{"id":21139,"date":"2025-04-08T15:16:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=21139"},"modified":"2025-04-08T15:16:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:16:53","slug":"doj-axes-crypto-unit-as-trumps-regulatory-pullback-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=21139","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Axes Crypto Unit as Trump\u2019s Regulatory Pullback Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) axed its crypto unit on Monday, telling staff that the DOJ would be \u201cnarrowing\u201d its crypto enforcement activities in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s January executive order on digital assets, which pledged to establish \u201cregulatory clarity and certainty\u201d for the crypto industry.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In his four-page memo to staff titled \u201cEnding Regulation by Prosecution,\u201d U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) \u2014 created in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden \u2014\u00a0would be \u201cdisbanded effective immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,\u201d Blanche wrote in the memo seen by CoinDesk. \u201cHowever, the prior Administration used the Justice Department to pursue a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution, which was ill conceived and poorly executed. The Justice Department will no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump\u2019s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Blanche informed staff that the DOJ would no longer be pursuing cases against crypto exchanges, mixing services or offline wallets \u201cfor the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations.\u201d Staff were ordered not to charge regulatory violations in cases involving crypto, including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), unlicensed money transmitting and other violations tied to federal securities and commodities laws.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Instead, DOJ staff were ordered to focus their resources on \u201cprosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors\u201d or who use crypto in the furtherance of criminal activities like terrorism or gang financing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOngoing investigations that are inconsistent with the foregoing should be closed,\u201d Blanche wrote, adding that his office will work with the DOJ\u2019s criminal division to \u201creview ongoing cases for consistency with this policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

NCET is not the first federal crypto task force to be disbanded since Trump took office in January. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) slashed a number of specialized enforcement teams, including a crypto-focused team, down to just two as part of Acting Chair Caroline Pham\u2019s plan to increase efficiency and \u201cstop regulation by enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

NCET worked on many of the DOJ\u2019s high profile crypto cases in recent years, including crypto mixer Tornado Cash and several of its developers and Mango Markets exploiter Avi Eisenberg, who faces sentencing later this week after being convicted<\/a> of fraud and market manipulation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The memo comes a week and a half after Trump pardoned crypto trading platform BitMEX<\/a> and its founders and senior executives following their past guilty pleas to Bank Secrecy Act charges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) axed its crypto unit on Monday, telling staff that the DOJ would be \u201cnarrowing\u201d its crypto enforcement activities in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s January executive order on digital assets, which pledged to establish \u201cregulatory clarity and certainty\u201d for the crypto industry. In his four-page memo to staff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-21139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}