From Crypto Legal Advocate to US Senate Candidate | John Deaton

Today's guest is John Deon. John is a trial lawyer and one of the most influential legal voices in crypto over the last few years. He's best known for representing tens of thousands of XRP holders in the SEC's case against Ripple, where he challenged the idea that tokens themselves are securities by default. That fight turned him into a leading advocate for token holders and a sharp critic of regulatory overreach. More recently, John entered politics running for US Senate in Massachusetts, bringing his views on crypto regulation, investor rights, and government accountability into the political arena.

Today, we're going to talk about regulation enforcement, and what crypto's last few years look like from both the courtroom and the campaign trail. Thanks very much for joining me today. I mean, a bunch of stuff I want to jump into, but maybe to start, how's the hamstring and glute? I saw you had an injury recently. Did you take your walk today?

Yeah, I did. I didn't take it for two days, and I talked today about the Minnesota shooting. And it's ironic because one of the things I talked about is one of the things I'd like to see is the body cam if there was any of the agent, right?

And, you know, I think that unfortunately we live in a day where people just rush to prove their side, right? If you don't like what ICE is doing, then you want to prove it was murder. If you support what ICE is doing, you want to prove it was self-defense. And so, I'm like, can everybody calm down a bit? Let's make sure we have all the evidence before you start making these statements. But we live in a very politically divided world unfortunately.

Yeah. It's obviously a heavy topic. It makes sense to pause and treat it with the kind of dignity and care that it requires which is really to gather all the facts and to take everyone's time with the investigation and make sure the way I look at it is let's first try to see where we agree instead of disagree.

Like we can agree that a 37year-old woman shouldn't be dead. Now whether that's because you believe she shouldn't be interfering with ICE or it's because you don't believe the cop should have the ICE agent should have shot her, but let's first agree and have some dignity. you know, whether you support what she did or what ICE does, we can't get to a point in our society, this toxic division, where we lose our humanity, man. We become desensitized to human life, you know.

Yeah. And I think there's a ton of interesting stuff to talk about in terms of things you've done, your past, your career, but maybe let's start with the present and then work our way backwards. So, one of the things I loved about doing the research for this podcast is you're very transparent with your views and your beliefs like on Twitter especially. So, you've got a big following there. You comment on things multiple times a day in terms of, you know, how you see them. So, preparing for this podcast was easy and I think it's important as a politician to have a public persona and have an opinion on issues.

So, you're running for US senator in the state of Massachusetts. Believe the election's in November of this year. Maybe if you could just summarize for our audience real quick like what are the top three or four key issues that you're running on or how would you describe your platform to them?

Sure. Great. Yes. I'm running for US Senate Massachusetts. I ran last time against Elizabeth Warren as a firsttime candidate. And I've been a lawyer in Massachusetts for 25 years but I've never been into politics.

And it was sort of a last minute decision and I didn't know if I'd run again unless I thought I could really win. Even though I lost on pretty big on paper to her, you know, 19 point something points, which is a lot. I was the first Republican in Massachusetts in a nonsp special election to get over 40% in many years. 1.34 million people voted for me.

And so a poll came out showed that I could beat Ed Marky who's been there since 1976. And I got an endorsement from the mass GOP since this isn't my first time and I did okay for a firsttime candidate last time. They endorsed me which means I don't have a primary. So we got a real shot at winning this race.

And mechanically now, substantively, my message is pretty basic. It's a return to common sense. I'm not a very partisan person, right? I don't believe in putting the party or an agenda ahead of people. When you learn my life story, I'm the embodiment of the American dream.

And what's possible when you're willing to work hard and you're given an opportunity. And to be honest with you, Connor, career politicians have robbed young people like you, of their prosperity, their generation, this addiction to just printing money out of thin air and devaluing the US dollar to the point where, you know, I'm in my 50s and I can't believe that a Big Mac meal at McDonald's cost 15 bucks. Like I'm just shocked that a burger and fries and a Coke from McDonald's cost 15 bucks. Like that's shocking to me.

And so we have a real affordability crisis in the country. You have someone like Mandami and a lot of people are you know call him communist socialist and that's fine. But my point is why is he resonating with young people? It's because they can't afford life. we've priced them out of the economy.

And so we've got to get back to some common sense policies. Energy would be one of my big things here in Massachusetts. Ed Marky is co-author of the Green New Deal, you know, which is crazy because Massachusetts can't solve climate change by itself. Our yearly carbon emission is equal to less than two days of China. And so it's a global issue. So why would you put these mandates and force people to pay double the electricity here in Massachusetts? 75% higher natural gas. That's insane.

So energy is a big issue. Housing is a big issue. But I have some ideas that I think are unique. And so it's not somebody who's just running on the problems we face, but somebody coming in with a fresh perspective on how to deal with some of these things.

