Original author: Amrith Ramkumar, Wall Street Journal reporter
Original translation: Luffy, Foresight News
When Donald Trump picked Bo Hines to take a senior position in his administration’s cryptocurrency department, crypto executives panicked.
After the appointment was announced in December, several executives recalled that they researched Hines and found little background on Bitcoin other than a former college football player and an unsuccessful congressional campaign in North Carolina.
Today, Hines, the executive director of the President’s Digital Asset Advisory Committee appointed by Trump, has become a liaison between the government and businesses as well as Capitol Hill. The 29-year-old is actually the day-to-day executor of the government’s plans to promote the development of the cryptocurrency industry, working with David Sacks, a well-known venture capitalist and head of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs.
Crypto executives said Sacks has taken on more of a high-level agenda-setting role, adding that they have been impressed so far by Hines’s knowledge of the industry’s major policy issues. On Friday, Hines and the White House will host a cryptocurrency summit for crypto companies.
“I’m like a quarterback making sure everybody on the field is on the right path,” Hines said in an interview.
Hines is helping the White House push bills outlining how cryptocurrencies should be regulated through Congress over the next five months. He is evaluating the feasibility of establishing a national cryptocurrency reserve while playing a role in overturning the Biden administrations regulatory actions against leading companies in the crypto industry.
Kara Calvert, head of U.S. policy at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, who has met with Hines, described him as taking seriously the deadlines set out in Trump’s executive order on cryptocurrency signed in January. “It’s a tough nut to crack, and he’s done a great job of doing that,” she said. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently dismissed its lawsuit against Coinbase.
The cryptocurrency industry has become a major player in Washington after pouring money into Trump’s presidential campaign and inauguration, and donating about $170 million last year to elect friendly lawmakers. Trump has shown support for the industry and even launched his own Memecoin.
Hines, who was once endorsed by Trump, is running for a vacant House seat in his home state of North Carolina in 2022
Before joining the administration, Hines led an “anti-woke” media company that worked with a cryptocurrency project that issued a Trump-backed Memcoin, whose value has fluctuated wildly over the last year.
Unknown to many in the industry at the time of his appointment, Hines had been investing in cryptocurrencies for nearly a decade after learning about the industry while attending a bowl game sponsored by a Bitcoin company. He sold his cryptocurrency holdings to avoid conflicts of interest while serving in government. He also studied cryptocurrency regulatory issues in law school.
“He’s one of the very few people who can balance the cryptocurrency space with Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ message,” said Dan Spuller, senior director of industry affairs at the Blockchain Association.
Critics say the desire to push cryptocurrencies into a more mainstream position could have drawbacks.
“If you start integrating cryptocurrencies into the financial system, you have to be very sure that there are safeguards in place to limit the damage that can be done,” said Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat who has not yet met with Hines.
Hines will be at the heart of the debate over legislation to regulate stablecoins, a widely used type of cryptocurrency that is often pegged to a government-issued currency such as the U.S. dollar.
Expect a messy debate over bills that would draw clear lines between SEC and CFTC regulation.
Companies are also divided over national digital asset reserves, which are seen as a potential boon for the industry if they lead to new government purchases. Hines said the government would first need to count the crypto assets it currently owns.
In recent weeks, Hines has considered replacing the president’s digital asset council with a series of summits of industry executives, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump is expected to speak at the summit at the White House on Friday.
Hines, wearing No. 82, was a wide receiver at North Carolina State University in 2014.
Hines spent most of his life in North Carolina before recently moving to Washington, D.C. Football is a sport that runs in his family: His father played briefly for the Detroit Lions.
As a freshman at North Carolina State in 2014, Hines was a standout wide receiver, catching passes from future NFL star Jacoby Brissett. He later transferred to Yale, where a shoulder injury ended his athletic career, and then attended Wake Forest Law School, where he studied issues including how the CFTC regulates cryptocurrencies.
According to Raina Haque, Hines’ former professor, Hines has shown interest in the field but is not an avid Bitcoin supporter. “He’s not one of those enthusiasts who sees cryptocurrency as a panacea to all the world’s problems,” she said.
Hines ran for an open House seat in his home state of North Carolina in 2022 and echoed Trumps claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump endorsed Hines, but he lost in a close race. His campaign was funded by a trust and a political action committee founded by a former FTX executive.
Hines has been criticized by Democrats for handing out Chinese-made hats to voters while calling for an America First economic agenda.
Hines ran for the House seat again last year but lost in the primary.
While Hines was playing, he participated in the 2014 Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, sponsored by Bitcoin payment processor BitPay. The game’s logo included an orange circle with a white “B” inside it, a symbol commonly used to represent cryptocurrency.
Hines bought his first bitcoin soon after that tournament and then began investing in other crypto assets. “Their marketing worked,” he said.
