US President Donald Trump is preparing to host a historic crypto summit at the White House. The event, welcoming cryptocurrency executives and investors, marks a significant policy shift for an industry that previously faced regulatory scrutiny.
This high-profile summit follows recent executive actions by Trump, including signing an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The reserve will be funded through seized cryptocurrency assets, a move intended to bolster the US’s cryptocurrency sector. Trump has stated his goal of making the United States a global leader in the crypto space.
“It’s really extraordinary and gratifying to go from being in exile to being in the room where it happens,” said Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer for Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, as reported by the Washington Post.
Trump, who during his reelection campaign pledged to make the United States “the crypto capital of the world,” has taken several concrete steps toward this goal. Before his inauguration, the President also launched his own digital currency, $TRUMP.
According to CNBC, the White House Crypto Summit is expected to focus on blockchain’s role in maintaining US financial dominance. Sergey Nazarov of Chainlink will be speaking at the event, stating the need for tokenizing key markets like treasuries and real estate to shape the future of finance. Vlad Tenev of Robinhood is championing tokenization to democratize private markets. He argues that utilizing blockchain will grant everyday investors access to high-value companies such as OpenAI and SpaceX.
Regulatory clarity is a key focus, as Tenev has called for SEC reforms to allow broader participation in private markets. His goal is to ensure that retail investors can benefit from opportunities traditionally reserved for the wealthy.
The summit follows the announcement by David Sacks, a tech investor serving as the president’s artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, who stated that Trump signed an executive order to create the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The reserve will be funded using cryptocurrency assets seized by the federal government through criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.
“This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime,” Sacks wrote on the social platform X.
The U.S. government currently holds approximately $18 billion in bitcoin, according to crypto tracking firm Arkham Intelligence. There has never been a complete audit of the estimated 200,000 bitcoin the federal government owns, but the executive order directs a full accounting of the government’s digital asset holdings, Sacks added.
