Crypto industry insiders so far expect the long-awaited House of Representatives bill to set up rules for U.S. crypto markets will garner at least 30 Democrat voters when it reaches time for a vote as soon as Wednesday afternoon, alongside the 220-member majority of Republicans in the chamber.

Even as much of the sector prepares to celebrate one of its most consequential legislative wins, some in the industry still want to fix what they see as serious flaws in the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act when it moves to the Senate. That may be an option, because crypto lobbyists have been advised by Senate contacts that the chamber expects to write its own bill, which will have some strong overlap with Clarity but may take different approaches in key areas.

«After years of regulatory unclarity and regulation by enforcement, the Clarity Act passing the House will be a major and welcome step, even if it isn’t perfect,» Chen Arad, co-founder and chief experience officer at Solidus Labs, said in a statement to CoinDesk. When the bill gets to the Senate, he said he’d expect more work on «jurisdictional clarity» between the regulators — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Behind the scenes, in venues including group phone calls among crypto executives and their lawmakers allies, leaders have urged the diverse crypto crowd to show a united front on the legislation to finally establish U.S. regulations for the industry, according to people familiar with the discussions. But the decentralized finance (DeFi) arm of the digital assets space — for one — has had significant reservations about the wording of the Clarity Act.

If the legislation passes with a bipartisan surge this week, it next heads to the Senate for consideration. House Republicans took to calling this «Crypto Week,» and they’re already moving on procedural votes Tuesday to tee up the more consequential bill votes, with the Clarity Act expected on Wednesday and the GENIUS Act on Thursday.

President Donald Trump urged Republicans to get behind the crypto legislative push on Tuesday, boasting in a post on Truth Social that it’s putting the U.S. ahead of foreign competitors in China and Europe.

«We are leading the World, and will work hard with the Senate and the House to get even more Legislation on this passed!» Trump concluded.

Senate do-over?

The lengthy Clarity Act would establish a wholly new regulatory regime for oversight of the crypto markets, setting clear definitions for different types of digital assets and assigning the watchdog agencies to specific roles — most notably elevating the CFTC as a primary regulator of most of the crypto sector’s trading, because its most popular asset (BTC) is a commodity.

While Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has said the Clarity Act will be a «strong template» for the Senate’s work, the Senate demonstrated with the other major crypto bill, the stablecoin-regulating Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, that it may favor its own version. House lawmakers openly expressed concerns as recently as Monday night that details of their Clarity Act will be ignored by their Senate counterparts. Last week, the House acknowledged it would dump its own stablecoin bill in favor of the Senate version rather than try to reconcile the two pieces of legislation.

Industry lobbyists have been eagerly awaiting the specific language of the Senate’s own market structure bill, having so far only received a list of principles the key Republican lawmakers intended to follow in its drafting. As the lobbyists wait, the Senate Agriculture Committee — one of the two panels that needs to sign off on the legislation — is holding its opening hearing on the topic on Tuesday afternoon.

Among the points of debate between the chambers may be the maturity test in the Clarity Act that would effectively draw a border delineating whether a project belongs under the securities jurisdiction (SEC) or commodities oversight (CFTC).

«It’s great that the bill encourages blockchains to decentralize,» said Linda Jeng, founder and CEO of Digital Self Labs and an academic who has focused on crypto. «But there could be unintended consequences granting the SEC and CFTC with the authority to determine if a blockchain is ‘mature.'»

That’s one of the central tenets of the Clarity Act, the method by which a project can eventually move into a decentralized status that pulls it out of the reach of securities regulation. And it’s a component that some within the DeFi space argue isn’t being handled fairly.

DeFi insiders told CoinDesk that there’s insufficient protection for self-custody of digital assets in the bill and that its maturity test would favor a few incumbent projects, making it harder for new entrants to compete. They also shared concerns about the need to make sure federal preemption over the patchwork of state rules is clear, and one executive called for expanding current language about exemptions for «digital commodity» transactions to be expanded to «digital assets,» because DeFi projects would struggle if they were required to pre-determine whether each action did or didn’t involve a commodity under the law’s definition.

When the Senate takes the reins, the chamber will be further deluged with crypto interests looking for such changes. And if it writes a different market structure bill, the House may be pressured to vote on that rewrite without making further changes, if the situation with the GENIUS Act repeats. Congress is already likely to press past Trump’s initial August deadline for crypto legislation, and the president has been eager for results.

