A year ago they feared in the cell, now crypto entrepreneurs have a place at the White House table at the ‘Cryptotop’

Men (and a single woman) of middle age in suits behind tables. A big golden chandelier. A standing ovation when Donald Trump enters, and after every few sentences of his speech. It looked on Friday evening in the dining room of the White House as almost always come together as rulers.

Yet the first official American ‘cryptotop’ was special and a moment with symbolic value. The Trump government embraced the crypto industry like never before. There were men at the table who took prison sentence a year earlier, they said jokingly.

They praised the president and his secondants as innovators, pioneers and general people with a ‘high IQ’. The uncertainty about regulations, opposition and persecutions, Trump promised the entrepreneurs. Instead, the US government wants to use crypto and blockchain technology to ensure that the dollar remains the strongest currency in the world.

It was just not a group hug with the more than thirty guests, all protagonists in the American crypto-currency industry. Among them Brian Armstrong (boss of Coinbase), the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Van Gemini) and Brad Garlinghouse from Ripple Labs. Most are a billionaire. And they applauded for the men at the head of the table who will make them much richer; Donald Trump, with his Finance Minister Scott Bessent and on his left David Sacks on his right, nicknamed the ‘AI and Crypto-Tsaar’.

Ode to the Bitcoin

Sacks is a well -known in the American tech world. He has collaborated with Elon Musk and the conservative tech vestor Peter Thiel. After sold his own companies, he became an investor. Since 2020 he has been a co-presenter of a weekly podcast, All-inn. Although Sacks also supported Democrats in the past, he turned away from the Biden government because it would over regulation. Trump appointed him his head of AI and crypto matters in December.

The US government wants to use crypto and blockchain technology to ensure that the dollar remains the strongest currency in the world

The ‘top’ was for the photos and symbolism, not for negotiations or a substantive conversation. Prior to the meeting Trump has already signed a decree That fulfilled a number of earlier expressions of him on social media. The president ordered government services not to sell Bitcoin. The US government has more than 200,000 bitcoins. As a rule, these are crypto currencies that have been seized by suspects.

If the State can indeed claim the coins, which depends on the legal proceedings, they must be added to a strategic research reserve, Trump signed, and then stored. It is not intended that the US state will actively speculate and purchase with tax money.

The decree reads like an ode to the Bitcoin, the largest and oldest crypto coin. And also the only one that is scarce. Other crypto coins (‘altcoins’) can be made infinitely. Partly because of that scarcity, Bitcoin has the nickname ‘digital gold’. Trump and Sacks also referred to that.

Trump no longer wants to oppose crypto entrepreneurs

The longest applause and even some ‘Yeah’s’ sounded after Trump said that the government actively opposed the entire crypto industry among its predecessor. “The laws have put pressure on banks to conclude accounts from crypto companies and crypto entrepreneurs. They really did that and I might know better than you how it feels, but that comes to an end. ”

During the Trump campaign there was a wave of crypto entrepreneurs in podcasts and X who revealed that they had been refused by banks. It was a kind of mini#metoo in the crypto world, because the entrepreneurs also talked about how powerless they felt and about the stigmas that do not have a bank account.

There are a number of constants under the thick layer of politics. Crypto entrepreneurs in the US have been asking politicians of every color for years for clear legislation. In the US, so far, the rules are mainly determined by the stock market watchdog, which supervises the enforcement of laws for the securities trade. They are written for the invention of blockchain technology.

The most famous example of an American crypto entrepreneur who openly argued for a clear law was Sam Bankman-Fried. He started his companies in Hong Kong and later moved his Crypto fair FTX to the Bahamas. At meetings in Washington, he constantly emphasized that he would rather be in the US. He was considered the CryptoWonderkind of the Democrats.

At the end of 2022, his stock market collapsed and it turned out that Bankman-Fried acted against numerous rules, among other things by using customers at one company to supplement deficits at another company. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Within the lines

The FTX case gave supervisors an extra boost to be strict against crypto entrepreneurs. Numerous warnings were given and investigations opened. A number of prominent figures were convicted.

According to many entrepreneurs, the supervisors shot through this. Crypto companies such as Coinbase (the largest crypto fair in the US and listed) that did try to color within the lines and who tried to get clarity about the interpretation of rules, were also continued. It contributed that a number of entrepreneurs were openly disappointed in the Democrats and his maps put on Republican politicians. Coinbase boss Armstrong played an important role in arranging donations of crypto entrepreneurs in campaigns of pro-Cryptopolitics.

Since Trump’s inauguration, many of the lawsuits and investigations have been stopped. Coinbase boss Armstrong sounded satisfied after the crypto top in Washington. It is no longer necessary to leave America, he concluded. And promised to create a thousand new jobs.

Sam Bankman-Fried also does not seem insensitive to the new relationships. He was missing at the Cryptotop in the White House. Two days earlier he celebrated his 33rd birthday in prison. He did push Via a video connection to the influential right -wing opinion maker Tucker Carlson For an extensive interview.

You can’t see him as a friend of the Democrats, was the message there. Those alleged friends have just abandoned and convicted him, while there is also quite a bit of rotten in that elitist system. Carlson showed himself compassionate. “How old would you be when you get free,” was one of his last questions, “if you don’t get a pardon?”

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