The White House is pushing to embed crypto everywhere, from taxes to retirement
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President Donald Trump displays the GENIUS Act, which codifies the use of stablecoins, at a White House signing ceremony on July 18. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The White House is urging all elements of government to make sweeping changes as quickly as possible and enable a "Golden Age" for the cryptocurrency industry.
Why it matters: From taxes to mortgages to retirement, the Trump administration wants to embed crypto in the economy as quickly and broadly as possible.
- The push comes as the president's own family pushes deeper into the industry, profiting from an industry that's benefitted from Trump's support.
- The price of bitcoin has soared 74% since Election Day in November, while the global crypto industry has added $1.57 trillion in market cap.
Driving the news: A 160-page report released Wednesday from the president's working group on cryptocurrency markets focuses on key areas the White House wants addressed by regulators and through legislation currently before Congress.
- It's the culmination of the group's six-month review of U.S. crypto policy triggered by a Trump executive order in January.
"American entrepreneurs and software developers should have the liberty, and regulatory certainty, to upgrade all sectors of our economy using these technologies," the report says.
- It states the objective of making the American digital asset marketplace the "deepest and most liquid in the world."
Zoom in: The report includes recommendations for everything from securities and commodities regulation, to banking, taxation, countering illicit finance, payments, insurance and cybersecurity.
The intrigue: What it doesn't include is any new information on the U.S. crypto reserve and stockpile that that president announced by executive order.
- Details on that are expected soon, according to a senior administration official.
The report urges the SEC and CFTC — the two regulators that will oversee different aspects of crypto markets based on market structure legislation currently before Congress — to move quickly using their existing powers to enable orderly trading of digital assets currently caught in regulatory limbo.
- And it calls on banking regulators to make clear what activities financial institutions can engage in, specifically citing tokenization, custody, blockchain adoption and stablecoin issuance.
- The president signed a stablecoin bill into law earlier this month, though it needs updated rules from banking regulators in order to take effect.
The report goes further on urging neutral treatment for the crypto industry in bank regulation, recommending that agencies take further action to promote clarity around the process for obtaining charters and Fed master accounts.
- And it calls for changes in how crypto is accounted for in bank capital requirements, where overly strict treatment can make it expensive and unattractive for banks to offer crypto-related services.
On taxes, the report calls for the elimination of compliance hurdles for both businesses and individuals, calling on action from the IRS and Treasury Department.
- And it urges the taxation authority to consider updating their rules to directly address some of the use cases created by blockchain innovation and to consider administrative guidance around de minimus receipts of digital assets.
- For Congress, it urges new law that treat digital assets as a new class of assets subject to existing tax rules for securities and commodities, with relevant modifications.
The bottom line: Everything in the report urges all agencies to act with haste in order to move the necessary policy needed for the industry to grow sooner rather than later.
