After Donald Trump’s crypto advisor Patrick Witt stepped down, the Office of Digital Assets became vacant, and its policy goals became less clear.
Witt's departure was not surprising, but it means the White House currently has no clear leader for digital asset policy.
The White House continues to state that cryptocurrency remains a priority, but when it recently appointed a new AI director, it did not include cryptocurrency in the role’s responsibilities, as it had previously.
After returning to the White House last year, Trump not only abandoned his previous resistance to cryptocurrency technology but also embraced the industry by appointing a prominent crypto "czar" and establishing the Presidential Advisory Committee on Digital Assets.
Two years later, this policy push appears to have temporarily quieted down. The last crypto advisor to oversee the office, Patrick Witt, has departed. Meanwhile, when Trump recently appointed a new AI director, the position—previously split between crypto and AI—no longer appears to include crypto responsibilities.
So, who exactly in the White House is overseeing crypto policy? It’s currently unclear. Although a few voices on Capitol Hill still suggest that some legislative progress on the industry could emerge in the final weeks of Congress following the November election, the White House still has a group of policy advisors, and the Trump administration has advanced several crypto regulatory initiatives through agencies like the SEC—but no new individual has been officially designated to take over Trump’s internal crypto initiatives.
A White House official told CoinDesk on Thursday that Witt’s work was “appreciated” and wished him “all the best in the future.” The official did not comment on who would succeed him.
The official said, "The Crypto and Clarity Act will remain a priority for the president."
The White House’s digital assets policy effort has never been large, but these advisors have sometimes spoken with considerable influence, and their presence has provided important administrative backing for crypto initiatives. This effort began weeks before Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, when the president-elect appointed former PayPal executive David Sacks as the incoming “czar” for AI and crypto.
Trump also appointed the relatively unknown former college football player Bo Hines as the first director of the Digital Assets Advisory Council—initially a one-person role, later expanded to include a deputy. Hines quickly became the White House’s face of crypto, frequently meeting with industry insiders and appearing on event stages. His brief eight-month tenure concluded with a major industry victory in Congress: the Guiding Evolution and National Innovation for Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) was officially enacted into law.
Subsequently, the White House held a signing and celebration event, with many of the most prominent figures from the crypto industry seated in the front row. Less than two weeks later, the government released a comprehensive crypto agenda outlining its specific plans to support the industry in the United States.
After helping establish legal frameworks for U.S. stablecoin issuers, Hines went on to lead Tether’s U.S. operations. Meanwhile, Nxum, the consulting firm he co-founded with his father and another partner, was paid millions of dollars to serve as a primary service provider for a new political action committee—a revelation first reported by CoinDesk. This super PAC is primarily funded by Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s U.S. financial partner, and led by a Tether executive.
This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that during Hines' involvement with the GENIUS Act at the White House, his company Nxum received consulting fees from Tether.
Hines’s deputy on the advisory board, Witt, subsequently succeeded him as the new executive director. Witt, also a former football star, had greater experience in Washington and became a key advocate for the White House in pushing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Over the following months of negotiations, Witt openly expressed his frustration, frequently venting on social media platform X against those he believed were blocking the Senate bill—a piece of legislation intended to establish a regulatory framework for the U.S. crypto market.
During the legislative process, Sacks stepped down from his role as "crypto czar" in March, leaving Witt and his deputy Harry Jung to try to maintain the government’s stance on cryptocurrency. However, this effort was complicated by Trump’s own extensive cryptocurrency business interests, as Democrats demanded that senior government officials be barred from having ties to personal crypto interests.
As negotiations stretched into later this year and drew closer to the election, the White House made some concessions, softening previously unprecedented ethical constraints on the president’s involvement in digital assets—but Democrats believe these agreements still fall short.
Witt confirmed in July that he was about to be deployed for military service with the Georgia National Guard, but he remained in his position to complete negotiations on the Clarity Act, even though his deputy had left to join Hines’s Nxum. A month earlier, the bill failed to advance in a full Senate vote, after which the Senate entered a prolonged recess in preparation for next month’s elections.
Following rumors this week that Witt had stepped down, he posted on Wednesday night around midnight to confirm his departure. He thanked the leaders and lawmakers who helped advance Clarity, saying, “With regulators and elected officials like you, I am confident that the future of digital asset innovation in the United States is bright.” He also stated that he will be moving to the private sector.
Crypto insiders say they are also unsure who they will be dealing with next, as their hopes for market structure legislation have largely been dashed.
When Trump reestablished the AI regulatory role earlier this month and appointed former SEC chair and current Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to lead his “Superintelligence Force,” the position no longer mentioned cryptocurrency. Although there is some overlap between AI and cryptocurrency, Clayton’s history with crypto has been rocky; during his tenure as SEC chair, he was among the earliest advocates of what later became known as an “enforcement-first” stance.