Fireblocks has brought in former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Acting Chair Elad Roisman to steer its global regulatory and policy agenda, underscoring how central compliance has become to institutional digital asset infrastructure. Roisman will serve as chief regulatory and policy officer and general counsel for regulatory affairs, overseeing the firm’s strategy on financial regulation, policy outreach, and related legal issues.
Based in Washington, D.C., Roisman will become Fireblocks’ primary liaison with financial regulators and standard‑setting bodies around the world. His role includes shaping the company’s response to evolving rules, coordinating its participation in policy discussions, and ensuring that Fireblocks’ technology and services align with legal requirements in multiple jurisdictions.
The appointment comes at a moment when regulators in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are all building out frameworks for stablecoins, tokenized assets, and a wide range of digital asset services. Fireblocks noted that this patchwork of requirements directly impacts the banks, payment companies, and asset managers that rely on its platform to build blockchain-based products and infrastructure.
Stablecoins, in particular, have emerged as a core part of Fireblocks’ institutional business. The company views them as a mature settlement tool for financial institutions, supporting cross-border payments, treasury operations, and trading workflows. At the same time, tokenized instruments-such as money market funds, private credit products, and other real-world assets-are increasingly moving from pilot programs into live production use, intensifying the need for clear, consistent regulatory treatment.
As more traditional financial products migrate onto blockchain networks, Fireblocks faces growing demands around compliance, risk controls, and reporting. Banks and asset managers are not only tokenizing securities and fixed income instruments but also experimenting with tokenized deposits and on-chain fund shares. That expansion creates new legal questions around custody, transfer restrictions, investor protections, and cross-border supervision-areas where Roisman’s background is expected to be critical.
Within Fireblocks, Roisman will coordinate policy messaging and legal analysis under a single mandate. His portfolio covers both the company’s outward-facing engagement with regulators and industry groups and its internal interpretation of rules that apply across different markets. This dual focus is designed to help Fireblocks anticipate regulatory shifts early and to translate complex requirements into practical product and infrastructure decisions.
Fireblocks co-founder and CEO Michael Shaulov emphasized that first-hand experience inside regulatory agencies is increasingly important for companies operating at the intersection of finance and technology. By hiring leaders who understand how regulators think, prioritize, and enforce, Fireblocks aims to participate more constructively in policy debates and to better guide its institutional clients as new rules go into effect.
Shaulov highlighted that Roisman’s mix of public- and private-sector experience-spanning enforcement, rulemaking, and advisory work for financial institutions-should help Fireblocks refine its infrastructure as customers enter more tightly regulated areas of digital finance. This includes stablecoin settlement, tokenized real-world assets, and other services that sit within or adjacent to traditional securities and payments regimes.
Before joining Fireblocks, Roisman co-led the digital assets practice at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. In that role, he advised banks, asset managers, and fintech companies on how existing and emerging regulations apply to digital assets, trading platforms, custody models, and tokenization strategies. He also appeared before Congress to provide input on proposed legislation affecting the structure and oversight of U.S. crypto and digital asset markets.
Roisman’s public-sector track record is extensive. At the SEC, he served both as a commissioner and as acting chairman. During his tenure, he participated in more than 100 rulemaking items and voted on over 1,000 enforcement actions. He represented the agency in front of Congress and engaged with international organizations as the SEC refined its approach to modern trading venues, market structure, and digital financial innovation.
On the international stage, Roisman worked with bodies such as the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the Financial Stability Board (FSB). These organizations play key roles in developing global principles for market supervision and in coordinating regulatory standards across national borders. Their efforts increasingly touch on digital assets, stablecoins, tokenization, and cross-border payment systems-areas directly relevant to Fireblocks’ business.
Prior to his service at the SEC, Roisman served as chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. There, he was involved in legislative work on capital markets, financial stability, and oversight of regulatory agencies. He also previously held a chief counsel position at NYSE Euronext, giving him a rare combination of experience across Congress, a federal regulator, and a major securities exchange group.
Roisman has noted that lawmakers and regulators are devoting heightened attention to creating legal frameworks that both enable and control activity in the digital asset space. At Fireblocks, his responsibilities will include ongoing dialogue with policymakers as financial institutions design products and services around recently enacted rules and pending legislation, particularly in areas such as stablecoins, market structure, and tokenization.
He has described the current phase of digital asset regulation as one in which engagement is critical: regulators are trying to keep up with rapid innovation, while institutions need clarity to safely deploy new technologies. His aim is to help connect these two sides, ensuring that Fireblocks’ clients can build the next generation of financial services within the boundaries of new regulations and laws.
