Managing Editor’s Note: Instead of our usual fare, today, we’re unlocking some exclusive research from Brownstone’s senior crypto analyst, Ben Lilly…
He highlights the reasoning behind the Trump administration’s urgency to integrate cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology into the U.S. financial system and how they’re pushing that forward.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to go here to automatically sign up to attend Jeff’s emergency “Project MAFA” briefing next Wednesday, July 16, at 8 p.m. ET.
It’s a revolutionary plan to return America to an era of sound money, eliminate our looming debt disaster, kick off a Golden Century, and more.
Next week, Jeff is diving into Project MAFA and how you can get ahead of it. You can go here to add your name to the guest list with one click.
Then, read on for more from Ben Lilly on the crypto-forward initiatives coming out of D.C. right now…
A Regulatory Tailwind
By Ben Lilly, Senior Crypto Analyst, Permissionless Investor
On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., for a blockchain conference, we had the opportunity to hear directly from 22 congressional representatives alongside commissioners and officials from the SEC, CFTC, U.S. Treasury, and the executive branch.
It was an incredible opportunity to rub shoulders with the individuals and entities shaping the future of U.S. policy regarding digital assets.
And what we learned is that we are on the brink of what will likely be seen as the greatest moment the digital assets industry will ever realize.
Talking the Talk
“Alignment” is the word of choice when discussing what is happening in Washington right now.
It’s uncommon to see everyone on the same page like this, especially when it comes to crypto regulation.
Usually, at these crypto events where we’re hearing from so many different – and often opposing – parties across various stages, meetings, and discussions, we are left without a strong sense of who is pushing what and in what direction. Everything feels enshrouded in layers of bureaucracy, political infighting, and a refusal to cooperate across parties.
We’re left uncertain whether any progress will happen based on where all the legislative chess pieces sit. When it comes to these legislative efforts, things are never moving in unison. Progress is never straightforward.
Usually, the best we hope for is alignment from a subset of a single party in Congress. If we’re truly lucky, perhaps we’ll see some regulatory officials in government seemingly in agreement.
This is what we’ve grown accustomed to since we began our regular trips to the inner loop of the digital assets scene in D.C. nearly a decade ago.
The best-case scenario was always varying degrees of hope.
But we witnessed something new in the talks during this trip – cohesion and a united front. No matter who spoke or where they were speaking, the messaging was the same…
The digital asset industry is a top priority.
This became clear as various experts and regulatory leaders spoke about the shift in national interest, laid out milestones, and expressed their determination to make progress wherever possible.
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National Interest
The United States is home to one of the most robust and liquid capital markets in the world. Trillions worth of assets – whether it’s in the form of equities, real estate, or U.S. Treasuries – originate in the country.
What makes this possible is its well-functioning financial system with rules governing its markets. A system that’s been formed over decades.
Consumer rights or property rights, disclosures, and precedents act as the underpinning for assets to thrive.
To explain this better, if you hold a share of stock, the rights are understood by all parties involved. This holds true for the corporation issuing the stock, the broker, and the individual holding the share in their brokerage account.
These rights mean even in the face of bankruptcy or legal proceedings, numerous precedents exist to help sort out any disputes. It means everybody has confidence in holding the asset.
And it is the idea of “permanence” that underpins this system. The rules of the market are not subject to change from year to year. Or administration to administration.
The digital asset industry has lacked this.
It’s why several lawmakers, the CFTC, and the SEC stressed the importance of having permanence when crafting legislation.
There is a mutual understanding that, if done correctly, this new era of finance will allow for markets with global accessibility to have confidence in any digital asset issued within the United States.
This means assets like tokenized Treasuries in the form of stablecoins can tap into greater pools of demand than what is currently possible.
But the financial system must trust that whatever legislation happens has permanence. We won’t have to revisit this every time there’s a change in leadership or something new happens in the digital assets industry.
As Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno stated, we have “an entire industry that’s willing to cement dollars’ status abroad.” Which is to say, strengthen the dollar as the reserve currency for the globe.
Implement clarity and earn trust. The result is extending capital markets to the world. Blockchains symbolize a tool to deliver these assets globally. And that’s what became clear from our time listening to these decision-makers.
The U.S. has a national interest, economically, to draft the rules of the road. One can say drafting a strong legislative framework for this asset class is a matter of national security.
This is one of the biggest reasons why digital assets are now a top priority.
And even better, there’s also a clear map of the goals in mind as well as time frames for achieving them.
Milestones
Each individual across all branches of government expressed an expectation for when progress will be realized by stating a clear roadmap with dates.
These comments centered around the stablecoin bill and the market structure for digital assets. The two pieces of legislation symbolize the cornerstone of the industry. And having them in place would be an incredible feat.
For a bill with such significance, we would expect years of work before it is signed into law. But that timeline was compressed.
Already, the U.S. Senate has passed the GENIUS Act.
The “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025” – or GENIUS Act – is the stablecoin bill mentioned above.
It lays out a federal regulatory framework for payment with stablecoins. It also clearly defines stablecoins, discusses a licensing framework, and establishes some protections for them, such as reserve requirements, disclosures, and oversight.
We’ve been tracking the bill’s progress with regular updates in The Bleeding Edge. And now, it has passed the Senate.
