Updated May 5, 2025 at 3:13 PM EDT
President Trump invited cryptocurrency advocates to the White House Friday for a summit on digital assets, a first-of-its-kind event aimed at highlighting the significant shift in posture that the Trump administration is taking on crypto compared with its predecessors.
The event came hours after Trump signed an executive order establishing a cryptocurrency strategic reserve, which the White House says will host an estimated 200,000 bitcoin, seized from court proceedings, valued at approximately $17 billion. The order also calls on officials to look for "budget-neutral" ways to buy additional bitcoin.
"America will follow the rule that every bitcoin [holder] knows very well: never sell your bitcoin. That's a little phrase that they have. I don't know if that's right or not," Trump said at the White House. "But so far it's been right."
The White House says the reserve is a 'digital Fort Knox'
White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks described the reserve as a "digital Fort Knox" and said the government had been losing out on bitcoin's value by selling it prematurely.
Trump, who has a financial stake in a crypto business called World Liberty Financial that he and his family launched in Sept. 2024 and his own memecoin, promised on the campaign trail to make the United States the "crypto capital of the planet."
On Friday, flanked by Sacks and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump applauded efforts in Congress to try and provide regulatory frameworks around cryptocurrency. He said he hoped lawmakers put legislation related to cryptocurrency on his desk before the August recess.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for economic growth and innovation in our financial sector and will really go a long way," he said. "We feel like pioneers in a way."
The White House didn't release a guest list of who attended the event, but other administration officials like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and head of the Small Business Administration Kelly Loeffler spoke — as well as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, twins who founded the Gemini crypto exchange.
Trump has been critical of the Biden administration's enforcement push through the Securities and Exchange Commission in trying to crack down on cryptocurrency.
In recent weeks, his administration has rolled back investigations and lawsuits against crypto businesses. The Senate also voted to get rid of a Biden-era rule that required some crypto businesses to report information to the IRS.
The summit is one of the first steps in figuring out how to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, says Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke University.
"Over the past four years, at least, the regulatory complex has been very combative, almost in a warlike situation, against the innovators in the space," Harvey said. "So it's time to step back and to look at the possible benefits of this new technology and weigh them against the costs."
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