# Crypto Regulatory Shifts and Tokenization Strategy

**Podcast:** The Milk Road Show
**Published:** 2026-09-16

## Transcript

I also don't think it undercuts the momentum of the industry general.
The Clarity Act has finally failed, for now at least.
But how does crypto move forward from here?
What is the right and wrong way to do tokenization?
And what does all this mean for crypto investors?
Hello and welcome to Milk Road Crypto, the show that knows that although it would have been nice to have a bill pass into law, it will be nice to be able to stop talking about the Clarity Act.
I'm your host, John Gill, and today is Tuesday, September 15th.
And today we are joined by Ashley Ebersole.
Ashley is the co-founder and chief leader.
legal officer at TX, the tokenization platform born out of Soligentic and Corium and the merger that they just went through.
Before that, he was the general counselor at 0x.
But before any of that, he was actually inside at the SEC.
He was in the enforcement division, as I understand, which makes him an expert on crypto.
So if that sounds good to you, make sure you like and subscribe.
Share this episode with somebody who's going to enjoy it.
And as a reminder, our podcast today is free and that would not be possible without our wonderful sponsors at Nexo, the digital asset platform that lets you trade, earn and borrow all in one place.
Keep an ear out for more information on them later in the episode.
But for now, welcome to the Milk Road Show.
Ashley, sir, how are you today?
I'm great.
Thanks, John.
Great to be here with you.
Thanks so much for having me on.
I'm glad to talk to you.
I wanted to speak with somebody who had some inside information on, or at least some experience, not information, but some experience with the SEC.
The Clarity Act has failed today.
What's your reaction to this news out of Washington?
And sort of where do you see us going from here now that the bill seems to finally have been killed?
I think clarity for the second half of this year has looked increasingly doubtful.
As we got farther and farther into the year, you start doing the dance that was done a few times over with Genius Act of you don't get it in the first six months of the year.
And you say, all right, well, maybe before the August recess.
That doesn't happen.
Then it's, okay, well, maybe in the fall, you know, before midterms.
But the problem is people come back in the fall and...
If you're an elected official and you're running for reelection, even if you're not, if so many in your legislature are, that's going to draw a lot of the necessary attention of all those folks who would be needed to drive clarity forward.
And then, you know, if...
If it fails again there, then you've got the lame duck.
So this happened for a few years with Genius before finally it got the momentum to be passed and to become law.
So I don't view this as we'll never see these provisions again.
We'll never see clarity again.
I view this as this round may be unsuccessful this year.
it would be reintroduced, I mean, especially or something with the major provisions that of clarity would be reintroduced in the new session in the new year.
Okay, so another version of this may come back at some point.
Let's talk about the regulatory side of this as opposed to the legislative side.
The SEC and the CFTC have been doing a joint initiative called Project Crypto to try to give some regulatory guidance to the industry.
A lot of people are expecting them to sort of step up now that the bill seems to be dead for the moment.
What are your thoughts on this?
What are you expecting to hear from these agencies in the aftermath of this vote?
And what do you think are the next steps here from the regulatory side?
I think you already saw the market regulators, the SEC and the CFTC, you know, to your point, making moves to take regulatory measures that for which they did not need clarity, the Clarity Act.
So, you know, I would just expect that to continue and to intensify even because I think, you know, you've got very.
forward-thinking leadership at both agencies, and you've got leadership at both agencies that wants to provide a lot of the, it's hard because there's just no better word than clarity, a lot of the clarity that the Clarity Act would have provided, but in terms of legislative measures.
So I think I would expect to see them continue to do what they can do without needing any additional legislation and push for finding that these assets are within their regulatory mandate from their authorizing statutes and that, you know, they're going to rule make around them to put in place various of the provisions that you would have seen if clarity had been effective.
It's just a question of, you know, if there had been legislation.
they would have had to rule make to implement that legislation.
Now, in the absence of legislation, they're rule making to fill that gap.
Hey guys, it's LG jumping in here to let you know about an incredible interview that John did the other day with the legendary Raul Pal.
It dropped on September 15th and they got into why crypto has struggled this year, what needs to happen for it to finally move, and why Raul thinks crypto could become the financial infrastructure for the entire AI economy.
