A mixed bag when Trump took office
Former US President Joe Biden left office with a complicated crypto record that spanned major advances from heavy regulatory measures and institutional adoption.
On January 20, pro-crypto President Donald Trump will begin his presidency. While Trump has said he plans to make America the “crypto capital of the world,” Biden's stance on crypto has been more ambiguous.
Under Democrat Biden, U.S. financial regulators have filed dozens of lawsuits against industrial companies for alleged violations of the law. On the other hand, it has paved the way for institutional adoption by approving several regulated crypto products and custodians.
The result of crypto was four years of uneven growth. Decentralized finance (DeFi) was effectively banned from the US market, and exchanges struggled. Meanwhile, crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), US Treasury bills and dollar-backed stablecoins abound.
Biden vs. Trump on crypto policy. Source: Galaxy Research
Theft of control
In the year In 2021, Biden tapped Gary Gensler to become chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, America's top financial regulator. Gensler stepped down as SEC chairman on January 20, the start of Trump's presidency.
Under Gensler, the SEC — and its sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — have brought more than 100 legal actions against crypto companies. Targets range from crypto exchange Coinbase to DeFi protocols Uniswap to the agreement of infrastructure providers.
Gensler argued that because the firms are not registered as securities brokers or exchanges, these investors are denied substantial protections, including protections against SEC scrutiny, recordkeeping requirements and conflicts of interest.
Industry executives say the agency's approach has “harmed our industry for years, limiting potential technological innovation and services,” said Paul Grewal, Coinbase's chief legal officer, in a Jan. 17 post on the X forum.
In the year In 2024, nearly 30 crypto executives accused the Biden administration of working through regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) to limit access to banking services by securities firms.
Galaxy Research Trump in 2018 He described himself as more pro-crypto than Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, who ran against Trump in 2024.
Spot Bitcoin ETF assets broke $100 billion in November. Source: Eric Balchunas
Institutional adoption
Despite the administration's strong enforcement stance, Biden has led significant advances in institutional crypto adoption and real-world asset (RWAs) tokens.
In January and July, respectively, the SEC approved more than a dozen spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETFs to list on the US market.
Since then, crypto ETFs have dominated the ETF landscape, with Bitcoin ETFs surpassing $100 billion in net assets in November. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, now recommends allocating up to 2% of its portfolio to currencies.
“The presence of digital assets in an ETF portfolio is definitely a game changer,” Will McGough, director of investments at Prime Capital Financial, a registered investment adviser in Overland Park, Kansas, told Cointelegraph in July.
“The ability to access these investments through regular investment channels will lead to greater acceptance over time.”
Meanwhile, digital asset custodians have proliferated in the U.S. under Biden's tenure, with companies including Coinbase Custody Trust, Fidelity Digital Asset Services and Anchorage Digital Bank now authorized to hold assets of U.S. clients.
Dozens of other crypto products have also entered the fray, from options contracts on Bitcoin ETFs to swaps and futures tied to memecoins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Bonk (BONK).
Tokenized US Treasury TVL Deployed Under Biden. Source: RWA.xyz
Token
Improvement was not limited to traditional financial products. In the year In 2021, asset manager Franklin Templeton launched the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX), a token money fund originally launched on the Stellar network.
The SEC marks the first time an investment vehicle has been allowed to register on the blockchain network's distributed ledger technology.
Collectively, US funds, including the BlackRock Dollar Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), now command more than $3.5 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to data service RWA.xyz.
Meanwhile, the USD Coin (USDC), a dollar-backed stablecoin managed by the US Treasury Department, has seen its value rise to nearly $45 billion under Biden.
In the year By 2024, the US Treasury Department has approved tokenization as a “Promises[ing] to unlock new economic arrangements and enhance efficiency” and is now trying to impersonate US Treasuries.
Meanwhile, the CFTC began exploring cryptocurrencies as a commodity on exchanges.
RELATED: If Trump clears the way, tokenism could transform US markets.
