By Steve Neavling
The Justice Department is disbanding its team of prosecutors focused on cryptocurrency-related crimes and narrowing its enforcement efforts in the sector, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the memo that the department will no longer prioritize complex cases involving banking or securities violations. “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche wrote.
The move reflects a broader shift under the Trump administration to ease federal scrutiny of the crypto industry while ramping up enforcement in areas like immigration, drug crimes, and gang violence. Similar shifts are underway at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Blanche criticized the Biden administration’s approach to crypto enforcement as “reckless” and said the DOJ will now focus on bad actors who defraud investors or use digital assets to fund crimes such as trafficking and terrorism.
Effective immediately, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, created under President Biden, is being shut down. The Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit will also end its crypto work.
Crypto advocates praised the move. “We should be going after bad guys. Not the developers of good tools that bad guys happen to use,” Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of Coin Center, wrote on X.
Trump, once skeptical of digital assets, has pledged to make the U.S. a global leader in crypto and has backed several crypto ventures tied to his family.
