The Crypto Industry Is Helping Trump Pick SEC Chair

November 26, 2024:

In July, at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Trump pledged to fire Gensler if reelected, drawing perhaps the most raucous applause of the night. “I will appoint an SEC chair who will build the future, not block the future,” Trump said.

Last week, Gensler announced that he would resign from his office on January 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration. Representatives of the industry in which Gensler has become so maligned are now helping to pick out his successor, sources tell WIRED.

The promise of an SEC overhaul was one of many made to the crypto industry by Trump on the campaign trail. At the Nashville conference, he pledged to cement the US as the foremost bitcoin mining powerhouse, create a national “bitcoin stockpile,” and establish a framework for stablecoin businesses, singing from the crypto hymn sheet.

In June, Trump had hosted executives from the crypto mining industry at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida. “We had a very long, in-depth discussion with him—and he was very interested. He was very engaged and asked great questions,” says Brian Morgenstern, head of public policy at bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms and a former official in the first Trump administration, who was in attendance.

Trump has even begun to dabble in crypto himself. Over the summer, his campaign began accepting crypto donations, and his sons launched their own crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, which he helped to promote. Last Thursday, the New York Times reported that Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, filed a trademark application for what was described as a crypto payment service called TruthFi.

Figures allied with the crypto industry have already been appointed to Trump’s cabinet. His pick for Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, leads financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, which manages assets for Tether, operator of the world’s largest stablecoin. Likewise, vice president-elect J.D. Vance, nominated secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency, have all expressed pro-crypto views.

“Based on what I’ve heard in private conversations, my perspective has been that the incoming administration is taking their pro-bitcoin and crypto campaign promises very seriously and intend to do a robust assessment of options to optimize [appointments to regulatory positions] as best they can,” says Christopher Calicott, managing director at bitcoin-focused VC firm Trammell Venture Partners.

The price of bitcoin has risen to record heights, just shy of $100,000 per coin, since Trump won reelection earlier this month.

“The entire industry is going to have much brighter prospects on a number of different fronts,” says Morgenstern. “We don’t have any reason to doubt President Trump.”

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