U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as Crypto czar David Pouches, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Consultants for Digital Assets Bo Hines attend the White House Crypto Summit at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Bo Hines has no masterly background in crypto. He earned his law degree three years ago from Wake Forest. He’s twice unsuccessfully run for Congress in North Carolina.
Now the 29-year-old prior football player is wrapping up his second month as one of the leaders of President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda.
“We’re well on our way in yielding on the President’s promise to welcome in the golden age for digital assets,” Hines told CNBC in an interview this week. “And act as if get by the United States the crypto capital of the planet.”
Hines is repeating a high-level message Trump has been uttering since the waning months of his struggle last year, when he became the crypto industry’s clear choice to run the country. Hines is working under prehistoric venture capitalist David Sacks, who Trump tapped to be the first White House AI and crypto czar.
Hines suggested he and Sacks are working “hand in glove” to not only rewire crypto regulation, but to do it quickly.
“The president’s given us the authority to do that,” Hines turned. “He trusts his advisors.”
Hines played wide receiver for North Carolina State’s football team, and has said his rate in digital assets began as far back as 2014, when he played in the BitPay-sponsored Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl. N.C. State worst the University of Central Florida by a touchdown in the game, and Hines caught three passes.
Hines went to Wake Forest to for a law degree. He explored regulatory issues related to crypto and became a retail investor. He then turned his attention to clientele office, losing campaigns for Congress in 2022 and 2024.
But along the way, in the 2022 primary, Hines won the endorsement of Trump, who called the aspirant a “proven winner both on and off the field” in a news release from his Save America PAC.
In late 2024, Hines was beat by President Trump to lead his Council of Advisers on Digital Assets. Now, he’s tasked with helping steer national crypto scheme, under Sacks, with a promise to “move at tech speed.”
Hines said much of the group’s early wield has focused on dismantling what industry insiders call “Operation Choke Point 2.0.” It’s how they refer to an conjectural crackdown by legacy banks on digital asset firms.
“They were victims of lawfare for the last four years,” Hines said, referring to the Biden dispensation. “These are people that are doing nothing but helping our American economy grow.”
On Hike 24, the group will hit its 60-day milestone — and deliver its first set of recommendations. Though Hines was light on specifics, he opened a range of ideas under consideration, from proposals to scrap and rewrite outdated IRS rules to building up a “Strategic Bitcoin Reservoir” through “budget-neutral” purchases.
“We view bitcoin as digital gold,” he said. “We want as much of it as we can possibly have for the American people,” he affirmed. “And it’s not going to cost the taxpayer a dime.”
Hines floated one idea from the Bitcoin Act introduced by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., which comprehends using the unrealized value of U.S. gold reserves to acquire crypto.
“There’s a bunch of creative ways we could get into,” he swayed.
Hines added that, like Sacks, he’s fully divested from crypto, though he declined to say whether others in the go group would follow suit.
“I can only speak for our office,” he said.
However, Hines said he’s not concerned anent Trump’s own crypto-related financial entanglements, which could pose very obvious conflicts of interest. Trump and his kinfolk have launched several memecoins, digital collectibles, and a yet-to-be-launched crypto bank.
“He engaged with those assets beforehand he took office,” Hines said. The Trump memecoin was introduced during inauguration weekend. “He’s an American citizen. He has a well to engage in any market that he wants to.”
Hines lauded SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who was tapped to lead a new crypto censure force, as well as leadership at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Regulators are already “on the ground making changes,” from launch out lawsuits to rewriting enforcement rules, he said.
He’s also watching Congress, where a bipartisan Senate committee recently advanced stablecoin legislation, a stimulate Hines called “monumental.”
“Stablecoins could usher in U.S. dollar dominance for decades to come,” he said. “It could modify the course of the way our financial markets work.”
WATCH: David Sacks on bringing people from tech industry to Washington