And for example, I have a concept called the innovation dividend. And what that means is that taxpayers, you and me, we've been the biggest venture capitalist in the world, right? We financed everything. The GPS came from government financing. The internet government financing. We give Harvard $600 million a year. They make a breakthrough. They license that breakthrough to the pharmaceutical companies and they make 150 200 million in royalties off licensing. But some of that breakthrough came from our money. So how come 1% 2% doesn't go to a dividend a national fund so that taxpayers see a return on their investment for funding some of these projects. If a private company didn't use government funding fine then it doesn't go in there. But if anything leads to innovation breakthroughs, then the regular people whose tax dollars contributed should see some of the economic surprise.

Housing's a problem. That's a big deal. I'm going to have a plan that says we should be using federal lands that are no longer in use where we can use that land to build housing. Cut undercut the cost, work with the states. also have a national firsttime homeowners buyer program that favors or gives priority to veterans, first responders, teachers, you know, things like that.

A student loan interest, compound interest has crushed people. I think we should go to a pay as you earn program where you earn you pay 3 to 5% of your earnings to your student loans and cap it at one and a half times. You take out 50 grand. You don't pay you're guaranteed not to pay more than 150. You know, things like that. These are common sense kind of approaches to these problems. But I think Washington's lost their common sense if they ever had it.

Yeah. I think a lot of the problems you touched on really resonate, you know, both of myself and I think many people in the US today and I think I liked a lot of your potential solutions to them as well. I think a return to common sense is very much needed and you know maybe that's because you haven't been a career politician, right? You you've done a lot of things in the private sector. Founded your own law firm, ran that for a long time and then got very involved on on on the crypto side of things.

So maybe before we touch on those real quick though, like what motivated you to to leave the the private sector and write a successful business at least for the time being and run and try to get into politics because it's a an industry change. It's like a an act of service. Like what what really inspired the the jump there?

It it really was this belief that the American dream's dying. Because I mean it when you learn my life story from extreme poverty, single mother on welfare, overcoming certain obstacles, I really am my life represents what's capable in a great country, hard work, someone who's willing to make some sacrifices. And I truly fear that a poor kid living in Roxberry, Massachusetts or Brockton or Springfield, will they have an opportunity to achieve the American dream like I did as a poor kid in this country or you don't have to be as poor as I did. Anyone that's not from means, right?

The wealth gap in this country has gotten so large. the middle class has evaporated. The difference between the halves and the have nots has gotten worse and it's because of career politicians. You know, if we take health care, which is I should have mentioned as one of my my big ideas as well. If you take health care, I'm a capitalist. I am a free market capitalist. I am not a socialist in any way.

But we don't practice real capitalism in this country when it comes to healthare. The Affordable Care Act was never going to be affordable because it allows three companies that are vertically integrated. There's basically three insurance companies that are vertically integrated. They control over 80% of every prescription drug in this country and over 90% of the provider networks.

And so that's monopolistic capitalism. Real capitalism would be multiple parties, you know. And so I want to break up those three insurance companies, create much more competition and transparency. You know, Connor, if your microwave in your apartment or house, if it were to blow up, you could go online and you could compare brands and prices all across the country on microwaves and pick the best one and and look up this. Try doing that for for life-saving drugs. Like, let's say you have a relative and they need a certain life-saving drug. See if you can find out what the real pricing is and compare where you can get. You can't. It's not even allowed. It's terrible.

Yeah. So, how come we can't employ that kind of transparency when it comes to health care? That's the kind of stuff. So, that would be a big example. And I think it's also why we have to recognize that capitalism for someone in your age group isn't working maybe the way it did for my when I was your age. and and it's because we've become so consolidated and we need to increase competition in all fields and increase transparency.

And so that a big part of my campaign is going to be transparency all across the board and and it starts with a politician when you said I'm being transparent about where I stand and and all of that. I think you have to be lead by example.

Definitely. I mean I'm glad you've you've identified that issue, right? that capitalism may not be working the same for folks in my generation versus yours. And I'm glad you're doing trying to do something about it, right? Because I think it is it it definitely very much feels that way. And I think a lot of folks, you know, my age and even older realize that kind of inherently, but there's not a ton of people doing about it, doing a lot about it. So, it's it's good to see that that's kind of like a big part of the framing for your campaign.

Yeah, maybe to jump back to your involvement in the crypto space. So, like this is obviously a crypto podcast. You've had a a large impact and you'd have a lot of fans in the crypto sector because of the work you've done. So, maybe let's start from the beginning like how did you first learn about crypto and and how did you begin to get involved? Maybe it wasn't with XRP and Ripple initially.

Yeah. No, it it was actually Bitcoin. You know, I I started hearing about this Bitcoin thing and I'm not like the most techsavvy guy in the world, but I I read the Bitcoin white paper and this was about Listen, I wish I got in early, you know, I got in like late 2016 and I can't remember what Bitcoin was trading at. Probably at that point 78,000 maybe. it hit 19,000 I think in 2017 and then went back you know to sub five or six or whatever.

