Hey all, Liam here. 

US President Donald Trump just solidified cyberpower as a key component of the country’s military might. 

And cryptocurrencies are getting roped in — if only briefly. 

In a March report titled “President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America,” the White House frames cyber intelligence as a crucial battleground for the country. 

Six different policy positions run through the seven-page document. 

Under the banner of maintaining its lead in emerging technologies, the White House said that it “will build secure technologies and supply chains that protect user privacy from design to deployment, including supporting the security of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.”

The inclusion of digital assets in the nation’s cyber strategy document for the first time highlights just how far crypto has come under the Trump administration. 

During his second tenure in the White House, Trump has issued a slew of executive orders boosting the industry, appointed friendlier regulators to oversee the market, and has even come to the aid of Coinbase in a protracted regulatory duel with large banking interests. 

“The banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful crypto agenda that will end up going to China, and other countries if we don’t get the Clarity Act taken care of,” he said on March 4. 

The Trump family is also heavily engaged in the industry, including a crypto project called World Liberty Financial, a $4.6 billion stablecoin, and a pair of memecoins. 

The latest cyber strategy document now incorporates digital assets into a national security context. 

It also reorients the US vis-à-vis its previous 2023 strategy, which deregulated industry, relied on private-sector innovation, and placed a high priority on artificial intelligence. 

Crypto and American innovation

The document specifically references the seizure of $15 billion in Bitcoin from one of Asia’s biggest alleged crypto criminals. 

In October, US authorities filed a civil forfeiture complaint for 127,271 Bitcoin tied to Chen Zhi, the chair of a conglomerate accused of running dozens of forced labour scam compounds and stealing billions of dollars worth of crypto.

“Cybercrime and intellectual property theft are some of the greatest threats to global economies,” the strategy document reads. “We will uproot criminal infrastructure and deny financial exit and safe haven.” 

The document also places heavy emphasis on post-quantum cryptography, which has long been a bogeyman for developers in the crypto space. 

In February, Hunter Beast, a Bitcoin developer, argued that the Bitcoin network is not prepared for how advances in quantum computing might disrupt the $1.3 trillion digital asset. 

“It is a vast, multidimensional problem in ways that are really subtle until you dive into it and really come to understand it,” he said during a panel at the ETHDenver conference. 

Fortunately for Beast and other developers, it now appears that the US government is working to resolve that concern.

ICYMI

• South Korea to block firms from using USDT, USD Coin
  South Korean financial regulators do not want firms to use their balance sheets to buy US dollar-pegged stablecoins like Tether’s USDT and USD Coin.

• US Treasury U-turns on privacy as turmoil drives demand for censorship-resistant crypto, analyst says
  Macroeconomic and political stress are driving investors toward censorship-resistant crypto assets, according to Jake Kennis, senior research analyst at Nansen.

• Russia, Iran and North Korea send illicit crypto volumes to record $154bn
  Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Russia, and North Korea all helped push illicit onchain finance to stratospheric heights, reported the crypto analytics firm Chainalysis.

Story of the week

Binance slams $1.7bn Iran probe from US Senators, calls reports ‘defamatory’

Binance’s lawyers have slammed allegations that the firm helped Iranian entities launder money on its platform, and called evidence cited in a probe by US Senators “defamatory.”

Last month, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs urged Binance to provide key records regarding alleged connections between the exchange and terrorist organisations working on behalf of Iran.

The Committee’s probe came after Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, cited anonymous sources and internal documents in reports claiming Binance ignored internal warnings that sanctioned entities used the platform to launder nearly $2 billion.

Post of the week

Pleasant reminder from Captain James T. Kirk that X’s new financial application, XMoney, is indeed plain, old fiat — and not crypto.

DL News is an independent news organisation that provides original, in-depth reporting on the largely misunderstood world of cryptocurrency and decentralised finance. From original stories to investigations, our journalism is accurate, honest and responsible.

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