Inside Trump’s White House Crypto Summit: How the West Wing’s Power Play Is Rewriting the Rules of Digital Finance​

“It is a great, gorgeous day in Washington!” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick declared, his voice cutting through the crisp air as he stood in front of the West Wing. It was late Friday afternoon, and the White House crypto summit had just wrapped. But Lutnick wasn’t merely speaking—he was declaring a shift, a pivot in the grand narrative of American finance.

Minutes earlier, he had been seated beside Trump in the State Dining Room, witnessing something never before heard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“From this day on, America will follow the rule that every bitcoin holder knows—never sell your bitcoin. That’s their little phrase. Is it right? Who the hell knows,” Trump said.

The president, deliberately, was laying the foundation of a Bitcoin strategic reserve and a crypto stockpile, drawing a stark contrast with Joe Biden, whose administration had been openly hostile to digital assets. Quite the irony, given that crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried had once funneled $5 million into Biden’s campaign coffers.

“Regulators strong-armed banks. I mean, they really did—they strong-armed banks into closing the accounts of crypto businesses and entrepreneurs, effectively blocking some money transfers to and from exchanges, and they weaponized government against the entire industry,” Trump said at the crypto summit. “But I know that feeling also, maybe better than you do,” Trump said inside the State Dining Room, surrounded by A to Z in crypto business. This was not an accident, not an offhand remark. It was a signal, a deliberate turn in the road.

After years of Washington’s cold shoulder—or outright hostility—crypto’s top brass had finally been summoned into the sanctum of American power. And not by some junior bureaucrat. By the president himself.

It was David Sacks, the newly appointed AI and crypto czar, who had the idea to bring the industry to the White House, not just for another discussion but for something real. He wanted to open the conversation, lay the groundwork for an innovation framework that would outlast any administration, any election cycle.

There was also a legislative edge. Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Biden Administration’s Efforts to Put Crypto in the Crosshairs—a crackdown Trump and Sacks were determined to dismantle.

“That operation unfairly persecuted and prosecuted founders,” Sacks said in a gaggle in front of the West Wing on Friday.

Sacks said that he and his team want to approach crypto regulation in America in a way that “encourages innovation.” The Catch-22 from the beginning had always been the lack of a proper regulatory framework for digital assets.

“I think that the regulatory framework we’ve had over the past four years—it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t clear. What the Biden administration did was enforce a new regulatory regime through prosecution without telling people what the rules were,” he said.

When The Pavlovic Today interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried exclusively after the first-ever crypto hearing in Congress in 2021, he spoke of the same overdue need for clarity.

“I was surprised by how well the whole event went, how balanced it was, and how interested representatives were in figuring out what they can do to assure the best oversight and regulation that would help the industry be safe and grow,” Bankman-Fried said at the time.

Democrats seemed to be primarily motivated to dive into the issue through the lens of consumer protection, and Republicans were excited about an opportunity to build a decentralized internet. The two, according to Bankman-Fried, were not mutually exclusive in December 2021.

“I do not know exactly what will happen, but I think in the end there can be a regulatory framework that can really address both sides of it, that can help build a really strong industry while also providing oversight and consumer protection,” he said as he reflected after a historic hearing.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if bipartisan momentum on the Hill was building toward that. And then—like a crypto bubble at its most exuberant—it burst.

Bankman-Fried’s arrest changed everything. The sheer theater of it—high-profile, earth-shaking—transformed him from the Democrats’ darling into its most radioactive liability. Trust in crypto, once teetering on the edge, plunged off a cliff. The legislative enthusiasm cooled.

And just like that, the golden moment was gone.

Enter David Sacks.

Where Bankman-Fried once played the role of crypto’s ambassador to Washington—polite, eager and ultimately doomed—Sacks steps in with a different brief and a sharper mandate. No longer is the industry pleading for legitimacy from the outside. Now, with Sacks inside the machinery of government, crypto has an advocate with the authority to shape the very rules it once fought against.

A venture capitalist, a Silicon Valley heavyweight and now a key figure in the White House’s digital asset strategy, Sacks can do what Bankman-Fried never could—finally establish a framework that doesn’t just react to crypto but integrates it into America’s financial architecture.

This time, the industry isn’t knocking on the door. It’s already inside.

“We want there to be clarity. There need to be guidelines. There need to be protections for consumers, but most of all, there needs to be a clear legal framework that everyone knows how to abide by. And I think the industry will do its part. If we do our part, if we make the rules clear to them, I think they will abide,” Sacks said.

