Trump Administration’s Crypto Policy: Deregulation and the Future of Digital Assets

In under two years, the regulatory posture toward crypto in the United States has flipped from adversarial to explicitly promotional. What began as an executive order in January 2025 has cascaded into a stablecoin law, a coordinated SEC-CFTC framework, a five-category classification system for digital assets, and — as of this week — a genuine test of whether Congress can finish the job with comprehensive market-structure legislation. Here is the full architecture of Trump-era crypto policy as it stands in September 2026.

The Foundation: Executive Order 14178 and the White House Report

The administration’s crypto agenda traces back to Executive Order 14178, issued at the start of the second Trump term. On July 30, 2025, the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets — established under that order — issued a comprehensive report titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” according to Practical Law’s coverage. That report became the blueprint both the SEC and CFTC would spend the next year implementing.

SEC’s “Project Crypto” and CFTC’s “Crypto Sprint”

Within 48 hours of the White House report’s release, both major regulators launched dedicated initiatives. SEC Chair Paul Atkins announced “Project Crypto” on July 31, 2025 — an agency-wide effort to implement the White House’s recommendations, with five stated priorities including, notably, “onshoring crypto to the US,” per Practical Law. Chair Atkins directed the SEC’s policy divisions to coordinate with the agency’s Crypto Task Force, led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, a longtime industry-friendly voice at the Commission.

The very next day, then-Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham launched a parallel “Crypto Sprint,” a 12-month initiative covering the listing of spot digital assets on CFTC-registered exchanges, allowing derivatives market participants to use tokenized collateral including stablecoins, and establishing a “CEO Innovation Council” of 12 exchange executives, according to K&L Gates. Within months, the CFTC confirmed spot digital assets were available for trading on a CFTC-registered exchange for the first time.

The GENIUS Act: America’s First Federal Stablecoin Law

The most concrete legislative achievement of the period has been the GENIUS Act, the first U.S. federal law specifically governing stablecoins. Its enactment triggered a wave of follow-on rulemaking: K&L Gates noted that the Treasury Department, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and other federal banking agencies all opened rulemakings to implement the law during 2026. The GENIUS Act’s definition of “digital asset” has since become the template other agencies build from — the SEC’s own proposed crypto-asset offering rules explicitly mirror the GENIUS Act’s definitional language.

March 2026: The SEC-CFTC Coordination Breakthrough

The most significant structural shift arrived in March 2026. On March 11, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formally coordinate the two agencies’ historically overlapping and often conflicting jurisdiction over digital assets, according to Latham & Watkins’ policy tracker. The MOU commits both agencies to a “minimum effective dose” of regulation intended to promote innovation while still protecting market integrity.

Six days later, on March 17, 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly published an interpretive release — their first major coordinated statement since the MOU — sorting digital assets into a five-category framework, according to Holland & Knight: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, payment stablecoins (aligned with the GENIUS Act definition), and a fifth category covering more traditional securities-like tokens. That classification system is now the reference point nearly every subsequent rulemaking builds from.

Trump-era crypto policy timeline:

Date	Development	Body
Jan 2025	Executive Order 14178	White House
Jul 30, 2025	Digital asset policy report	Presidential Working Group
Jul 31, 2025	“Project Crypto” launched	SEC (Chair Atkins)
Aug 1, 2025	“Crypto Sprint” launched	CFTC (Acting Chair Pham)
— 2025	GENIUS Act enacted	Congress
Mar 11, 2026	SEC-CFTC MOU signed	SEC + CFTC
Mar 17, 2026	Five-bucket digital asset classification	SEC + CFTC joint release
Aug 2026	“Regulation Crypto Assets” proposed	SEC
Sep 10, 2026	Revised 630-page CLARITY Act released	Senate Republicans
Sep 15, 2026	Procedural vote scheduled	U.S. Senate

SEC Proposes “Regulation Crypto Assets”

In August 2026, the SEC moved from interpretation to formal rulemaking, proposing “Regulation Crypto Assets” — a bespoke offering regime specifically for crypto investment contracts. According to Sidley Austin’s analysis, Chairman Atkins said the proposed rules “draw heavily from Congressional work over recent years, particularly the CLARITY Act,” explicitly designing the rule to give the industry a regulatory head start pending final legislation. The proposal’s four-year window for a startup exemption mirrors the CLARITY Act’s own timeline for a token project to reach “mature blockchain system” status — a deliberate signal that the SEC expects the legislative and regulatory tracks to converge.

The Unfinished Business: CLARITY Act’s Uncertain Fate

Despite the extensive regulatory groundwork, the industry’s top legislative priority — the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, which would legislatively divide SEC/CFTC jurisdiction and create a comprehensive market-structure framework — remains unpassed as of this writing. The House passed its version, but the bill has stalled in the Senate, falling short of the 60 votes needed for passage, according to Holland & Knight.

Senate Republicans released a substantially revised, 630-page version of the bill on September 10, 2026, adding over 100 changes and specifically targeting “decentralized-in-name-only” protocols by requiring them to register with the CFTC, per Investing News Network. A pivotal procedural vote is scheduled for September 15, 2026, after the Senate returns from recess — but the bill already missed one legislative window in August, and CNBC reported that industry insiders, including SALT CEO John Darsie, remain skeptical of passage in 2026 given the difficulty of moving major legislation heading into midterm elections.

What Happens If CLARITY Fails

Crucially, the industry’s regulatory position does not collapse if CLARITY dies in the Senate. As CNBC’s reporting notes, “viewed from a narrow lens, the investment is already paying off, even if Clarity dies” — the SEC and CFTC have already built out much of the practical framework administratively through the MOU, the joint interpretive release, and the proposed Regulation Crypto Assets rule. Legislation would lock the framework into statute, providing durability against a future administration reversing course, but its absence would not undo the deregulatory shift already underway across every major digital-asset regulator, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which has also moved toward a looser supervisory framework for bank involvement in digital assets.

Final Verdict

The second Trump administration’s crypto policy has been unusually coordinated and fast-moving by regulatory standards: an executive order, a detailed policy report, twin agency initiatives, the first federal stablecoin law, an inter-agency MOU, a joint classification framework, and now a formal rulemaking — all within about 18 months. The remaining variable is whether Congress can convert that administrative groundwork into durable statute via the CLARITY Act, and the September 15 Senate vote is the clearest near-term test of that question. Either outcome, the substantive deregulatory shift toward “onshoring crypto to the US” is already largely in place at the regulatory level — legislation would cement it, not create it.