Under Trump, U.S. Dismantles Crypto Crackdown
Going case by case, regulators have halted investigations and withdrawn or paused lawsuits against top crypto companies and their executives.
Going case by case, regulators have halted investigations and withdrawn or paused lawsuits against top crypto companies and their executives.
Federal officials declared that so-called memecoins would not be subject to strict oversight.
A series of investigations into major cryptocurrency firms were halted.
And the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pause a fraud case against a top crypto entrepreneur.
Just over a month since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. regulators have almost entirely dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a volatile sector rife with fraud, scams and theft.
Regulators are following through on campaign promises that Mr. Trump made last year, as he courted donations from deep-pocketed crypto investors and marketed his own digital currency to the public.
But few in the crypto industry expected to notch so many victories so quickly.
Last week, the S.E.C. agreed to drop its lawsuit against Coinbase, the largest crypto company in the United States. Then, in rapid succession, top executives at the crypto firms Gemini, OpenSea and Uniswap Labs announced that the agency had halted its investigations into their companies. An executive at another major crypto firm, Consensys, said on Thursday that the S.E.C. had agreed to withdraw a lawsuit targeting one of the company’s popular products.
“This marks another milestone to the end of the war on crypto,” Cameron Winklevoss, a Gemini founder, wrote on X on Wednesday. “I’m glad to be turning the page here.”
