In the 1990s, the U.S. government classified encryption—or “crypto”—as a weapon.

Really.

If you were writing strong encryption code—PGP, RSA—you were, legally speaking, an arms dealer.

People printed the code on t-shirts and shipped them overseas to test the First Amendment in real time.

It was America’s first Crypto War.

At its core was one question: Is code speech?

The people building encryption said yes. The government said no.

The turning point was the Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice case (1995–1999)—a landmark legal battle that established code as protected speech under the First Amendment.

That victory gave birth to the digital world we know today: HTTPS, secure messaging, e-commerce, privacy, and eventually… yes, Bitcoin.

Fast-forward 30 years and we saw Crypto Wars 2.0.

In the past eight years…

A Dutch developer was sent to prison for writing privacy code. Pretty much every DeFi platform was under investigation. Coinbase—by far the most compliant US exchange—was threatened every other week.

Even the idea you could self-custody your own assets was under attack.

That was the Gary Gensler era. Gensler didn’t believe in clarity. He believed in ambiguity.

Not because he was stupid. But because ambiguity is a tool. If nobody knows the rules, everyone’s guilty.

But this week, crypto had another Bernstein moment.

DeFi: American as Apple Pie

First, a confession:

I wasn’t expecting much from the SEC’s “DeFi and the American Spirit” roundtable on Monday.

And yet…

It was, dare I say, the most important crypto discussion to ever take place in America.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said it plainly: “DeFi is as American as apple pie.”

He said self-custody is a right. He said code is speech. He said your constitutional freedoms don’t vanish when you log on to the internet.

He said DeFi didn’t just deserve room to grow—it deserves protection.

He called out that DeFi protocols worked during crypto’s biggest meltdowns—while centralized platforms like FTX collapsed.

He even floated an “innovation exemption”—a fast-track for blockchain projects that play by some basic rules but don’t want to die in paperwork hell.

For the first time publicly, the SEC acknowledged:

• Bitcoin mining is not a security (already assumed, now confirmed).

• Staking is also not a security, including staking-as-a-service.

This clears a major cloud over Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and basically all major blockchains.

This all might sound boring. It’s not.

Crypto is finally on track to get what we’ve needed all along: clarity.

Staking clarity. Token clarity. Self-custody protection.

And actual, written laws—so builders can stop looking over their shoulder and start shipping code.

Finding the Hidden Gems

This isn’t bullish.

It’s nuclear.

The head of the SEC just put a spotlight on DeFi—and called it a pillar of America’s financial future.

That’s like the Fed chair calling Bitcoin “digital gold” and saying he’s going all in.

Suddenly, every publicly traded bank and fintech has one job: Figure out DeFi.

But how do we find the real hidden gems? Here’s one strategy James and I are using right now.

First, don’t follow the noise. Follow the fees.

The real plays right now aren’t the ones trending on Twitter—they’re the ones printing cash in the background.

They’re small, often overlooked, but they’re raking in millions in protocol revenue from trading, lending, staking, and stablecoin systems.

And the kicker: a lot of that revenue is flowing directly back to token holders. Real yield. Not inflation.

To find the real under-the-radar plays…

Look for rising usage, sticky users, and weird new niches—like tokenized yield or DeFi-native forex—that the big names haven’t fully claimed.

If you can catch these before they go mainstream, you’re not just early. You’re ahead of the curve, while everyone else is still trying to figure out what’s happening.

As usual, James and I are on the case. With new opportunities for our Early Stage Crypto Investor members.

Stay tuned.