Hi. Ed here.

So the White House held a crypto summit and the market shrugged. 

Worse, actually. Investors sold on the news.

What gives? Isn’t this a dream scenario for crypto investors? 

The Trump administration not only ended the regulatory crackdown on the industry — the president himself directed the formation of a strategic reserve composed of more than 198,000 Bitcoin held by the government largely through criminal seizures.

What more do crypto supporters want?

To be sure, the crypto market has been swept up in a broad selloff as investors seek shelter from the effects of Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policy.

The S&P 500 Index has lost all its gains since Trump’s election victory on November 5, and is heading for a six-month low.

“It feels like the market has decided that the flip-flopping is more part of the problem than the cure,” Noelle Acheson, a crypto analyst, posted on X last week.

Moreover, Trump trampled on the HODL message long preached by Bitcoin maxis such as Michael Saylor. 

“Never sell your Bitcoin, that’s a phrase they say,” Trump said. “I don’t know if they are right or not, who the hell knows.” Saylor at one stage appeared to hold his face in his hands.

The fact is, many crypto investors want the government to buy Bitcoin instead of simply rebranding coins it already owns — a move that could increase Bitcoin's price to as high as $200,000.

And some do suggest that even without the buying, the reserve is a bullish signal and other governments should follow Trump’s lead. 

“Nation states are not going to pile into the market desperate to buy,” Richard Byworth, the managing partner at Szy Capital in Switzerland, said in a post on X. “They are going to be strategic.”

Meanwhile, the stablecoin narrative is humming along. Last week, the European Union approved 10 stablecoin issuers under MiCA, the new crypto regulatory regime in the 27-nation bloc.

The group includes industry stalwarts such as Circle and Crypto.com as well as Société Générale, the French bank.

Back on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are crafting two stablecoin bills even as major lenders eye their own offerings. 

Last month, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said it “was pretty clear” the lender would develop its own stablecoin should the bill become law.

Fintechs are also moving at speed. 

In February, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the CEO of Klarna and a longtime sceptic, said the Swedish financial services firm will embrace blockchain-based assets.

ICYMI

• Crypto cheers new Senate bill aiming to curb ‘debanking’

  The crypto industry is hopeful that a new bill will stop banks from refusing to serve companies that deal in digital assets. The FIRM Act, introduced by Senator Tim Scott, will eliminate all references to reputational risk in regulatory supervision.

• Why crypto is conflicted by Bitcoin strategic reserve on eve of Trump summit

  When the first ever White House summit on crypto policy convenes on Friday, the table will feature a who’s who of industry leaders. It’s also likely to fuel debate on the future of the $3 trillion industry.

• Lawmaker sets out to ban CBDCs even though they don’t exist

  Representative Tom Emmer says CBDCs are an “Orwellian surveillance tool” that have no place in the US financial system. On Thursday, the Minnesota Republican took fresh action on Capitol Hill to ban a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, in the US.

Story of the Week

Bybit seeks return of fees from DeFi exchange after North Korea’s $1.4bn hack

Last month, decentralised exchange aggregator ParaSwap received an unexpected windfall.

DeFi’s fifth-biggest aggregator processed several large token swaps totalling $195 million, doubling its typical daily transaction volume and earning $100,000 in fees in the process.

There was just one problem. The swaps were part of an effort by North Korean hackers to launder $1.4 billion of crypto stolen from Bybit.

Now, Bybit is asking ParaSwap DAO to return the $100,000 as part of its ongoing recovery efforts.

Comment of the Week

President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping on 25% tariffs against the US’ two biggest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, drew this comment from Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister.

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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