According to a report by The New York Times on August 19, President Trump met with a group of cryptocurrency executives at the White House on Wednesday, expressing his support for the industry that has generated substantial wealth for him and his family. Trump also called on Congress to pass a significant piece of crypto legislation.
Trump gathered these figures in the White House Roosevelt Room, personally naming each of the visiting crypto industry players, some of whom are business partners in the Trump family’s crypto ventures.
“This is a really remarkable group of people,” Trump said, looking around the room. “All fantastic investors, very smart people.”
Officially, the meeting served as the launch event for a newly formed “Innovation Advisory Committee,” a panel of business leaders tasked with advising the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), one of the agencies overseeing the crypto industry. At the same time, however, the meeting vividly illustrated the complex and tangled relationship between Trump and the crypto sector—an industry that brought him $1.4 billion last year, raising significant conflict-of-interest concerns.
Attendees included Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. Last year, Chainlink partnered with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto startup. Another executive, Mike Belshe, heads BitGo, which is also a partner of World Liberty. Trump referred to the company as “very important” during the meeting.
Also present were Brian Armstrong, founder of crypto exchange Coinbase, and Arjun Sethi, CEO of Kraken. Both companies provide trading platforms for several cryptocurrencies launched by the Trump family. The White House and World Liberty have repeatedly denied any conflict of interest.
World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman said: “The New York Times apparently believes that a U.S. president praising the leaders of well-known American companies counts as a controversy.”
Trump’s meeting with these executives comes at a critical juncture for the crypto industry. The sector’s top priority right now is pushing through a bill called the “Digital Asset Market Clarity Act,” which would establish more business-friendly regulations for the technology. In recent weeks, the bill has hit roadblocks in the Senate, with Democrats demanding provisions that would bar public officials, including the president, from selling digital currencies.
During the White House meeting, Trump steered clear of the major controversies surrounding the bill. But he urged Congress to pass it, calling it “a very, very strong piece of legislation that’s going to keep us ahead of China.”
Trump was once skeptical of cryptocurrency, but embraced the technology during his 2024 presidential campaign and quickly turned it into a cornerstone of the Trump family business empire. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ended its long-running crackdown on the crypto industry and dropped lawsuits against major companies including Coinbase and Kraken.
Trump also signed a bill called the “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins” into law, which sets regulatory rules for stablecoins—a popular type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar.
However, the industry has recently run into trouble in Washington.
For years, crypto executives have lobbied Congress to establish a broad regulatory framework covering the entire industry. One of their goals is to codify some of the pro-crypto policy changes made under the Trump administration into law, ensuring that future presidents cannot easily overturn them.
Just as these executives gathered at the White House on Wednesday, congressional Democrats were voicing anger over the renewed intertwining of the Trump family’s business interests with government duties.
Last week, a Treasury Department agency gave preliminary approval for a World Liberty affiliate to obtain a limited banking charter. President Trump and his sons hold substantial stakes in World Liberty. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates banks, oversees this process.
With this charter, World Liberty would be able to issue its own stablecoin directly, saving costs. Currently, the company pays BitGo to issue it on their behalf. However, the charter would not allow World Liberty to accept individual customer deposits or make loans.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called the pending bank charter “the most blatant act of self-enrichment in the history of the American financial system,” and said she would introduce legislation to block it.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly denied that granting a bank charter to World Liberty would create any conflict of interest. She said: “This is the same tired rhetoric Democrats have been pushing for the past decade against President Trump, his family, and his administration. Everything President Trump does is in the best interest of the American public.”