This is part of Trump’s Great American Crypto Scam, a series about the catastrophic collision between the second Trump administration and the wild world of cryptocurrency. Read it all here.
You’ve kinda gotta hand it to the cryptocurrency industry—after experiencing crushing disaster with the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s airless empire, plunging from COVID-era ubiquity to widespread A.I.–era mockery, the progenitors of digital funny money bought themselves a spectacular comeback. Specifically, they have now weaseled their way into the halls of power in Donald Trump’s White House.
Does it matter that the founding ideals for insisted that its worth as a currency was precisely that it operated free of governments and their central banks? Not in the slightest, and I’ll tell you why: Before the 2024 election, those in the crypto world viewed Trump’s post-insurrection bid as their boldest gamble yet, an existential ploy to save themselves from the Biden administration’s dialed-up regulations. After he won, they took the opportunity to change up some financial regulations themselves. Power players like Marc Andreessen and ’s Brian Armstrong have held court at Mar-a-Lago, putting newfangled agenda items in Trump’s ear, like a federal stockpile of digital assets, a national crypto council—and, most importantly, brand-new governmental positions devoted to crypto alone, staffed by industry insiders. (It’s not a coincidence that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has a meme coin–referencing acronym.) All this, even though there’s not much public appetite remaining for this stuff.
Definition
Bitcoin
(noun) • The main cryptocurrency and the one that the most people are willing to buy at any given time. Its creator is an anonymous white paper author who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A Bitcoin is worth about $80,000 these days, give or take, though it crossed $100,000 for the first time in 2024. It goes up and down a lot, but if you were to pick one direction over its history to date, it’s definitely been up.
Read MoreDefinition
Coinbase
(noun) • The most prominent American crypto exchange, run by Brian Armstrong. Like a bank for crypto. Publicly traded, which makes its operations more transparent than most of its peers’. Not especially decentralized, despite its CEO’s constant reminders that crypto is decentralized.
Read MoreDefinition
Securities and Exchange Commission
(noun) • A governmental agency that at one point was hostile to crypto but now lets crypto companies do whatever they want.
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Category 1: The Oval Office Guests
David Sacks
White House A.I. and Crypto “Czar”
Definition
meme coin
(noun) • A crypto token that has no animating ideology behind it other than to have a little fun. Can morph into a regular-ish coin with enough momentum (see: the next item on this list).
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Elon Musk
You Know, That Guy
Who is he? Once upon a time, Elon Musk was a known crypto hater! When Tesla’s whole raison d’être was climate change mitigation, Musk tended to avoid the cryptocurrency train and claimed to hold only one-quarter of a Bitcoin to his name. Things started to shift in 2019, when he asserted that “paper money is going away” in favor of crypto. Later that year, he initiated his romance with , a meme currency originally created as a joke poking fun at Bitcoin but soon becoming a scheme all its own. Since Musk’s embrace, the coin’s value has whipsawed several times in reaction to his stunts, like the time he temporarily changed the Twitter logo to the Doge Shiba Inu.
Definition
Dogecoin
(noun) • A crypto token (not exactly a cryptocurrency, in that I’m not aware of many people dreaming about using it as currency) based on a picture of a dog that got really hot during the GameStop/AMC meme stock mania of early 2021. The coin has hung around, thanks in part to publicity from celebrities like Elon Musk. It is currently valued at about 20 cents, which is not that much.
Read MoreTesla began investing in Bitcoin and accepting it for transactions in early 2021, only for Musk to backtrack when he remembered the staggering energy tolls involved in mining the currency.
Nowadays, though, Tesla’s Bitcoin stash helps prop up the balance sheets. A bunch of crypto insiders wrote out checks to support Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter. And Musk’s brought the DOGE branding to his government mission.
Wallet stash: Minimal—at least when compared with the rest of his money. The sheer existence of (the pseudo–governmental entity) hasn’t done much to pump up the value of Dogecoin, which has declined from an election-era high of 45 cents to a current pricing of about 18 cents. But still, it’s higher than it used to be. He claimed once to have been gifted 0.25 Bitcoins back in the mid-2010s, a stash that today would be worth roughly $21,000.
Definition
DOGE
(pseudo–governmental entity) (noun) • Elon Musk’s crew of often unqualified and sometimes wildly racist underlings who began torching the federal government as the Department of Government Efficiency in winter 2025. Not related to the coin, but the acronym isn’t a coincidence.
