Crypto’s moment has seemingly arrived in Washington, D.C., and the industry is trying to make the most of it. But as new organizations hatch and leadership shifts at the top advocacy operations, the field of pro-crypto groups trying to carry the torch is more crowded than ever.

No fewer than a dozen groups — including the Digital Chamber, Blockchain Association and Crypto Council for Innovation — are seeking to steer digital assets policies in the U.S., some of them substantially overlapping in their membership bases, funding sources and in the goals they’re seeking to accomplish.

Most of the leaders of those groups told CoinDesk they have a more-the-merrier view on pushing for friendly policy from President Donald Trump’s highly receptive administration and from Congress, which is increasingly loaded with industry allies.

“Many of the objectives are consistent across these groups,” said Miller Whitehouse-Levine, who recently left the DeFi Education Fund to launch the new Solana Policy Institute. “That’s a good thing, because I think there’s an absolute torrent of legislative and regulatory work that’s going on right now, and we need all the help we could get.”

Congress is chasing several crypto bills, including legislation to set boundaries for crypto markets, oversee stablecoin issuers, curtail digital assets in illicit financing, call for proof of reserves at crypto firms and set up government digital reserves. “We would have 100 more groups and 10,000 more people working on these issues in an ideal world,” Whitehouse-Levine added.

But other current and former policy advocates privately grant that the field is getting packed and that it can be difficult to justify so many entities pulling for the same cause with the same finite universe of congressional staff, White House offices and regulatory officials. In the recent past, groups have talked about reorganization and consolidation, according to people familiar with the discussions, though such efforts haven’t been executed.

Meanwhile, new organizations have hung their shingles in recent weeks, including Whitehouse-Levine’s SPI and the National Cryptocurrency Association, further increasing the ranks. That’s often how the numbers have grown in Washington: A company or lobbyist who feels some specific interest isn’t properly represented and can figure out how to pay for it. And big crypto firms have also set up their own D.C. operations, pushing for their more highly tailored interests.

New leaders

Cody Carbone is still just days into his leadership of the Digital Chamber — the oldest and largest crypto membership group. The Chamber and virtually every other major digital assets organization has lost or swapped leaders in the opening months of this year — many of them in the past few weeks.

He said he understands why so many are suddenly keen on showing up in Washington to take advantage of the turn in crypto sentiment, and he sees this crowded field of U.S. groups as a net positive when there is so much work to go around getting complex legislation done.

“At some point, there could be too many cooks in the kitchen,” he said. “But I think that’s a problem for a later day.”

Sheila Warren, who recently stepped away as the chief of CCI, said “there’s definitely room for differentiation” in crypto’s growing army of boosters, but she said a united front — in whatever form — is key.

“I think it’s really about coming together and recognizing that we all pretty much want the same things,” she said.

Not all of the groups share the same agendas. Some focus on narrow areas of the industry, and a few are more oriented toward research or serving crypto users rather than companies. Their ranks include Coin Center, Satoshi Action Fund, Bitcoin Policy Institute, Government Blockchain Association and Bitcoin Mining Council. Ripple started the new NCA with an astounding $50 million commitment, and it’s meant to be one of those more interested in the people who use and invest in crypto than the industry players.

Politics

On the raw, political edge of advocacy, the industry — especially U.S. exchange Coinbase — has entered the arena. Coinbase set up Stand With Crypto in an effort to jump-start a grass-roots-style crypto movement. That message-of-the-people strategy was bolstered by the extremely well-funded political action committee Fairshake and the dark-money influence arm, Cedar Innovation Foundation.

Fairshake spent more than a hundred million dollars to put friendly lawmakers into congressional seats last year, and the industry is already seeing big, bipartisan support in the early days of the new session. One point of evidence: The Democrats came out in force to join Republicans in killing an Internal Revenue Service rule that could have made existence-threatening demands on decentralized finance (DeFi) projects.

