- Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger will step down on October 16, 2026, with founding leader Kristin Smith returning as interim CEO the following day
- Mersinger will stay on as an advisor through the end of the year, and the association credits her tenure with securing passage of the GENIUS Act and SEC-CFTC crypto asset classification interpretations
- Smith, who ran the Blockchain Association from its 2018 founding as its first employee until 2025, returns to lead the organization while a permanent CEO search is conducted
The Blockchain Association announced a leadership transition in a post on its own website published September 25, 2026, saying CEO Summer Mersinger will step down effective October 16, 2026. Kristin Smith, the trade group’s founding leader, will return as interim CEO the next day, October 17, while Mersinger continues in an advisory capacity through the end of the year.
The association’s own account of Mersinger’s tenure credits her with securing passage of the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin framework signed into law in July 2025, along with helping achieve SEC and CFTC interpretations clarifying how crypto assets are classified. During her time as CEO, Mersinger also testified before the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, and the House Ways and Means Committee, built out the organization’s grassroots advocacy program, and facilitated more than 300 congressional meetings along with seven Capitol Hill member fly-ins in 2026 alone.
“Leading Blockchain Association has been one of the great privileges of my career,” Mersinger said in the announcement, a statement that frames her departure as a personal transition rather than one tied to any stated disagreement with the organization’s board or direction.
Smith is returning to an organization she built from scratch: she was the Blockchain Association’s founding employee when it launched in 2018 and served as its CEO until 2025, growing it from a single staff member into what the association describes as the crypto industry’s leading voice in Washington. “Summer took the helm at the most consequential moment in crypto policy history, and she met it,” Smith said of her successor’s tenure in the same announcement.
The Blockchain Association’s post does not lay out a specific timeline or process for identifying a permanent successor to Mersinger, describing Smith’s role explicitly as interim while that search takes place. The transition lands at a moment when the group has been directly involved in ongoing federal rulemaking on stablecoins, tokenized securities, and market structure, meaning whoever eventually takes the role permanently will inherit an active advocacy agenda already in motion under Mersinger’s tenure rather than a quiet transition period.
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