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- đ„ Trumpâs SEC Chair Pick + Crypto Czar: Everything You Need to Know đ„
đ„ Trumpâs SEC Chair Pick + Crypto Czar: Everything You Need to Know đ„
đ Trump will name one of four finalists for SEC chair soon, but crypto czar talks are at an earlier stage.
Hey! Iâm Veronica Irwin, Unchainedâs regulatory reporter.
Itâs official: Gary Gensler will resign January 20th, 2025. Just in the nick of time to avoid getting fired by president-elect Donald Trump.
Though Trump wasnât waiting for the news to announce Genslerâs replacement, it sounds like he was about ready to make a decision now anyways. I have an update on the finalists.
Also - I guess buried the lede last week when I emailed you all about the restrictions of a crypto czar. But if my prior story didnât make it clear â yes, Trump is considering having a singular person in the White House to help him with drafting the specifics of his crypto policies, and has been for several months.
The virality of this news yesterday made the price of bitcoin jump and crypto X go wild with speculation on who this person might be. But let me slow everyone down for a second - thereâs a lot we donât know about the role, and likely wonât know for at least a few days (or even months, according to one source). That said, Iâve been chasing who could be named to the so-called âcrypto czarâ role or the crypto âadvisory councilâ Trump promised heâd create this summer for several weeks. Itâs time to fill you all in.
Meanwhile, President-Elect Trump plans to name his pick tomorrow or Monday. He has narrowed his search down to two main contenders, though two other names are still in the mix.
Gary Gensler will resign from his role as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 20th, the day of president-elect Donald Trumpâs inauguration. Trump has repeatedly promised to âfireâ Gensler on his first day in office, but it appears Gensler plans to remove himself first.
According to two people familiar with the deliberations, the Trump administration plans to announce a nominee to replace Gensler as SEC Chair tomorrow or Monday.
A source close to the contenders said Trump will likely pick Brad Bondi, global co-chair of investigations and white collar defense at the law firm Paul Hastings, or Brian Brooks, former acting comptroller of the currency and former CEO of Binance.US. They along with two additional sources said that Theresa Goody Guillén, co-leader of the blockchain team at law firm BakerHostetler, and Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner and a favorite in conservative legal circles, are finalists. Crypto executives close to the administration as well as leaders active in the policy space have been asked for their final input this week, ahead of the announcement. Brooks and Bondi have become industry favorites, followed by Guillén, due to their work in the crypto industry. Bondi, Brooks, Atkins and Guillen did not respond to requests for comment.
Read More: Trumpâs Plans for a âCrypto Czarâ and a Crypto Advisory Council: Hereâs What We Know
The industry often calls the SECâs tactics under Genslerâs leadership âregulation by enforcement,â referring to how the agency has repeatedly sued crypto firms without first elaborating on legal interpretation or making rules which clarify when cryptocurrencies are to be treated as securities under federal law. Though the SEC began its enforcement of the crypto industry under the Trump administration, with its lawsuit against digital payment network Ripple, under Genslerâs leadership, it has subsequently sued a variety of entities from crypto exchanges to NFT creators frequently for registration/disclosure type infractions. Major firms targeted by the SEC with Wells Notices or direct enforcement actions include Coinbase, Kraken, OpenSea, amongst others.
The animus Gensler has prompted from the crypto industry gave fuel to Trumpâs campaign after he promised to remove Gensler and prioritize the cryptocurrency industryâs demands in order to make America the âworld capital for crypto and bitcoin.â Though Trump would have likely not been able to fire Gensler entirely from the commission under federal law, he could have demoted Gensler to a commissioner position.
In response, several crypto entrepreneurs and companies donated to Trumpâs campaign, including Coinbase, Ripple, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invests heavily in crypto. The campaign raised over $7.5 million in cryptocurrency donations in the form of bitcoin, ether, XRP and USDC.
A picture is emerging of the types of people who are being considered for a role on Trumpâs crypto advisory council, but sources emphasize anything could change.
