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President-elect Donald Trump is set to issue an executive order making crypto a policy priority.
It will also give people with influence in the industry a voice in the incoming administration, people familiar with the plan told Bloomberg.
The order is set to make crypto a national imperative or priority, pushing government agencies to work with the industry. It‘s also intended to establish a crypto advisory council to champion the industry’s priorities.
The crypto industry has been a target for investigations during the Biden administration after a number of fraud cases, including the collapse of the FTX exchange, which went bankrupt in 2022 and led to the arrest of former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of defrauding investors.
Federal agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed more than 100 enforcement actions against the crypto industry in the last few years. Banking regulators also made it hard for crypto companies to work alongside financial institutions, Bloomberg noted.
What remains under discussion is a potential directive in the executive order for all agencies to have a look at their policies on digital assets and possibly put on hold any legal action that involves crypto, people familiar with the order told the outlet.
The creation of a national Bitcoin stockpile is also under consideration, which would include the government’s current holdings of the world’s top cryptocurrency.
The U.S. government currently has almost $20 billion in Bitcoin that was seized during a number of investigations, according to Arkham, an analytics company.
The executive order could become public as soon as Monday and it could change before it’s finalized, Bloomberg noted.
“What I think Donald Trump is going to do is signal that the United States is back and we are ready to lead in this industry,” the vice president for U.S. policy at Coinbase Global, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., Kara Calvert, told the outlet. “What it’s signaling to other countries is be careful, or you won’t keep up.”
Trump campaigned on aiding the crypto industry during the election. Attending a Bitcoin conference in July, he claimed that he would make the U.S. the crypto capital of the world.
Also last year, he announced a crypto business alongside his sons called World Liberty Financial. It’s supposed to allow people to earn and borrow cryptocurrency, but it doesn’t yet do so, Bloomberg noted.
Trump has received strong backing from the crypto industry, which has a major presence in the nation’s capital, supported by political action committees. A number of companies, such as Coinbase and Ripple, have donated to Trump’s inaugural committee. The industry is hosting an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” on Friday ahead of Monday’s inauguration.
