A White House cryptocurrency report unveiled Wednesday offers the first detailed framework for regulators and legislators to execute President Donald Trump’s pledge to bolster the American digital assets landscape — but omits any new details on a controversial plan to develop a federal digital asset stockpile.
White House officials nonetheless billed the 160-page document as “the most comprehensive piece of work on digital assets that’s ever been produced” during a phone briefing with reporters on Wednesday, claiming that its findings would move the United States toward Trump’s mission to make it the “crypto capital of the world.”
The report is the product of a months-long effort by a cryptocurrency task force formed by Trump, including the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce, the Attorney General, and others.
Once a crypto skeptic, Trump has ordered his administration to supercharge the U.S. cryptocurrency industry, rolling back some regulatory enforcement and championing legislation that would broaden its accessibility and appeal.
“By implementing these recommendations, policymakers can ensure that the United States leads the blockchain revolution and ushers in the Golden Age of Crypto,” according to a fact sheet officials disseminated Wednesday ahead of the report’s release.
The lengthy report provides an array of recommendations on how to structure cryptocurrency markets and dole out regulatory responsibilities among federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The report urges those regulators to “immediately … provide clarity to market participants on issues such as registration, custody, trading, and recordkeeping” and “allow innovative financial products to reach consumers without bureaucratic delays.”
It also calls on Congress to enact legislation that “embraces [Decentralized Finance] technology and recognized the potential of integrating technology into mainstream finance,” according to the fact sheet.
Finally, it presses regulators and Congress to work toward “modernizing our anti-money laundering rules” to mitigate the scourge of illicit finance in cryptocurrency networks.
As details from the report emerged Wednesday, cryptocurrency insiders lauded it as a crucial step in legitimizing digital asset markets by providing legal and regulatory clarity to an industry that has struggled to emerge from its reputation as a haven for criminals and hucksters.
James Butterfill, the head of research at CoinShares, a digital asset investment firm, called the report “highly ambitious and ideologically clear” and overall “an unusually strong endorsement of digital assets,” but cautioned that “its success will depend on bipartisan legislative action, regulatory execution, and how well it balances freedom, innovation, and financial integrity.”
Other industry leaders had hoped the Working Group’s report would elucidate the administration’s plans to develop a bitcoin reserve, but the report bears no mention of its plans for a strategic stockpile. During the press briefing with reporters, a White House official said the administration is “well underway in terms of creating the infrastructure for that … and we’ll have more information on that probably here in short order.”
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Meanwhile, in his personal capacity, Trump and his family have become involved with or launched a bitcoin mining firm, a bitcoin reserve, a meme coin, a crypto trading app, and a stablecoin – the makings of a soup-to-nuts cryptocurrency empire.
Democrats and ethics watchdogs claim Trump could personally benefit from his administration’s embrace of crypto.
World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm with ties to the Trump family, recently launched its own stablecoin this spring. Federal financial disclosure forms, released in June before Congress passed a first-of-its-kind stablecoin law that will likely grow the industry, show Trump had already made $57.3 million from World Liberty Financial.
In January, Trump released a so-called “memecoin” and later had a private dinner with the token’s top 200 owners.
And Trump Media, of which the president is the largest shareholder, has followed the playbook of other public and private firms and accumulated roughly $2 billion in bitcoin as an investment.
“Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency roadmap is just the latest salvo in his effort to remove safeguards that protect American investors in cryptocurrency in order to line the pockets of himself and industry insiders,” said Tony Carrk, the executive director of watchdog group Accountable.US. “Let’s be clear: Trump has spent more time abusing the power of the presidency to enrich himself and his family through shady cryptocurrency ventures than helping American workers. Today’s self-aggrandizing report is little more than an industry wishlist masked as government policy.”
The White House asserts there are no conflicts of interest and points to the fact Trump’s assets are in a trust that he does not have direct access to and is managed by his children.
