The White House Digital Assets Report: Big, Bold, Blockchain
02 September 2025
Etay Katz and Simon Williams analyse the Report.
Key takeaways:
The US's digital assets direction of travel is clear; fast forward.
The Report is a cryptoassets maximalist's wish list
Developments will be private enterprise led, with technology-neutral regulation.
USD stablecoins are front and centre of the US framework; there will not be a US CBDC.
Implementing legislation is needed, but US regulators are urged to immediately use existing powers to enable digital assets trading.
Work is needed to ensure the framework can tackle financial crime, whilst the Report also emphasises individuals' rights and privacy.
The US's aspiration is to lead the digital assets world, and be the domicile of choice.
Introduction
Invoking the American story of railroad and internet innovation and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founding father of Bitcoin, the Report's 160 pages leave no doubt as to the US's direction of travel.
Entitled "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology", the plan is bold, sweeping and ambitious.
In an already highly catalysed 2025, the Report will turbo-charge the digital assets sector.
We are all Satoshi now
A number of key themes strongly pervade the Report, not least the ethos of the early blockchain pioneers. Quotations from Satoshi Nakamoto introduce most of the Report's chapters.
This ethos educates much of the Report's thinking. For example, that blockchain enables direct peer-to-peer financial transactions, without the need for intermediaries or financial institutions. Blockchain means decentralisation; without the need for a central governing authority, transactions are made by computational consensus. Non-government currency is possible, and privacy is paramount. "Code is law"; computer code defines the relationship of blockchain participants.
Destination US?
Many countries aspire to be the digital assets jurisdiction of choice. The UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and the EU – amongst many others – have already set out their stalls, and want to attract firms and grow their own markets. The US has now thrown a large hat into the ring with the aspiration to become the "crypto capital of the world" with the deepest and most liquid digital asset markets in the world.
The Working Group recognise that the US has fallen behind in the digital assets sector. They aim to reverse the decline of blockchain development, including by finding ways to incentivise blockchain technology non-profit organisations to domicile in the US (for example tax incentives).
They also advocate for the US to reassert global leadership of digital assets, including in relation to regulation and policy. The vision is that this will foster a level playing field so that US firms and markets can compete internationally, and also ensure that cutting-edge and scaled DLT development happens in the US. A robust US regulatory system is also seen as a competitive advantage.
Private enterprise led development is placed at the centre of the Working Group's framework, and US agencies are exhorted to encourage and facilitate this. The Report also encourages industry (rather than government) action, for example to harness the power of standards to solve coordination problems through NIST standards. The Report even goes so far as to encourage other countries to promote private sector digital asset initiatives.
The US enters a crowded field. Many countries recognise the social and economic opportunities offered by digital assets. The US is behind, by many years in some cases.
The US is however well placed to catch up and overtake given its global influence, the dominance of the USD as a settlement currency and the depth of its capital and financial markets. Other jurisdictions have adopted incremental development. It is no exaggeration to say that the US is now a crypto-maximalist.
Whilst other jurisdictions have chosen to bolt-on digital assets to existing regulatory frameworks, the Working Group advocate for bold, imaginative and novel solutions.
Notwithstanding intense lobbying of regulators in some jurisdictions, the Working Group proposals will sweep away many of these perceived regulatory impediments in the US.
Whilst the US's obvious cryptoassets potential is not in doubt, it enters a hyper-competitive arena from a standing start. Given its existing financial sector advantages it will have a large core-digital assets gravitational pull. It is less clear whether the US will be able to realise the Working Group's ambition to onshore the coming blockchain visionaries and the next waves of cutting-edge innovation.
Tech-neutral
The clear and resounding message of technology neutrality flows deeply through the Report. In other words, that financial instruments, institutions and markets should be regulated in a technology agnostic manner. For example, decentralised and permissionless infrastructure should not automatically receive less favourable regulatory treatment simply because of its inherent technology and consensus protocol.
