Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer at Coinbase, speaking onstage during the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York Times Square on Sep. 24, 2024 in New York City.
John Lamparski | Getty Images for Concordia Summit
LONDON — Coinbase’s top policy executive expects the United States to rapidly regulate the cryptocurrency industry once Donald Trump becomes president.
Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer at Coinbase, told CNBC he sees crypto legislation making its way through Congress “fairly quickly” after the Republican president-elect — who ran on a notoriously pro-crypto policy platform — enters the White House.
The Republican Party also secured a governing trifecta, gaining control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This, Shirzad suggested, should make the process of approving crypto laws even smoother.
“We have the most pro-crypto Congress ever [in] history, we have an extraordinarily pro-crypto president coming into office,” Shirzad told CNBC last week at an event organized by the U.K. division of Coinbase-backed advocacy group Stand With Crypto.
“I think the combination should finally allow the 50 million Americans who own crypto to have their interests and voice heard in policy.”
His comments come as two key pieces of crypto-related legislation make their way through Congress.
The other is the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act, a bill that seeks to establish a regulatory regime to license issuers of stablecoins — tokens that are pegged to the value of fiat currencies like the dollar. The stablecoin bill has not yet passed a House vote.
Shirzad told CNBC he’s “optimistic” the legislation will get passed, but noted there’s only a “small” chance the crypto legislation is considered in the so-called “lame duck” post-election period.
Even if Congress doesn’t give the crypto laws a green light this year, Shirzad expects “significant movement and hopefully passage of both market structure legislation and stablecoin legislation” in 2025.
Crypto’s lobbying power
Trump’s election win marked a major victory for the crypto industry — but it also highlighted the power of the crypto lobbying machine.
Crypto-related political action committees (PACs) — organizations that pool together donations from members to fund campaigns — and other groups tied to the industry raised more than $245 million, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Meanwhile, the Coinbase-backed Stand With Crypto Alliance developed a grading system to determine how for or against crypto House and Senate candidates were. Almost 300 pro-crypto lawmakers will take seats in the House and Senate, according to Stand With Crypto.
Last month, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler announced that he will step down on Jan. 20, the date of Trump’s inauguration. Trump had long promised to replace Gensler, who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto oversight in his time as SEC chair.
Shirzad said he can’t predict who Trump’s SEC pick will be, but said the president-elect is “very good in picking people who share his vision, and he had a very comprehensive platform on crypto.”
“I think as long as he picks somebody who’s a change agent and who shares his shares his vision, I think it’ll be good for the U.S., good for society, good for the people that own crypto,” he added.
Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin pulled back nearly 3% to just over $113,000. Ether was down more than 4% to the $4,100 level, according to Coin Metrics.
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Bitcoin over the past day
Investors appeared to rotate out of tech names on Tuesday. The sector had seen a boost last week as traders weighed the prospect of more interest rate cuts. Also, bitcoin touched an intraday all-time high near $125,000 last week.
On Tuesday, the Nasdaq Composite was down more than 1%, weighed down by declines in Nvidia and other tech heavyweights.
The crypto market tends to be vulnerable to moves in tech stocks due to their growth-oriented investor base, narrative-driven price action, speculative nature and tendency to thrive in low-interest rate environments.
This week, investors are watching the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. for clues around what could happen at the central bank’s remaining policy meetings this year. If Fed Chair Jerome Powell signals more dovish policy could be ahead, crypto may bounce.
“With Powell speaking at Jackson Hole, we typically see profit-taking ahead of his remarks,” said Satraj Bambra, CEO of hybrid exchange Rails. “Any time there’s communication uncertainty from the Fed, you can generally expect some profit-taking as traders de-risk their positions.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.
“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “So we’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under the Biden administration. We’ll get equity in return for it.”
Shares of the struggling chipmaker climbed 7% Tuesday, continuing to rally on recent reports that the Trump administration is weighing different ways to get involved with the company.
Bloomberg reported Monday that the White House was discussing a 10% stake in Intel, in a deal that could see the U.S. government become the chipmaker’s largest shareholder.
Intel and SoftBank announced on Monday that the Japanese conglomerate will make a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker. The investment, equal to about 2% of Intel, makes SoftBank the fifth-biggest shareholder, according to FactSet.
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Lutnick said any potential arrangement wouldn’t provide the government with voting or governance rights in Intel.
“It’s not governance, we’re just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration, for the American people,” Lutnick said. “Non-voting.”
Intel declined to comment.
Lutnick also suggested that President Donald Trump could seek out similar deals with other CHIPS recipients.
Intel said last fall that it had finalized a nearly $8 billion grant from the law to build its factories. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was awarded $6.6 billion under the legislation to boost chip fabrication at its Arizona facilities.
US President Joe Biden, second left, tours the site of the new Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility near New Albany, Ohio, US, on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022.
Gaelen Morse | Bloomberg | Getty Images
‘Silicon Heartland’
Trump has called for more reshoring of U.S. manufacturing to reduce the country’s reliance on companies like Samsung and TSMC to manufacture chips.
Intel has been spending billions near Columbus, Ohio, to build a series of chip factories that the company previously called the “Silicon Heartland.” Intel has said that the factory complex would be able to produce the most advanced chips, including AI chips.
But in July, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a memo to employees that there would be “no more blank checks,” and that it was slowing down the construction of its Ohio factory complex, depending on market conditions.
The first factory is now scheduled to start operations in 2030.
The Ohio factory was one of the most public projects funded by the CHIPS and Science Act, which became law in 2022. The law committed the U.S. government to fund chip development and research and was estimated to cost about $53 billion.
“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving them money for free,” Lutnick said. “Donald Trump turns that into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action.’ “
Intel has struggled to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom in advanced semiconductors and has spent heavily to stand up a manufacturing business that’s yet to secure a significant customer. Intel tapped Lip-Bu Tan to be its CEO in March after his predecessor, Pat Gelsinger, was ousted in December.
Tan met with Trump at the White House last week after the president called for his resignation, alleging he had ties to China.
Apple has reportedly boosted iPhone production in India as the country faces pressure from the White House over its Russian oil purchases.
“We have planned to up the tariffs on India,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessenttold CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “These are secondary tariffs for buying the sanctioned Russian oil.”
Bessent accused India of “profiteering” by purchasing cheap Russian oil and reselling it during the Ukraine war, “which is unacceptable.”
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on India to 50%. The president said in July that he would impose secondary tariffs “at about 100%” on Russia’s trading partners if a peace deal isn’t reached with Ukraine by September.
His comments came as Bloomberg reported that technology giant Apple has reportedly upped production at five of its factories in India as it readies for the launch of its new iPhone 17 models.
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The expansion includes some new plants and factories belonging to the Tata Group and contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology, according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple is also looking to create a new iPhone 17e in India next year, according to the report.
In recent years, Apple has shifted more production to India as it looks to reduce its reliance on China, especially in the wake of recent trade tensions.
Data from Canalys in May estimated that iPhone shipments from India to the U.S. grew 76% in May as trade restrictions loomed.
At the same time, Apple has committed to investing over $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years to improve American manufacturing production.
That includes a $100 billion spending expansion this month, which included a $2.5 billion investment to expand iPhone glass maker Corning’s production.
This commitment to building in the U.S. should put Apple in the clear on India-related tariffs.