Hassett kept up to $5 million Coinbase stake as Trump reshaped crypto policy

retained text

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett held between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares in crypto giant Coinbase at the end of 2025, as President Donald Trump's administration rapidly rewrote federal cryptocurrency policy.
Hassett's previously unreported 2025 annual financial disclosure lists the investment as vested Coinbase shares. He formerly worked as an advisor to the company. The filing shows he had not fully divested from the company nearly 11 months into Trump's second term. While the filing was recently released, it doesn't indicate whether Hassett still holds the shares as it covers only 2025.
Three days after taking office in 2025, Trump established the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets within the NEC. His executive order included Hassett's White House position or a designee as a member and required the group's final recommendations to reach Trump through Hassett's office.
The group, chaired by the then-White House crypto advisor David Sacks, went on to propose sweeping regulatory changes to digital-asset markets, banking, stablecoin and taxation. The administration has also reversed Biden-era crypto policies, created a government bitcoin reserve and pushed Congress toward a broader federal regulatory framework.
Hassett, who advised Coinbase from 2021 until January 2025 before joining the White House, has said he stayed out of crypto matters while ethics officials addressed his investment.
The White House declined to answer CNBC's questions about whether Hassett still holds the shares or whether holding them has prevented him from working on matters within his office's purview.
When CNBC asked about the shares in June 2025, Hassett said he had not sold them because he did not want to create the appearance that he was timing a sale. He said he had received guidance from "the ethics people" and was determining "what needs to be done."
"Meanwhile, I have recused from any matter that's related to crypto," Hassett said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
The White House, in response to CNBC's questions about the new financial disclosure, indicated that recusal continues.
"Since day one, Kevin Hassett has and continues to be in full compliance with all ethical requirements, including his recusal from all cryptocurrency-related matters," White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CNBC in a statement.
The holdings raise questions, an ethics expert said, about whether Hassett's Coinbase stake created potential overlaps with his official duties and whether managing those conflicts through recusal sidelined one of Trump's top economic advisors from a major policy priority housed within the council he leads.
"I think he's got a major conflict of interest, or the appearance of one," said Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund.
What remains unclear is what a recusal means in practice — which meetings, decisions or policy discussions has Hassett avoided and how much of his work as NEC director has it affected.
The crypto working group's final report lists Robin Colwell, a deputy assistant to the president for national economic policy, as the NEC representative rather than Hassett.
But recusal can only solve so much, said Canter, who previously served as an ethics lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission. If Hassett's recusal extended broadly across crypto, it could have sidelined him from a major part of his job, she said, like coordinating economic policy across agencies such as the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, all of which were represented on the crypto working group.
"Crypto was a major initiative of the Trump administration," Canter said. "Did [Hassett] not review anything in crypto? Did he not participate in any meeting with the administration on policy? Did everyone know not to talk about crypto around him? I doubt it."
During Trump's second term, crypto has also become a major source of personal income for the president. Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family's cryptocurrency ventures in 2025, including through Trump-linked World Liberty Financial.
Meanwhile, Coinbase, whose shares have tanked since Trump returned to office, has been a key player in the industry's push for a new federal regulatory framework.
Just over a month into Trump's term, the SEC dismissed with prejudice its enforcement lawsuit against Coinbase, meaning it can't bring the same claim again. The SEC said the move was intended to facilitate its broader overhaul of cryptocurrency regulation and was not based on an assessment of the merits of the case, which in 2023 charged Coinbase with operating an unregistered securities exchange and for failing to properly register its crypto staking program.
Coinbase was also a major financial backer of the Fairshake super PAC and its affiliates during the 2024 elections, and crypto groups have continued spending heavily ahead of this year's midterms as the industry presses Congress to pass new digital-asset rules.
Coinbase has pledged another $25 million in spending ahead of this year's midterms as the crypto industry presses Congress to pass new digital-asset rules.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has repeatedly met with Trump and senior White House officials. He attended Trump's White House crypto summit in March 2025, met privately with Trump this March and returned to the White House in August as Trump pressed Congress to pass the Clarity Act.
That push remains active. Armstrong told CNBC on Thursday that the Clarity Act was "ready to get a yes vote" ahead of a key Senate vote expected Sept. 15. Even if the bill fails, he said, SEC and CFTC rulemaking would provide the industry greater regulatory clarity.
"We're going to get regulatory clarity one way or another," Armstrong said.

document fetched 2026-09-11 02:59 · canonical https://cnbc.com/2026/09/10/kevin-hassett-coinbase-stock-trump-crypto-recusal.html