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On July 18, President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, known as the GENIUS Act, into law, fulfilling one of his campaign promises to the cryptocurrency community. Meanwhile, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, was approved by the House of Representatives (H.R. 3633) and may win Senate approval before the August recess.
Much of the credit for these two landmark statutes — and for the CBDC [central bank digital currency] Anti-Surveillance State Act, which also won House approval last week — goes to 29-year-old Bo Hines, whom President Trump chose last December as executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, the chief aide to White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks.
After graduating from Charlotte Christian School, Hines spent a productive year at North Carolina State as a freshman All-America wide receiver who also made the All-ACC Academic Team. Perhaps it was his appearance at the 2014 Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, sponsored by BitPay that opened his eyes to the emerging cryptocurrency field and led to his transfer to Yale University, where his football career was ended by a series of injuries.
Hines said he chose Yale because "I knew I wanted to go into public service and I felt the best way to learn more about politics would be to go up to Yale and challenge myself with some of the best and brightest."
Still, he chose to return to North Carolina to earn a law degree at Wake Forest University. Two unsuccessful runs for Congress left him available to the White House.
Hines' first season in the White House has been at least as successful as his freshman football season.
He helped craft and guide through Congress the GENIUS Act, the nation's first stablecoin law, which brings a pioneering federal framework for payment stablecoins. This milestone legislation covers insurance, regulation, and oversight with a goal of providing clarity and protection while fostering — not inhibiting — innovation.
It was fitting that Trump's signature came on the final day of "Crypto Week," about which House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill said, "We are taking historic steps to ensure the United States remains the world's leader in innovation and I look forward to 'Crypto Week' in the House." House Democrats, led by Reps. Maxine Waters and Stephen Lynch, failed in their attempt to smear the legislation as endorsing corruption.
Hines has been instrumental in ferreting out and sorting through disparate views on how to regulate cryptocurrencies through his personal visits with over 50 crypto lobbyists, investors, company founders, agency officials, and bankers just in his first 30 days on the job — and many more since then.
Hines told Fortune, "I want to meet with everyone in this space — big players, small players. I want to hear ideas from everyone."
Hines' work is all the more important because Sacks is legally allowed to work only 130 days a year as a special government employee who also has oversight over AI policy. Hines — not Sacks — has become the main liaison between the White House and the crypto industry, and the progress of crypto legislation is the best evidence that his work has been exemplary.
There is still much to be done to guide the CLARITY Act and the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act through the Senate.
Hines said in an interview earlier this year, "We're focused on making sure the industry has what they need to survive. It's absolutely imperative the United States leads the charge in terms of technological advancement for institutional financial markets."
The challenge in the CLARITY Act is to divide rightly oversight roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in overseeing different types of digital assets. The legislation was crafted to enhance market stability, encourage responsible innovation, and facilitate broader adoption of digital assets via a clear regulatory framework — all to ensure that the U.S. is the global leader in decentralized finance.
Hines' vision in creating "Crypto Week" was lauded in a recent article in Newsweek Espanol as a statement of principles and the moment when the U.S. leaves behind the fear of change and assumes its role as the great engine of the digital economy.
In Hines' view, "Crypto Week" was "our way of telling the world: We are back. We are ready to lead, with clear rules, inclusiveness, and accountability."
Author Marina Konan lauded Hines for creating a model that also seeks to integrate Latin America and empower the Hispanic community worldwide. The regulatory framework he helped craft will enable Latin American companies to issue tokens, access global capital, and operate with stable digital currencies backed by U.S. standards.
The U.S. crypto legislation not only opens the door to investment, but democratizes access to capital, facilitates remittances, and reduces operating costs in regions historically marginalized from the traditional financial system.
"For Latin American entrepreneurs, this means they can compete on an equal footing — no longer from the periphery, but from the center of the global financial ecosystem," Hines said.
Konan praised Hines for "his long-term vision, his ability to execute, and his deep respect for institutions. He has shown that it is possible to lead from innovation without breaking stability — that one can dream of a decentralized future without abandoning democratic responsibility. ... And it has done so by connecting legal codes with blockchain code, legislative corridors with server rooms, and political traditions with generational dreams."
Duggan Flanakin worked for Barry Goldwater, and has written for the Washington Free Press, and Christian Restoration Ministries. He's also edited environmental policy newsletters. A senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he is also a policy analyst for CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow). Additionally, Mr. Flanakin is a poet, music promoter, and Sunday school teacher. Read Flanakin's reports — More Here.
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