Front Stage Exit
Diamond Rhino
Bear market EthDenver, bull market regulators
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Bear market EthDenver, bull market regulators

Two SEC commissioners showed up at the first big U.S. crypto con of the year and entrepreneurs are psyched about companies like BlackRock and Fidelity. You and me, though? Not so much.

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Image based on work by Tony Montellaro, in Weird Tales of the Future #3 (Stanley Morse, 1952)

I was not at ETHDenver 2026. It’s the first one I have missed in several years.

But I still have a report for you, because I went through a bunch of the talks posted on YouTube that dealt with the evolving regulatory backdrop for the cryptocurrency world.

Regulation still seems like the key theme of the moment — to me. Plus, it’s also the most likely to serve as a catalyst for renewed enthusiasm about cryptocurrency. People were talking a ton about agents and ETH on stage this year, too, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that to make the market kick off.

Coinbase getting a proper exchange license, at long last, though? That could be a thing. Authorization to raise money selling tokens? Tokens that send profits back to investors with no doubts about getting slapped with a lawsuit?

Oh yes. That could be very real.

So I continue to follow along with the agencies. Congress is not going to get this done.

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Sources:

All the sources this year came from videos posted on the EthDenver YouTube page.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in Conversation
Feb 18, 2026

The Compliance Era: How Tax Regulation Is Reshaping Web3 | Patrick Camuso - Camuso CPA
Feb 18, 2026

The Identity Layer: Compliance as Core Crypto Infrastructure | Derek Woods - Persona
Feb 19, 2026

Why TradFi Stablecoins Need DeFi Stablecoins | Gerrit Hall - Curve Finance
Feb 18, 2026

Ethereum: The Next Chapter | Alex Stokes - Ethereum Foundation
Feb 19, 2026

Tokenization in 2026: What the Data Says | Dean Khan Dhillon - RWA.xyz
Feb 19, 2026

From Boring to Billions: How RWAs Won Crypto, and What's Next
Feb 18, 2026

Stablecoins as Infrastructure | Gerrit Hall, Jelena Djuric, DeFi Dave, and Katie Talati
Feb 18, 2026

RWAs: From Experiment to Exponential | Drake Breeding - Circle & Bhaji Illuminati - Centrifuge
Feb 18, 2026

Why Policy Needs Cypherpunks | Samuel Jacques Cloutier - Hash Directors
Feb 20, 2026 — Seriously watch this one 👇

Notes:

The Future of Crypto Banking | Jeff John Roberts , Caitlin Long & Rok Kopp
Feb 18, 2026

Peanut Butter & Watermelon: Financial Privacy in the Digital Age
Commissioner Hester M. Peirce
Remarks to the Science of Blockchain Conference
U.C. Berkeley
Aug. 4, 2025

Privacy in the House: Remarks at the Privacy and Financial Surveillance Roundtable
Commissioner Hester M. Peirce
Washington D.C.
Dec. 15, 2025

Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and amended Common Reporting Standard: OECD releases IT format for transmitting information and issues interpretative guidance
OECD
October 2, 2024

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