If you work in the blockchain space, many people will assume you possess a background in technology, programming or web development, even as a growing number of people with traditional financial and media backgrounds continue to enter the industry.

Lee Bratcher, president and co-founder of the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and founder of the North American Blockchain Summit, took a different path to jump-start his career in web3.

An army officer and then a professor of political science before starting the TBC, Bratcher discovered the Bitcoin whitepaper while working on property rights in the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute at the War College.

“I realized Bitcoin and blockchain was going to be the biggest thing in property rights since the invention of double-entry accounting over 500 years ago,” Bratcher said during a recent interview. “From that point forward, I directed my academic research to property rights and the tokenization of real world assets, which back in 2016 was just referred to as ‘blockchain-based land administration.’”

After writing his dissertation on the topic, Bratcher discovered there was a gap in the market for people who understood crypto and could talk to executives and who also understood politics and how to deal with policymakers.

“I really wasn’t amazing at either of those things, but was decent at both, so I decided to jump in and help to organize some stuff,” he said. “I hosted a podcast—the Dallas Blockchain Podcast—and from there, people kept asking me to facilitate crypto introductions, so I started the Texas Blockchain Council as a result.”

Read more: The Growing Economic Impact of the Web3 Industry – Key U.S. States as ‘Incubators of Good Policy’ 

For the first year or two, the TBC was a side hustle for Bratcher while he completed his work as a professor.

“I also taught a few blockchain classes as a professor in the college of business before I left the university,” Bratcher said. “Back then, people didn’t know where the puck was heading, so we were teaching things then that today you’d probably laugh at.”

But the TBC grew to a point where Bratcher could no longer run it and teach, so he quit his job as a professor and embarked full-time on the council in 2021, which now employs five people plus several contractors.

While not huge, the TBC has seen success with its North American Blockchain Summit—a spin off of the Texas Blockchain Summit—which Bratcher and his team hosted in Austin, Texas for a few years.

This year’s summit will be at the Bush Presidential Library in Dallas with expected attendees from state associations from all over the country as well as international groups. 

“We try to host this conference in such a way so it’s more of a business conference,” Bratcher said. “It’s not a big festival and there aren't 20,000 people there. Last year we had 1,300, which was our largest ever. This year, we’re purposely making it smaller to focus on being the niche facilitator of business introductions in the space, and the thought leader in policy.”

Chokepoint 2.0

Last year’s summit hosted key crypto voices such as Vivek Ramaswamy, Nic Carter and Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis. Carter has spoken out about Chokepoint 2.0, a conversation which has picked back up in recent months, after the Fed issued a Cease-and-Desist Order for United Texas Bank, which is a member of the Texas Blockchain Council. 

While Bratcher couldn’t speak directly about United Texas Bank, he did confirm Chokepoint 2.0 was a real concern.“At first, it was mostly speculation but now there is actual evidence coming out of the Signature Bank disclosures, and now that those former employees are able to speak publicly. There was unlawful pressure from the administration and bank regulators on those banks, and it was specifically related to their crypto involvement,” Bratcher said.

“Anecdotally, we do hear from banks all the time that the federal regulators at the Fed, the FDIC and the OCC basically say things like, ‘we can’t tell you not to work with crypto companies, but you shouldn’t,’” he added. “That’s certainly not the way a regulator should be interacting with the regulated entities. That’s outside the bounds of the law and it’s really disappointing.”

But Bratcher believes a sentiment change is underway with the incoming Trump administration. It might be the same regulators and civil servants doing the examinations, but they no longer feel the pressure to be harsher on the digital asset industry.

The hash rate race

With the amount of Bitcoin mining that takes place in Texas, what does Bratcher think about President-elect Trump’s comment that he wants all Bitcoin mined in the U.S.?

“I don’t think all Bitcoin mining will ever be in the U.S.,” he said. “Right now, we’re at about 40 percent, which is a healthy market share. I don’t anticipate us moving beyond 50 percent, especially since governments across the world are getting involved and incentivizing their data center industries using a stranded or cheap power.”

Bratcher said countries such as Paraguay, Ethiopia, Sweden and Russia are competing to host Bitcoin mining. For some of the countries that are not U.S. allies—such as Russia—Bratcher noted it’s all the more important the U.S. continues to strengthen the industry because it’s a zero-sum game.

“The more hash rate we have in the U.S., the less revenue the Russian hash rate will take in,” Bratcher commented. 

However, he  doesn’t expect the government to incentivize Bitcoin mining. “We’re just asking them to treat us by the same rules as all other industries.” 

In terms of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve put forward by Senator Lummis, Bratcher believes Trump and his administration will likely adopt it. “We’ll all know that the idea was incubated in the community, but I think President Trump will appropriate that policy and it’ll become part of his legacy.” 

The Texas Blockchain Council web site

Bratcher said it will  happen later on in the Trump administration, not necessarily in the next couple months. “We already have something like 200,000 Bitcoin from law enforcement seizures. If we were to just hold that, it would be a reserve in and of itself,” he added. 

With the softening of the sentiment toward crypto, Bratcher believes we’ll see the passage of a market structure bill and stablecoin legislation—but it remains to be seen whose version might gain passage. Right now there are different bills being circulated, including Senator Hagerty’s legislation, the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act and the Waters and McHenry version.

“In the 119th session, all of those bills that didn’t make it through the 118th session are cleansed out of the system. You can resubmit that bill in its exact same form or with some tweaks, so we don’t really know what it’ll look like,” Bratcher shared. 

“There’s still a lot of debate between whether stablecoins will be regulated at the federal level and at the state level, or just the federal level. We would obviously like to see it at both levels, because banking is regulated by the federal government and states.” 

As for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Gensler, Bratcher said the two most likely outcomes are that he’ll either be demoted out of the chair position or he will resign.

Bratcher said while there’s a risk the public will associate crypto with the Republican party, it’s actually a boon because there will be a Republican congress and president. “The left side of the aisle is realizing that’s one of the main reasons why they got blown out in this election. There’s more than one reason, but that’s probably in the top three,” he said. 

“Members of the Democratic Party like Ro Khanna and Richie Torres—who are younger and becoming more powerful by every passing year—are very pro-crypto and pro-digital assets. It’ll become less partisan over time, just like the Internet.” 

As for the future of the Texas Blockchain Council and the North American Blockchain Summit, Bratcher and his team will be planning the 2025 Summit at a to-be-announced location and will be focusing on solidifying Texas’ role as a major player in the future of blockchain’s trajectory.

“We are hard at work at the next legislative session coming up in Texas in January, 2025, passing more bills that make Texas a leader in blockchain and digital asset innovation,” Bratcher said. “It’s an exciting time in the industry and we’re hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.”

lead image: Lee Bratcher