President Donald Trump addressed crypto executives at the White House on March 7, declaring it “a very important day in your lives.” Trump hosted the inaugural Crypto Summit, bringing together prominent figures in the crypto world with cabinet officials to reaffirm his support for the industry and solicit their input on regulation and legislation. Attendees generally felt empowered and optimistic about a new era for crypto in Washington.
Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink and a summit participant, stated that government representatives indicated a shift away from a negative stance towards the crypto industry, signaling substantial support.
“Very open and receptive”
For the past few years, the crypto industry has been frustrated by the enforcement actions of President Joe Biden’s administration. The SEC, under Gary Gensler, aimed to curb what it deemed violations of securities laws by crypto companies and protect investors from widespread scams and fraud within the crypto sector. This led to lawsuits against both large and small companies, including Coinbase.
Following Trump’s election, he appointed cabinet members with close ties to the crypto industry, including an AI & crypto czar, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and a Treasury Secretary. Many enforcement actions, including the case against Coinbase, have since been. Furthermore, pro-crypto SEC commissioners, notably Hester Peirce, have been promoted, with Peirce now leading the.
The Summit was attended by all of these officials, along with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. Nazarov expressed surprise at the seniority of the government attendees, noting that industry representatives were given the opportunity to share their perspectives, and that the government officials were “very open and receptive.”
Trump led both a public press conference and a private meeting with the executives. In his public statements, he criticized Biden’s anti-crypto position, urged Congress to pass legislation on stablecoins and a digital asset framework before the August recess, and allowed FIFA president Gianni Infantino to showcase the soccer World Cup Trophy and propose a FIFA meme coin. Trump joked that the coin might eventually be worth more than FIFA itself. (Trump’s own meme coin, TRUMP, initially generated millions in trading fees, but its value has since declined from its $75 peak to $12.)
Industry participants at the summit included Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, the Winklevoss twins, and Zach Witkoff, co-founder of Trump’s own crypto company, World Liberty Financial. Collectively, these individuals have contributed over $11 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, and critics have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, stated that the significant spending by crypto companies in the 2024 elections has created “a new playbook for the purchase of large-scale political power in America.”
Avik Roy, co-founder and chairman of the think tank Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, questioned the distinction between legitimate actors and mere lobbyists, highlighting the challenge of discerning who is truly public-spirited. “The people that should be in front of him are in front of him, but there are also people who shouldn’t be in front of him who are in front of him,” he said.
Following the summit, Trump’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) allowed banks to hold cryptocurrency, while urging them to conduct their own risk assessments. This action further suggested that the Trump administration would not heavily regulate the industry. Nazarov commented that the industry had been “unfairly suppressed” and that the intention was to move in the opposite direction.
Trump’s crypto reserve
The summit occurred a day after Trump issued an announcing the creation of a federal Bitcoin reserve. Initial reactions to Trump’s earlier suggestion of the idea raised concerns, with some suggesting the possibility of taxes being levied to purchase crypto and risks associated with including smaller, volatile coins like Cardano and XRP in the proposal.
However, the Executive Order significantly scaled back those plans. It stated that the U.S. would not acquire new Bitcoin but would only hold onto cryptocurrencies seized in enforcement actions. Andrew O’Neill, the digital assets managing director of S&P Global Ratings, described the order as “mainly symbolic.”
Industry insiders welcomed the decision to prioritize a separate Bitcoin reserve, thereby reducing the prominence of other crypto projects—whose. Roy commented that it would have been “a pretty clearly a cronyist outcome where well-connected people were able to get the government to buy their tokens without really any obvious strategic rationale for doing so,” adding that “Bitcoin is a special case; it has no CEO.”
The Executive Order also mandates a comprehensive audit of the U.S.’ crypto holdings, estimated to include approximately 200,000 Bitcoin (worth about). Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt specializing in crypto and securities regulation, emphasized the importance of the audit in determining the usability of the Bitcoin and identifying what portion needs to be returned to fraud victims. A significant amount of this Bitcoin likely originates from the, seized by the U.S. government in 2022. Yadav noted that the audit will need to determine if efforts are being made to trace every victim, whether victims have come forward, and if claims have been addressed.
Crypto prices have experienced turbulence in recent months, partly due to uncertainty surrounding. However, crypto industry insiders believe that Trump’s laissez-faire approach will ultimately facilitate growth. “FTX is in the past now,” says Nazarov. “The big failures are in the past.”
Andrew R. Chow’s book about crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried, Cryptomania, was.
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