Trump’s Administration Embraces Crypto through Executive Order

Key Points

• It seems like­ly that Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has embraced cryp­tocur­ren­cy through an exec­u­tive order ban­ning Cen­tral Bank Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cies (CBD­Cs) and pro­mot­ing a fed­er­al frame­work, signed on Jan­u­ary 23, 2025.
• Research sug­gests the SEC’s Cryp­to Task Force, launched on Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, reflects this shift toward a more cryp­to-friend­ly pol­i­cy.
• The evi­dence leans toward Kin, a cryp­tocur­ren­cy, no longer being clas­si­fied as a secu­ri­ty by the SEC after a 2020 set­tle­ment, poten­tial­ly fit­ting a “pay­ment token” cat­e­go­ry, though a leaked SEC tax­on­o­my specif­i­cal­ly cat­e­go­riz­ing it as such is not pub­licly con­firmed.

Executive Order and Crypto Embrace

Don­ald Trump, as pres­i­dent in 2025, signed an exec­u­tive order on Jan­u­ary 23, 2025, titled “Strength­en­ing Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship In Dig­i­tal Finan­cial Tech­nol­o­gy,” which banned CBD­Cs and estab­lished a work­ing group to devel­op a fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for dig­i­tal assets, includ­ing sta­ble­coins. This action aligns with his cam­paign promis­es to be a “cryp­to pres­i­dent,” indi­cat­ing a shift toward embrac­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy.

SEC’s Crypto Task Force

The SEC launched its Cryp­to Task Force on Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, led by Com­mis­sion­er Hes­ter Peirce, aim­ing to cre­ate a clear reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for cryp­to assets. While launched before the exec­u­tive order, it reflects the broad­er pol­i­cy shift under Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion toward fos­ter­ing inno­va­tion and pro­tect­ing investors in the cryp­to space.

Kin’s Clas­si­fi­ca­tion

Kin, asso­ci­at­ed with the Kik mes­sen­ger app, was ini­tial­ly deemed a secu­ri­ty by the SEC in 2017 due to its ini­tial coin offer­ing (ICO). How­ev­er, a 2020 set­tle­ment with the SEC resolved this, and Kin is no longer required to be reg­is­tered as a secu­ri­ty. This sug­gests it might be clas­si­fied as a non-secu­ri­ty token, poten­tial­ly a “pay­ment token” or util­i­ty token, though no pub­lic SEC doc­u­ment con­firms a “leaked tax­on­o­my” specif­i­cal­ly cat­e­go­riz­ing Kin as a pay­ment token.

Survey Note: Detailed Investigation of the Statement

This inves­ti­ga­tion exam­ines the claim that Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has embraced cryp­tocur­ren­cy through an exec­u­tive order ban­ning Cen­tral Bank Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cies (CBD­Cs) and pro­mot­ing a fed­er­al frame­work, with the SEC’s Cryp­to Task Force launched on Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, reflect­ing this shift, and Kin’s util­i­ty-token poten­tial fit­ting the “pay­ment token” cat­e­go­ry in a leaked SEC tax­on­o­my. The analy­sis is based on avail­able pub­lic infor­ma­tion as of March 2, 2025, and con­sid­ers the his­tor­i­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry con­text of each com­po­nent.

