Real talk: the greatest policy threat to crypto by far is the allegation that North Korea funds its missile program by hacking smart contracts. We spend so much time every day talking about issues like what the Howey test means and whether DAOs should be wrapped in a legal entity structure. Yes, these things matter for crypto's future. But if crypto gets banned in the developed world, it won't be because of securities laws outlawing token distributions, or banking regulators creating a moat for TradFi incumbents, or anything mundane like that. It will be because of national security. It will be caused by an increasingly common view among anti-crypto policymakers that crypto doesn't have a use case other than gambling and crime, and that the risk of allowing crypto to continue to exist far outweighs the potential benefits that blockchain developers have promised but not delivered for years. Years ago, we could dismiss policymakers who held a view like this as uninformed. If only we could explain to them how great blockchains are, then surely they would change their minds! If only they could understand that they have no choice because crypto can't be stopped, then they'll realize they need to play ball! "It's an education problem" is something we've said early and often in crypto policy. Not any more. Broadly speaking, it's still true that most policymakers don't understand the massive opportunity that crypto offers to fundamentally reshape how people conduct their digital lives in overwhelmingly positive ways. But many have now learned what a permissionless, trust-minimized, censorship-resistant public blockchain can do, and they hate it. They understand the difference between centralized and decentralized technology, and they'll pick centralized every time. This is why 20 (!) senators signed on to Elizabeth Warren's "Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act," even though it's just a crypto ban in disguise. This is why DOJ tries to put the founders of Tornado Cash in prison. This is why FinCEN proposes new rules that treat essentially all of DeFi as a "primary money laundering concern." This is why privacy-preserving assets are delisted from exchanges. I could write thousands more words about the policy challenge here: how do we explain the benefits and promise of crypto more effectively, how do we design regulatory frameworks that reduce risk while honoring decentralization, how do we support and empower our advocacy organizations to do their best work, etc. But ultimately, the burden is on the builders in the industry to do better. We need better cybersecurity practices to defend against hacks in the first place. We need to bolster and implement web3 security tools to detect fraud and mitigate its damage. We need to prioritize decentralization. Someone will reply to this with a version of "who cares what governments say, crypto is self-sovereign." I get it, and I'm here for it if worse comes to worst, as it has in many countries around the world where crypto is a lifeline. But make no mistake, that would be "worst" — our work misused by a brutal dictator and banned in our homes — regardless of whether blocks keep getting added to blockchains. Let's work just as hard to stop that outcome as we do to develop product-market fit.