President Donald Trump vowed to make America the “undisputed Bitcoin superpower and crypto capital of the world,” during video remarks delivered to the Digital Asset Summit conference in New York Thursday.

It was only last night that Blockworks, the conference organizer, announced Trump would address attendees at its Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday morning. The 3-minute long address marks the first time ever that a sitting president would address a crypto industry conference.

Although the President didn’t announce any new initiatives, he reiterated that he’s called on Congress to pass “landmark legislation creating simple, common sense rules for stablecoins.”

With it, he said, “institutions large and small will be liberated to innovate and take part in one of the most exciting technological revolutions in modern history.”

Just last week, the Senate voted to pass the Genius Act out of committee with strong bipartisan support. The bill’s sponsors, including Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), have said they intend for the GENIUS Act to receive a full vote on the Senate floor by the end of next month.

If the bill passes, it would create provisions addressing reserve requirements, audits, transparency, and licensing for stablecoin issuers.

Echoes of Nashville Bitcoin conference

During his unprecedented in-person appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, while he was still campaigning for reelection, Trump urged attendees to “never sell your Bitcoin.” That speech was also the first time that the President alluded to keeping the Bitcoin that had already been seized by the government.

“As the final part of my plan today, I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, the United States of America, to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” Trump said at the time.

So far, President Trump seems intent on making good on his campaign promise.

On March 6, he signed an executive order to create the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But the investors were disappointed to see that he was initially sticking to his plan to keep Bitcoin the government had seized or confiscated in connection to crimes rather than use a portion of its budget to buy BTC.

But there are efforts underway to see that it does. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced her BITCOIN Act in the Senate last week. If passed, it would allow the government to acquire up to $80 billion worth of Bitcoin.

Just days later, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would enshrine into law the President’s proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But the bill is crucially different from the legislation Lummis introduced in the Senate.

While Lummis’ bill specifies how much more Bitcoin the government could add to its reserve, Donalds’ bill would authorize the U.S. Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary to add an unspecified amount of Bitcoin to a federal reserve if such acquisitions were “budget neutral,” Donalds told Decrypt in a statement.

It’s worth mentioning his draft of the bill contains no such provision.

Edited by James Rubin.

Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a video shared to his X account Wednesday that the SEC will drop its appeal in the lawsuit it’s been pursuing against the firm for the past four years.

“I’m finally able to announce that this case has ended. It’s over,” Garlinghouse said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Today is a victory and [a] long overdue surrender from the SEC.”

Ripple, which uses XRP Ledger and the XRP cryptocurrency, got a partial ruling in its favor in 2023, but the SEC filed an appeal seeking to have that decision overturned.

A federal New York judge found that Ripple’s “programmatic sales” of XRP on a secondary market did not constitute securities transactions, while those made to institutional investors did.

To be clear, the SEC has not yet made an announcement that it will drop its appeal. At the time of writing, the XRP price has climbed as high as 14% to $2.55, according to CoinGecko data.

A Ripple spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt that the SEC’s decision is “subject to Commission vote and approval.” It may take “several weeks” for the case to be officially withdrawn, they said, adding: “That timeline is completely in the SEC’s control.”

The SEC declined to comment when asked for details about the Ripple lawsuit by Decrypt.

A federal New York court ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million fine for XRP sales to institutions in August. The penalty was far below the agency’s $2 billion request, and it’s unclear how the SEC dropping its appeal could impact the decision in the Southern District of New York.

The SEC’s legal about-face was widely expected.

Since SEC Acting Chair Mark Uyeda took over, the regulator has retreated from several enforcement actions, including its cases against the crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken.

If the SEC had been successful in its Ripple case, it could have had wide reaching impact on which cryptocurrencies should be classified as securities versus commodities.

Ripple Labs Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty told Decrypt in October, before President Donald Trump’s reelection, that the SEC’s appeal “will backfire.”

While he believed the Second Circuit Court of Appeals would grant a favorable decision for the firm, he also noted that the SEC “can withdraw their appeal anytime they want.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a comment from a Ripple Labs spokesperson.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.

Crypto exchange OKX has temporarily halted its decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator in response to security concerns and recent “attacks” targeting its platform. 

The exchange announced the pause on Sunday, citing the need to address incomplete blockchain tagging and implement new security features to prevent misuse by malicious actors. 

Blockchain tagging refers to the process of labeling transactions on a blockchain to accurately identify and track them on explorers.

“We detected a coordinated effort by Lazarus group to misuse our defi services,” the company said. “At the same time, we’ve noticed an increase in competitive attacks aiming to undermine our work.”

The move comes amidst scrutiny of OKX’s role in the alleged laundering of $100 million from the Bybit hack. OKX did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

In January, Bybit, one of the largest crypto exchanges, suffered a devastating hack in which nearly $1.5 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and ETH-related tokens were stolen, making it the largest hack in crypto history. 

The hack was attributed to the Lazarus Group, a notorious North Korean hacking collective believed to be responsible for a string of high-profile cybercrimes.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou recently pointed out that nearly $100 million, or 40,233 ETH, from the $1.5 billion hack had flowed through OKX’s Web3 platform, with a significant portion of the funds now lost and untraceable.

In a related development, Bloomberg reported on March 11 that regulators in the European Union are reportedly investigating OKX’s decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, questioning whether the exchange’s Web3 service is compliant with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

The report, citing people familiar with the matter, said the exchange’s Web3 service, which includes its wallet platform, may be used for illicit activities, prompting discussions among EU regulators about potential penalties.

OKX denied the allegations, refuting the claim that it is under investigation by European regulators and calling the report “misleading.”

“We urge our community to see these attacks for what they really are – deliberate attempts to mischaracterize our role and the value we bring to the ecosystem,” OKX said in the Sunday statement. 

Haider Rafique, the company’s global CMO, called the accusations “preposterous,” saying OKX had implemented measures to prevent the misuse of its services. 

“We did the exact opposite,” Rafique noted. “We froze funds moving to our CEX and launched new features to detect/block hackers’ addresses from using our DEX or wallet services.” 

In light of the situation, OKX confirmed it had consulted with regulators and made the decision to pause its DEX aggregator services proactively.

OKX’s recent troubles are compounded by a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 

Last month, OKX’s affiliate, Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd, agreed to pay over $500 million in penalties after pleading guilty to operating without a money transmitter license and failing to follow anti-money laundering laws. 

The settlement stems from accusations that OKX facilitated illicit transactions, with the DOJ stating that OKX violated U.S. laws by actively seeking American customers.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair