CLS Blue Sky Blog

Skadden Discusses the Trump Administration’s Comprehensive Report on Digital Assets

Executive Summary

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On July 30, 2025, the Trump administration’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets issued its long-awaited report on digital assets, “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” (the Report).1 The Report is the culmination of a mandate from President Donald Trump’s January 23, 2025, executive order on digital assets that established the working group and gave it 180 days to develop pro-innovation regulatory and legislative recommendations in the digital asset sector.

The comprehensive 160-page report sets forth a broad and optimistic strategic vision for the United States to lead the world in digital assets, blockchain innovation and the modernization of financial infrastructure. After a lengthy “Crypto 101” introduction, the Report offers some 100 policy and legislative recommendations across five key areas:

  1. Digital asset market structure
  2. Banking and digital assets
  3. Stablecoins and payments
  4. Countering illicit finance
  5. Taxation

In each subject area, the Report also outlines the applicable regulators and regulations, and a history of how those regulations have been applied. As discussed below, the recommendations are a combination of proposed legislation, as well as agency rulemaking, proposals for exemptions and interpretive guidance.

We outline below the key recommendations and offer our insights on their potential impact.

1. Digital Asset Market Structure

The Report sets out a number of short- and long-term recommendations for regulators and Congress to create a comprehensive regulatory framework. The Report differentiates between digital assets that are securities and digital assets that are nonsecurities, recommending the former be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the latter by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In doing so, the Report recommends clarifications to the jurisdictional boundaries and responsibilities of the two agencies that would provide an efficient and tailored ecosystem for the trading of digital assets. This marks an important pivot from the previous administration’s classification of nearly all digital assets as securities, which critics viewed as slowing or halting innovation in the space.

The report gives the two agencies flexibility to provide this clarity through either formal rulemaking, which can provide longer-term certainty to market participants, or through informal guidance — such as no-action relief — which can be issued quickly but is less durable.

By encouraging the SEC and CFTC to provide this clarity, the Report underscores the current administration’s support for continued growth in the digital finance sector.

Key Recommendations for SEC Rulemaking and Guidance

Key Recommendations for CFTC Rulemaking and Guidance

Key Legislative Recommendations for Congress

The SEC and CFTC have already begun pushing forward some of these initiatives. Shortly after the report was released, SEC Chair Atkins announced the agency’s Project Crypto, which includes initiatives such as clarifying what digital assets are securities. CFTC Acting Chair Pham announced an initiative to permit the trading of spot cryptoasset contracts that are listed on a CFTC-registered futures exchange.

2. Banking and Digital Assets

This section of the Report addresses the critical intersection between the traditional banking sector and the emerging digital asset economy. It acknowledges that banks and credit unions are essential to the safe and efficient functioning of digital asset markets, providing core services such as custody, payments and lending.

The Report cites regulatory uncertainty and inconsistent supervisory practices as having hindered banks’ ability to innovate and serve digital asset clients. The recommendations call for a technology-neutral, risk-based approach to bank engagement with digital assets, to ensure that banks can safely and competitively offer digital asset services without unnecessary regulatory barriers.

This section also highlights the need for clear guidance on:

Key Recommendations

3. Stablecoins and Payments

The stablecoins and payments section recognizes the transformative potential of well-regulated, U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins to modernize payment systems, enhance financial inclusion and reinforce the global dominance of the U.S. dollar.

The Report highlights the need for robust regulatory standards to ensure the safety, transparency and reliability of stablecoins, while also making clear the U.S. government’s opposition to a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that could undermine the private sector’s role in payments and threaten individual privacy.

The recommendations are designed to create a clear, innovation-friendly framework for stablecoin issuance and use, promote U.S. leadership in international payments, and protect consumers from misleading claims and systemic risks.

Key Recommendations

4. Countering Illicit Finance

This section addresses the dual imperative of protecting the U.S. financial system from illicit finance risks — such as money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasion — while preserving the privacy and rights of lawful users and supporting responsible innovation.

The Report recognizes that digital assets present both new opportunities and unique challenges for anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) and sanctions enforcement. It highlights risks presented by digital assets — including their use in criminal schemes and by U.S. adversaries to generate revenue for weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.

According to the Report, illicit actors can exploit several vulnerabilities present in the digital assets ecosystem, including anonymity-enhancing technologies such as mixers and chain-hopping. Opportunity for regulatory arbitrage also exists, given inconsistent application of AML/CFT and sanctions compliance obligations across key jurisdictions.

The recommendations call for:

The section also emphasizes the importance of international cooperation and the need to modernize enforcement tools to address the global and borderless nature of digital assets. The Report shows that while promoting innovation and American leadership in digital assets is the goal, countering illicit finance remains a priority.

Key Recommendations

5. Taxation

The taxation section recognizes that the rapid growth and unique characteristics of digital assets have outpaced existing tax laws and guidance, creating uncertainty for taxpayers, businesses and regulators. In our view, it is refreshing to see a frank acknowledgment from the government that rules written for brick-and-mortar businesses selling widgets do not always lend themselves well to the digital asset space.

To that end, the Report calls for a comprehensive update to tax rules and administrative guidance to address issues such as the:

The recommendations appear designed to provide increased clarity and certainty for taxpayers, ensure fair and effective taxation, prevent tax evasion, and align U.S. rules with emerging global standards for digital asset reporting and information exchange.

The Report also devotes significant time to detailing ways in which the current guidance for digital assets and the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) may not properly interact. In general, the Report reflects an openness to addressing tax challenges that the digital asset community has identified.

Key Recommendations

Other Key Topics

Conclusion

The Report provides a comprehensive and actionable blueprint for U.S. leadership in digital financial technology, balancing the imperatives of innovation, robust regulation, consumer protection and global competitiveness. How these recommendations get implemented will greatly influence the Report’s ultimate impact.

ENDNOTE

1 The working group is chaired by David Sacks, the president’s special adviser for AI and crypto, and includes a wide range of representatives from departments and agencies, including Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline Pham and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought.

This post comes to us from  Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. It is based on the firm’s memorandum, “A Closer Look at the Trump Administration’s Comprehensive Report on Digital Assets,” date August 8, 2025, and available here. 

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