They also got into how Raul himself is actually investing for the cycle.
We also recorded a Milk Road Pro after hours for this one, which is where we sit down after the fact to talk about how we're expressing some of Raul's views in our own portfolios.
So check your pod feed for the episode and head over to Milk Road Pro for the exclusive after hours at the link below.
What do you want to see from them in terms of filling that gap?
In other words, what are some of these pieces from the legislation that maybe isn't going to go through now that you would like to see prioritized from the regulators?
And yeah, what would be the top of your priority list there?
First, the agencies could agree on a more specific and delineated division between their various authorities.
I mean, I think if you're a lawyer, it.
is a little more clear where those lines fall.
But, you know, I think a lot of the complaints with regulation in this space is I shouldn't have to be a lawyer to be able to read and understand, you know, what and how you need to do this.
You know, I mean, there's there going to be a certain.
number of legal costs that are involved with starting up a business anyways.
But in order to discern whether or not I'm an entrepreneur, is this even a viable business?
Is this something I can do in the way I want to do it?
It would be helpful to have a little more certainty around, yes, I think I can do it because that regulatory provision tells me I'll be under the SEC.
And so under the SEC, I know what...
those regulatory measures look like are under the CFTC, you know, whatever it is.
So I think that's probably one of the things.
And then I think, you know, some of the protective provisions around software engineers and validators and others who, you know, I don't think have refused to be active in this space, but, you know, have always had some concern of if there's not.
an obvious target and something goes wrong here, am I going to be the one on the hook for this from a regulatory perspective or otherwise?
So I think clarifying that a little bit by regulation would be helpful.
And, you know, I think that that only gets a little more urgent in this current environment because, you know, you don't want the people who would be sort of building the infrastructure for this industry and standing up, you know, entities in this industry to suddenly say, you know, there's too much risk.
I'm going to step back.
How much risk do you think there is from a perspective of, say, like the SEC rolls out some regulation, the CFTC rolls out some regulation?
Maybe in the future we get a different Congress, a different president that are less friendly to the industry.
How much risk is there of them actually rolling back regulations once they're promulgated into the market in the United States versus like how much actual staying power do some of these regulatory bodies actually have?
And what's your like read of that landscape?
Well, that's one of the values of legislation is it has more permanence.
I mean, it can be undone also.
It's just a question of how difficult is it to undo it?
You know, if you get something passed by Congress now and the, you know, the problem, I guess you're talking about the Democratic Party is able to advance in the legislature and, you know, flip Congress that, you know, probably easier, not probably.
Easier said than done.
You know, it's politics.
It's just it's turning an aircraft carrier in some ways to get movements made there.
But, you know, you've got to go through that process.
You've got to change the political complexion to want to undo what was just done, you know, a few years ago.
Then, you know, assuming you do that.
You've got to draft legislation.
You've got to get support for that legislation.
You've got to go through a whole long political process.
The regulatory process, you know, and it's a double edged sword, is easier and quicker to implement regulatory measures as rules because it's really just you draft a rule, you put it out for comment and then, you know, you process the comments and you end up.
enacting what you're going to enact.
There's probably going to be some litigation against whatever you put out.
It's just the nature of how these things go.
But you would have a rule.
But that is a lot quicker explanation than my explanation of legislation.
And the problem or the risk is that the subsequent administration at whatever the agency is that put out that rule can come into office and do the exact same thing and unring the bell that you rang, you know, however long ago with that new regulation.
You know, so it's really just a matter of how much staying power does it have in terms of how easy is it to undo.
Right.
Okay.
So it's something that'll help and it'll be difficult to change, but not impossible.
And legislation would be a stronger vote for the market or a stronger bedrock for the market to build on, rather.
I wanted to ask your thoughts on something that we saw recently out of the SEC around updates to the transfer agent rules.
These are rules that haven't been updated in, I think, almost 40 years, if not longer.
And it seems like they're trying to make these changes and updates to this.
specifically to allow for more things involving tokenization, tokenized assets, and transfer agents moving those around.
What's your read on this?
What does this unlock?
And how big of a change would this be for the digital assets industry and for tokenization overall?
It would be a substantial change.
