American Innovation Project launches fellowship to bring crypto expertise to Capitol Hill

The American Innovation Project is launching a new fellowship program for recent college graduates to work alongside lawmakers as Congress moves forward on sweeping legislation to regulate the cryptocurrency industry.

The nonprofit, known as AIP and funded by Coinbase and a16z, said the program will be geared toward recent college graduates or those graduating in the spring of 2026.

"Policymakers are making decisions today that will shape America's technological leadership for decades, and it is critical that they are equipped with staff intimately familiar with how these systems and technologies work," said Allie Page, AIP’s executive director, in a statement.

Over the past year, lawmakers in Washington D.C. have accelerated efforts to advance legislation that would divide regulatory oversight of the crypto industry between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Over the summer, the House Financial Services Committee, the House Agriculture Committee, and then the full House passed the Clarity Act, with garnered support from Democrats.

Over on the Senate side, crypto market structure legislation is teed up for a vote in the Senate Agriculture Committee, while the Senate Banking Committee needs to set a new hearing date after talks fell through after Coinbase pulled its support earlier this month.

Fellows in the AIP program will go through a "multi-week virtual curriculum focused on emerging technologies like crypto, AI, biotech, and defense tech in Spring 2026, followed by hands-on training through year-long placements in congressional offices of both political parties on the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees," according to the statement.

The fellows will also get a stipend, and the program is fully funded by AIP, the nonprofit said.

Launched in August, the AIP aims educate policymakers in the U.S. on the rapidly evolving landscape of emerging technologies like crypto and artificial intelligence. Several crypto-focused entities are backing AIP, including Kraken, Coinbase, the National Cryptocurrency Association, Paradigm, the Solana Policy Institute, and the Digital Currency Group (DCG). The organization received seed funding from the Cedar Innovation Foundation as well as $1 million from Digital Currency Group.