USA - Nationwide: A FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies Overview

Introduction

The year 2025 was the most important for the mainstream adoption of digital assets since Satoshi published his white paper in 2008. The US government “changed its tune”, large institutions joined the party, and important questions surrounding the development and launch of blockchain protocols and digital assets became less opaque.

In this practice overview, we leverage our experience advising over 400 blockchain projects during the last decade to offer insights into recent trends, key regulatory and legislative developments, and what to expect in 2026.

Recent Trends

Crypto comes home

In 2025, the US government’s stance on cryptocurrency shifted markedly from sceptical to supportive. Early in the new administration, an executive order launched the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to establish a framework to increase US competitiveness in the digital assets industry. Shortly thereafter, the SEC formed its Crypto Task Force, dismissed high-profile lawsuits and officially closed investigations into dozens (if not hundreds) of blockchain projects.

With the thawing regulatory environment, blockchain entrepreneurs began exploring new ways to launch their projects from within the USA. This American resurgence ushered in new innovations. New corporate forms, like Wyoming’s Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association (DUNA), gave founders new platforms from which to launch blockchain protocols from the USA.

Industry maturation

Largely as a result of this new regulatory environment, digital assets in the USA evolved from a niche, largely speculative corner of the market to a fast-maturing component of our financial infrastructure. Stablecoin volumes surged into the trillions (surpassing Visa’s and Mastercard’s metrics), spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) (together holding over USD170 billion in assets) unlocked broader institutional access, and tokenised treasuries grew into a more than USD7 billion on-chain liquidity tool.

Payments

Stablecoins cemented themselves as a true payment rail. Merchants and fintechs processed tens of billions in stablecoin-denominated payouts, and a rapidly growing share of that was tied to cross-border flows (treating the asset as an always-on dollar rather than a trading chip). Stripe’s return to crypto captured the broader shift: instead of asking if they should touch crypto, payment providers are now asking where stablecoins fit in their tech stack.

Real-world assets

Traditional asset managers leaned into tokenisation. BlackRock’s tokenised treasury fund surpassed USD1 billion within a year, Franklin Templeton’s on-chain money market fund scaled to USD700 million, and our client Ondo emerged as a key issuer of tokenised treasuries and dollar products, crossing USD1 billion in circulating supply and giving institutions a familiar, yield-bearing instrument natively on-chain.

Deal activity

It was a blockbuster year for digital asset deals. Coinbase executed a rapid series of acquisitions (including our client Liquifi), Stripe acquired the aforementioned crypto infrastructure provider to bolster its stablecoin payments stack and a huge number of other companies in the industry looked to consolidate. Our blockchain M&A practice has never been busier.

Decentralised and autonomous systems

Developer liability

While decentralisation is critical to the distribution of power and democratisation of access, developers faced liability for systems that, once deployed, arguably operated beyond their day-to-day control. Authorities focused less on architectural labels and more on intent, knowledge and response when assessing accountability.

• Samourai Wallet: Although the founders claimed they built a neutral, decentralised privacy tool, internal communications revealed that they explicitly described the product as “money laundering for bitcoin”. Where a developer knows a protocol is facilitating criminal conduct and does nothing to stop it, they risk stepping outside the bounds of neutral tooling and into criminal exposure.
• Tornado Cash: The mixing protocol received deposits traceable to a decentralised finance (DeFi) exploit, and despite being alerted to such use, the founders took no action to stop it. Even if they did not encourage illicit activity, the combination of knowledge of misuse and failure to act became a key feature of the government’s theory of criminal accountability.

Fraud against software

Blockchain proponents and developers have long argued that “code is law”, and we saw that argument tested in court with some success.

• Mango Markets: A DeFi trader manipulated the price of MNGO perpetuals, allowing him to borrow funds he never intended to repay. But Mango Markets had no terms of service, no prohibition against market manipulation, no clear rules governing user behaviour and no contractual obligation to repay borrowed funds. Thus, the court found no fraud. The conduct was exploitative, but not contractually or legally prohibited.
• MIT Brothers: Similarly, in a USD25 million “sandwich attack”, two brothers ran a node on the Ethereum blockchain and dispatched fake transactions to lure bots designed to front run crypto transactions. Prosecutors cried fraud, and the jury deadlocked; mistrial.

Key Legislative and Regulatory Changes

SEC guidance

After years of regulation by enforcement, the SEC shifted course in 2025, issuing statements that placed many common digital asset transactions outside the securities framework.

Proof of work

The SEC determined that proof-of-work mining activities do not rely on the managerial or entrepreneurial efforts of others. In a subsequent no-action letter, the SEC extended that analysis to decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePINs), positing that rewards issued to network contributors are not securities offerings but rather compensation in exchange for services.

Proof of stake

On proof of stake, the SEC basically said “same deal”. If staking is baked into how a public, permissionless network runs, it is not a securities offering. The agency extended that logic across the staking menu, including self-staking, delegated proof of stake (DPoS), and staking as a service. In the SEC’s view, none of those depend on someone else’s managerial magic to create profits; they are just part of what keeps the network humming.

Liquid staking

The SEC also took up liquid staking and landed on a simple conclusion. If staking itself is not a securities transaction, then the liquid staking receipts that represent those staked assets are not securities either.

Meme coins

The SEC also gave meme coins a pass, saying that in many cases they are just digital collectibles trading on sentiment and internet momentum. Even a hype campaign might not be enough on its own to turn that into a securities offering.

While these pronouncements marked a welcome regulatory shift, companies looking to future proof their projects across administrations should not rely on them alone. Compliance strategies should also be grounded in well-established caselaw.

Federal legislation

The GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, was a watershed for US digital asset regulation. It put real rules around stablecoins, requiring full backing by liquid assets, robust reporting and tighter marketing standards. More broadly, GENIUS signalled federal legitimisation of stablecoins and digital assets, accelerated the push for legal clarity and showed that bipartisan consensus is still possible in a space that had started to fracture politically.

Looking Ahead

We anticipate the following trends to accelerate in 2026:

• blockchain rails will be used to effect instantaneous T+0 settlement of public securities, displacing the thicket of antiquated back-office processes (many still running on mainframes and COBOL code written half a century ago) with state-of-the-art tech;
• new treasury rules will be introduced to address reporting and withholding challenges for airdrops and protocol rewards issued by US entities;
• prediction markets will test our federalist system as state courts and gaming regulators grapple with pre-emption; and
• caselaw regarding liability for developers of autonomous blockchain systems will be applied to robotics and artificial intelligence.