Americans have an abundance of payment mechanisms available to them, including cash, debit cards, credit cards, and others. Although inflation has eroded purchasing power, by world standards, the U.S. dollar remains a bastion of stability and credibility. In this menagerie, stablecoins and cryptocurrency remain niche payment products for many Americans.

The relative novelty of digital assets is reflected in the current heated Beltway debate between policy wonks and industry experts. So why should everyday Americans care about legislation like the GENIUS Act (enacted last year to create a regulatory framework to facilitate stablecoin adoption) or the Clarity Act, which got one step closer to becoming law yesterday, for crypto? Because even though use today is not yet ubiquitous, the stakes are huge — nothing short of the United States’s future global financial leadership and civil liberties for all Americans.