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Crypto Legislation: A Chance to Build an Inclusive Financial Future

Rethinking the Purpose of Financial Regulation

As the United States Congress debates new legislation for digital assets, including the CLARITY Act, it has a unique opportunity to redefine the purpose of financial regulation. Rather than prioritizing the interests of large banks and institutional investors, lawmakers can use these policies to empower everyday Americans. Modern financial legislation has the potential to support community banks, credit unions, and mission-driven financial institutions—entities that ensure people from all walks of life, especially young Americans, can access meaningful financial services.

For too long, the traditional banking system has created barriers for ordinary people. High fees, limited credit access, and inconsistent treatment across communities have left working families at a disadvantage. Fortunately, crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) innovations are beginning to challenge these limitations, offering new pathways to economic inclusion and opportunity.

How Crypto Can Level the Playing Field

Digital assets are more than just a new form of money; they are a tool for expanding financial access. Payment-focused crypto solutions introduce competition to the backbone of financial infrastructure, lowering costs, increasing transparency, and giving consumers more choices without perpetuating the biases often embedded in legacy banking.

For millions of Americans, particularly younger generations, crypto offers a fresh way to earn, save, invest, and transfer money. A 2025 YouGov survey shows that 42% of Gen Z investors own cryptocurrency, compared with just 11% who have a retirement account. Among millennials, crypto ownership stands at 36%, slightly higher than retirement accounts at 34%. These numbers reflect a generational shift in how people approach wealth and financial security, and it is precisely this shift that lawmakers should embrace.

Traditional finance has increasingly prioritized large-scale institutions, leaving individual investors with fewer opportunities to grow wealth. Digital assets break down these barriers, enabling participation in financial systems that operate beyond conventional constraints. Congress now has the chance to ensure that innovation benefits the public rather than being shaped solely by the priorities of large financial institutions.

Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis

The story of Bitcoin (BTC) begins with the 2008 financial crisis—a time when the weaknesses of centralized banking were laid bare. Bitcoin was designed to reduce reliance on traditional intermediaries, promote transparency, and offer an alternative payment system governed by clear, verifiable rules.

Understanding this origin is essential for effective legislation. Crypto’s value lies in competition, resilience, and choice. While traditional financial systems rely on opacity, delays, and limited access to protect profitability, digital assets thrive by reducing friction, accelerating transactions, and increasing transparency.

Mission-driven financial institutions (MDFIs) like credit unions and community banks play a critical role in local economies. They provide relationship-driven lending, support small businesses, and sustain communities. Yet many Americans experience the financial system as slow, expensive, and inaccessible. Thoughtful crypto legislation can reinforce MDFIs’ ability to serve their communities while enabling them to adopt modern, digital-first solutions. By doing so, Congress can help expand access to financial services without creating burdens that only large banks can absorb.

Real-World Examples of Digital-First Financial Growth

Several institutions are already demonstrating how digital assets can expand inclusion. The United Nations Federal Credit Union has partnered with fintech providers to offer digital wallets, faster cross-border payments, and limited crypto access. These innovations have helped attract younger members and grow deposits without the need for additional branches.

Western Alliance Bank has achieved meaningful year-over-year deposit growth by maintaining measured exposure to crypto-related clients and fintech innovations. Meanwhile, Axos Bank has built credibility and sustainable growth by leveraging online-only banking and strategic fintech partnerships. Frankenmuth Credit Union has also embraced crypto, launching a portal that allows members to buy, sell, and manage digital assets directly within their banking platform.

These examples illustrate a critical point: financial inclusion is possible when innovation is paired with prudence. Digital tools can enhance performance, attract new participants, and support community-oriented banking without compromising risk management.

Building a Financial System That Works for Everyone

Congress has an unprecedented opportunity to modernize financial regulation in a way that truly serves the public interest. Issues like overdraft fees, predatory lending, and discriminatory loan denials have long burdened underserved communities. Thoughtful crypto legislation can address these challenges by promoting innovation rather than stifling it.