The Report has particularly strong views of Basel's Cryptoasset Exposures Standard, which is due to come into force on 1 January 2026. Although some jurisdictions (for example Hong Kong and Canada) are scheduled to implement the Standard on time, it is clear that the US fundamentally disagrees with many aspects of it and will not implement it in its current form. The Report forcefully advocates that the Standard be revised, including in relation to tech-neutrality. The Basel Committee is yet to comment publicly on this feedback.
"Same risk, same rules" is undoubtedly the correct starting premise, and is the approach to digital asset regulation taken in many jurisdictions, for example the UK and EU. DLT technology does not affect the substance of a financial instrument, its financial infrastructure rails or the relevant financial institutions. A public permissionless blockchain with appropriate guardrails (for example using permissioned layers or in-built blockchain protocols (such as ERC1400 on Ethereum)) can result in similar in-substance security features as a private blockchain.
Using a simple analogy; compare an internet-only bank account and a branch-only bank account. Other than the differences necessarily consequent upon using technology (the internet), the essential features of holding and maintaining a bank account are the same, and so are the relevant regulations. DLT implementation should be no different.
The Summer of Stablecoins
DLT ecosystems require a generally accepted digital medium of exchange. For the Working Group, USD-denominated stablecoins are unequivocally that medium.
The Report notes that USD stablecoins will reinforce the strength of the global US dollar system, and also encourage more stablecoin issuers to onshore. The US stablecoin framework will also require those offering payment stablecoins to US persons to have a US licence or comparable foreign licence.
The Working Group prohibit a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), reiterating the pre-existing ban by Presidential Executive Order.
Accounting for more than 99% of outstanding value, USD-denominated stablecoins dominated even before the Report's publication and the July 2025 US stablecoin legislation. Stablecoins are low hanging fruit for the US, with the US legislation substantially similar to other jurisdictions' frameworks. With the US CBDC ban, and other CBDCs at a nascent stage, stablecoins – and specifically USD stablecoins – will continue to dominate in the short to medium term.
Legislation and regulation
The Working Group recognise the necessity of new legislation to implement a digital assets regulatory framework, whilst noting that an express goal of the Trump Administration is to reduce unnecessary regulation.
The legislative recommendations are pragmatic:
a clear and simple regulatory framework
use of the most efficient licensing structure possible
a regulatory sandbox
permit multiple business lines
enable on-chain only registers
technology-neutral regulation
banks may determine their best mix of products and services, provided that it is compliant
if a regulatory application timeline is not met, that application is deemed approved "absent extraordinary circumstances"
Whilst acknowledging the need for new legislation, the Report recommends immediate action for the US regulators to use their existing powers to enable the trading of digital assets.
Individual Rights & Checks and Balances
In another echo of early blockchain pioneers, the liberty of US individuals to hold and use cryptoassets in privacy is a strong pervasive theme of the Report. At the same time, the Report recognises the role that cryptoassets can play in illicit finance.
The Report also notes that, unlike traditional finance, DLT technology itself can mitigate financial crime risk, and that stablecoin issuers are able to coordinate with law enforcement to freeze and seize assets to counter illicit use. In addition, the Working Group recommend the enactment of a new digital asset-specific “hold law” to enable the freezing of property involved in suspected illegal activity.
The US, in common with every other jurisdiction, will have to carefully calibrate its balance between the rights and privacy of individuals and the law enforcement tools to counter financial crime.
And a Bitcoin Reserve
The Report contains very little detail on the next steps for the US Government's high-profile Bitcoin Reserve. What detail there is, appears on the Report's last page. Further detail is promised "in short order". This is surprising; details for the Bitcoin Reserve was the most highly anticipated content.
We are told that the Bitcoin in the US Reserve will generally not be sold and will be maintained as reserve assets. 'Generally' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
We are also told that the US will develop strategies that could be used to acquire additional Bitcoin for the Reserve in ways that are budget neutral. We await these strategy details with interest.
What's next?
Distributed ledged technology is the future. It holds the capacity to transform the world to a greater extent than the internet. In the not too distant future, not using DLT will be as unimaginable as today not using the internet.
If there was still any doubt that digital assets had reached critical mass, the Working Group's Report now puts it far beyond doubt.
The Digital Assets train is fast leaving the station; financial institutions not on it will be left behind.
