On Thursday, Congress took a small but significant step toward ensuring 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 being swept up under Penal Code § 1960, a statute designed for money laundering, not innovation. For developers working in good faith on open source software, the legal gray area has put a chill on American competitiveness.
It’s one bill. But the principle it embodies goes further than any single piece of legislation – and it comes at a crucial time.
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in July, it’s tempting to look back to commemorate milestones and celebrate triumphs. But America’s most consistent moments have rarely come from conservation alone. They have come from renewal: building new systems that allowed the country to adapt to a changing world.
Every American century has been defined not only by ideals but by infrastructure. Canals and railroads fueled industrial expansion. Telecommunications connected a continental economy. The Internet reshaped commerce, culture and capital markets. Each era rewarded those 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 moves, how markets work, and how people coordinate on a global scale. Unlike the builders of previous eras, many 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 basic code. This work has produced billions of lines of software that are collectively maintained and drive modern commerce and coordination.
At the same time, the financial infrastructure is developing itself. Where previous generations built physical rails, today’s builders are creating digital rails—protocols that move value, build trust, and operate at Internet speed. These layers increasingly support payments, financial services, identity and ownership.
An illustration of this transformation is the growth of the developer ecosystem building at Solana. According to the latest Electric Capital Developer Report, Solana was the leading ecosystem for new developers in 2024, growing 84% year over year. The Solana ecosystem shows how fast, cheap, open infrastructure attracts and retains talent willing to invest in solving real problems – from payments and decentralized finance to identity and decentralized applications at scale.
This is not about hype or symbolic prices. It is about where the infrastructure is deployed and whether tomorrow’s builders, who write the code that defines digital markets, feel that a country welcomes innovation or hinders it.
Globally, governments recognize this reality. Several jurisdictions have moved forward with clear frameworks for digital assets and blockchain-based systems, providing predictability to developers and entrepreneurs. This sends a signal: building is welcome here.
In the US, there are encouraging signs of progress beyond Thursday’s bill. Under the leadership of SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, the Commission is shifting from a stance defined primarily by enforcement to one focused on engagement, clarity and constructive rulemaking.
Developers and market participants don’t expect an absence of regulation – they expect rules that are understandable, sustainable and aligned with how modern technology actually works. Recent efforts to engage industry, solicit public input, and distinguish bad actors from bona fide builders are an important step toward restoring confidence that the United States intends to lead, not lag, 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 followed innovation, not the other way around. That sequence wasn’t a mistake; it was a feature of leadership. It allowed the United States to set global standards rather than inherit them.
As we look toward America’s next 250 years, the same principle applies. Protecting the freedom to build—especially in open, general technologies—is a core American value. Writing code, absent intent to harm, is a form of expression and exploration. A nation founded on free speech and free enterprise should be wary of 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 more robust market infrastructure — a development that some have called “internet capital markets.” These ideas are not about overnight disruption, but about upgrading the rails under 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 US will lead its development – or watch how talent, standards and capital are consolidated elsewhere.
America’s founders did not assume that their experiment would succeed forever. They designed it so that future generations could improve it. As we celebrate our nation’s 250th year, we face a similar responsibility: not to preserve the past unchanged, but to ensure that future builders still see 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 that code will be written.