It would be, basically, you would have, you know, the blockchain is a ledger.
fundamentally speaking.
And so it would allow that ledger to, for the first time, be the authoritative ledger on which transactions and crypto assets are recorded.
You're seeing it initially in the context of securities issued on chain and that kind of thing.
I mean, it's all going to be, you're in the SEC context, so they're all going to be securities in some way.
But I guess when I say securities, I mean, equities and that kind of thing.
seismically change the complexion of an industry, which to your point has been a sleepier corner of the SEC regulated entity space, but perhaps no more.
Could you tell us a little bit more about your current role and what TX is?
Because you went from, you know, being inside at the SEC to defending a lot of crypto companies during your time at 0x, and now you're building things and working with a platform called TX.
But walk us through in plain English what this is.
What was this merger of Soligentic and Corium?
What does that unlock?
And give us some context for this.
When you said I was defending crypto companies that I was...
I first led the crypto practice at a law firm called Brian Cave for three years or so.
And then I went to ZeroX.
So I was defending more people at Brian Cave than at ZeroX.
You were fighting the good fight in any capacity.
Yeah, exactly.
I was entity agnostic.
But TX, I had known the team for a while or the team behind it.
And these were the predecessor entities.
And they reached out and were very interested in asset tokenization and thought that that was, you know, a movement that was overdue.
And I agreed.
I mean, I have always thought that the more connections you can make between crypto markets and traditional finance, the more use cases you have, the more.
liquidity it creates.
So, you know, I was interested and ended up joining them a little more than a year ago to lead this effort and get the entities stood up and work on stock tokenization alongside regulated entities and other aspects, including a marketplace for tokenized assets that we're trying to, that we're standing up to reduce a lot of the siloing that has occurred in the asset tokenization industry in the past, where you might know, oh, I can go to this entity if I want to transact and tokenize real estate.
I can go to that entity if I want to transact and tokenize intellectual property rights, another entity for tokenized commodities, that kind of thing.
But each of those had their own liquidity, none of which was sort of interchangeable.
So the goal of TX is to provide the TX app, which spans every asset class.
Really, we're just the technology layer, the neutral interface through which people reach regulated parties with whom they can transact in all of these various asset classes.
And that was what we wanted to bring on chain.
referenced smart tokens earlier that that was part of what got me interested in tx because the smart token is builds functionality into the token itself that you would usually see at the smart contract level such as you know whitelisting blacklisting uh freezing clawbacks that kind of thing and i think that functionality like that um as your expanding the user base for crypto assets and the universe of entities issuing crypto assets and the geographies in which these assets are permitted is immensely important because, you know, we met with we've met with regulators, we've met with counterparties and that functionality, I didn't even know you could do that, you know, and so the ability to have all of that programmed in at the token level.
really struck me as transformative.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So there's some things that are being unlocked here that are important.
Could you talk to me about your thoughts on the right and wrong way for the industry to go about tokenization and what the view of that looks like from TX?
Because there's been a lot of attention on Robinhood chain, what they're doing, but the AMC CEO called it vile.
And it seems like everyone's debating this from different angles.
What's your perspective on this?
What would you like to see happening here?
I don't have a strong view beyond the entire premise of all of this industry and of financial industry generally, and actually the U.S.
financial industry, has been transparency is what breathes the greatest liquidity, is what attracts the most users and the most issuers.
Because at the end of the day, a transparent market is one that you can trust.
And the users can trust and that purchasers can trust and issuers because everyone can see everything everyone else is doing.
It's, you know, I don't want to say it's radical transparency, but I mean, you know, the SEC is a regulator of information, you know, on a basic level of what information you have to provide, what information can you do you have to know?
What can you not know?
Like that kind of thing.
So, you know, I think that having.
Disclosure and transparency as pillars of asset tokenization is critical.
And in the United States, these assets are securities, so that transparency comes with the asset.
Abroad, things can look different.
In the United States, things can look different.
But as long as that transparency is being honored, then there should be full information for purchasers as to what they're getting.
If they're getting a token that says this is a share of AMC and if you hold it, you're a shareholder of AMC, that's a different thing than this is a token that says that tracks the price of AMC.