Read MoreWhat fresh hell hath he wrought? A lot, obviously, but when it comes to the crypto side? Not much—yet. Musk is reportedly figuring out how to implement blockchain technology into more governmental functions, including the entire Treasury. That would be bad, since even local-level attempts to incorporate the into everyday business and governance have run into some major issues.
Definition
blockchain
(noun) • The place where records of crypto transactions are kept, like a bank statement, but for crypto. One thing that makes cryptocurrency so different is that because it is on the blockchain, the transaction list is accessible to anyone who knows how to peruse it. (Actually, though, navigating to a blockchain explorer is a bit like putting a fire hose in your mouth.)
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Robert “Bo” Hines
Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets
Who is he? Onetime college football star Bo Hines was a total unknown in the crypto world, which is why it surprised so many that he was tapped to be head of Trump’s still-nonexistent crypto council. In college, he played in the industry-sponsored Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, then began investing in currencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hines was formerly CEO of the pro-Trump media company Today Is America, which teamed up with cryptocurrency project Restore the Republic in 2023 to launch a meme coin. One of RTR’s founders declared that the group’s affiliated could become Trump’s official coin; its value then skyrocketed before Eric Trump officially shot down any ties. That didn’t seem to get Hines and co. on the shit list, however. In October, Donald Trump Jr. himself sat down with Hines for a conversation shared on X—another of these talks was published on Inauguration Day.
Definition
token
(noun) • A real thing that has been embodied into a cryptocurrency. As in: My name is Alex, and I’ve launched a token called AlexCoin. Would you buy me?
Read MoreWallet stash: Hines says he has fully divested his former crypto holdings. The Restore the Republic meme coin is barely worth a fifth of a cent these days.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? The crypto council hasn’t done much yet, and it might soon cease to exist entirely. Forbes quoted an anonymous source who claimed that Hines has explicitly nixed the idea of a formal council and will instead hold regular “summits” and “roundtables” with industry representatives. For a recent media tour, Hines spoke to Fox Business to gush about Trump’s crypto policy, a discussion that was unfortunately spliced beside a chart showing the value plunge among major currencies; in a CoinDesk interview, Hines asserted that the White House wanted to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible for its strategic reserve. Later, he even floated the idea of selling Fort Knox gold to have more money to spend on Bitcoin.
Eric Trump
World Liberty Financial Steward
Who is he? You know him. After his dad won reelection with the crypto lobby’s help, Eric Trump told CNBC that he’s been a “big fan of crypto for a long time”—despite the fact that he used to be cold on the industry at best and outright hostile toward it at worst. Nevertheless, in 2024 he and his family launched the crypto platform , where he currently serves as a “Web3 ambassador” along with brother Don Jr.
Definition
World Liberty Financial
(noun) • A crypto venture designed to migrate money from enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump to the president and his business associates. It created both the Trump coin and the Melania coin, both of which launched soon after the inauguration and are largely viewed as a money grab.
Read MoreWallet stash: He does have a stake in WLF—which didn’t make any money until the notorious trader Justin Sun blessed it with $30 million, making the operation solvent. (With that investment, Trump and his large adult sons received a total of $15 million in World Liberty token payouts, of which they then splurged $10 million on tokens from Sun’s Tron project.) Just days before the president announced the Digital Asset Stockpile, World Liberty bought about $21 million worth of the currencies denoted for said reserve, including $10.1 million of Ethereum and $9.9 million of Wrapped Bitcoin (i.e., Bitcoins that can be traded outside the Bitcoin protocol and on the Ethereum blockchain). The platform is also launching its own dollar-backed stablecoin.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? Corruption, probably—it’s likely not a coincidence that the SEC paused its yearslong investigation into Sun after the crypto entrepreneur invested in World Liberty and personally met with Eric at the Dubai confab. And it can’t be a coincidence that the disgraced, convicted former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has reportedly reached out to the Trump family to see if World Liberty can broker a deal with Binance in exchange for a presidential pardon on CZ’s behalf. (All parties involved have denied this.)
