How Trump’s Bitcoin Policies Are Making The U.S. A Crypto Superpower #CriptoNews

President Donald Trump is overhauling cryptocurrency regulations, updating tax policies and moving to start a national Bitcoin Reserve, putting the United States on the path to becoming the first G7 economy to fully embrace crypto.

“President Trump’s second administration is already reshaping the U.S. cryptocurrency landscape,” Forbes contributor Sandy Carter writes.

Smaller countries like El Salvador have attracted bitcoin businesses by creating a strategic bitcoin reserve and innovation-friendly policies. The International Monetary Fund recently restricted El Salvador’s bitcoin purchases going forward. However, the country has already accumulated roughly 6,101 BTC in a strategic reserve. And one of the world’s most profitable crypto companies, Tether, is reportedly moving its headquarters to El Salvador.

Much like President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Trump courted crypto-focused voters during his 2024 campaign, when he made dramatic promises to an enthusiastic crowd at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville last July.

Forbes contributor Susie Violet Ward, who attended the conference, writes that Trump said, “America would become a ‘bitcoin mining powerhouse’ and urged supporters to never sell their bitcoin.”

“The convergence of political resilience and financial innovation marks a defining moment for Trump and the wider acceptance of bitcoin in mainstream politics,” Violet Ward writes.

Even as his on-again, off-again tariffs have created market chaos, Trump’s pivot toward crypto-friendly policies has helped keep prices from falling below the previous cycle’s high of roughly $73,000. The relative stability of crypto prices may be in part influenced by the U.S. government’s new, less heavy-handed regulatory approach.

Trump’s Crypto Pivot Echoes Singapore and Dubai’s Light-Touch Approach

Singapore earned its reputation as a crypto hub by avoiding complicated regulations, no strategic reserve necessary, writes Forbes fintech contributor Zennon Kapron, director of the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association.

“Crypto firms have flocked to Singapore less because of anything specific the city-state has done and more because of what it has not forbidden,” Kapron says.

Kapron adds that by taking a minimalist approach, the island nation became the world’s third-largest blockchain investment center in 2023, second only to much larger economies in the U.S.and United Kingdom.

Trump saw how fast Singapore catapulted when using a minimalist regulatory approach and his administration has created a comparable framework. The relatively laissez-faire strategy is more akin to the noninterventionist policies crypto investors have enjoyed in other foreign places, including the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong. Along those lines, Trump signed H.J. Res. 25 into law on April 10, reducing the complicated — in some cases, logistically impossible — tax paperwork required of decentralized finance brokers.

“Taxpayers must know when they bought the crypto, how much they paid and what they received for it. For stocks and real estate, this may be simple. For crypto, it can be much more difficult,” Forbes tax contributor Robert Woods explains. “Many crypto investors make purchases at multiple times and over many years.”

While crypto users and companies must still report taxable events, reducing paperwork makes it easier for Americans to comply with the law. This new tax guidance came after a letter in March from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency nullifying guidance that made it difficult for banks and savings organizations to offer crypto services.

Earlier this month, Department of Justice memos indicated that the government had disbanded the team of prosecutors that focused on cryptocurrency companies. Forbes contributor Andrea Tinianow writes this DOJ shift could have a positive impact on ongoing court cases related to crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash, cases that will determine “whether developers can be held criminally responsible for creating open source code used by others to commit financial crimes.”According to the memo sent by the U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, law enforcement will stop acting like a “digital assets regulator” conducting “regulation by prosecution” and instead focus on so-called bad actors.

The memo states: “The Department will no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations.” In short, the DOJ won’t go after developers building crypto tools and tax-paying businesses that offer legal crypto services. The Trump administration wants the government to get out of the crypto industry’s way.

“This move aims to reduce regulatory burden, encourage responsible innovation, and ensure consistent treatment of bank activities regardless of the underlying technology,” Forbes tax contributor Joshua Smeltzer writes.

