The wheels are has already begun to make Donald Trump’s plan to make the US into the “crypto capital of the planet” after his return to the White House.
In an executive order signed on Thursday, Trump established a “working group on digital asset markets”, which will be responsible, among other things, for weighing the possibility of the US forming a “strategic national digital asset stockpile”.
The promise to establish an inventory was one of numerous commitments Trump made to the crypto industry before he was re-elected. Although the idea stumped economists, it received an enthusiastic reception among bitcoiners. As rumors of an impending announcement spread on Thursday, the price of bitcoin climbed to $105,000 per coin, just short of the record high.
The order also requires the working group – which will include the leaders of various branches of government, financial regulatory bodies and the attorney general – to determine an appropriate set of regulations and laws for the use of crypto.
Earlier this week, on Trump’s second day in office, the Securities and Exchange Commission — the US regulatory body that has brought a flurry of lawsuits against crypto firms under the Joe Biden administration — established a “crypto task force.” Under new leadership following the departure of former chairman Gary Gensler, widely demonized in the cryptosphere, the SEC will develop a “comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto-assets,” the agency said.
Later that day, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for crimes committed while running the infamous darknet marketplace Silk Road, one of the first sites to accept bitcoin as payment. After being arrested in 2013, Ulbricht became something of a martyr in crypto circles for his part in spreading the bitcoin gospel.
These initial gestures indicate Trump’s willingness to fulfill earlier campaign promises: to pass various crypto-related legislation, reform the financial regulatory apparatus in the US, and embed crypto into the US national treasury. The consequences will be far-reaching, crypto figures believe, reverberating far beyond US shores and creating the conditions for a new golden age for the industry.
“Our technology is very powerful and transformative. We need to get it into different societies,” said Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and CEO of software company Consensys. “And America is a standard setter for the rest of the world.”
Despite previously dismissing bitcoin as a “scam,” Trump now has extensive ties to the crypto industry, many of whose high-profile members have come out in support of his re-election campaign.
In the run-up to the 2024 election, crypto organizations donated hundreds of millions of dollars to crypto-focused super political action committees, which spent the funds in support of crypto-friendly congressional candidates, many of them Republican.
On the campaign trail, Trump began billing himself as the first “crypto president.” In July, in front of a frenzied crowd of bitcoiners, Trump promised to turn the US into a crypto-mining powerhouse and establish a national bitcoin reserve if re-elected. In the same speech, he pledged to fire Gensler, the SEC chairman, which drew the most rapturous applause of the night.