The departure of President Donald Trump's crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, was not a surprise, but it leaves the White House without an explicit digital assets policy presence.

The White House insists that crypto remains a priority. Yet when the president recently named a new artificial intelligence czar, the role — once split between crypto and AI — no longer carried a crypto remit.

A policy push goes quiet

When Trump returned to the White House last year, he not only shed his earlier resistance to crypto but embraced the industry, hiring a high-profile crypto czar and establishing his President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets. Almost two years later, that policy push appears to have gone quiet, following the departure of Witt, who had been the final crypto adviser running the office.

So who is minding the store for crypto policy at the White House? It is not clear, even as a handful of people on Capitol Hill continue to suggest the final weeks of the congressional session after the November elections could still bring legislative action for the industry. The White House retains a staff of policy advisers, and the administration has several crypto regulatory efforts in motion at agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. But no new name has been explicitly attached to Trump's in-house crypto initiatives.

A White House official told CoinDesk on Thursday that Witt's work was appreciated and wished him "the best of luck in the future endeavors." The official did not comment on who would take over.

"Crypto and Clarity Act will continue to be a priority for the president," the official said.

From Sacks to Hines to Witt

The White House's digital assets policy operation was never large, but its advisers were highly vocal at times, and their presence put an important administrative stamp on crypto goals. The effort began several weeks before Trump returned to office in 2025, when the president-elect named David Sacks, the former PayPal executive, as his incoming AI and crypto czar.

Trump also tapped Bo Hines, a then little-known former college football player, as the first director of the digital assets advisory council — at first a one-person effort, later adding a deputy. Hines quickly became the crypto face of the White House, holding constant meetings with crypto insiders and appearing on event stages. His roughly eight-month tenure concluded with a major win for the industry in Congress: the passage into law of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

A White House signing and celebration followed, with many of crypto's most prominent names given front-row seats. Less than two weeks later, the administration released a comprehensive crypto agenda setting out its specific plans for fostering the sector in the U.S.

Having helped establish U.S. law for stablecoin issuers, Hines took a job running the U.S. arm of the leading issuer, Tether. Meanwhile, Nxum, a consulting firm he set up with his father and another partner, was also paid millions of dollars as the main provider of services for a new political action committee, first revealed in CoinDesk reporting. The super PAC was funded mostly by Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether's U.S. financial partner, and was led by a Tether executive.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Hines' Nxum had received payments from Tether for consulting services while Hines was at the White House working on the GENIUS Act.

Witt, Hines' deputy on the council, succeeded him as executive director. Another former football star, Witt brought greater depth of Washington experience and became the face of the White House's push for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Over the ensuing months of negotiations, Witt did not conceal his frustration, regularly taking to social media site X to fume about those he saw as standing in the way of the Senate bill that would erect a U.S. regulatory framework for crypto markets.

A stalled bill and a late-night confirmation

During that legislative process, Sacks stepped down from the czar role in March, leaving Witt and his deputy, Harry Jung, to manage the administration's crypto stance. The task was complicated by the prominence of President Trump's own crypto empire in the talks, as Democrats demanded that senior government officials be blocked from personal crypto ties.

As negotiations dragged further into the year — and closer to the elections — the White House offered concessions that would have applied unprecedented ethics constraints on the president's digital assets involvement, though Democrats concluded the agreement did not go far enough.

Witt confirmed in July that he had military-service commitments ahead with the Georgia National Guard, but stayed to complete the Clarity Act negotiations, even as his deputy left to join Hines' Nxum. The legislation slammed into a political roadblock a month ago, failing to advance in a Senate floor vote before the chamber dispersed for a lengthy break ahead of next month's elections. The failed vote left the broader market-structure framework unenacted, in contrast with the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act that became law during Hines' tenure.

After rumors circulated this week that Witt had already exited, he posted on X at around midnight Wednesday to confirm his departure. He thanked the agency chiefs and lawmakers who had helped with Clarity, saying, "with regulators and elected officials like you, I rest easy knowing the future of digital asset innovation in America is bright." He said he would be moving into the private sector.

No clear successor in sight

Crypto insiders say they are unsure who they will be dealing with, as their market-structure hopes have largely fizzled for the moment. When Trump moved earlier this month to re-establish an AI overseer, hiring former SEC Chairman and current intelligence director Jay Clayton to lead his Super Intelligence Force, the job description no longer mentioned a crypto element. While AI and crypto share some overlapping territory, Clayton comes with a rocky crypto history: he was the SEC chief who first set the agency on the course that would later be labeled "regulation by enforcement." Attention now turns to whether the White House attaches a new name to its in-house crypto initiatives — and whether the Senate revisits the Clarity Act when it returns after the November elections.