Trump and Crypto: The Privacy Coin Dilemma

A lot of people see Donald Trump as the first "crypto president" since he really pushed to make crypto more accessible in the U.S. and beyond. He managed to wrap up some big investigations into crypto leaders and even pardoned Ross Ulbricht and Changpeng Zhao. But when it comes to privacy coins, things aren’t looking great. In fact, they’re actually facing more scrutiny. There are new laws being discussed in Congress that might end up banning private coins altogether. David Sacks, who was the crypto czar under Trump, is actually backing this ban. Crypto exchanges in the U.S. aren’t just sitting back. In March 2025, Kraken stopped trading XMR for clients in the EEA. Binance pulled the coin from their listings even earlier that year. Then in April 2025, Poloniex also delisted Monero globally. On the bright side, you can still buy Zcash in the U.S. through platforms like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Phemex. Overall, the vibe for anonymous coins is pretty bleak. By 2025, 73 exchanges around the world had removed at least one privacy coin from their platforms, up from 51 in 2023. On the flip side, crypto gateways keep supporting these anonymous coins. People can legally buy them through Cryptomus, NOWPayments, CoinPayments, and CoinRemitter. This could lead to ZCash and Monero being used more for corporate and retail transactions. Plus, Grayscale converting the ZCash Trust into a spot ZEC ETF might get some institutional eyes on it.

It is not new at all. They ban privacy coins, but the privacy coins are getting to all-time high. If the United States ban privacy coins, that does not mean they will not get to all-time high in the next bull market. Also that does not mean people that are using them for privacy purposes will not be able to use them. There are many exchanges that delisted them few years ago, so there is no problem because they still have their value.

This shouldn't even be something surprising. They have long tried to sensor all Privacy enhancing asset. Monero had already started being delisted from many centralized exchanges some years back, only a few and not well known exchanges still offers them. The question we should ask our self now is that, is having a little bit more privacy too much to ask? Or does the government just want to monitor all our activities so they know our next moves before we make them? If bitcoin offer a complete privacy feature like cash or xmr, I'm very sure it would have been facing similar issues like the rest. And least I forget, trump's agenda towards crypto is just for his own gains, not like he actually likes cryptocurrency to some extent he knew what the people would want and used it to his own advantage..

For many times government attack those privacy coins and they try to limit its exposure to people. They made several actions like urging those big exchange to delist those coins, but government didn't succeed since despite of those attack they made. Privacy coins still got lots of demand and this is the reason why it still reach its new all time high. People don't have problem even if they can only buy them on small exchange, as long as they can continue to use those privacy coin for personal matters.

"Freed Crypto"? Is that what we call extracting billions of dollars via his memecoins draining the market's liquidity and scaring investors away? For almost everyone I know his presidency has been a portfolio death spiral.

While it is becoming long term, I am starting to see that he's not so dedicated in it. As we can see, there's other focus in the matters that he has to attest and that's why to say that he's dedicated enough, I can give him props for what he has started but not too dedicated alone. And for the privacy coins, I think that we'll get to see more stoppage from the government themselves because they believe that it's a type of crypto where money laundering, terrorist funding is happening. If ever people get into privacy coins, it's all driven by its community who truly believes in its purposes.

But you do know that crypto firms bankrolled Trump's victory, right? More than that, they're still bribing him to this day—through participation and support for his family's crypto projects, buying tokens and memecoins tied to Trump. Even now, crypto money is being spent to back Republicans

Not surprising at all, governments have always been at odds with true privacy coin. The reason ZEC can get its ETF and rarely got delisted is because ZEC itself is an opt-in privacy and many people used t-addresses. XMR on the other hand, will always be on the verge of delisting because government push.

The reason for this is pretty obvious. Privacy coins pose a real threat to the entire banking system. NOT traditional cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Why? Because privacy coins' transactions are completely obfuscated from banks and governments. It's difficult (if not impossible) to keep track of your financial life. With Bitcoin and similar coins, that's not the case. It's why legislation has been in favor of such cryptos. I once thought Donald Trump would pardon Tornado Cash's developers, but now I hardly believe it. Expect to see more pain ahead for privacy coins over the course of their lifetime.