This is incredible news for the digital assets industry. It now goes to the House. We’ll see what happens there, but the Act is on track for signature before the August recess.
And quite soon, we should expect to see the bill related to market structure for digital assets – the CLARITY Act – making its way through the proper channels.
In fact, I expect we’ll see the bill up for a vote before the August recess.
Granted, the market structure bill might hit a snag that forces a vote after the recess, mostly because this is a more complex subject than the stablecoin bill. But still… The expectation is that both are signed into law before the start of Q4 this year.
That’s not all, though.
There were two other bills related to the digital assets industry that are expected to make their way through the halls of Congress.
One was related to the Federal Reserve or the United States being able to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC). It is designed to be a permanent ban on a U.S. government-backed CBDC. The other was directed at payment providers.
These were lower in urgency, but still enough of a priority to warrant discussion around timelines.
We can’t stress how big this is. All individuals involved in drafting these laws and regulators helping facilitate this work are in full alignment on what needs to be done, and when. No one present was left wondering.
And to prove their point, they made it clear they’re not waiting around to get started…
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Progress Wherever Possible
Progressing stablecoin legislation and establishing a framework for digital assets at large will take the better part of 2025.
Meaning it’s a bit of a waiting game for regulators.
But here’s the thing… Regulators want to show the industry they know they were in the wrong. And they want to prove they are sincere with their pivot towards being supportive of the industry.
They did these in a handful of ways over the last couple of months.
The first proof that they are walking the walk is via the dropped or paused investigations and lawsuits by the SEC. This includes matters involving Consensys, Robinhood, Uniswap, OpenSea, Gemini, Kraken, Yuga Labs, Coinbase, Ripple, and several others.
To understand the significance, we need to realize how the SEC typically operates.
Their first action involving a legal matter is to issue a letter to an entity or individual that the SEC believes something is happening that might violate securities law.
The letter won’t state explicitly what might be running afoul. It serves more as a warning shot. The entity or individual then needs to hire a team of lawyers to help them right whatever wrong they might be committing.
What follows is a waiting game. The SEC may initiate a formal investigation or court case, or perhaps just not do anything after the initial letter.
Now, if the SEC does open an investigation, they’ll do it on their own time. And even if they find no wrongdoing, it might be years before a case gets closed… If at all.
Clear as mud. And legal matters might simply stay open forever, even if there’s no wrongdoing.
But what the SEC did as it relates to digital assets is to go out of their way to tell various entities that their case is closed. And it wasn’t one or two.
They attempted to show good faith practices.
And it’s a great signal and proof point that the SEC is sincere in trying to mend their relationship with the industry.
The SEC also went ahead and started to offer guidance wherever they thought they could.
We heard guidance related to meme coins on February 27 when the SEC classified them as collectibles, not securities.
They went ahead and offered guidance on covered stablecoins not being a security on April 4.
There was even additional commentary related to proof-of-work mining (January) and disclosure requirements for cryptocurrencies that are securities (April 11).
These were, again, proof that the SEC is attempting to do their best on anything they can. They are not just waiting for legislation to come their way before making progress.
But that’s not all…
We’ve seen the president get to work righting previous wrongs.
SAB 121 was one such rule in place via the SEC. Its existence meant banks were essentially walled off from being a custodian of digital assets. This increased the amount of friction for individuals to take part in the asset class since most individuals and entities store assets with banks.
President Trump rescinded this rule via an executive order in January.
More recently, we saw the repeal of the SEC DeFi Broker Rule. This rule would have placed excessive mandates and protocols to register with the SEC, conduct mandatory know-your-customer work, and attempt to enforce possible tax implications that might have been nearly impossible to uphold.
It overcomplicates what is designed to be a much more straightforward approach to blockchain protocols… adding unnecessary layers and middlemen to the process when the whole idea behind many of these protocols is to cut out those middlemen and boost efficiency.
The repeal helps preserve protocols that operate without intermediaries. It was a major win this month since decentralized protocols can invest in innovation instead of more legal work.
The flurry of activity since January would not have been possible without broad sweeping alignment across regulators and various branches of government.
These three takeaways provide us with proof points showing us that the positive talk from Washington is sincere. And that we should expect their main legislative goals to come to fruition before the end of the year.
Great Things Ahead
This is a pro-crypto environment.
Given the nature of financial assets, there will always be a strong regulatory aspect to cryptocurrencies. This is why we’ve been tracking progress in the halls of D.C. so closely.
Fast-paced change is becoming a constant in the digital asset industry. And we need to be on the bleeding edge of progress to be best positioned for when the market decides to come roaring back to life.
The cryptocurrency industry is down right now, but it is clearly showing signs of life with Bitcoin hitting all-time highs. And seasoned crypto investors know, big changes can happen in an instant that lead to much broader bull markets.
This is especially true as the Trump administration pushes forward with its initiative to establish America as a dominant force in the crypto and blockchain tech industries.
This regulatory tailwind likely means this is the last time we see lows like this. So at Brownstone Research, we’re going to stay the course, track the most innovative digital asset players, and continue to get into position before the market catches up to the golden age coming our way.
Thank you for joining us in this incredible and exciting moment in digital assets. Much more to come.
Your Pulse on Crypto,
Ben Lilly
Senior Crypto Analyst, Permissionless Investor
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