Trump Orders Crypto in 401(k)s & Ends Debanking

Plus, 🧾 Ripple wins case, 💸 acquires Rail for $200M, 🧠 banks & crypto face off in new data war.

Author

Juan Aranovich
August 08, 2025

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Good Friday! In today’s edition:

  • 🏦 Trump opens 401(k)s to crypto

  • 🔒 Debanking era ends with Trump’s new EO

  • 🥇 Ripple finally defeats the SEC

  • 🛒 Ripple just dropped $200M on a payments firm

  • 🧩 Will crypto’s future depend on bank data?

  • 📲 Solana’s phone is here

  • 🤔 Rate cuts? Or just a “nothing burger”?

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By Tikta and Steve Ehrlich

Trump's Executive Order Opens $8.7 Trillion in 401(k)s to Crypto

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to facilitate the inclusion of digital assets within 401(k) retirement plans.

The executive order tasks the Department of Labor, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Treasury Department with revising existing regulations and clarifying guidance, aiming to give American workers access to a wider range of alternative investments.

The order specifically references digital assets alongside private equity and real estate, marking a substantial shift from previous guidelines that either discouraged or placed limits on crypto exposure in retirement plans.

In Q1, Americans held around $8.7 trillion in 401(k) assets, according to data from Investment Company Institute. 

According to Glitch Financial CEO Arrash Yasavolian, the order will create simpler, more regulated onramps for individuals and institutions and add a new element of legitimacy to asset classes like crypto.

“Alternative assets like crypto and private equity are particularly valuable for younger investors, technologists, and those seeking asymmetric upside or early-stage exposure,” Yasavolian said in a statement to Unchained. 

Trump Signs Executive Order to Prevent Crypto Debanking

The crypto community celebrated another major executive order signed by President Trump on Wednesday — this one officially cementing the end of Operation Chokepoint 2.0.

The “Fair Banking for All Americans” order instructs regulators to remove "reputational risk" considerations from supervisory handbooks and bank oversight.

That was a key feature of earlier federal guidance, which had targeted banks serving so-called high-risk industries, associated with Operation Chokepoint 2.0, a Biden-era series of informal regulatory actions that pressured banks into denying services to crypto businesses.

The White House said in Wednesday’s executive order that the current administration had already ended Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and called for a retroactive review of complaints and bank supervisory records to identify cases of debanking based on protected beliefs.

“You do not need to take sides with Trump to see the signal: when even a former president says he cannot move a billion dollars into a bank, institutional trust fractures,” said Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner at DWF Labs, in a statement to Unchained.

SEC vs Ripple Long-Running Case Officially Ends

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s long-running case against Ripple Labs officially came to a close, marking another win for the XRP issuer on Thursday.

Both parties jointly filed a dismissal of their appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – something that dismisses all appeals related to the lawsuit, marking the conclusion of a legal battle that began in December 2020.

The case involved allegations by the SEC that Ripple sold XRP as an unregistered security. A 2023 federal court ruling found that XRP sales on public exchanges were not securities, but some institutional sales were.

Ripple had already placed in escrow the $125 million fine it was required to pay as a final settlement. Now that both appeals have been dropped, the settlement will be considered complete and the funds transferred to the SEC.

“The end…and now back to business,” said Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty on X.

 Ripple’s native token XRP rallied 11% on the news, hitting an intraday high of $3.38 late on Thursday.

Ripple to Buy Stablecoin Payments Firm Rail for $200M

XRP issuer Ripple has acquired Rail, a Toronto-based stablecoin payment platform, for $200 million to enhance its digital payment infrastructure and expand its stablecoin capabilities, including supporting Ripple's own stablecoin RLUSD.

The deal integrates Rail’s real-time international payment technology, virtual accounts, and automated back-office systems into Ripple’s network. 

Essentially, it would enable businesses to manage different payment flows, including third-party payments and internal treasury, within a single interface without needing to hold crypto assets on their balance sheets.

Rail is projected to process over 10% of the $36 billion global business-to-business payment volume in 2025.

New Battle Pits Crypto Against Banks in Battle for Customer Data. But Can Everyone Win?

