Summer Mersinger is leaving the helm of the Blockchain Association, one of the crypto industry’s leading advocacy groups, a week after the sector weathered a major legislative setback in the loss of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
Mersinger will be replaced — for now — by Kristin Smith, the organization’s original CEO who ran the association from its launch in 2018 until 15 months ago, according to a Friday statement. The handover is set for October 16, closing a tumultuous era that saw major crypto wins in Washington and a significant defeat last week, when the U.S. Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act in a wide loss in which all the Senate’s Democrats and some Republicans declined to support it.
“I’m proud of how far we’ve come together, from the $GENIUS Act to real regulatory clarity at the SEC and CFTC,” said Mersinger, who’d taken the job after leaving her post as a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in a statement. “Kristin built this association from the ground up, and BA is in good hands. I’ll be cheering them on.”