Supporting MDFIs, expanding access for young people and working families, and integrating digital assets into the broader financial system can foster a more inclusive and resilient economy. The choice facing policymakers is clear: either maintain a system that concentrates wealth among large shareholders or embrace legislation that broadens opportunity for all Americans.

By prioritizing inclusion and leveraging the transformative potential of crypto, Congress can lay the foundation for a financial system that is transparent, equitable, and designed to benefit the many rather than the few.

Key Takeaways:

• Traditional banking excludes billions of people while cryptocurrencies offer universal access to the global economy.
• Digital assets provide a hedge against inflation when central banks print excessive amounts of fiat money.
• Decentralization ensures that your wealth cannot be censored or frozen by any single authority.

Cryptocurrencies have fundamentally changed the way we think about value and ownership. For many people in developed nations they might seem like just another speculative asset class similar to stocks or commodities. However for the majority of the global population they represent a vital technological breakthrough that solves deep systemic problems.

The legacy financial system is slow and expensive. It is also surprisingly exclusive. We need a new system that operates on the internet standard of being open and permissionless. This technology is not just about getting rich but about fixing the broken plumbing of the global economy.

Why Is Financial Inclusion Critical?

The most obvious need for cryptocurrencies stems from the failure of traditional banking. According to the World Bank roughly 1.4 billion adults remain unbanked. These people have no access to savings accounts or credit cards.

This is usually because they lack the necessary paperwork or live in regions where building bank branches is not profitable. Digital assets solve this immediately. Anyone with a smartphone can create a wallet in seconds.

This capability empowers entrepreneurs in developing nations to participate in global commerce. A freelancer in Nigeria can receive payment from a client in New York instantly without losing 10 percent to remittance fees. This levels the playing field for the global workforce.

How Do They Protect Against Inflation?

Another major driver for cryptocurrencies is the loss of trust in fiat money. Central banks control the supply of currencies like the Dollar or the Euro. When governments print money to fund debt it dilutes the savings of everyday citizens through inflation.

Bitcoin and other digital assets are often designed with a fixed supply cap. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. This mathematical scarcity acts as a shield against the devaluation of fiat currency.

In countries with hyperinflation like Venezuela or Argentina people do not buy digital tokens to speculate. They buy them to survive. They need a store of value that their government cannot devalue overnight.

Can They Prevent Censorship?

We live in an era where financial deplatforming is becoming a weapon. Banks can freeze accounts based on political pressure or arbitrary rules. Cryptocurrencies offer a solution known as censorship resistance.

Because the network is decentralized there is no CEO to call and no server to shut down. If you hold your own private keys nobody can stop you from sending or receiving value.

This property is essential for human rights activists and journalists operating in oppressive regimes. It ensures that money remains personal property rather than a permissioned privilege granted by the state.

Are They More Efficient Than Banks?

The final argument for cryptocurrencies is pure efficiency. Sending money internationally via the SWIFT banking system takes days and involves multiple intermediaries. Each middleman takes a cut.

Blockchain transactions operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. They settle in minutes or seconds regardless of borders. This speed allows for new business models like micropayments and automated streaming money that were impossible with the old infrastructure.

Conclusion

The world does not just want cryptocurrencies it effectively needs them. They provide a necessary upgrade to a financial system that was built before the internet existed. By prioritizing inclusion and sovereignty this technology builds a fairer future for everyone.

Why Trade Finance Could Become Blockchain’s Most Powerful Use Case

Blockchain has already proven that it can disrupt finance. From cryptocurrencies to decentralized finance and cross-border payments, the technology has introduced faster settlement, greater transparency and open access to markets that were once reserved for institutions. Yet, despite these advances, blockchain’s most transformative opportunity may still lie ahead.

That opportunity sits quietly at the core of the global economy: trade finance.

