HUGE! BIS USES XRP LEDGER! ALEX JONES SAYS GOV WANTS YOUR XRP & CLARITY ACT DETRACTOR GIVES UP!

Hey folks. Welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. I'm your host, Tony Edward. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button, as well as the thumbs up button, and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify or Apple, please be sure to follow and leave a five-star rating. Okay folks first up we gotta talk about the CLARITY Act because we have some positive news. So the National Sheriffs Association, the NSA, has backed off in their opposition against the CLARITY Act. If you recall, they were the one outstanding law enforcement agency that was saying, "Uh, we're not sure about this CLARITY Act stuff." And I think a lot of Democrats have been pulling the strings there. But all of a sudden, they've backed up and said, "Okay, we're neutral. We're not against it anymore." This is a huge win. Congressman Tom Emmer, who I've had on the podcast many times over the years, said, "Great news. Thank you to our friends at the National Sheriffs Association for being a valued partner and for working with us throughout this process. The momentum continues to build for the CLARITY Act. Let's get it done." So this is a huge win. Remember, there's a whole handful of other law enforcement agencies which have pledged their support. So this is a detractor who's now capitulating, which is really great. I'm sure Elizabeth Warren is not happy about this. But obviously, the CLARITY Act does have some roadblocks and headwinds. We got the ethics issues w- which, which still needs to be sorted out. The White House still has to respond on the latest version of that. Plus, you have the House may not be able to pass the bill if it passes the Senate because there's gonna be some sessions that are canceled at the end of September. So uh I'm not trying to say that the CLARITY Act is gonna pass, but I'm highlighting the positives. I think we're gonna eventually get there. What I think many of us are looking for is that as the market has turned and it's, uh, it has this bullish momentum, as we head into the next leg up, it would be amazing as, you know, towards the end of September or early October, that the CLARITY Act gets passed because that will be like pouring gasoline on the fire, if you know what I mean. We could see more liquidity, uh, a massive parabolic rise. I'm not sure if it goes to new all-time highs, but at least, uh, we recover a lot of the losses we had in the bear market, right? So that would be the ideal scenario. So let's see what happens. Uh, maybe we just make it out of the Senate, which would be a huge win. It is very difficult to move bills in the Senate, as I'm sure many of you know. The House, it's pretty easy. So even if it doesn't make it to the House and then get to President Trump's desk, if it passes the Senate, that will be a monumental win if you understand the, how politics works and how hard it is to move bills in the Senate. But this is really great, guys. Uh, very bullish news in my opinion. Okay, moving ahead, we have huge XRP news. The first one is the Bank of International Settlements publishes a paper using the XRP ledger as a proof of concept for verifying official statistics on chain. The BIS cites XRPL's low fees, three to five-second settlement, and proven track record, though no adoption decision has been made as yet. Now, obviously, these institutions, they start off by crawling, walking, and then running. Of course they're gonna pilot it. Of course they're gonna test it. No one's gonna blindly just jump on a blockchain and say, "Oh, let's put everything on there." They're gonna test it out. So you have some critics who are saying, "Oh, they're just a proof of concept." Yeah, of course, Sherlock right? What do you expect? They're just gonna adopt any blockchain blindly? Of course not. Right? But this is a massive win, and they call out the benefits of the XRP ledger, which the haters of course wanna hide. They don't wanna highlight the fast transaction c- uh, speeds and the low fees, right, which is really great about the XRP ledger. And many of you know I'm bullish on XRP. I hold it in my portfolio. I continue to buy the dip on XRP. That's not financial advice. I'm just letting you know what I'm doing. But this is massive. So let me give you some more details as to what they're trying to do here. The system turns a statistical file into a cryptographic fingerprint, anchors a summary of those fingerprints on the XRP ledger, and lets a recipient compare the file with the public record. The research first appeared online through Sage, S-A-G-E, on August 1st. September 2nd marks the release as BIS Working Paper 1374. The paper presents the author's view and says it references to firms and projects are illustrative. Its implementation remains an experimental XRP ledger Devnet proof of concept. And the reviewed sources disclose no commercial relationship with Ripple. So folks, huge news for the XRP ledger. Um, I know some people are gonna say, "But Tony, isn't it meant for payments?" A blockchain can be used for data, tokenization, payments, many different things. Sometimes people have tunnel vision. They don't understand the nature of blockchains, right? So the XRP ledger can be used for different things, and putting data on it is a big one as well because think about the different industries which need, uh, data to be, uh, secured and be able to be moved securely and fast and low transaction speeds and much more, right? Blockchain tech is that extra layer of security and trust. So again, huge news for the XRP ledger, and you're, you are gonna see some haters in the comment section, but we're not about feelings or emotions. We're about facts, right? And this is why we look at the charts, we look at the adoption news and all these things, not feelings or emotions or I hate this project. But markets don't care about your feelings and emotions. So, uh, really, really huge news here for the XRP ledger. Now, the other big news, which I'm sure many of you have seen today, is pretty wild. Now, Alex Jones had a special live Saturday show today- And the first topic it was, could the government seize XRP after chilling FDIC admission? Now, Alex Jones is a very polarizing person. This