Solana Policy Institute president says crypto rules finalized before summer 2028 will be hard to reverse

Kristin Smith has a deadline for the crypto industry: get the rules written before summer 2028.

Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute, told Bloomberg that final SEC and CFTC rules in place by then would be hard to reverse. "You're not going to be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube," she said.

She is an interested party. Her institute lobbies for the Solana ecosystem, and she is about to take on a second industry job. Her argument is an advocacy position, not a neutral forecast.

Why Congress stalled and the agencies matter more

The Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act on Sept. 15. The bill would have divided crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. It needed 60 votes to move forward and drew a 49 to 50 tally.

Smith says the industry is still winning in Washington. She points to the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law President Trump signed in July 2025, and to a change in an IRS broker rule. She also said the legislative fight gave regulators political cover to act.

The CFTC has opened public comment on rules for leveraged retail crypto trading, Smith noted. She said rulemaking at the SEC and CFTC typically takes 18 to 24 months.

The clock

The Congressional Review Act lets Congress overturn recent agency rules. Smith believes rules completed before that window opens, around summer 2028, would prove durable.

The math is tight. Eighteen months from today, Oct. 12, is April 2028. Twenty-four months is October 2028, past the window Smith identified.

A rule that starts now and takes the long end of the typical timeline would miss it.

Smith also argues that adoption locks things in. Traditional finance firms and overseas companies that build on finished rules would resist any rollback, she said, because pulling the rules would disrupt businesses already operating under them.

The counterargument

Not everyone treats agency rules as permanent. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has said crypto's gains now depend on the agencies, and that a new administration could reverse their rules from January 2029.

That is the structural weakness of the agency route. A statute is hard to repeal. A rule can be rewritten by a future SEC or CFTC with different leadership. Smith's argument is that the 2028 timing and industry adoption narrow that risk, and Hougan's is that the risk remains.

What would still require Congress

Smith called a Clarity revival before the November midterms, or in the lame-duck session afterward, unlikely but possible.

She named two obstacles: the president's family crypto business and banks that are not yet fully on board. Neither will be resolved by year-end, she said.

The Trump family's crypto interests are a bipartisan irritant on this issue. Taxpayers and voters have reason to ask whether the people writing the rules, and the people lobbying them, are playing on a level field. Smith's own comment suggests the industry sees the family business as a drag on the bill.

One lobbyist, two organizations

The Blockchain Association announced Sept. 25 that CEO Summer Mersinger will step down Oct. 16 and stay on as an advisor through the end of the year. Mersinger, a former CFTC commissioner, became CEO in June 2025.

Smith becomes interim CEO on Oct. 17. She was the association's first employee in 2018, served as its CEO until 2025, and is currently its board president.

She is not leaving the Solana Policy Institute. Emily Wilson, the institute's communications director, confirmed Smith's responsibilities there remain unchanged and the association role is additional. A Blockchain Association spokesperson said both organizations planned the arrangement.

Smith wrote on X that the two groups share the goal of "clear rules that let this technology thrive in the U.S." The association's own announcement does not mention the institute.

What to watch

Smith takes over the Blockchain Association on Oct. 17, one day after Mersinger's Oct. 16 exit. The CFTC's comment period on leveraged retail crypto trading is open now.

The open question is whether the SEC and CFTC can finish final rules inside a window their own typical timelines barely fit.