Trump Issues Crypto Executive Order to Pave U.S. Digital Assets Path

With his U.S. Senate confirmation behind him, Scott Bessent is in place to be the top financial official of President Donald Trump's administration

Scott Bessent, a billionaire former hedge fund manager, is set to become the top financial official in President Donald Trump's administration. He's a known digital assets enthusiast, and his boss has already assigned him a spot on the team tasked with developing a friendly system of crypto oversight.

Bessent, who is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate, didn't give the crypto sector much to chew on during his nomination hearing earlier this month. However, he's known to be interested in digital assets, and his role in Trump's administration will put him at the forefront of shaping crypto policy.

Trump's crypto executive order, signed last week, will see Bessent's Treasury taking a role on a governmental working group — backed by "individual expertise from leaders in digital assets and digital markets" — to hash out the strategy for U.S. crypto policy.

The order also bans work on a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC), which had never progressed beyond the tire-kicking stage in the U.S., despite enthusiastic adoption and testing by other jurisdictions, including China.

As a nominee, the ex-chief of Key Square Group told senators in his confirmation hearing that he saw "no reason" to pursue the idea of a domestic CBDC, further endearing himself to crypto insiders who have been nervous the government might pursue a digital dollar. But he wasn't questioned about crypto policies.

Still, Bessent is no stranger to digital assets. He'd tucked hundreds of thousands of dollars of his personal wealth into a bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), as noted in his lengthy financial disclosures. Those assets were liquidated when he received Trump's nomination.

At the Treasury, Bessent will also be in command of its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that had pursued crypto services with enforcement actions and rulemaking, especially involving so-called mixing services that seek to grant users anonymity by blending their transactions to make it difficult to track them. The Treasury's financial-crimes arm had focused on digital assets as a popular means of transaction in human trafficking and child exploitation.

Bessent's department additionally manages U.S. financial sanctions, which have historically given the federal government reach into overseas activity, such as when it targeted mixer Tornado Cash with sanctions that were recently overturned in federal court.