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Trump to speak at Digital Asset Summit: Report
United States President Donald Trump will reportedly speak at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 20, Blockworks said.
His speech will mark the first time a sitting US president has ever spoken at a cryptocurrency conference, Blockworks said in a March 19 announcement.
Trump’s presence at the event underscores his embrace of an industry that, under former US president Joe Biden, was the target of more than 100 enforcement actions by federal regulators.
“When we started Blockworks we could barely get someone from a bank to attend an event,” Jason Yanowitz, one of Blockworks co-founders, said in a March 19 post on the X platform.
“Now we have a sitting US President addressing […] 2,500 institutional participants. It is incredible how far this industry has come,” Yanowitz said.
Blockworks reportedly confirmed Trump will address attendees via a video recording at 10:40 am, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett said in an X post.
Source: Jason Yanowitz
Related: SEC will drop its appeal against Ripple, CEO Garlinghouse says
Changing political fortunes
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he promised to make America the “world’s crypto capital” and hinted at plans to form a national Bitcoin (BTC) reserve.
Since starting his presidential term on Jan. 20, Trump has signed executive orders instructing regulatory bodies to accommodate digital assets, forming a White House crypto advisory team, and creating a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile.
He has also nominated pro-industry leadership to key regulatory posts, including at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Treasury Department.
Bo Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, spoke at the Digital Asset Summit earlier this week.
On March 19, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs, announced the SEC was dropping its years-long enforcement action against the blockchain developer while at the Summit.
Since Trump took office, the agency has also dropped charges against other crypto firms — including Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap — for allegedly violating securities laws.
Blockworks did not specify the topics Trump planned to cover during his speech, which it said would take place Thursday morning.
Representatives of the White House and Hines did not immediately reply to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Crypto industry executives told Cointelegraph in March they are hoping Trump will provide more detailed regulatory clarity on topics such as stablecoin regulation and taxes.
Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom
Former chief legal officer of the Kraken exchange, Marco Santori, praised the political campaign donations made by crypto industry firms during the 2024 election as “democracy at work.” In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph’s Turner Wright, the former Kraken executive argued that crypto voters tilted the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The executive also said that the election donations from crypto firms, many of which are now having regulatory lawsuits dropped, do not represent conflicts of interest. Santori told Cointelegraph: “Detractors only call it a conflict of interest when it is a cause they do not believe in, otherwise, it’s just democracy at work. It is people advocating for their own benefits — people like you and me. That is what is happening, and that is what happened in the last election.” “Look at what happened in November. Who can deny that crypto was responsible For 4-5% of the vote,” Santori added. “It was a huge swing in an American election in every state across demographics,” the executive continued. 2024 US electoral map. Source: 270 To Win In September 2024, Dr. Tonya M. Evans, a tenured law professor at Pennsylvania State University, told Cointelegraph that the 2024 US elections would be decided by razor-thin margins and that crypto voters had the voting power to swing the elections. Related: Rep. Mike Collins now accepting crypto donations for campaign The crypto industry was responsible for nearly half of all corporate political campaign contributions during the 2024 United States election cycle. According to data from Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group, digital asset firms poured over $119 million to support pro-crypto candidates and policies in the 2024 US elections. The crypto industry’s share of corporate campaign contributions during the 2024 election cycle. Source: Public Citizen This included money spent on the Presidential and Congressional elections, such as the re-election campaign of Rep. Bryan Steil, on which crypto political action committee Fairshake spent $760,000 in a last-minute media ad supporting the lawmaker. According to former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, the crypto industry built a professional lobbying operation during the most recent election cycle — something that was absent during 2016 and 2020. The lobbying of the crypto industry is credited as the catalyst that allowed the GOP to secure both chambers of Congress, the popular vote, and the 2024 US presidential election. Magazine: Harris’ unrealized gains tax could ‘tank markets’: Nansen’s Alex Svanevik, X Hall of Flame Tether, the $143 billion