It is often said that cryptocurrency is both a technological revolution and a spiritual belief. That is why it is not surprising that two currents of thought have emerged in the field as the regulatory system undergoes a comprehensive reform: on the one hand, there is a deep reflection on the core values of cryptocurrency (which often carries an anti-establishment gene), and on the other hand, there is a real expectation of the emergence of potential new application scenarios.
With the support of CoinDesk, I interviewed the panelists who will be speaking at the "Consensus 2025" conference's private supervision forum - these veterans in the cryptocurrency field are also advocates of reasonable supervision. We discussed how to protect the core values of the industry in the regulatory reform and what kind of innovation opportunities will be nurtured under the new regulatory framework.
The following is a transcript of the experts' views.
What core crypto values are most important to you? How to ensure that they are respected in regulatory reforms?
Kayvan
Personal freedom and autonomy are core values in the crypto field. The reason why privacy protection and decentralization are so important is that they are essentially the fundamental means to achieve this autonomy - without these mechanisms, the surveillance system and centralized control nodes will gradually undermine individual sovereignty.
To ensure that these values are respected in regulatory reform, we need to reframe the discussion: focus on demonstrating that new technologies can achieve the fundamental goals of existing laws not only "in different ways" but also "in better ways". For example, a large number of financial regulatory rules were originally designed to prevent abuse of power by asset custodians, but once humans have control over this power, the risk of greed and corruption is as difficult to eliminate as a genetic imprint, and similar problems are destined to repeat themselves.
Implementing high-intensity supervision on intermediaries is certainly a feasible path, but only by completely eliminating the role of "human intermediaries" through technology can the problem be fundamentally solved. Analogy: Strictly controlling alcohol sales and increasing road checks to curb drunk driving are just temporary bandages for superficial symptoms; the application of autonomous driving technology is the scalpel that can truly eradicate the chronic disease of drunk driving.
The practical application of new technologies will inevitably be accompanied by growing pains, and their risk characteristics will be very different from the traditional human intermediary model. However, as long as we always focus on a core proposition - "how to use technological innovation to provide better solutions for the existing governance goals of the law", the core values of the crypto world can survive in the regulatory evolution.
Connor
Blockchain technology can provide users with unprecedented transparency, reliability and security - provided that the policy framework promotes its prosperity by incentivizing decentralization.
Under reasonable supervision, blockchain projects will continue to promote the process of decentralization, so that users can truly control their own financial assets and digital property, thereby reducing their dependence on overreaching institutions. Beyond financial application scenarios, decentralized blockchain networks will serve as the underlying infrastructure to support multiple fields:
Data sovereignty social platform: users fully own and control the flow of personal data
Community governance platform: compete with technology giants through decentralized governance mechanisms
Anti-AI forgery protocol: build a digital identity protection system to resist AI deep forgery attacks
We believe that "control" is the most effective entry point for defining decentralization at the legal level. The "control test" can greatly eliminate the information asymmetry problem caused by the concentration of token control, thereby striving for regulatory exemptions or downgrades for projects under the securities law framework.
Lewis
When we talk about core values, I always focus on the values of developers and users who are attracted to the crypto world, rather than the attributes of the technology itself. According to my observation, this group is certainly called by the concept of personal sovereignty and decentralization, but their spiritual totem is far more than that.
In the past ten years, what really drives me forward is the deep collaboration with this diverse and innovative community - they are building the "value Internet" with almost paranoid passion, and are determined to make the world more closely connected. We must clearly realize that the essence of the crypto ecosystem is a set of bottom-up tool systems, and each line of its code condenses the time, wisdom and creativity of countless individuals, rather than the top-level planning of technology giants. This grassroots nature is the most moving footnote to the spirit of encryption.
Michelle
Decentralization is the core value that I cherish most, because only by distributing power, control and decision-making power to network nodes rather than centralized entities can we truly achieve digital asset autonomy and free trading. For the links that still have centralized control, it is necessary to tailor legal and regulatory protection mechanisms to the unique complexity of blockchain systems.
The key to ensuring that the principle of decentralization is respected is that legislators and regulators must have a deep understanding of the underlying technical architecture - only in this way can they achieve the dual goals when formulating rules: protecting consumers from the risk of financial loss and asset depreciation, and effectively preventing financial crimes such as money laundering from eroding the ecosystem.
David
As a corporate lawyer for more than 20 years, I have always been a true believer in the free market. The legal recognition of transferable property rights, the right of entrepreneurs to make mistakes, and the "freedom of contract principle" (that is, the right of mentally competent adults to exchange goods and services as they wish) - these cornerstones of American corporate law (and the legislative foundation of other liberal democratic regimes) are essentially the core values of the crypto spirit.
Although crypto technology is revolutionary, its paradigm of "innovation must be balanced with reasonable regulation" has historical precedents. When commercial aircraft first appeared, we established pilot qualification and safety airworthiness standards based on safety considerations; today, the prosperity of the aviation industry and the regulatory framework have coexisted and thrived. Similarly, regulators can develop targeted protection mechanisms while remaining open to new software business models, striking a balance between preventing risks such as financial crises and terrorist financing.
