Digital Asset News covers the GENIUS Act bank lobbying fight, BlackRock tokenization moves, and MicroStrategy's latest Bitcoin buy
A solo commentary episode from the Digital Asset News channel covering crypto legislation, tokenized assets, and Bitcoin treasury news.
Summary
The host of Digital Asset News opens with breaking news that the American Bankers Association launched an emergency lobbying campaign on Mother's Day to pressure senators against stablecoin yield provisions in the GENIUS Act (referred to throughout by the host as the Clarity Act) ahead of a Senate Banking Committee vote on Thursday. He reads from both Senator Bernie Moreno's public statement supporting the legislation and ABA President Rob Nichols' letter to bank CEOs opposing it, framing the fight as banks protecting their deposit-based business model against yield-bearing stablecoins. He then covers BlackRock's filing for two tokenized money market funds as a potential workaround to the legislative uncertainty, and explains the broader case for tokenization of real-world assets. The episode also covers MicroStrategy's latest Bitcoin purchase of 535 BTC, Michael Saylor's clarification that his real position is "never be a net seller of Bitcoin" rather than "never sell," a warning about AI-enabled zero-day exploits targeting multi-factor authentication, and India's Prime Minister Modi publicly urging citizens to stop buying gold — which the host notes removes a massive potential buyer from the gold market and raises the question of where store-of-value demand might flow instead.
Note: A widely circulated graphic attributed an estimate of up to $6 trillion in potential deposit migration to stablecoins to Bank of America's CEO; the host references this figure but does not independently verify it.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Banks Launch Emergency Lobbying Campaign Against the GENIUS Act
Host: Hello everybody. Looks like we are going to have a fight with the GENIUS Act, as the banks are in full panic mode, and we're going to talk a lot about that. We're also going to talk about tokenization, and also a little bit of a buying spree from Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, and also a nice little point from Michael where he says, "It's not about selling your Bitcoin — it's about don't be a net seller of Bitcoin." We'll get to that in a bit.
First of all, this is Bernie Moreno. He is the senator for Ohio. I had no idea who this guy was until today, and he has a pretty interesting biography. He was born in Bogotá, Colombia, moved to the US with his family at age five, became an American citizen at age 18. You can do anything in this country — it's fantastic. He then purchased his first car dealership in 2005, grew it to one of the largest groups in Ohio, and employed over a thousand Ohioans.
Why am I talking about Bernie Moreno? Because he is one of the key opponents of the American Bankers Association and the GENIUS Act. He wrote this this morning, and I quote:
Senator Bernie Moreno: "While Americans were celebrating Mother's Day with their families, the CEO of the American Bankers Association sent a frantic alert to every bank CEO in the country, demanding immediate engagement to lobby senators and to kill stablecoins — legislation that would finally let everyday Americans earn real yields on their own money."
Host: Before I go on, I've been very vocal about this, about the GENIUS Act. I don't think it's going to pass. I hope it passes and I hope I'm wrong, but there's a lot of opposition to it. And we're going to talk about why. If the CEO of the American Bankers Association is putting full tilt into getting all of his cronies to rally against it, that's not a great sign. But again, we'll see if the people win or if the bankers win. Let me know what you think — who's going to actually win this one? Bankers seem to be almost undefeated lately.
Moreno continues:
Senator Bernie Moreno: "For decades, these banks have treated your deposits like their personal piggy bank, paying you next to nothing while lending your money out for massive profits and executive bonuses."
Host: I didn't know that last part. So I guess the more fractional reserve lending there is, the more the executives get in bonuses. Well, that's the free market — I can't really complain about that. Good for those guys, essentially paying depositors nothing while making a fortune off their cash.
So they're running to Congress again, screaming about threats to economic growth and financial stability — translation: protect the racket at all cost. The Senate Banking Committee votes on landmark crypto legislation this Thursday — the GENIUS Act. As a member of that committee, Moreno's message is clear: hands off people's money. Let Americans choose real competition and better returns. That is essentially the American dream and the free market at work — get the red tape out and just let the market decide.
