France – 2025/01/20: In this photo illustration, Trump even, Trump The Crypto President, is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Illustration Photo of Romain Doucelin / Sopa Images / Lightrocket via Getty Images)
Romain Doucelin | Getty images
The managers, companies and investors of cryptography obtain early return on their investment in Donald Trump.
After paying tens of millions of dollars in the Trump campaign in 2024 for the president, the cryptography industry was reimbursed during his first week in the White House.
“I do not think they could have imagined a better result they have just had in the last 48 hours,” said Bill Gurley de Benchmark, known for an early bet on Ubersaid to cnbc “Close Bell” Friday. Gurley said that although Tech’s new influence in Washington can be harmful to certain parts of the world of startups, “it’s obviously good for the crypto”.
The support of the industry in Trump was built on the promise of the republican leader to end the government’s repression on the crypto and to implement regulations favorable to those who wanted to develop new types of payment technologies while Departing the restrictions on investments in cryptocurrencies.
Heavy goods vehicles as Jamming CEO Brian Armstrong and CEO of Binance Richard Teng rent the start of a new era.
“You have to remember, in the past four years, we really felt like we were attacked by this administration,” Armstrong told CNBC at the Annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Armstrong criticized Biden’s White House for trying “armament the lack of clarity in the rules”, even punishing companies that were trying to be useful.
“There were also bad actors, to be fair,” said Armstrong. “But they even really tried to continue the right actors, I think, like us.” Coinbase was one of the main corporate donors in the 2024 electoral cycle.
Bitcoin reached a record summit of around $ 109,000 on Monday and oscillated nearly $ 105,000 by the end of the week. It is more than 50% since Trump’s electoral victory in early November.
Trump cryptography decree
US President Donald Trump has a decree signed on cryptocurrencies in the White House Oval Office in Washington on January 23, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The 48 -hour section referenced by Gurley included a Executive decree signed by Trump on Thursday to promote the adoption of digital assets in the United States
Trump called members of the Treasury, SECMODITY Futures Futures Trading Commission to unite their forces in a working group to assess the potential for storing cryptocurrencies seized by the government.
The order has described other key priorities, such as the protection of bitcoin minors and software developers of what the president called “persecution” and promoting staks caught in US dollars, while prohibiting a digital dollar The Federal Reserve.
The venture capital David Sacks, whom Trump has hit to be the AI of the White House and the Czar Crypto, joined the president at the Oval Office for the signing of the Order.
Later Thursday, the SEC made a historical announcement, withdrawing an accounting rule which made the adoption of institutional cryptography more difficult by forcing banks to treat bitcoin and other tokens as a passive in their balance sheet.
The rule, known as SAB 121, was introduced in 2022 and submitted digital assets to strict capital requirements. It has also increased financial and regulatory risks to offer childcare care services and increase operational costs for financial institutions.
The efforts to reverse SAB 121 obtained bipartisan support at Congress last year. But the president of the time, Biden opposed his veto to the proposed legislation, leaving the rule intact, discouraging more banks from adopting digital assets beyond the derivative trade and offering negotiated stocks on the stock market to customers of Heritage management.
This decision was celebrated by the SEC Commissioner, Hester Peirce, who was exploited Tuesday to lead a new “working group on the crypto” within the agency.
“Goodbye, goodbye Sab 121! It’s not fun,” she wrote in a Publish.
Before the SEC announcement, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told CNBC in Davos that from a regulatory perspective, the bank could not have Bitcoin and that it would come back if the rules modified. The CEOs of Morgan Stanley and America Bank Also said that President Trump’s pro-Crypto tone could reshape their plans and potentially lead to broad digital offers.
A few days earlier, Gary Gensler left his role as president of the dry. Gensler, who emerged as an opponent of the cryptographic industry, had defended the rule as necessary to protect investors in the event of bankruptcy of cryptographic society. The choice of Trump to succeed peopleler is the former SEC commissioner, Paul Atkins, who is currently CEO of Patomak Global Partners.
