New President Forces a Second Look at Crypto for Banks

President Trump sent a message to top banks in Davos, Switzerland that he is ready to favor the crypto world when it comes to major policy.

Wall Street responded with heightened interest in Crypto and Bitcoin sustaining its meteoric 2024 rise, and going well beyond $100,000.

Trump went even further by nominating pro-crypto leaders to his administration.

The question for banks is what role can they play given the banking industry being heavily regulated. But everyone from the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, to Ted Pick, CEO of Morgan Stanley, is looking to figure it out, as optimism reined for the sector.

Trump also signed an executive order focused on promoting the development of digital assets.

Pick told CNBC at Davos,  “We’ll be working with Treasury and the other regulators to figure out how we can offer that in a safe way,” Pick said. Morgan Stanley has already allowed its financial advisors to pitch bitcoin exchange-traded funds to its clients.

If the rules change that open up banks to digital currency, it will be one of the key developments for the banking industry in 2025, and community banks need to think through a strategy or be challenged even more by the nation’s largest financial institutions.