The True Cost of Biden-Era Crypto Policy: Regulation Through Hostility

The recent New York Times op-ed by former Biden economic advisers Ryan Cummings and Jared Bernstein has been criticized for its selective memory and omission of key facts regarding the Biden administration's approach to cryptocurrency regulation. The authors claim that the decline in bitcoin's price from its 2025 peak vindicates their administration's approach, but this argument has been labeled as a masterclass in selective memory. The op-ed omits the most consequential fact about Biden-era crypto policy: it was not a reasoned regulatory framework, but rather a strategy of regulation-by-enforcement that had a perverse effect on the industry. The administration's approach drove legitimate companies offshore or out of business, harmed consumers, and stifled American innovation, while allowing bad actors to thrive in the confusion. The authors also conveniently ignore one of the most troubling episodes of the Biden era: 'Operation Choke Point 2.0,' which saw banks systematically debanking lawful crypto businesses without due process or legislative authority. The Biden administration's approach cut consumers off from tools they were using to participate in the financial system, without putting a single policy through the democratic process of notice-and-comment rulemaking. The authors' dismissal of crypto as a 'painfully slow and expensive database' with 'almost no practical use' has also been criticized, as it ignores the significant benefits of crypto in enabling fast, low-cost cross-border remittances for millions of people. The use of blockchain technology in financial applications is also growing rapidly, with major companies such as Fidelity, JPMorgan, and Visa actively building on blockchain infrastructure. The op-ed's claim that no 'giant tech firms' are using this technology is flatly wrong. The authors' use of short-term price movements to condemn an entire asset class has been labeled as analytically unserious, and their invocation of the straw man of a taxpayer-funded bailout of the crypto industry has been criticized as a red herring. The stablecoin legislation referenced by the authors creates fully reserved payment instruments that are overcollateralized with liquid government bonds, and the Trump administration's bitcoin reserve proposal involves no new taxpayer expenditure. The Biden administration's authorization of extraordinary measures to guarantee all deposits when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 2023 has also been cited as an example of selective concern about moral hazard. The op-ed's implication that the crypto industry's political donations are corrupt has been criticized as a double standard, given the significant donations made by Sam Bankman-Fried to the Democratic party. The Biden administration had a historic opportunity to establish the United States as the global leader in digital asset regulation, but instead chose to weaponize the banking system against a legal industry, creating a lose-lose-lose for innovation, consumer protection, and the U.S. crypto ecosystem.