The ABA's Emergency Letter to Bank CEOs
Host: This was ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols — this was the actual documentation he put out on Sunday, Mother's Day. He states:
Rob Nichols: "I'm reaching out to make every bank leader in this country aware of an urgent advocacy fight that requires your immediate engagement. To be clear, we want Congress to put in place digital asset rules and establish responsible guardrails — as long as that works out for us. The current version of the legislation, although improved from an earlier version, does not adequately prevent crypto companies from offering interest-like rewards on payment stablecoins."
Host: And this is why they're concerned — and I can understand why. When you deposit cash into a bank, it doesn't just sit there waiting for you. They lend out 90, 95% of it — I always forget the exact figure, correct me in the comments. Then they lend that to another individual or another bank, and the banks can lend that out again. They just keep going down that pipe, and that's their whole business. It works great for business loans, mortgage loans, personal loans. They're getting a fat yield — I think we're at 6.3% for 30-year mortgage rates. This is big business for them. They don't want to lose that.
And how much are they potentially losing? A lot. There's a pretty good AI-generated graphic going around. Bank of America's CEO says up to $6 trillion could migrate from the banking system into stablecoins if interest-bearing stablecoins are allowed. I don't know how much you're getting in your checking account — I'm getting 0.3%. A money market account would be a little better, but the stuff you just let sit, you're not getting anything. 30 to 35% of bank deposits are at risk, and the potential shift is up to $6 trillion moving into stablecoins.
Now, let's be honest — not everybody's going to move to stablecoins. But let's say we get half of that, $3 trillion. Let's say a quarter, $1.5 trillion. Let's say just 10% — $600 billion. That's not bad. I could see that. And I think that's why the banks are uneasy.
So we'll see what happens on Thursday. Again, I don't think this will pass, but I've been wrong before. Let's hope it does.
And one last note before we move on — watch out for AI when you're doing research. I was researching Rob Nichols and a different person came up. So double-check your sources, because not everything actually pans out.
BlackRock Files for Tokenized Money Market Funds
Host: Even though we're talking about clarity and stablecoins and yield, just know that there are ways around this system. You know who's going to do it? BlackRock. BlackRock looks to sidestep the GENIUS Act by filing for two new tokenized money market funds. This just happened — they filed paperwork with US regulators to introduce a pair of tokenized money market funds. According to May 8th filings submitted to the SEC, the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock — Larry Fink, also a big believer in Bitcoin.
And before we go on, I've got to ask: where do you think we would be without this push from BlackRock and their roughly $14 trillion in assets under management? Larry Fink — someone orange-pilled that guy. We should be thanking them, because they are the biggest cheerleaders, I think, for Bitcoin and especially for tokenization of real-world assets.
The largest asset manager intends to issue digital shares for an existing multi-billion dollar treasury fund alongside an entirely new vehicle tailored specifically for the crypto-native market. The dual rollout targets a growing demographic of investors who park their wealth in digital wallets and stablecoins rather than traditional brokerage accounts. And that's the key right there — the brokerage accounts. A brokerage account is what you use to do trading, whether that's traditional equities, stocks, ETFs, IRAs, whatever. You might know it as Robinhood — once you sign up, they open a brokerage account and you're able to trade equities and stocks and all those things. So if you could digitize that, put it into a stablecoin, get that stablecoin a yield — why wouldn't people do that?
And what are the biggest stablecoin rails out there? It's USDC and Tether, and then maybe Binance or Base, and then Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and maybe even Polygon. Those are the big rails I see for stablecoins, and that's why I've kept dollar-cost averaging them.
It also cements BlackRock's position as a dominant infrastructure provider for real-world assets. And to finish this up — market experts broadly speculate that BlackRock is positioning the fund to serve as a compliant, legal, yield-bearing reserve asset for stablecoin issuers under a legislative framework. If they can get that going and then Clarity goes through — that is pretty good.
