Michael Saylor said the crypto industry should keep moving under innovation-friendly rules from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Treasury Department and banking regulators, rather than accept the restrictions he sees in the final CLARITY compromise text.
He said the U.S. government is willing to modernize financial markets, and that the next two years should be used to get better financial products into the hands of more people.
Build products people actually want to use
For Saylor, the safest path is to build products that users find genuinely useful and distribute them widely. Lower costs, lower barriers to use, more useful services and stronger control over money would let users feel the value of innovation directly. That, he argued, creates a constituency with a real reason to defend innovation.
He said the strongest support base the industry can build is the public that actually benefits from these products.
Saylor also argued that stable and clear legal rules matter, but so does freedom to compete. Law can lock in a right for a long time, but it can also lock in a restriction for a long time. Before celebrating long-term certainty, he said, the industry should be clear about what exactly is being made permanent.
What Saylor objects to in the CLARITY compromise text
According to Saylor, the September version of the CLARITY compromise text would restrict service providers from giving rewards to customers. If a customer is only holding a payment stablecoin, a provider would not be allowed to pay rewards on that basis alone, except for qualifying activity-based rewards.
The proposal would also allow some reward mechanisms to be restricted if the Treasury determines that community banks are experiencing large-scale deposit outflows that are harmful to them.
Saylor drew a distinction between protecting banks from liquidity crises and protecting banks from being displaced by more competitive service providers. Financial stability requires sound regulation, he said, while competition requires customers to be free to choose better services. If technology lowers the cost of delivering financial services, consumers should share in those savings.
He also noted that the GENIUS Act already includes restrictions on stablecoin issuers paying interest or yield, though the exact application still depends on its effective-date provisions. If CLARITY fails, those restrictions would still remain in place. The question now, he said, is whether more limits should be added on top of that for service providers and reward structures.
The sandbox would still come with hard limits
Saylor said even the innovation sandbox in CLARITY would limit participating companies to 25 employees and cap each regulatory committee at 20 approved projects per year.
Those limits apply only to the sandbox itself, but he said they show how legislation can define the scale and boundaries of experimentation before the market has had a chance to show what is possible.
His preferred goal is a free market for financial innovation: clear rules, open access for new entrants, strong competition and customer choice. Protect property rights, require honest disclosure and punish fraud. Inside those boundaries, entrepreneurs should be able to test better technology and business models, and successful products should be allowed to grow.
Existing authority is already being used
Saylor said the U.S. government has already started opening that path.
On Sept. 17, the SEC used its existing authority to provide conditional exemptive relief for on-chain trading in certain tokenized stocks, he said. That does not mean the activity is unregulated. Investor protections and anti-fraud provisions under securities law still apply.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins described the approach as gradual, according to Saylor: let the market develop first, learn from how it operates, then write long-term rules after temporary relief.
CFTC Chair Michael Selig supports moving CLARITY forward, Saylor said, but has also pledged to use existing authority if the bill does not advance. Selig has asked staff to study rules for leveraged or margined crypto trading through regulated markets and to work with developers on lawful, compliant on-chain finance, he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has linked workable stablecoin rules to innovation, U.S. economic growth and the global role of the dollar. Saylor said practical rules can turn those goals into payment, commerce and financial services that people actually use.
He added that the CLARITY text itself preserves the SEC’s existing exemptive authority. That is the key point in his argument: current law already leaves substantial room for development, and the industry can keep pursuing those opportunities without treating new statutory restrictions as the price of progress.
As suitable rules and compliant market infrastructure take shape, he said, those benefits can spread across the broader digital asset economy.
The sectors he highlighted
Digital capital: Bitcoin (BTC)
Saylor said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has already lowered regulatory barriers for banks that want to provide crypto-asset custody. If workable custody rules are built on top of that, and if lending services with prudent risk controls are available, Bitcoin would become easier to hold, finance and use as collateral.
More institutions competing to serve Bitcoin holders would broaden market participation and improve liquidity, he said.
Digital credit: Stretch (STRC)
He described STRC, the company’s flagship digital credit product, as a preferred stock that connects Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury management business with investors seeking yield. Rules that support innovation could open the way for broader issuance and distribution, tokenized ownership interests and easier trading, while preserving the rights shareholders already have under law.
