Crypto In America

As Congress prepares to return to Capitol Hill next week and get the ball moving again on the Clarity Act, we speak with White House Crypto Council Executive Director Patrick Witt about the latest in negotiations and whether the bill could be ready for a markup later this month. We also chat with the new president of tokenization firm Securitize on how policy from the U.S. Securities and Exchange...

Evan Cheng is the Co-Founder & CEO of Mysten Labs, the team behind the Sui blockchain. In this conversation, we discuss building Mysten and Sui, how the shifting U.S. regulatory landscape has shaped that journey, AI and agentic payments, the latest from Washington on stablecoin yield in the Clarity Act, where institutions are leaning in today, and the most underrated use cases in crypto. This...

Eleanor recently spoke to Chairman French Hill & Rep. William Timmons in Nashville at the Digital Assets and Emerging Tech Policy Summit. In this conversation, we discuss why blockchain should be a core learning curriculum alongside AI and cybersecurity, the ongoing Senate debate over stablecoin yield, why Senate due diligence is normal, how stablecoins will be transitional in the U.S., and br...

Another major hack hit crypto this week, with early analysis pointing to possible involvement from North Korea. Drift Protocol’s $285 million exploit is raising fresh questions about how “decentralized” some DeFi platforms really are and why parts of the Senate’s pending market structure bill aim to address exactly that. We break it all down, plus the latest centralized versus decentralized tensio...

Bryan Pellegrino is the Co-Founder & CEO of LayerZero Labs. In this conversation, we discuss how a 2011 U.S. online poker ban led him to crypto as an “escape hatch,” early sports gambling, learning how insecure and centralized cross-chain bridges were, interoperability, the 700% increase in traffic on LayerZero, building an L1, and working with institutions to connect tradfi to blockchains. Th...

Crypto and traditional finance are moving closer than ever. From Franklin Templeton tokenizing ETFs to Fannie Mae exploring crypto-backed mortgages, this week’s developments point to accelerating adoption and a shrinking divide between TradFi and DeFi. We break it all down, including a new push to bring tokenized deposits to banks with Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski, a deeper dive into the SEC’s...

We’re celebrating our 1-year anniversary with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins!  We cover his crypto origin story, how sentiment in DC has shifted, the push toward tokenization and on-chain markets, the SEC’s evolving token taxonomy, partisan politics in finance, what could define 2026, and his relationship with former Chairman Gary Gensler. This episode is sponsored by Gemini: https://gemini.com/CIA  Wat...

We are live at DC Blockchain Summit 2026 with Chris Pavlovski, the founder and CEO of Rumble. Crypto In America will be streaming on Rumble starting today! In this conversation, we discuss Tether’s $775M investment in Rumble, launching Rumble Wallet for creator tipping (Bitcoin, USDT, and Tether Gold), rolling out Rumble Shorts, Rumble Cloud expansion, and why crypto and payments are core to Rumbl...

Clarity was the name of the game in Washington this week as the SEC and CFTC released long-awaited guidance on how federal securities laws apply to crypto, finally providing a semblance of rules of the road the industry has been waiting for. At the same time, the SEC greenlit Nasdaq’s plan to offer tokenized settlement for stock trading, and the CFTC issued a no-action letter to Phantom, allowing...

We’re live with Brian Nistler, Head of Policy at Uniswap Labs, at ETHDC. In this conversation, we discuss all updates on CLARITY Act, Title III, & the BRCA, the importance of developer protections through legislation, Uniswap’s evolution, guidance on trusting DAOs, governance risks and delegation, thoughts on the Roman Storm retrial, and how BlackRock partnered with Uniswap. This episode is sp...

Today’s show features guests from across the spectrum. We’ll speak with Keri Curtis Axel, defense lawyer for Tornado Cash developer and co-founder Roman Storm, as the DOJ attempts to retry Storm on counts the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on in his August trial. Axel gives an update on the case from the defense’s perspective and weighs in on what some see as an eyebrow-raising move fro...

Zach Abrams is the Co-Founder of Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure platform that was acquired by stripe in early 2025. Prior to starting bridge, he served as chief product officer at Brex, head of consumer at Coinbase and GM at Square. In this conversation, we discuss his thoughts on the stablecoin market, his journey as a founder in crypto, how Bridge quadrupled it’s business in 2025, the Strip...

