Technology — Trump: 'War on crypto' is over

Welcome to The Hill's Technology newsletter

View Online Technology Technology The Big Story  Washington becomes center of crypto action The cryptocurrency industry flocked to Washington on Friday for the White House's first-ever crypto summit, where President Trump and his Cabinet declared the end of what they termed the "war on crypto" in D.C. © Pool via AP  The summit brought together industry experts, pro-crypto lawmakers and administration officials, marking a notable moment for the digital assets space as it looks to reach mainstream acceptance.   "My administration is working to end the federal bureaucracy war on crypto, which was really going on pretty wildly during Biden," Trump said during remarks at the summit Friday afternoon.   Crypto executives and advocates have argued the Biden administration shuttered its doors to the digital assets space and chose to instead pursue probes into various cryptocurrency exchanges and firms.     Since Trump was sworn into office, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has closed several of the investigations into cryptocurrency firms, many of which were represented at the summit, including Coinbase and Ripple among others.   David Sacks, the White House's AI and crypto czar, called on cryptocurrency Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who said earlier in the day it was more likely they would end up in jail than the White House a year ago.     "We never thought that we'd get attacked the way we did in our backyard after trying to do the right thing for so many years and always trying to raise the bar with respect to regulation," Cameron Winklevoss said during the roundtable.   "It's truly wonderful to see how things have changed and how the pendulum has swung back in the way it has."    It came on the heels of Trump's executive order creating a strategic bitcoin reserve and digital assets stockpile with assets already seized by federal law enforcement while disrupting financial crimes.    Trump slammed the Biden administration for selling some of the government's bitcoin holdings, and Sacks claimed they would now be worth $17 billion. It is not immediately clear when these holdings were sold.     "From this day on, America will follow the rule that every bitcoin knows very well, never sell your bitcoin," Trump said. "That's a little phrase that they have. Is it right? Who the hell knows."    Read more in a full report at TheHill.com Welcome to The Hill's Technology newsletter, we're Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. Essential Reads  How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future: Trump signs executive order creating bitcoin reserve President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to create a government reserve of bitcoin along with a “digital asset stockpile” in the administration’s latest embrace of the cryptocurrency industry. According to the order, the U.S. government will use the bitcoin already seized by federal law enforcement while disrupting financial crimes to establish the reserve. Trump’s crypto and artificial intelligence …  Full Story Musk's SpaceX confirms Starlink lease agreement with FAA SpaceX confirmed Wednesday that it is leasing Starlink kits and service to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for free but denied any push to take over Verizon's contract to build an updated communications system for the agency. Elon Musk's space technology company said it is working with L3Harris, the current contractor for the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure, to test Starlink "as one piece of the infrastructure …  Full Story Social Security Administration bans reading 'general news' at work The Social Security Administration (SSA) has banned reading "general news" websites at work, The Hill has learned. “Social Security employees should be focused on mission-critical work and serving the American people," a Social Security spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Hill on Thursday. "Therefore, we implemented additional restrictions to the categories of websites prohibited from government-furnished …  Full Story Crypto Corner  A busy week for crypto world in Washington © gopixa/ iStock Welcome to Crypto Corner, a new feature in The Hill's Technology newsletter focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington. Crypto was front and center in Washington this week, and not just at the summit.    Here's a wrap-up of crypto's busy week:    Sunday: President Trump announced Sunday he planned to create a strategic crypto reserve, suggesting it would include several different tokens.    The move received a mixed response, as some in the crypto world argued the reserve should only contain bitcoin.   Thursday: Trump signed the executive order creating both a bitcoin strategic reserve and a digital asset stockpile in an apparent attempt to quash concerns.    In Congress, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) took aim at debanking — a common source of complaints from the crypto industry —  unveiling new legislation Thursday.   The bill seeks to eliminate references to "reputational risk" for evaluating the safety and soundness of depository institutions, like banks, which Scott argues regulators have used to target certain industries.   Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats are going on the offense against Trump's alignment with the industry.    Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released a three-minute video on social media slamming Trump for the launch of his meme coin, suggesting it might be the "biggest White House corruption in a century."    Murphy called it a "pure grift" and suggested Trump was trying to take advantage of the volatile structure of meme coins.    Friday: Ahead of the White House summit, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Trump's AI and crypto czar David Sacks, asking him to make public any of his financial disclosures amid concerns over conflicts of interest.    Sacks, a general partner at venture capital firm Craft Ventures, maintains he sold all of his personal cryptocurrency holdings at the start of the second Trump administration.  The Refresh  News we've flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics: Apple delays AI-infused version of Siri voice assistant (Bloomberg)  Musk's xAI acquires 1-million square-foot property in Memphis (TechCrunch) In Other News  Branch out with other reads on The Hill: Democrats ask for investigation into whether Musk is using government position to influence X advertisers Democratic senators are asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether tech billionaire Elon Musk, a senior adviser to President Trump, is leveraging his government position to pressure advertisers into spending more on his social media platform, X. In a letter dated Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the five senators pointed to recent reporting indicating that, in 2024, as Musk was preparing to take on … Full Story AI chatbots infected with Russian disinformation: Study The world's most popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are infected with Russian disinformation, according to a study published Thursday.  The research done by the news monitoring service NewsGuard found that the Moscow-based disinformation network dubbed Pravda — which is Russian for "truth" — has been spreading falsehoods on the internet, including attempts to influence AI chatbots and the results they spell out to … Full Story What Others are Reading  Two key stories on The Hill right now: Rubio, Musk clash at Trump Cabinet meeting: NYT Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed with tech billionaire and close Trump adviser Elon Musk during a contentious Cabinet meeting hosted by President … Read more Trump blows off reported Musk-Rubio clash President Trump on Friday blew off questions over tensions between Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio following reporting that the two clashed … Read more What Others are Reading  Opinions related to tech submitted to The Hill: America First means investing in manufacturing and tech here at home  Washington's science cuts are a gift to Beijing    You're all caught up. See you next week!  Check out The Hill's Technology page for the latest coverage. Like this newsletter? Take a moment to view our other topical products here 📩 Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  400 N Capitol Street NW Suite 650, Washington, DC 20001 Copyright © 1998 - 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved.

If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe.