President Donald Trump has invited some of the leading figures in the cryptocurrency (crypto) world to partake in a summit discussing various aspects of digital currency
The Attendees
The event, which is scheduled to take place on Friday, March 7, expects to attract some of the crypto arena’s most prominent and influential names. Those accepting the invitation to this gathering hosted by the President and chaired by Trump’s Drug Czar David Sacks include Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and MicroStrategy chief executive Michael Saylor.
Other notable attendees will include Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek, Vlad Tenev, the chief executive officer of Robinhood, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss from Gemini, Kraken’s boss Arjun Sethi, Sergey Nazarov, the Chainlink Labs co-founder, World Liberty Financial co-founder Zack Witkoff, Kyle Semani, the managing partner of Multicoin Capital, David Bailey, chief executive at BTC Inc., and Paradigm’s co-creator Matt Huang.
Invitees who have yet to respond include Brad Garlinghouse, the top man of Ripple, Changpang “CZ” Zhao, the individual responsible for starting Binance, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Cathie Wood, who oversees Ark Investor’s day-to-day operations, Solano Labs head Anatoly Yakovenko, and Paolo Ardoino, the ranking executive at Tether.
And Staying Home Are…
The names listed among those choosing to sit the event out are almost as noteworthy. Said subjects include Mike Alfred, who created the private investment firm Alpine Fox, LP. He skipped out on the President’s invitation as a protest against the emergence of meme coins as a prominent player in the crypto industry. Additionally, Renzo Labs’ Founding Contributor decided to stay home to attend his son’s sixth birthday party.
Left off the guest list was Cardano’s Co-Founder Charles Hoskinson.
“They are running around town trying to push their own sort of narrative,” said a White House source regarding this decision. “They are not involved in anything about trying to influence policy and they are not invited to the summit.”
On the Agenda
Attendees are expected to discuss domestic business growth creation and enhancing industry regulation.
“Industry leaders attending the summit will inform David Sacks and others in the administration on how best to move forward in attracting the world’s best technology talent back to the States,” said Gerald Gallagher, in-house counsel for Sei Labs.
“I expect that the summit will look at ways to continue building momentum for U.S.-based firms operating in the blockchain space, as we have some catching up to do,” said Peter Marton, who holds the position of Director of Digital Identity at Fireblocks. “A clear and harmonized regulatory framework is critical for attracting both talent and investment.”
Marton believes that clearer regulations will strengthen the United States’ ability to remain a leader in the industry.
“I suspect we’ll also see more focus on education such as getting more policy and agency staff engaging with blockchain networks, smart contracts, and DeFi (decentralized finance), and gain more experience to understand the specifics of this space.”
Furthermore, summit participants will also debate stablecoin regulations.
“There’s been a recent push from Congress on stablecoins, especially around issuer requirements and integration into legacy financial rails,” said M^0 Labs co-founder Greg DiPrisco. “Stablecoins have the potential to maintain and extend the role of the dollar internationally and to make the experience of consumers objectively better.”