is not an endorsement of Alex Jones. I don't personally subscribe to his content, and I'm not here to say it's bad if you do. I'm just simply highlighting the facts. I'm highlighting what's happening here and how it relates to the market around XRP. So for me, I'm looking at which assets are out there, what attention are they getting? Because part of investing, part of what drives markets is attention. Because if you have people's attention, you can get their money, and then they can invest in that asset. This goes for the stock market and specific stocks. It goes for gold, right? We all know how the psychology of markets work. So Alex has a big following, and the man is talking about XRP. In fact, he did a couple of videos today and, you know, look, do I subscribe to this theory that the government's gonna come steal your XRP? I do not. But what I do care about, again, is that attention, that people are gonna say, "Wait, what is XRP? W- w- w- w- what is this? Let me go research it. Maybe I'll invest in it," right? That is what I care about. And this could be f- this, again, this, this conversation could be said for Bitcoin and Ethereum and so forth, right? If you have a large institution or a person with a large following talking about a specific asset, there's a benefit to that. Um, so he did a follow video, you know, saying, "Look, I'm just talking about all assets," but I was highlighting XRP specifically. I'm not an expert in crypto investing and so forth. So just making sure I give you guys the full context. So very interesting. I did not have this in my 2026 bingo card that Alex Jones would be talking about XRP. Um, and I think the reason why it's popping up is probably because of this Bank of International Settlements news, the BIS, in addition to other things. So very, very interesting here, guys. Again, this is not a promotion of Alex Jones or a anti Alex Jones. We do... It's just a neutral reporting on the fact that, uh, someone with a large audience is amplifying XRP. So hope you understand the perspective I'm taking here of markets, liquidity, and attention. You know, all these things definitely, uh, bode well for XRP. Um, now, folks, quick word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by FortisX. Guys, let's be honest, the crypto market has been moving sideways for a while now. A lot of people are just sitting on their coins, waiting for the next big move. But while you're waiting, your crypto is just sitting in your wallet doing absolutely nothing. That's why I wanna mention one of my longtime partners, FortisX. Instead of just letting your assets sit idle, you can put supported cryptocurrencies into FortisX liquidity pools and earn daily rewards while still keeping the flexibility to withdraw whenever you want. One of the reasons I've continued working with them is because they keep delivering. The team is public. They've successfully completed Cyberscope team verification, KYC, passed independent security audits, and the platform has been building consistently for years. They've focused on long-term growth, transparency, and security rather than hype. In a market like this, it makes far more sense to have your crypto working for you instead of letting it sit idle in your wallet. I've worked with FortisX for a long time, and if you're planning to hold your crypto anyway, I genuinely think it's one of the smartest ways to put those assets to work. And folks, I know security is very important to all of us as we hold our crypto assets, and they are fully audited by Certik, and they are SEC registered and much more. So you gotta check out FortisX. Go to fortisx.fi/x/thinkingcrypto. Link will be in the description. All right, moving ahead. The US banking agency gives blockchain bank Open Reserve initial okay to operate. So the OCC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, granted a provisional charter to the new full-service bank, adding to the growing mix of crypto-native institutions. So the OCC has been giving a lot of crypto companies, uh, tr- banking charter license, right? Uh, you got Circle, you got Ripple, you got others, right? So uh we are seeing more and more crypto-native firms becoming these neobanks, digital banks. It's fascinating, right? And this is why, guys, uh, again, Jamie Dimon and the banks were fighting so hard. They weaponized Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren to attack the industry because crypto, this technology, is coming to for their lunch. So this is the first time I'm actually hearing about the Open Reserve bank. They are a blockchain bank backed by a number of crypto world investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Jump Capital, and Coinbase Ventures. Here's a quote, "We chose the national bank path deliberately," said Di Chobbi, if I'm saying that right. I apologize if I'm butchering his name. Co-founder and CEO of Open Reserve in a statement. "Supervision, safety and soundness, compliance and customer confidence are not constraints on what we are building. They are at the foundation of it." Remember, this is a blockchain-based bank. So again, do you see where the puck is heading, folks? Right. I've often stated, I know you guys are gonna get tired of hearing this, uh, because it's almost become like my slogan, the future capital markets, economies, and governments will all run on blockchain rails. Moving ahead, crypto firms urge the SEC to speed ETF reviews and allow confidential draft filings. So we are seeing a plethora of crypto ETF filings. I mean, the list... They are going down the list, right, on the market cap list. Uh, so Grayscale , 21Shares, and A16Z are among the firms asking the SEC to make parts of the ETF review process faster as the regulator considers its treatment of novel funds. Jane Street and Charles Schwab raised concerns over rushed launches and confidential filings, while Multicoin and Gito-backed groups pushed for broader changes affecting crypto ETPs. So it would be awesome if the SEC is able to expedite the process for ETFs. Obviously though they need to make sure that if when they do that, there's no risk, right? Because we don't want risk. We don't want problems. We want a ... things to be efficient, secure, and run properly. So, uh, but it's great to see that these filers, they wanna