This week, Chainlink’s Head of Public Policy, Adam Minehardt, joined Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, on the TRM Talks podcast to discuss the future of U.S. crypto legislation and Chainlink’s role in powering critical use cases across traditional finance and government.
Minehardt recounted his 17-year career on Capitol Hill and how pivotal events such as 9/11 and the 2007/2008 financial crisis inspired his interest in building a more efficient and reliable financial system with blockchains and cryptocurrency.
“All these processes that we took for granted as being solid really were not. That’s a lesson that’s stuck with me, which is always to question the things that we take for granted in our markets as being tried and true. Maybe they’re not.”
After leaving The Hill, Minehardt was Head of Government Relations at Stellar Development Foundation and launched the crypto practice at FSVector. He recalled the opportunity to establish government relations for Chainlink as too good to pass up.
“I jumped at it,” he said.
“Chainlink at its core is really about bringing data that’s offchain, that lives just in the world, onto the blockchain. If that data’s not right, if the data’s hacked, you can only imagine the consequences. To me, this is like the plumbing that we all take for granted in all different parts of our life, whether it’s how electricity gets to our house or how our cell phones work.”
Because Chainlink provides critical infrastructure for powering stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), it has played a key role in advancing digital asset innovation and regulation in the United States.
Last year, Minehardt represented Chainlink at the White House for its contributions to a Digital Asset Report featuring oracles as essential technology for the onchain economy. The GENIUS Act, which established the first federal guardrails for USD-pegged stablecoins, was also signed into law. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov was at the White House to witness the event.
In 2026, a long-awaited crypto market structure bill is poised to have an even greater impact on digital asset adoption, by determining whether assets are securities or commodities and how they’re regulated.
“It really comes down to this fundamental need to have some form of transparent law and framework for how these very unique, novel assets are treated from a regulatory perspective,” Minehardt said.
“At Chainlink, we’re very supportive of having rules of the road. I think everyone in the industry wants some form of clarity.”
The goal is to strike the right balance.
“We’re most focused on how the industry is going to be held responsible for complying with these rules and making sure that we embrace innovation while it’s not so heavy-handed that we cause folks to shrink back at the thought of entering the U.S. market.”
Minehardt is optimistic.
“The issues are extremely complicated, but I think at the top level, the political level, enough people want this bad enough right now that we’re really in a moment that I think this thing could get done.”
As crypto legislation evolves, Chainlink continues to facilitate the convergence of decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) onchain.
“We’re basically providing infrastructure to anyone that wants to use DLT. So we’re tracking it all, whether it’s TradFi using DLT or DeFi using DLT. And I think what’s happening in the banking regulatory agencies is a lot of new roads opening for Wall Street and TradFi to enter the space in a regulated manner. So that’s pretty exciting to see.”