“I think it’s a huge benefit that we have so many organizations dedicated to trying to achieve regulatory clarity for digital assets,” said Amanda Tuminelli, who stepped up to run the DeFi Education Fund when Whitehouse-Levine left. “I think it’s been really needed, especially in the past few years, and when we work together, we actually accomplish great outcomes. For example, the IRS broker rule on DeFi.”

As it tackles those major questions on tax, government crypto reserves, the structure of the markets and regulations of stablecoins, the crypto lobbying space is leaping into a new chapter. That transition is made even more stark with the sudden and dramatic shuffle of leadership.

Kristin Smith, who was the chief of one of the leading groups, left the Blockchain Association to go work for former underling Whitehouse-Levine as president of his new Solana organization. So the association is left shopping for a new CEO. Meanwhile, the founder and longtime leader of the Digital Chamber, Perianne Boring, exited that job for unpaid work leading the board, and the founder of crypto think tank Coin Center similarly departed.

In Warren’s absence at CCI, Ji Kim — the group’s former general counsel and head of global policy — told CoinDesk he remains “laser-focused on ensuring that CCI continues to be the leading, substantive and global voice for our members on key policy issues.” When asked about the potential of organization mergers, he said he had “nothing to say” on that point.

The lobbyists and advocates have routinely come together on letters, events and papers pushing their common aims.

Carbone said there’s “definitely friendliness and conversations between us,” though he said there “needs to be more collaboration.”

However, the groups have practical needs for funding and members, and they’re driven to secure members who can sometimes only afford to join one or two of them.

“There’s obviously a competitiveness angle to this as well,” Carbone acknowledged. “It would be naive to say there’s not, so there’s a race sometimes.”

At the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in July, Donald Trump pledged to create a “strategic national bitcoin reserve.”

By Sunday morning March 2, that reserve also included ether (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) alongside bitcoin (BTC).

Trump’s message on Truth Social said his presidential working group was moving forward on creating the larger-scope crypto reserve, igniting a torrent of feedback from across the crypto community.

Many complained that the reserve isn’t just sticking to bitcoin. Others asked if the U.S. should be stockpiling tokens like XRP and Cardano at all. Others wondered what might have changed Trump’s mind.

Trump said he wanted to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world” and his timing seemed aimed at retail traders. “I love the genius of announcing a strategic reserve on a Sunday, when traditional markets are closed and Wall Street sleeps. For the first time, retail investors win,” tweeted Trump’s son, Eric Trump, Sunday night.

The assets’ prices rose almost immediately, with ADA benefitting in particular. Still, there’s a lot we don’t know about the “Crypto Strategic Reserve.”

Trump’s Sunday morning message was the first time the administration had said there would be five assets in the portfolio. Beyond that, details are sketchy. Here are some big questions.

1. Is he serious? 

The U.S. already owns more than 200,000 BTC it claimed through seizures. Experts say this could be the basis for a National Reserve without Congressional approval. But a multi-coin reserve would surely require Congress to pass legislation.

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis has proposed legislation that would see the U.S. buy $20 billion in the first year, and 20,000 more BTC in each of the following four years to take the U.S. stockpile to one million BTC. Lummis’s views on the now-expanded multi-coin reserve are unknown. She was planning to meet with industry leaders to discuss the matter on March 11. Will she now propose different legislation?

The other, subsidiary question is how the U.S. might pay for the expanded portfolio. Crypto is publicly traded and has a public price. It’s not clear from Trump’s message whether his administration will seek a new spending appropriation. Could the U.S. sell gold to buy crypto? We don’t know.

2. Why Include Solana, XRP and Cardano? Will There Be Others?

As many on X have noted, there are logical reasons to include bitcoin in a strategic reserve. “We’re talking about a reserve, and Bitcoin is the undisputed store of value for the digital age,” noted Hunter Horsely, the CEO of Bitwise. Bitcoin is “digital gold” and BTC’s “dominance” of the market is still north of 60%. BTC is the first asset any holder holds.

