Bermuda has promoted its digital-assets regulatory framework in meetings with the heads of the two main United States market regulators, as Washington develops rules for the sector in the wake of the failure of wider legislation in the Senate.

The Government said David Burt, the Premier and Minister of Finance, led a delegation to DC Fintech Week that met Paul Atkins, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Michael Selig, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The delegation briefed the agencies on Bermuda’s Digital Asset Business Act and recent Bermuda Monetary Authority initiatives, including its embedded supervision pilot and consultations on tokenisation, stablecoins and artificial intelligence.

The meetings came after the US Senate failed last month to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would have established a broader federal framework for digital assets.

Mr Burt said Bermuda had offered its support as US agencies took on the immediate task of rulemaking.

He said: “Bermuda has always believed that responsible innovation is best achieved through partnership between government, regulators and industry.

“This week we sat down with the leadership of the SEC and the CFTC, and with the firms building the next generation of financial infrastructure, to share what Bermuda has learned from regulating this industry since 2018.”

The Government said technical officers from the Ministry of Finance and BMA attended the meetings and would keep up a dialogue with the agencies. It did not say whether the talks produced a formal agreement or a process for recognising Bermuda’s regime as comparable with US rules.

The delegation also met digital-finance businesses including Coinbase, Ondo Finance, Ripple and BlackRock, encouraging them to expand in Bermuda or launch products under the island’s digital-assets legislation.

Bermuda has regulated digital-asset businesses under DABA since 2018. According to the BMA’s 2025 annual report, the number of licensed digital-asset businesses rose to 49 at the end of last year, from 36 a year earlier.

The latest Washington visit followed a March trip to the DC Blockchain Summit, when the Government said Bermuda was seeking to align comparability standards between DABA and emerging US legislation.

It also came months after the Government announced its ambition to make Bermuda the world’s first fully “onchain” national economy, with support from Circle and Coinbase. In January, Mr Burt compared digital finance with Bermuda’s insurance industry in its early years, although Government figures then showed the sector employed 22 people in 2024, including 11 Bermudians.

The BMA has since consulted on a framework for asset tokenisation and proposed guidance for the use of recognised stablecoins by insurance-linked securities and investment businesses.

The Premier also took part in a DC Fintech Week discussion on Bermuda’s digital-assets strategy, while Aqsa Zubair, the BMA’s deputy director of fintech supervision, spoke on a panel examining concentration, interoperability and cross-border stress testing.

The delegation invited attendees to Bermuda’s Digital Finance Forum, scheduled for April 2027.