Top House Democrats sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday, asking its money laundering watchdog to hand over all suspicious activity reports (SARs) tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures.

In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Reps. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — the ranking members of the House Oversight, Administrative, and Judiciary committees — called for an urgent investigation into Trump’s blockchain project World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin, citing possible violations of campaign finance laws, bribery statutes and securities regulations.

“The Committees seek to determine whether legislation is necessary to prevent violations of campaign finance, consumer protection, bribery, securities fraud, and other anti-corruption laws in connection with fundraising by candidates for federal office and federal officeholders and to guard against deceptive and predatory campaign fundraising practices, illicit foreign influence over federal officials, and other financial misconduct connected to prospective or current federal officials,” the leading Democrats on the committees wrote in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

The request marks an escalation in congressional scrutiny on whether President Trump and his entourage are abusing their positions of power to benefit their crypto businesses. Senate Democrats pointed to Trump’s crypto ventures last week as part of their reason for not voting to advance stablecoin legislation that previously saw bipartisan support.

The inquiry zeroes in not only on the Trump family’s September 2024 launch of World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin launched just days before his inauguration, but also Elon Musk’s America PAC and whether they are using Trump’s name to solicit donations under false pretenses.

Read more: Senate Democrat Says He’s Looking Into Trump’s Crypto Businesses

«Three trillion is like a mag 7 stock, 20 trillion is an asset class,” said Anthony Scaramucci, founder and CEO of SkyBridge Capital. “So if you tell me that bitcoin can get to $500,000, people will be writing stories that bitcoin is an asset class.”

That provocative benchmark from Scaramucci set the tone for a spirited conversation at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 conference, where he joined Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of WisdomTree; Pasqual St-Jean, President and CEO of 3iQ; and Andy Baehr of CoinDesk Indices to discuss whether crypto, particularly bitcoin BTC, has finally become a bona fide asset class.

While panelists largely agreed that crypto is getting there, they emphasized that the path to institutional validation requires more than just price appreciation.

Bitcoin Leads the Way

Pasqual St-Jean argued that bitcoin has already cleared many of the hurdles that traditional assets must meet to be deemed investable by institutions like gold. “It has hedging mechanisms. It has different wrappers. It’s a little bit easier to understand. It’s a digital gold for a digital age,” he added.

This accessibility, he noted, stands in contrast to other types of crypto assets, such as governance and utility tokens, which remain more difficult for institutional allocators to grasp.»When we talk about governance tokens, it’s a little harder for institutions to wrap their minds around,” he said. “What exactly am I owning?”

The ETF Effect

The panelists pointed to the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs — especially in the U.S. — as a turning point in crypto’s journey toward institutional legitimacy.

Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of WisdomTree highlighted the irony in how former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s enforcement-heavy approach inadvertently laid the groundwork for a highly competitive and mature market.

«Gensler created just what he didn’t want in the US,” Steinberg said. “There are more bitcoin ETPs than S&P 500 ETFs. He created a tremendously competitive and mature foundation for bitcoin, which I think is deserved for the asset class.”

St-Jean agreed, calling the ETF wrapper a «game changer,» particularly for bitcoin. It allowed legal and compliance departments to step back and treat it as a regular investment decision, opening the door to more widespread adoption among institutions, he said.

Education and Diversification Are Key

Despite the strides made, Andy Baehr warned that bitcoin’s dominance may be holding back the broader crypto ecosystem.

«The crypto asset class is a bit hamstrung by the fact that there’s this giant singular thing standing there that people have to understand first,” Baehr said. “Yet you miss out on real blockchain technology, Layer 1s, infrastructure, DeFi—if you don’t dig deeper.”

He likened the current moment to 1999, when online brokerages made tech stocks accessible to a wider investor base. Like then, liquidity vehicles such as ETFs could help create allocation engines for the crypto space, turning short-term trading into long-term investing.

Still, the panelists were realistic about the growing pains. Steinberg pointed out that many institutions are still early in their due diligence. While some hedge funds have made the leap, most large allocators are still getting educated.

The Road Ahead

Panelists emphasized that the final push toward broad asset-class acceptance will likely depend on continued infrastructure development, regulatory clarity, and institutional products.

«We had to educate them that the regulator doesn’t have the right to pick which asset class is investable if the infrastructure problem is solved,” St-Jean said.

Looking forward, he argued that staking products, Layer 1 blockchain investments, and more diversified index products will be critical. «You just own HTTP,” he said, drawing a parallel to early internet protocols. “Bitcoin they understand, now they’re starting to understand Layer 1s.”

Scaramucci, for his part, remains bullish. «We may not actually be bullish enough,” he said, citing the explosion of capital in the space, the wave of copycat strategies following Strategy’s lead, and Wall Street’s “selling machine” now pushing bitcoin and crypto ETFs.

He added that while political risks remain, particularly with crypto becoming a hot-button issue in U.S. politics, the incentives are lining up for bipartisan support. «If you get bitcoin to $500,000, people won’t just say it’s an asset class—they’ll treat it like one,” he said.

Whether or not that price target is reached, the panel agreed: the foundation is there, the wrappers are in place, and institutions are finally showing up. Crypto’s transformation from curiosity to asset class is no longer a question of “if”—just “when.”

In the absence of a U.S. federal framework, New York’s crypto regulatory regime remains a guide for domestic and international regulators, and that includes Congress, Adrienne Harris, head of the New York Department of Financial Services, said Wednesday at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.

Harris said the process to become regulated in her state can be difficult but, she argued, New York’s high standards have proven effective.

«The proof is in the pudding when you see that FTX, Voyager, Celsius didn’t pass our test and therefore couldn’t do business in New York,» she said, naming firms that later spectacularly collapsed.

Among U.S. states, New York has been in the vanguard of crypto regulation, having established its BitLicense to regulate crypto firms, and devoting what Harris said was a 60-person staff to the work.

With Congress still working on crypto regulations, the narrow jurisdiction of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) remains the only federal-level supervision, so the states represent the remainder of U.S. oversight of the industry.

Harris’ deputy overseeing digital assets, Ken Coghill, also appeared at Consensus on Wednesday. He said the key issue is on preventing money laundering and other financial crime. Crypto licensees and applicants often underestimate how much work it takes to become a regulated entity. Most applicants don’t make it, he noted.

«You’re not just presenting a product; you’re presenting yourself,» Coghill said. «There’s a tremendous amount of homework that needs to be done» — particularly in understanding and outlining «what the risks are that your business creates.»