Miami — Tether.io Head of Government Affairs Jesse Spiro said the crypto industry sees the 2026 U.S. midterm elections as a critical test for whether Washington’s recent embrace of digital assets will endure.

“What we’ve seen is a lot of good immersion and progress over the last year,” Spiro said during a panel discussion at the Consensus Miami 2026 conference, pointing to the passage of the GENIUS Act and progress on market structure legislation. “But as with anything else, the apple cart can always get upset.”

Spiro warned that the elections could have a “seismic impact” on the industry’s trajectory, even as crypto advocacy groups prepare to deploy major political spending and grassroots organizing.

“Crypto should not be partisan,” Spiro said. “Best case is that we have members that are supportive of the industry, supportive of the ecosystem, supportive of good policy.”

Other panelists argued the industry’s political influence is only growing ahead of November.

Colin McLaren, Head of Government Relations at the Solana Policy Institute, said crypto’s political efforts are now focused on “durability,” ensuring that the future of Congress continues advancing industry priorities, including tax reform and protections for developers.

“You can make the down payment on a house, but you’ve got to keep paying the mortgage,” McLaren said, referring to crypto’s campaign spending efforts after the industry poured hundreds of millions into the 2024 election cycle.

Mason Lynaugh, Executive Director of Stand With Crypto, said the group’s nearly 3 million members are increasingly viewing elections as “an accountability moment.”

“They’re going to show up and support the people that supported them,” Lynaugh said, adding that crypto voters are highly motivated and could sway close races. “If something is decided by 4,000 votes, 5,000 votes … all we have to do is turn them out.”

Read more: Crypto is at bottom of U.S. voters’ priorities heading into elections, CoinDesk survey shows

Senator Ashley Moody took the Consensus Miami 2026 stage on Thursday to tell the crypto industry how she sees the relationship between Washington and digital assets.

Senator Ashley Moody took the Consensus Miami 2026 stage on Thursday alongside Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone to discuss how Washington should engage with the digital asset industry. It is her first Consensus appearance, part of a broader push by federal officials to be seen at the industry’s biggest annual event.

The session comes at a pivotal moment for crypto legislation. The CLARITY Act is racing toward a potential Senate Banking Committee markup before the May 21 Memorial Day recess, with Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno warning that failure pushes the next window to 2030.

As crypto.news reported, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the past week a “big positive shift” in Senate momentum from the same stage on Day 1.

A Senate debut for crypto policy

Moody’s appearance follows Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Day 2 remarks, covered by crypto.news, in which Gillibrand expressed optimism about the CLARITY Act’s path through Congress.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and White House official Patrick Witt also attended Consensus 2026 for the first time, as the Senate Banking Committee targets a CLARITY Act markup the week of May 11.

Consensus 2026 drew more than 20,000 attendees to Miami Beach, with institutional participation at approximately 35% of the audience, representing an estimated $10 trillion in assets under management.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are first-time sponsors. Washington’s engagement with crypto has shifted from occasional to consistent, and Moody’s Consensus debut is one more marker of that change.

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Quick Comparison Table

Miami — Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said a revived Binance.US is one possible path for giving American crypto traders access to better prices.

Binance wants to help restore U.S. users’ access to global crypto liquidity, CZ said, naming a possible Binance.US revival as one route after years of limited engagement in the American market.

“The best liquidity in crypto is outside of the U.S.,” CZ said during Consensus Miami 2026. “Crypto is one of the very few markets that U.S. don’t have access to the best prices.”

“I think in our ecosystem, Binance has the best liquidity in this market,” he continued. “We would love to be able to provide that in some way, either revitalize Binance.US or somehow provide U.S. the best liquidity in the world and the best prices for the consumers.”

The comments come two years after CZ resigned as Binance CEO and pleaded guilty to numerous U.S. charges. Zhao was later sentenced to four months in prison, released in 2024, and pardoned by President Donald Trump last year.

Binance.US has been plotting a comeback under CEO Stephen Gregory, with plans to expand beyond spot crypto trading into derivatives and prediction markets.

CZ said U.S. policy toward crypto had “changed in the last year and a half or so,” pushing him to spend more time with U.S. builders, regulators and policymakers. He said the U.S. is now “leading in the world in terms of crypto policies,” citing market structure legislation, including the CLARITY Act.

The U.S. still lacks access to the deepest liquidity, he said, even as developers and crypto firms return after years of regulatory pressure.

“Many of the U.S. people left,” Zhao said. “They went to Abu Dhabi, they went to Hong Kong, Singapore. Many of the developers left, and then they’re now coming back.”

Zhao also framed BNB Chain as underexposed in the U.S. after years of limited domestic activity. He said the network now has a builder house in New York, a small San Francisco presence and more U.S. investment activity through YZi Labs.

