US President Donald Trump has come through with a much-anticipated executive order on crypto, directing his administration to establish friendly policies to put the industry on solid American footing and consider establishing a “digital asset repository.”
After years of courtroom battles with federal authorities, Trump’s order issued Thursday could allow the digital asset sector to move forward in the United States with a more accommodating framework set by the White House. Such orders are more of a beginning than an end to federal policy, but the pro-crypto president has taken the first step.
Bitcoin briefly rose above $106,000 from around $103,000 in the minutes following the news, before regaining most of the gains. Recently, BTC changed hands at $103,500, down 0.51% in the last 24 hours.
Thursday’s order said it would protect Americans from prosecution if they developed software, were miners or validators or otherwise acted “for lawful purposes.”
The order created a task force, chaired by Trump’s crypto and AI czar (venture capitalist David Sacks) and composed of various cabinet officials, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and other White House officials. While the order does not itself establish a strategic bitcoin reserve, it directs the task force to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national repository of digital assets.”
Trump’s order also prohibits work on a US central bank’s digital currency in his administration, saying that the agencies under his authority are “prohibited from taking any action to establish, issue or promote CBDCs within the jurisdiction of the United States or in abroad.”
As Trump had failed to issue the document among his opening barrage of executive orders, crypto insiders grew increasingly tense about the new relationship he has promised. But behind the scenes, leaders at the US market regulators – the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – were preparing as early as this week to move digital asset companies out of the multi-year penalty box that former officials kept them in.
UPDATE (January 23, 2024, 20:58 UTC): Adds additional details.
