The Trump administration is moving at lightning speed. Every week brings historic milestones in crypto and AI. What once felt like earth-shattering news is becoming America’s new normal—and that’s exactly the point.

July 2025 delivered a masterclass in how winners operate. I witnessed the first-ever Crypto Week, a vote-a drama week culminating in a star-studded celebration featuring industry CEOs, policy leaders, and Congress members gathering to watch the GENIUS Act become law. The energy was electric. The message was clear: America means business.

Then came the encore. President Trump launched America’s AI Action Plan with full presidential fanfare at the All In x Hill and Valley Forum. CEOs, industry titans, and policymakers—including White House Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks—watched as Trump signed three historic AI executive orders right on stage. Policy aside, it was a statement of intent: America is competing in AI and defining it.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Yesterday’s Digital Asset Report release told a different story. No cameras. No crowds. Just senior officials doing their jobs: David Sacks, Bo Hines, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent quietly making history in the Indian Treaty Room.

Then on Thursday, the SEC followed with its own announcement at the America First Policy Institute. Chairman Atkins unveiled “Project Crypto” a Commission-wide initiative to modernize securities rules for on-chain markets. He announced plans to establish clear guidelines for crypto asset distributions and promised to end the enforcement-first approach of the previous administration.

The disparity is a feature, not a bug.

Crypto has graduated from spectacle to infrastructure. From revolutionary to routine. From “Will this work?” to “This is how we work.” We’ve moved beyond proving crypto belongs in America’s future. Now, we’re building that future, one policy at a time.

This is what winning looks like: When groundbreaking technology stops needing fanfare because it’s simply become the foundation of how we operate. When “historic milestones” become “another productive Tuesday in Washington.”

America is making leading the digital revolution look effortless.

Yet beneath this smooth operation lies a deeper challenge. Today, I write about how our efforts need to withstand the test of election cycles and partisan politics.

Let’s get in the flow…

Building Beyond Politics: Why America’s Digital Future Demands Bipartisan Leadership

Earlier this month, my co-founder Matt interviewed Dan Spuller from the Blockchain Association. Dan said something that’s been stuck in my head: “Crypto needs to be a bipartisan issue.”

He’s absolutely right. And honestly? The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Look, I get it. In today’s political climate, everything becomes partisan. But crypto and AI? They’re not red or blue issues. They’re American competitiveness issues. Just like we don’t flip-flop on defense spending or energy security every four years, we can’t afford to do it with digital leadership either.

The policies we’ve been celebrating this month are significant wins, don’t get me wrong. But their longer-term effects matter more. The ripple effects haven’t even arrived yet. AI is going to reshape industries. Stablecoins are rewriting global finance. Programmable money could become standard. These changes will unfold over decades.

That’s why the bipartisan piece matters so much. This golden age of American digital leadership demands we look past immediate headlines toward long-term strategic positioning. The celebration is warranted, but the real test lies in building frameworks that transcend administrations and election cycles.

Understanding these frameworks requires examining three fundamental shifts reshaping our economy and governance.

Deeper Consequences: Money, Energy, and Governance

I spend a lot of time thinking about where this all leads, and there are three big shifts happening that most people aren’t fully grasping yet.

Programmable Money: Treasury’s Expanding Role

Stablecoins are rapidly transitioning from niche crypto tools to foundational infrastructure for mainstream transactions. This week alone brought major developments: JPMorgan’s partnership with Coinbase announced July 30th, and Visa’s expanded stablecoin settlement platform supporting USDG, PYUSD, and EURC announced July 31st. These moves signal a fundamental shift in digital finance oversight, though the regulatory landscape involves multiple agencies rather than a simple Treasury-Fed divide.

The recently enacted GENIUS Act positions the dollar as the global reserve currency for stablecoin transactions by requiring issuers to back their assets with U.S. Treasuries and dollars, effectively reinforcing the dollar’s role as the “world’s digital settlement currency”. This legislative framework makes America “the undisputed leader in digital assets” by generating increased demand for U.S. debt and cementing the dollar’s global reserve status.

More importantly, the GENIUS Act does more than regulate crypto: it creates steady demand for U.S. Treasuries. With $276 billion in stablecoin market cap requiring 1:1 Treasury backing, private markets now help finance government debt. This strengthens both crypto legitimacy and fiscal policy.

The GENIUS Act gave the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) authority over federal nonbank stablecoin issuers because the OCC works with Treasury, and Treasury handles sanctions. This makes dollar-denominated stablecoins a useful foreign policy tool.

The implications are profound. Imagine paychecks settling instantly on Ethereum instead of traditional banking rails, or money that becomes fully programmable through smart contracts. We’re witnessing the real-time transformation of America’s monetary infrastructure—a shift that could redefine how value moves through the economy while securing America’s leadership position in the global digital payments space race.