For as big as crypto has grown, especially under the Trump administration, it still has a major Achilles heel — its reliance on the very banks that it is trying to disrupt to let customers move funds onto exchanges.

And now, as the crypto industry has grown to be a $4 trillion industry, this marriage of inconvenience is reaching a breaking point. Buttressed by a gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) embracing the ideals of small government, the banks fought a rule from the CFPB presented last October that would force them to share customer data with fintech companies, including crypto firms, entirely for free.

But with the rule now back on the table, could the next phase of crypto’s growth hinge on an unlikely data war with Wall Street?

The Solana Phone Is Here. Can It Compete Against Giants Like Apple and Samsung?

Solana Mobile has begun shipping the Seeker, its second-generation crypto smartphone, and the follow-up to the surprisingly successful Saga.

Solana Mobile GM Emmett Hollyer joins Laura Shin to explain:

  • What’s he believes the Seeker is the most secure phone for crypto

  • How they tried to resolve the tension between phone convenience and crypto security

  • How the Seed Vault turns the phone into a mobile hardware wallet

  • How he thinks Seeker ID and SKR token could shape the future of crypto-native identity and app incentives

  • Why Seeker is aiming for real demand

Everyone’s Pricing a Fed Rate Cut. Here’s Why They Might Be Wrong

The July jobs report came in soft, and then got worse, with over 250,000 jobs revised away. Markets panicked and priced in more aggressive Fed rate cuts. But is that reaction justified?

Noelle Acheson argues the labor market remains balanced and a September cut is unlikely. 

Ben Werkman says the politicization of data could erode trust and push investors into safe havens like Bitcoin. 

And Ram Ahluwalia calls the whole thing a “nothing burger,” despite growing political pressure to push rates lower.

  • 🏛️ President Trump nominated Stephen Miran, a longtime supporter of crypto deregulation and critic of overreach, to fill a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board through early 2026.

  • ⚖️ Paxos agreed to pay $48.5 million to New York’s financial regulator over past failures tied to its Binance stablecoin partnership, including weak due diligence and compliance controls.

  • 👨‍⚖️ The Ethereum Foundation pledged to match $500,000 in donations for Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s legal defense after he was convicted of running an unlicensed money service, with two more charges still hanging over him.

  • 🏦 Animoca Brands, Standard Chartered, and HKT launched a new joint venture in Hong Kong to pursue a stablecoin license under the city’s new rules, aiming to issue a local currency-backed digital token.

  • 💼 Core Scientific’s largest shareholder announced it would oppose CoreWeave’s $9B buyout, arguing the deal undervalues the Bitcoin miner and unfairly benefits the AI firm amid growing demand for data center infrastructure.

  • 🏗️ The Winklevoss twins invested Bitcoin into American Bitcoin Corp., a mining firm backed by Eric and Donald Trump Jr., which plans to go public next month via a merger.

  • 💸 Chainlink has launched the Chainlink Reserve, a strategic onchain reserve of $LINK built from offchain enterprise revenue and onchain service payments.

  • 🔐 Binance partnered with Spanish bank BBVA to offer custody of user funds in U.S. Treasuries, allowing clients to trade on the exchange while reducing risks linked to platform failure.

  • 📄 Fundamental Global filed to offer up to $5 billion in securities, with most of the proceeds earmarked for buying ETH and the rest set aside for general expenses and working capital.

  • 🤝 Tether bought a minority stake in Bit2Me and led a €30 million round to support the Spanish exchange’s expansion across the EU and Latin America following its new regulatory license.

  • 🔗 Web3 AI startup Perle raised $9 million in a round led by Framework Ventures to scale its blockchain-powered system that pays people to improve AI training with better, human-reviewed data.

  • 📱 Euphoria raised $7.5 million from over 100 investors to build a mobile-first crypto derivatives app on MegaETH that simplifies complex trading into quick tap-based decisions.

  • 🦄 SharpLink raised $200 million in a direct offering to grow its ETH treasury to over $2 billion, joining the wave of firms using Ethereum as a long-term reserve asset.

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