Stephen Miran
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
Who is he? Stephen Miran, an alumnus of the first Trump administration, was celebrated by industry press as another “crypto-friendly” Trump pick. However, he didn’t appear to have much crypto enthusiasm until very recently: Early last year, he was tweeting jokes about shorting Bitcoin, admitting to a general lack of knowledge on crypto, and blaming pandemic-era digital mania for inflation. After the election, though, he appeared on the Bitcoin Layer podcast to hype up Trump’s crypto agenda.
Wallet stash: Unknown, but likely zero
What fresh hell hath he wrought? Not much in the crypto world yet, but in the world of tariffs? Let’s just say he’s not backing down from the chaos.
Category 2: The Crypto Cabinet
Howard Lutnick
Commerce Secretary
Who is he? Before joining this administration, he served as the longtime chair and CEO of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald. That investment company worked with MicroStrategy, the largest corporate hoarder of Bitcoin, and with Tether, the sketchy, dollar-pegged cryptocurrency that backs the entire digital-assets ecosystem. Cantor Fitzgerald also reportedly holds $87 million in a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. To put it simply: This entire industry might not have been able to thrive without Lutnick.
Definition
stablecoin
(noun) • A crypto token whose value is pegged to something else, like a currency.
Read MoreWallet stash: It is unknown whether Lutnick has any direct crypto holdings, although his financial disclosures noted that he has a trust with personal stakes in both Cantor Fitzgerald and Tru Markets Limited, a “financial technology and stablecoin exchange.” So he’s definitely made some indirect money from those trades.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? Lutnick has been a front-line cheerleader for Trump’s crypto policy, hyping up the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and guiding the administration’s approach to non-Bitcoin currencies. Unfortunately for Lutnick, that work has been somewhat overshadowed by his boss’s tariff chaos and nonstop international negotiations. There were those moments when Lutnick said a possible tariffs-induced recession would still be “worth it,” stated on TV that Americans should buy stock from Tesla (a Cantor Fitzgerald client), and dismissed fears that seniors may miss their Social Security checks. So, honestly, crypto might be the least of our worries with this guy.
Tyler Williams
Digital Assets and Blockchain Policy Adviser at the Treasury
Who is he? Tyler Williams is a returning alumnus of the first Trump administration, in which he served on a “digital asset/crypto working group” as a deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury. After leaving Trump 1.0 in mid-2020, he advised various companies on the crypto economy and served as a government liaison for the blockchain firm Galaxy Digital.
Wallet stash: According to documents from the Office of Government Ethics, Williams divested about 0.5 Bitcoins upon joining the Treasury, along with nearly 19,000 restricted stock units for the blockchain company Galaxy. Lotta money to give up to serve your country.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? Most recently, Williams has been using his public perch to convince digital investors that new legislative standards around stablecoins—the U.S. dollar–backed tokens that prop up the crypto economy—will serve as a good starting point for the monetary revolution.
Irving Dennis
Principal Deputy CFO of Housing and Urban Development
Who is he? After serving in the first Trump administration under HUD, Irving Dennis wrote a book in which he pitched that the agency should incorporate “blockchain, robotics, and next-generation financial management systems” into its everyday operations. Now he’ll have the chance to do it himself!
Wallet stash: No direct holdings, according to his financial disclosures.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? According to ProPublica, Dennis is reportedly using his post at HUD to team up with ex-employer EY and implement blockchain tech “to monitor HUD grants” and perhaps even use stablecoins to back grants paid out via cryptocurrencies. (Dennis has denied this.)
Taylor Asher
Chief Policy Adviser for the SEC “Crypto Task Force”
Who is he? A longtime crypto advocate who advised various congressional Republicans on the subject during the first Trump administration. In 2022 he also took a cryptocurrency course at MIT taught by then–SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the crypto-industry enemy whose regulatory efforts are now being rolled back by the very SEC commissioners for whom Asher now works.
Wallet stash: Unknown
What fresh hell hath he wrought? The SEC isn’t at full capacity yet, with Trump’s crypto-loving chair nominee, Paul Atkins, still awaiting Senate confirmation. Nevertheless, the agency has acted quickly, dropping previous lawsuits against various crypto firms, repealing a Biden-era rule that required banks to list customers’ crypto deposits on their balance sheets (and thus subject those holdings to traditional financial regulations). The Crypto Task Force is also set to host roundtables with crypto representatives about how unfair it is for anyone to think that digital currencies should be regulated the way financial securities are. The group has got a whole agenda laid out for it, and you can expect Asher to lead the way in giving his favorite crypto guys everything they want.
