Senator Cynthia Lummis, chair of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, is sounding the alarm that American crypto companies are packing their bags. The destination: anywhere with clearer rules than the United States currently offers.
The Wyoming Republican points to Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, and China’s digital yuan rollout as evidence that competitors are building regulatory frameworks while Congress debates. In her view, the US isn’t just falling behind on innovation. It’s actively pushing its own companies toward the exit.
The regulatory vacuum problem
Here’s the thing about businesses: they don’t hate regulation. They hate uncertainty. And the US crypto landscape right now is essentially a patchwork of enforcement actions, conflicting agency guidance, and legislative proposals that never quite cross the finish line.
Europe, meanwhile, rolled out MiCA to give digital asset firms a single, continent-wide rulebook. China has taken the opposite approach from a free-market perspective, restricting private crypto while aggressively building out its state-backed digital yuan. Both strategies, however different, share one trait: clarity.
