Donald Trump first signaled he would be a pro-crypto President with his rousing speech before the annual Bitcoin Conference in Nashville last July, at which he likened the crypto-verse to “the steel industry of 100 years ago.”
Not only did he promise to ensure that America would become “the crypto capital of the planet and bitcoin superpower of the world,” he drew “rapturous” applause by announcing his intention to fire then-Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler, who oversaw agency rulings detrimental to digital tokens and to file lawsuits against bitcoin exchanges.
Trump became the first presidential winner to accept campaign contributions in cryptocurrencies. Among them, high-profile figures like Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, co-founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, contributed $1.6 million in Bitcoin to his campaign, while Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell donated $845,000 in Ether.
The 2024 election also saw at least 240 pro-crypto candidates winning seats in Congress, signaling that the U.S. government in 2025 might be the most pro-crypto in history. Anastasija Plotnikova,, CEO and co-founder of Fideum, said the election “paves the way for harmonized crypto regulations that will drive innovation, boost competition, and incentivize talent to return.”
After promising during the campaign he would “ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet,” upon his victory, President Trump followed through with a series of actions, not the least of which was promoting his own cryptocurrencies.
His nomination of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary was hailed by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse lauded as “the perfect pick by Donald Trump.” Garlinghouse predicted that Bessent will be “the most pro-innovation, pro-crypto Treasury Sec we’ve ever seen.”
And no wonder. Bessent himself had invested in blockchain startups and decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives, and his nomination signaled an 180-degree turnaround from the stance of Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a harsh critic of cryptocurrency as “risky business.”
By contrast, Bessent had told Fox Business that, “I have been excited about the President’s embrace of crypto…. Crypto is about freedom and the crypto economy is here to stay.”
Trump won further praise by nominating cryptocurrency advocate and former commissioner Paul Atkins as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing the stridently anti-crypto Gensler. The soon-to-be revamped SEC will quickly end the Gensler practice of relying on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively (and adopting novel, untested legal interpretations in the process).
In making the announcement, Trump highlighted Atkins’ belief in robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of investors. Then he added, “[Atkins] also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”
The market response to Trump’s election was staggering. By December 4, the value of Bitcoin rose above $100,000 and shares in the crypto platform Coinbase had surged more than 70% in 30 days.
On December 6, Trump announced he would tab former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks as his “White House AI and Crypto Czar,” and charged him with working on a legal framework for the crypto industry. Sacks recently declared that “the reign of terror against crypto is over, and the beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun.”
The reshaping of the SEC continued on January 15, when Biden appointee Jaime Lizzárraga announced his resignation, as did Biden appointed SEC general counsel Megan Barbera. This leaves Caroline Crenshaw, whose term expires soon, as the lone Democrat on the Commission and opens the door for Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda to begin revising official SEC policy toward cryptocurrencies.
On January 22, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at securing “America’s position as the world’s leader in the digital asset economy.” The order prohibits agencies from establishing, issuing, or promoting central bank digital currencies and directs other federal agencies and departments to provide recommendations about digital asset regulations that should be rescinded or modified. It also revokes the Biden administration’s digital assets executive order framework for international engagement in the industry.
Perhaps most important, the order establishes the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, which is charged with developing a regulatory framework for digital assets, including stablecoins, and evaluating the creation of a strategic national digital assets stockpile. Sacks, Bessent, interim Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Caroline Pham and members of an industry-led crypto advisory council will be tasked with reshaping U.S. policy on digital currencies.
Almost as soon as President Trump was sworn in, Acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda launched a task force dedicated to developing the comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets to be led by SEC Commissioner Peirce. The new framework will seek to clarify who must register and provide practical solutions for those seeking to register, ending any confusion about what is and is not legal.
The response to Trump’s election by investors has been stunning. In the final three months of 2024, an astonishing 46% of venture capital went to cryptocurrency startups in the United States, according to Galaxy Digital’s Crypto and Blockchain Venture Capital report. Recent announcements by international financiers suggest that cryptocurrencies will be capturing even larger shares of the investment capital market.
One cryptocurrency seeking to democratize access to wealth creation, Unicoin, has as one of its co-Founders serial entrepreneur, Alex Konanykhin, who believes rightly that they are “in the right place at the right time” with an opportunity to turn Unicoin into the leading American cryptocurrency company, as Unicoin is the only cryptocurrency that is U.S.-registered, U.S.-based, U.S-regulated, U.S.-audited, and U.S.-publicly reporting.
One would anticipate that the new SEC leadership will promptly approve their S-1 application that would make Unicoin the first publicly traded cryptocurrency company in the United States and an integral part of President Trump’s efforts to turn America into “the crypto capital of our planet.” One should also look forward with interest to organizations like Unicoin working more closely with the SEC regulators and the Trump Administration than any Administration before and in history.
Duggan Flanakin is a policy analyst for CFACT
This post was originally published on here
