Trump’s First 100 Days In Office Went All In On Crypto

When Donald Trump took the oath of office for his second term in January 2025, none of us could have predicted just how dramatically his administration would reshape America - least of all their relationship with cryptocurrency. As the President prepares to mark his 100-day milestone (for the second time) with a celebratory rally in Michigan, the crypto world is already declaring this era the most consequential period for digital assets since Bitcoin's creation.

The first really exciting move came with the signing of Executive Order 14178, establishing the United States Strategic Bitcoin Reserve - an unprecedented acknowledgment of Bitcoin as a critical national asset. This wasn't just symbolic; the reserve launched with an initial holding of 200,000 BTC (worth approximately $18 billion at current prices), primarily drawn from coins confiscated in law enforcement operations. While this didn’t necessarily move the needle as fast as the community wanted it to, the significance of this event cannot be overstated.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick helped oversee the rapid implementation and said: "We moved at blockchain speed”, revealing that the administration had been preparing the infrastructure since before inauguration day. We could joke about which blockchain’s speed their moving at exactly, but we don’t have time! The reserve operates on two principals: to safeguard national crypto holdings and to stabilize markets during periods of extreme volatility, much like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve does for oil.

But maybe even more significant than the reserve itself was the administration's formal classification of Bitcoin as a commodity rather than a security. This decision untangled years of regulatory confusion that had plagued the industry, particularly within the U.S. which has been lagging behind when it comes to developing clear regulatory frameworks.

"By putting Bitcoin in the same category as gold and oil, we've given institutional investors the clarity they've been begging for," Lutnick said in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News. The move effectively placed Bitcoin under the CFTC's more flexible oversight rather than the SEC's stringent securities regime, triggering an immediate surge in institutional investment. Major Wall Street firms that had been cautiously dipping their toes in crypto suddenly dove in headfirst, with Goldman Sachs reporting a 300% increase in client Bitcoin allocations within weeks of the announcement.

The administration's crypto revolution extends way beyond Bitcoin too. There was also an executive order that directed federal lands to be made available for crypto mining operations, with special incentives for operations using renewable energy. And there was also the CBDC Ban, whereby Trump prohibited Federal Reserve development of a digital dollar, calling CBDCs "dangerous surveillance tools."

The policy blitz eventually culminated in the first-ever White House Crypto Summit, where industry leaders debated everything from DeFi regulation to blockchain-based voting systems. The newly formed Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, chaired by Sacks, began drafting comprehensive legislation expected to reach Congress by summer.

But it wasn’t all positive news. Trump’s own memecoins were a disaster for the industry, and the president of the most powerful country on Earth, launching a memecoin for his own benefit is legally, incredly sketchy at best. The launch of official TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins during inauguration week blurred the lines between politics and crypto culture. Some critics just dismissed it as a publicity stunt, but the coins quickly amassed a combined market cap exceeding $500 million, with portions of proceeds funding the President's controversial World Liberty Finance project.

Democrats obviously cried foul, with Senator Elizabeth Warren leading charges of "financialization of the presidency." Yet the move undeniably brought crypto further into the mainstream political discourse like never before. Late-night comedians joked about "the meme coin primary," while CNBC began including TRUMP coin prices alongside traditional market data.

America's sudden embrace of crypto has sent shockwaves through international markets. China accelerated its digital yuan program in response, while the EU fast-tracked its Markets in Crypto-Assets regulations.

As Trump takes the stage in Michigan to celebrate his administration's breakneck start, one thing is clear: whether you love him or hate him, the 45th President has fundamentally altered crypto's trajectory in America. In just 100 days, digital assets have gone from regulatory pariahs to instruments of national strategy - a transformation that will echo through financial markets for decades to come.

The question now isn't whether crypto will be part of America's financial future, but how deeply it will be woven into the fabric of our economic and political systems.