Listen to the show

Watch the show

Show Summary

The CLARITY Act died on a cloture vote, and Chip and Jeff were two of the very few who said all along that it would. This episode is the post-mortem: who actually killed it, the reasons the senators gave on camera, and why the technology kept moving regardless.

  • Not one Democrat voted yes. Forty-nine Republicans for, four against — and the Democrats who spent months negotiating the ethics language voted no when it counted. The party that spent four years cheering Gary Gensler was never going to deliver the sixty.
  • Brad Garlinghouse: “This one stings.” Ripple’s CEO says consumers and U.S. competitiveness got left behind, promises a post-mortem, and points to the SEC under Chair Atkins and the CFTC to fill the gap through rulemaking instead.
  • Tom Tillis didn’t flip — he switched to keep the bill alive. Only a senator on the prevailing side can move to reconsider. His no is what stops CLARITY dying in this Congress, and he explained it in an interview almost nobody picked up.
  • The stated reasons run from thin to incoherent. One senator voted against the bill that imposes the very restrictions he had demanded; Mazie Hirono said she was “not prepared to talk with you about that at the moment”; Dick Durbin warned about a bubble and Social Security; Josh Hawley’s objection is small-town banks and Missouri farmers.
  • The XRP Ledger didn’t wait. It is now supported in the Open Wallet Standard and a settlement option in Tempo and Stripe’s Machine Payments Protocol via the new XRPL AI Starter Kit — the stated goal being to make XRP and RLUSD “first-class options wherever developers are building.” Plus the full Ripple Swell 2026 agenda (New York, October 27–29) and a D’CENT wallet security notice every holder should read.
  • Also in the back half: AI safety as the successor to climate alarm, the effective-altruism circle around Anthropic and OpenAI, why American builders reach for unrestricted Chinese models, and Canada’s invitation to join the EU.

☕ BADASSERY COFFEE

Sunday night show, Monday morning coffee. Roasted to order the day it ships. Not a sponsor — it’s ours.

Try the six-roast sampler, $14 → badasserycoffee.com

Code OTC0913 — 15% off, good for a week.

Crypto

AI

Around the World

Funny