The Premier and Minister of Finance, the Hon. David Burt, JP, MP led a Bermuda delegation to DC Fintech Week, earlier this week.
The event which was held from October 13 to 16, 2026, took place across the World Bank headquarters, Amazon HQ2, the Milken Institute and FINRA headquarters.
The ninth edition of the conference welcomed over 2,000 attendees and was organized by The Fintech Foundation, with the World Bank Group and Bank for International Settlements as Co-Hosts. The week served as a platform for Bermuda to engage the United States agencies now writing digital asset rules and to advance regulatory cooperation with its counterparts in Washington.
The delegation met with Chairman Paul S. Atkins of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Chairman Michael Selig of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to brief both agencies on the Digital Asset Business Act and on recent developments at the Bermuda Monetary Authority. This included the BMA’s Embedded Supervision pilot and its consultations on tokenization, stablecoins, and artificial intelligence.
Discussions covered how each agency may treat comparable foreign frameworks as it advances rulemaking under its existing authority. The Premier offered Bermuda’s support and positioned the Island as a partner to the United States as its agencies take on the primary responsibility of rulemaking in the absence of the CLARITY Act, which failed in the Senate in September. Technical officers from the Ministry of Finance and Bermuda Monetary Authority were in attendance at both meetings and will maintain dialogue with the SEC and CFTC.
On October 13, the Premier joined a fireside conversation titled “Building a Digital Asset Jurisdiction: A Conversation with David Burt, Premier of Bermuda,” moderated by Elad Roisman, Chief Regulatory and Policy Officer and General Counsel, Regulatory, at Fireblocks and former Acting Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Premier set out Bermuda’s path from the Digital Asset Business Act in 2018 to its plan to become the world’s first fully onchain national economy. Aqsa Zubair, Deputy Director, FinTech Supervision at the Bermuda Monetary Authority, also spoke on the panel “Concentration, Interoperability & the Cross-Border Stress Test.”
The delegation conducted meetings with several digital finance firms, including Coinbase, Ondo Finance, Ripple, and Blackrock; in which they encouraged the firms to expand their operations in Bermuda or consider launching innovative products utilizing the Digital Asset Business Act.
The Premier also attended two industry dinners, one at the Milken Institute’s FinTech Program titled, ‘The Evolution of Digital Finance and Tech’, and the other at The Digital Chamber’s ‘Crypto Cabinet Dinner’. At both events, the Premier shared Bermuda’s experience driving local adoption of digital finance tools and lessons that other jurisdictions could learn from Bermuda’s case study.
Premier Burt 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. Bermuda remains a ready and willing partner to the United States, and the benefit of this work will be felt by Bermudians at home.”
These meetings and commitments reflect Bermuda’s continued partnership with the United States on digital finance regulation. By engaging directly with regulators, policymakers and licensed firms, the Government aims to secure regulatory comparability, attract further institutional business to the island, and ensure that Bermudians benefit from the sector’s growth.
The delegation also invited DC Fintech Week attendees to join the Digital Finance Forum in Bermuda in April 2027.