In the end, even the Senate’s work won’t be the last word, because once a regulatory bill becomes law, the relevant watchdog agencies have to write their own rules to implement it — a complex process that can take more than a year to complete and longer to put it into effect.

But the House has to act first before any of the rest can begin.

House progress

As the Clarity Act vote approaches, digital assets lobbyists are laser-focused on the number of Democrats that ultimately add their yes votes with Republicans. During last year’s vote on the predecessor bill, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), 71 Democrats threw their hats in, though the Senate never acted.

This time, advocates hope for another big, bipartisan number that will give the Senate a hefty push on the House’s market structure ideas. (The Senate’s own GENIUS Act drew an impressive 68-30 approval in a chamber that’s accustomed to scraping by with razor-thin votes.)

House Democratic leaders have chosen not to erect a roadblock for their own members on this bill, so they’ll be free to vote as they wish, said Rashan Colbert, the U.S. policy director for the Crypto Council for Innovation, noting it as an important development removing headwinds from crypto-friendly Democrats.

«If we can get an overwhelming bipartisan vote here, then this clearly becomes a must-do priority,» Colbert said in a CoinDesk interview. «If it’s a disappointing number, then I think it becomes harder,» he added.Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has been trying to marshal a resistance to the bill. She has some prominent allies in the AFL-CIO and in the North American Securities Administrators Association, the organization of state-level securities regulators.

Consumer advocates have also weighed in, with a coalition of them saying in a letter to Congress that the Clarity Act «guarantees the crypto industry will be given kid-glove treatment by captured regulators, putting investors and the economy at significant risk.»

Still, the industry is counting on a wide margin of Democrat support — especially from younger Democrats that have routinely bucked their leadership on crypto matters.

«It was a long road to get here, and I think that it’s not practical to believe that we’re going to be able to spin up this type of momentum again,» CCI’s Colbert said. «For those who want regulation, this is an important moment to focus and be supportive of the process.»

Read More: House Gears Up for Crypto Market Structure Vote on Wednesday, Stablecoins Thursday

For more than a decade, the crypto industry has championed decentralization, transparency, and self-sovereignty. These principles are noble—and in many ways, essential.

But, if we’re honest, they haven’t yet translated into broad, mainstream adoption. The dream of billions of people using blockchain every day is still largely that—a dream. To make it reality, we need to rethink how we build and deliver blockchain-powered experiences.

One of the biggest hurdles is usability. The current dominant interface to blockchain —non-custodial wallets—remains too complex for the average person. Managing private keys, writing down 24-word seed phrases, buying native tokens just to perform transactions, navigating multiple chains, bridging assets, KYC’ing repeatedly for each app, and figuring out how to convert crypto to fiat and back. This is not a user experience built for the mainstream.

We often ask ourselves why Web3 hasn’t “crossed the chasm.” The answer may be simple: most people don’t want to know they’re using a blockchain. And frankly, they shouldn’t have to.

This is where “gated communities” come in.

I use the term gated communities to mean, simply, “urban planning.” A nice setup that is easy to navigate, offers comfort, security, and curated experiences. And in the case of a neighborhood, yes, also behind a protective layer of some kind. In crypto, gated communities are platforms that abstract away blockchain complexity while retaining its benefits.

These environments give users seamless, Web2-style interfaces while the blockchain does the heavy lifting in the background. Custodial wallets, centralized interfaces, and trusted intermediaries are the gatekeepers—not to restrict access to only a special few, but to reduce friction for all.

Critics argue this betrays the ethos of decentralization (“not your keys, not your coins”). But this overlooks the broader opportunity: to onboard millions, even billions, of users through intuitive experiences that build real value and solve real problems for users. Not everyone will start their crypto journey managing a cold wallet. Many will begin inside a safe, guided, user-friendly “gated” experience—and that’s okay.

We can see this with dApps that successfully serve non-crypto natives.

In the U.S., Lofty.ai is quietly transforming real estate investing by using blockchain behind the scenes while delivering a simple, intuitive experience for traditional investors. Users can buy fractional ownership in income-generating properties for as little as $50, receive rental income automatically, and resell their shares at any time.

What’s notable is that Lofty doesn’t attract the typical crypto crowd—it appeals to mainstream real estate investors who want passive income without the legal paperwork, title transfers, or tax headaches typically involved in managing properties. Renters can gradually invest in the property they live in, reducing their monthly rent as their equity grows—eventually becoming full owners. Blockchain enables flexibility and trust; but the user experience is pure Web2 simplicity.

