State of Crypto Policy: what 25 founder interviews say changed between 2025 and 2026

Crypto Coin Show published 161 founder and executive interviews between January 1, 2025 and September 29, 2026. This report reads all of them for one subject, crypto policy and regulation, and asks what the people building in the industry actually said about the rules, and how that changed as Washington moved from enforcement to legislation.

The short answer is that policy stopped being a background risk and became a product question. In 2025 guests talked about regulation as something to get licensed around or wait out. In 2026 they talked about specific laws, the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and the Clarity Act for everything else, and what each would let them build. The loudest voice in the set is Charles Hoskinson, whose 85-minute interview is the longest conversation in the dataset and the most detailed critique of the Clarity Act the show has recorded.

Key metrics

The dataset

The desk screened every episode by hand, starting from the archive’s Regulation & Policy tag and a keyword search of show notes, key takeaways and transcripts for legislation, regulators, licensing and jurisdiction. An episode is counted when policy or regulation is its main subject or a significant part of the conversation. Episodes where regulation came up in a single passing question are excluded. That leaves 25 episodes: 9 from 2025 and 16 from 2026.

Measured against the whole show, policy conversations made up 10 percent of episodes in 2025 and 22 percent in 2026, more than doubling its share alongside stablecoins.

Spotlight: Charles Hoskinson on the Clarity Act

Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Input Output and Cardano, sat down with Ashton Addison in April 2026 for 85 minutes, five months before the Clarity Act failed in the Senate. His argument, in short, is that the bill as written would have protected today’s large networks while making it close to impossible to launch a new American one.

“If we do pass Clarity, everything is a security by default that’s a new project. That’s the bill that they’ve given us.”

Charles Hoskinson, Input Output

The problem with the bill. Under the draft’s mature-blockchain test, Hoskinson said, a new project starts life as a security and has no path to the liquidity, exchange listings, venture funding or community ownership it would need to mature. Existing networks such as Cardano, XRP and Ethereum would pass as commodities, which is why he called it a bill for the incumbents. His test for any crypto law: under this framework, would the winners still be winners? He argued that if Ripple or Ethereum were founded today, the bill would make them securities.

What he would do instead. Start with the definition of a security, which dates to the 1930s, and add a category for blockchain-based securities. Then use the blockchain itself as the disclosure mechanism, so rulemaking can allow zero-knowledge disclosure rather than prescribing a technology in statute.

Why the process broke. Hoskinson pointed to Wyoming, where he said more than 30 crypto laws passed with support from both parties after months of preparation. The federal effort, he said, skipped that groundwork, excluded Democrats and left agencies and companies to fight over the details inside the bill. He also warned that if Clarity did not pass in 2026, the next realistic window could be 2029.

Stablecoins are only half the arcade. He called stablecoins “fully regulated now” after GENIUS and MiCA, but compared them to arcade tokens with no games to play: without a market-structure law for the rest of crypto, there is little for regulated dollars to do onchain. His larger concern is compliance pressure to ban non-custodial wallets and centralize DeFi, which is why he pitched Midnight’s selective disclosure, demonstrated live on the show, as a way to prove compliance without giving up privacy.

Jump to the key sections: Stablecoins, GENIUS and the compliance dilemma (14:12) · What good crypto legislation looks like (21:06) · Why the Clarity process failed (27:05) · How Clarity could kill new American crypto (32:27) · XRP and Ethereum would be securities (44:32) · Midnight wallet and passport demo (1:05:34) · Full episode, transcript and chapters

Six findings

1. Policy doubled, and it got specific

Policy episodes went from 10 to 22 percent of the show. The 2025 conversations were mostly about the change in mood: Coinbase’s Scott Shapiro described anticipation around a new SEC and CFTC leadership and said about 90 percent of assets Coinbase reviews still fail its listing bar, and the Blockchain Futurist panel with BTCS, OKX US and Maple Finance called the year a “total 180” from regulatory hostility. By 2026 guests were debating statutory text, drafts and rulemaking timelines.

