Ikenomic Insights

  Despite Yogi Berra’s sage observation that it is difficult to make predictions, “ especially about the future ,” I’m quite comfortable predicting that 2025 will be regarded as a consequential inflection point in the maturation and mainstreaming of the cryptocurrency industry. Not only did the GENIUS Act become law earlier this year, providing a crucial and long-awaited regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, but the Securities and Exchange Commission shifted its posture toward industry participants from adversarial and prosecutorial to collaborative and constructive. This month, the SEC granted a waiver to Ripple Labs, citing good cause to  lift its injunction for past securities violations , which restricted the company from raising private capital from investors without complete SEC registration. The SEC also withdrew its appeal (lodged during the Biden administration) against a 2023 ruling by Judge Analisa Torres , who determined that sales of XRP on public...

  On Wednesday, the Working Group on Digital Asset Markets released its highly-anticipated  report , establishing a historic blueprint to facilitate blockchain and crypto innovation. The  160-page report stems from President Trump's January 23, 2025  Executive Order 14178 , Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,  and the Working Group consists of a broad swath of federal government officials—from the Treasury Secretary and the Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman to the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Secretary of Homeland Security. Policymakers must create an environment that ensures U.S. leadership in the global blockchain revolution, and the legislative and regulatory recommendations in the report would do just that.    As I wrote in Forbes back in April, “[T]he perseverance of determined entrepreneurs, changes in U.S. political leadership, and a growing appreciation for the economic i...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) In May 2024 , prospects for the United States becoming a global innovation center for digital assets and other promising blockchain technologies were gloomy. Regulatory uncertainty and general hostility from Washington presented high hurdles to industry growth. But the perseverance of determined entrepreneurs, changes in U.S. political leadership, and a growing appreciation for the economic importance and broader application of these cost-saving technologies have changed perceptions and raised expectations that the United States will become “ the crypto capital of the world .” The ball is now in Congress’ court. Throughout the previous four years, firms and investors seeking to develop markets for cryptocurrency in the United States were stymied by an antagonistic Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, who regarded the industry as “ rife with hucksters, fraudsters, scam artists .” Rather than offer a clear regulatory framework within which...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) Whether the goal is to get Germany to fund its NATO obligations, convince Mexico to crack down on drug traffickers, tout the benefits of U.S. statehood to Canada, or compel Colombia to receive U.S. deportees, President Trump’s international overtures are often infused with tariff threats. Trump’s first term record makes those threats credible, despite the collateral damage his tariffs inflicted upon U.S. manufacturers and farmers. But the administration must not allow tactical use of tariffs to subvert its long-term U.S. economic security objectives, including the imperative of building out and ramping up U.S. electrification infrastructure to meet the demands of our emerging, power-intensive, 21 st century industries. The outcomes President Trump seeks by threatening tariffs differ by country, but common to most cases is his desire for foreign investment in the U.S. economy. In a remote speech broadcast to the World Economic Forum in Switzerl...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) On the third day of his first term in office, President Trump committed a monumental foreign policy error that undermines U.S. economic security to this day. By withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation agreement to strengthen trade and investment ties with countries around China’s periphery, Trump extinguished with the stroke of a pen important leverage that could have deterred Beijing’s coercive and subversive behavior of the past decade. In the waning days of his tenure, President Biden can mitigate the consequences of Trump’s geopolitical blunder and reinforce his own administration’s “latticework” of initiatives to strengthen alliances in the Indo-Pacific by simply not blocking Nippon Steel’s acquisition of the United States Steel Corporation. But recent leaks suggesting that Biden intends to block the deal call into question the sincerity of his administration’s commitments to U.S. allies and improvin...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) No matter how well-intentioned a policy goal or noble a humanitarian cause, there are always tradeoffs to weigh before deciding on a course of action. But sometimes certitude, righteousness, and demonization of the unconvinced blinds us to the imperative of assessing those costs and consequences. Climate activists offer a deeply concerning case in point. While their demands for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are qualitatively reasonable and relatable, they tend to believe the existential branding of their cause excuses them of the obligation to account for the costs of their mitigation plans. The “no-cost-is-too-high” mindset has emboldened activists and public officials in the U.S. to bring lawsuits against entities across the fossil fuel supply chain. Their objective is to drive up the costs of extracting, refining, distributing, and using oil, natural gas, and coal to the point that electric bills are unaffordable and the economics of inve...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) The conduct of U.S. trade policy in recent years has served to squander America’s soft power and deplete a once deep reservoir of international good will toward the United States. Since 2017, Washington has turned its back on trade agreements, thumbed its nose at the rules-based trading system it created, massively subsidized efforts to draw global production capacity to the United States, and imposed punishing trade restrictions on countries rich and poor. Although a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment may justify certain policy changes , depriving U.S. consumers of anti-inflationary imports, throttling the economies of important allies, and providing greater opportunities for China to win over the Global South constitutes a lot of collateral damage. Yet Washington forges ahead, sticking to script and disregarding consequences. On October 22, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will hold a hearing to decide whether the domestic...