Trump’s Proposed Budget Snubs Blockchain, Crypto in Crosshairs of Security Service

Earlier this week, the word “cryptocurrency” made it to the text of one of the United States government’s most consequential strategic documents: the Trump administration’s budget proposal for the 2021 fiscal year. However, the budget does little to enhance blockchain-powered innovation, as it included no additional taxpayer dollars in funding.

The premise for mentioning digital currencies was, in fact, quite the contrary: the need to step up measures against financial crimes. To that effect, the White House is proposing to bring the U.S. Secret Service — the agency tasked with both protecting the nation’s leaders as well as safeguarding its financial and payments system, and which has been part of the Department of Homeland Security since 2003 — back to its traditional home, the Treasury Department. This way, the administration contends, the Treasury will be better equipped to fight the “crimes of tomorrow.”

Combined with other recent policy moves, such as the