Trade finance is the engine that keeps international commerce moving. It enables exporters, importers, manufacturers and distributors to operate across borders by providing credit, liquidity and risk mitigation. The sector is massive, essential and deeply flawed — a rare combination that makes it uniquely suited for blockchain-driven change.

A Trillion-Dollar Industry Still Stuck in the Past

Global trade finance is estimated to be a $9.7 trillion market, supporting the movement of goods and services worldwide. Despite its scale, the industry remains heavily dependent on paper-based processes, manual verification and fragmented systems that have barely evolved over decades.

Letters of credit, invoices, bills of lading and purchase orders still pass through multiple intermediaries, often taking weeks to reconcile. Each transaction involves banks, insurers, shipping companies, customs authorities and auditors, all operating on disconnected systems. Delays, errors and duplicated documentation are not exceptions — they are routine.

This inefficiency creates more than inconvenience. It creates exclusion.

An estimated $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap continues to block small and medium-sized enterprises from accessing the capital they need. SMEs form the backbone of global trade, especially in emerging markets, yet they are often deemed too risky or too costly to serve by traditional banks. When financing is denied, production slows, contracts are lost and entire supply chains weaken.

Why Blockchain Fits Trade Finance Better Than Any Other Sector

Trade finance and blockchain are not just compatible; they are naturally aligned.

At its core, trade finance relies on trust, verification and timing. Blockchain excels in all three. By recording trade documents on an immutable, shared ledger, blockchain removes the need for constant reconciliation between parties. Documents can be verified instantly, ownership can be tracked transparently and fraud becomes significantly harder to execute.

When invoices, shipping documents and receivables move onchain, the entire lifecycle of a trade transaction becomes visible and auditable in real time. This reduces disputes, shortens settlement cycles and lowers operational costs for all participants.

More importantly, blockchain introduces tokenization, which fundamentally changes how trade assets are financed.

Tokenized Receivables and the Flow of Global Liquidity

Tokenization allows real-world trade assets such as receivables and invoices to be represented digitally and transferred instantly. Instead of remaining locked within local banking systems, these assets can be accessed by a global pool of investors seeking yield.

For exporters, this means faster access to capital without waiting months for payment. For investors, it opens exposure to real economic activity rather than speculative instruments alone. For SMEs, particularly in developing economies, tokenized trade assets create a bridge between their businesses and global liquidity markets.

This evolution mirrors what has already happened with other asset classes. Tokenized government bonds, funds and private credit instruments have grown into tens of billions of dollars. Yet trade finance, despite being significantly larger, remains underrepresented onchain. This imbalance signals not a lack of demand, but untapped potential.

As blockchain adoption expands, trade finance appears poised to become the next major wave of real-world asset tokenization.

Regulation Is No Longer the Barrier It Once Was

For years, legal uncertainty prevented digital trade instruments from gaining widespread adoption. If an electronic document had no legal standing, tokenizing it offered little real value.

That reality has changed.

Global policy frameworks now recognize electronic trade documents as legally enforceable. International standards such as the UN Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records have laid the groundwork for cross-border digital trade. National legislation, including the UK’s Electronic Trade Documents Act, has reinforced the legal equivalence of digital records.

In parallel, regulatory clarity around stablecoins has strengthened blockchain-based settlement. With fully reserved, regulated stablecoins now recognized as compliant payment instruments, onchain settlement can be integrated into global trade flows with confidence.

This combination of legal recognition and financial regulation removes one of the final structural barriers to tokenized trade finance.

Institutional Infrastructure Is Catching Up

The shift is no longer theoretical. Ports, logistics providers, customs authorities and multinational banks are actively digitizing trade processes. Institutional decentralized finance platforms are emerging to connect real-world trade credit with blockchain-based liquidity.

US Senate Delays Crypto Market Structure Bill as Bipartisan Talks Continue

The push to bring regulatory clarity to the US crypto market has hit another temporary pause. Lawmakers on the US Senate Agriculture Committee have decided to delay the markup of the highly anticipated crypto market structure bill, pushing the process to the final week of January as negotiations continue behind the scenes.

