It’s a new day for financial regulations in the U.S., with new leaders updating and streamlining the rules that govern both old business institutions—like Wall Street—and new ones—like cryptocurrency. Last week, I attended the Milken Institute’s Future of Finance event in Washington, D.C., which opened with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig excitedly sharing their plans for their organizations.

The Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, housed in a historic bank building a block from the White House, was filled with a friendly audience listening intently to their plans: a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and digital assets, working together to define and classify different types of tokenized securities, bringing investors in the digital and crypto world back to the U.S., creating a regulatory pathway for new technological developments in investing and finance. And Atkins also talked about his initiative to “make IPOs great again,” streamlining rules and requirements to make it easier and more desirable for companies to go public and turn to Wall Street for money.

“We really are now, in financial services, at the cusp of a really exciting new frontier,” Atkins said.

But outside the event, the world was changing quickly. And while Atkins and Selig are making plans for new ways businesses can work in finance, dark clouds hang overhead. It was nice to be at an event in Washington last week at which war was not the dominant topic, but the war with Iran certainly is making anyone’s path to new investment a bit more precarious.

I spoke with Drew Bernstein, cofounder and co-chairman of Marcum Asia, about how the finance world has taken a sharp turn, and what companies that are eyeing an IPO can do about it. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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The U.S. has been in conflict with Iran for just over a week, but the impact of the war is now hitting Americans’ budgets deeply. On Monday, the price at the pump had gone up an average of 50 cents a gallon since the war with Iran started. In the afternoon, the price of a barrel of oil fell in late afternoon when he told CBS News, “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” But Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it would be the “most intense day of strikes” against Iran, calling the war’s timeline into question and tipping the markets again, but leaving crude oil prices around $85 a barrel by midday.

President Donald Trump and his allies have so far been dismissive of how the spike in fuel prices will impact the average consumer. He said in a Truth Social post it “is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.” John Catsimatidis, Trump ally and billionaire owner of United Refining Company, told Forbes last week he encourages consumers to stop panicking and “suffer for one month” so the U.S. can “take out the terrorists.”

Consumers likely don’t feel that way. Forbes senior contributor Mayra Rodriguez Valladares writes that many consumers were already under strain, with 46% citing unaffordable prices as a pressure point. Loan delinquencies are up, and a quarter of people using buy-now-pay-later services are drawing the money to buy........

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