Currencies often bear the face of a country’s leader; far fewer are named after a leader. So what should the world make of the fact that the new president of the United States launched the $TRUMP cryptocurrency just days before returning to office?
It not only indicates the value he places in such digital currencies, but it could also end up being looked back upon as a moment that signalled the start of a significant turning point in the way the financial system works and is regulated. This was one suggestion among many from the speakers in the Crypto at a Crossroads session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos.
“The Trump effect cannot be denied,” said Brian Armstrong, chief executive of crypto platform Coinbase. “To have the leader of the largest GDP country in the world come out undeniably and say that he wants to be the first crypto president, he wants the industry to be built in America and he's going to direct every agency of the US government to work towards clear rules which enable innovation – this is unprecedented.”
Fellow speaker Anthony Scaramucci, founder of alternative asset manager SkyBridge Capital and briefly White House director of communications during Trump’s first term, said that when he saw Trump give a speech at a Bitcoin conference in 2024, “it was very, very clear that if he won the election, things were going to change in the industry”.
He added that the Republicans want to pass new regulations on crypto before the end of February 2026, ahead of the conclusion of the Congressional term in early 2027, because “they want to campaign on it”.
The US is expected to pursue crypto regulation at pace in the coming year.Image: World Economic Forum
What this regulation might look like, and what it might mean for the financial world and consumers were discussed in depth during the panel session – as was the fact that the policy-makers devising these documents are facing an extremely steep learning curve.
Crypto regulation: obstacles and opportunities
The one essential characteristic of effective regulation is that it is “clear, clean, such that everybody could understand it”, said South African Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago. However, the problem with effectively regulating crypto is that “in many instances, regulators are struggling to come to grips with exactly what they are having to regulate”, he added.
Jennifer Johnson, chief executive of asset manager Franklin Templeton, said the history behind current US securities rules illustrates important principles that crypto laws should follow. “These rules were created as a reaction to the depression and stock market crash in 1929. The purpose was consumer protection. [Today, regulators need to] acknowledge that the technology is advancing so quickly that they have to evolve regulation to meet the technology. That is a big challenge, but we have to be able to do that because, take AI, all of these things are going to move so quickly.”
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The point of this technology is that you can move assets extremely quickly, peer-to-peer and get them, without borders, all over the world.
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— Denelle Dixon, Chief Executive of the Stellar Development Foundation
Another problem is that cryptocurrency is widely “misunderstood”, according to Denelle Dixon, chief executive of the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization working to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology.
“There's not a lot of focus on the actual utility, the velocity of all of the assets, what's actually happening on chain that's really transformational,” she told the Davos session. “The point of this technology is that you can move assets extremely quickly, peer-to-peer, and get them, without borders, all over the world. Just think about the UNHCR. They're delivering aid into Ukraine [using blockchain]. The end user receives it in less than three minutes. That's crazy, but that's what blockchain does.
“This is the part that we don't talk about because there's been so much negative attention [on crypto], but these are the kinds of things that help everyone in every country and this is what we want to see more of. Right now, because we're in this area where I think regulation is going to be more favourable in the US, we're going to hit this opportunity to really showcase all of the real work and to work more with traditional financial services.”
‘This is a technology that's going to update the financial system’
“With a new [US] administration coming in, I think we have a path to get clear rules, [and] if the US gets legislation approved, the rest of the G20 will follow,” suggested Armstrong.
“Crypto is really in its infancy,” he added. “I'd say about half of the Fortune 500 has some sort of pilot going in crypto. This is a technology that's going to update the financial system globally, make it faster, cheaper, more efficient.
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I'm always surprised by how big the crypto space is. There's literally blinders on to the massive growth in this community.
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— Jennifer Johnson, Chief Executive of Franklin Templeton
While Scaramucci said that many “older people in politics, older people in policy-making still do not understand the industry”, Johnson said she is “always surprised by how big the crypto space is”. However, she agreed that in the traditional finance and asset management industry, “there's literally blinders on to the massive growth in this community”.
“From a regulatory standpoint, it's really difficult because it's very disruptive, and it's literally like two parallel universes kind of running together,” she added. “At some point, they have to come together.”
Kganyago talked about how the South African Reserve Bank has piloted blockchain technology for payments that has enabled it to speed up transaction settlement times from one day to 46 minutes. “The technology will be useful,” he declared, and Johnson backed him up.
Crypto has been shown to speed up transaction settlement times.Image: World Economic Forum
“What this technology does is it has a source of truth,” she said. “It has the ability to execute smart contracts. So things that we've written into a document and someone's got to go check and go settle, that can get programmed in.” These instant transactions are known as “atomic settlements”, and they could one day stand in for the banks who act as today’s validators, Johnson added.
This could have serious implications for financial business models, she warned. It could also have serious implications for consumers, according to Dixon, enabling interest to be paid on deposits “even when it's just sitting there for a few minutes”.
Can crypto user numbers keep increasing?
The crypto adoption curve is similar to in the early days of internet, according to Armstrong, but added that “I think it'll get to half of the world in 10-15 years.”
Regulation will be a key part of increasing uptake, all the speakers suggested. “[If] we get regulatory clarity on stablecoins in the US and our central bank accepts that legislation, it will permeate into the other banks,” Scaramucci said.
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We need to make crypto easier to use. Most people don't understand how electricity works, but they can flip on a light switch. I think we need to make it that simple.
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— Brian Armstrong, chief executive of Coinbase
“Privacy is another thing,” Dixon pointed out. “We need to get to the place where we're focusing on ease of use, the UX [user experience] design, but also bringing privacy into it. And then it becomes easy for mass adoption.”
Armstrong agreed. “We need to make crypto easier to use. There's these addresses that don't look readable. They're random strings of numbers and letters. That's being replaced by the Ethereum Name Service so it's a human-readable name. Eventually I think we're going to have people using crypto who don't even know it's crypto underneath. They're just trying to send money, earn a living, get a loan for their business. Most people don't understand how electricity works, but they can flip on a light switch. I think we need to make it that simple.”
Building out crypto infrastructure will also be needed, with Johnson saying that a “lack of wallet has been one of the challenges [as] it hasn't been integrated on [banking] platforms across the board”.
Crypto adoption levels are similar to those of the internet in its early days.Image: Statista
For Dixon, this ties back to regulation. “What really loses when you don't have regulatory clarity … is the technology. Yes, you now see lots of folks coming into it, [but] that wasn't always the case.”
If all these obstacles are removed, it would increase the “velocity and usage” of the financial system, she added, before going on to describe how small companies, including one in San Francisco in Colombia, have been using crypto to pay gig workers.
“These people get the local currency and they spend it in their small town, so they're able to create what we call the ‘on-chain effect’. They take the money, it gets used very quickly and it's used locally, so it actually improves the local economy. That's the value of blockchain, that's what blockchain does, and we're seeing this happen all over the world.”
For Armstrong, the untapped potential is huge: “If we can actually inject good financial infrastructure to every country in the world for anybody who has a smartphone, plug them into the global economy, I think it's going to lift billions of people out of poverty. The long-term impact is going to increase economic freedom in the world.”
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