Howdy! Ed here.

Crypto is going to miss Gary Gensler.

No, really.

On Monday, Gensler departed as chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in tandem with the inauguration of Donald Trump. 

It’s safe to say the crypto industry couldn’t be happier. 

For 1,374 days, Gensler wielded litigation to try and force the cryptocurrency industry to hew to the same laws that have governed the securities markets since the Great Depression.

A procession of crypto leaders — Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, and the Blockchain Association, the industry’s lobbying group — decried the approach as an unwise assault on innovation and US competitiveness. 

Now that Trump has pledged to replace Gensler with Paul Atkins, a pro-crypto onetime SEC commissioner, it appears Washington’s four-year crackdown on the industry is finished.

Indeed, Trump himself launched his own memecoin on Friday and within 48 hours its value had soared to more than $14 billion before tumbling 14%. 

Even as crypto bros party at the inaugural festivities in Washington on Monday, it’s worth remembering that Gensler, funnily enough, set the stage for the mainstreaming of this 16-year-old asset class.

Exhibit A, of course, is the SEC’s approval of Bitcoin spot price exchange-traded funds last January. 

Gensler surprised investors by signing off on the products, which have amassed more than $123 billion in assets. 

But Bitcoin was never in his crosshairs. That is largely because unlike most altcoins, Bitcoin is not issued by a single entity but rather is tended by miners in accordance with Satoshi Nakamoto’s programming.

Moreover, a Washington court ruled the SEC erred by denying Grayscale’s application to convert its Bitcoin trust into an ETF. 

Gensler acknowledged the ruling cut away the ground beneath his feet. Yet he remained defiant.  

“The vast majority of crypto assets are investment contracts and thus subject to the federal securities laws,” he said last January. 

Fighting Gensler’s argument — the thesis of his tenure — galvanised the crypto industry. 

What had been a disorganised community with virtually no clout in Washington suddenly became a lobbying machine with a singular focus. 

The crypto community clamoured for tailor-made laws that recognised blockchain-based assets’ exceptionalism.

Keen on exerting influence in the 2024 election, Coinbase, the Winklevoss twins, and Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, helped form Fairshake, a super PAC that raised a staggering $227 million in campaign funds.

Fairshake funded a slate of candidates nationwide, including Republican Bernie Moreno, a crypto-loving car dealer in Ohio who defeated Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.

The cash also tempered opposition to crypto by Democrats, including the presidential nominee Kamala Harris, paving the way for more widespread acceptance in Capitol Hill.

Opposing Gensler wasn’t just a rallying cry — he also provided crypto with a convenient foil for its shortcomings. 

From time immemorial, businesses have blamed the government and red tape and bureaucrats for stifling growth. 

When the president of the United States himself — and the First Lady — are as laser-eyed as the most maxi of Bitcoin maxis then the industry will no longer have the state to kick around anymore.

So yes, crypto did win. It did get what it wanted. 

Yet now there is no one to blame when things go wrong.

ICYMI

• Trump becomes president today. Can he deliver on these eight crypto promises?

  Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States is the culmination of months on the campaign trail and almost $200 million in donations from the crypto industry to influence the outcome of the November vote.

• Memecoin maker Pump.Fun accused of cranking out ‘unregistered securities’

  Pump.Fun’s alleged cardinal sin? Selling its tokens without registering them with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the plaintiff argued in a class action submitted in federal court in New York.

• Trump and the US play catch up as Europe and Asian nations build crypto regulatory regimes

  President-elect Donald Trump began touting pro-crypto campaign promises in 2024 with the aim to transform the US into the “crypto capital of the world.”

  He has a lot of catching up to do.

Story of the Week

Meet the activist pushing Big Tech to copy MicroStrategy and embrace Bitcoin

When Ethan Peck launched a campaign to get Microsoft to start loading up on Bitcoin, he was under no illusions his effort would fail. He just didn’t expect it to fail so miserably.

Post of the Week

It’s safe to say that Anthony Scaramucci, the Wall Street investment manager and crypto advocate, did not like Donald Trump’s memecoin in the least.

Comment of the Week

With expectations running high the Trump administration will swing open the door for new cryptocurrency-based ETFs, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas focused on that timeless classic — Litecoin.

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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