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Trump to designate cryptocurrency as a national priority

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Trump to designate cryptocurrency as a national priority

As President-elect Donald Trump begins a second term on Monday, he plans to issue an executive order making cryptocurrency a national priority, Bloomberg reports. 

The order is meant to guide government agencies to work with the industry and possibly pause crypto-related litigation, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed people familiar with the matter. Trump also plans to create a crypto advisory council to advocate for the industry’s policies, per Bloomberg, and has suggested creating a national bitcoin stockpile.

This would mark a new era for crypto, an industry that collapsed two years ago after prices crashed. The period was marked by the fall of FTX, a leading exchange that went bankrupt that year. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of defrauding customers and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The industry resurged in 2024, boosted by Trump, a former skeptic who pledged to turn the U.S. into the crypto capital of the world. Eager for a clear governing framework and a friendlier watchdog, donors poured tens of millions of dollars into pro-crypto candidates’ campaigns. 

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Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency with a dog mascot and billionaire Elon Musk as a fan, surged in value after Trump won and announced a non-governmental cost-cutting group nicknamed DOGE.

Trump then nominated crypto ally Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that led a crackdown under the Biden administration. Bitcoin surged to $100,000 for the first time following the announcement. “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “YOU’RE WELCOME!!!”

Crypto companies and investing platforms like Coinbase, Robinhood, Kraken and Ondo Finance Inc. have made $1 million donations to his inauguration. Ripple plans to donate $5 million in the form of its own digital token, and the industry is holding an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” to support Trump, Bloomberg reports.

Trump’s business interests include World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform he and his sons launched last year with Steve Witkoff, a friend and inaugural committee co-chair who has been named special Middle East envoy. The Trumps are not employees of the business but promote it, and an entity affiliated with Trump, DT Marks DEFI LLC, is entitled to receive 75% of the revenues.

In mid-November, the Financial Times reported that Trump Media — the parent company of Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social — was in talks to buy Bakkt, a crypto trading firm previously led by Kelly Loeffler, another co-chair of his inaugural committee.

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Trump’s 2024 financial disclosures show he owned as much as $5 million worth of the crypto token ethereum, a crypto token that has surged in value since the election, according to The New York Times.

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XRP Positions as Institutional Rail While RLUSD Enters Real-World Finance

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XRP Positions as Institutional Rail While RLUSD Enters Real-World Finance
XRP is cementing its role in live institutional payment infrastructure as Ripple’s RLUSD anchors regulated stablecoin settlement, signaling blockchain rails are now trusted, production-grade systems for global liquidity, cross-border payments, and high-value financial flows.
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Crypto Crime Wave Fueled by Chinese-Language Money Laundering | PYMNTS.com

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Crypto Crime Wave Fueled by Chinese-Language Money Laundering | PYMNTS.com

Cryptocurrency laundering was an $82 billion problem last year, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (Jan. 27), citing data from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.

Chinese-language money laundering networks made up $16.1 billion of that total as they play an increasing role in crypto crime, the report said.

“These are groups that are growing exponentially,” Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis, told Bloomberg, per the report. “We’re talking about growth of over 7,300 times faster than other illicit flows.”

Although China has outlawed crypto transactions, illegal activity continues as the government chiefly focuses on behavior that threatens capital controls or financial stability, according to the report.

The networks “have really embraced cryptocurrencies,” said Kathryn Westmore, a senior associate fellow at the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, per the report, adding that crypto provides “a way to launder the proceeds of cash-generating criminal activities, like drugs or fraud.”

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The news followed a warning from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in August, which said Chinese money laundering networks are now among the most significant threats to the American financial system, helping fuel the operations of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels.

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“The networks have become effective partners because they can move cash quickly, absorb losses and leverage demand from Chinese nationals seeking to bypass Beijing’s strict currency controls,” PYMNTS reported Aug. 29. “By pairing cartel dollars with Chinese demand for U.S. currency, these networks have created what FinCEN called a ‘mutualistic relationship’ that strengthens both sides.”

Meanwhile, Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis, discussed last year’s record-setting levels of crypto crime with PYMNTS in an interview published Monday (Jan. 26). Around $154 billion flowed to illicit addresses, the most ever recorded, and there was a 160% increase in illicit volumes.

“But treating that number as evidence of runaway criminal adoption may miss the more consequential story,” PYMNTS wrote. “What changed in 2025 was not merely volume, but the identity of the actors, the scale at which they operated, and the implications this has for banks, regulators, and the future architecture of financial blockchain compliance.”

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The true inflection came from “a shift in who’s doing what,” Jardine said, adding that in 2025, nation states, most notably Russia, began taking part “in earnest in the crypto ecosystem,” chiefly through sanctions evasion.

Unlike earlier state-linked activity, like North Korea’s hacking campaigns, this was not marginal behavior at the edges of the system, but “industrial-scale financial activity conducted in plain sight,” PYMNTS wrote.

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Fixing BTC’s Quantum Issue Tops All Bitcoin Development Priorities, Says Willy Woo

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Fixing BTC’s Quantum Issue Tops All Bitcoin Development Priorities, Says Willy Woo
Quantum risk is emerging as a decisive hurdle for bitcoin’s institutional future as sovereign investors weigh long-term resilience, pushing gold and BTC into sharper focus amid debt cycles, macro uncertainty, and geopolitical realignment, according to on-chain analyst Willy Woo.
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