On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, sent all Justice Department employees a memo titled “Ending Regulation By Prosecution.” It said the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team “shall be disbanded effective immediately,” stopped prosecutions of exchanges, mixing services and wallets “for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations,” and ordered that “Ongoing investigations that are inconsistent with the foregoing should be closed.” It quoted Trump: “[w]e are going to end the regulatory weaponization against digital assets.”
The decision came as the president's family was building its own crypto businesses (see The Trump Family Launched a Crypto Company During the 2024 Campaign, and It Became One of His Largest Sources of Income). Reuters described the policy shift as happening “under President Donald Trump, whose family is building its own crypto enterprise,” and CNBC noted it benefits an industry “in which he holds a personal stake.” Six Democratic senators wrote on April 10 that the decisions “give rise to concerns that President Trump's interest in selling his cryptocurrency may be the reason for easing law enforcement scrutiny.” No document shows that motive.
What ProPublica did establish is Blanche's own stake. He held between $159,000 and $485,000 in crypto when he signed the memo, and his ethics agreement had promised he would sell it within 90 days of confirmation and stay out of matters that could affect it. He divested later, by transferring the holdings to his adult children and a grandchild, which experts told ProPublica is technically legal but at odds with the spirit of the law. The Justice Department said the matter was “appropriately flagged, addressed, and cleared in advance.” The senators wrote again: “At the very least, you had a glaring conflict of interest and should have recused yourself.” Blanche's 2026 financial disclosure says the department's inspector general “declined further action” on a matter involving his crypto trades, according to the Washington Sun.