Layer One: Avalanche Policy Coalition sets its sights on major policy shifts worldwide

Layer One•February 5, 2026, 12:00PM EST
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Layer One: Avalanche Policy Coalition sets its sights on major policy shifts worldwide
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Welcome to Layer One: the newsletter and podcast on the intersection of crypto and the real world. Hosted by Steven Gates and Kelvin Sparks, Layer One brings you inside the conversations driving blockchain forward.

Last week on the podcast we were joined by Lee Schneider, general counsel at AVA Labs, and Salman Banaei, general counsel at Plume, to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of new crypto market legislation. In this week’s newsletter, we’re taking a global perspective to track major regulatory shifts around the world.

Avalanche Policy Coalition sets its sights on major policy shifts worldwide

This week, Layer One guest Lee Schneider was named as the first Advisory Council chair for the Avalanche Policy Coalition, an initiative to educate and influence lawmakers in the US and abroad. The coalition is a collaborative effort between four pillars of the Avalanche ecosystem: Ava Labs, the Avalanche Foundation, and two AVAX treasury firms, each of which is represented on the council.

The council has its sights set on several key issues for 2026: advocating for a censorship-free internet, establishing token classification frameworks, and resisting attempts to clamp down on Web3 infrastructure firms — such as wallet and node providers — by designating them as financial intermediaries. More generally, they aim to promote a uniformity of approach to these issues across world markets.

 

The top item for us is to make sure that there's some global synergy in the regulations and laws. If things are too different [...] you end up with this disjunction between how things work in different jurisdictions.
– Lee Schneider
 

This comes at a time when US legislators find themselves still mired in disagreements between the crypto and banking industries, after a Monday summit at the White House failed to break the deadlock over stablecoin yield rewards. Jaret Seiberg of investment bank TD Cowen suggested a presidential intervention might now be necessary to finally press on towards a resolution.

But while Congress is getting tangled in the weeds of industry disputes, other countries are moving ahead with their own crypto market legislation. The Avalanche Policy Coalition’s mission statement outlines a broad scope, with an eye to influencing policy across Europe, Asia and other key world markets.

In recent years, attitudes to crypto have thawed across even some previously hostile jurisdictions. Within the past few months Ghana, Turkmenistan and Morocco have all announced reversions of their strict cryptocurrency bans. Russia — previously a staunchly crypto-hostile country — plans to roll out its own comprehensive market framework this summer, which will permit retail investors to invest up to a yearly cap of around $3,900.

This comes after the EU implemented the sweeping Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations at the end of 2024, which standardized the regulatory approach to crypto across the bloc. Most member states have since passed domestic legislation to align with MiCA’s frameworks, with Poland the lone outlier after a veto by the country’s president in December.  

Australia and the UK, meanwhile, are seeking to follow suit in 2026. Both countries have announced plans to fold their domestic crypto markets into existing regulatory frameworks. In practice, this will likely mean making cryptoassets subject to the same broadstrokes rules as traditional financial products. Critics have called the approach a blunt instrument, arguing that overbearing compliance requirements risk pushing Web3 firms into the arms of more welcoming jurisdictions.
 
The UK in particular has come under fire for some of its more restrictive proposals. For example, the Bank of England last year suggested that stablecoin holdings for individuals could be capped at £20,000 in the interest of financial stability (a measure that makes the US approach look highly hospitable in comparison).
 
It's clear crypto advocates will have a lot on their plate for the rest of this year.

Podcast Recap: Two GCs on the new legal foundation shaping crypto's future

In the latest edition of the Layer One podcast. We were joined by Lee Schneider, general counsel at AVA Labs, and Salman Banaei, general counsel at Plume, to discuss how the Senate bill turns crypto's legal foundation from sand to stone, and what that means for the next generation of builders.

Subscribe to Layer One on Youtube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the Headlines: The stories driving the conversation this week

  • The US has placed sanctions on two UK-registered crypto exchanges for processing transactions linked to the Iranian regime. Exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion are alleged to have processed $1 billion of transactions linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, representing more than half of their total trade volume over the past three years. The sanctions are part of a broader response to Iran’s national crackdown on street protests. 
  • Canada’s CIRO regulator has introduced new rules for digital asset custody. Under the new provisions, custodial platforms will be split into four tiers that determine the levels of client assets they’re allowed to hold (from 40% to 100%). The goal is to create failsafes against massive deposit losses from fraud, theft and business collapses.
  • President Trump has denied knowledge of a $500 million investment in World Liberty Financial linked to Abu Dhabi’s ruling dynasty. A House probe has been launched into the payment, which saw a UAE-based investment firm acquire a 49% stake in the project several days before the president’s inauguration. The incident is likely to pour fuel on already fiery discussions surrounding conflict of interest laws in crypto.

Top of the Charts: US enforcement actions have cooled off under the current SEC regime

Keep up with the latest in tokenization, DeFi, and institutional adoption by subscribing to Layer One's weekly market insights.

Layer One is brought to you in collaboration with Avalanche.


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