Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether perhaps America's loss in the cryptocurrency space and by loss I think it can be said it is a possible impending loss, could be Thailand's gain. Where I came up with this, I was thinking about it the other day, I read an article from decrypt.co, and the article was titled ‘Not a Drill’: Infrastructure Bill could Sink American Crypto Industry. Quoting directly: ‘This is not a drill’ writes Jake Chervinsky an influential crypto lawyer and a sober voice in a hyper-prone industry. In a must-read Twitter thread, Chervinsky explains how the $550 billion Bill which is primarily about roads and bridges could shiv American crypto companies. The pain comes in the form of a Bill that explains how the US will help pay for those roads and bridges. Namely the Bill states that Uncle Sam plans to cover 20 billion of the cost by squeezing crypto brokers." Quoting further: "The trouble is that the Bill defines "broker" a term normally used to describe the likes of Coinbase and Robinhood as basically any business that touches crypto. As Chervinsky writes, “this definition is so broad it could apply to every economic actor in the crypto industry if read literally." The catch all “broker” term could apply to minors, defy startups and others who will have to file customer forms with the IRS, a task that is in some cases impossible." Yeah, there is certain IRS stuff that in certain situations it is effectively not possible. Yes, this is interesting and again that is from decrypt.co titled: ‘Not a Drill’ Infrastructure Bill could Sink American Crypto-industry. I urge those viewers who are interested in this to go check out that article.

You know what this reminded me of when I was reading it and I have kind of been waiting for the other shoe to drop on this topic. For those unaware, when I was going through law school I actually worked in the gaming industry. I worked in casinos; I was a poker dealer, black jack dealer, craps dealer. I can pretty much deal anything except roulette; I don't really have any skill set there. Yeah I worked in that industry while I was going through law school and so I have always kind of kept apprise of what is going on in the gaming industries especially poker; I dealt a lot of poker in my time. Online poker for those unaware, going back to I think it was 2007, maybe earlier, there was there was a law that was passed. it was called a Safe Port Act I believe and there was a Congressman a guy by the name of Barney Frank who apparently slipped what they call a rider, or slipped some language into the Bill that really had nothing to do with Safe Ports at all but did have to do with the way in which money can be transferred, banking transactions associated with online gaming. A lot of people wondered if perhaps that Mr. Frank had been lobbied; I don't know what happened here but there is a lot of speculation the time that lobbying had occurred by the major gaming establishments, major gaming institutions, casinos etc. in the gambling industry to go ahead and get that law on the books to basically decrease a lot of competition. I have wondered if crypto one of these days wouldn't go the same way. What proved to be the Achilles' heel for online poker especially was the fact that it was the banking. It was the conversion of money or the movement of money into these online platforms and then the movement back out. It became a very difficult if not impossible thing to deal with that under certain circumstances. Now I haven't kept track of all the details of that up to this point. I am just pointing it out because I think it is analogous to what we are dealing with now.

Long story short yeah if this goes through and you see something akin to that where it becomes very difficult, cumbersome to have any kind of dealings with crypto on shore in the United States or what may happen is often what happens in a lot of these situations is some of the big actors have the ability to go ahead and be in compliance with the relevant laws and in a sense they get bigger because certain customers want to deal with things in their own jurisdiction. My question, the question I posed to myself and decided to make a video on was, "Could this auger well for Thailand?" Because Thailand has created a space in the crypto world and there is specific legislation that has been passed and regulations that have been promulgated out here that are pretty transparent and can make things very feasible for folks who want to operate in this space here in Thailand. I think everybody is waiting around with bated breath to see how this Bill comes down or if anything gets passed and what the ramifications of that are. One thing that may happen and I think folks that are interested in this topic probably ought to take note of this, especially out here in Southeast Asia, it may not be a terrible idea to start looking at Thailand as a possible alternative jurisdiction to deal with these matters outside the United States.