He added that compliant lending arrangements could also make STRC more usable as collateral, provided the terms are clear and risk disclosures are complete.
Digital equity: Strategy (MSTR)
Saylor said more compliant trading venues, simpler transfer processes and longer trading hours could widen participation in Strategy common stock and improve market liquidity. More efficient access to equity capital could help Bitcoin treasury companies finance growth and develop new financial products.
Modernized market infrastructure, he said, can benefit both issuers and shareholders.
Digital exchange: Coinbase (COIN)
Platforms such as Coinbase can combine crypto assets, securities, custody, payments and financing into a more complete and easier-to-use customer experience, Saylor said. Rules that support innovation would help properly regulated firms launch and integrate new products.
Broader market participation would create business opportunities for exchanges and give customers stronger competition on price and service.
Digital currency: Circle (USDC)
Saylor said USDC is a regulated U.S. dollar stablecoin issued by U.S.-based Circle through its affiliates, linking digital finance with everyday payments and global commerce.
Rules that support innovation could help Circle and its partners expand the use of digital dollars through faster settlement, programmable payments and integration with financial institutions, he said. That would help U.S. businesses reach new markets and make the dollar more useful globally.
Why these pieces reinforce each other
Saylor said these categories strengthen one another. Capital supports credit, equity finances companies, exchanges connect investors and issuers, and digital currency moves value between them. Developers can combine those capabilities into products that are more useful than any single component on its own.
Open competition, he said, allows more people to build, more ideas to face market testing and more value to reach customers.
He also said banks should be part of that future. They can compete around digital assets in custody, payments, product distribution and credit backed by digital assets. Incumbents and new entrants alike should win customers by offering better products and services. That, in his view, is how financial innovation improves the financial system.
Why speed matters
Saylor argued that innovation compounds. The earlier products reach the market, the earlier companies get feedback. Better products attract customers, distribution and investment, which then support the next round of improvements. Every year of delay means one less year of real benefits for users and one less year of practical experience for U.S. companies.
He said the gains extend beyond finance. Lower payment and financing costs can free up resources for investment, hiring and expansion. Faster settlement can put capital back to work sooner. Broader access to financial participation can connect savers with entrepreneurs. If U.S. companies have enough room to build and export these products and services, they can create global value while strengthening the U.S. economy.
One major argument for supporting CLARITY, he noted, is that the industry needs a law that protects it from future governments that may be hostile to digital assets.
Saylor agreed that durable law can protect rights and that some changes do require Congress. But he said no law can remove politics from regulation entirely. Future administrations will still make important decisions on rulemaking and enforcement. For that reason, the industry also needs a public support base large enough to raise the political cost of hostile policy.
His 50 million-user argument
Saylor asked readers to imagine 50 million American voters using digital financial products that improve their lives: cheaper payments, easier access to Bitcoin, securities products that are actually useful, yield products with transparent terms, and credit with more competitive pricing and conditions.
Those voters would then have something concrete to defend, he said. Restricting a technology that has not yet spread widely is politically different from taking away services that millions of people already rely on. A future government would have to explain why those customers should lose benefits they already have.
His target, he said, is 50 million genuinely satisfied users with a direct incentive to defend freedom of financial choice. The larger the user base, the higher the political cost of policy reversal. Sound rulemaking can strengthen the legal foundation, and both tasks matter.
Before products exist, he said, there are no customers to speak for them. Once products are widely used, households, businesses, advisers, developers and banks can explain what they want preserved. Value that has already been proven in public use carries more weight in legislation than promises about what might be created in the future.
Saylor said user support has to be earned through products. Those products should be useful, easy to understand and reliable in both favorable and unfavorable markets. Transparent terms, honest risk disclosure, easy usability and the right to switch providers all help build trust. Wide deployment can then turn that trust into durable support.
He said the industry should use 2027 and 2028 to scale products that are genuinely useful, convert temporary exemptive relief into long-term rules, and pursue targeted legislation where additional authority or protection is truly needed. Success, in his view, should be measured by how much value is created for customers and for the economy.
Saylor’s argument ends there: let the digital asset industry innovate quickly in a free market, create as much value as possible for the U.S. and global economies, and push products into broad use so millions of people have a reason to defend the competition and freedom to innovate that made them possible.
Only when more people actually use digital innovation and benefit from it, he said, will the industry gain broad public support and more durable protection.