New advocacy group Solana Policy Institute aims to educate Washington lawmakers to go 'beyond bitcoin'

Long-time crypto advocate Miller Whitehouse-Levine is taking on his next endeavor in Washington D.C. in launching the Solana Policy Institute to educate lawmakers and regulators to think "beyond bitcoin." The non-partisan nonprofit premiered to the world on Monday as digital assets are having a moment with lawmakers quickly working to pass legislation touching on everything from stablecoins to market structure.

According to Whitehouse-Levine, who previously led the DeFi Education Fund lobbying group, there is a lot of work to be done in Washington when it comes to educating on crypto.

"We've got a lot of work to do on that front, to educate people in Washington and policy making circles about crypto because right now, people hear crypto and by and large think of Bitcoin and that's it," he said in an interview with The Block. "But of course, the ecosystem has exploded well beyond Bitcoin, and there's applications for all sorts of things being built on these decentralized networks."

"I am excited about Solana because I've spent the last eight years of my career fighting for developer rights and people's ability to use these decentralized network applications," Whitehouse-Levine said. 

The institute will be focused on influencing the draft stablecoin and market structure bills as well as influencing the Securities and Exchange Commission's newly created Crypto Task Force and incoming leadership at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. President Donald Trump has pushed these regulatory bodies to come up with sensible guidance for industry participants. 

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will amend and vote on a bill to regulate stablecoins which will then be worked on with the Senate's own version. Trump said he hoped to have stablecoin legislation on his desk by August. Lawmakers have also set their sights on market structure legislation, though that is likely to take some time. 

The Solana Policy Institute's goal will be to support technology neutral policies to set a "level playing field," Whitehouse-Levine said. He noted the institute will be primarily focused on Solana, a blockchain network that surged to the forefront of the industry last year driven by its consumer-friendly applications like the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun. 

"I do think that the vast majority of the crypto advocacy ecosystem supports tech neutral policies that set a level playing field," he added. "So our goal is to plug into those efforts and amplify their work and bring more resources to that work."

Whitehouse-Levine said he is the sole person at the institute for now, but plans to hire more. He declined to comment on who specifically is funding the group. The Solana Foundation said it is a separate and distinct organization. 

"We've got a base of support of folks broady interested in the Solana ecosystem," he said. "They have asked us to keep their identities confidential."