Tomorrow's pod features @milesjennings and @eddylazzarin from @a16zcrypto and explores the technical and legal aspects of launching a token. Stay tuned.

Grateful for the leadership and relentless work @BoHines put in to push crypto forward in the U.S. Great government work brings urgency and delivers results. Bo did that—and the impact will be felt for years to come.

🚨say it louder for the people in the back! 📣

Crypto doesn't need regulatory loopholes to win. It just needs the law to recognize facts: 🔹Developers aren’t money transmitters—they don’t control user funds. 🔹DeFi protocols aren’t intermediaries—they don’t custody assets or effects trades. 🔹Network tokens aren’t securities—no one controls their value, supply, or functionality. That recognition does not require special exemptions, but it does require legislation to reconcile outdated legal frameworks with a technology that removes the very risks those laws were meant to mitigate—custodial risk, discretionary control, and information asymmetry. If we get that clarity, crypto wins — all property becomes cryptography (h/t @balajis). But if we push for special treatment where it is not warranted—for actors who do control funds, do effect transactions, or do sell synthetic equity interests in business activities—we not only lose the principles underpinning the industry, we invite the scams, frauds, and blowups that could be its undoing. Crypto wins by being better, not by negating rules that still matter.

Good summary chart from the @TheDRC_ comparing market structure legislation of the Senate and House. The undermining of CLARITY's transfer restriction framework creates short-term incentives to circumvent decentralization and dump on retail. That's not good for innovation.

RT @milesjennings: @EleanorTerrett @a16zcrypto Not sure I'd say most major crypto VCs. Most major crypto hedge funds is more accurate. M…

Today’s guilty verdict against Roman Storm for unlicensed money transmission is an unfortunate outcome. Like many in the industry have raised, we agree that non-custodial software through which people engage in self-directed, P2P transactions is not money transmission, and the government erred in charging this count in the first place. This decision could have a wide-ranging and unintended impact on the blockchain ecosystem as a whole. The lack of regulatory clarity that has long plagued the crypto industry not only impedes innovation, it’s dangerous. Now, developers may fear their projects could run afoul of the law. This result is misaligned with the goals of the current administration and jeopardizes its push to place the United States at the forefront of crypto innovation. The sole count of conviction (18 U.S.C. § 1960) was driven by the court’s pre-trial legal interpretation, not jury fact-finding. We believe the court erred in discounting FinCEN’s guidance and so broadly defining money transmission. Unfortunately, this may have tied the hands of the jury and dictated the outcome. But, the fight is not over. Storm has multiple grounds for appeal. And we will continue to support the fight to protect developers—in legislation, regulatory rulemaking, and the courts.

1/ Throughout tech history, it has often been the sequels that became the greatest hits. Underrated strategy for founding the next breakout crypto company: Think about the big, bold ideas from the last era of crypto that didn’t quite work as planned, but still have the potential to be world changing.

in the words of @balajis, "AI makes everything fake and crypto makes it real again" crypto gives us a path to a more trustworthy internet and decentralized proof of personhood is how apps / services can treat humans as first-class citizens on an internet increasingly built for agents and dominated by AI-generated content

The White House released its report on digital assets. It’s excellent and marks a huge step forward for crypto in America. The report confirms our government’s support for delivering regulatory clarity and clearing a path for crypto innovation in this country. We’ve come a long way in a short time and I’m excited about what’s next—most importantly, the Senate building on the CLARITY market structure legislation that recently passed the House with broad bipartisan support.