Recent reports that president-elect Donald Trumpâs team is actively vetting candidates for a new âcrypto czarâ position at the White House have led to rampant speculation in the crypto community about who Trump might choose for the role. But details about who might be eligible for the position and how it might relate to a new crypto advisory council, which Trump had earlier promised to create, are still sparse.
For example, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who met with the Trump transition team at Mar-A-Lago this week, is more likely a candidate for a crypto advisory council, not a role in the White House, four sources active in crypto policy circles say. This is in part because current restrictions enforced by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) stipulate that federal staff own only a âde minimis,â or negligible amount, of crypto and not have other significant financial conflicts of interest. Armstrong, for example, would be disqualified under this provision because of his personal crypto holdings and his leadership of Coinbase, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with the SEC and has a stock price that fluctuates in response to news about crypto policy.
Trumpâs Promises
Trump promised the crypto community that he would create a crypto-focused âadvisory councilâ at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July. Sources say that people surrounding the president-elect have been floating the idea of creating a separate role in the White House, which they typically refer to as a âcrypto czar,â since July as well, which would theoretically be distinct from the council.
Though several sources say itâs likely that Trump would appoint people to both the council and a separate White House role, they also say that the details of who would fill any of these positions are still vague and will develop in the coming months. Other sources who spoke with Unchained are unwilling to go so far as to predict whether Trump would have one or both a council and White House staffer focused on crypto, because details they receive are in constant flux. The job descriptions for either could easily be changed by Trump at any second, one source with information about the discussions surmised.
Two of these sources, as well as another, separate source active in crypto policy said that advisory council picks would likely be executives of major crypto companies who also donated generously to Trumpâs campaign. Those sources mentioned Armstrong, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and the executives of bitcoin mining companies that met with Trump in at Mar-a-Lago in June as examples of the type of people Trump is considering for the advisory council, although they cautioned that they were not aware of a specific list of people that are being vetted. Other sources more distantly connected to the discussions had a similar understanding of who was being considered.
A Key Distinction
A crypto czar or similar White House advisor would likely be someone with a policy background, three sources said, noting that details about the role are unclear. This is in large part because of the current aforementioned OGE rule that prohibits such a person from owning crypto, though some speculate that Trump could appoint a new Director of OGE that could waive that restriction for federal staff. The current director, Shelley Finlayson, is in an acting role, and is thus only temporarily leading the Office.
The Digital Chamber, a blockchain industry group, wrote a letter to the OGE last week asking it to waive the requirement, but neither the OGE nor Trump transition teams have responded to the request, according to Digital Chamber president Cody Carbone. Trump has also ignored potential conflicts of interest when nominating officials for other roles such as director of tThe Department of Government Efficiency andor Director of National Intelligence, raising the question of whether Trump would allow the OGE crypto restriction to limit his potential picks for a crypto czar.
âThey want someone seriousâ for the White House role, said one source who is active in crypto policy conversations. The lack of clarity about who would qualify for the role has left sources who spoke with Unchained unsure about the accuracy of reports that the Trump transition team is seriously vetting candidates at this stage.
One source speculated that former CFTC Chair under Trump Chris Giancarlo could fill the crypto czar role. In an X post published last Thursday by Giancarlo, who earned the nickname âCrypto Dadâ for his pro-crypto stances, said that he was not interested in the role of either SEC chair or a crypto role at the Treasury. But Giancarlo did not say he was uninterested in a White House or advisory council role, the source pointed out. Unchained was unable to confirm whether Giancarlo personally owned any crypto.
A New Contender
Giancarlo had been considered a top contender for the SEC and Treasury roles because he was already vetted by the Trump team when he was nominated to the CFTC in 2017, and had been making authoritative comments on how a Trump administration could and should regulate crypto at conferences and closed-door events, which onlookers who took as hints Giancarlo would get a role in a Trump administration.
In fact, three sources who spoke with Unchained speculated that Giancarloâs own self-promotion would have hurt his chances of obtaining either role, and speculated that the X post may have been written to counter these perspectives. Trump has reportedly been frustrated by candidates for other positions, such as Commerce Secretary nominee and previous contender for Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick, advocating too strongly for themselves.Chris Giancarlo did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
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