Rep. Tom Emmer explains why a generational divide is setting the tone on crypto in Congress

A Congressional Republican representing the northern suburbs of Minneapolis, Tom Emmer is just as likely to tell war stories about college hockey in the 80s as he is to discuss blockchain policy.

When I meet with Emmer, Washington, DC is oppressively hot in a way that reminds you that the term “the swamp” is not just a populist metaphor. In his suit, Emmer has been rushing back and forth from his office to the floor of the House of Representatives to vote. When he gets back, a staffer is on hand to give him a towel, water and a stack of papers I later learn are some of the blockchain-related bills that he’s involved with, either as a sponsor or supporter.

When he finds out that I am a Michigan native, he mentions the Yoopers he played hockey with — “They were all drinking beer out of shoes when the tournament was over.” I tell him that Paul Westerberg of the Replacements lives in Emmer’s native Edina these days. I also extend my sympathies for the excess sweat that is inevitable in a swamp town with a professional dress code. He tells me about Prince playing First Avenue back in the day and more recently seeing fellow Twin Cities native Jeff Arundel. Emmer also dismisses my sympathies, assuring me that I’m still young and capable of jumping over buildings in a single bound.

In the field of blockchain policy, Emmer is one of the leading voices in Congress, despite his inclination towards self-deprecation. He is a member of the Blockchain Caucus and the Fintech Task Force, the ranking membership of which he left to Warren Davidson when he took over the same role on the Investigations and Oversight Committee.

He is also a broad-shouldered, congenial Midwesterner whose homespun personal brand belies a great deal of political savvy. He took over his seat from former Rep. Michelle Bachmann in 2014, which makes him several years senior to many of the other figures in Congress who have made blockchain central to their platforms. 

In the same way that he leads by talking about losing track of music after 1984, as well as our respective ages, Emmer is thinking about generational shifts and especially how they relate to the way that Congress greets new technology. Though comfortable going on the record, he prefaces our conversation with “I reserve the right to evolve.” 

Here’s our conversation, edited for readability.

Q: Are you seeing a partisan divide developing in Congress when it comes to cryptocurrency?

A: This is not a Republican/Democrat thing, necessarily. I started doing this in 2016. And in the five years, I will tell you the first hearing I ever did that I think was directly critical [to crypto] was on one of the topics where Republicans sounded like you would think Democrats would sound and Democrats sounded like Republicans.

Q: Senator Elizabeth Warren had that attack on Bitcoin, though, as a recent example.

A: So did Former President Trump. So, I mean, again, equal opportunity. And I think it's because no matter how smart some people are, they don't understand what they're working with and they need more education. They need to open their mind to a new world that is coming, especially people like Senator Warren, God bless her. 

We're probably more of the same generation. I would say people in my generation need to start to open their mind and realize we think in two dimensions most of the time. Your generation is thinking in multiple dimensions. You're not linear the way we were. I mean, I look at my kids, you can have an abstract thought while keeping a cogent direction. You can step off the rails, if you will, without ever losing your place.

Senator Warren, whether I agree with her on finance — and many times I do not — that's not the issue. The issue is, ‘do you understand what it is, exactly? Do you understand why this gives more Americans potentially access to the financial system who right now don’t? Do you understand how you could take friction out of the system so that you can have innovators innovating, creating new things?’

The whole world is changing. It's going to happen, with or without us. Whether it's Senator Warren or it's one of my colleagues, I got news for you: this is going to happen. And so figure out how you embrace it, how you learn it, how you make sure that the best and the brightest stay here in the United States and continue to create and innovate and take us to that next stage. I mean, even the people in government who somehow think that they can still challenge the idea that crypto will even exist, have you looked to see how big the market is? 

Q: There were a lot of blockchain-relevant bills introduced in the last Congress that never made it to law. Some are coming back. What has to happen this time around so that they don’t stall out again?

A: We have more work to do in educating the chairwoman [Maxine Waters]. The chairwoman and her staff are in charge of the committee. They decide what moves forward. As we have been doing with everybody else on the committee, Republican or Democrat, whether it's been through the Blockchain Caucus or even before that. I started with Republicans and I had some very traditional bank members on the Republican side who were not necessarily warm to cryptocurrency to begin with. But it's been amazing as they've studied it, they've learned it. They would probably raise some questions, but they know that it's here to stay.

We've got a lot of Democrats on the other side of the aisle. Darren Soto, we’ve worked on several things with. Bill Foster, a lot of Ro Khanna and — I haven't worked on anything with him yet — but Gottheimer has been getting more and more into the space. I think that is ultimately what will help us move things.

Q: But what about the Senate? 

A: The Senate is starting to get up to speed. I think they're starting to have more of an appetite to move stuff forward. We'll just have to wait and see where it falls on the priority scale over there.

A personal mission for me the last five years, six years has been we need better definitions of currency, of commodity, of security. The Howey Test, it may be OK. I've actually had some people tell me that it's OK, that it’s flexible and you can actually get to a result if they don't just settle cases, if you can see actual decisions creating a precedent. 

Q: How does the rising profile of ransomware change overall attitude towards crypto, especially with the Biden administration making it a national security issue?

A: And the idea is that the criminal eco system doesn't deal in cash? 

This administration, rather than pointing at crypto and pointing at the people who would be working in this marketplace, they should start to take care of our national defense. This has started ever since they took office, whether it's China leaning in, whether it's Russia leaning in, whether it's Iran leaning in. Their lack of a foreign policy, their lack of a national or international defense policy is what is causing these, whether it's the attack of the Colonial Pipeline or its other hacks that are taking place with the Russians after the election. They're all leaning in to see what the response is going to be from this administration. 

If we're talking just about crypto. OK, so the ransomware attack that took place on the Colonial Pipeline, and guess what? I think they got back almost all the money they identified. With cash, you may never have been able to do that. So, you know, again, if we want to talk about just crypto technology that it sits on, that it operates on, I think that's where we can agree. I think people who are pointing the finger at crypto are actually trying to distract from a bigger problem when it comes to our national security.

Q: On a different note, a lot of that criticism of crypto came at a hearing on CBDCs. It seemed like everyone wanted a CBDC of some kind, but didn’t agree on a vision. What’s yours?

A: An open permissionless system that operates a lot like cash, only crypto.