Why crypto policy advocate Michelle Bond is running for Congress

All 435 seats of the US House of Representatives are up for election this year, and one crypto native is throwing her hat into the ring. 

Michelle Bond, CEO of the Association for Digital Asset Markets (ADAM), a trade group focused on crypto policy, recently announced that she will run for New York’s 1st Congressional District (NY-01).

The district spans the eastern part of Long Island, a place known as Suffolk County. Bond grew up in Miller place and attended public high school on the island. She lives a few miles away now, still firmly in NY-01. 

While many primary elections in the state took place last week, a redistricting process has put NY-01 on a slightly different timeline: its primary will take place on August 23. Former Army officer and lawyer Lee Zeldin has represented the district for the past seven years, but he’s vacating the seat this year to run for governor.  The district has historically leaned Republican and will continue to do so after redistricting.

Bond said this combination of forces created a unique opportunity for her to run. She bills herself as a conservative businesswoman and a “strong supporter of President Trump’s America First mindset and policies.” Her website touts tax reform, “keeping America safe and strong,” and furthering pro-life policy among her priorities.

According to Bond, people tend to forget there’s a whole swath of land between Nassau and the Hamptons (Disclosure: I grew up just a few towns away in NY-02, also in Suffolk County, and I don’t disagree). She says she wants to make sure the people who live there aren’t also forgotten, and she thinks her experience puts her in a good position to help them economically. 

Bond enters the race after a long Washington-adjacent career working on economic policy in addition to practicing law and conducting business in the private sector, from serving as senior counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to Head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy at Bloomberg.

Still, her past two years have been focused on a much narrower set of policies: those relevant to crypto and digital assets. The Block sat down with Bond to talk about why she wants to run for Congress, and how her experience in the industry would inform her role as a policymaker. 

The following conversation has been edited for clarity.

The Block: What are those day-one issues that you want to take on and what concrete steps do you plan to take to address them?

Michelle Bond: Because of inflation and the economy and gas prices being such a focus right now, first and foremost I think my first act would be to sign on as a co-sponsor to H.R. 6858, which would allow the Keystone pipeline to go forward and permit oil and gas leases on federal lands. I think that would go a tremendous way just on the gas issue. That's money that we can't spend on other things. I do think a lot of the career politicians have been more worried about the radical Green New Deal environmental activist base than about healthy energy policy based on reality. So I do think we need to have a shift there. 

In terms of inflation, financial markets, Biden and the other career politicians in Washington, they passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill last year, and that's what really started this whole inflationary mess. What we need to do is sort of slow down the inflation, drive down the demand. 

The Fed has been increasing the federal funds rate, but that's now impacting mortgages, car loans, everything. So people are paying more interest on loans than they're used to paying. And that means that they're not spending money out at a restaurant on a day trip. They don't have money for a crypto account. Because what we have is Biden's reckless stimulus package and we are at historic inflation levels. 

So, the markets are worried and the markets are really concerned that the Fed is going to send rates so high that demand for goods and services can go into freefall, starting a recession. I am fully expecting that we're going to hit a recession. And yet we have these career politicians pumping way too much money, borrowed money, by the way, into our economy. And instead of fixing it, they're out going to fundraisers, they're out at cocktail parties, climbing the ranks, while the country that they're supposed to be running is going off of a cliff. We really need somebody who has had a private-sector job in the last 13 years. 

The Block: What insight into congressional workings have you gained being the CEO of ADAM, with some of that work in Washington adjacent to Congress? You’ve been interfacing with members of Congress and now you’re hoping to be one — how will your time at ADAM inform that shift?

Michelle Bond: I have been working with members of Congress for my whole career in various capacities. So at ADAM, we are a standard-setting body. We work on market integrity for the crypto markets. We are obviously not a registered lobbying association or anything like that, but it's really impossible to talk about crypto and crypto policy without talking with Washington and the right leaders.

