President-elect Trump has named Stephen Miran, a former Treasury adviser and vocal advocate for lighter crypto regulation, as his pick to lead the Council of Economic Advisers.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Stephen Miran to serve as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, adding another crypto-friendly voice to an incoming administration that has made digital asset policy a priority. The announcement, made on December 22nd, continues a pattern of appointments that signals a sharp pivot away from the regulatory approach of the Biden era.
Who Is Stephen Miran
Miran holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and served as a senior adviser for economic policy at the Treasury Department during Trump's first term. Since leaving government, he has worked as an economics fellow at the Manhattan Institute and as a senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management. He is known for his views on deregulation, trade policy, and the role of innovation in economic growth.
On crypto specifically, Miran has been more outspoken than most economists at his level. He has argued publicly that financial deregulation is essential for innovation and that digital assets have a significant role to play in driving an economic boom. In 2023 he tweeted the well-known pro-Bitcoin phrase "Bitcoin fixes this," a signal that landed well with the crypto community even if it raised eyebrows in traditional economic circles. He has also argued that much of the innovation of recent decades, citing Uber, Airbnb, and crypto, came from people finding ways to work around excessive regulation rather than within it.
A Pattern of Pro-Crypto Appointments
Miran's nomination fits neatly into the broader picture Trump has been assembling since the election. The president-elect has already pledged to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one, named Paul Atkins as his preferred replacement, and floated the idea of a national bitcoin strategic reserve. The appointment of a CEA chair who openly advocates for lighter crypto regulation reinforces the message that this administration intends to treat digital assets as a legitimate and important part of the financial system.
The Council of Economic Advisers does not set regulatory policy directly, but it advises the president on economic strategy and helps shape the intellectual framework within which policy decisions are made. Having a CEA chair who views crypto favourably could influence everything from tax treatment of digital assets to how aggressively federal agencies pursue enforcement actions against the industry.
What It Means for the Industry
For the crypto industry, the Miran appointment is the latest in a series of signals that the regulatory climate in Washington is about to shift dramatically. Bitcoin has already rallied past $100,000 since the election, and much of the market's optimism is priced around the expectation that the incoming administration will be friendlier to digital assets than its predecessor.
Whether that optimism is fully justified will depend on whether appointments like Miran's translate into concrete policy changes. Campaign rhetoric and Twitter posts are one thing; rewriting the regulatory framework for a multi-trillion dollar asset class is another. But at a minimum, the direction of travel is clear, and for an industry that has spent the past two years fighting enforcement actions and hostile regulation, that alone is cause for cautious optimism.