Kelly Loeffler
Small Business Administration Administrator
Who is she? Before she was appointed to the Senate in 2019, Kelly Loeffler served as the head of digital assets for Intercontinental Exchange (the financial juggernaut, run by her husband, that also owns the New York Stock Exchange, along with other stock markets) and as CEO of Bakkt, a spinoff company and “federally regulated market for Bitcoin.” By late 2024, Loeffler and her husband were trying to sell Bakkt off to Trump Media—parent company for the president’s Truth Social network—to assist with its crypto-expansion plans. That deal collapsed, but the good news is, you can still trade Trump’s meme coin on Bakkt’s .
Definition
crypto exchange
(noun) • A hub for people to put their crypto, and where the exchange takes over the management of that crypto. A way to own crypto without having to think too much about the mechanics of it or risk losing it (unless the exchange turns out to be fraudulent, as some have, in which case customers without any insurance may lose their deposits). Think of a crypto exchange as the bank and the blockchain as the vault.
Read MoreWallet stash: It’s unclear whether Loeffler currently holds any virtual currencies, but she certainly has made some nice cash from her crypto ventures. When she left Bakkt in 2019 for the Senate, she got a $9 million payout in “shares, stock options and other instruments.” She retains a few million dollars’ worth of Bakkt stock, per her financial disclosures.
What fresh hell hath she wrought? Outside of an appearance at the White House crypto summit, Loeffler doesn’t appear to have done too much in the crypto realm yet, having focused more on laying off Small Business Administration staffers, taking over student loans, and removing resources from “sanctuary cities.” But give it time.
Bill Pulte
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director
Who is he? Bill Pulte has been notorious for aggressively hawking meme coins from celebrities like Jason Derulo and the crypto influencer Edward Constantinescu (aka “Zack Morris”) on his popular Twitter account. As heir to the Pulte homebuilding family name, the man himself has splurged his fortunes on every dumb financial trend you can think of, like meme stocks and crypto firms such as MARA Holdings.
Wallet stash: According to his financial disclosures, Pulte has a Coinbase wallet with up to $2 million worth of Bitcoin and Solana.
What fresh hell hath he wrought? He just got confirmed, so not much yet. That being said, he will be in charge of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, so do expect housing financing to become more … crypto-infused, especially now that quite a few staffers from those agencies have been purged.
The DOGE Army
Antonio Gracias
DOGE Ringleader
Who is he? Antonio Gracias is a close friend of Elon Musk’s, an early investor in both SpaceX and Tesla, and the founder of the venture firm Valor Equity Partners. All those associations earned him some controversy back in 2021, when he was serving on Tesla’s board and the electric car company had made its big Bitcoin purchase. At the time, Gracias also served on the boards of two other crypto startups, and Tesla kept mum as to whether Gracias had recused himself from the board’s vote to approve the Bitcoin haul.
Wallet stash: Valor has long held a stake in the blockchain platform BitGo, which might just go public any day now. To the moon!
What fresh hell hath he wrought? So far, Gracias has brought a couple Valor deputies to join him and DOGE in cutting down—let’s see here—the Social Security Administration. Not great!
Kathryn Armstrong Loving
“Federal Detailee” at the Environmental Protection Agency
Who is she? Former startup CEO and sister of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong—who was a massive fundraiser for Trump and an influential adviser during the administrative transition.
Wallet stash: Unknown
What fresh hell hath she wrought? Well, apparently any future EPA expenditures over $49,999 have to be approved by Kathryn Armstrong Loving and her DOGE deputies, guidance of rather dubious legality for an agency that, under Trump, has already attempted to backtrack on its multibillion-dollar commitments. But it’s all in keeping with the crypto industry’s general hostility toward environmental regulations.
Keenan Kmiec
DOGE Lackey
Who is he? During COVID-19, Keenan Kmiec weaponized his lengthy legal background on behalf of the then-booming crypto sector, serving as a lawyer for the Tezos Foundation (a blockchain-promoting Swiss nonprofit) and becoming CEO of InterPop, a gaming- and comics-focused NFT company that shut down in 2023.
Wallet stash: Unknown
What fresh hell hath he wrought? … Have you read anything about DOGE lately?
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