Trump’s Administration and Crypto Policy

Don­ald Trump, re-elect­ed and serv­ing as pres­i­dent in 2025, signed an exec­u­tive order on Jan­u­ary 23, 2025, titled “Strength­en­ing Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship In Dig­i­tal Finan­cial Tech­nol­o­gy” Trump’s dig­i­tal dol­lar ban gives Chi­na and Europe’s CBD­Cs free rein | Reuters. This order explic­it­ly banned the cre­ation and issuance of CBD­Cs, defin­ing them as “a form of dig­i­tal mon­ey or mon­e­tary val­ue, denom­i­nat­ed in the nation­al unit of account, that is a direct lia­bil­i­ty of the cen­tral bank” Don­ald Trump bans CBDC in US: What it means? How do sta­ble­coins fit into the new exec­u­tive order? | Today News. The order pro­hib­it­ed agen­cies from under­tak­ing actions to estab­lish, issue, or pro­mote CBD­Cs, except as required by law, and ter­mi­nat­ed ongo­ing CBDC-relat­ed plans Pres­i­dent Trump Signs Exec­u­tive Order To Ban Cen­tral Bank Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cies (CBDC) — Bit­coin Mag­a­zine.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the order estab­lished a Pres­i­den­tial Work­ing Group on Dig­i­tal Asset Mar­kets, chaired by White House AI and Cryp­to Czar David Sacks, tasked with devel­op­ing a fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for dig­i­tal assets, includ­ing sta­ble­coins, focus­ing on mar­ket struc­ture, over­sight, con­sumer pro­tec­tion, and risk man­age­ment CBD­Cs Offi­cial­ly BANNED Under New Trump Exec­u­tive Order, Ful­fill­ing His Cam­paign Promise | WLT Report. This dual approach of ban­ning CBD­Cs while pro­mot­ing a frame­work for pri­vate-sec­tor-led dig­i­tal assets, such as sta­ble­coins, aligns with the statement’s claim that Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has embraced cryp­to.

SEC’s Crypto Task Force and Policy Shift

The SEC launched its Cryp­to Task Force on Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, under Act­ing Chair­man Mark T. Uye­da, with Com­mis­sion­er Hes­ter Peirce lead­ing the effort SEC.gov | SEC Cryp­to 2.0: Act­ing Chair­man Uye­da Announces For­ma­tion of New Cryp­to Task Force. The task force aims to devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive and clear reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for cryp­to assets, mov­ing away from the pre­vi­ous enforce­ment-dri­ven approach under for­mer Chair­man Gary Gensler, which had been crit­i­cized by the cryp­to indus­try US SEC unveils task force to start work on cryp­to reg­u­la­tions | Reuters. The launch was described as the first major move by Trump’s new admin­is­tra­tion to over­haul cryp­to pol­i­cy, reflect­ing his cam­paign promise to be a “cryp­to pres­i­dent” and reverse the indus­try crack­down under the Biden admin­is­tra­tion.

Although the task force was launched two days before the exec­u­tive order, its tim­ing and focus on fos­ter­ing inno­va­tion and pro­vid­ing reg­u­la­to­ry clar­i­ty align with the broad­er shift toward embrac­ing cryp­to, as evi­denced by state­ments from SEC offi­cials and indus­try observers SEC Forms New Cryp­to Task Force — Investo­pe­dia. This sup­ports the claim that the task force reflects the pol­i­cy shift, even if launched slight­ly ear­li­er, as part of the antic­i­pat­ed change under Trump’s lead­er­ship.

Kin’s Classification and Potential SEC Taxonomy

Kin, a cryp­tocur­ren­cy launched by Kik Inter­ac­tive in 2017, was ini­tial­ly sub­ject to SEC scruti­ny for its ICO, rais­ing approx­i­mate­ly $100 mil­lion Kin: What It Was, How It Worked, and Future — Investo­pe­dia. The SEC charged Kik with con­duct­ing an unreg­is­tered sale of secu­ri­ties, and in 2020, a court grant­ed sum­ma­ry judg­ment to the SEC, find­ing that Kin tokens were invest­ment con­tracts and thus secu­ri­ties SEC wins sum­ma­ry judg­ment that Kin token is a secu­ri­ty | DLA Piper. How­ev­er, on Octo­ber 21, 2020, Kik set­tled with the SEC, agree­ing to pay a $5 mil­lion fine, and the set­tle­ment explic­it­ly stat­ed that it would not require the reg­is­tra­tion of the Kin token as a secu­ri­ty Kik Announces Set­tle­ment with U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion — PR Newswire.

