Biden prepares farewell to anti-crypto presidency: All the ways he held the industry back

Joe Biden’s presidency is crawling to its end, and with it goes the most anti-crypto administrations America has ever seen.

For a man who campaigned on promises of innovation and progress, his track record on crypto feels like a bad joke that went on too long.

From executive orders that led nowhere to secretive operations designed to suffocate the industry, Biden’s anti-crypto playbook left blockchain enthusiasts with little hope for fair treatment.

It’s time to break down every misstep, bad decision, and outright disaster that has categorically tainted the legacy he’s leaving behind.

The executive order that froze the market

On March 9, 2022, Biden signed an executive order that was supposed to “create a unified strategy for regulating cryptos.” The order dumped the responsibility on federal agencies to come up with recommendations, giving them six months to assess the industry.

What happened during those six months? Confusion, market volatility, and nothing close to clarity. Remember FTX? And Sam Bankman-Fried’s love affair with Biden’s Democratic Party?

Amusingly, the administration talked a big game about consumer protection and financial stability, but the timing and vagueness of the order were a gut punch to investors. It read more like a stalling tactic than a genuine effort to regulate responsibly. Even more frustrating, the order prioritized the development of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Biden’s administration seemed obsessed with the idea of a government-controlled digital dollar while largely ignoring the decentralized systems that were already thriving. Crypto enthusiasts didn’t miss the irony—who preaches innovation while sidelining it at the same time? A liar, typically.

Stablecoins under attack

Stablecoins, one of the few crypto innovations with actual real-world use cases all over the world, came under heavy fire during his tenure. By late 2021, the administration was scrutinizing stablecoins like they were the villains of some dystopian novel.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has certainly developed some level of PTSD after having to deal with lawsuit after lawsuit, and paying tens of millions of dollars in settlements to the US government.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets pushed for stricter regulations, citing concerns about financial stability. Senator Elizabeth Warren was Biden’s crypto attack dog. She labeled stablecoins as a risk to consumers, questioning their reserve backing.

Taxes, delays, and the great exodus

If the executive order was a warning shot, Biden’s tax reporting rules were the cannonball. On August 25, 2023, the administration rolled out new requirements for crypto brokers. They had to report every user’s sales and exchanges, effectively turning the industry into a data mine for the IRS.

The crypto community was outraged. Privacy advocates slammed the rules for being invasive, while smaller companies worried about compliance costs. Industry leaders warned that these measures would drive innovation out of the U.S. entirely.

And they weren’t wrong—startups began exploring friendlier regulatory environments in places like Dubai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Biden’s team also tried to coordinate between the SEC and CFTC, two agencies with a famously combative relationship, to regulate crypto. Predictably, this led to delays.

Instead of streamlining oversight, the administration’s inter-agency efforts caused paralysis. Gary Gensler, head of the SEC, doubled down on aggressive enforcement. His infamous stance that “everything except Bitcoin is a security” created legal headaches for projects across the board. This guy was an absolute nightmare.

Operation Choke Point 2.0: The quiet war on crypto

Here’s where things get darker. The Biden administration has been accused of reviving Operation Choke Point, a controversial program from the Obama era. This time, the target wasn’t payday lenders or gun dealers—it was the crypto industry.

Banks that worked with crypto companies faced scrutiny like never before. Signature Bank even announced it would no longer process transactions under $100,000 related to digital assets. Custodia Bank, a Wyoming-based institution focused on crypto, was forced to withdraw its application for a Federal Reserve master account after regulators pressured them to back off.

Did you know that 30 tech founders were secretly debanked? https://t.co/gmnCir43XD

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2024

Biden’s administration denied the existence of such a campaign, but the evidence painted a different story. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, said: “This proves the FDIC undertook a very concerted effort to deny regulated institutions the right to offer legal services to the crypto community.”

Marc Andreessen, the tech venture capitalist, claimed dozens of founders had been debanked because of their ties to crypto. And Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has told us that however bad we think it was, it was actually significantly worse than that.

“So many people put their head in the sand for political reasons, saying it’s not as bad as the industry made it out to be. It is worse and global. So many businesses were harassed, fined, audited, and de-platformed,” he said.

Warren, Gensler, and the “war on crypto”

Warren became the face of anti-crypto legislation, pushing bills like the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act. Her rhetoric was that crypto is a hotbed for crime, despite data showing traditional finance still dominates illicit activities.

Warren’s disdain for crypto runs inherently deep. She has actually linked Bitcoin to child sex trafficking, an allegation so horrific, it affected her pollings for weeks thereafter. Though she still won her office after running again last year when she ran against a pro-crypto candidate, John Deaton.

Clearly, whatever she’s doing, works for the majority of American voters. Meanwhile, Gensler leaned into enforcement actions, hitting companies with lawsuits and fines left and right. His reign at the SEC turned into a game of regulatory whack-a-mole, targeting everything from exchanges to DeFi platforms.

“The SEC has made a good start by keeping crypto volatility out of the traditional banking system,” he has claimed. The irony? While Biden’s administration obsessed over regulating crypto to death, Bitcoin thrived.

The network’s resilience became a testament to why decentralization matters. It’s hard to kill an idea when it doesn’t have a single point of failure.

As Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong puts it: “Warren and Gensler tried to unlawfully kill our entire industry, and it was a major factor in the Democrats losing the election. The Democratic party should realize Warren is a liability and further distance themselves if they want to have any hope of rebuilding.”

Deaton himself said today, “The Democrats have no one to blame more than Elizabeth Warren for allowing Bitcoin & Crypto to become a partisan issue. But she didn’t allow it to become partisan, She made it partisan!”

The dawn of a new era

And as Biden takes his much-appreciated leave, the crypto industry looks forward to receiving incoming president Donald Trump. This guy calls himself the ‘crypto president.’

He has said that: “As president, I will immediately shut down Operation Choke Point 2.0. They want to choke you out of business; we’re not going to let that happen.”

Nearly everyone in his administration is pro-crypto, and he hasn’t shown any signs of neglecting the industry after his win. The industry is preparing an inaugural ball for him on January 17th, expecting him to sign the first-ever crypto executive order during his first 100 days.

He has promised a national Bitcoin strategic reserve, which everyone is looking forward to. With only 2 weeks left until Trump’s White House Inauguration, Biden has confirmed that he will be attending, because he is “committed to a peaceful handover.”

What he’ll be leaving behind, sadly, is a tainted legacy of being an incompetent presidential candidate in 2024, pardoning his son of all the depraved crimes he was found guilty of, and of course, a war on crypto.