Solana Policy Institute’s Kristin Smith warns crypto rules may be hard to undo

Kristin Smith has a message for crypto: the rules written in the next couple of years may be the rules you live with for a long time. The president of the Solana Policy Institute said in early October 2026 that final digital asset rules from the SEC and CFTC are likely to be difficult to reverse if they are in place before summer 2028. Congress failed to pass its own market structure bill. The agencies are now the main event. The clock Smith is watching Smith’s argument rests on two timelines. The first is how long agency rulemaking usually takes, which she put at roughly 18 to 24 months. The second timeline is the Congressional Review Act. That law gives Congress only a limited window to overturn rules after agencies establish them. Put the two together and the math gets pointed. A rulemaking that starts now and runs 18 to 24 months would land close to the summer 2028 mark Smith flagged. Once rules clear that stage and the review window passes, unwinding them becomes much harder. She also pointed to adoption as a kind of reinforcement. In her view, once institutions start building on an established framework, the framework gets more entrenched, because ripping it out would mean di...