Ashley Ebersole spent his early SEC years on the distributed ledger working group. He has a vantage on the agency's crypto enforcement era that very few industry voices have.

At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, he sits with David Sencil to walk through the embodiment theory courts later rejected, the asymmetric settlement pressure that forced startups to fold, and what tx is now building: the first FINRA-approved stock-token platform in the U.S.

We cover:

- The SEC's enforcement-first era and what it cost

- The unlimited-budget settlement asymmetry

- The embodiment theory and other rejected novel theories

- What tx is building with FINRA-approved stock tokens

- Why Gen Z is skipping traditional brokerage accounts

Chapters:

00:24 - Bitcoin.com Live News Desk at Paris Blockchain Week

01:28 - Background of Ashley Ebersole

02:11 - SEC and New Technologies

03:16 - Awareness of Bitcoin and Crypto

04:06 - Experience at the SEC

05:04 - Changes in SEC Leadership

06:14 - Regulatory Challenges and Theories

07:07 - Enforcement First Approach

08:05 - Legal Theories and Court Rejections

10:11 - Government Influence on Settlements

12:06 - Bias Against Crypto

14:02 - Legal Challenges and Court Decisions

16:08 - Misunderstandings About Tokenization

18:03 - Generational Differences in Financial Products

20:25 - Predictions for On-Chain Real-World Assets

21:42 - Understanding Tokenization 24:19 - TX and Tokenization Platform

27:06 - Questions About Tokenized Stocks

29:59 - Regulatory Approaches and Tokenization

33:23 - Jurisdictional Differences in Tokenization

36:30 - Future Discussions and Closing Remarks

Follow for more conversations on crypto, markets, and the future of finance.