Trump's Crypto Council Takes Shape With Pro-bitcoin Advocates

On Sunday, December 22, President-elect Donald Trump named Bo Hines and Stephen Miran to two key cabinet positions surrounding the economy.

Bo Hines, a former college football player and Republican nominee for the House of Representatives, will serve as the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets Executive Director, a group that Trump calls the "Crypto Council", while Stephan Miran, a former Treasury Department official, will chair the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

In the announcement made via a Truth Social post, Trump stated that the Council of Advisers for Digital Assets is a newly formed advisory group composed of "luminaries from the crypto industry" and headed by David Sachs - the new White House Crypto and AI Czar, spearheading the administration's crypto and AI efforts.

Hines will work alongside Sachs to "foster innovation and growth in the digital assets space" while ensuring that industry leaders are provided with the resources they need to succeed. "Together, they will create an environment where this industry can flourish, and remain a cornerstone of our nation's technological advancement," wrote Trump.

In 2022, Hines received an endorsement from Trump and funding from pro-crypto political action committees PACs during his unsuccessful Congressional race in North Carolina's 13th District. This year, the 29-year-old ran once again for the House in the state's 6th District but lost in the primaries to other Republican candidates.

During his first election campaign, Hines received backing from Ryan Salame, a former executive of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX , who is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance law violations for making unlawful political contributions.

Despite his role, Hines does not have a history of making comments related to the crypto industry.

Alongside Hines, Trump also named Sriram Krishnan, a former general partner at venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz a16z, as the Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology. In his new position, he will work closely with David Sachs as part of a broader initiative to shape the U.S. policy on artificial intelligence.

Krishnan, who's served in leadership roles at Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, and Snap, also co-hosts a popular tech podcast called 'The Aarthi and Sriram Show' with his wife Aarthi Ramamurthy. The show features high-profile guests from the tech industry. Krishnan departed from his position at a16z in November, ahead of his appointment to Trump's cabinet.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump nominated Stephen Miran, an ex-Treasury official and pro-Bitcoin advocate, as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. This agency will advise the President-elect on domestic and international economic policy.

Miran was also a senior advisor for economic policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury during Trump's first term. His role included advising the President on fiscal support during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. Before his appointment, Miran served as the senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management, a hedge fund that contributed to Trump-affiliated PACs during this year's election.

He has been heavily critical of the Biden administration's economic policies. In July, Miran co-wrote a paper accusing current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen of manipulating the markets to "clandestinely" stimulate the economy.

During his appearance in 'The Bitcoin Layer' podcast earlier this month, he said that financial regulation is "excessively burdensome" and prevents banks from lending into the economy as much as they would want, which he believes can really "inhibit" innovation in sectors like the crypto-economy.

Trump's latest appointments reflect his continued backing of the crypto sector. During his campaign, the billionaire real-estate mogul promised to turn the U.S. into the "world capital of crypto," which helped him gain massive support from industry players. He has appointed other pro-crypto advocates, including Elon Musk to head the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency D.O.G.E, and Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC.