International payments are often relatively slow and expensive, especially if not denominated in the major currencies. These costs serve as effectively a tax on remittances home from expatriate workers from poor countries, and on cross-border retail purchases from poor countries. Interlinking national fast payment systems (FPS) are one of the best potential responses to this… Read More: Interlinking National Fast Payment Systems »

When a blockchain developer raises funds to build a new blockchain-based protocol, it often does so by selling a cryptocurrency, or token, that, as the theory goes, will at some point in the future be used to access the protocol that eventually gets built. The fundraising resembles a traditional initial public offering, whereby a company… Read More: Regulation Crypto Assets: Policymaking by Crypto, for Crypto »

On June 30, Paul Atkins, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, stood before the Economic Club of New York and delivered a history lesson. With the nation’s 250th birthday days away, Mr. Atkins told his audience that the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” both products of 1776, rest on “the… Read More: Paul Atkins Misreads Adam Smith and the American Founding »

On July 22, Senate Republicans released updated text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (the CLARITY Act), combining the work of the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees into a 616-page package. Most commentary and debate has focused on the ethics and decentralized-finance provisions, as well as the bill’s effort to close the GENIUS Act… Read More: Why Title I of the CLARITY Act Will Produce Chaos,… »

The federal government is pursuing two policies that are on a collision course. On one track, it is accelerating the development and commercialization of quantum computing. In June 2026, President Trump issued an executive order establishing a whole-of-government effort to “accelerate deployment and commercialization of quantum computing, sensing, and networking.” A companion order directed federal… Read More: Why Financial Regulators Need a Plan for Quantum-Vulnerable Digital Assets »

On July 11, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law without President Trump’s signature. It is the most significant bipartisan housing package in decades. Near the end of its 300-plus pages is a provision that has nothing to do with housing: through December 31, 2030, the Federal Reserve may not issue a central… Read More: The CBDC Conspiracy Theory That Became Law »

International payments remain one of the least efficient parts of the global financial system. While many developed countries now enjoy near-instant domestic payments, cross-border transactions still rely heavily on the centuries-old correspondent banking model, where funds move through chains of intermediary banks. Each step introduces delays, expense and operational frictions. As a result, international payments… Read More: The Future of Digital Money: The Race Between the Tortoise,… »

A US-dollar-anchored stablecoin trying to operate at retail scale across the European Union, Hong Kong, and mainland China runs into three legally dissimilar instruments: a transaction cap, a professional-investor gate, and an outright prohibition. Two of the three constraints bind through published text and the third operates partly through unpublished signal on the cross-border pathway.… Read More: Three Mechanisms, One Policy: Monetary Sovereignty in Cross-Border Stablecoin Regulation »

Since Congress enacted the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, better known as the GENIUS Act, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has seen a flood of applications from crypto firms seeking national trust bank charters. Stablecoin issuers, crypto exchanges, custody firms, and fintech payment companies are all racing to… Read More: Why the OCC’s Stablecoin Charter Push Is Illegal, Dangerous, and… »