and more and you alluded to this a little bit is there's this balance between Global competition, right? If all of a sudden another country was to adopt some of these Financial Innovations and able to harness them in a way that would give them a significant advantage on that goal.
Stage that wouldn't be great for the United States, but the balance to that or kind of the counter. Is that oh, well, the United States may see some of these Technologies as a threat to themselves. And therefore there are people calling for Banning whether it's cryptocurrencies are other Technologies sounds like you're kind of in the camp of look if the technology is going to be out there. We need to be embracing it rather than fighting it, you know first, is that kind of an accurate depiction of your position and to just how do you
About that geopolitical landscape and kind of How It's playing out given many of these other countries are making a big push to adopt some of these Technologies.
Yeah, that is an accurate depiction of my position. I'm I want to be very robust in this area. I want the United States to be a leader in my home state of Wyoming. We have the most Innovative laws in the country on blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Richie we even put in place a Chancery Court through which litigation involving the new laws could be handled and I think that just like Delaware did in the case of corporate formations. There's a court that is there that has great expertise and that is readily available and we wanted to make that the case in Wyoming to so we could be the
innovators in American law at the at the state level that we be the innovators and and let's let the incubators of good ideas. Go ahead and incubate those good ideas and states are among those in government in the private sector. It tends to be actual business incubators and and business startups and formations in government. It tends to be the states. So
Wanted to make sure the Wyoming was a leader in that regard and we want to continue to be a leader in that regard. So part of the reason that I got into this is because I would State Treasurer part of the reason I got into this is because my son-in-law and his friends are very knowledgeable about Bitcoin. And then the final reason was watching Wyoming become a great innovator at the state level in
Bitcoin law the nation can be that we're a little bit behind right now behind other countries, but we need to be part of that. You know Anthony I did a little bit of Consulting for the World Bank on Sovereign wealth funds after Iowa State Treasurer and we have seen other countries create Sovereign wealth funds like Vietnam. They have a fabulous textile industry of countries that
That would surprise you have savings accounts or Sovereign wealth funds. Those would be great places to capture an innovate in the area of financial technology. The Abu Dhabi investment Authority norges Bank in Norway. Norway has a tremendous offshore oil and gas resources that they invest for their the benefit of Norwegians.
They would be a logical country to innovate in this area. So some very unlikely bedfellows may be able to innovate in this area all for the good of the people that they're that they serve.
Yeah, it's fantastic. You mentioned earlier kind of every institution having exposure not necessarily converting all of
Their portfolio or their currency to bitcoin but having it as a piece one of the institutions that I think people are very interested in is Central bank's right? It looks like already obviously the individuals the corporation is the financial institutions are starting to get exposure, but we haven't really seen anywhere in the world a central bank make that decision. Maybe not so much like which one do you think is first a timeline but more so what do you think is the actual?
Steps to doing that right? Is that something where that decision? Let's say in the United States would get made by the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the treasury secretary. Do you think that's more of a democratic process? Just what's the path to that happening here in the United States?
Well, that's a great question and we want to meet with the Federal Reserve about that specifically because we do think that the Federal Reserve will want to innovate in this area.
And we want to work with them hand in hand on that Innovation. I also want Congress to be The Driver of that Innovation. So we are the actual policy maker and they are the actual implementer.
Yeah, it's fantastic what can people do at home to help you. I feel like you are educated. You're very passionate about Bitcoin you have this
very unique but important view of financial Innovation and the role that the United States in the United States government can play on a global stage in terms of embracing this and continuing to remain kind of that lighthouse on the hill for the rest of the world. Is there something that people at home can do to either one make your job easier or two to kind of help further your mission as you kind of continue to operate inside the Senate with the with this viewpoint.
Absolutely. There are a lot of people around this country who know more about the nuts and bolts of blockchain and Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and I know I have a rudimentary understanding of it and I'm trying to use that rudimentary understanding to educate people who eat even don't have that much of an understanding so part of it is
Is Communications and I can use I've already mentioned that that would be helpful. The other thing is in the case of people who are have very sophisticated expertise on this. We would love to have them contact our office and and give us ideas and finally for people who want to see this kind of innovation move forward contact your u.s. Senator.
And say hey, we understand that there's a new Financial Innovations caucus in the US Senate. We encourage you to join it. We want it to be bipartisan. The one of the fun things for me about this topic is it's it's bipartisan. It it doesn't it crosses all kinds of party lines. And so we need to have the involvement of Democrats Republicans independents.
Dependence Libertarians and everything in between so we can innovate in this area. There's the way that we have the gridlock in Washington is so intense right now that if you can find any little crack to break through the gridlock, we should take advantage of it and that's if we can innovate in one area like this that is not partisan. It doesn't wear a partisan had a Democrat had a republican hat and if
Can innovate in an area like this it might help us break the dam and innovate in other areas too. And in this day and age in Washington find anything that you can innovate on is exciting because we're so set in the concrete that we can't even lift our feet anymore around here, but this is an area where that's not true. So that's another reason that I'm excited about.
About being new to the Senate but having old friends that I served with in the US House in the Senate we can talk about a topic that crosses party lines and and it it gives us a chance to innovate and that's really exciting to me. And I think other people will embrace the idea that well here's an Avenue that we can just be Americans. We don't have to be
Prep to Republicans. We can just be Americans and use the Ingenuity and Innovation that America was always known for and was the world leader in we can use that in this area. So yet another reason that I'm really excited about financial Innovation.
Yeah it you're just doing a fantastic job. So from everyone else thank you. I think that as you continue to kind of spread this message and frankly, it's just a reflection.
Refreshing perspective on the importance of not only your job but also your colleagues and so I think that the more folks we can get to have your perspective the better off we'll be regardless of people's political views. So so I really appreciate that we're going to send people to your Twitter account, which is at essien Loomis. Is there anywhere else that you would like for us to send
people?
Is there anywhere else we like we we are again I have to turn to my colleagues our website islamist dot Senate dot gov okay. Our website is lummis dot senate.gov.
All right, we will send a bunch of people over there. Hopefully it will break your website because there's so much traffic of everyone trying to learn about everything that you're doing Senator. Listen. Thank you so much for your time today. And you know as I mentioned, I think that you're doing a great job. So I appreciate all the hard work.
And I lost it again the future.
It's going to be a heavy lift Anthony. So I need you and all of the people that follow you to help out. But thank you kindly and I look forward to visiting with you again as well.
