America Must Safeguard Crypto Innovators to Remain a Global Leader

The effectiveness of the Clarity Act hinges on protecting the creators of digital assets; without affordable conditions for developers in the United States, there will be no market to regulate. This provision survived committee markup unchanged, despite an amendment that sought to eliminate it, and it must remain fully intact for the final vote.

This issue matters to those who never read the legislation itself. Engineers—ranging from core Solana contributors to designers of emerging DeFi protocols—publish code that anyone worldwide can download and use. They hold no funds, cannot freeze accounts, and do not move money because they never handle it directly. Treating a software developer like a bank teller is as illogical as calling an email engineer a mail carrier. Treasury’s 2019 FinCEN guidance already clarified that merely providing software or network tools used by money transmitters does not make someone a money transmitter. The BRCA aligns the criminal code with that standard.

When legal frameworks are ambiguous, regulators and prosecutors fill the void. Treasury has targeted builders who released software without ever holding customer assets. The conviction of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money‑transmitting business is a high‑profile example, illustrating a pattern that should alarm anyone concerned about U.S. innovation. Such cases are already prompting developers to relocate abroad.

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