The Global Blockchain Business Council Spreads Its Wings

August 28, 2025 Brazen Crypto Team Blockchain 0

The Global Blockchain Business Council has had me as an ambassador since the beginning of the ambassador program. With that disclaimer in place, my involvement has been light. Normally I show up to some events that they have in New York and ask questions or interject when I sense that people are either straying off topic or when they engage in boosting certain viewpoints without addressing challenges or nuances. This year I was invited to a two-day event in Washington DC, GBBC USA’s Blockchain Central DC on June 12th and 13th. The first day, June 12th, involved talks and panels from many lawmakers and thought leaders in the digital assets and crypto space. The second day featured roundtables on topics such as stablecoins and state crypto-currency laws.

The GBBC Central DC event was more than a month before the most significant legislation affecting digital assets to be passed by congress and signed into law on July 27th. Many of the sponsors of the GENIUS Act were at the first day’s event. There was foreshadowing of the GENIUS act passed and signed into law on July 27th.

The GBBC is founded and led by Sandra Ro. I have known Ro since her days at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange working on Royal Mint Gold. RMG was terminated as a concept in 2018 after CME under new leadership pulled out of the project. By then Ro had built up a reputation for innovation and a formidable global network.

History of GBBC

Ro launched GBBC in 2017. GBBC is a non-profit for the blockchain, digital asset and the emerging technology community. GBBC has 500 institutional members and 228 Ambassadors in 124 jurisdictions. GBBC has global reach. GBBC’s first focus was on influencing the global communities through regular activities at the World Economic Forum in Davos and many other venues where thought leaders gather to discuss the next great thing. It also helped that GBBC built up networks with the crypto-currency and Web3 circles. Ro had been building bridges between traditional business and the new world of crypto-currency and Web3. Over the years many existing blockchain organizations were absorbed into GBBC. Many traditional organizations joined the GBBC, financing its expansion.

Under GBBC the work of the constituent Web3 organizations continue, this includes Global Standards for issuing, trading, settling digital assets as well as the regulation of such assets. My own work had focused on translating the formula based definitions of Digital Assets created by IWA into working code. The IWA fused the world of standards, functionality and execution. GSMI, the Global Standards Mapping Initiative and Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group are some of the other organizations or pillars that are now under the GBBC umbrella.

GBBC Central DC 2025

At the GBBC Central DC event, the GBBC ventured into the convergence of AI and Blockchain for the first time. The convergence is through agentic AI. How can automated AI agents be paid or pay out for services using a payment method that has instantaneous settlement with a low transaction fee? The answer is meant to be blockchain based payments using stablecoins or other crypto-currencies. Such payments can also be made in small denominations, let us say less than a cent, called micro-payments. Micro-payments must feature nano transaction costs, otherwise such payments become impractical.


The first day of GBBC Central DC was held at the historic Andrew Mellon auditorium. The NATO treaty was signed in this building. It is one of those DC buildings with lots of gold leaf and enormous Doric columns fronting Constitution Ave. The heart of the Federal Triangle. The ceilings are very high and there is space for 600 delegates. It did feel a little empty at times since the GBBC contingent was around 200 at its height.

The first day featured lawmakers from both parties working on digital assets and AI regulation. They included senator Cynthia Lummis who was one of the co-sponsors of the GENIUS act. AI regulation was represented by the physics PhD United States Rep Bill Foster. According to him, the current developments in AI are leading towards AI Agents which will squeeze the profit margins of all consumer facing businesses, another field is cryptanalysis which will receive a tremendous boost. Foster believes that having a roster of Math expert AI will do more to break cryptography underlying digital currency than quantum computing. Another interesting observation was that AI will help businesses comply with regulation. Even the most complex regulation can be handled by these AI compliance experts.

Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming has worked with many Wyoming state officials and they have been working to get the right regulation. Wyoming released the first state stablecoin following the GENIUS act. In addition to the Wyoming state officials, we had officials from many states who are innovating on this new financial frontier, including New Hampshire, New York, Maryland and others. The conference was an opportunity to be exposed to the financial innovation in these states. Often we do not have an opportunity to hear these stories.

Engineers vs. Lawyers

America’s elites who control Washington DC and many of its important institutions are lawyers or have law degrees. Almost all the legislators have law degrees. Talk takes precedence over action. The contrast with China, a nation of engineers, was emphasized in Dan Wang’s new book. Although the richest folks in the US are often technologists they play second fiddle to the politicians. This is why there is often emphasis on the non-technology aspects, even in the most technology forward areas such as blockchain and crypto-currency. Other than Bill Foster and some exceptions such as Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta, most of the speakers were from a law or economics background.

The GBBC conference featured people who insist that technology problems have been solved and we should be focused on relationships, use cases, regulation and laws. In the real world, technology is needed to solve the compliance puzzle and to make complex use cases possible. Control by engineers or control by lawyers result in sub-optimal outcomes. We need both and a balanced approach.