Digital Assets Framework

1. Taxonomy: Defining Digital Asset Classes

Establishing a clear, universally understood taxonomy of digital assets is critical to advancing policy and fostering innovation.

• Digital Commodity – An asset without an issuer, backed by digital power (e.g., Bitcoin).
• Digital Security – An asset with an issuer, backed by a security (e.g., equity, debt, derivatives).
• Digital Currency – An asset with an issuer, backed by fiat currency.
• Digital Token – A fungible asset with an issuer, offering digital utility.
• Digital NFT – A non-fungible asset with an issuer, offering digital utility (Non-Fungible Token).
• Digital ABT – An asset with an issuer, backed by a physical asset (e.g., gold, oil, agricultural commodities).

2. Legitimacy: Establishing Rights and Responsibilities

Creating a robust framework of rights and responsibilities is essential for issuers, exchanges, and owners to engage in digital asset markets with confidence.

Path to Legitimacy: Establish a global, real-time, and uninterrupted process for issuing, trading, and owning digital assets by individuals, corporations, and machines.

• Issuers — Rights: the right to create and issue digital assets. Responsibilities: ensure fair disclosure and ethical behavior.
• Exchanges — Rights: the right to custody, trade, and transfer assets between clients and other exchanges. Responsibilities: publish asset disclosures, protect client assets, and avoid conflicts of interest.
• Owners — Rights: self-custody, trade, and transfer their assets. Responsibilities: comply with applicable local laws.

Foundational Principle: No one has the right to lie, cheat, or steal. All participants are civilly and criminally responsible for their actions.

3. Practicality: Rational Compliance to Empower Innovation

Digital asset regulation must prioritize efficiency and innovation over friction and bureaucracy.

• Issuance Compliance: Limit costs to no more than 1% of AUM to issue an asset.
• Maintenance Compliance: Limit costs to no more than 10 basis points annually to maintain an asset listing.

Goal: Enable exponential improvements in cost, speed, quality, and accessibility via free-market competition and innovation.

4. Vision: A Capital Markets Renaissance

The United States has an opportunity to catalyze a 21st-century capital markets renaissance, unleashing trillions of dollars in value creation.

Investor Opportunities: Enable access to thousands of digital assets, including:

5. Opportunity: Establishing the United States as the Global Digital Leader

A strategic digital asset policy can strengthen the US dollar, neutralize the national debt, and position America as the global leader in the 21st-century digital economy.

Conclusion: Seizing the Digital Assets Opportunity

By establishing a clear taxonomy, a legitimate rights-based framework, and practical compliance obligations, the United States can lead the global digital economy. A capital markets renaissance fueled by digital assets will unlock trillions in wealth, empower millions of businesses, and solidify the US dollar as the foundation of the 21st-century digital financial system.