And if you buy it, you can put it in your digital wallet and see the price move up and down, but you don't have any shareholder rights or anything.
Those are different, but those are both assets for which the market has an appetite.
I think it's shown that.
So I don't think that one is right or wrong necessarily.
I think that each has a user base who's interested in it.
Okay.
So that's, I think, a helpful perspective that it's a big market.
People want different kinds of exposure, different kinds of products.
you know, the market can figure out which ones they want and which ones find product market fit.
From your perspective, I mean, that's, I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was going to say, I mean, that's, that's a free market perspective, right?
I mean, some people, you can have a more protectionist viewpoint of, you know, no, like people shouldn't be allowed to buy these things because they might, they have stock in the name and, you know, or they, they have a reference to the company.
people are going to get misled or confused or whatever.
Yes, I mean, I understand that perspective.
I think the history of the US financial markets has been that greater liberty to with what you issue.
And then if there are problems with it, that's addressed more on the back end of, you know, enforcement, that kind of thing.
You know, that's the approach that has proven most robust so far.
You know, one of the weird things about crypto is that the longer you're in it, the more accounts you seem to end up with.
You buy in one place, trade somewhere else, earn yield somewhere else.
And if you actually need capital, you end up having to sell something that you probably wanted to keep.
That's why we at Milk Road are partnering with Nexo.
These guys keep the whole thing under one account.
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So if you need liquidity, but you don't want to give up your position, or you're already holding crypto and you want to be able to do more with it, I think Nexo is worth your time.
We love working with them.
I think you will too.
Tell them Milk Road sent you.
Appreciate the thoughts on that.
How big of a hurdle, or let's say maybe a bottleneck, do you think regulation...
or legislation is right now to tokenization overall, right?
Like, is this a thing that is causing a lot of friction at TX that you would like to see some help with?
Is this something that needs to come, but it's not really like putting a choke point on things right now?
Like, how do you see that?
And what's your perspective there?
It's not a huge barrier.
I think what we're doing and what some others have done versions of.
is, you know, our products that for which there's an appetite.
But, you know, I do think, as we talked about at the outset, that for folks who are looking to start businesses and want to know what they can do, you know, not having the, I'm going to have to say it again, the clarity that the Clarity Act would provide, you know, can...
can forestall some people.
I mean, I guess the way I would look at it is it's not necessarily going to block anything that TX is trying to do.
But, you know, that's because I don't want to sound like I'm taking too much credit, but that's because, you know, I'm my securities background.
Like, you know, I know this stuff.
I've been doing it for a long time.
But, you know, a founder should not have to have that background to be able to get a useful idea off the ground.
And, you know, I think that that's where its value comes in.
So, you know, I wouldn't say it's a blocker for the industry as a whole, but there's probably a set of founders ideas that are being stymied by the lack of legislation.
And so, you know.
We want to be the leader in this area and we want to unlock as much activity in this area as we can.
And if you're going to do that, then you've got to have everyone able to move forward, not just people who are deep into these issues.
It's got to be that other area that is a little bit stymied at present.
Right.
And I think that the SEC is.
particularly focused on trying to give some innovation exemptions to sort of help with that problem.
I want to get your thoughts on the intersection of tokenization and artificial intelligence, because several of our guests recently have talked about this and given some thoughts on how they're building for AI agents and how they think tokenization is like this super cycle that's just getting started.
From your perspective at TX, how much are you thinking about the rise of AI agents, the agentic economy, and how that impacts the products that you're designing and offering at TX today?
We assume that AI agents are going to be interacting with our products.
I think that's a given, where we are right now in the tech cycle.
But what exactly that looks like...
from a legal perspective is a little bit of a different question because I don't think we've built out a ton of specific legal mandates around that technology.
We have existing mandates around the FTC, the CFTC, that sort of thing, but we don't necessarily have AI-specific mandates.
where this technology is not interacting with financial instruments or something, there may be a little bit of a dearth in terms of guardrails on what can and can't be done.
I think that's a lot of the discussion you're seeing right now.
But from our perspective, you've got to assume that an AI agent is going to be used, if not already, in the near future to transact in your products.
Do you think that from your perspective at TX that you have everything you need from the SEC and the CFTC in order to go about making these products accessible to AI agents in a way that is compliant?
