From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez)
Ben Gilbert (host), David Rosenthal (host), Anthony Gonzalez (guest), David Rosenthal (host), Ben Gilbert (host)
In this episode of Acquired, featuring Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez) explores anthony Gonzalez on crypto regulation, democracy, and American industrial renewal This Acquired interview features Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), a former NFL player and startup operator, on what it’s like to legislate at the intersection of finance, technology, and national competitiveness.
Anthony Gonzalez on crypto regulation, democracy, and American industrial renewal
This Acquired interview features Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), a former NFL player and startup operator, on what it’s like to legislate at the intersection of finance, technology, and national competitiveness.
Gonzalez explains how he applied startup tactics to win a congressional race, then used hands-on experimentation in DeFi to better understand crypto’s mechanics before shaping policy ideas—especially around stablecoins.
He recounts the events of January 6 and his vote to impeach President Trump, framing it as a constitutional obligation and a signal to future presidents about democratic guardrails.
Across committees, he argues the U.S. must pursue a dynamic, resilient economy—leading in critical technologies, reshoring key supply chains with allies, and innovating (not moralizing) its way through climate and industrial trade-offs.
Key Takeaways
Hands-on use is essential for tech regulation.
Gonzalez argues lawmakers can’t sensibly regulate crypto without trying it. ...
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Committees are where most real governing happens.
He emphasizes hearings and committee negotiations as the locus of expertise and bipartisan deal-making. ...
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Durable legislation requires bipartisan and bicameral design from day one.
Gonzalez’s playbook is to identify aligned members by listening closely during hearings, then co-write bills with cross-party partners. ...
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Crypto regulation should follow an early-internet ‘do no harm’ posture.
He cites the Clinton-era approach to the internet—tolerate early weirdness, target obvious harms, and avoid suffocating innovation before understanding it. ...
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Stablecoins are the most actionable ‘first bite’ for crypto policy.
After Terra/Luna, Congress better grasps the difference between fiat-backed and algorithmic stablecoins. ...
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Legislation often becomes a ‘Christmas tree,’ creating unintended consequences.
He points to the infrastructure bill’s broad ‘broker’ definition that risked sweeping in developers, illustrating how unrelated provisions get added to must-pass bills. ...
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Market structure crises can be squandered by partisan packaging.
On GameStop/Robinhood, he says a practical bipartisan fix—shortening settlement from T+2 to T+1—was available, but reforms were bundled with long-standing partisan priorities, reducing odds of Senate passage and leaving core issues unresolved.
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Notable Quotes
“I always say, when I look at my own background, I'm like, 'None of this makes any sense.'”
— Anthony Gonzalez
“If you wanna be knowledgeable in the space, like, you should at least have some sort of feel for it.”
— Anthony Gonzalez
“Committees are where the real work happens.”
— Anthony Gonzalez
“My view is the best legislation is durable, and in order for something to be durable, it needs to be bipartisan, and it should be bicameral.”
— Anthony Gonzalez
“I think we should look to the Clinton administration for how they handled the early internet... 'Do no harm.'”
— Anthony Gonzalez
Questions Answered in This Episode
Stablecoins: What specific reserve, audit/attestation, and redemption rules would you mandate for a ‘payment stablecoin,’ and who should supervise compliance (bank regulators, a new regime, or something else)?
This Acquired interview features Rep. ...
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Algorithmic stablecoins: If Congress stays ‘silent’ for now, what concrete triggers (market size, systemic risk metrics, failures) would justify moving from silence to regulation?
Gonzalez explains how he applied startup tactics to win a congressional race, then used hands-on experimentation in DeFi to better understand crypto’s mechanics before shaping policy ideas—especially around stablecoins.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
SEC vs Congress: What would an acceptable division of authority look like between the SEC and CFTC for tokens, exchanges, and DeFi protocols—and how do you prevent regulation-by-enforcement?
He recounts the events of January 6 and his vote to impeach President Trump, framing it as a constitutional obligation and a signal to future presidents about democratic guardrails.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Infrastructure bill lessons: If you could rewrite the ‘broker’ language today, what definition would capture true intermediaries without chilling developers and validators?
Across committees, he argues the U. ...
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Practical policymaking: What would it take politically to pass the T+1 settlement fix you mentioned—was it a lack of consensus, or was it purely partisan strategy?
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Transcript Preview
I wonder if I can make it so you can't see her if I just hold her? [laughing] She's all wound up right now.
I love it. We've got all the creatures here. I got the baby on the monitor.
[laughing]
I got my fluffy dog, you've got your fluffy dog.
Keep her off camera and think it never happened.
[laughing] Yeah.
Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down, say it straight, another story on the way. Who got the truth?
Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert, and I am the co-founder and managing director of Seattle-based Pioneer Square Labs, and our venture fund, PSL Ventures.
And I'm David Rosenthal, and I am an angel investor based in San Francisco.
And we are your hosts. Today, we have a first ever for Acquired. Our guest is a United States Congressman serving from my home state of Ohio, Representative Anthony Gonzalez. David, Anthony has an incredible story.
An incredible story. The original motivation was Anthony's on the House Financial Services Committee, and is probably one of, if not the foremost member of Congress working on understanding and regulating Web3, crypto, everything that's happening. You know, and beyond that too, the broader economy, [chuckles] the Fed, GameStop, Robinhood, we get into all of it.
Yes, the House Financial Services Committee had a broad mandate well before crypto came around.
And Anthony is one of the handful of folks, as we talk about, that really actually use and understand this stuff in Congress. [chuckles]
Yeah, and, and not just because he's actually played around with it himself, but he ran a venture-backed start-up before serving in Congress. He went to Stanford GSB for grad school with David.
That's where Anthony and I first intersected, and, you know, that's the... We talk about it all through this episode. His story is just incredible. His family immigrated from Cuba after the revolution. His dad was a steel entrepreneur [chuckles] in Cleveland, and, uh, Anthony ended up playing football at Ohio State.
I remember in high school watching him on TV.
He went to the NFL, he played for the Colts, he caught touchdowns from Peyton Manning, then he went to business school, and now is a U.S. Congressman. It's just incredible.
Yep. All right, excited to get into it. Listeners, if you wanna discuss this episode after we, uh, we wrap up here, join us in the Acquired Slack at acquired.fm/slack. Now, we are very excited to welcome back to Acquired, our presenting sponsor, Vanta, the leader in automated security and compliance. We are huge fans of Vanta and their approach to the whole compliance process, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and more, and we've got CEO and co-founder Christina Cacioppo back with us today.
Christina, a lot has happened since we last recorded, right?
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