Sitting under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, gathered more than two dozen of the most powerful figures in the American cryptocurrency industry, together many billions of dollars, collected in the White House on Friday for an audience with President Trump.
When Mr. Trump entered the graceful state room after a short waiting time, the managers got up to hunt him.
“Many of you have been fighting for this for years,” Mr. Trump said, the room calm. “It's an honor to be with you in the White House.”
Mr. Trump held a first 'crypto summit', met face-to-face with the leaders of almost all best crypto companies in the United States. Only a small part of the meeting, which was planned for four hours, was broadcast to the public. But it offered a lively illustration of Mr. Trump's recent embrace, an apostate industry that has fought with American supervisors for years.
Various managers, including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the founders of the Gemini Crypto Exchange, offered words of thanks to Mr Trump. They called him 'great', and said they were 'overjoyed' with his approach.
“High IQ individuals around this table,” Mr. Trump replied.
Since he took office, Mr. Trump a complete transformation of federal policy on crypto orchestrated. The Securities and Exchange Commission has almost completely an aggressive campaign of the Biden administration reversed to combat the industry. The agency, at astonishing speed, has issued legal guidelines to help crypto companies, ended research into large companies and dropped lawsuits against two of the largest stock exchanges, coinbase and cracking.
Leaders of both companies attended the White House event on Friday. Brian Armstrong, the Coinbase Chief Executive, was two seats away from the president.
“It indicates that the industry is finally a serious industry,” says JP Richardson, who runs the crypto company Exodus and flew to Washington to participate in the top of Mr. Trump. “We believe that technology can fundamentally change the world. And to actually take this administration seriously, it is really important. “
The meeting was also a reminder of Mr Trump's personal investment in Crypto, who described ethical experts as an alarming conflict of interest. The guest list included Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, a good friend of the president who serves as the special envoy of the administration in the middle -east. The younger Mr. Witkoff is a founder of World Liberty Financial, a crypto company that heavily promoted Mr Trump last year – and from which he and his family benefit directly.
Once a crypto -skeptician, Mr Trump embraced digital currencies on the campaign track last year, while crypto companies spent tens of millions of dollars to support him, as well as congress candidates who supported the technology.
Soon Mr Trump himself came on the market. Last fall he and his sons worked with the Witkoffs to start World Liberty Financial, to promote it as a platform for borrowing and borrowing in Crypto. World Liberty has its own digital currency, WLFI, and the Trump family receives a reduction in sale.
Only a few days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump also to sell a so -called memecoin, a kind of cryptocurrency bound to an internet joke or a famous mascot. The coin, called $ Trump, rose briefly and then crashed and cost investors a cumulative $ 2 billion.
Since winning the elections, Mr. Trump has taken steps to stimulate the outlook of industry, whereby crypto supporters are appointed top administration and calls for federal agencies to develop a new approach to regulation.
On Thursday evening he signed an executive order to create a national reserve from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Crypto leaders threw the plan as a strategy to chip the national debt.
Skeptics have attacked the proposal as a schedule to enrich a small number of crypto investors. Even some supporters of Mr Trump in the technology world have joined the criticism.
After Mr. Trump teased the announcement of the reserve on social media last weekend, Joe Lonsdale, a prominent tech investor, wrote on X that the government should not waste any money on “crypto bro schemes”.
Nothing of that different opinion could be seen at the top. The meeting was warm, said Sergey Nazarov, a founder of the Crypto Company Chainlink, who attended the event. One by one, the managers shared their opinion on crypto policy, with little time for debate or disagreement.
“This was not a meeting where things were decided or announced,” said Mr. Nazarov. “This was more of a partnership type session.”
In the public part of the top, Mr. Trump was between David Sacks, the Crypto policy of the White House, Tsar and Scott Bessent, the Minister of Finance. Mr. Trump greeted the event as a turning point in the treatment of the crypto industry by the nation.
“I promised to make America the Bitcoin -Suuperkracht of the world and the Crypto capital of the planet,” he said. “We take historical action to realize that promise.”
He said that the new National Bitcoin Stockpile would create a virtual Fort Knox for the interests of the nation. “Never sell your bitcoin,” said Mr. Trump.
In his own comments, Mr Sacks praised the leadership of Mr. Trump and said that the administration “moved at technical speed.” The industry was subject to “persecution and persecution,” he said under the Biden administration.
“Nobody knows how that feels better than you,” Mr Sacks told the president.
Then he turned to the Winklevoss -Teeling, sitting on the other side of the room.
“You said something that I thought was really in -depth,” Mr Sacks told them. “A year ago you thought it would be more likely that you would end up in prison than in the White House.”
