Paul Ryan to chair Paradigm’s Crypto Policy Council

Web3 venture capital firm Paradigm has launched a Crypto Policy Council that includes former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) and former US Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY), among other political figures, the company announced Monday.

The eight-member bipartisan council will advise Paradigm’s management and assist the company in “telling[ing] the story of Web3 in Washington and around the world.”

Ryan will lead the council as a senior advisor alongside Chris Brummer, director of Georgetown’s Institute of International Economic Law.

Marta Belcher, the only tech-native member of the policy council, currently serves as a special advisor at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, working as an attorney focusing on blockchain and emerging technologies.

“Addressing cryptopolicy challenges requires a variety of perspectives and experiences,” Justin Slaughter, Paradigm’s head of policy, said in a tweet on Monday. “This team has it all.”

Other Washington veterans appointed to the council include Deb Callahan, former president of the League of Conservation Voters; Makan Delrahim, former Assistant United States Attorney; Nicole Elam, President and CEO of the National Bankers Association; and Parker Poling, former chief of staff to Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who is widely expected to lead the powerful House Financial Services Committee, should Republicans retake the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

What remains unclear, however, is the extent to which Paradigm’s new council will act as an advisory committee versus a direct lobbying arm for the crypto company as it navigates impending crypto regulations and legislation currently being debated in Washington.

A spokesperson for Paradigm did not respond to questions from Decrypt regarding the Political Council members’ compensation for their services; The spokesman also did not clarify whether Paradigm will consider these council members as lobbyists and register them as such.

Late last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez (D-NY), among other Democratic lawmakers, circulated letters to federal financial regulators including the SEC and CFTCand asking them to clarify their policies to prevent former employees from applying for jobs in the crypto sector.

“Crypto firms have hired hundreds of former government officials,” the letter said. “We are concerned that the crypto revolving door risks undermining policymaking and undermining public confidence in our financial regulators.”

The letter — and Paradigm’s push into federal policymaking terrain — comes at a time when financial regulators and lawmakers appear poised to make landmark rulings on crypto’s regulatory fate.

A divisive “DeFi kill” bill that would see the majority of the crypto industry regulated by the CFTC currently circulating around the capital, unfinished.Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, a federal judge ruled that decentralized file-sharing platform LBRY violated federal securities laws by offering its native token, LBC, in a move that some called an “extraordinarily dangerous precedent” for crypto.