AI’s Infrastructure Challenge: The Power Grid

While stablecoins reshape finance, AI faces a more fundamental constraint: I’ve been watching something that most people aren’t paying attention to yet. But it’s about to become the biggest problem in AI. We’re not just running out of chips, we’re running out of electricity.

The numbers are wild. Data centers are already breaking our power grid, and Goldman Sachs says power demand will jump 160% by 2030. Data centers will go from using 3% of US power in 2022 to 8% by 2030. That’s like adding another Texas to the grid.

Here’s what got me: one ChatGPT query uses 10 times more electricity than a Google search. Multiply that by millions of people using AI every day. You see the problem.

The competition isn’t about who has the best chips anymore. It’s about who can get the most power. Northern Virginia hosts a significant portion of global internet traffic and every major AI company wants to build there. Amazon’s $500 million nuclear partnership with Dominion secures power allocation ahead of Microsoft and Google.

And this is where it gets interesting. Nuclear power is suddenly cool again. I’m seeing Microsoft restart Three Mile Island. Google is working with nuclear companies.

Microsoft’s Three Mile Island restart timeline provides a benchmark for the industry. Companies that don’t secure baseload power will be running inference-only businesses.

Nuclear power, long controversial, is being repositioned as essential AI infrastructure. Climate policy and tech policy are converging in ways that will define energy debates for years to come. The conversations that seemed abstract are becoming concrete policy challenges.

Silicon Valley Is Rewiring Washington (In a Good Way)

These technological and energy shifts are being guided by a new breed of policymaker. The leaders driving this transformation—David Sacks, Paul Atkins, Scott Bessent—represent a departure from traditional Washington. These are former operators, founders, and investors who’ve navigated markets and built companies before shaping policy.

This represents a quiet but significant shift: policy being crafted by people who understand technology and markets from the inside, not just those who regulate it from the outside. The merging of Silicon Valley and Washington is creating new approaches to governance that could reshape how America addresses technological challenges.

But technology’s rapid advance creates consequences that extend far beyond policy circles.

The Part Nobody Wants to Talk About

There’s one more consequence worth considering. Rapid technological change creates cultural displacement. Programmable money, automated work, and ambient intelligence reshape fundamental questions about human purpose and meaning.

When work becomes increasingly automated and money becomes abstract code, people naturally seek something more grounded and tangible. We’re already seeing it. Farmers’ markets are thriving. Handmade goods are booming on Etsy. Young men are taking up woodworking, blacksmithing, and gardening. Families are choosing analog over algorithm, not to reject tech, but to reclaim humanity.

And it’s not just in hobbies. There’s been a measurable rise in Catholic conversions and a broader return to church across the country. Even in secular cities, churches are filling again, often with people in tech and finance looking for something AI can’t provide: soul, truth, and permanence. These technological advances, however beneficial, are sparking a hunger for community, craftsmanship, and enduring values.

This isn’t necessarily problematic. But it’s worth recognizing as we build these new systems. Progress without spiritual grounding leaves people untethered. If we want to lead in innovation, we must also lead in meaning.

This tension between technological progress and human meaning brings us back to the central challenge of our time.

Permission to Build

Paul Atkins’ statement at the America First Policy Institute captured something essential: “America will regulate digital assets, but never suffocate them.”

It was both policy commentary and an invitation. Atkins signaled that America welcomes builders and innovators, offering regulatory clarity instead of enforcement through litigation.

Atkins announced Project Crypto the day after the Presidential Working Group Digital Assets Report because they’re working together. The Administration uses the 180-day timeline to encourage Congress on the CLARITY Act. If the House waits past September, Atkins can use exemptive authority to move forward.

But here’s the thing, SEC pivots can flip with the next administration. That’s exactly why legislation like the CLARITY Act matters so much. Executive policies can change every four to eight years. Laws stick around.

Maintaining this momentum requires careful stewardship. If crypto and AI become partisan weapons, we risk squandering the progress we’ve made. We need these to be like energy or the internet — things both parties agree America should lead on, regardless of who’s in power. We need to codify the executive orders and SEC guidelines sooner rather than later.

The Path Forward

Everything looks promising right now. Markets are responding positively, regulations are clarifying, and political support spans key leadership positions.

The real test comes when challenges emerge, and they will. Stablecoins will face stress tests, AI systems will encounter edge cases, and crypto platforms will face security challenges. The frameworks we’re establishing now must prove resilient under pressure.

For now, though, I’m optimistic. America is making real progress on digital leadership. The quiet, methodical approach to policy development we’ve seen this month may be less dramatic than previous approaches, but it suggests a maturation in how we think about these technologies.

That shift from spectacle to substance? It might be the most important development of all.