Gemini Co-Founder Tyler Winklevoss Says ‘Clear Rules’ for…

Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder of crypto exchange Gemini, said the United States is moving toward clearer rules for digital assets, arguing that years of regulatory uncertainty are giving way to a more defined framework. His comments come as Washington advances a mix of congressional legislation and regulatory measures covering exchanges, token issuers, stablecoins and decentralized-finance platforms.

One of the central pieces is federal market-structure legislation. Lawmakers are seeking to draw clearer lines between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, especially for assets that begin through token sales or development teams but later operate on decentralized networks. That issue has driven some of the sector’s biggest legal fights. The SEC brought enforcement cases against Ripple, Coinbase, Binance and Gemini under existing securities laws. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig recently cited BTC, ETH, SOL, XLM, XTZ and XRP as examples of digital commodities. Congress is considering giving the CFTC broader authority over spot digital-commodity markets while preserving SEC oversight where securities laws apply.

Gemini’s own history illustrates the problem. In January 2023, the SEC sued Genesis Global Capital and Gemini over the Gemini Earn lending program, alleging it was an unregistered securities offering. The case became a symbol of the industry’s complaint that crypto firms often learned regulators’ views through enforcement rather than purpose-built rules. Gemini and the Winklevoss brothers later became vocal advocates for changes to U.S. crypto policy.

Clearer rules would not mean light regulation. A formal framework could raise compliance obligations by specifying which firms must register, which regulator supervises them, how customer assets are protected, and what disclosure, capital and market-surveillance standards apply. For established exchanges, that trade-off can still be appealing: regulatory certainty can make it easier to design products, secure banking relationships and attract institutional investors because compliance requirements can be assessed before launch.

The U.S. also faces competition from jurisdictions with dedicated crypto regimes, including the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Key U.S. questions remain unresolved, including DeFi oversight, token classification and the exact SEC-CFTC division. Congressional proposals can also change before becoming law. Still, Winklevoss’s message is about predictability, not deregulation: the debate is shifting from whether U.S. crypto rules will expand to what those final rules will require and how quickly Congress can enact them.