YZi Labs, formerly Binance Labs, rebranded last year with Zhao taking a more active investment role. The firm later introduced a $1 billion fund for BNB Chain projects.

“BNB in particular has not had a lot of exposure in the U.S., … Other layer 1 blockchains have done much more marketing, community building, builder houses, etc., in the U.S.”

Zhao said U.S. institutions had limited access to BNB until recently, leaving the token behind other major cryptocurrencies in exchange-traded products and institutional distribution.

“The lack of access for institutions to BNB is actually an opportunity for BNB investors,” Zhao said. “When the institutions come in, that’s generally better for the token.”

Zhao also said AI agents will need crypto rails to transact with each other, arguing that blockchains are better suited than credit cards or bank rails for automated cross-border payments.

“Credit cards don’t have an API,” Zhao said. “The most native thing for the agent to use is obviously a blockchain.”

He added that BNB Chain should position itself as payments infrastructure for AI agents, though he said the market is still in its earliest stage. “BNB Chain should just be the money for agents,” he said.

Donald Trump Jr. and Zach Witkoff took the main stage at Consensus Miami 2026 on Thursday to defend World Liberty Financial as the project fights a federal lawsuit from Justin Sun.

Donald Trump Jr. and Zach Witkoff took the Consensus Miami 2026 main stage on Thursday, appearing together at a major crypto conference for the first time to defend World Liberty Financial. The appearance comes as the Trump-backed DeFi project faces its most significant legal challenge since launching in late 2024.

In late April, Tron founder Justin Sun filed a federal lawsuit in California alleging that World Liberty froze his tokens, stripped his voting rights, and threatened to permanently burn his holdings.

Witkoff responded publicly, calling the claims “entirely meritless” and describing the suit as a “desperate attempt to deflect attention” from Sun’s own alleged misconduct.

What Consensus means for WLFI

The Consensus stage gives World Liberty Financial an opportunity to reframe its narrative in front of 20,000 attendees. The project has drawn sustained scrutiny beyond the Sun lawsuit.

A Wall Street Journal report revealed earlier this year that an Abu Dhabi-linked entity acquired a 49% stake for $500 million days before Trump’s inauguration, and Senator Elizabeth Warren subsequently called on the OCC to pause review of WLFI’s bank charter application, citing conflicts of interest.

World Liberty Financial launched its USD1 stablecoin on multiple chains and unveiled a tokenized real estate product in February tied to a Trump resort in the Maldives. WLFI currently trades around $0.08, more than 75% below its September 2025 peak.

Miami — Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is not dying but instead moving deeper into the financial mainstream alongside the rise of AI agents, crypto executives participating in the Securing the Next Decade of Decentralized Finance panel Thursday at Consensus Miami 2026.

“Crypto is absolutely hurtling into the mainstream,” said Hunger Horsley, co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management. “Stablecoins, tokenized assets and DeFi are part of that.”

The panel came weeks after a series of DeFi North Korean hacker exploits, including Drift Protocol and Kelp DAO, which resulted in roughly $600 million in losses, drawing criticism over the sector’s security.

DeFi is “an inevitable future,” said Yoni Assia, co-founder and CEO of eToro, dismissing claims that DeFi is fading, much less dead. The technology underpinning lending protocols and smart contracts is already proving itself at scale, he argued.

“There’s $100 billion on lending markets or more,” Assia said. “The technology stack is mind-blowing, and it’s being battle-tested all the time.”

AI agents are speeding up interest

Much of the discussion focused on how AI agents are accelerating interest in crypto-native financial infrastructure.

Guy Wuollet, general partner at a16z Crypto, argued that autonomous AI systems will ultimately require financial rails that look “either literally DeFi or a lot like DeFi.”

“If we believe AI agents are going to be economically important actors, we need a financial system built for them,” Wuollet said.

Assia described experimenting with AI agents capable of independently opening wallets, bridging assets, researching trades and executing transactions across prediction markets and DeFi protocols. “DeFi and AI are both native to each other,” he added.

Horsley compared DeFi’s role for AI agents to the rise of APIs and open-source software in traditional internet infrastructure. “You could think of DeFi as enabling a lot of financial services for AI agents,” he said.

The executives also agreed that institutional attitudes toward crypto and DeFi are changing quickly.

Horsley said Bitwise, which manages roughly $15 billion in assets, is now receiving requests from regulated fintech firms and neobanks looking for compliant ways to offer DeFi-related products to customers.

“The institutions and corporates are arriving,” Horsley said. “They finally feel able to interact with the space.”

Wuollet said many large financial firms are initially approaching blockchain infrastructure less for crypto speculation and more for operational efficiency.

“Finance is going through a digital transformation,” he said. “Institutions want to replace their backend and core ledger with a blockchain.”

The panelists said the convergence between traditional finance, tokenized assets, DeFi and AI agents is likely to accelerate over the coming years as institutions become more comfortable operating onchain.