This set­tle­ment implies that Kin is no longer con­sid­ered a secu­ri­ty by the SEC, align­ing with its poten­tial clas­si­fi­ca­tion as a non-secu­ri­ty token. The state­ment claims Kin’s util­i­ty-token poten­tial fits the “pay­ment token” cat­e­go­ry in a leaked SEC tax­on­o­my. While the SEC has not pub­licly released a detailed tax­on­o­my cat­e­go­riz­ing tokens as “pay­ment tokens,” Com­mis­sion­er Hes­ter Peirce’s recent state­ments sug­gest a poten­tial tax­on­o­my divid­ing cryp­to assets into secu­ri­ties, invest­ment con­tract-relat­ed secu­ri­ties, and non-secu­ri­ties SEC.gov | There Must Be Some Way Out of Here. Giv­en Kin’s cur­rent sta­tus, it like­ly falls into the non-secu­ri­ties cat­e­go­ry, which could include pay­ment or util­i­ty tokens.

The term “pay­ment token” is com­mon­ly used in the cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty to describe tokens like Bit­coin, used for trans­ac­tions, and is dis­tinct from secu­ri­ty tokens What is Kin? | Mes­sari. How­ev­er, no pub­lic doc­u­ment con­firms a leaked SEC tax­on­o­my specif­i­cal­ly cat­e­go­riz­ing Kin as a pay­ment token, and the claim relies on inter­nal or non-pub­lic infor­ma­tion, which can­not be ver­i­fied here. Nev­er­the­less, giv­en Kin’s use with­in the Kik ecosys­tem for trans­ac­tions and rewards, and its non-secu­ri­ty sta­tus, it is plau­si­ble that it could be clas­si­fied as a pay­ment token in such a tax­on­o­my, though this remains spec­u­la­tive.

Comparative Analysis and Tables

To orga­nize the find­ings, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing table sum­ma­riz­ing the key events and clas­si­fi­ca­tions:

This table high­lights the time­line and reg­u­la­to­ry shifts rel­e­vant to the state­ment, show­ing the pro­gres­sion from Kin’s ini­tial clas­si­fi­ca­tion to its cur­rent sta­tus and the recent pol­i­cy changes under Trump.

Conclusion and Implications

The state­ment is large­ly sup­port­ed by pub­lic infor­ma­tion: Trump’s exec­u­tive order aligns with embrac­ing cryp­to, the SEC’s task force reflects this shift, and Kin’s non-secu­ri­ty sta­tus post-set­tle­ment fits the poten­tial for clas­si­fi­ca­tion as a non-secu­ri­ty token, pos­si­bly a pay­ment token. How­ev­er, the spe­cif­ic men­tion of a “leaked tax­on­o­my” and Kin’s cat­e­go­riza­tion as a “pay­ment token” lacks pub­lic con­fir­ma­tion, intro­duc­ing some uncer­tain­ty. This inves­ti­ga­tion sug­gests the state­ment is true in its gen­er­al thrust, but the detail on Kin’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion requires fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion, poten­tial­ly from inter­nal SEC doc­u­ments not pub­licly avail­able.

Key Citations

• Trump’s dig­i­tal dol­lar ban gives Chi­na and Europe’s CBD­Cs free rein | Reuters
• Don­ald Trump bans CBDC in US: What it means? How do sta­ble­coins fit into the new exec­u­tive order? | Today News
• Pres­i­dent Trump Signs Exec­u­tive Order To Ban Cen­tral Bank Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cies (CBDC) — Bit­coin Mag­a­zine
• SEC.gov | SEC Cryp­to 2.0: Act­ing Chair­man Uye­da Announces For­ma­tion of New Cryp­to Task Force
• US SEC unveils task force to start work on cryp­to reg­u­la­tions | Reuters
• SEC Forms New Cryp­to Task Force — Investo­pe­dia
• Kin: What It Was, How It Worked, and Future — Investo­pe­dia
• SEC wins sum­ma­ry judg­ment that Kin token is a secu­ri­ty | DLA Piper
• Kik Announces Set­tle­ment with U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion — PR Newswire
• SEC.gov | There Must Be Some Way Out of Here
• What is Kin? | Mes­sari