Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Unpacking Trump’s first 24 hours.

• Inside Circle’s deal to acquire the issuer of the largest tokenized money market fund.

• Crypto.com has fully launched the US exchange it suspended in 2023. 

Proclamations and memoranda and executive orders, oh my! 

During his first 12 hours in office, the 47th president issued 46 presidential actions.

Some were expected: Donald Trump designated acting chairs of the CFTC (Caroline Pham) and SEC (Mark Uyeda). Others were promised, like the executive orders mandating a federal hiring freeze and declaring a national energy emergency. 

Some were symbolic: ordering the Gulf of Mexico to become the Gulf of America, and renaming Alaskan peak Denali to Mount McKinley.  

Trump got to work on his immigration crackdown, issuing two executive orders: “guaranteeing the states protection against invasion” and “protecting the American people against invasion.” 

There were also actions aimed at accomplishing Trump’s “anti-woke” agenda, including executive orders abolishing DEI programs and requiring agencies to “end the federal funding of gender ideology." 

Then there are the actions Trump did not make. None of his “day 1” moves had to do with the cryptocurrency industry. 

To be fair, by my count, Trump only made two explicit “day 1” promises on crypto: fire Gary Gensler (which became moot when Gary resigned) and commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. 

That latter promise did not happen. 

Insiders say the pardon is imminent, though Trump himself has not commented on his plans. Trump has never publicly said why he didn’t pardon or commute Ulbricht during his first term in office. 

Trump wooed the crypto industry for months on the campaign trail. His first appearance post-assasination attempt was at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. He hosted Messari founder Ryan Selkis at Mar-a-Lago. He even launched his own DeFi project. 

Industry heavyweights paid up, and these first few weeks of Trump 2.0 were supposed to be their victory lap. And it still can be. But it’s also clear that Trump’s relationship to the crypto industry has gotten more complicated in the past few days. 

Trump never actually said he’d establish a strategic bitcoin reserve or overturn SAB 121 on his first day. But he also never said he’d launch $TRUMP and $MELANIA right before taking the oath of office. 

To a large portion of the industry, it’s fine if Trump waits weeks or even months before he executes promised crypto policies (whether some of these things can even be accomplished via executive order is legally questionable anyway). 

But the president of the United States engaging in this speculative, highly-manipulated corner of the crypto space is decidedly not fine. 

Even Selkis, who arguably lost control of his company over his vocal support for Trump, said the $MELANIA launch was a mistake.

The memecoins have seemingly put the industry on edge. When $TRUMP launched at 9 pm last Friday night, the mood at the Crypto Ball shifted. It’s no secret that Trump has a chaotic approach to decision-making, but it’s almost as if some in the crypto world are realizing it — and seeing the ramifications — for the first time. 

Lobbyists and donors were unsettled. Almost no one wanted to comment on it, at least on the record — I’d imagine in fear of alienating the administration or Trump himself. Blockchain Association director of government relations Ron Hammond even joked that he’s “staying out of it.” 

We’re just barely over 24 hours into Trump’s second term. For those of us watching from the sidelines, it’s shaping up to be a really entertaining four years.

— Casey Wagner

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The number representing a new version of something. As in “SEC Crypto 2.0” — featured in the headline revealing a crypto task force launched by new SEC Acting Chair Mark Uyeda.

The unit will be “dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets,” the agency said. Commissioner Hester Peirce is set to lead it. Check tomorrow’s Forward Guidance for more coverage on this.

Stablecoin issuer Circle has acquired Hashnote, the company that created the largest tokenized money market fund.

Circle is the company behind USDC, a stablecoin with a market cap that has grown to $48 billion. Call it tokenized cash if you like; Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire did in a Tuesday X space.

But now there’s also growing interest in bringing more real-world assets onchain, the executive noted. Outside of stablecoins, the largest category within the segment is tokenized Treasurys/money market funds.

Franklin Templeton launched its OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX) — a yield-bearing alternative to stablecoins — in 2021. Asset management giant BlackRock launched a competing product, called BUIDL, last year.

Hashnote’s version of that is USYC US Yield Coin (USYC). It’s the onchain representation of its Short Duration Yield Fund (SDYF), which holds short-term T-bills. Assets deployed into USYC stand at roughly $1.5 billion, accounting for about half the tokenized Treasurys space. 

“We see this as a key building block now,” Allaire said. “The problem that we want to solve is, how can market participants…use yield-bearing collateral, but instantly enable it to be used as cash and to create a sort of 24/7, 365 continuous model for how you can move between cash and yield?”

The Circle CEO added: “That’s what this unlocks.” 

The Hashnote deal is essentially part of the broader goal of taking the benefits of crypto — constant, globally available market infrastructure — and bringing that over to the TradFi world, lowering costs and boosting efficiency. 

Circle is partnering with trading firm DRW via its subsidiary Cumberland, which will expand liquidity and settlement capabilities in USDC and USYC. The stablecoin issuer also said it plans to deploy USDC on the public blockchain Canton. 

Whether trillions of dollars worth of assets come onto the blockchain — and how quickly — will depend on institutions seeing enough value in emerging use cases, Ripple’s James Wallis told me in October. 

Perhaps this Circle deal will accelerate those entities seeing such benefits across the segment. 

— Ben Strack

Crypto.com has launched its “institutional-grade venue” in the US a day after the first so-called pro-crypto president was sworn in.

The exchange’s CEO, Kris Marszalek, was perhaps alluding to the start of Trump’s term when beginning a Tuesday X post with “Today is Day 1.”

Marszalek touted the new US platform’s “deep liquidity, stable banking rails, robust APIs for most demanding high frequency traders, competitive fees and white glove service for all VIPs.”

This comes roughly 18 months after Crypto.com said it would temporarily shut down the initial version of the US institutional exchange it was testing. The company cited “limited demand from institutions in the US in the current market landscape” — an apparent reference to SEC lawsuits launched against fellow exchanges Binance and Coinbase just days prior.

The company noted at the time it could reopen the institutional trading platform in the future. With a president (and many members of Congress) now vowing to support the crypto space, here we are.

“After years of operating in an environment of regulation by enforcement, we are confident that the new administration will work with industry to develop clear regulations to protect consumers and harness the opportunities advancing the industry to make the US the global leader in cryptocurrency,” a Crypto.com spokesperson told me in an email Tuesday.  

This news also follows Marszalek’s meeting with Donald Trump last month. A person familiar with the rendez-vous had told me the two talked about crypto-related appointments and a bitcoin reserve.

— Ben Strack

• Bitcoin’s price hovered around $106,850 at 2 pm ET — up 4.6% from yesterday.

• MicroStrategy bought 11,000 BTC between Jan. 13 and Jan. 20, per a Tuesday filing. The BTC was purchased for $1.1 billion in cash at an average price of $101,191 per coin.

• US spot bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of nearly $1.1 billion on Jan. 17, marking the highest single-day flow amount for the category since Nov. 11.  

• Filings for crypto ETFs continued Tuesday, with REX Shares and Osprey proposing funds that would hold various assets, including Trump’s memecoin. 

• Riot Platforms is exploring the “feasibility” of developing roughly 600 megawatts of power capacity at its Corsicana Facility for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) uses.