The bad actors who violate the rules will be punished, he added. “I think there are many more good actors than bad actors. The innovation needs to be enabled,” he said.

For Sacks, the message to Americans was clear. “My job is not to encourage people to buy crypto. My job is to create an innovation framework for the United States.” The Bitcoin reserve, the crypto stockpile—this was not about investment advice. This was about national strategy. About taking the bitcoin already in the possession of the U.S. government and treating it not as a speculative asset but as digital gold. A reserve.

“We’re only allowed to buy more if it doesn’t add to the deficit or the debt or cost taxpayers,” Sacks said Friday.

The newly minted crypto czar acknowledged the fundamental gap in knowledge: At the moment, no one knows exactly what the federal government owns in terms of digital assets. Not really. Not fully. Why? Because no previous administration had ever ventured to conduct a full audit.

“That needs to happen. We need to audit everything to get a full accounting, and then once we have that accounting, we’ll be able to move those assets into the stockpile for responsible stewardship to maximize our long-term value under the Treasury,” he said.

The agencies will have to conduct their own audits of crypto holdings and self-report their findings.

The Biden administration had sold off bitcoin that, had it been held, would be worth approximately $17 billion today. A missed opportunity, Sacks argued. And this? This was a course correction.

The crypto summit Sacks envisioned was, on the surface, no different from the conferences that had played out in London, New York and Miami over the years. The same names, the same faces—industry titans who had spent years circling the same debates. But this time, there were actual levers to pull. The government was in the room, and when that happens, it changes everything.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s CEO, was unusually chatty outside the West Wing. Something had shifted. Everyone could feel it.

“This digital asset summit at the White House was a historic moment,” he said. “Just a few years ago, it felt like we were under attack unlawfully. There were a few people in the U.S. government trying to, I think, unlawfully kill the entire industry. And so it couldn’t be a bigger moment for us to be not just allowed to operate, but welcomed by the president of the United States, and see how much support there is. So we are incredibly supportive of this new Bitcoin reserve that was announced last night, and I think they landed it in a very thoughtful way that’s budget neutral to the taxpayer.”

The industry’s anticipation at the crypto summit zeroed in on a bipartisan stablecoin bill already in motion.

 “And then we’re seeing market structure be debated next. And then I think the third piece would be getting this Bitcoin reserve actually codified into law as well, which would be a huge milestone,”Armstrong said.

When The Pavlovic Today broke the story about the Bitcoin reserve announcement at the White House crypto summit—revealing that Bitcoin would hold a unique status while other digital assets, as Secretary Lutnick put it, would be treated “positively—but differently”—it was clear that something big was coming.

The announcement wasn’t just another policy balloon floating through Washington’s corridors. It was imminent. The structure was intentional. The stockpile would hold all digital assets in federal possession—except Bitcoin. Bitcoin would go to the reserve.

Bo Hines, speaking to The Pavlovic Today moments after the summit, laid out the reasoning behind the plan.

“Bitcoin is the oldest and most grounded cryptocurrency there is and has the immaculate conception, meaning that there’s no issuer out there. It’s a commodity, not a security. It certainly has an intrinsic store of value. We do view it differently. That’s why we set it up in the EO that way, and we’ve instructed both the commerce secretary and the secretary of the treasury to look into ways to acquire that are budget neutral and don’t cost taxpayers a dime,” Hines said.

“I think one thing that’s important to note is that this president is actually in the process of accumulating assets for the American people rather than taking them from them, and he’s certainly ushering in the golden age for digital finance here in the United States.”

The Pavlovic Today asked Hines if attendees at the crypto summit discussed alternative ways to acquire more bitcoin.

“We’re going to continue to have those conversations with the working group. President Trump’s first executive order on digital assets, which came on day three, instructed the working group to come together with an interagency, including the commerce secretary and the secretary of the treasury, to think through ways to be innovative and make sure the United States leads the charge globally in terms of digital financial technological advancement. That’s what we plan on doing, and that will certainly be a part of that.”

The elephant in the room—a potential pardon of Sam Bankman-Fried—was on the minds of many present inside the room, but it was not spoken about.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” one insider said, adding that ultimately, “that’s up to Trump to decide.”

As Trump adjourned the crypto summit, he was already on the way back to Mar-a-Lago.

For the bitcoin faithful, it was a good day.

For Trump, it was even better.

Crypto had a new home in Washington. The industry, long cast as an outsider, had been invited inside the room where it happened.

And this time, they were not leaving.

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