Nassim Eddequiouaq, CEO of Bastion, joins Remy Blaire to discuss stalled crypto legislation, stablecoin regulation, and what clarity from U.S. regulators could mean for digital asset adoption in 2026.
Remy: A hearing on sweeping crypto legislation pushed back due to the winter storm. The Senate committee now plans to mark up the bill Thursday, while the Senate Banking Committee has yet to reschedule its own session after Coinbase pulled support over unresolved issues. Now, the bill would expand the authority of the CFTC and is the first step toward amending a voting on federal crypto regulation. Lawmakers do continue to negotiate amendments, including concerns linked to Trump and his family’s crypto holdings, also in the nation’s capital. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig will hold a joint event Thursday afternoon to discuss harmonizing regulations for crypto. Well, joining me here live at the New York Stock Exchange is Nassim Eddequiouaq, CEO at Bastion. Nassim, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Nassim: Thank you so much for having me.
Remy: Well, here in New York, we’re focused on the nation’s capital, especially what will unfold tomorrow. So first and foremost, give us your take on the stalled Clarity act and what you believe needs to happen here.
Nassim: It’s a it’s a very interesting situation where, um, a lot of, a lot of companies are trying to push innovation forward and try to make a better form of dollar, essentially broadly adopted in the U.S. Outside of the U.S., we, for example, at Bastion, work with Sony Bank on the issuance of a stablecoin for the ecosystem that would essentially enable more people across the entire ecosystem to adopt stablecoins. in order to do that, you have to provide certain incentives.
And so there are a lot of conversations happening around yield distribution, reward distribution, um, by stablecoin issuers. And that is a major point of contention where there are obviously very different incentives, uh, between the incumbents and all the companies that are seeking to use stablecoins to further the U.S. dollars and their own ecosystems.
Remy: Mhm. And here we are. We’re just kicking off 2026, and there was a lot of anticipation when it comes to progress in terms of legislation. But of course, if it comes to digital adoption, in terms of infrastructure as well as stablecoin adoption, what do you think we’ll see in the near future? And what do you think needs to happen within the U.S.?
Nassim: We’re seeing a lot of innovation around new financial products and especially cross-border financial products, where a lot of companies in the U.S. can actually take their products global on day one, as well as non-U.S. companies that can enter the U.S. market much more easily. And so I think that we’re going to be seeing a lot of adoption in much broader scale products, as well as efficiencies from businesses that are leveraging stablecoins even for internal use cases, management of money flows between all of their entities at a global scale. I really do expect a lot of innovation from a product standpoint and then operational, optimization standpoint from especially large global businesses.
Remy: And tomorrow we will be focusing on the nation’s capital. As we get that gathering from the SEC and CFTC, which was delayed due to the winter storm that hit the northeastern U.S. But what are your expectations from that gathering?
Nassim: Yeah, I think that, um, it’s we’re in a very good place today where the SEC has been issuing, uh, no action letters for a certain number of digital asset protocols and companies building in this space, which was not necessarily the case, I would say, last year or the year before. And so very excited for us to see, uh, regulators working hand in hand with the industry.
Um, what I expect is a lot of clarity on where is the oversight of the CFTC happening, uh, which assets would fall clearly under the SEC so that every single market participant, understand the rules of the of the industry and can actually obey by those rules, which has been very hard so far.
Remy: And of course, when it comes to market structure, there is a lot of uncertainty. So what do you think will happen there?
Nassim: I believe that we’re going to be seeing, um, a lot of what has happened so far, which is the CFTC in charge of spot markets, and then the SEC taking oversight over a lot of financial assets that correspond to securities in the traditional sense of the term. Uh, my expectation is also for the stablecoin, uh, stablecoin rules around, uh, rewards to be more and more clearly defined in a way that falls outside of the SEC and within the OCC and kind of traditional banking regulators oversight.
Remy: And finally, before I let you go,as we look ahead to digital asset adoption in 2026. Which sectors do you think will shift the most this year? And of course, when we’re talking about the U.S., it’s not just on a federal level, but it’s also on a state and local level. So what do you focus on and why?
Nassim: I think that the markets that are going to be benefiting the most from the innovation are actually the companies that have the broadest adoption worldwide. They have access to those users. They want to enable financial services for those users. We’ve been the we’ve seen the explosion of Robinhood and Revolut and a lot of other financial services companies. And I think that a lot of the technology companies that have access to those users are going to be leveraging digital assets and stablecoins to improve drastically the set of products, essentially, that they offer to their users.
Remy: Well Nassim, thank you so much for joining me as we kick off a new year. Always appreciate your time and thank you so much for all of your insights.
Nassim: Thank you.