The founder of Silk Road comes out of prison
Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website, appears in an undated photograph made from his computer and presented as an exhibition during his criminal trial in 2015 before the New York Federal Court.
SDNY | Via Reuters
Trump’s first big wink to the cryptography industry while the president came earlier in the week and took a very different form.
Tuesday, his second day in power, Trump gave a complete forgiveness to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Ulbricht, 40 out of seven costs which included Distribution of drugs and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.
Silk Road operated from 2011 to 2013, serving as a dark web market where users bought and sold a mixture of smuggling, including illegal narcotics like heroin. The platform facilitated more than $ 200 million in salesAccording to federal prosecutors, and was linked to the death of at least six people.
At its peak, Silk Road worked as a global drug bazaar, with transactions carried out largely in Bitcoin, which makes it one of the first large-scale applications of a cryptocurrency. The prosecutors argued later that the anonymity offered by Bitcoin played a decisive role in leaving the sellers of silk routes to mask their identity.
Ulbricht had become a cult hero in a way in the cryptography community and the “”Ross free “ The movement had resonated among the personalities and politicians of the conservative media.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement, who supported me so strongly, I had the pleasure of having signed a forgiveness complete and unconditional of his son, Ross, ” Trump wrote In an article on Trush Social Tuesday.
Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Binance, commented On X with an applauding emoji after the announcement of forgiveness. Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April, after pleading guilty to charges of having allowed money money to his crypto exchange.
Trump coins
Hakan Nural | Getty images
All Trump’s actions during last week were not universally praised by the cryptographic industry.
More specifically, the president has spoiled himself in a part of the market which is notorious for scams. Last weekend, while crypto chiefs and family members and inner circle of Trump celebrated at Crypto Ball in Washington, the $ Trump memes piece takes off online.
Then came the room Melania $. Overall, the Trump family has won billions of dollars on paper because of their asset property created from the air. Crypto lovers fear that it is a disturbing sign of Trump’s real intention and damages the credibility of an industry that tries to prove its legitimacy.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I think the presidents should focus on the management of the country and not launch scam tokens,” wrote Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures, in a job on X.
THE website Because $ Trump says that 80% of the offer is owned by the Trump organization and the affiliates.
Legislators also have objections.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and representative Jake Auchincloss, both Democrats from Massachusetts, raised problems concerning the first couple using their positions for enrichment, as well as the “Rug-Pull” scam potential.
“We write in depth the decision of the decision of President Trump and the first lady Melania Trump to launch two pieces even, $ Trump and $ Melania, who allow them to make extraordinary profits from his presidency,” said the couple in A letter obtained by CNBC .com. “These parts do not create new, faster, cheaper and safer payment rails. These parts do not help people borrow more affordable. They do not improve the financial system for consumers.”
$ Trump is now negotiated at less than $ 30, down more than 50% of its peak shortly after the launch. The token $ Melania has plunged more than 80% of its summit and is currently negotiated below $ 2.50.
The same parts are subject to a multi -year acquisition calendar, ensuring that the majority of tokens cannot be liquidated at the same time. Without selling tokens, the former Coinbase leader and cryptographic analyst Conor Grogan esteem that The Trump team generated $ 58 million in negotiation costs on the first day.
Skepticism is not limited to memes pieces.
Thursday, in the executive order of Trump, the president did not order the United States to start buying Bitcoin directly and holding him in reserve.
Before the order, the CEO of Binance, Richard Teng, told CNBC in Davos that he provided that the United States would establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve. The CEO of Circle, Jeremy Allaire, called it “prudent” so that central banks hold Bitcoin reserves.
Trump had launched the idea on the campaign track, suggesting that a reserve of American Bitcoin could be supported by cryptographic assets seized with pirates and fraud rings, a proposal that remains under study.
But in his executive decree of 1,300 words on Thursday, Trump did not just avoided call a bitcoin reserve. The word bitcoin was not found.
– Ryan Browne of CNBC contributed to this report.
