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“Today marks a significant milestone in your journeys,” President Donald Trump remarked to cryptocurrency leaders at the White House on March 7. Under his leadership, the inaugural Crypto Summit convened, where he and other cabinet figures engaged with some of the foremost players in the crypto space to reaffirm the President’s backing for the sector and to consider the executives’ recommendations regarding regulation and legislation. Attendees left the meeting feeling empowered and optimistic, convinced that a new chapter for crypto has begun in Washington.
“The government representatives indicated that a negative climate towards the crypto sector has been prevalent, but that is coming to an end,” stated Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, who was present at the summit. “A substantial shift is occurring, with considerable support emerging.”
“Very open and receptive”
In recent years, the crypto industry faced mounting pressure from enforcement actions initiated by President Joe Biden’s administration. Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under Gary Gensler’s leadership, aimed to clamp down on crypto firms they believed were breaching securities regulations, intending to safeguard investors from rampant scams and frauds prevalent in the crypto sphere, such as Terra-Luna and FTX. This led to legal actions against both large and small companies, including Coinbase.
Following Trump’s election, he appointed several cabinet officials with strong industry connections, such as AI and crypto advocate David Sacks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Numerous enforcement actions, including those against Coinbase, have since been withdrawn. Moreover, the SEC’s most pro-crypto commissioners, notably Hester Peirce, have been promoted, with Peirce now overseeing the SEC’s Crypto Task Force.
All these officials participated in the Summit, alongside Tom Emmer, the House Majority Whip. “I was surprised to see such senior officials present at the summit,” Nazarov commented. “Everyone from the industry was given the opportunity to express their perspectives, and it seemed that the senior government officials were very open and receptive.”
Trump himself led both a public press event and a private discussion with the executives during the summit. In his public statements, he ridiculed Biden’s anti-crypto position, urged Congress to pass legislation on stablecoins and a digital asset framework before the August break, and unexpectedly allowed FIFA president Gianni Infantino to display the soccer World Cup Trophy while proposing the creation of a FIFA meme coin. “That coin might be worth more than FIFA in the end,” Trump remarked. (Initially, Trump’s own meme coin TRUMP generated millions in trading fees, but its value has plummeted from a peak of $75 to $12.)
Participants from the industry included Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, Michael Saylor from MicroStrategy, the Winklevoss twins, and Zach Witkoff, co-founder of Trump’s own crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. Collectively, these participants have contributed over $11 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, as reported by the Intercept, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest. “When crypto firms invested over a hundred million dollars in the 2024 elections, they created a new strategy for acquiring significant political power in America,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, stated in an email to TIME.
“The right people are in front of him, but there are also individuals who shouldn’t be,” remarked Avik Roy, co-founder and chairman of the think tank Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. “A persistent challenge in public policy is how someone in the President’s position can differentiate between those who are essentially lobbying and those who genuinely seek the public good.”
Following the summit, Trump’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released guidance permitting banks to hold cryptocurrency while advising them to conduct their own risk assessments. This further indicated that Trump’s Administration intends to take a more hands-off approach towards regulating the industry. “This industry has been unfairly hindered from reaching its potential in the U.S.,” stated Nazarov. “The intention is to pivot entirely in the opposite direction.”
Read More: Inside the Chess Match That Led the Feds to $3.6 Billion in Stolen Bitcoin
Trump’s crypto reserve
The summit followed Trump’s announcement of an Executive Order to establish a federal Bitcoin reserve. When Trump initially suggested the idea earlier that week, it raised concerns about potential taxation for crypto purchases and risks tied to including smaller, more volatile coins such as Cardano and XRP in the proposal.
However, the Executive Order considerably scaled back these ambitions. It stated that the U.S. would not acquire any new Bitcoin but would instead retain the cryptocurrencies already obtained through seizures. Andrew O’Neill, the digital assets managing director at S&P Global Ratings, described the order as “largely symbolic” in a comment to TIME.
Industry insiders welcomed the decision to focus efforts primarily on a Bitcoin reserve, effectively sidelining the other crypto initiatives—whose creators have been lobbying Trump for his endorsement. “It would have created a situation where well-connected individuals could convince the government to purchase their tokens without a clear strategic justification,” Roy commented. “Bitcoin stands apart; it lacks a central CEO.”
The Executive Order also mandates a comprehensive audit of the U.S. cryptocurrency holdings, estimated to include around 200,000 Bitcoin (valued at approximately $17 billion). Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in crypto and securities regulation, indicated that the audit would be vital in assessing how much of that Bitcoin is usable and how much may need to be returned to victims of fraud. A significant portion of that Bitcoin likely originates from the Bitfinex hack, which the U.S. government seized in 2022. “Determining whether they will make an effort to trace every victim in that instance, whether victims have stepped forward, and addressing unresolved claims will be critical to examine,” Yadav noted.
Crypto prices have fluctuated over the past month, partially due to uncertainty surrounding Trump’s tariffs. Nevertheless, insiders in the crypto sector are optimistic that Trump’s hands-off approach will ultimately facilitate growth. “The FTX debacle is now behind us,” concluded Nazarov. “The major failures are a thing of the past.”
Andrew R. Chow’s book on crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried, Cryptomania, was published in August.
