Welcome to the Forward Guidance newsletter, brought to you by Casey Wagner and Ben Strack. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• What to know about America’s incoming “crypto czar.”

• A look at some FDIC letters Coinbase helped unearth for one of its legal battles.

• Jobs data came in strong. Here’s what that means for rates.

Podcaster cinches top crypto job in Trump Administration

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday evening announced his pick for the new AI and crypto czar position: David Sacks. 

Sacks, one of Trump’s most vocal and influential supporters in Silicon Valley, is closely tied with administration insiders, including Vice President-elect JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk. Vance has called Sacks one of his “closest friends in the tech world.” 

Sacks made a name for himself at PayPal — co-founded by Musk, Peter Thiel and others — in the early 2000s. The three are all members of the so-called “PayPal mafia,” a group of former employees and founders who went on to create and invest in major tech companies like YouTube and OpenAI. 

Sacks then went south for a brief stint in Hollywood, during which he produced Thank You for Smoking, a satirical comedy based on the novel by Christopher Buckley. 

When he returned to Northern California he founded Yammer, a workplace communications platform later acquired by Microsoft, and venture capital firm Craft Ventures. And then (in what should come as a shock to no one), he started a podcast during the Covid pandemic. “All-In” is co-hosted by fellow VCs Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. 

“David Sacks is the very best of America — a successful entrepreneur, a principled free speech absolutist and a brilliant technologist,” Palihapitiya wrote on X Thursday. “He will make sure the US stays at the forefront of AI and crypto — two of the most consequential technological movements in history.”

So there’s his resume. As for this new job, Trump said Thursday Sacks will “guide policy for the administration in [AI] and cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness.” His objective? Make “America the clear global leader in both areas.” 

Sounds like a tall order. 

On the crypto side, Sacks is expected to be the driving force behind what the Trump Administration has promised will be a new era of digital asset regulation. Trump added on Thursday that Sacks will be working on a “legal framework” for the industry that will help provide the “clarity” many execs have been requesting. 

It’s unclear yet whether Sacks will have a staff of advisers, but we expect he will. I’d imagine stakeholders in both the crypto and AI industries are already vying for a seat at Sacks’ table. 

As for the AI-crypto combo, the decision to make one czar in charge of policy recommendations isn’t shocking, but I’ll be curious how it plays out. These two facets of the broader technology sector are often lumped together, especially as both continue to grow and raise new regulatory questions. But they are two distinct industries nonetheless. We’ll be watching.

— Casey Wagner

The net inflows for US spot ether ETFs on Thursday, marking the highest single-day total in their four-plus months on the market. 

Led by BlackRock’s product, these ETH ETFs have now brought in more than $1.3 billion of net capital. Thursday’s strong inflows came before ether’s price broke $4,000 Friday, a level not reached since March.

Remember when the SEC sued Coinbase last year for alleged securities violations? And then earlier this year, the crypto exchange launched suits against the SEC and FDIC after its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were denied? 

Related, Coinbase on Friday shared letters from the FDIC. The documents, according to chief legal officer Paul Grewal, show that “Operation Chokepoint 2.0 wasn't just some crypto conspiracy theory.” 

A March 2022 letter about a proposed “fintech product” (written by FDIC assistant regional director Eric Guyot) notes, for example, the FDIC “has not yet determined what, if any, regulatory filings will be necessary for a bank to engage in this type of activity.” Guyot then adds: “As a result, we respectfully ask that you pause all crypto asset-related activity.”

The black highlighter tool (i.e., government redactions) was used plenty on that letter and others. The FDIC is “still hiding behind way overbroad redactions,” Grewal explained.

History Associates, a consultancy firm Coinbase hired in 2023 to help retrieve records, said in a Friday court filing that it’s not satisfied with what the FDIC produced.

First, the letters appear to redact information about the type of digital asset products or services at issue, History Associates notes. And secondly, heavy redactions in four specific letters “makes it difficult for History Associates to evaluate whether the FDIC has disclosed all non-exempt portions of those letters.”

The FDIC claims, according to the court filing, that the redactions help protect the identity of the banks. An FDIC spokesperson declined to comment further.

Operation Chokepoint 2.0 claims resurfaced recently when a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that roughly 30 tech and crypto founders have been debanked in recent years.

“Law-abiding American businesses should be able to access banking services without government interference,” Grewal added on X, noting the incoming administration can reverse course.

I’m sure there’ll be plenty more on this front.

— Ben Strack

Happy Friday! We’ve reached the end of what I’d say was the most important week yet in determining what we’ll see from the Fed later this month. Here’s what happened: 

• This morning’s November job report showed the economy added 227,000 jobs last month and unemployment increased to 4.2% (from 4.1% in October). All in all, I’d say this report pretty much guarantees a 25-basis point interest rate cut before the end of the year. Fed funds futures markets agree, pricing in an 86% chance of interest rates ending 2024 lower, according to data from CME group. 

• The second headliner this week was Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at the DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday. He said the economy is showing signs of strength that weren’t there earlier in the fall and central bankers are now able to be “a little more cautious as we try to find neutral.” This is telling for what we might be able to expect in 2025. Powell added that the committee has no plans to make any policy decisions based on the prospect of tariffs.

— Casey Wagner

• After trading below $100,000 early Friday, bitcoin’s price surged above $101,800 around 1:30 pm ET. It was hovering around $101,500 at 2:15 pm ET — up 4.5% from 24 hours prior. 

• The SEC has reportedly notified at least two fund issuers that it does not have near-term plans of approving US spot solana ETFs. Industry watchers previously told Blockworks such products would have a better chance under a new administration. 

• Keep an eye on Blockworks.co this weekend for Ben’s update on executive hires around the crypto space.