Can existing laws and guidelines around crypto, insider trading and conflicts of interest keep up when the most powerful person in the world is dropping memecoins and promoting DeFi projects?
President Donald Trump’s memecoin launches before his Jan. 20 inauguration and his ties to crypto firm World Liberty Financial are so outside of the bounds of normal presidential behavior as to be completely unprecedented.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders, reshaping global policy within days. Some have direct implications for crypto, including his decision to set up a crypto working group to examine a strategic digital assets reserve and his pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.
Magazine spoke with legal experts Yuriy Brisov of Digital & Analogue Partners in Europe, Joshua Chu of the Hong Kong Web3 Association and Charlyn Ho of Rikka in the US to unpack their professional reactions to how Trump’s first days in office have impacted the cryptocurrency world. This discussion has been edited for clarity and length.
What conflict of interest issues arise when a prominent political figure launches a cryptocurrency token?
Trump’s official memecoin surged to a top 15 cryptocurrency in the world at one point. (Gettrumpmemes.com)
Ho (US): I think there are significant conflict of interest issues, which is sometimes a legal issue, or more of an ethics issue. Regardless, it is an issue because Trump has the power to direct crypto policy. Within just a couple of days of him taking office, he’s signed a number of executive orders that are significantly going to affect the way that our crypto and digital assets industry works. So if he has a personal pecuniary benefit arising from his own policies, that’s a conflict of interest.
Is something like a president launching their own memecoin something that’s fathomable in Hong Kong?
Chu (HK): No. It takes an…
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