This may be inspired by the precedent of smaller nations with a less punitive approach to crypto regulation. Forbes contributor Irina Heaver, a lawyer in Dubai, writes that hundreds of crypto companies flocked to the United Arab Emirates, where they are regulated by the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre. Those companies now contribute 7% of the UAE’s gross domestic product and crypto specifically accounts for 15% of Dubai’s foreign direct investment.

“Regulatory clarity has been a cornerstone of Dubai’s success as a crypto hub,” Heaver writes.

Bitcoin Mining Power

Trump doesn’t mince words about why he’s clearing a path for the crypto industry: He aims to bring lucrative jobs and crypto-mining power to the U.S.

According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, in 2022 the most powerful crypto-mining companies were Chinese or Russian. Since then, dozens of companies have migrated to or established operations in Texas, but this shift plateaued under the Biden Administration.

Now, Trump’s second term fortuitously coincides with the crypto market’s four-year bull market cycle; the price of bitcoin is up nearly 30% since Trump’s re-election six months ago.

“Bitcoin’s price has historically surged during each halving period, either in the halving year or two years later,” writes Forbes contributor Abubakar Nur Khalil, a Bitcoin Core developer and venture capitalist. “Unlike the previous halvings, there is now an increasing number of financial instruments and approaches investors can leverage to capture the bitcoin price action, from directly buying bitcoin, stock in bitcoin mining companies or public companies that hold bitcoin on their balance sheet, to bitcoin ETFs.”

Legal experts like Forbes contributor Tonya Evans, a former professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, also point out how the Trump family has positioned itself to personally benefit from crypto projects — an unprecedented move by a sitting president. In addition to various altcoin companies, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. announced their new bitcoin mining venture, American Bitcoin, earlier this month.

Bipartisan Support For A Strategic Crypto Reserve

Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve strategy has, so far, appeared to attract bipartisan support. Forbes contributor Sam Lyman describes Representative Ro Khanna from California as “an outsize voice on crypto issues in the Democratic Caucus,” while Democratic Representatives Shomari Figures of Alabama and Yassamin Ansari of Arizona have also made public statements indicating they may support the strategy. Ansari’s website promises that she will “lead the way in the blockchain and crypto innovation.”

In addition, 14 Democrats, including Representative Ritchie Torres of New York, signed a letter last year to the chair of the Democratic National Committee asking the party “to take a forward-looking approach to digital assets and blockchain technology.” Even Trump’s statement in March that he wants to add riskier assets like ETH, ADA and XRP to the strategic crypto reserve has not dampened enthusiasm.

Beyond welcoming bitcoin mining companies, holding a variety of crypto tokens in a strategic reserve and pausing law enforcement action against smaller industry players, the Trump administration has also capitalized on bipartisan interest in protecting dollar-denominated stablecoins. If popular crypto assets around the world remain pegged to the U.S. dollar, that could indirectly benefit the American economy.

“The recent 13-hour marathon markup of the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act may be an indicator that a longer bipartisan courtship is warranted,” writes Forbes contributor Cleve Mesidor, executive director of the Blockchain Foundation.

It’s still too soon to say whether these policies will attract new companies to the U.S., but industry giants like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong are now criticizing the previous administration and sometimes sounding more hopeful about Trump’s approach. Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, Robinhood and Circle are among the many crypto companies that donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, too. Soon after Ripple chipped in, U.S. regulators dropped legal charges against the company associated with XRP and the Trump administration included XRP in its strategic reserve plans.

The Future Of Crypto Businesses And Bitcoin Price Action

Deregulation and bipartisan efforts to create strategic reserves of digital assets seem to be insulating crypto markets from the turmoil on Wall Street. Bitcoin’s price fluctuation continues at a steady pace, followed by other crypto assets in turn.

The Trump administration’s policies could further influence the bitcoin market as the current halving cycle could possibly end in early 2026.

This includes the normalization of conflicts of interest. The Trump family is now actively engaged in crypto businesses, and the redirection of law enforcement resources and presidential pardons for bitcoin veterans like former black market operator Ross Ulbricht and former BitMEX exchange operators Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed and Gregory Dwyer.

Going forward, conducting crypto business in the U.S. is likely to carry fewer legal risks.