While blockchain infrastructure may be ready for institutional use, many legal teams at big firms remain cautious about fully integrating the technology. 

At the Token2049 event in Dubai, DoubleZero Labs founder and former Solana head of strategy Austin Federa told Cointelegraph that today’s high-performance blockchains like Solana are technically capable of supporting large-scale institutional usage. However, lawyers need to catch up. 

“Most blockchains nowadays, especially things like Solana, are fast enough for institutions to use them,” Federa said. “It’s really more about the institutions and the institution’s lawyers getting comfortable with crypto.”

Federa added that institutional lawyers and compliance teams are still addressing regulatory concerns. The executive said this may slow adoption despite the growing regulatory clarity in key markets like the United States. 

DoubleZero Labs founder Austin Federa. Source: Cointelegraph

Institutions are coming; they just move slow

According to Federa, technical infrastructure is no longer a primary barrier for large firms. Tools needed to support enterprise-scale activity on networks like Solana are already in place:

“Especially on networks like Solana and other fast networks, the infrastructure is there today for high amounts of institutional adoption.”

While crypto community members may feel like institutional adoption should be more advanced than it is, Federa said that these organizations are not quick to onboard new technologies.  

“Institutions are coming on board, but they just move really slow,” Federa told Cointelegraph. “People expect these massive institutions to move fast, but that’s just not what they’re good at.”

Until legal departments are fully satisfied with risk controls and compliance structures, Federa said meaningful adoption may unfold gradually. 

Related: DoubleZero’s alternative to public internet targets mainnet rollout in H2

Institutional involvement in crypto infrastructure

Federa highlighted a growing trend of institutional participation in the crypto infrastructure space. He said that bare-metal infrastructure providers and venture capital firms have offered financial support and contributed actual fiber infrastructure to DoubleZero. 

This kind of commitment was almost unthinkable just a few years ago, he said. “Most of those companies two years ago would not have had any interest or thought it was way too legally risky to take something and contribute fiber to it.”

Unlike running a validator node, deploying fiber and infrastructure is a major commitment. Federa said institutional players now allocating serious resources to crypto-native projects reflects a shift in how traditional finance views the sector.

Despite this, he acknowledged that while institutional adoption has grown, the broader crypto product landscape isn’t fully mature. “The products are not quite there yet for the most part,” Federa said.

Magazine: Solana ‘will be a trillion-dollar asset’: Mert Mumtaz, X Hall of Flame

Democratic lawmakers in Washington are backing off support for crypto legislation amid heightened concerns over corruption, including the conduct of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI).

In March, the GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins in the US, passed a critical committee reading with the support of several pro-crypto Democrats. Democratic Senators Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Andy Kim and Angela Alsobrooks voted with Republicans, opposite lead Democrat and prominent crypto critic Senator Elizabeth Warren.

The bill passed the committee only after a number of changes were made, including stricter requirements for stablecoin issuers and provisions for Anti-Money Laundering, countering terrorism financing and risk management procedures. 

Now, it seems that even those provisions are insufficient to quell Democratic concerns. Following some high-profile crypto deals that personally enrich President Donald Trump, Congressional Democrats are pulling their support.

Bipartisan efforts on stablecoin bills endangered

Of the five pro-crypto Democrats to pass the GENIUS Act in the Senate Banking Committee, four signed their names to a statement on May 3, saying that they do not feel comfortable with the direction stablecoin legislation is taking.

“The bill as it currently stands still has numerous issues that must be addressed, including adding stronger provisions on anti-money laundering, foreign issuers, national security, preserving the safety and soundness of our financial system, and accountability,” the announcement reads.

The statement does not explicitly call out corruption nor mention Trump by name, but taken alongside other measures from Democratic lawmakers, it shows a growing reticence to engage on cryptocurrency issues.

As Cointelegraph reported on May 5, Representative Maxine Waters and other Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee plan to leave a House of Representatives hearing on crypto titled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets” on May 6. According to a staffer familiar with the matter, this would sink the hearing, as House rules require all committee members to be present. 

The hearing concerns a draft bill, announced by Representative French Hill and other top Republicans on May 5, that would change how US financial regulators, namely the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), treat cryptocurrencies.

Related: New crypto bill draft seen to curb big crypto firm influence

Waters, who has previously called for bipartisan cooperation on crypto legislation, has harshly criticized Trump, specifically his WLFI crypto investment firm. She characterized his TRUMP memecoin, released on his inauguration, as “the worst of crypto” and has been particularly vocal about the WLFI USD1 stablecoin project.

At a markup hearing on April 2 concerning the STABLE Act — a draft bill circulating the House regarding stablecoins — Waters said the bill, in its current form, allows the president and insiders to “enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”

“If there is no effort to block the President of the United States of America from owning his stablecoin business […] I will never be able to agree on supporting this bill, and I would ask other members not to be enablers,” said Waters.

Even Hill, a Republican leading the charge for crypto in Washington, said that Trump’s crypto projects complicate Congress’ ability to pass legislation.

Stablecoin support as political leverage

Corruption concerns may be one factor behind Democrats’ pumping the brakes on bipartisan crypto laws, but some observers believe it could be more of a political ploy. 

Aaron Brogan, a lawyer specializing in regulatory issues in the cryptocurrency industry, said it’s “unlikely that this group of Senators suddenly came to their senses and realized that the mostly benign stablecoin bill they had previously supported lacked protections they refused to name.”

Brogan suggested that either lawmakers wanted to use support for the bill as leverage — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has reportedly urged Democratic lawmakers in private not to commit to the bill for this very reason — or an influential donor wants to kill the bill or use it as leverage. 

