A New Dawn for Digital Assets: From Uncertainty to Action in the U.S.

At August’s Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, hosted by SALT and Kraken, the mood was unmistakably different: cautious optimism has given way to something far more potent—actionable momentum that felt almost unstoppable. One year ago, industry leaders spoke about what could be. In 2025, they’re focused on what is happening. The political winds have shifted, and with them, the direction of digital asset policy in the United States.

Where last year’s symposium highlighted roadblocks—especially around regulatory enforcement—this year, the dominant theme was clear: we’ve entered an era of building. This shift stems largely from a more crypto-friendly White House and bipartisan progress in Congress, which have helped catalyze real changes in how digital assets are discussed and regulated in Washington, D.C.

Important to note, these observations are largely U.S.-centric, but the implications may ripple through the global market for blockchain technology and digital assets.

 

From Enforcement to Frameworks

Panels featuring regulators, such as SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and sitting legislators, such as Senators Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, underscored just how much has changed in a year. Gone is the “regulation by enforcement” approach that cast a chill across the industry. In its place, lawmakers are focused on building a long-term market structure for digital assets. Notably, the next major bill on the docket—a market structure law—is seen as having a high probability of passage.

Speakers agreed on a new policy mantra: “Innovate before you regulate.” The legislative focus is now on enabling responsible experimentation while setting guardrails that bring institutional confidence. With 40 million to 50 million Americans already investing in crypto, the political incentive to provide clarity has never been higher.

 

Bridging Crypto and TradFi: The Infrastructure Moment

A recurring theme throughout the event was the convergence of traditional finance and digital asset infrastructure. Far from rejecting blockchain, Wall Street appears ready to embrace it—but only if it proves to be faster, cheaper, and more secure than legacy systems.

Jenny Johnson of Franklin Templeton emphasized the role of blockchain in transforming back-office operations, from batch processing to fund settlement. The promise of ETFs and mutual funds operating entirely on-chain was seen not as a distant dream, but as an imminent reality.

This infrastructure-first approach—investing in the “picks and shovels” of the blockchain economy—was echoed on nearly every panel, from capital markets technologists to asset managers and miners.

 

Bitcoin: Store of Value and Corporate Strategy

Bitcoin remained the digital asset at center stage, both as a macroeconomic asset and a corporate treasury strategy. The “Digital Assets Treasury” movement—inspired by MicroStrategy’s headline-making balance sheet strategy—has led to the creation of a new subset of public companies that use Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. These firms seek to trade at a premium to their underlying NAV by aligning themselves with Bitcoin’s long-term thesis.

Still, not everyone is convinced. Some panelists warned of a mania brewing, as special purpose acquisition companies and private investments in public equity, which allocate shares in a public company to private investors not via a public offering, rush to launch DAT-style firms in hopes of riding the Bitcoin wave. The key to sustainability, they stressed, lies in disciplined buying strategies and transparent disclosures.

 

Bitcoin Mining at a Crossroads

Infrastructure and energy featured prominently in discussions about Bitcoin mining. Speakers from companies such as Marathon Digital and TeraWulf emphasized the sector’s shift from pure crypto mining to broader “sovereign compute” services—including powering AI data centers. With power demand surging, hash price—the revenue miners earn per unit of computing power—is no longer the only metric that matters; access to scalable, low-cost energy is now a competitive edge.

New financial models—for example, lease-backed arrangements with hyperscalers such as Google—are enabling mining firms to pivot into new domains. The future of mining may be less about Bitcoin and more about energy arbitrage, setting up the information technology infrastructure and making the resources and data available to the ‘compute’ systems.

 

AI and Blockchain: Privacy, Inference, and Infrastructure

One panel discussion explored the convergence of AI and blockchain technologies. As AI models grow more complex, the need for transparent inference—the ability to trace how a model arrived at a given outcome—becomes increasingly important. Blockchain could provide a foundational audit trail, offering the kind of verifiability traditional AI systems lack.

Equally pressing is the issue of data privacy. Many users remain unaware of just how much personal or proprietary information gets absorbed into AI systems. That underappreciated risk—the silent ingestion of sensitive data into opaque, unaccountable models—may soon become the next major frontier of digital governance.

So as demand grows for transparency, traceability, and accountability in AI, blockchain’s immutable and decentralized architecture offers an infrastructure layer that could reinforce trust in how data is processed, accessed and verified, further accelerating its adoption.

 

“Internet Capital Markets” and the Rails of the Future

Speakers from blockchain provider Solana, and other blockchain ecosystems, outlined a vision of capital markets migrating entirely onto blockchain payment rails. Imagine stocks, bonds and ETFs [exchange-traded funds] trading peer-to-peer with near-zero latency. The clearinghouse model of the DTCC [Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation], they argued, could become obsolete in such a future payments environment—replaced by real-time, immutable settlement.

The tensions between TradFi and DeFi continue, but momentum is clearly on the side of innovation. One speaker hailed the recently passed GENIUS Act as a game-changer, laying the legal foundation for decentralized financial services to flourish under U.S. law.

 

Conclusion: The Fork in the Road Is Behind Us

A year ago, we spoke of a “fork in the road” for digital assets. That fork now feels like ancient history. The U.S. is choosing a path that welcomes digital asset innovation—cautiously, but decisively. With legal and legislative frameworks emerging, infrastructure maturing, and institutional capital returning, the narrative has flipped from fear to forward motion.

For institutional allocators, the evolution of this space presents new and more secure pathways for exposure to the asset class—whether through infrastructure investments, corporate strategies or tokenized products.

What was once narrowly seen as “investing in bitcoin” has now broadened significantly. The aperture for institutional participation has widened, and the conversation is shifting from whether to invest to how to invest, responsibly. In fact, ignoring the asset class may increasingly be viewed as a failure of fiduciary duty.

Still, caution is warranted. Regulatory, technological and market dynamics continue to evolve at a blistering pace. Clearly the signal is stronger, and the noise is clearing.

Abdiel Santiago is CEO and CIO of the Fondo de Ahorro de Panamá. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Fondo de Ahorro de Panama or the government. This content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment advice or a recommendation on behalf of the Fondo de Ahorro de Panama.

This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal or tax advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice. Any opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the stance of ISS STOXX or its affiliates.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Capital Market Regulations, crypto mining, data centers, Digital Assets