do more, and I'm sure there's certain things about the process they don't want their competitors to know. So I think they're trying to, you know, include some confidential stuff and, and speed up the process. But this is all good. It all bodes well for the crypto asset class as it matures. Now, speaking of ETFs, here's the headline. From warning to listening, UK's largest retail investment platform opens access to crypto ETNs. The UK's largest retail investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown, has reversed course following the FCA's decision to lift its retail ban on crypto ETPs in October. So essentially, the UK is finally starting to open up and allow more people to invest in crypto, and the investment platforms and asset managers are like, "Okay, here we go," right? Uh, they're off to the race here, and everybody's gonna start listing, and the on-ramps are gonna be set up for both retail and, and institutional investors to invest in crypto. So the firm's new listings include products on BlackRock's iShares CoinShares WisdomTree 21Shares Invesco and Bitwise, with annual fees ranging from zero to 0.35%, it announced on Thursday. So this is really great. They're agnostic, essentially. They're just listing all the different ET apps that exist, like BlackRock's, CoinShares, and others. But guys, do you see how things are opening up? You know, as we've been talking about for years, uh, anybody who bans crypto, they're writing their economic death sentence. It's not just the investment, but it's the technology. Again, if the future markets or, or, and economies are gonna be running on blockchain rails, you'd be foolish, you'd be dumb to be blocking it, right? So, uh, we're starting to see things open up here, and the different countries and jurisdictions are providing the guidance, the rules, the regulations, and more. So it's not just in the US. It's happening globally, folks. Here's a perfect example. South Korea targets February 2027 for a rollout of full tokenized securities markets. Guys, do I even need to say anything else? Right? Again, look at where things are headed. So financial regulators unveiled a phased roadmap moving traditional capital markets onto distributed ledgers, concluding with on-chain stablecoin settlement. So I've often stated they all know the plan. Trust me. There're just probably discussions happening and meetings we don't even know about at Davos every year, right? They all... The leaders, they go to Davos. They know the plan, and that is blockchain. We're putting everything on blockchain. We're putting the markets on blockchain. That is the mandate. That is the end goal. Um obviously there's some risk there when it comes to our privacy and all these things. We've talked about CBDCs a lot. So we gotta make sure that we keep our governments accountable, and they respect our privacy. So this is where we have to stay focused and research and stay up-to-date with everything, and that's the purpose of this podcast, of course. But again, everybody's on the same page here. All the major superpowers, the smaller countries, they're all on the same page. I mean, you go to some of the islands in, in the Caribbean, they're also working on things, right? Bermuda's putting its economy on-chain. I've interviewed, um, the representative from, uh, uh, uh, Bermuda on there, and they're using Stellar, for example. And, and they're working with Coinbase to do that. So you are just seeing a global movement towards going on-chain folks. So officials from the country's FCA or FSC and Financial Supervisory Service said the plan to tokenize traditional securities, such as stocks, bonds, and funds, and to expand security token offerings, called STOs, beyond fractional investment products by February 2027. So I think just this week, guys, I covered Taiwan and some other countries that are targeting 2027. So this is why I'm anticipating 2027 could be a massive year for crypto. Because I do believe we will have the CLARITY Act in place by then here in the United States, and other countries will also have their versions. So we could really see crypto take off, man. Uh, y- you remember, this is unlike anything we've seen before, with governments on board, plus TradFi, plus the banks and the asset managers and the stock exchanges. Massive on-ramps, right? You go back to 2017's bull run, the 2020, 2021 bull run, even the most recent one, which was lackluster, you know, with a crypto president and a favorable crypto environment, nothing will compare to what's coming. Because again, you would have the unlock of the regulatory clarity. Imagine the institutions who are like, "I'm just gonna dip my toe right now. Let's test this stuff out until we have the, the regulatory guidance." Once that's in place, they don't have to worry. They don't have to look over their shoulder. They don't have to worry about lawsuits and, and their legal teams saying, "Don't do it," right? Mi- ri- uh, their risk mitigation teams and all that saying, "Don't do it," right? It will be... They will be in the clear, guys. They could put billions, trillions of dollars into this market and this technology. Moving ahead, Southeast Asia's crypto funding rebounds to $680 million as investors focus on mature firms. Blockchain investment in Southeast Asia in 2026 has been led by crypto financial services, though funding remains heavily concentrated in Singapore and a handful of companies. So not only in Asia, but in the US and other markets, you are seeing more investment, more liquidity returning to crypto, and it's what we've been talking about since the bear market started. That, uh, you're gonna see, uh, investment slow down, and then it's gonna start to pick up, right? Right as we're turning the corner into a bull market. So, uh, we've seen this story before. You're gonna see the ETF's investment rise. You're gonna see more crypto companies l- uh, being able to raise capital. So if you are an entrepreneur, now is the time to go pitch, you know, to the big investment firms and much more. Uh, so this is really great. This is really great. So they're investing in the tokens, but as well as the companies building the infrastructure. Folks, that's the news. Let me know what you think. 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