Cryptocurrency in the second Donald Trump administration

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During the second presidency of Donald Trump, cryptocurrency was promoted by Trump and his administration, which took a series of crypto-friendly actions and decisions. His administration appointed crypto-friendly regulators, reduced crypto regulation and dropped investigations into crypto firms and crypto crime.^[1] Trump promoted his own cryptocurrency meme coin, $Trump, and maintained significant investments in crypto with his family company World Liberty Financial, all of which raised significant conflict of interest concerns. His campaign and inauguration received millions of dollars in donations from the crypto industry, and he called himself the "crypto president".

In American president Donald Trump's first term, he had opposed cryptocurrency, and in 2021, he had told Fox Business that Bitcoin "seems like a scam" to compete with the U.S. dollar.^[2] In his second presidency, Trump campaigned for digital assets.^[3]

As Forbes reported, Trump fulfilled most of his campaign promises for crypto as of April:^[4]

• Fire Gary Gensler as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler resigned one day before inauguration day.^[4]
• Appoint a crypto czar. Venture capitalist David O. Sacks was appointed White House AI and Crypto Czar^[4] in December.^[5]
• Create U.S. cryptocurrency stockpile. Created by executive order, the U.S. began both Bitcoin and digital asset stockpiles.^[4]
• Banned a U.S. central bank digital currency. Reversed a Biden executive order.^[4]
• Make the U.S. the global bitcoin mining center. (In progress)^[4]

The cryptocurrency industry poured money into both sides^[6] of the 2024 election, becoming the largest corporate donor with $238 million—more than the oil, gas, and pharmaceutical lobbies.^[7] The crypto industry gave $18 million to the Trump inauguration,^[8] money Trump was free to spend as he wished.^[9]

In May 2025, The Economist described cryptocurrency's embrace of Trump as "turning it into something of a partisan cause" and derailing the bipartisan GENIUS Act^{[clarification needed]} due to Democratic concerns over Trump's conflicts of interest and influence-peddling with cryptocurrency companies.^[1]

In February in a sharp reversal of policy, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Trump announced a new Crypto Task Force to handle regulation^[10] as it dropped lawsuits or dismissed charges against Justin Sun,^[11] Coinbase, Kraken, Consensys, Robinhood, OpenSea, Cumberland,^[12] and settled with Ripple.^[13] Paul S. Atkins became SEC chair to oversee the identification and repeal of regulations prohibited in Trump's February 19 executive order.^[14]

In April, Trump disbanded the Justice Department agency responsible for regulating cryptocurrency crime.^[15]

In January by executive order, Trump created a Working Group on digital assets and promised to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.”^[16] On March 2 following a crypto sell-off, Trump started a $300 billion global rally in cryptocurrency when he named five types on Truth Social that the US stockpile would hold:^[17] Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA); and later Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).^[18] On March 6 by executive order, Trump established the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.^[19]

He held a Crypto Summit at the White House the following day, inviting leaders in the field to discuss the government-owned crypto stockpile.^[20] The industry was disappointed that taxpayer funds wouldn't be used to purchase crypto, and the market dropped sharply following the order.^[21]

• as Bloomberg said, cementing Bitcoin as a financial instrument and a U.S. asset held in reserve like gold, oil and cheese^[22]

He pardoned BitMEX, the first presidential pardon of a corporation.^[23]

Axios estimated that the $Trump currency "accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump's net worth".^[24]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Trump filed to dismiss its lawsuit against Coinbase which had charged Coinbase was "Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency".^[25][26][27] The SEC requested a 60-day pause in its lawsuit against Binance that alleged mishandling of funds and securities law violations.^[28][29] The SEC asked that the case against Trump associate and crypto billionaire Justin Sun be put on hold.^[30][31] The SEC said it would not exercise any regulatory authority over memecoins.^[32][33]

Representative Ayanna Pressley criticized the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency's targeting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and "emphasized the critical role" of the agency's work to protect consumers of cryptocurrencies.^[34] Trump nominated Paul S. Atkins, who has "close ties to the crypto industry", to succeed Gary Gensler as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.^[35] Scott Bessent, described by Forbes as "a prominent pro-crypto hedge fund manager", was nominated by Trump for Secretary of the Treasury.^[36][37] ProPublica reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development had discussed using cryptocurrency, which was described as "simply reckless" by Reps. Maxine Waters, Stephen Lynch and Emanuel Cleaver, who drew comparisons with "risky, unregulated, and predatory financial products" that led to the Great Recession.^[38][39] In a memo, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said the national cryptocurrency enforcement team (established in February 2022 to "address the challenge posed by the criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies and digital assets") "shall be disbanded effective immediately" as "the Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator".^[40][41][42] Trump's ties to cryptocurrency have led to concerns of corruption, with Senator Elizabeth Warren describing Trump as "enriching himself and his family through their crypto businesses while his administration guts oversight of the market".^[43][44]

Through an umbrella company, Trump and some of his family members own 60 percent of the holding company that owns World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency and decentralized finance firm founded in 2024, with the native digital tokens $WLFI. After deductions, the Trumps receive 75 percent of the proceeds from the sale of these tokens.^[45] World Liberty Financial created its stablecoin USD1 in March 2025.^[46] In May, a firm in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said it would use USD1 to make a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance,^[47] The Trumps will make tens of millions of dollars each year on this deal.^[48]

He directly benefited from his cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial which engaged in an unprecedented mixing of private enterprise and government policy. It directly solicited access to Trump with secret payments and currency swaps from foreign investors, companies, and individuals with criminal records and investigations. At least one investigation was dropped after payment worth several million was made to the firm, and Trump granted an official pardon to an investor of a company World Liberty had invested in. Trump's family received a cut of all transactions made through the World Liberty, and the company directly advertised its connections to Trump. Several actions taken by Trump's administration regarding cryptocurrency were noted to bolster the company's assets and position. A spokeswoman for Trump stated that since his assets were in a trust managed by his children, there were "no conflicts of interest".^[49]

In January 2025, Trump launched the $Trump meme coin, earning between $86–100 million in trading fees in two weeks.^[50] Peaking at $75.35 the day before inauguration, the coin's value then declined.^[3] Creating a contest, Trump invited the top coin holders to a private dinner to be held on May 22,^[51] bringing the coin's value back up 70 percent and the total in circulation to $2.4 billion.^[52] By April, fees collected by entities affiliated with the Trump Organization whose stake is 80 percent^[3] totaled $349 million.^[53] The Campaign Legal Center director of ethics said “criminal conflicts of interest statutes don’t apply to the president” and that the contest is most likely legal.^[54]

On January 17, 2025, Trump launched, promoted, and personally benefited^[55] from a cryptocurrency memecoin, $Trump, that soared to a market valuation of over $5 billion within a few hours—a total $27 billion diluted value—through a Trump-owned company called CIC Digital LLC, which owned 80 percent of the coin's supply.^[56] Within two days, the $Trump coin became the 19th most valuable form of cryptocurrency in the world, with a total trading value of nearly $13 billion, and a total of $29 billion worth of trades based on a $64 value of each of the 200 million tokens issued by the afternoon of January 19. The New York Times reported that Trump affiliates controlled an additional 800 million tokens that, hypothetically, could be worth over $51 billion, potentially making Trump one of the richest people in the world. Trump also launched a new memecoin named after his wife, $Melania, and promoted it on Truth Social shortly before attending an inauguration rally. The crypto venture was criticized by ethics experts and government watchdogs.^[57] The venture and the possibility of foreign governments buying the coin was highlighted as possibly violating the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause.^[58]