Are regulatory reforms opening up valuable new business models/products?
Kayvan
A reasonable regulatory framework has far-reaching implications for business forms that rely on community participation and network effects. Current technological developments have greatly reduced the threshold for individuals and small teams to create and distribute content, allowing them to compete with centralized giants. Effective regulation can further empower individuals through dual paths:
Democratization of capital access: Opening up a channel for compliant entities to directly obtain capital allocation
Popularization of ecological participation: Boosting mainstream groups to participate in ecological construction and share the network effect dividends of their communities
Connor
This question is still undecided! With the gradual outline of regulation by legislation such as the Market Structure Act and the Stablecoin Act, we have seen a significant increase in the interest of mainstream institutions in blockchain technology. However, before these bills are officially implemented, many highly promising blockchain projects will still face the difficulty of scaling.
I am optimistic about new projects in the following areas:
Decentralized Artificial Intelligence: Building censorship-resistant AI training and inference networks
Digital Identity Protocol: Creating a user-managed on-chain identity system
Social Media 3.0: A content ecosystem that returns data sovereignty
At the same time, I look forward to new structures such as DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations) obtaining legal status certification - Wyoming's recently introduced Decentralized Nonprofit Association Act (DUNA) has provided an important template for the experimentation and evolution of such organizations. Only a clear regulatory sandbox can unleash the full potential of organizational innovation.
Lewis
The door to innovation is never closed! Ideally, regulation should be like a spring breeze and rain - it can promote innovation in a balanced and sustainable way, and can respond sensitively to new business models that the community actually adopts.
My idea of a perfect regulatory paradigm is like the evolution of automobile civilization: when private sector innovators built "horseless carriages", these mechanical monsters that initially staggered on muddy horse trails forced the government to start paving hardened roads and drawing traffic markings. It is true that rules restrict driving behavior to a certain extent, but they allow vehicles to run more safely. Real technological breakthroughs always come from the private sector: it is the car companies that continue to develop new engines and new models, not the government that dictates what kind of rubber should be used on tires.
Any regulatory measures that attempt to artificially intervene in the balance and force support for a specific technology route - even if they are well-intentioned - will ultimately backfire and distort the market. The mission of innovators is to continue to create, and the role of regulators should be to protect and adapt, not to interfere.
Michelle
In the past decade, I have been deeply involved in the cryptocurrency industry, and my work has always focused on high-regulatory areas such as financial integrity and consumer protection. I have witnessed how new business models such as stablecoins have grown wildly in the absence of supervision; I have also witnessed how prudent supervision can promote innovative products to the mainstream with developer confidence and user trust by clarifying the boundaries of rules. Compared with ten years ago, the current crypto projects attach a different level of importance to compliance.
This shift is creating a historic opportunity for regulatory technology (RegTech) - to reconstruct financial infrastructure by building automated compliance tools and process systems. At Change Agents, our daily mission is to optimize processes, reduce costs and increase efficiency based on an AI-driven secure automation platform. In contrast, the core systems of traditional financial institutions were mostly built decades ago, without considering compatibility with modern technology interfaces, resulting in:
And encryption platforms are inherently compliant:
Transparent ledgers: blockchain technology ensures traceable transaction records
Automated risk control: smart contracts achieve real-time compliance verification
Anti-tampering audit: On-chain data is permanently stored and irreversible
API-first architecture: Seamless integration with regulatory technology products
Data straight-through processing: Automatically generate regulatory reports directly from the transaction data layer to avoid manual summary errors
These technical features give crypto companies a compliance advantage over traditional finance: while providing regulators with more accurate information, they also significantly reduce compliance costs.
David
The crypto world contains multiple revolutionary narratives: Bitcoin has been a censorship-resistant value storage tool for 16 years, which is almost an "antique" in today's rapidly changing technology iteration; but what excites me more is the wave of stablecoins and real-world asset tokenization. The disruptive potential of capital flows deeply coupled with Turing-complete global programmable ledgers has not yet been sufficiently recognized.
Currency is the blood of commercial civilization, and crypto technology is redefining its circulation system - whether it is near-zero friction instant payments or allowing 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world to access digital dollar equivalents for the first time, these are just the beginning of the change. Although stablecoins have begun to take shape, the upcoming US regulatory framework will trigger their large-scale application. The key lies in building the "golden triangle" regulatory principle:
Minimizing the risk of bank runs: Building a solid foundation of trust through reserve transparency and stress testing
Blocking illegal capital flows: A technical solution that balances privacy protection and anti-money laundering monitoring
Cross-chain interoperability: Breaking the island effect and building a unified liquidity pool
Only in this way can stablecoins truly become the financial primitives of the digital economy era.
Miyuki
Weiliang
Alex
Weatherly
Catherine