For the past four years, the cryptocurrency industry has been driving on a dirt track in a dark wilderness, with regulatory bandits lurking around every bend. The landscape changed with the election of Donald Trump, who campaigned to become the first “crypto president.” Suddenly, the road ahead was paved, the sun was shining, and Bitcoin hit $100,000. But what does the Trump administration actually mean for crypto?
There’s little question that the Biden administration was bad for the crypto industry. Though it occasionally threw the industry a bone, the administration oversaw a regulatory apparatus that imposed a de facto ban on large parts of the digital-assets ecosystem in the United States. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was central to this approach, engaging in what could be characterized as an “enforce first, make rules never” strategy that subjected U.S. digital-asset market participants to extreme regulatory and compliance risk. But the SEC wasn’t alone in creating a hostile regulatory environment. Banking regulators, for example, have also been accused of working to lock the industry out of the financial system.
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The official government position changed on January 20 with the inauguration of the vocally pro-crypto Trump. An early executive order asserted the digital-asset industry’s “crucial role” in the country’s innovation, economic development, and international leadership and announced administration policy “to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors of the economy.”
In many ways, the Trump administration is off to a good start, with summits, working groups, task forces, and personnel appointments. But there’s a wide gulf between an attitude shift and the creation of a durable, digital-assets-friendly regulatory framework.
More consequentially, the SEC has rescinded problematic accounting guidance, clarified whether meme coins fall within its jurisdiction, and abandoned enforcement litigation and investigations against various crypto companies. Banking regulators have also adopted more crypto-friendly stances, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issuing guidance that makes it easier for national banks to engage in some crypto activities and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proactively releasing documents that shed light on questions about crypto debanking.
The White House also has gotten involved in congressional efforts to get the crypto-friendly agenda moving. An early February press conference with White House crypto czar David Sacks saw Senate and House Republicans get moving on stablecoin legislation, which had languished in the last Congress. Just over a month later, the Senate advanced a stablecoin bill (with bipartisan support), and the House may not be far behind.
Sacks also gave the White House’s full-throated support to a Senate resolution to rescind the Internal Revenue Service’s decentralized finance (DeFi) broker rule that would have required DeFi platforms to collect and report data. Both the Senate and the House have since approved measures to overturn the rule with significant bipartisan support. By congressional standards, this is legislating at lightning speed, indicating a desire to get something done.
All this activity, however, only scratches the surface of the work needed to create a rational, durable regulatory regime for digital assets. Crypto proponents will need patience as the White House and agencies work on creating rules, which is slower than resolving enforcement actions. It will take time to draw clear lines around when a token qualifies as a security and to clarify the process to issue and exchange such a token. It will also take time to iron out the applicability (or inapplicability) of regulatory frameworks to decentralized peer-to-peer transactions. And while executive agencies can go a long way toward creating a more crypto-friendly environment, Congress will have to be involved to create a lasting regulatory structure.
While the path forward for the crypto industry may be brighter, potential roadblocks still lie ahead. Like the difference between vibes and policy, there’s a big distinction between regulatory changes that allow crypto to compete and changes that give crypto the upper hand. Trump’s Bitcoin Strategic Reserve runs the risk of picking winners and losers by favoring one asset over others, for a reserve of questionable strategic value. Trump meme coins, rumored special tax treatment for crypto, and potential government purchases of crypto, among other things, all tend toward such an environment, which undermines innovation and consumer choice.
There may be fewer bandits waiting along the road, but crypto still has a long journey ahead of it. Bitcoin’s price has fallen from its historic highs, partly due to impatience with the pace of regulatory changes. But Washington can only move so quickly, however motivated the administration.
Photo: President Trump with White House crypto czar David Sacks (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)