On the other side of the world, in Kabul, HesabPay enables women to buy food and supplies at local shops using simple plastic cards and SMS confirmations. These transactions settle instantly on-chain, providing transparency and traceability to NGOs and donors. But for the women using them, it’s just a card—not a crypto wallet. They never had a bank account and probably will never need one. That’s what success looks like: real-world utility without a steep learning curve.

In Italy, home renters can buy “tokenized” solar panels through Enel’s blockchain-enabled app—even if they live in apartments or can’t install anything physically on their roof. The app tracks the energy generated by those panels elsewhere and deducts it from the user’s electricity bill. The blockchain ensures automatic accounting and real-time settlement; the user experience is intuitive, app-based, and familiar.

In online chess, players can now earn rewards for participating in games, tournaments, or contributing to the community—without ever knowing that the loyalty points they’re collecting are blockchain tokens. Worldchess, the official organizer of the FIDE Grand Prix, has launched a blockchain-based rewards program that allows players to accumulate and redeem points simply by playing and engaging. The underlying infrastructure ensures transparency and portability, but for the users, it feels like any other modern loyalty program. The technology is invisible—the experience is seamless.

These examples demonstrate that blockchain is not a product. It’s an infrastructure layer.

And like all great infrastructure, its job is to disappear.

Over time, we believe these gated communities will serve as ramps—onboarding users gradually into more decentralized, self-sovereign experiences. But to get there, we need a new generation of tools that marry user control with ease of use.

Self-custody will evolve. Social recovery mechanisms (like those being developed by the DeRec Alliance) will make it possible to recover wallets without remembering seed phrases. Verifiable credentials will let users carry their identity securely across apps and services, enabling one-time KYC that persists across platforms. And complete fee abstraction will mean users never need to touch native gas tokens unless they want to. You’ll sign in and approve transactions with your fingerprint, and access any app without even realizing you’re interacting with a blockchain.

That’s the path forward: a world where the blockchain fades into the background, and delightful, safe, user-centric experiences come to the fore.

If we’re serious about mainstream adoption, we must stop building for crypto-native users alone. The future belongs to builders who can merge the best of Web2 design with the power of Web3 infrastructure—without making users choose between them. Gated communities are not the end-goal. But they are the best way to get millions of people in the door.

And once they’re in, we can invite them to explore everything else that the open world of blockchain has to offer.

NEW YORK — A 12-person jury has been seated for Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s criminal trial, and opening arguments are set to begin later this afternoon in the Thurgood Marshall courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Seven women and five men with a diverse range of backgrounds and ages will decide whether the U.S. Department of Justice can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Storm engaged in conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Jury selection began on Monday.

Of the jurors, just one works as an IT manager, while another works at surveillance and data firm Palantir. The rest have different educational backgrounds ranging from high school diplomas to a master’s degree, and their ages range from individuals in their 20s to their 60s.

The court went on break after the jury was seated, but opening arguments will begin shortly and are expected to end before the close of business on Tuesday. The trial itself is expected to last about four weeks.

Read more: Right to Code? Tornado Cash Dev Roman Storm’s Money Laundering Trial Kicks Off Monday

Opening arguments come as Storm’s defense team tries to dismiss some of the evidence prosecutors intend to introduce during the trial, including communications between Storm and his fellow Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev.

The defense has argued that a portion of the messages obtained from Pertsev «fails to identify and mischaracterizes who actually wrote the messages,» including an inquiry from a now-former CoinDesk reporter to Tornado Cash developers after the hack of Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge.

In their indictment of Storm, prosecutors characterized that inquiry as coming from Pertsev:

«[Pertsev] sent a message to Storm and [Tornado Cash developer Roman Semenov] through the Encrypted App, saying ‘Heya, anyone around to chat about axie? Would like to ask a few general questions about how one goes about cashing out 600 mil,'» the indictment said in paragraph 57.

The message was actually from a former CoinDesk reporter, sent to a group chat that included other (now-former) CoinDesk reporters and editors, as well as Storm and Pertsev.

«That chat is just one example of many,» the defense argued in a filing on Friday.

CORRECTION (July 15, 2025, 18:15 UTC): Corrects a truncated sentence about the jurors’ educational backgrounds.