Shares of policy episodes by theme, 2026:

2. Stablecoin rules became the working part of policy

No 2025 policy episode was mainly about stablecoin rules; in 2026 they were the largest theme at 38 percent. The GENIUS Act is the one crypto law guests could actually build on. OpenPayd’s Lux Thiagarajah called enterprise stablecoin use the biggest shift he had seen since the Act. Higlobe’s Teymour Farman-Farmaian said stablecoins only “became legit” with it. Ground’s Reid Cuming walked through the Act’s ban on issuer yield and the window it leaves for distributors, the same issue that banks pushed the Senate to close in September. Our stablecoin report covers this in detail.

3. The fight moved to market structure

With stablecoins settled, the argument moved to the Clarity Act, which would divide oversight of other crypto assets between the SEC and CFTC. Guests split on it. Nexo US COO Neil Steinhardt and Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden wanted it passed, with Warden calling GENIUS the biggest unlock so far and Clarity the next. Chris O’Brien of Venable described the SEC reopening no-action letters as real value for founders even without a law. Hoskinson argued the draft would do more harm than good. On September 15 the bill failed a cloture vote 49 to 50, over ethics provisions and election-year politics, leaving the SEC and CFTC to set the terms by rulemaking for now.

4. Companies are coming back to the US

In 2025 the jurisdiction conversation ran outward. Echo’s Sam Dorrer pitched Isle of Man legal protection for digital assets, and Ndax and Legion built around licenses and KYC to stay on the right side of unclear rules. In 2026 it ran inward. Algorand moved its foundation back to the United States and turned it into a for-profit, noting that US employees can now hold ALGO. Nexo re-entered the US through a partnership with Bakkt. Robinhood’s Johann Kerbrat said it built its own chain partly to control compliance jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Offshore structuring has not disappeared: Dave Rodman still walks founders through the BVI, Cayman and Panama, and warned that borders matter less in crypto than founders assume but enforcement can still reach them.

5. Bipartisanship is the real constraint

The most consistent warning across the 2026 policy episodes was political, not technical. Erik Balsbaugh of Open Frontier said that when an issue becomes partisan it swings with each election, and argued the industry has to do its own education with lawmakers rather than rely on them. O’Brien said both parties support crypto legislation but with different priorities, Democrats on consumer protection and Republicans on innovation. Hoskinson said the Clarity process failed because Democrats were left out. The September vote bore that out.

6. Outside the US, compliance is a patchwork

Guests building internationally described many regimes at once rather than one. OpenPayd pointed to MiCA taking effect in Europe while the UK lagged. VALR’s Farzam Ehsani walked through Kenya’s new virtual asset law, South Africa’s draft capital flow rules and a Nigerian market that is still mostly peer to peer. ZIGChain holds licenses in South Africa and Abu Dhabi’s financial centres and treats licensing as its moat. Trust Wallet’s general counsel Shehram Khattak said the industry is “tiptoeing” around perpetuals and prediction markets across jurisdictions. Higlobe described each emerging market setting its own limits on buying dollars.

Where the guests disagree

Pass Clarity or rewrite it. Steinhardt and Warden wanted a market-structure law on the books because codified rules reduce regulators’ discretion. Hoskinson wanted the definition of a security modernized first and said a flawed law would be very hard to fix later.

How much regulation is enough. Steinhardt said the absence of rules creates a wild west but too much stops innovation. Khattak compared the US favourably to Europe, where he said too many rules have held innovation back. OpenPayd argued the fragmentation itself is the barrier.

Privacy and compliance. Panther Protocol in 2025 and Hoskinson in 2026 both argued zero-knowledge proofs can satisfy KYC without exposing users. The legacy view Hoskinson described, requiring banks or regulated custodians for all crypto use, runs the other way.

Can you still go offshore. Echo built its product around a friendly jurisdiction; Rodman said offshore can work but called the belief that regulators cannot reach you hubris.

What to watch into 2027

If the 2026 pattern holds, the next year of policy conversations on the show will be about rulemaking rather than legislation: final GENIUS rules before the January 2027 deadline, the OCC’s treatment of yield paid through third parties, how far the SEC and CFTC go without a market-structure law, and whether Clarity or a rewritten version returns after the midterms. Hoskinson’s warning that a missed 2026 window could push a deal to 2029 is the scenario to test against.

Methodology

Appendix: the 25 episodes