Crypto Showdown: Inside Congress’ High-Stakes ’Crypto Week’ That Could Reshape Finance
Washington's gearing up for a blockchain brawl—and the entire digital asset industry's watching.
Lawmakers dive headfirst into crypto's regulatory future this week, with hearings that could make or break America's position in the $2T+ digital economy. Expect fireworks as DeFi defenders clash with traditional finance hawks.
Key Battlegrounds:
- Stablecoin sovereignty: Will Congress finally create a USD-pegged crypto framework, or leave the door open for private issuers?
- DeFi's existential test: Regulators want 'compliance'—developers scream 'that defeats the purpose.'
- The institutional invasion: BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF was just the start. Wall Street's lobbying hard for favorable rules.
Meanwhile, crypto traders keep stacking sats—because when has political theater ever stopped a bull market? (Answer: Never, unless you're a bagholder from 2021.)
One thing's certain: After this week, the rules of crypto's Wild West era get rewritten. Whether that's good news depends on which side of KYC you're on.
Tuesday
- 14:30 UTC (10:30 a.m. ET) A federal judge held a final in-person pretrial conference for Roman Storm.
Wednesday
- 14:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on market structure issues.
- (The Nation) Last month, Dubai-based Aqua 1 Foundation said it would invest $100 million in the Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial. Aqua 1, however, does not appear to actually exist, reports Jacob Silverman in The Nation.
- (Wired) McDonald's uses an AI bot to filter applicants, but this bot may have exposed applicants' personal information to any hacker due to "absurdly basic security flaws," Wired's Andy Greenberg reports.
- (The New York Times) The Times has a long read into how U.S. President Donald Trump went from being a crypto skeptic to a pro-crypto president.
- (The Wall Street Journal) Grok, the large language model artificial intelligence built by xAI — the AI firm associated with X, the company formerly known as Twitter — posted some very antisemitic statements, called itself MechaHitler and said the actual Adolf Hitler would be the best 20th century figure to address "anti-white hate." This came just days after X owner Elon Musk said he was making some changes to the bot.
- (404 Media) Polymarket got weird after bettors could not come to an agreement over whether Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy wore a suit or not. He wore some form of formal clothing at a recent appearance, which the Polymarket pool initially resolved as "yes." UMA token holders disputed that resolution, and it was later changed to resolve the bet as "no." Derek Guy, an expert on formal clothing and historical clothing styles, told 404 Media that in his view, Zelenskyy's garments did qualify as a suit.
If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See ya’ll next week!
