Brookings Institution: Washington's Most Influential Voice on Crypto Policy

Washington has no shortage of think tanks producing crypto research. What it has a genuine shortage of is credibility — the kind of nonpartisan, methodologically rigorous reputation that makes Congressional staff read a paper before drafting legislation, that gets researchers called to testify at hearings that actually matter, and that causes regulatory agency staff to cite a report in their own guidance documents. Brookings has that credibility.

The Brookings Institution was founded in 1927 and is consistently rated among the world’s most influential think tanks. Its reputation was built on domestic economic policy and international affairs research, and it has maintained a bipartisan identity through administrations of both parties — a distinction that matters enormously in Washington, where think tank output is often dismissed as ideologically motivated before its content is assessed. Brookings’ ability to be read across the aisle is the institutional asset that makes its crypto work matter in ways that explicitly partisan research cannot.

The Researchers: Klein and Meserole

Aaron Klein is Brookings’ primary voice on payments and financial infrastructure. A former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury and chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee, Klein brings the combination of policy experience and institutional relationships that makes his Brookings work influential in ways that academic research from outside Washington cannot easily replicate.

Klein’s work on stablecoins has been particularly influential. His analysis frames stablecoins not as a revolutionary technology but as a specific form of money market fund with payment functionality — a framing that both demystifies stablecoins for legislators unfamiliar with crypto and places them in a regulatory context (money market funds) that financial regulators already understand. This analytical move — translating crypto into familiar regulatory categories — is characteristic of Brookings’ approach and is enormously useful for legislators and regulatory staff who need to make decisions about novel technology without becoming experts in distributed ledger architecture.

Klein’s work on the US payment system — including his research on why the US payment system is slower and more expensive than those of peer economies — provides the broader context for his stablecoin analysis. The US payments problem is real: American consumers and businesses pay more for payment services and wait longer for settlement than their counterparts in the EU, the UK, and many emerging markets. If stablecoins or other digital dollar instruments can address these inefficiencies, Klein’s framework suggests, they deserve serious regulatory accommodation rather than reflexive restriction.

Chris Meserole leads Brookings’ work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and technology governance, which increasingly intersects with crypto policy as AI applications in crypto (fraud detection, AML compliance, market surveillance) and crypto applications in AI (decentralised compute markets, token incentive structures) converge. Meserole’s background in international security brings a different perspective on crypto — focused on illicit finance, disinformation, and the governance challenges of borderless technology — that complements Klein’s payments focus.

Major Publications and Policy Influence

Brookings’ crypto output spans policy briefs, long-form reports, event proceedings, and Congressional testimony. The institution runs regular events that bring together regulators, legislators, industry representatives, and academics in formats that allow more candid conversation than formal hearings permit.

The stablecoin reports have been among the most cited in Congressional deliberations on stablecoin legislation. The characterisation of stablecoins as narrow banks — institutions that take deposits and hold equivalent liquid assets without lending — has appeared in policy documents across multiple agencies and in the drafting discussions for stablecoin bills in both the Senate and the House.

Brookings’ CBDC analysis has been balanced in a way that distinguishes it from the ideologically consistent positions of think tanks with explicit market-liberal or progressive agendas. The CBDC research examines both the potential public benefits (financial inclusion, payment system efficiency, monetary policy transmission) and the risks (financial disintermediation, surveillance, central bank operational overextension) without predetermining the conclusion. This balanced treatment makes it useful for legislators who need to understand the genuine trade-offs rather than advocacy for a predetermined position.

The Brookings Imprimatur

The most important function Brookings performs in the crypto policy ecosystem is legitimisation. A policy idea that appears first in a Brookings report has cleared a credibility filter that ideas circulating only in crypto industry publications, libertarian think tanks, or progressive advocacy organisations have not. Congressional staff assigning background reading for a legislator preparing for a hearing will include Brookings on the list.

This legitimisation function operates in both directions. Brookings can validate ideas — its endorsement of stablecoin regulation as a workable policy concept moved that idea from the crypto industry’s wish list to the legislative mainstream. It can also delegitimise ideas — Brookings’ skepticism about specific regulatory approaches carries weight precisely because the institution is not in the business of reflexive either pro-industry or anti-industry advocacy.

The practical implication for anyone tracking the evolution of US crypto legislation is that Brookings’ analytical positions are predictors of what will become mainstream policy options. The GENIUS Act stablecoin legislation and the House’s digital asset market structure frameworks both reflect analytical frameworks that Brookings research helped develop and disseminate. Brookings does not write legislation. But its work shapes the conceptual vocabulary in which legislation is drafted, and in Washington, that is a considerable form of power.

Limitations and Critiques

Brookings is not without critics. Its significant funding from financial industry sources — including banks that have interests in crypto regulatory outcomes — raises questions about independence that Brookings’ transparency disclosures attempt to address but cannot fully resolve. Its bipartisan positioning also produces a form of moderate centrism that can underrepresent more radical positions — whether the crypto-libertarian case for minimal regulation or the progressive case for aggressive consumer protection — that may be more analytically defensible than the centre ground.

For practitioners and policymakers, the appropriate use of Brookings research is as a reliable guide to what the Washington policy mainstream considers credible, rather than as a comprehensive survey of the full intellectual landscape on any given crypto policy question. What is mainstream in Washington and what is optimal policy are not always the same thing — but in a democratic system, understanding the mainstream is essential for assessing what is politically achievable.