Our view of the new crypto policy landscape

Dec 19, 2024

A lot has happened since our last update here.

First, the transition. As many of you may know, our beloved Jerry Brito and Robin Weisman have announced that they will be stepping down from their day to day roles at Coin Center. They will remain in the family and on the board of directors. We are eternally grateful to them for getting Coin Center this far.

Peter Van Valkenburgh will be stepping up as the new executive director. We are excited to continue delivering the high quality, no-nonsense, advocacy work you have come to expect from us for many more years.

Now on to the other transition. Many of you have asked how we are thinking about the incoming Trump administration. This is a complex question so we’ve laid it all out in a thorough blog post:

To summarize, we think it’s likely that crypto businesses may have an easier time with their issues at the market regulators like the SEC and CFTC. However, we will remain vigilant on issues affecting the developers of decentralized protocols such as those affecting financial privacy and permissionless finance tools.

And in another blog post, we have succinctly laid out Coin Center’s priorities for the next Congress and administration. We’re often asked “what is it exactly that you want?" Well here it is in simple but detailed terms:

Republicans have begun discussing tax changes for next year. We published an agenda of crypto-specific tax fixes that should be included in budget reconciliation.

On the topic of privacy tools, plaintiffs just won a Fifth Circuit case that parallels Coin Center’s case challenging OFAC’s sanctions on Tornado cash.

This is a huge victory. The court agreed with what we’ve been arguing since the sanctions were announced: immutable smart contracts are not property subject to sanctions. Coin Center had oral argument in our appeal before the Eleventh Circuit last month and we’ve now asked our panel to take notice of the Fifth’s opinion as well.

We’re still waiting to see what the final remedy will be in this series of cases. Ideally, the sanctions are vacated nationwide for all immutable Tornado Cash contracts, meaning Americans are free to use the core tool again and a lasting precedent will be set on the reasonable limits of OFAC’s authority.

We are especially thankful for Vitalik Buterin who made a substantial donation to Coin Center immediately following the ruling and which we will employ for related litigation.

Apart from the Tornado Cash civil case, there are ongoing criminal cases against the developers: Alexy Pertsev in the Netherlands and Roman Storm in the Southern District of New York. In Roman’s case we were disappointed to listen to the Court's legal reasoning in a hearing denying his motion to dismiss last October.

Particularly frustrating was the court’s refusal to give weight to either FinCEN’s guidance about non-custodial entities or to any First Amendment defenses. We have published a comprehensive blog post explaining why the court was wrong on the law.

In other news, the Coin Center Annual Dinner 2025 has been announced. It will be held in NYC on September 25, 2025. Individual tickets are not yet available, but sponsorships are available and interest has already begun pouring in. Make sure to get your tables for what we hope will continue being the best party of the year.

Finally, Peter gave some talks recently that are worth checking out.

The Parable of Clearville, the Land of Glass Houses - The importance of Tornado Cash told in the style of a children’s storybook. People really like this one.
Why The World NEEDS Private Law - A keynote at Bankless Summit
The Crypto-Shaped Hole in America’s Constitution - The Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress

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