A New Era For Crypto In 2025 | Miller Whitehouse-Levine

Unknown Source April 22, 2025 59 min

artificial-intelligence investment startup

🎧 Listen to Original

70 Companies

82 Key Quotes

3 Topics

4 Insights

🎯 Summary

Podcast Episode Summary: A New Era For Crypto In 2025 | Miller Whitehouse-Levine

This 59-minute episode features host Jack Cubanek interviewing Miller Whitehouse-Levine, the CEO of the newly formed Solana Policy Institute (SPI), about the strategic shift toward ecosystem-specific policy advocacy and the current state of crypto legislation in Washington D.C.

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1. Focus Area

The primary focus is the intersection of Solana ecosystem development and U.S. crypto policy/regulation. Key themes include the rationale for creating an ecosystem-specific policy group (SPI), the current legislative landscape in Congress (stablecoins and market structure), and the evolving dynamics of crypto lobbying in Washington.

2. Key Technical Insights

• Solana’s Development Explosion: The conversation highlights the “absolute explosion of development” of protocols and businesses on the Solana blockchain, noting that D.C. currently lacks awareness of this activity beyond recent headline-grabbing use cases (like memecoins).
• Prioritizing Building Over Compliance: SPI aims to reverse the trend where builders design products around existing regulatory constraints. The goal is to enable building first, then address regulatory/legal implications within a workable framework.
• Memecoin Context: While acknowledging the recent frothiness of memecoin activity on Solana, the discussion frames it as evidence that the chain can support high-volume activity, emphasizing that consumers should be left to make their own financial decisions if adequately informed.

3. Market/Investment Angle

• Stablecoin Certainty as an Unlock: Passing legislation for custodial stablecoin issuers (like Circle and Tether) is viewed as a “massive unlock” for the entire ecosystem, providing necessary certainty for increased use and adoption.
• Market Structure Clarity: Legislation defining the SEC/CFTC jurisdictional split is crucial to end the ambiguity that has plagued the industry, particularly concerning which tokens are securities versus commodities.
• Investment in Advocacy Pays Off: The success of recent bipartisan Congressional actions is attributed, in part, to sustained investment (time, money, expertise) in D.C. advocacy by the industry.

4. Notable Companies/People

• Miller Whitehouse-Levine: CEO of the new Solana Policy Institute (SPI); previously CEO of the DeFi Education Fund and an early employee at the Blockchain Association.
• Kristen Smith: CEO of the Blockchain Association, who is joining SPI as President. Her move is framed as a complementary partnership (Smith as the spokesperson, Whitehouse-Levine as the “book nerd” focused on bill redlining).
• Solana Foundation: Confirmed to have board representation on SPI and was involved in discussions leading up to its formation for months.
• Key Congressional Figures: Mentioned as driving current legislation: Chair Tim Scott (Senate Banking Committee) and Chair French Hill (House Financial Services Committee) for stablecoins; the Agriculture Committees for commodity/market structure oversight.

5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion

• Critical Policy Window: The next two years are viewed as an extremely critical period for U.S. crypto policy, especially given the shift in tone at the top (post-Biden CRA resolution success).
• Key Legislative Efforts:
  1. Custodial Stablecoins: Bills like the House’s STABLE Act and the Senate’s CLARITY for Payment Stablecoins Act focus on reserve composition, liquidity, and redemption risk.
  2. Market Structure: Legislation aiming to clearly delineate SEC (securities) vs. CFTC (commodities) jurisdiction, and establishing oversight for centralized exchanges post-FTX.
• Risk of Regulatory Capture: A major concern is that new frameworks, while providing certainty, could become so complex or expensive that only highly resourced entities (like the largest banks) can comply, undermining innovation for smaller players. SPI commits to pursuing tech-neutral policies to ensure a level playing field.

6. Future Implications

The industry is moving toward a phase where ecosystem-specific policy advocacy is becoming normalized, driven by the evaporation of the singular existential threat (Gensler-era enforcement). While this differentiation allows for tailored priorities, the risk is fragmentation. The success of the next 18 months hinges on Congress passing durable legislation on stablecoins and market structure before political distractions (like the upcoming election cycle and Trump’s crypto entanglements) derail progress.

7. Target Audience

Crypto Policy Professionals, Solana Ecosystem Builders, Institutional Investors, and Legal/Compliance Officers operating within the Web3 space. It is highly valuable for those tracking regulatory strategy and the lobbying landscape.

🏢 Companies Mentioned

Cardano ✅ Layer 1 Blockchain

Worldcoin Financial ✅ Project/Organization

Jupiter ✅ defi

Commissioner Hester Peirce ✅ unknown

So Gensler ✅ unknown

Lido Solv ✅ unknown

Rebecca Radig ✅ unknown

Are Solana ✅ unknown

CLARITY Act ✅ unknown

Truth Social ✅ unknown

Worldcoin Financial ✅ unknown

Crypto Twitter ✅ unknown

Like I ✅ unknown

Because I ✅ unknown

Chair French Hill ✅ unknown

💬 Key Insights

"Now the crypto task force is proactively posting everything well before any FOIA request for any of it happens. They're having these public round tables that anyone can tune into, and it's not these backroom deals or conjecture about what's happening at the SEC."

Impact Score: 10

"It's not necessarily the question of being a security per se. And I think that this is the crux of what Gensler got wrong is that you were creating this impossible situation where you're defining a lot of these tokens as securities but not giving any pathway for anybody in the US with any customers to actually sell securities."

Impact Score: 10

"The issue was not that Solana now becomes illegal, quote unquote, but nobody who wants to buy Solana can really buy it because the SEC created these special purpose broker-dealer licenses and then proceeded to give out like two of them to like Prometheum."

Impact Score: 10

"The question should be for developers and businesses: What do I want to build? And let's make our business and development decisions, and then thank you for our regulatory and legal treatment. And I don't care if I'm a duck or security or commodity because for the most part, they will know with certainty we can survive and live, and there's a rational regulatory framework in place, no matter which path we choose."

Impact Score: 10

"The question became existential because a token or a transaction in a token being a security for the last eight years has been a death sentence. And that has been downstream of an irrational regulatory choice the SEC made, which was that we do not want to create a path for transactions in tokens that are securities or tokens that are securities to be able to function."

Impact Score: 10

"I think we can't let—can't let perfect be the objective because there is no such thing when you're talking about legislative product."

Impact Score: 10

📊 Topics

#artificialintelligence 63 #investment 3 #startup 1

🧠 Key Takeaways

💡 continue fighting on it because it doesn't make sense

💡 try very hard, but I think it's less likely than it is likely

💡 be forever grateful that she's leading the crypto task force because she's been thinking about these issues for the last eight years, and there is no one I trust more to be leading that effort at the SEC