Related: Are Donald Trump’s tariffs a legal house of cards?

Protect Progress, a major political action committee supporting crypto, donated millions to Gallego’s campaign, Brogan noted. He said it is possible that major donors to the committee (i.e., Coinbase) would rather see the bill replaced with something more to their liking.

While he said it’s impossible to know for sure, “Coinbase has attempted to bundle the pending market structure legislation with stablecoins to make it more likely to pass,” he said. 

WLFI accused of shady dealing

WLFI has already netted some $550 million from Trump token sales and is sealing more deals that will enrich its founders and board members, many of whom are Trump family members. 

One of them, Eric Trump, announced on May 1 that Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX would use USD1 to settle its $2-billion investment in global crypto exchange Binance.

At Token2049, Eric Trump praised the UAE for its crypto-friendly approach, saying that the regulation-heavy EU is a “lost cause.”

In November 2024, the founder of the Tron blockchain, Justin Sun, became the largest investor in WLFI when he bought some $30 million in TRUMP. More recent reports suggest he has spent nearly $70 million. On Feb. 24, just one month after Trump took office, the SEC, then with Acting Chair Mark Uyeda at the helm, halted its civil fraud investigation into Sun despite previous allegations that Sun and the Tron Foundation had illegally distributed tokens, concealed celebrity donations, and inflated trade volumes. 

Critics claimed that the president was selling exposure to the highest bidder when WLFI announced that top TRUMP tokenholders would be welcomed to a gala with the president himself. This prompted one lawmaker to suggest impeachment — a pipedream in a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses. 

WLFI has not responded publicly or on social media to these criticisms. In a May 5 interview with Meet the Press on NBC, President Trump downplayed the project, saying he was “not profiting from anything.” He said he hasn’t “even looked” at his portfolio.

He also rejected the idea that he should forgo any profits from WLFi. “Should I contribute all of my real estate that I’ve owned for many years if it goes up a little bit because I’m president and doing a good job? I don’t think so,” he said.

With purported scandals and pressure mounting on Democratic officials to block Republican efforts on the Hill, the possibility of a bipartisan stablecoin bill, much less a crypto framework, looks increasingly bleak. 

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

Key points:

Bitcoin is struggling again as gold retakes the limelight with week-to-date gains of nearly 5%.

Bitcoin’s correlation with gold is under scrutiny amid ongoing macroeconomic shifts.

Traders see a short-term slump amid a wider BTC price rebound.

Bitcoin (BTC) eyed fresh month-to-date lows into the May 6 Wall Street open as “directionless” crypto markets contrasted with a gold rebound.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Analysis: Bitcoin, crypto “largely directionless”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price momentum stalling at $95,000 before the latest daily close. 

Inching closer to the key yearly open support level at $93,500, BTC/USD appeared caught in limbo while gold returned to outperform.

XAU/USD was up 1.5% on the day at the time of writing, with week-to-date gains already at 4.4%.

XAU/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

“Crypto implied vols remain suppressed, with front-end skew drifting back toward neutral and spot largely directionless,” trading firm QCP Capital wrote in its latest bulletin to Telegram channel subscribers.

QCP noted various swings across the macro spectrum, with the dollar staying lower and emerging market currencies, especially the Taiwanese dollar, surging alongside gold.

“At the same time, the FX shakeup coincides with a nearly 3% surge in gold on Monday, as investors lean into the weaker-dollar narrative and price in geopolitical risk premia, including prospective US trade diplomacy,” it continued.

With Bitcoin yet to follow suit, QCP saw an “increasingly binary” next phase, with one outcome being that BTC “decouples from gold’s safe haven bid and relinks with broader risk proxies.”

In its own analysis, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter nonetheless saw the “first gold, then Bitcoin” narrative sticking.

“In April, Bitcoin joined the gold run, increasing correlation for the first time in months. Between April 7th and April 21st, gold surged +15% along with +12% in Bitcoin,” it observed in an X thread on May 5. 

“The flight to decentralized and inflation-protected assets is strong. Keep watching this trend.”Bitcoin vs. gold comparison. Source: The Kobeissi Letter/X

MACD gives BTC bulls pause for thought

Examining technical data, Bitcoin traders suggested that BTC/USD may be pausing within a broader comeback.

Related: Bitcoin eyes gains as macro data makes US recession 2025 ‘base case’

Evidence for this came from the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator, a measure of trend strength that gave conflicting signals on longer and shorter timeframes.

#btc weekly MACD about to cross bullishly from a position of strength… pic.twitter.com/x2JjK9rHNW

— dave the wave (@davthewave) May 6, 2025

Popular trader Dave The Wave revealed a bullish signal on the weekly MACD, while daily behavior confirmed a bearish crossing below the zero line.

“BTC is consolidating between last week’s high and low, awaiting tomorrow’s FOMC meeting and Jerome Powell’s speech. Meanwhile, the daily MACD is crossing bearish, signaling slowing momentum,” fellow trader Titan of Crypto summarized.

BTC/USDT 1-day chart with MACD data. Source: Titan of Crypto/X

His post referred to the week’s key macro event, the meeting of the Federal Reserve to decide on interest rate changes, due on May 7.

Earlier, Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, warned that the yearly open was unlikely to hold as support.

“To summarize, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the YO holds,” he told X followers. 

“While I’m prepared for a wick to to $88k – $90k range, I think the $91.6k level around the  21 MA is a likely target this week.”BTC/USD 1-week chart with 21SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.