Or do you think that there is still more work that needs to be done and clarity?
Sorry to come back to that word again, but clarity that needs to be given there.
I think we have what we need to move forward.
But I think the role of autonomous agents in financial transactions is an open question that, you know, the US and other countries haven't really began to answer.
Maybe some others have, but, you know, we don't have specific law on that.
We have principal agent law, which is pretty old law.
But, you know, something like that is probably what they would use.
But I do think.
We're going to build out, regardless of what happens with the more seismic, bigger questions of, you know, what if an agent, you know, blows up, you know, a city or, you know, whatever it is, you know, these sort of doomsday scenarios that were, that have been floated in recent days.
There's a lot more granular issue of, you know, if an agent does X while performing a financial transaction and something happens, you know.
Who's on the hook?
And how do you address that?
Not even who's on the hook, but yeah, how do you address that?
How, if someone's wrong, how did they recover from that agent?
Or if the agent loses money that belongs to the developer behind it, how does that all work?
And so I think that there are gaps there that will be filled.
They're not impeding.
TX's progress on moving forward, but I'll be interested to watch that play out.
Ashley, this is kind of like a big headline marquee defeat for crypto, even if it's, you know.
maybe not existential and we'll get regulatory clarity in other ways.
The markets are down a little bit today.
What would you say to people who are wondering, is this going to hold up or stop or slow down like the embrace of tokenization or digital assets in the United States?
Do you think we continue on or do you think this is like a major wall or just a little speed bump?
How would you frame this?
Well, I absolutely continue on.
You know, the crypto goes through cycles, you know, and that's.
part of the price action you're seeing.
But, you know, obviously, this was a legislative effort that had momentum behind it, and it was not successful in this instance.
I think, you know, the most instructive scenario to look at is the Genius Act.
That took three years, I think, to pass, and it went through this cycle several times before it finally became law.
So I don't view Clarity's failure to be passed in this first year as at all determinative of what will happen with the provisions in the Clarity Act overall or as some sort of coda on the crypto industry more generally.
I think it was some...
To be fair, there was a disagreement in the crypto industry of whether or not this was even something that was that desirable.
There were folks who really wanted it and there were others who didn't.
And there were folks who said, I don't really like it that much, but I think it's important to have legislation.
So I want it for that reason.
So, you know, not everyone will react the same way, but I also don't think it's.
It's at all a undercuts the momentum of the industry generally.
Do you think that there's any I've heard this suggested and I want to get your thoughts on this.
Some people have said that rather than trying to pass all of these things in one big bill, that now maybe there's a chance to break the Clarity Act down into smaller parts, compromise on different things along the way, and maybe get a few smaller bills through that.
just like you said, might actually be overall net better for the industry because they would be a little more nuanced and specific.
Do you think that's likely to happen?
Or do you think if this bill comes back, it will still be one big act?
I think it depends on what happens in the midterm elections upcoming.
And I would think it's a lot of what do politicians think can be passed.
And if they decide, you know what?
A comprehensive bill would be great, but we tried that and we saw what happened.
And now with a reconstituted Congress, if, you know, that may have a dramatically different complexion or just different, you know, we don't think that the comprehensive bill is the way to go.
So, yeah, doing it more piecemeal may be the way that they choose.
But my guess is that would be dictated by.
what's politically possible.
Ashley, I really appreciate you coming on and giving some thoughts on all of this.
I know you've been close to this industry and to its, let's say, touch points with legislation and regulation for a long time.
So your wisdom is greatly appreciated.
Thank you for being on Milkroad Crypto.
Where can we send people to find more of you and your work online?
Follow me on LinkedIn, on Twitter is where I tend to write.
You know, it's been great being with you.
So, you know, hopefully I'll see you again.
And this will be a place they can go to.
Well, I hope we can catch up later on.
I hope we'll be in a better place from a regulatory and legislative perspective.
Then Ashley, thanks for being here.
I really enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you all for joining us.
I hope you all learned something today.
So until next time, stay safe, stay educated, stay bullish.
And we will see you all on the next episode of the Milk Road Show.
Thanks for being here, everyone.
Bye.
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