United States President Donald Trump has come through with a highly-anticipated executive order on crypto. The Crypto Renaissance has officially begun. https://t.co/c2Gblbz14e — Michael Saylor (@saylor) January 23, 2025 On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order establishing a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, bringing the possibility of a strategic Bitcoin reserve closer to reality. The group’s mandate is to identify and remove barriers to cryptocurrency innovation. Trump Signs Crypto And “National Digital Asset Stockpile” Executive Order The executive order, titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” created a Presidential Working group chaired by David Sacks , the White House’s first-ever “AI and crypto czar”, and is composed of various Cabinet officials, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other White House officials. Though the order does not itself establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, it tasks the group with exploring the feasibility of a “strategic national digital assets stockpile,” following Trump’s campaign trail promise to establish a Bitcoin national reserve. The EO also indicates that crypto assets lawfully confiscated by the Federal government via its law enforcement efforts could potentially form this stockpile. Arkham data shows that the US Government holds dozens of cryptocurrencies, including roughly $180 million worth of Ether and millions of dollars worth of various altcoins. Its biggest holding is 198,000 BTC, valued at $21 billion, and comprises roughly 98% of its crypto holdings as of publication time. These seized assets could potentially be moved or used for the establishment of the national stockpile. A Game-Changer For The Crypto Industry The Presidential Working Group is further mandated with developing federal regulations for digital assets, including stablecoins. This means the crypto assets sector could move forward in the U.S. with a more welcoming framework created by the Oval Office. Additionally, Trump’s order explicitly bans federal agencies from working on a U.S. central bank digital currency, often referred to as the “digital dollar”, in his administration, noting that they are “prohibited from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote CBDCs within the United States jurisdiction or abroad. The executive order could also encourage the adoption of crypto payments among prominent financial institutions in the US, per popular economist Alex Krüger, who stated that institutions will begin leveraging blockchain for payments and tokenization. The endorsement of the President of the United States and a clear and friendly regulatory environment will generate seismic changes in the crypto industry. – Institutional adoption: Banks, Fortune 500 companies, and government agencies will start using blockchains for payments… — Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) January 24, 2025 In another key action pushed for by the crypto sector, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, under acting pro-crypto chair Mark Uyeda, announced on Thursday that it has canceled accounting guidance that had imposed outrageous costs on companies safeguarding crypto assets for third parties. Industry advocates argued that the SAB 121 guidance had hindered banks from foraying into the crypto market.
