Trump’s Crypto Summit: What Is It, Who’s Going, and Why the ‘Crypto Council’ Fell Apart

The White House is set to hold its first-ever crypto summit on Friday—and most industry bigwigs are jockeying for a seat at the table. 

The inaugural crypto summit is likely to be run by AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks and essentially supplants President Donald Trump’s promised “crypto council,” which the administration quietly ditched in recent weeks as crypto industry infighting threatened to undo political goodwill, sources told Decrypt.

Formal invites to the summit began trickling out Tuesday. Confirmed attendees include Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor, Multicoin Capital managing partner Kyle Samani, and Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, among others. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev hinted at his attendance in a vague post to X, but company representatives did not immediately return Decrypt’s request for comment.

Coinbase and Kraken also confirmed to Decrypt that the American crypto exchanges’ respective CEOs, Brian Armstrong and Arjun Sethi, will be in attendance Friday. A Ripple spokesperson, meanwhile, declined to comment on whether CEO Brad Garlinghouse received an invite. 

Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, a crypto lobbying group, told Decrypt that Friday’s summit should include around 20 to 25 industry leaders, most of whom will be founders and CEOs of larger crypto companies.

On the Trump administration side, besides Sacks, the summit may also feature members of the White House’s digital assets working group, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the acting heads of the SEC and CFTC. 

In January, days after taking office, Trump signed a crypto-specific executive order establishing a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets. The working group, as detailed, consisted entirely of Trump administration officials. 

Multiple crypto lobbyists told Decrypt that the announcement of this working group caught them entirely off-guard back in January. Weeks prior, Trump had pledged to create a permanent crypto council that would grant industry leaders direct, ongoing access to the White House and the president’s closest advisors. 

Trump officials, however, quietly moved away from and then ultimately ditched those plans at some point in January. Multiple sources familiar with the matter told Decrypt that any plans for a permanent White House crypto council featuring industry leaders are now officially dead.

Instead, the White House will hold sporadic crypto summits with industry players, like the one set for Friday. It seems likely the Trump administration will additionally convene meetings of its internal crypto working group on a more regular basis.    

Why did Trump nix his crypto council? Sources told Decrypt that an uptick in infighting among industry factions warring for different priorities, plus an overwhelming demand for seats on the council, likely played a part in the decision. 

“I would say they made an excellent strategic decision to keep a pissing match outside of the White House, as opposed to bringing it inside the White House,” one source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told Decrypt. 

As lawmakers and White House officials take their first stabs at creating favorable rules for the industry, crypto leaders have begun to splinter—sometimes publicly, and sometimes with vitriol—on key issues. 

Sensitive questions that have stirred acrimony in recent weeks include whether non-American stablecoin issuers like Tether should continue to have access to U.S. Treasuries, and if any tokens besides Bitcoin should be included in a federal crypto reserve.

Over time, in such an environment, a crypto council could have easily become a breeding ground for conflict. It could have also alienated many industry players off the bat.

“I did worry that a council would be perceived as picking winners and losers by limiting it to only a small group,” the Blockchain Association’s Kristin Smith said. 

Smith added that an ongoing series of crypto summits at the White House will allow for many more voices from the industry to engage directly with the Trump Administration. 

This week alone, the lobbyist said she has observed “huge demand” from industry players for inclusion in Friday’s summit—only furthering her belief that a crypto council, as originally planned, would not have turned out well.