The Scale of Global Capital and Tokenization's Opportunity
Host: As a reminder, this is how much money is sloshing around in the world. This is an updated version for 2026. M2 money supply is around $109 trillion. Global real estate, $395 trillion. Global debt, $338 trillion. Global personal wealth, $471 trillion. And the numbers on the right are from 2022, so you can see how much things have grown. Global stock markets went from $104 trillion in 2022 to $154 trillion. Top 50 bank assets, not that much movement — $100 to $102 trillion. Gold went from $12 trillion to $34 trillion — wow, $22 trillion in growth. And the global crypto market went from $809 billion in 2022 to roughly $2.7, almost $2.8 trillion. Derivatives could be just massive, but there's a difference between notional and gross market value. A lot of money sloshing around. If BlackRock hits that, fantastic. If Clarity goes through, fantastic.
And as a reminder, Ando Finance, which is backed by BlackRock, just posted this: a billion dollars plus in tokenized stocks. Since launch, the platform has scaled to 260-plus tokenized stocks and ETFs, expanding assets to the world's most in-demand sectors across AI, biotech, defense, energy, and more. They state: "One billion down, trillions to go." And they're absolutely right.
But as a reminder — don't forget why tokenization is a big thing. People say, "What the hell is that? Why is it so important?" It's going to allow and free things up a lot. Tokenization of assets — that could be the land you're walking on, the house you have, the business you have. But mostly what we're looking at here would be stocks, equities, ETFs. What's great about tokenization: you put it on the blockchain, you get 24/7 liquidity — no banker hours. How much are you losing by sidestepping Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays? A lot. You can do fractional ownership — let's say you need a $100 million business loan. What would be great is if you could say, "I've got $100,000, I can throw that in." So that could be fractional ownership of a property or a loan. Lightning-fast settlement — instant instead of days. Lower costs, transparency, and access for new investors, especially for private credit.
All those tokens you see there — XRP, Solana, Polygon, and others — are some of the leaders in their respective categories for tokenization of real-world assets and stablecoins.
MicroStrategy's Latest Bitcoin Purchase and Saylor's Clarification
Host: More good news. Strategy just bought a bunch of Bitcoin — shocker. 535 Bitcoin for $43 million. They've now acquired 818,000 Bitcoin for $62 billion. Congratulations again.
And as far as Bitcoin treasuries from Bitbo — holdings by publicly traded companies, private companies, ETFs, countries, Bitcoin mining companies, and DeFi — you put those together, that's almost 20% of all Bitcoin. Did you guys know that? There's only 21 million Bitcoin and we've already mined over 20 million. The last million is going to take decades. But you can see that ETFs, countries, public companies, private companies, mining companies, and DeFi together are approaching 20%.
And as a reminder, these ETFs — they're not futures, they're spot, which means you have to hold it. You have to buy it and hold it. BlackRock does it, ARK does it. They use Coinbase Prime for that. They are snatching up a lot of Bitcoin.
And on Strategy — I'm glad this has finally been said, because it would drive me nuts. Saylor says:
Michael Saylor: "I'm very famous for saying 'never sell your Bitcoin.' That's why the internet went crazy when we said we might sell it. But if I was being more precise, the real talking point would be: never be a net seller of Bitcoin."
Host: That makes sense. When he was saying "never sell your Bitcoin," I would get so many people in the comments saying that when I talked about taking profits — "No, no, no, you can't sell it. You just can't sell it because it's Bitcoin." And I'm like, it's just an asset. It's supposed to give you freedom. If you're homeless because you can't pay the rent and you're sitting there with your Ledger keeping you warm at night — what the heck are you doing? These are assets. It's a great store of value, specifically a long-term store of value. At some point, maybe you'd want to sell some. And it's okay. You're going to be all right if you sell some and take some profits. Nobody ever went broke taking profits. That's just the truth. I'm glad Michael Saylor finally said it.
India's Prime Minister Urges Citizens to Stop Buying Gold
Host: To finish up the main content — it looks like India's Prime Minister Modi came out and said stop buying gold. He said stop buying gold and also said we need to slow down on electricity usage — we've got a lot of problems here in India. That's a big market to lose out on. What is it, 1.4, 1.5 billion people in India? And you've got the Prime Minister saying stop buying gold — for a year now. This isn't a legal mandate forcing people — he's recommending it. And there are tons of different reasons for why this could be. But I just look at it and say that is a huge market to lose as far as people buying gold. I buy gold — I have no problems with it. But if you've got 1.5 billion people saying they're going to slow down, the question is: if you're not buying gold as a store of value, what could you potentially buy? I'll leave it to them to figure that out.