It’s harder to make a straightforward case for the other coins. For example, Cardano, with a dominance of 1.1%, is best known as an environment to build decentralized applications (dApps). It doesn’t have ETFs like bitcoin and ether and isn’t accepted by TradFi to nearly the same extent.

The five coins are being chosen for two different reasons. BTC and ETH are fully decentralized. Solana, XRP and Cardano are Made in America, and Trump may be including them to promote the U.S. crypto industry. Trump’s announcement seemed to leave open the possibility that the reserve could include other coins in the future.

3. Will the States Follow Suit?

CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton wrote recently that up to 22 states are considering creating their own crypto reserves, mostly in bitcoin. Will they now consider a wider range of assets?

4. Will Crypto Support It? 

The reaction to Trump’s announcement across professional crypto was tepid-to-critical. Trump announced the reserve at Nashville aiming to please his audience. But today it’s not clear that the crypto industry is 100% behind his plan to bring the reserve about. If the measure gets pushback in Congress, the administration will need industry support, so that might be a worry for its backers. Certainly, Polymaket bettors are skeptical that the reserve will come about soon.

One bitcoin is worth $100,000 — a milestone that has crypto OGs in a tizzy. Donald Trump is selling DOGE T-shirts. It’s a frenetic time for crypto.

But what are my non-crypto friends texting me about?

“Hawk Tuah” coin. Yep, in a very unscientific sample size of the seven friends who texted me — unsolicited — about crypto this week, six essentially asked: “What’s the deal with Hawk Tuah coin?” (The seventh asked about litecoin).

That a low-level celebrity’s dalliance with memecoins would dominate the groupchat’s mindshare at the same time the original cryptocurrency smashed through a historic level points to a chasm between the crypto industry’s perception of itself and the general public’s — or at least my friends’ — perception.

When HAWK launched Wednesday, it immediately rocketed up to a market capitalization of almost $500 million. Then, just as fast, it crashed below $100 million, wiping out individual investments once worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It now fetches less than $30 million.

Betting on memecoins is never a surefire investment strategy. But there were signs that Hawk Tuah was a worse investment than most. Its launch was marred by allegations of insider dumping (which the founders deny) and a pricey swap tax that failed to stop snipers from essentially manipulating its price.

Most of the people who reached out to me didn’t know this level of detail. They’d just heard the “hawk tuah” woman, Haliey Welch, had launched a memecoin and it did not go very well.

“It reinforces my previous belief that it’s all nonsense,” said one friend who bought bitcoin in 2020 but quickly sold. He acknowledged that bitcoin and Ethereum’s ether may have “certain technological advances.” And yet, “​​the fact that essentially anyone can create a new — potentially preferred — cryptocurrency at any point in time” boggled his mind.

To my surprise, this friend had not heard that one bitcoin was now worth $100,000, the headline story according to most everyone who works inside crypto. Most of the “normies” who reached out to me about HAWK didn’t know this.

Instead, they wondered if Hawk Tuah would face legal blowback. “I can’t help but feel like [Haliey] Welch is gonna be unintentionally responsible for some butterfly effect that ruins people’s lives,” another friend mused.

Less interesting to him was the price of bitcoin. He wasn’t interested in buying before, and certainly not now. “I don’t like crypto,” he said.

Plenty of people don’t like crypto. That may be why plenty of the people I know are so enchanted by HAWK. It reinforces all the bad, scammy notions they have for what they view as digital nonsense nickels.

Of course, that’s the promise and peril of permissionless blockchains. Anyone can do anything.

Of the people who reached out to me, only one mentioned bitcoin without prompting. That friend, a gold bug, jokingly taunted me for bitcoin’s failure to hold $100k for even 24 hours.

Another friend who buys cryptocurrencies through Robinhood admitted he owed no BTC. “I don’t really have a reason why I have no btc,” he said, “I guess im just so not mainstream.”

“I’m riding litecoin to the fkn moon.”