On Thursday, Congress took a small but significant step to ensure that America remains the best place in the world to build. Bipartisan legislation – the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act of 2026 – would protect software developers from the grip of Penal Code Section 1960, a law designed for money laundering, not innovation. For manufacturers working in good faith on open source software, this legal gray area has dampened American competitiveness.
It’s just one bill. But the principle it embodies goes deeper than any piece of legislation – and it comes at a pivotal moment.
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary this July, it’s tempting to look back to commemorate milestones and celebrate triumphs. But America’s most defining moments are rarely the result of preservation alone. They were born of renewal: building new systems that allowed the country to adapt to a changing world.
Each American century has been defined not only by ideals, but also by infrastructure. Canals and railways fueled industrial expansion. Telecommunications connected a continental economy. The Internet has transformed commerce, culture and financial markets. Every era has rewarded those who were willing to build.
Today, the next layer of infrastructure is taking shape in code.
Software developers are the architects of modern economic systems. They shape how money flows, how markets work, and how people coordinate on a global scale. Unlike builders of past eras, many of them are globally distributed and highly mobile – choosing where to work and innovate based on clarity, opportunity and the regulatory environment. Open source development allows anyone, anywhere to contribute foundational code. This work has produced billions of lines of software that are collectively managed and power modern commerce and coordination.
At the same time, the very nature of financial infrastructure is changing. Where previous generations built physical rails, today’s builders are creating digital rails – protocols that move value, build trust, and operate at the speed of the Internet. These layers increasingly underpin payments, financial services, identity and ownership.
An illustration of this transformation is the growth of the developer ecosystem relying on Solana. According to Electric Capital’s latest Developer Report, Solana was the leading ecosystem for new developers in 2024, growing 84% year-over-year. The Solana ecosystem demonstrates how open, fast, low-cost infrastructure attracts and retains talent ready to invest in solving real-world problems – from payments and decentralized finance to identity and large-scale decentralized applications.
This is not about hype or symbolic prizes. It’s about where infrastructure will be deployed and whether the builders of tomorrow, who write the code that defines digital markets, feel that a country welcomes innovation or hinders it.
Governments globally are recognizing this reality. Several jurisdictions have made progress in establishing clear frameworks for digital assets and blockchain-based systems, providing predictability for developers and entrepreneurs. This sends a signal: construction is welcome here.
In the United States, there are encouraging signs of progress beyond Thursday’s bill. Under the leadership of SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, the Commission is moving from a posture defined primarily by enforcement to one focused on engagement, clarity, and constructive rulemaking.
Developers and market participants don’t expect a lack of regulation: they expect rules that are understandable, sustainable, and aligned with how modern technology actually works. Recent efforts to engage the industry, solicit public input, and distinguish bad actors from good-faith builders are an important step toward restoring confidence that the United States intends to lead, not lag behind, in the development of digital financial infrastructure.
We’ve seen this dynamic before. The early days of railroads, aviation, and the Internet were marked by experimentation and ambiguity. Regulation has followed innovation, not the other way around. This sequence was not a fault; it was a characteristic of leadership. This allowed the United States to set global standards rather than inherit them.
As we look ahead to America’s next 250 years, the same principle applies. Protecting the freedom to build – especially in open and versatile technologies – is a core American value. Writing code, without intent to harm, is a form of expression and exploration. A nation founded on freedom of speech and enterprise should be careful before criminalizing innovation simply because it is new.
This moment is also an opportunity to renew American leadership in the capital markets. Blockchain-based systems enable faster settlement, broader participation, and a more resilient market infrastructure – a development some have dubbed “internet capital markets.” These ideas are not intended to disrupt overnight, but to improve the rails beneath existing institutions so that they remain globally competitive.
The question before us is not whether these technologies will shape the global economy. They already are. The question is whether the United States will lead its development – or watch the consolidation of talent, standards and capital elsewhere.
America’s founders did not think their experiment would succeed forever. They designed it so that future generations could improve it. As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, we face a similar responsibility: not to preserve the past unchanged, but to ensure that future builders still view America as the best place in the world to build.
The next American century will be written in code. The choice we make now determines where this code will be written.
