Leaders from the cryptocurrency industry, Wall Street, and venture capital firms ask Congress for clearer regulations amid fears of innovation heading overseas
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2018 appeal lands mid-arc: weeks earlier, bipartisan support for federal crypto regulation was already building in Congress, including among free-market Republicans, so the industry's ask is less a cold start than an attempt to steer a process already in motion. Two months later, firms and VCs such as a16z and Union Square Ventures were pursuing a different track — lobbying the SEC directly for an exemption from federal oversight.
First-order effects
- Congress faces competing demands from the same coalition: public testimony asking for clearer rules while its biggest backers privately seek exemption from oversight, forcing lawmakers to choose between writing law and delegating to the SEC.
Second-order effects
- The lobbying escalates on both sides — by 2022 crypto executives had become a key source of campaign cash for some lawmakers, while 26 computer scientists publicly urged Congress to resist the industry's framing entirely.
Third-order effects
- With legislation stalled, policy defaults to regulators and courts — the dynamic behind the 2023 argument that regulators are choking the US crypto industry and that major decisions belong with Congress, not unelected officials.
The trend: US crypto policy is drifting from a 2018 window for legislated clarity toward rule-by-regulator, with lobbying money and organized opposition hardening both sides of the fight.