But I read the Bitcoin white paper and when I say I come from poverty, I come from poverty and I thought of wow this is revolutionary because my mother I thought of my mom. My mom was on welfare and back in our day and show you how old I am Connor we didn't have direct deposit. You got your you got the check would come by the mailman.

You have to go to the bank. And and so my mother would get a welfare check and she tried to have a bank account, but the banks would require a minimum amount of that you'd have to keep in the bank back then. So this would be like, you know, late 70s, early 80s. Let's say it was $10 a month. Well, my mother needed the money, so she could never keep a minimum balance. Well, the banks would hit her with these predatory fees, minimum charge, minimum charge. So, by the third check, if she went to take her check to go to the bank, they would take 40% because of fees or 30%. So, she had to go to, if you ever go into inner city, you go, you'll see check cashing stores, right? They it'll say Western Union lotto liquor check cashing which also is predatory right or feels predatory.

So my mother would have to be forced to get her casher check there. They would charge 15% for sure. And I listen to my mom at say I was seven or eight years old. I'd listen to her beg them to please take less because we needed the money. So, I'd watched my mom like debase herself, begging them, and it stuck out. And then I thought, Bitcoin, wow, peerto-peer. You cut out the middleman.

When I was in college and if I try to send her a 100 bucks once in a while to help my siblings, I go through Western Union, they take 12% so she gets 88 bucks instead of 100. I was like, you cut all that out. This is amazing. And I thought of a could be in Nigeria and if you have a smartphone, right, you could sell t-shirts or straw hats and participate in in capitalism economy, whatever. And you don't need a bank. And so I then then I went down the rabbit hole because of that. That was what attracted me.

And then like many people, I was like, well, wait a minute. XRP is fast. Like that even works faster than Ethereum. So, I owned three cryptos. It was primarily Bitcoin and then I had some ETH and some XRP and then the lawsuit against Ripple happened and I read it and was like, "Well, they're not limiting it to just against this company Ripple." They're like saying, "My daughter owned XRP and I owned XRP." It's like, "Wait a minute. You're saying that I have an illegal asset? My daughter never heard of Brad Garin House. She doesn't know where Ripple is. She's got She's not relying on them. Like, she doesn't even know they exist. That's insane. And and then I sued him and then it went viral and all of a sudden I became a securities lawyer, right?

Well, so so you were a holder of XRP yourself just because you were interested in the project, right? So was your family, it sounds like. And then XRP holders, not just the company, got sued by the SEC. And so you, you know, you kind of became involved in that because you you you thought it was unjust. Like I guess, yeah, what was that initial process of finding out that all the holders were were being sued like? And then, you know, what was that like? And then what were the the next kind of actions or steps you took?

So when I it was Christmas like the suit was December 22nd. It was like Christmas Eve and I I I assumed that the SEC was only going to say what they normally would say. Normally they just say this company or this CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple sold XRP as an illegal security, unregistered security on these dates. When I read the complaint, it didn't say it like that. It wasn't limited to just Ripple sales or Brad Garlinghouse sales. it was saying that XRP itself was a illegal security. And so that's what I mean by they sued everyone else.

Meaning if they say if they say that they limit it to just Ripple then then any you know I should say this any asset can be marketed and packaged as an illegal security an unrested security like gold has been packaged before. Beavers, believe it or not, the little animal beavers has been have been packaged as an unregistered security. Condominiums have, chinchillaas have, but it's always been limited to a specific transactions, never the underlying asset. Right? A condo is a condo, not an illegal security. So XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum, it's digital code. It's software. It's not itself illegal. But they were saying, "No, XRP is illegal."

And I knew that Coinbase would delist it. Kraken would delist it because their lawyers would say, "You don't want to mess with the SEC." Coinbase is going to want to go public. They're not want They don't want to sell a token that the SEC is saying illegal. So, I knew that it was going to be and and I just said, "You know what? I'm going to join into the case. Um, and I filed a motion to intervene. That was the main step, a motion to intervene. I put it on X and I I wasn't aware the XRP army was as active as they were.

I Connor, I had I think at the time I wasn't that active on X. I think I had maybe 180 followers and all of a sudden overnight I had 1,200 then I had 5,000 then I had 10,000 then I had 15,000 a week later I had 30,000 followers and you know people saying I want to join this cause and so I put out a Google form if anyone wanted to join and I just attached it to my ex handle and 75,000 people signed up.

