The crypto industry has found the champion at Donald Trump. Trump, a former blockchain skeptic, embraced the sector after companies such as Coinbase and Ripple donated tens of millions of dollars to select procrypt candidates during their final election cycle. Trump has begun to adopt points of stories that rarely sound outside of civic Twitter, such as seeking the end of “Operation Chalk Point 2.0” and asking for the release of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbriccht.
For most of the business world, it’s fair to say that the first few months of the Trump administration haven’t followed the plan. After numbers from Mark Andreesen to Bill Ackman, declared that the new term would bring about a golden age of economic activity, Trump’s claims to enact his sweeping tariff agenda stopped offering public stakes. And even FTC boogie woman Lina Khan would have never dreamed of such an effective pause in the acquisition.
Cryptography remains a notable exception to chaos. Trump was able to fulfill almost all of his campaign promises, from establishing a strategic government reserve to hold Bitcoin seized from law enforcement operations to forgive “Dread Pirate” Ulbricht, who served two life sentences in a libertarian dream. Meanwhile, major homes and Senate committees are moving forward with versions of the bill to establish regulations for Stablecoins, a dollar-backed cryptocurrency. Ambitious laws that reform securities regimes to allow cryptocurrency are not too late.
At the heart of this agenda is David Sachs, a venture heavyweight who Trump tapped as his code & ai czar, and Bo Hines, a 29-year-old two-time failed congressional candidate. Sack was not necessarily known for his crypto investments, but he was well respected before his appointment. But Hines came as a complete surprise to almost everyone.
Jessica Matthews and I have a new profile about Hines. The propulsion had acquired his calendar through the demand for freedom of information. This revealed that Hines has met almost every key figure in the crypto industry during his first few months in the Trump administration, from Chris Dixon and Mark Andreesen of A16Z to Caroline Butler of BNY Mellon.
I had the opportunity to interview Hines at DC, near his office next to the White House. There, he described the journey into unstable industries and his important role as liaison between all interest groups, from companies to regulators to themselves. There are also new details about Hines’s own relationship with Trump Orbit, including his investment and marketing company that donated $1 million worth of political ads to Trump-related super PAC a few weeks before the election.
The story continues