fastcompany144d ago
Economists increasingly describe today’s economy as “K-shaped”: Households with higher incomes and assets are pulling ahead, while many middle- and lower-income families struggle to keep up. Prices for housing, healthcare, and everyday necessities have risen faster than paychecks, leaving millions of Americans feeling squeezed, exposed, and uncertain about the future. For many families, affordability is not an abstract concern, it is the daily challenge of covering essentials while trying to stay afloat. You would expect that reality to shape what Congress prioritizes in response to economic anxiety. Instead, “affordability” is being invoked to justify making crypto market structure—the rules governing how digital assets are regulated and integrated into the broader financial system—a legislative priority, rather than addressing the more pressing sources of financial strain facing most families. Crypto offers a story about upside and progress, but it does not answer the underlying problems of unstable incomes, fragile savings, and rising exposure to risk. Affordability is not about access to new financial products. It is about whether households can reliably pay for basics, absorb shocks, and plan for the future without taking on more volatility. Supporters argue that regulation can turn risky markets into engines of opportunity, especially for communities long excluded from traditional finance. But while regulation may promise harm reduction, it cannot turn speculation into a vehicle for broad-based wealth-building. Congress’s focus on conferring legitimacy on crypto reflects a troubling substitution of financial speculation for the harder work of rebuilding the real economy. Wealth that lastsThe reason becomes clearer when you start with what wealth-building actually requires. Wealth that lasts is built on stability, not volatility. It looks like a paycheck that covers the mortgage, a retirement account that compounds quietly over decades, and savings that remain after a medical bill or a layoff. For most households, it’s accumulated gradually through retirement savings, pensions, and home equity. These systems are deeply imperfect, and trust in them has eroded for good reason. While wages rose after the pandemic, the cost of housing, healthcare, and other necessities rose faster, leaving many households feeling less secure. But the failure of existing systems does not make volatility a solution. It makes stability more, not less, important. Falling shortMeasured against those standards, crypto falls short. Crypto markets are organized around speculation rather than value creation. Tokens do not generate cash flows like businesses or bonds; their prices move on hype and momentum rather than economic fundamentals. An economy that already feels precarious does not need more ways for households to absorb financial risk. That speculative structure tends to reward those who can enter early and exit first. When crypto prices surge, new investors rush in—often drawn by recent gains—while larger, better-positioned holders are more likely to sell into the rally. Many ordinary households arrive later, buying at elevated prices amid extreme volatility. Research shows that lower-income investors in particular tend to enter later and at worse price points. Over time, this dynamic functions less as a wealth-building system and more as a wealth transfer from late-arriving households to earlier and more sophisticated participants—reinforcing the same uneven gains that already define today’s K-shaped economy. The limits of regulationRegulation is often presented as the solution, but not all regulation reduces risk. Strong guardrails can in principle reduce fraud, limit spillovers, and protect the broader financial system. The problem is not regulation itself, but how it’s being pursued. Much of the current market structure debate is defined less by nonnegotiable safeguards than by pressure to reach a deal quickly, even if key protections are weakened, deferred, or left unresolved. Even strong regulation has limits. It does not change what crypto is or transform speculative assets into a reliable vehicle for long-term wealth-building. Even a well-regulated casino is still a casino. Rules can make gambling safer; they do not make it a retirement strategy. That distinction matters beyond individual investors. When volatile assets are granted legitimacy without firm safeguards, risk migrates into retirement systems, financial institutions, and local economies. And when those risks spread, they do not fall evenly. Communities of color are especially exposed to systemic shocks because they have far less generational wealth to fall back on when credit tightens or savings are hit. Losses are harder to absorb and recovery takes longer, even for households that never touch crypto. At the same time, these communities are often targeted directly by financial marketers and intermediaries promoting high-risk products. We have seen this pattern of predatory inclusion before. In the years leading up to the financial crisis, risky mortgage products were sold to Black and Latino households as pathways to opportunity, only to shift disproportionate risk onto families least able to absorb losses. Today, similar language surrounds crypto. “Access” is framed as empowerment, but access to volatility is not affordability, and exposure to risk is not safe wealth-building. Stablecoins are the point where these risks become policy. Congress’s recent handling of stablecoins offers a case study in prioritizing crypto expansion over the real economy. Less than two weeks after passing sweeping legislation that cut healthcare, food assistance, and student aid, lawmakers moved quickly to advance stablecoin legislation framed as a consumer protection measure. In practice, it prioritized industry growth and speed over downstream consequences for credit, banking, and communities, leaving key safeguards weakened or unresolved. Real consequencesThose legislative choices have real economic consequences. If deposits migrate out of banks and into stablecoins, some economists estimate the shift could translate into roughly $250 billion less lending across the economy. If stablecoins function as yield-bearing substitutes for bank deposits, potential credit losses could rise sharply, possibly into the trillions of dollars. Those losses would hit community banks first, along with the small businesses, rural areas, and communities of color that rely on relationship-based lending. Congress should not confuse legislative movement with economic progress. In an economy already split between those who are gaining ground and those struggling to stay afloat, lawmakers should be clear-eyed about what this legislation actually does. It does not make wealth more accessible or everyday life more affordable. It does not make families safer. It normalizes dangerous financial risk while leaving the real economy’s wealth-building failures unaddressed—at a moment when ordinary Americans can least afford to lose.
