Trump’s crypto team takes shape but questions remain over who will drive policy
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto policy is taking shape with the announcement of a White House crypto czar and a new securities watchdog, but questions remain over who will drive policy and whether too many cooks could slow down changes.
Trump on Thursday appeared to make good on his campaign pledge to be a ‘crypto president’, announcing he would make former top PayPal executive and crypto evangelist David Sacks “White House AI & Crypto Czar”. A day earlier, Trump said he would nominate pro-crypto Washington attorney Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
While crypto executives cheered the news, saying the pair would end the Biden administration’s crypto crackdown and promote innovation, some Washington analysts said the creation of a crypto czar, a new role, sowed ambiguity over who would drive crypto policy and flagged the potential for policy clashes.
“One big question is whether the policy will be driven by Sacks himself. A czar appointed by Trump is going to want to see changes fairly quickly, but the SEC has processes and you can’t just snap your fingers at the SEC and have new rules,” Ian Katz, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners, said in an email to Reuters. “Personalities will be important,” he added.
A Silicon Valley venture capitalist and friend of Trump billionaire backer Elon Musk, Sacks was an early bitcoin investor. In a 2017 CNBC interview, he said cryptocurrencies were revolutionising the internet, but he acknowledged there were also scammers in the sector.
He does not appear to have any experience writing or leading policy, according to a Reuters review of his background.
Atkins, meanwhile, is a former SEC official and respected veteran of Washington policy circles who has said he supports crypto innovation as way to boost financial services competition.
