A seat on Donald Trump’s crypto advisory council has become the hottest ticket in Washington, DC — with industry titans and major donors vying for a spot on the board that is expected to make key decisions about how digital currency will be classified and regulated over the next four years.
“Everyone and their mother is begging to be on this council,” one crypto source who is angling to be on the board explained. “But no one has heard who might make the cut, and there is no application.”
The source admitted he has been “harassing” all of his friends to put in a good word with power players he believes are likely to get on the board.
Kraken’s former general counsel Marco Santori, Ripple founder Brad Garlinghouse (who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month) and Frank Chaparro, host of the popular crypto podcast “The Scoop,” are on the shortlist for the group’s two dozen seats, sources told NYNext.
Major Trump campaign donors and notable CEOs including Circle’s Jeremy Allaire (who gave $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee), Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong and Crypto.com’s Kris Marszalek are also contenders, sources add.
“There are lots of people gunning for a spot,” said Aubrey Strobel, Bitcoin investor and advisor to crypto companies Lolli and Trust Machines.
But sources said the priority will be on real experience over people who merely showed “support for the new administration because they had FOMO.” And the amount of FOMO in this industry is extreme, Strobel adds.
President Trump created the board by executive order during his first week in office, with the goal of supporting innovation in digital assets and blockchain technology after years of the crypto community feeling “harassed” under the Biden administration, as NYNext previously reported.
To that end, the council will play a role in answering key questions that could change the course of history — most pressingly, whether cryptocurrencies should be considered commodities or securities and whether they fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
These advisors will also have a hand in developing national policy and creating a regulatory framework, and work closely with Trump and AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks, the venture capitalist who is heading up the council, as well as agencies like the Treasury Department and Department of Homeland Security.
“There’s clout and a flex element to [landing a spot on the board]. But over the next four years, as the rules of the road are finally paved, people will want a say in shaping them,” another Bitcoin policy source added.
“Crypto went from being the red-headed stepchild of finance to a cornerstone of American innovation,” added Annelise Osborne, the chief business officer of Kadena, a blockchain platform for banks. “With a more open-minded administration, the US is poised to lead in crypto, blockchain and next-gen tech.”
The Post previously reported that the crypto crowd was expecting blue skies under the Trump administration — an end to a four-year “terror” under Biden, as one notable investor described it to NYNext.
Since Trump took office, he has appointed pro-crypto personnel like Paul Atkins as SEC Chair and even entertained the notion of an America-first strategic reserve that would prioritize digital coins founded in the US, such as Solana, USD Coin and Ripple’s XRP.
This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.
