A New SEC Cryptocurrency Task Force. The announcement, made on Donald Trump’s second day in office, helped spark some new investors’ enthusiasm for digital assets while the cryptocurrency world awaited executive orders from the new president.
The goal of the SEC’s “Cryptocurrency Task Force” is to help the US regulator “draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, formulate reasonable disclosure frameworks, and deploy enforcement resources wisely,” according to the SEC.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the world’s largest cryptocurrency, on Tuesday rose again above $106,000 after falling on Monday following Trump’s inauguration.
The SEC has repeatedly clashed with some of the biggest players in the cryptocurrency world during Joe Biden’s time in office. Trump promised to replace Gary Gensler, Biden’s SEC chairman, with someone better suited to the industry.
His pick, Paul Atkins, is still seeking confirmation in the Senate, and SEC Commissioner Mark Ueda runs the agency as acting chairman.
Industry executives are testing Trump’s new Securities and Exchange Commission with new orders this week for exchange-traded funds, which, if approved, would give investors more exposure to various crypto assets.
On Tuesday, Rex Shares and Osprey Funds jointly filed seven different applications to launch cryptocurrency-related ETFs, including those holding shares of XRP, SOL, Dogecoin (DOGE), and the President’s Official Memecoin (TRUMP). Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission allowed BlackRock and other money management giants to launch bitcoin ETFs.
“We certainly expect a more welcoming approach from the SEC, and you will see more product registrations from us,” said Matthew Siegel, head of digital assets research at asset manager VanEck, one of the managers allowed to issue bitcoin ETFs. 2024.
One minor disappointment for the industry so far this week is that Trump — who has pledged in 2024 to make the U.S.The crypto capital of the planet“He ended his first day in office without mentioning cryptocurrencies or issuing any executive orders targeting the industry. Many in the industry are still anticipating these orders to happen.
“The market is very disappointed that there was no activity regarding crypto yesterday,” Dan Hughes, chief technology officer and founder of cryptocurrency startup Radix, said in email comments.
“Any executive order that positively targets cryptocurrencies, even a minor one, would turn things around very quickly,” Hughes added.
One immediate action the new president could have taken would be to rescind Biden’s March 2022 executive order on cryptoassets, which urged regulators to “take aggressive steps to reduce the risks that digital assets may pose.”
“I’m a little disappointed that it hasn’t been rescinded, along with 80 executive orders that have been rescinded,” VanEck’s Siegel said.
“The longer we don’t have an executive order on this asset class, the more the market will become impatient, but I think… [the Trump administration] “They bought themselves some time with the rhetoric,” Siegel added.
One crucial rule that many in the cryptocurrency and banking industry hope will be repealed is a piece of accounting guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission that effectively prohibits banks from holding cryptocurrencies for customers.
Donald Trump at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, last July. Reuters/Kevin Worm/archive photo ·Reuters/Reuters
Much of what Trump promised to the cryptocurrency world could be achieved through personnel changes. The incoming administration has already appointed three pro-crypto regulators as acting heads of the regulatory bodies.
On Tuesday, Acting FDIC Chairman Travis Hill released a list of priorities for the banking regulatory agency under his watch. One involved more transparency in how the agency handles digital assets.
The CFTC also appointed Carolyn Pham, one of its more crypto-friendly commissioners, as acting chair on Monday. Pham, a Biden nominee and former Citigroup banker, has backed clearer regulation of digital assets as well as giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) more oversight in monitoring the market.
Many in the cryptocurrency industry are willing to wait longer for more fundamental changes.
“For the cryptocurrency market, the possibility of a large, well-thought-out executive order (EO) remains an exciting opportunity,” said Leonard Lancia, CEO of cryptocurrency market maker Portofino Technologies.
One of the regional banks’ heads, Tim Spence, CEO of Fifth Third, told Yahoo Finance that as overall cryptocurrency regulation becomes clearer, stablecoins are an area that Fifth Third Bank “will certainly consider playing in.”
One of the cryptocurrency industry’s biggest players, Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong, told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday that he is convinced Trump “really wants to be the first Bitcoin president.”
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. Reuters/Brendan MacDiarmid ·Reuters/Reuters
Armstrong met with Trump before and after the election to defend the cryptocurrency industry.
He said Trump is “excited” about the idea of a strategic reserve of Bitcoin. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) is leading efforts in Congress to create such a reserve.
“Any government that owns gold should also hold bitcoin as a reserve,” he said, noting that “if the United States obtains a strategic reserve of bitcoin, the rest of the G20 countries will likely follow suit, or many of them, and this will only drive bitcoin prices higher.” a lot.”
David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance covering banking, cryptocurrency, and other areas of finance.
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Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Leonard Lancia’s name. We apologize for this error.