stablecoin giant, was the world’s seventh-largest buyer of United States Treasurys, surpassing some of the world’s largest countries. Tether, the issuer of USDt (USDT), the world’s largest stablecoin, was the world’s seventh-largest US Treasury buyer, surpassing Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Norway, Hong Kong, and numerous other countries. The stablecoin issuer acquired over $33.1 billion worth of Treasurys, compared to over $100 billion purchased by the Cayman Island in the first place in global rankings, according to Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether. “Tether was the 7th largest buyer of US Treasurys in 2024, compared to Countries,” wrote Ardoino in a March 20 X post. Source: Paolo Ardoino However, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands figures include “all the hedge funds buying into t-bills,” noted Ardoino in the replies, whereas Tether’s figures represent the investments of a single entity. Tether is investing in US Treasurys as additional backing assets for its US dollar-pegged stablecoin since treasuries are short-term debt securities issued by the US government and are considered some of the safest and most liquid investments available. Related: US Bitcoin reserve marks ‘real step’ toward global financial integration Tether’s significant growth comes during a period of growing stablecoin adoption among both investors and US lawmakers. Source: IntoTheBlock The growing stablecoin supply recently surpassed $219 billion and continues to rise, suggesting that the market is “likely still mid-cycle” as opposed to the top of the bull run, according to IntoTheBlock analysts. Related: Paolo Ardoino: Competitors and politicians intend to ‘kill Tether’ US lawmakers are on track to pass legislation setting rules for stablecoins and cryptocurrency market structure by August, Kristin Smith, CEO of industry advocacy group the Blockchain Association, said during Blockworks’ 2025 Digital Asset Summit in New York. Smith’s timeline echoes a similar forecast by Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, who said on March 18 that he expects to see comprehensive stablecoin legislation in the coming months. “I think we’re close to being able to get those done for August […] they’re doing a lot of work on that behind the scenes right now,” Smith said on March 19 at the Summit, which Cointelegraph attended. US President Donald Trump sits beside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the March 7 White House Crypto Summit. Source: The Associated Press “I’m optimistic when you have the chairs of the relevant committees in the House and the Senate and the White House that want to do something, and you’ve got bipartisan votes in Congress to get it there,” she added. Magazine: ETH may bottom at $1.6K, SEC delays multiple crypto ETFs, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 9 – 15 Crypto exchange Bitnomial has voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of launching its Ripple XRP futures in the United States. The Chicago-based firm said in a March 19 statement to X that its XRP (XRP) futures are regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and will be available from March 20 for current users. “Bitnomial is launching the first-ever CFTC-regulated XRP futures in the US — physically settled for real market impact,” Bitnomial said. “Plus, we’ve voluntarily dismissed our case against the SEC as regulatory clarity improves,” it added. Source: Bitnomial The exchange filed a self-certification with the CFTC to list XRP futures contracts on its exchange in August 2024. However, the SEC blocked the move, pushing for Bitnomial to register as a securities exchange before it could list the futures. Bitnomial sued the SEC and its five commissioners on Oct. 10, accusing the agency of overextending its jurisdiction by claiming that XRP is a security. Bitnomial’s XRP futures launch follows Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s March 19 announcement the SEC opted out of continuing an appeal against a ruling labeling XRP as not a security for retail sales. A July 13, 2023 judgment from Judge Analisa Torres deemed XRP is not a security for retail sales; however, she opined it was when sold to institutional investors, as it met the conditions set in the Howey test. The SEC was appealing Torres’s decision. The SEC initially launched legal action against Ripple Labs in December 2020, accusing the firm of illegally selling its token as an unregistered security. Related: Vermont follows SEC’s lead, drops staking legal action against Coinbase Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s reign, dismissing a growing number of enforcement actions against crypto firms. The agency’s acting chair, Mark Uyeda, who took the reins after Gensler resigned on Jan. 20, flagged plans on March 17 to scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers. Uyeda also said in a March 10 speech that he had asked SEC staff for options to abandon part of proposed changes that would expand regulation of alternative trading systems to include crypto firms, requiring them to register as exchanges. 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Crypto industry spends big on 2024 US elections
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Stablecoin bill may pass as soon as August: Blockchain Association
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