Trump Issues Order on Crypto to Promote Digital Asset Industry
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Thursday ordering the federal bureaucracy to facilitate the growth of the crypto industry and to provide regulatory clarity for crypto.
“It is therefore the policy of my Administration to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors of the economy,” the order read.
Agencies of the federal government are to provide “regulatory clarity and certainty built on technology-neutral regulations, frameworks that account for emerging technologies, transparent decision making, and well-defined jurisdictional regulatory boundaries.”
The crypto industry has long bemoaned what it has called “regulation by enforcement” and what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has described as ordinary law enforcement. Crypto supporters in Congress have pushed for legislation to deregulate crypto and to shift authority over cryptocurrencies away from SEC and toward the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Interestingly, Acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda also this week announced the launch of a new crypto task force to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets. According to that announcement, the task force’s focus will be to help the commission “draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, craft sensible disclosure frameworks, and deploy enforcement resources judiciously.”
The Trump executive order, meanwhile, will create a working group on digital assets, and will include the Attorney General, Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce, and the Chair of the CFTC, among other officials.
This working group will issue a report in six months which will “propose a Federal regulatory framework governing the issuance and operation of digital assets,” and “shall evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile and propose criteria for establishing such a stockpile, potentially derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts.”
Trump also recently issued a crypto coin of his own.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) wrote a letter to officials at SEC, Treasury, CFTC, and the Office of Government ethics in response on Wednesday. The letter notes that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump launched two meme coins, in which they own 80% of the coins.
The creation of these coins and their resulting sale “has massively enriched Trump personally, enabled a mechanism for the crypto industry to funnel cash to him, and created a volatile financial asset that allows anyone in the world to financially speculate on Trump's political fortunes.”
The letter adds that, “Nearly overnight, President Trump and his wife’s net worth skyrocketed to $58 billion. Anyone, including the leaders of hostile nations, can covertly buy these coins.”
“The Trump organization made an estimated $58 million in trading fees alone by Monday, without selling a single coin. Recent reporting indicates that the Trump meme coin now accounts for a whopping 89 percent of Trump’s net worth.”