"The fact that the Secretary gave a 35-minute speech on digital assets, alone, should tell you how far crypto assets policy has moved up the Biden Administration’s agenda. It was encouraging to hear, once again, that regulation is based on risks and activities, not on specific technologies, themselves. Furthermore, the recognition from the Treasury Secretary that distributed ledger technology could reduce concentration in financial markets and the Secretary’s call to prepare for potential changes to financial market infrastructure resulting from the application of DLT was certainly a positive takeaway given the ongoing public and private efforts to evolve current processes and frameworks originally designed for an analog era. What is likely, especially given the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Michael Hsu’s, remarks shortly following the Secretary’s remarks, is that we’ll hear from more officials over the next several weeks in the lead-up to the initial release of several reports detailing the government’s efforts on, and approach to, digital assets. That could provide the industry with a bit more certainty on how relevant agencies and departments approach digital assets, but it remains to be seen whether prepared remarks and published reports will translate into action."

 

 

"I think we’re already seeing quite a level of engagement between US policymakers and government officials and their counterparts overseas concerning digital assets, especially given the geopolitical challenges of today. I would, however, encourage policymakers to become familiar with the US-EU Trade and Technology Council, relevant UK All Party Parliamentary Groups (i.e. APPG FinTech, APPG Crypto and Digital Assets), the work of the UK Department for International Trade in expanding FinTech bridges overseas, among many other initiatives that may not strictly focus on digital assets, but which may someday be influential in bringing both sides of the Atlantic together to enable greater collaboration on digital assets."