Digital Chamber Gets New Chief as Crypto Lobbyists Embrace Friendlier Washington

The Digital Chamber will elevate Cody Carbone to be its chief executive officer next month, replacing founder Perianne Boring, who is stepping down after a decade atop the oldest U.S. crypto advocacy group.

As it prepares for its latest Washington, D.C., blockchain summit next week, the Digital Chamber informed its members that Boring will be moving to chair the organization’s board while Carbone — a longtime crypto policy presence — takes over as CEO. The group’s transition coincides with the long-awaited shift in the U.S. government from digital assets reluctance to an embrace from President Donald Trump and an enthusiastic Congress.

“We’re no longer in a defensive stance, where we have a government that’s essentially trying to shut down the industry,” Boring said in a CoinDesk interview.

Digital assets are enjoying a wave of U.S. government support, with a presidential summit at the White House earlier this month and signs of progress in the Senate and House of Representatives, which both easily advanced a crypto matter in recent days. But the two core bills — the regulation of stablecoins and the setting of guardrails for the overall industry — represent the ultimate goal to establish crypto as a full-fledged, regulated corner of the U.S. financial system.

That means Carbone, formerly the Digital Chamber’s chief policy officer, will seek to have a hand in the stablecoin and crypto market-structure legislation brewing in Congress now.

“We haven’t gotten anywhere, yet,” Carbone told CoinDesk this week. The industry has, during his predecessor’s years of lobbying, been “constantly addressing misconceptions, bad narratives, fighting back against the government.” Despite the new political success, “sky-high” expectations from crypto enthusiasts and well-placed support across the government, the organization has to “focus all of our efforts on meeting those expectations, getting the policies enacted that we want.”

Read More: U.S. Senate Takes First Big Step to Advance Stablecoin Bill

The sector’s first legislative accomplishment during Carbone’s tenure may be the reversal of an Internal Revenue Service rule that would have treated decentralized financial (DeFi) projects as brokerages that needed to keep tabs on their users for tax purposes. Lawmakers are tapping their powers under the Congressional Review Act to roll back the Biden-administration rule, and major surges of Democratic support helped the resolution clear both chambers, so it’s only awaiting a procedural second approval from the Senate before heading to Trump’s desk to be signed.

That would mark the inaugural pro-crypto effort to wind its way successfully to a U.S. president’s signature, but the other legislation is Carbone’s top aim, and he predicted it’ll happen this year.

“Cody really shines on that execution,” Boring said. “So that is the immediate priority, executing all the things we’ve spent the past year or the past decade building and getting those done.”

The digital assets space has a crowded field of lobbying groups stalking the halls of the Capitol, White House and the regulatory agencies. The Digital Chamber is among the most prominent of them and has the most members, though its budget has been outpaced by the Blockchain Association in recent years.

The list of advocacy and educational organizations also includes the Crypto Council for Innovation, Coin Center, DeFi Education Fund and others, including the brand new association launched by Ripple Labs, the National Cryptocurrency Association, which is being backed by a massive $50 million grant.

Boring said she has no immediate commitment for a role outside the organization

“My next step is really kind of exploring additional passions that I have in the crypto space,” she said.