White House Digital Currency Policy Faces a Major Void

Patrick Witt, Donald Trump's digital assets adviser, is leaving, leaving the digital assets office empty and its policy goals unclear.

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, he not only abandoned his previous resistance to crypto-technology, but embraced the industry by hiring a cryptocurrency czar and creating the President's Advisory Council on Digital Assets.

Almost two years later, with the departure of Patrick Waite, who was the last crypto advisor to run the office, that policy push appears to have quieted down for now. And when the president recently installed a new AI czar, the job that was once divided between cryptography and artificial intelligence seemed to have shed its cryptographic responsibility.

So who's minding the store for cryptocurrency policy in the White House? It's not clear, even though a handful of people on Capitol Hill continue to suggest that the final weeks of the congressional session after the November election could still see some legislative action for the industry. The White House still has a staff of policy advisers, and the Trump administration now boasts several cryptocurrency watchdogs under fire from agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. But no new names have been explicitly added to Trump's domestic cryptocurrency plans.

A White House official told CoinDesk on Thursday that Waite's work was appreciated and he wished him well in his future endeavors. The official did not elaborate on who would take over the position.

The official said: "Encryption and transparency law will continue to be the priority of the president.

The White House Digital Assets Directorate was never a big operation, but the advisers were very vocal at times, and their presence could put an important administrative stamp on cryptocurrency goals. The effort began weeks before Trump's return to power in 2025, when President-elect David Sachs named former PayPal executive David Sachs as his new AI and cryptocurrency king.

Trump also tapped a little-known former college football player, Bo Hines, to be the first director of the Digital Assets Advisory Council — initially a one-man effort, but eventually adding a deputy. Hines quickly became the face of crypto at the White House, holding regular meetings with crypto insiders and appearing on event stages. And his short tenure of about eight months ended with a major victory for the industry in Congress: the passage of the Directing and Creating National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act into law.

A signing ceremony and celebration took place at the White House where many of the most prominent names in crypto enjoyed front row seats. Less than two weeks later, the administration released a comprehensive crypto agenda that laid out its own plans to strengthen the sector in the United States.

After helping create US legislation for stablecoin issuers, Heinz took on the management of the US arm of leading issuer Tether. Meanwhile, the consulting firm he started with his father and another partner, Nxum, also received millions of dollars as the primary service provider for a new political action committee, a CoinDesk report first revealed. Superfunding was provided by Tether's US financial partner, Cantor Fitzgerald, and by a Tether executive.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nxum Hines received payment from Tether for consulting services while Hines was in the White House working on the GENIUS Act.

Hines' deputy on the council, Witt, took over for Hines as its new executive director. Another former football star, Witt also had deeper Washington experience, becoming the face of the White House push for the Digital Asset Market Transparency Act. During the months of negotiations that followed, Witt made no secret of his frustration, regularly taking to the social network website X to lash out at those he saw as blocking the passage of a Senate bill that would create a US regulatory framework for crypto markets.

During that legal process, Sachs stepped down as tsar in March, leaving Witt and his deputy, Harry Jung, to try to manage the government's stance on cryptocurrencies. That was complicated by the fact that President Trump's crypto empire figured prominently in the negotiations, as Democrats called for senior government officials to be blocked from personal ties to cryptocurrencies.

As negotiations dragged into the year — and closer to the election — the White House offered concessions that would impose unprecedented ethical restrictions on participation in the president's digital assets. Democrats concluded the deal didn't go far enough.

Witt had confirmed in July that he had military service commitments on the horizon with the Georgia National Guard, but he stayed on to complete the Transparency Act negotiations, even as his deputy left to join Anxom Hines. The legislation hit a political roadblock a month ago and failed in a Senate vote before the House adjourned for a long recess leading up to next month's election.

Following rumors this week that Witt was leaving, he posted around midnight on Wednesday night to confirm his departure. He thanked the agency heads and lawmakers who have helped Clarity, saying that "with regulators and elected officials like you, I'm relieved to know that the future of digital asset innovation in America is bright." He said he would enter the private sector.

Crypto insiders say they're not sure who they're dealing with now that hopes for their market structure have largely vanished.

When Trump moved to re-establish an artificial intelligence watchdog earlier this month, hiring former SEC chairman and current chief information officer Jay Clayton to lead his super-intelligence force, the job no longer mentioned a cryptographic element. While artificial intelligence and crypto have overlapping realms, Clayton has a tough history with crypto, having been the SEC chairman who first took a stance labeled "regulation by enforcement."

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