Bitcoin Has a DC Policy Institute, So Does Solana. Where’s Ethereum?

The popular line in D.C. these days is that 2025 is the most important year crypto policy will ever have. Federal agencies are reshaping their digital asset policies at a mile a minute; foundational crypto bills are sprinting through both chambers of Congress; meanwhile, the president continues to enact policies the industry has craved for years. 

In response, backers of the world’s biggest blockchains have rushed to set up specialized shops in Washington, to make the most of crypto’s big moment. At the start of the year, the Bitcoin Policy Institute—which previously had only three full-time staff members—tripled in size and set up physical D.C. offices for the first time. Earlier this month, two of Washington’s top crypto lobbyists made waves by joining forces to create the Solana Policy Institute.

So where, among all the noise, is Ethereum? 

The dominant blockchain, which birthed decentralized applications and smart contracts at scale, is undeniably one of crypto’s biggest players. But the chain’s leadership has also suffered a reputation, for some time, as caring more about technological principles than the often essential but less lofty task of courting public opinion.

There is no Ethereum-branded policy shop currently active in Washington. Nor are you likely to run into any lobbyist in the city who would describe their job as solely dedicated to advocating for Ethereum during the second Trump administration. But when recently pressed on the question, some of the blockchain’s top political allies argued there’s nothing about that setup that needs to change anytime soon. 

“There is not one iota of anxiety or concern about the degree, or the quality, of engagement about Ethereum,” Bill Hughes, Consensys’ director of Global Regulatory Matters, told Decrypt of the current state of play in Trump’s Washington. 

Hughes’ full-time gig chiefly concerns shepherding Consensys, the Ethereum software giant, through all manner of regulatory hurdles. But the former Trump official, who held various positions in the White House and at the DOJ during the president’s first term, also considers representing the Ethereum network more broadly to be a crucial part of his job.

In recent weeks, Hughes has taken meetings at the White House and the SEC to discuss Ethereum’s long-term future. But, the executive says, signaling Ethereum’s accomplishments in that arena is simply unnecessary.

“We don’t need a marketing exercise for our policy work,” he said. “And maybe other people do.”

While Hughes said he welcomed the recent creation of the Solana Policy Institute (“The more the merrier,” he said), he also colored the move as a marketing play—one he says Ethereum would never need, given the chain is so “naturally” dominant in policy conversations. 

Hughes recounted a recent SEC meeting focused on crypto staking where, he said, agency staff discussed the practice “completely in the context of Ethereum”—prompting a Solana-focused attendee to “stand up and be like, ‘Well, also, Solana does it a little bit differently.’”

“MEV in Solana? Never discussed,” Hughes continued, speaking generally of conversations in D.C. about the specialized practice of extracting additional revenue for network miners and validators on decentralized networks. “To the extent MEV is a policy issue, it will be discussed in the context of Ethereum, full stop.”

Hughes added the same is true of policy discussions related to other issues like staking ETPs—Wall Street-traded products seeking to pass on rewards earned from staking cryptocurrencies like ETH and SOL to investors. Though regulations in that arena certainly concern both Ethereum and Solana, Hughes maintains Ethereum has been—and will always be—the focus of such conversations in Washington.

Representatives for the Solana Policy Institute declined to be interviewed for this story.

Danny Ryan, a longtime Ethereum developer who coordinated the blockchain’s 2022 merge, proudly considers the network’s lobbying strategies superior to other chains because of their decentralized character.

“Ethereum itself does well by having many, many advocates,” he recently told Decrypt. “True decentralization, rather than an entirely centralized play.” 

Ryan considers himself one soldier in Ethereum’s army of the many. Last month, he joined Etherealize, a new organization dedicated to streamlining the network’s relationship with Wall Street. Every so often, Ryan also makes his way down to D.C. to represent the blockchain in policy conversations. Earlier this month, he joined the same Ethereum-focused White House meeting attended by Consensys’ Bill Hughes. 

As with Hughes, Ryan’s full-time job isn’t representing Ethereum’s interests in Washington. And the software developer acknowledges that, in hyper-centralized ecosystems like Washington and Wall Street, it can be crucial for powerful people to know where to go when they want to liaise directly on a given subject.

“But that’s something that we’re trying to do,” he said. “To be a coherent voice… that picks up the phone and gets on a call.”

Earlier this year, amid increasing anger at the Ethereum Foundation over its leadership’s perceived lack of concern for matters of public relations, Ryan’s name was floated by many as an ideal choice for executive director—given his perceived ability to lobby hard for the network and represent its cultural identity. But ultimately, he was not appointed to the job. 

More than other one-time Ethereum Foundation bigwigs, Ryan is willing to state outright that the Ethereum ecosystem can sometimes struggle with marketing—even if such considerations may not be existential. 

“There’s certainly a vacuum,” Ryan acknowledged. But the developer maintains that his role, and the role of other part-time contributors to the decentralized Ethereum advocacy apparatus, is to “help fill that vacuum”—and in doing so create “a more coherent discussion and narrative.”