In just one year, the cryptography industry has gone from Pariah to Power Broker in Washington DC stimulated by a heavy war chest and deadly political tactics, companies like Coinbase and Ripple obtained the support of President Trump, who reimbursed them by pressing long legislation in the sector. Kristin Smith was the key to these efforts, now head of the Solana Policy Institute and the star guest in the last episode of Fortune’s Crypto Playbook Vodcast (available on Spotify, Apple and Youtube).
In 2018, Smith helped create the Blockchain Association, the first major Crypto Trade Group in DC, long before most politicians even knew Bitcoin. During a mountain of seven -year -old roller coaster, she helped the best companies in the industry convince legislators of the importance of technology, even if the collapse of companies like Sam Bankman Fresed FTX triggered a regulatory backlash that transformed the crypto into a political target.
After the crypto industry spent more than $ 200 million to elect pro-blockchain candidates, including Trump, the efforts have borne fruit while the new administration reorganized the government’s approach to monitor, cleaning the house in agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and exceeding the act of genius by the Congress, which establishes the stabbled railings.
Now the priority for DC defenders and Smith advances an even more ambitious bill that would reorganize the functioning of American financial markets and is regulated. The room adopted its own version, the Clarity Act, earlier this summer, the Senate deliberating.
While the law on genius has crossed the congress with bipartisan support, the Clarity Act faces stronger chances, with Smith saying Fortune That she thinks that it is about 60% of them to spend next year.
After the industry victories series, including an executive decree that established a strategic bitcoin reserve, the imminent question is whether DC’s new approach to the crypto will last. The legislators were about to adopt legislation in 2022 after all, before the collapse of the FTX stimulated a repression of government agencies. Without the Clarity Act in place, blockchain companies are vulnerable to future administrations if prices crater again. The criticisms argued that the rise in cash companies of digital assets around assets like Ethereum could put the industry at the edge of another bubble.
Smith argued that even in the absence of additional legislation, agencies like the SEC can always engage in rules that will help consolidate political gains – an accentuated point in a recent speech by President Paul Atkins, where he revealed “Project Crypto” to help facilitate new technologies such as tokenization and super applications. She is always optimistic for another bill. “If the president wants something, and a bipartite congress wants something, and an industry wants something,” she said Fortune“I think there is a way to do it.”
You can find the whole interview with Kristin Smith, as well as the first five episodes of Crypto Playbookhere.