Wow. Yeah. Crazy. Definitely struck a struck a nerve. Struck a cord there. 75,000 XRP holders from 143 countries. So I had Gotcha. I had Ukraine and Russia was at war, but I had Ukraine XRP holders and Russian XRP holders signed up. bag. The crypto bags will unite us all, right? No, no, that's right. Yeah. You could be like a progressive or you could be a MAGA Republican, you could be, you know, a progressive liberal and but you all joined up.

So we all united and went viral and the judge made me a mikas counsel which allowed me to participate in the case and and and we made a difference because the judge ruled XRP itself isn't a security and she cited the brief I filed in the affidavit that I submitted.

Right. And so and that that ruling came out maybe like a year or two ago, right? Pretty recently. Yeah. Okay. And so yeah, this is, you know, sounds like you're almost like def defending yourself as a as a token holder, posted about it publicly, kind of this like organic grassroots movement really sprung up around you. Y um was the involvement of all those 75,000 folks, was it basically like, you know, signatures on a petition or were they submitting like proof of different things or helping you as well? like what was the they at first it was just signing up on a form 75,000 then I said to them if you want to participate and sign affidavits and so about 4,000 of them signed affidavits they got them notorized and sent them back to me via emails and you know it would be like some of them would say an affidavit that said listen I use XRP because I go on the XRP ledger and I use it to send money home.

So like I'm not using it as a investment. I'm using it I'm a developer and I'm using it to for utility purpose. Then there would be some people who would say yeah I bought it to speculate but I never heard of Ripple. I heard of the name Ripple but I never heard of a company that sold software. I just bought it because it was like number three, you know, at the time. It was the third largest. And then you had some people that had affidavit that said, "Yeah, I know I knew of Ripple." Um, and but but I bought XRP because of these reasons, not because of Ripple.

Right. And so just saying showing to the judge that yeah, there's no doubt that there are some people out there who who bought XRP probably hoping that Ripple would do things to make the price go up, but that's not everybody. You know what I mean? like there's a substantial amount of people who who bought it independent of this company. So sue the company like the billionaires, they're going to be okay. But a guy the guy that's got five grand of all his money invested in XRP. Whether he should or not is a different topic, right? But if that's what he's got and it goes down, it shouldn't go down because of what the government does. It should go down because the market says it's worthless, right?

Definitely. And I think this this current administration is obviously much friendlier towards crypto. I think it's they've honestly put forth a lot of very constructive legislation to define what the rules are. You know, David Sax and some others in the admin have have done a lot of great work here. Like what do you think is is left to do, right? Like do we should we rewrite securities laws for today's day and age for crypto tokens? Is there other legislation you think would be great to have pass? Um what do you think is is left to do on the crypto agenda?

you know, the Clarity Act is pending right now. It's being talked about this even today in the Senate. It is insane. You know, you brought up a great point. You talked about rewriting securities lawyers, the laws for today. I mean, it's insane that we're applying 1933 law to modernday artificial intelligence and to blockchain technology, robotics, space exploration, automation, quantum computing, whatever. That's insane. You know, we're applying a 1946 case law on oranges and orange groves to blockchain.

So, we have to get real and update our laws so that we're not doing that. Entrepreneurs need to know the rules of the road. If entrepreneurs know the rules, even if they disagree with the rules, at least they know what not to do, right? And when things are so vague and you're trying to apply 1930 law to 2026, it's going to cause problems. And so the clarity act would eliminate some of that.

The other thing is if you take XRP as an example Fininsson had a case against them in 2015 called it you know virtual currency. Treasury was involved. the SEC, the CFTC, FINRA, like why? You can't have nine governmental agencies arguing over jurisdiction over a token or a commodity or an asset. And so you need to know, okay, this is the governing body, the SEC or the CFTC, and also this is what a security token is, and then list it out. This is what a commodity token is. This is what an exchange token is or utility token. Whatever. Just let's write the rules, make it clear, and let innovation foster.

100%. Well, yeah, looking forward to seeing a lot of that hopefully enacted over the next couple years. Is there anything else we haven't covered that you'd like to to touch on? And maybe if not, you know, where can folks find you on the internet? How can they support the campaign?

I appreciate it. John Deon for Senate is where you can learn my positions and policies. Obviously, if you can afford to donate, money is an important thing to run a campaign. No, no amounts too small. We take crypto. That had to that had to be part of it. And, uh, no, we we've covered a lot of it. I I uh when I talk to someone your age, Connor, it just reaffirms this whole thing. That and I really do believe the guy I'm going against is Ed Marky. I'll just tell you that his first year in Washington was 1976. And I don't know if if that's two decades before you were born or three decades. Just about. Yeah. Two, right? I mean, uh that's crazy. Yeah. I mean, he's been in Washington long before, you know, you were your birth. That's just insanity. And yeah, it's not just about age, but it's it's just too long. And so, um, if people think so, if they can support, it'd be great.

Awesome. Well, John, thanks very much for coming on today.

Oh, thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it.

Link: John Deon for Senate