Michael Saylor has called on the digital assets industry to pursue supportive regulatory rules rather than accept legislative compromises, arguing that widespread consumer adoption offers stronger long-term protection than new legislation.
Saylor's comments address the September CLARITY compromise, which would have restricted payment stablecoin rewards for holding but allowed rewards for qualifying activity. He contends the industry is "better off moving forward with supportive rules" from regulators under existing authority.
Regulatory Actions Under Current Authority
The SEC provided conditional relief on September 17 for onchain trading of certain tokenized stocks, using existing regulatory authority. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins outlined a path from temporary relief to durable rulemaking while maintaining investor protections and fraud prohibitions.
The CFTC has similarly committed to using existing authority, with Chairman Michael Selig directing staff to explore rules for leveraged or margined crypto trading through regulated markets and to work with developers on lawful onchain finance.
Saylor noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has linked stablecoin implementation with innovation and the dollar's global role, while the OCC has eased supervisory barriers to bank crypto custody. He also pointed out that CLARITY preserved existing SEC exemptive authority, meaning "substantial opportunities already exist under current law."
Building Political Resilience Through Scale
Saylor identified adoption as the strongest safeguard against regulatory reversal by future administrations. He proposed a goal of 50 million satisfied American users accessing cheaper payments, Bitcoin access, and transparent income products.
"Adoption raises the political cost of reversal," Saylor wrote, arguing that the industry should focus 2027 and 2028 on scaling useful financial products across digital capital, credit, equity, exchanges, and currency.
He emphasized that sound rulemaking strengthens the legal foundation but noted that no statute removes politics from regulation. A future administration would still make implementation and enforcement decisions, making a broad beneficiary base essential.
"The best protection for digital innovation is a public that benefits from it," Saylor concluded.