The attack on privacy coins and privacy infrastructures is one major area Trump failed since he poses as pro freedom president. I remembered during covid how he championed freedom for vaccination and have remained active is speaking against mandates. I though he would transfer the same energy to bitcoin, privacy and even infrastructures that support privacy such as mixers. I feel disappointed in him seeing that the war on mixers and privacy coins still persist till this day despite how much power he has to enforce freedom of everything.

How is he pro-crypto president when he doesn't understand anything about cryptocurrencies? All this pro-crypto talk is just signaling to his voters he wants their support from. He doesn't understand what any of that means. As long as they can enrich his family, he will fly under their flag, but that doesn't mean that he supports them. Far from it. That ship will turn immediately if those same crypto bros doesn't support his own crypto scams. And if you think he can separate privacy cryptos, you are giving too much credit for his awareness.

Apparently, Trump gives a pass to anyone who is useful for his crypto business. Though sometimes, it borders on the absolute absurd. For instance, the CFTC is going to refund a fine that Gemini has already paid. This is complete regulatory nonsense.

No, he didn't free crypto.  He just freed the grift so he and his family could profit from it.  Now what could get interesting is the lawsuit Justin Sun has against World Liberty Financial, esp if they don't settle and things progress to the Discovery phase.

Trump is just trying to give a clarity to the crypto in US. Just because he said he would help crypto, it doesn't mean he's pro to the anon coin. Since when regulators want to allow anon coin that can be used for money laundering in their country? This is why you should never believe in what politician said. A politician has so many faces, and they acted to thing that give benefit to them. The best example is to allow prediction market, so trump close people could extracting money from there use insider information.

Trump just want to bring crypto to higher level of legal compliance, all these regulation is to make crypto clear as an asset hence the crypto bills that have passed. He never talked about making privacy coins the norm and never promise about it. My theory is, trump don't want to be the one blamed for legalizing XMR, a privacy coin.

People thinking that Trump ever wanted to do anything good for bitcoin are making me laugh. You think, the dude that literally kicked people out of their homes just so he could tear it down and make more money, and failed to do even that and then bankrupted so he made no money while people stayed homeless, that ruthless guy, did something FOR YOU? Seriously? You have to be kidding me. No, he did it, because he created his own fake tokens, took hundreds of millions of dollars from people, scammed them, took the money, and left people to misery.

I think there is only a missing word in the title which is 'by' and it is actually read like this: Trump Freed by Crypto. Lol. But even BTC, had a tagline like that (Financial Freedom). Not only investors but also or mostly those fraudsters are living that dream or promise. This is its other side and not just by us having a uncontrollable type of a currency or even an asset. But what you said there is also freeing crypto because not just Trump but also other many people are now going to flee from it. Luckily there is still people that are open-minded to think that not all crypto or people on crypto are like that. They can also see it because these people invest only on the proper projects.

There’s no denying that the Trump family is deeply involved in the crypto business and making a killing from it. However, making money—even on Trump memecoins—is only possible in a bull market. Trump was the one who made that growth happen in the first place. Mind you, he is also the one to blame for the subsequent crypto crash

I think his memecoin is done and not even a bullrun could revive it. Too much trust lost, the liquidity is too fragmented. And I doubt they are insane enough to ever launch another memecoin, which would take a bullrun to success anyway.

Well, Trump is a billionaire. He's a friend of banks. It would be in his best interests to give the "green light" for traditional cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc), while opposing privacy coins. The latter can't be tracked or traced by the government, making it impossible to "spy" on your financial life. It makes sense to regulate privacy coins with an "iron fist". Crypto was never about pleasing the regulators. But rather about giving monetary freedom to the people. I sure hope that the "institutionalization" of crypto doesn't ruin its original vision/purpose, or banks will ultimately win. Only time will tell...