WASHINGTON--A cryptocurrency working group formed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday outlined the administration's stances on market-defining crypto legislation and called on the U.S. securities regulator to create new rules specific to digital assets.
In a factsheet ahead of a landmark report, the White House urged Congress to move forward with legislation that would create a formal crypto regulatory regime, but implored lawmakers to include additional provisions in the bill. Those include allowing trading platforms to also custody crypto and providing a tailored disclosure regime for issuers of crypto securities.
The White House also encouraged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use their existing authorities to "immediately enable the trading of digital assets at the federal level."
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump ordered the creation of a crypto working group tasked with proposing new regulations, making good on his campaign promise to overhaul U.S. crypto policy. Wednesday's report is a culmination of the task force's work so far and its first public findings. In line with Trump's January executive order, it will lay out several new policies from tax provisions to capital markets rules that it says should be enacted to advance the policy goals of the pro-crypto White House.
The working group led by Trump official Bo Hines includes several administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought.
On the campaign trail last year, Trump courted crypto cash by pledging to be a "crypto president" and promote the adoption of digital assets. That is in stark contrast to former President Joe Biden's regulators, who, in a bid to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering, cracked down on the industry. The Biden administration sued exchanges Coinbase, Binance, and dozens more, alleging they were flouting U.S. laws. Trump's SEC has since dropped those cases.
