WASHINGTON (AP) – The Department of Justice is disbanding a team of prosecutors targeting cryptocurrency crimes and shifting focus from complex crypto-related cases, including banking and securities laws, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.
“The Department of Justice is not a digital asset regulator,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a memo sent to prosecutors on Monday.
It is the latest move by the Trump administration to try to boost the cryptocurrency industry while revoking the Biden administration’s efforts to crack down on industry fraudsters. The Trump administration’s efforts include similar changes in crypto-related enforcement priorities within the Securities and Exchange Commission. Blanche’s memo is part of a major move in which the Justice Department retreats from certain white-collar enforcement, aligns with President Donald Trump’s priorities in tackling illegal immigration, gangs and drug crimes.
Blanche said the Biden administration used the department to “sought a reckless regulatory strategy through prosecution, but it didn’t imagine it and was inadequately enforced.” Instead, Blanche said the sector’s narrower crypto-related priorities target people and entities that rip off crypto investors, and use digital assets to fund criminal acts such as human trafficking, drug operations and terrorism.
The crypto industry, which spent so much to win Trump’s election, has complained that the Biden administration has unfairly targeted innocent actors in either crime or civil enforcement action. Opposing ongoing criminal cases against the developers behind Tornado Cash, a tumbler used to hide ownership of Crypto Assets, has become a well-known cause among some privacy and cryptography enthusiasts.
“We should chase after the bad guys. We’re not the developers of good tools that bad guys happen to use,” Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of the Advocacy Group Coin Center, said in X, praised Blanche’s note.
The National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team was created with a clear goal of targeting exchanges, mixers and more during President Joe Biden’s administration. This allows the misuse of cryptocurrency and related technologies to commit or promote criminal activity.”
However, Blanche said these types of entities are no longer subject to “unconscious violations of end-user conduct or regulations.”
Blanche said the dissolution of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team will soon take effect. He also said market integrity and key fraud units would “stop enforcement of cryptocurrency to focus on other priorities such as immigration and procurement fraud.”
Trump, a former skeptic Republican, has promised to make the United States the capital of the world. He and his sons are also looking to expand their personal fate with various crypto-related companies.