The Guidance
- Crypto has thrived under Donald Trump’s second presidency.
- But what happens in 2028 when he leaves the White House?
Hey all, Liam here.
US President Donald Trump’s crypto push may end up being one of the administration’s most resilient legacies.
It’s also why entrepreneurs in the country should loosen up a bit when worrying about what will happen to crypto when Trump leaves office in 2028.
“It’s a great thing for people to be thinking about,” Hunter Horsley, CEO of crypto asset manager Bitwise, told DL News. “But I’m not concerned.”
There are three reasons for that, he said on the sidelines of the crypto industry event Token2049 in Singapore.
Founded in 2017, Bitwise Asset Management is one of the industry’s largest and earliest providers of crypto-based funds. Horsley and his colleagues have interacted with the Securities and Exchange Commission across several administrations.
These days, he says, there’s an enormous amount of urgency at the agency for getting crypto rules right.
“There’s a mandate from the president. The president has chosen a chair who has given a mandate to the staff, and the staff wants positive performance reviews,” Horsley said. “Pretty straightforward.”
Indeed, SEC chair Paul Atkins, a long-time crypto campaigner, stepped up to lead the regulator earlier this year. His SEC chair marks a dramatic shift from the previous administration’s tenure.
However, there’s more that underpins how cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly entrenched in financial markets, Horsley said.
First, laws being put into place now are, as he puts it, “very durable.”
Trump signed the Genius Act into law in July. Although banking lobbying groups are eager to amend provisions in landmark stablecoin legislation, fintechs, banks, and crypto companies have all begun doing digital dollar business, arguing that it would be political suicide for any politician opposed to it.
“It would be a really odd hill for them to die on,” he said.
Indeed, the likes of anti-crypto firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren have criticised the bill after it became law, but have stopped short of calling for it to be repealed.
Second, crypto policy is increasingly becoming a bipartisan issue – at least for lawmakers looking to fund their campaigns
“Democrats and Republicans are realising that this is a good space to support and win,” Horsley said.
The crypto exec highlighted the efficacy of Fairshake, the industry’s nine-figure political action committee, which raised $260 million in 2024 to lobby for pro-crypto candidates across the country, including Trump.
The third reason that crypto is here to stay, no matter who’s in the White House, is that more and more Americans own cryptocurrencies, whether they know it or not.
“People own digital assets in retirement accounts. Pension funds have exposure. Endowments have exposure. Banks now have exposure,” Horsley said.
Crypto may even be far less of an issue at the ballot box come next year’s midterms.
“There are more and more Americans who don’t want crypto to be antagonised,” he told DL News. “I see it decreasing in polarisation.”
ICYMI
Story of the Week
Long excluded from the US, Tether is quickly capitalising on a friendlier regulatory shift in the US.
A month after announcing a new US-regulated stablecoin, Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, is already painting a bullish future for the venture’s newest digital dollar.
Post of the Week
Justin Sun went to Token2049 and things were totally normal.