AI-Enabled Hacks and Cold Storage Security
Host: Last before we get to the Q&A — I saw this on Cointelegraph. Google says that hackers used AI to create a zero-day exploit capable of bypassing multi-factor authentication. There's a community note on it that says Google's GTIG report anticipates future AI use in zero-day development but does not state that hackers used AI for an MFA bypass — a Gmail MFA bypass involves social engineering to obtain app passwords, not AI or zero-days. But they're saying it is possible and is coming.
I like AI. I think AI is going to be a great boom for productivity. I just also see it as a major problem, especially for safety, for hacks, and for scams. So as a quick reminder — as these things happen, you should put your assets into cold storage. I use a Ledger, but the big majority is in iTrust because they put it into cold storage and move it to where it can't be accessed.
Now, what does that stop from people breaking into your house and taking it from you? That's a different problem. But if you're worried about yourself or the people around you that you've orange-pilled, maybe you should look at iTrust. It's the same custodian that Larry Fink's BlackRock uses, and Michael Saylor uses Coinbase Prime. It's a pain to get your Bitcoin out — but that's exactly what you want.
And what's great about iTrust that I should talk about more — I use it as a Roth IRA retirement account. Did you know that you can trade in your retirement account with no capital gains? So when everything was going crazy in October and November, it was a good idea to take profits — individually and also in your retirement account. If you took profits in the retirement account, you could sit on cash and not pay any capital gains tax, and then as the price went down, you could pick it back up. I need to start talking about that more.
Q&A
Host: MFA — multi-factor authentication. Okay, that makes more sense than what I was thinking.
To Orange Drum who says "Pain in the A sounds slow — super slow" — yes, that's exactly how these hacks work. Someone comes in through social engineering, a wrench attack, or something in between, and they can transfer your Bitcoin. There's a finality issue — blocks are done every ten minutes, maybe up to an hour — but when you move your Bitcoin from one cold storage device to a hacker's cold storage device, that's it. It's gone. Good luck getting it back. Talk to Zach XBT — he'll tell you all about it.
When these things happen, you want something that is slow and a pain and requires you to jump through hoops and get a bunch of verification. Because what would be the worst thing? Say someone breaks into your house and forces you to transfer your Bitcoin. Done. Or social engineering — someone calls your mom, who you've orange-pilled, and says, "Hey, this is Larry from Wells Fargo. We know you have an account. There's an issue with it. We really need you to transfer some of your Bitcoin." I know it sounds ridiculous, but these things happen.
So if you're using it through iTrust, the process is slow and meticulous and you have to wait — not a month, but it takes days. And that's what you want.
To Rob — yes, I did a little dumping, just not as much as I should have. I took some profits, was kind of layering into it, and I just didn't do as well as I should have. I'm going to clean that up for this cycle.
To Hi Dev who says "I've been following for five years — shout out for always keeping it real. I appreciate you don't sugarcoat the truth even when it's political. Much love and respect" — well, thank you. I try. It keeps me sane and it keeps you sane.
To the comment that bankers can't vote and the public would never vote for banks to have a say in anything — that's true. It's hard to argue with.
To Crant — there was a great announcement by Sui. For all you Sui holders, congratulations — they are offering zero fees for stable coin transfers. That makes things very desirable.
To Swiper's point about not buying Sui right now because it just pumped — true, very true. But you never know what announcements come tomorrow. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, I'm just saying it's a funny thing.
On the NFA this week — Ben just had his fifth kid last week, so I've got to check with him. If not, maybe me and Guy could hold the fort down. I think Guy and the group are going to start up an AI channel — about 20% of their posts on X are AI-related. AI works great when it works. I'm trying to set up an AI agent for a short-term rentals website, similar to what I did with the animal shelter, putting all our properties on there. It's a process, but thankfully I've got Claude Code to help me — I couldn't do that myself.
Big congrats to Ben — him and the wife, five kids, they've got their own basketball team. And that's a great place to leave it. All the money we're making and all the gains we have don't really matter as long as you have family and your health. That's the biggest thing. Just remember that on the tough days.