AUWCL Conference Puts Digital Asset Law Center Stage
More than 100 attendees, including regulators, practitioners, and law students, gathered for “The Exploding Digital Asset Market Structure and the Evolving Regulatory Framework and Challenges in 2026: Change Is the Only Constant,” a daylong event that reinforced AUWCL’s standing as a hub for thought leadership at the intersection of innovation and regulation.
Co-sponsored by the American University Business Law Review and the Business Law Program’s Digital Asset Law & Policy Initiative (DALP), the conference drew significant alumni participation. Members of the Digital Asset Law Committee (DALC) served as panelists, moderators, and primary sponsors.
“The depth of expertise and engagement in that room, with so many fellow Washington College of Law alumni present, was a clear sign of how seriously the industry is taking this moment,” said David Brill, a digital assets practitioner who participated in the conference.
The program featured a fireside chat with SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce and a keynote address by Christy Goldsmith Romero, Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner.
In her keynote, Romero traced the CFTC’s role in digital asset regulation back to 2015 and identified a pressing jurisdictional gap. “There is no U.S. market regulator with supervisory authority over Bitcoin or any other spot market non-securities digital assets,” she said. “This is too significant of a market to be left unregulated by the federal government.” She called on Congress to act, particularly in the post-Loper Bright era, when agency interpretive authority has narrowed.
Three substantive panels addressed emerging federal enforcement priorities, legislative developments shaping digital asset market structure, and compliance program design for financial institutions operating in a rapidly shifting environment.
For AUWCL alumnus Joshua Smeltzer the event carried real stakes. “This event was more than a panel. It was a forum for the real issues everyone in crypto and digital assets faces daily,” he said. “We’re all navigating a murky legal landscape that still has more questions than answers.”
Stephen Aschettino, Partner at Fox Rothschild and Chair of the firm’s Fintech & Digital Assets practice, called it “an honor and quite an education to be part of this all-star cast of digital assets lawyers, business law professors, and policy makers.” He noted that with the CLARITY Act potentially headed to a Senate vote, the conversation is far from over.
The conference closed with consensus that the legal community cannot wait for regulatory certainty before engaging. As Smeltzer put it: “What drives innovation in compliance and litigation? Confronting the chaos head-on and finding solutions. We need more of this, not less.”