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The chief of one of the industry's most prominent lobbying arms, Smith will leave in May to join the Solana Policy Institute as president, her association says.
Updated Apr 1, 2025, 7:09 p.m. UTCPublished Apr 1, 2025, 7:01 p.m. UTC
Kristin Smith, the longtime chief executive of the Blockchain Association, a leading lobbying group for crypto policy in Washington, is leaving next month to take a role as president of the new Solana Policy Institute, according to a Tuesday announcement.
"I am incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together and confident that the organization’s future is bright," Smith said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Miller Whitehouse-Levine founded the organization and announced his position as CEO shortly after stepping down from the Defi Education Fund.
Though the group hasn't yet clarified its source of funding, its website said it will focus its message on "how decentralized networks like Solana are the future of the digital economy."
Smith has led the Blockchain Association for almost seven years — a dramatic period for the developing industry. Since late last year, the political grounds have solidified under the sector's feet as it finds allies running all levels of the U.S. government, where crypto advocates have long been trying to get a comprehensive set of regulations.
The Blockchain Association has been a central player in the industry's lobbying.
The organization said its board is now conducting a search to replace Smith.
Whitehouse-Levin once worked in that organization's policy operations.
"Innovators deserve to have the clarity they need to build a frictionless, Internet-based global economy — a future we believe is achievable with the right laws, rules and frameworks," he said in a statement during this week's launch of the Solana group.
UPDATE (April 1, 2025, 19:09 UTC): Adds comment from Kristin Smith.
Jesse Hamilton
Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.