The decision reflects ongoing efforts to secure broader bipartisan backing for legislation that could fundamentally reshape how digital assets are regulated in the United States.

Why the Senate Agriculture Committee Hit Pause

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman confirmed that the committee needs additional time to finalize unresolved details and bring more lawmakers on board. While progress has been made, Boozman emphasized that moving forward without sufficient bipartisan support could weaken the bill’s long-term viability.

According to Boozman, discussions have been constructive, and lawmakers are actively working toward consensus. However, the complexity of crypto regulation, combined with political sensitivities, has made it clear that rushing the markup could be counterproductive.

The committee now plans to mark up the legislation during the last week of January, giving negotiators a narrow window to bridge remaining gaps.

What This Crypto Bill Is Trying to Achieve

At the center of the debate is the question of who regulates what in the crypto industry. The bill aims to clearly define the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, two agencies that have long overlapped in their oversight of digital assets.

For years, crypto companies and investors have operated in a regulatory gray zone, often facing enforcement actions without clear guidance. This legislation is expected to establish firm boundaries, offering long-awaited certainty for exchanges, developers, and institutional investors alike.

Because the Senate Agriculture Committee oversees the CFTC, its involvement is critical to shaping how commodities-like digital assets are regulated going forward.

Senate vs House: Different Paths to Crypto Regulation

The Senate bill is not the same as the House’s CLARITY Act, which passed in July. Due to procedural rules, the Senate must advance its own version, even though both bills aim to address similar regulatory challenges.

Originally, the Agriculture Committee planned to align its markup with the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the SEC. While the Banking Committee is still expected to proceed, the Agriculture Committee’s delay introduces uncertainty into the timeline for unified Senate action.

This divergence highlights the difficulty of coordinating crypto legislation across committees with different priorities and regulatory philosophies.

Stablecoin Yields and Ethics Rules Take Center Stage

One of the most contentious areas in ongoing negotiations involves stablecoins and ethics provisions. Lawmakers and lobbyists are pushing for changes that would ban all stablecoin yield payments, extending restrictions beyond issuers to include third-party platforms such as crypto exchanges.

This push follows the GENIUS Act, which already prohibited stablecoin issuers from offering yields. Traditional banking lobbyists argue that allowing exchanges to provide yields creates unfair competition and regulatory loopholes.

At the same time, several Democratic senators are pressing for stronger ethics rules. These proposals include conflict-of-interest provisions designed to prevent public officials from profiting from ties to crypto companies, with some language explicitly covering the president and senior government officials.

Industry Pushback and Developer Protections

Crypto advocacy groups and major industry players are actively lobbying to protect software developers and non-custodial platforms. Their concern is that overly broad definitions could classify developers as financial intermediaries, subjecting them to compliance requirements designed for banks and brokers.

The industry argues that such a move would stifle innovation, push development offshore, and undermine the decentralized nature of blockchain technology. Ensuring that open-source developers are excluded from intermediary classifications remains a key demand from the crypto sector.

Political Risks and the Midterm Election Factor

Despite the momentum surrounding crypto regulation, political reality looms large. Investment bank TD Cowen recently warned that upcoming US midterm elections could significantly reduce the support needed to pass the bill.

If control of Congress shifts or political priorities change, the legislation could be delayed for years. TD Cowen suggested that the bill is more likely to pass in 2027, with full implementation potentially not arriving until 2029.

This timeline underscores why the crypto industry is watching January’s markup so closely. For many stakeholders, it may represent one of the last realistic windows for meaningful reform in the near term.

What Comes Next for US Crypto Regulation

While the delay may disappoint market participants eager for clarity, it also signals that lawmakers are taking the process seriously. A bill passed with strong bipartisan support is far more likely to survive political shifts and legal challenges.

As the final week of January approaches, attention will remain firmly fixed on Capitol Hill. Whether lawmakers can reconcile competing interests and deliver a comprehensive framework may determine the future of crypto innovation in the United States.