Crypto exchange Kraken unlocked a major milestone this week: gaining coveted access to the Federal Reserve. The U.S.’s second-largest exchange became the first crypto company in history to be granted a master account, giving it a direct line into the Fed’s payment rails, though not full banking powers. We break down what this moment means for Kraken and the broader crypto industry with the exchang...

Will Corkin is the Co-Founder & COO of SOMA.Finance. In this conversation, we discuss his decade-plus history in crypto, from STOs to DEFI and Co-Founding MANTRA. We also get into Will’s thoughts on MANTRA’s $5B crash, starting SOMA, getting licensed for tokenized securities, what makes Soma different from the competition, an inside look at the license approval process, and why Pre-IPO shares...

Following two weeks of travel, the team is back together to break down the biggest crypto policy and market stories of the week — including insider trading allegations against Jane Street, a new pro–software developer bill introduced in the House that has the DeFi community buzzing, and the latest on the Clarity Act as February wraps and attention shifts to a Senate push to get it to the floor in...

Hester Peirce is the SEC Commissioner. We spoke to Hester live at ETH Denver to get the latest on the biggest accomplishments from the past year, what the defining moment of 2026 will be, transparency under the current admin, tokenization, balancing traditional financial vs. crypto, how AI will affect crypto, and the conversations around financial privacy. This episode is sponsored by Gemini: http...

Patrick is the Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets. We spoke to Patrick at ETH Denver to get the latest on Market Structure. Patrick discuses when the bill will pass, banks vs. crypto arguments, why developers should care about legislation, ethics concerns, if there will be enough Democrats to pass the bill, concerns with further delaying the bill, thoughts...

Mo Shaikh is the CoFounder & General Partner at MFV. We spoke with Mo in Hong Kong about the latest developments in the crypto market and investment space. We discuss why there’s still plenty of signal in the noise, what the west gets wrong about crypto, how deglobalization is affecting investments, how the industry has changed post-GENIUS Act, missed opportunities in America under previous ad...

Bo Hines is the CEO of Tether US and former Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisers on Digital Assets. In this conversation, we discuss the latest on Tether’s push into American markets with its “soft launch” of USAT, Bo’s thoughts on Clarity Act delays, where Tether stands on the yield debate, why he’s bullish on stablecoins expanding US global dominance, and why most securi...

Today's special episode brings you inside Crypto In America's coverage of Consensus Hong Kong, where Eleanor and Jacquelyn sat down with Sharplink co-CEO Joseph Chalom and co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance Sidney Powell to dicuss the state of crypto in the region, why Hong Kong is looking to compete on the global stage with stablecoins and thoughts on U.S. policy hot topics like the stab...

A dramatic market sell-off saw Bitcoin fall more than 50% from its all-time highs by Friday morning, as forced liquidations and selling by large institutional investors continued to push the market lower. As crypto OGs white-knuckle it through the pain, we speak with former CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo about his amicus brief on behalf of Crypto.com, defending the CFTC’s jurisdiction over prediction...

Robert Lesher is the Co-Founder &CEO of Superstate. In this conversation, we discuss Superstate’s $82M raise, the future of tokenization on Wall Street, tokenized deposits, deciding what gets tokenized, the most overhyped use case of tokenization, DeFi, Stablecoins, DATs and when capital markets will embrace tokenization.  This episode is sponsored by Gemini: https://gemini.com/CIA  Subscribe...

Eleanor spoke to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul S. Atkins on Project Crypto and how they are working to fulfill Trump's mandate to make the U.S. the crypto capital of the world.  This episode is sponsored by Gemini: https://gemini.com/CIA  Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GNtA8ytsalo Please note that this podcas...

After another busy week in crypto policy, Gerald and Eleanor break down the Senate Ag Committee’s party-line passage of its portion of the Clarity Act and what’s next as attention shifts to the Senate Banking Committee, joined by a16z’s Miles Jennings. Then, following months of speculation, President Trump names Kevin Warsh as his pick for Fed chair. Veteran financial journalist Charlie Gasparino...

Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin and currently serves as Director of the Litecoin Foundation. In this conversation, we discuss the creation of Litecoin in 2011 and how the industry has evolved since, the prospects for Litecoin ETFs, the reasoning behind his decision to sell all of his LTC, the Lite Strategy DAT and its outlook this year, growing institutional interest, and why price and adop...