In the United States, Roisman’s appointment coincides with an especially active period for digital asset policymaking. Congress and federal agencies are still working through foundational questions: how digital assets should be issued and marketed, what qualifies as a security or commodity, how stablecoins fit into the banking system, and which regulators should oversee different parts of the ecosystem.
Among the notable legislative efforts is the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which seeks to provide a clearer framework for the issuance, trading, and supervision of digital assets. The bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote, reflecting significant bipartisan support. In May 2026, the Senate Banking Committee advanced the legislation on a 15-9 vote, moving it out of committee. As of that time, however, the bill had not yet received a vote on the Senate floor, leaving its final status uncertain.
This type of legislative limbo illustrates why Fireblocks is investing in senior regulatory leadership. Institutions considering large-scale digital asset initiatives must plan for multiple scenarios: what happens if stablecoins are regulated more like bank liabilities, if certain tokens are definitively classified as securities, or if new licensing regimes are introduced for custodians and infrastructure providers. Roisman’s role is to help Fireblocks and its clients navigate those contingencies.
Beyond the U.S., regulatory landscapes are fragmenting along regional lines. Europe is rolling out comprehensive rules for crypto-asset service providers and stablecoin issuers. In parts of Asia, authorities are encouraging tokenization pilots while tightening consumer protections around retail trading. Several Middle Eastern financial centers are positioning themselves as hubs for institutional digital assets, often with bespoke licensing regimes. For a company like Fireblocks, this means aligning product design and compliance processes with multiple regulatory models at once.
The growing institutional use of stablecoins raises particularly complex questions. When banks and payment firms use stablecoins for settlement or treasury, issues like reserve management, disclosure, redemption rights, and operational resilience come to the forefront. Regulators are also focused on systemic risk: large-scale stablecoin usage could impact money markets, bank deposits, and cross-border capital flows. Fireblocks must ensure its infrastructure supports robust controls, auditability, and risk management for these use cases.
Tokenized real-world assets bring another layer of complexity. When funds, loans, or other financial instruments are represented on-chain, regulators want to ensure that investor protections, disclosure standards, and suitability rules remain intact. Questions arise around who is the legal “record owner” of a tokenized instrument, how transfer restrictions are enforced, how corporate actions are handled, and how insolvency laws interact with blockchain-based records. Fireblocks’ technology stack needs to address these topics in a way that satisfies both clients and regulators.
Roisman’s combination of legal, legislative, and supervisory experience positions him to evaluate these issues not just from the perspective of statutory text, but also through the lens of how regulators enforce and interpret rules in practice. For institutional clients, this can translate into more durable product structures that are less likely to require major redesigns as laws evolve.
Another dimension of his work will involve helping shape emerging global standards on cybersecurity, custody, and operational resilience for digital asset infrastructure. Institutions moving assets on-chain expect enterprise-grade controls around key management, access permissions, transaction approvals, and disaster recovery. Regulators, for their part, are developing expectations for what “good” looks like in these areas. Fireblocks must map its security model-particularly its use of technologies such as multi-party computation-to those evolving expectations.
Internally, Roisman is likely to work closely with product, engineering, and risk teams to embed regulatory considerations early in the design process. Instead of treating compliance as a final check, Fireblocks can use his guidance to build products that anticipate licensing, reporting, and governance needs from the outset. This “compliance by design” approach is increasingly a differentiator for infrastructure providers targeting banks and large asset managers.
His presence may also influence how Fireblocks participates in broader policy debates. As regulators explore definitions of custody, standards for on-chain settlement, and the treatment of programmable assets, Fireblocks can provide technical input grounded in real-world institutional use cases. Roisman’s familiarity with how agencies weigh industry feedback could help ensure that the company’s contributions are both constructive and aligned with supervisory priorities.
For Fireblocks’ customers, the practical impact of this appointment is likely to be felt in the form of clearer regulatory guidance, more structured implementation support, and solutions that are tailored to specific regulatory regimes. As clients plan cross-border tokenization projects or multi-jurisdictional stablecoin programs, Fireblocks will be expected to offer not only technology but also a well-informed view of compliance pathways and potential regulatory risks.
Overall, bringing in a former SEC acting chair signals that Fireblocks sees regulation not just as a constraint, but as a strategic arena where expertise can create competitive advantage. As the digital asset sector moves from experimentation to large-scale institutional adoption, the ability to align innovation with evolving rules-rather than outrun them-may determine which infrastructure providers emerge as long-term partners for the global financial system. Roisman’s role is to ensure Fireblocks is one of them.