A POLITICO story has revealed how a Washington lobbyist has been iced out of the White House for angering Donald Trump — but it also illustrates the president’s approach to dictating crypto policy.
Back in March, you’ll remember how an out-of-the-blue post on Truth Social announced that the U.S. was planning to create a “crypto strategic reserve” that consisted of altcoins including XRP, Solana and Cardano.
All three of these digital assets surged dramatically on the news, with Trump later adding that Bitcoin and Ether would be at the heart of the reserve. Written on a Sunday, it took the crypto markets by surprise.
Well, we’ve now learned that this post can be linked to Brian Ballard, who runs a lobbying firm representing dozens of clients. Why? Because one of his employees had given the president a copy of the message he should write.
According to POLITICO, Trump later realized that Ripple, which created XRP, was a client of Ballard Partners — and sources close to the president claim he was furious “and felt like he’d been used.”
It’s claimed that Ballard is no longer welcome in the White House, and aides have been told to stop taking meetings with him. He’s also faced accusations of cashing in on Trump’s name.
What Happened?
The report suggests that, during an event in Mar-a-Lago, the Ballard employee had repeatedly urged the president to write on Truth Social about his desire to support the digital assets industry. Trump had been trying to brush her off, but eventually gave the draft message to a staffer so it could be posted.
POLITICO reports that White House crypto czar David Sacks was “furious” after seeing the post — and rang Trump’s chief of staff to complain, primarily over concerns that the president was praising some crypto firms and not others.
Ballard told the news outlet that he was “accustomed to false accusations from unnamed sources due to the success our firm has enjoyed” — and he denied being frozen out of the West Wing.
As we now know, the plans outlined in this Truth Social post didn’t end up happening anyway. Days later, it was confirmed that a strategic Bitcoin reserve, consisting of crypto seized from criminals, was going to be established. A separate digital assets stockpile was also unveiled — but at present this won’t include XRP, SOL or ADA. Additional coins will only be acquired in “budget-neutral ways.”
What This Means
Beyond all the inside-the-beltway intrigue, this story tells us a lot about how decisions are made on crypto policy in the Trump administration.
For one, it appears that the president’s prone to making significant decisions on the fly — without getting a greenlight from his very own crypto czar.
The story confirms that some of the posts on Truth Social aren’t written by Trump, either. This probably isn’t all that much of a surprise — but it underlines the fact he probably knows a lot less about crypto than the industry gives him credit for. (Incidentally, we saw this in action when the president admitted he didn’t know much about his own meme coin.)
But there’s a bigger issue at play here, which confirms the suspicions raised by Jack Mallers, the vocal Bitcoiner and CEO of Zap. He had previously accused Ripple of “undermining American prosperity, freedom and Bitcoin” — and claimed the company was “actively lobbying to stop a Bitcoin strategic reserve in the U.S. while pushing their centralized, corporate-controlled token.”
And all of this comes before you consider the growing influence of Trump’s own crypto businesses, which include World Liberty Financial. The administration has insisted that there’s no conflict of interest because the president’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. But there’s no getting around the fact that the policies coming from the White House (including those made on the fly in Mar-a-Lago) have the potential to directly enrich Trump himself.
Estimates from Fortune back in March suggested that Trump-affiliated companies were now valued at $2.9 billion — equivalent to 37% of his net worth. That figure will only have risen given the market’s recent bullish surge. With the SEC set to enforce a less aggressive regulatory stance under new chairman Paul Atkins, the campaign group State Democracy Defenders Action recently warned:
“Congress has a unique opportunity to prevent President Trump and future presidents from using their public office for private gain by adopting legislation barring them and other elected officials from holding stablecoins and other digital assets.”
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