I would really love a seat on the House Financial Services Committee. I know that that's a really important and influential committee, and a committee that I've spent a lot of time with in my career. The House Ag [Agriculture] Committee has a lot of power, especially given the fact that Ag really does oversee the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission]. I think that's another important committee. I have talked with, throughout the course of my career, members from both of those committees. And I think it's important to know what the issues are that they've been focused on. I was on the Senate Banking Committee staff. I worked on Dodd-Frank repeal. I worked on Dodd-Frank technical corrections. I worked on the Jobs Act. I was on the Senate floor when the Jobs Act passed. I've written other policy in other contexts. I am obviously a lawyer as well. So I focused my career on economic policy, and that’s sort of ingrained in pretty much everything that I've done, but with a private sector focus.

The Block: This is a challenging time for crypto given liquidity struggles, the cascade in prices and increased regulatory scrutiny. How have you been balancing your current role as CEO of ADAM as you embark on a run for office?

Michelle Bond: I'm working really hard because I have two important jobs. Ideally, both of them are for our country and for American innovation and leadership and for jobs and for inflation and the economy — they're very much aligned. 

I have no intention of leaving ADAM. I really had a leadership role in building this organization into what it is today. And I'm not leaving Adam unless the higher calling is available to me. I have every intention of winning this election, and then we'll be discussing the transition with the board. We have had these conversations already. I would say that I think a lot of the issues are aligned right now. We'll see what happens in the future with the election, and I do intend to win. And when I do win, it means that ADAM will have a new head. 

The Block: While crypto wouldn’t be your main priority in office, what might your ideal crypto policy look like on the Hill?

Michelle Bond: We [ADAM] have a lot of sort of precedent. We have been extremely busy on the advocacy front via the legal work that we've done. So we have a ton of comment letters that we've put out. And really we've been very, very focused on the best ways for crypto to be regulated. And we were proponents of Senator Lummis's bill that she just advanced. We thought that there were some really great ways to regulate the space that were not going to be harmful to jobs, innovation, leadership, inflation, etc. Some of that is detailed in Senator Lummis's bill. 

The industry's voice absolutely should be heard. I think when you look at ways for the CFTC to have enhanced regulatory authority, when you look at ways for the assets to not be deemed securities, perhaps that there is some way for there to be a disclosure regime, for there to potentially be a self-regulatory organization for the crypto markets such that the SEC is not regulating the entire crypto market. There are a lot of different ideas that we've been discussing and we’re on the record on a lot of different comment letters. Those are the types of things that I think we should be focused on.

Stablecoin legislation is like the low-hanging fruit. At this point, I can't believe something hasn't passed. I think that there's going to be bipartisan support for something on stablecoins. And these are the types of issues that I would expect to be focused on.

The Block: While you’re running for a federal seat, which can’t necessarily affect New York state’s frameworks related to crypto, what might you be able to do or hope to do to advocate for crypto businesses in New York?

Michelle Bond: I would absolutely love to have a voice in that. So obviously, the New York DFS [Department of Financial Services] did come out with the BitLicense framework and one of the things that they have talked a lot about is updating that framework. I think as a member of Congress, I think I could be helpful on that front. The other thing is that New York, not just district one, across the state, you have a lot of friendly people on fintech and innovation and wanting to maintain leadership.

I think that statewide there are a lot of different things that can be done. A lot of states have appointed an innovation head or done things with their laws. New York has some stablecoin standards that have been really helpful in many ways. There are a lot of ways New York can play a leadership role, especially given that everyone on the equity side acknowledges that U.S. has the deepest and most liquid markets in the world and when you look at where those markets are based, it's New York. 

And I think that New York can be the real leader on not just financial markets, but crypto. I think that I would have a lot more power as a member of Congress. But at the end of the day, we do need to tackle what's first and what's the most painful point for the residents of Long Island. And that really is that people can't afford to fill up their tank to go to work. And I think that it's really important we keep our eye on the ball and manage the most critical issues first.