Thorn contends that a recent New York Times op-ed distorts history by omitting the collateral damage inflicted by the prior administration.

Former Biden economic advisers Ryan Cummings and Jared Bernstein want you to believe the drop in bitcoin’s price from its 2025 peak somehow validates their administration’s cryptocurrency strategy. This February 26 New York Times opinion pieceis a masterclass in selective memory, omitting the most critical aspect of Biden-era crypto policy: it was never a reasoned regulatory framework.

The authors attribute to the Biden administration “increasingly aggressive regulatory efforts to curb scams and fraud.” This portrayal is extraordinary considering the events under their tenure. FTX reached massive scale during the Biden presidency. Sam Bankman-Fried, a leading Democratic donor, met with high-level administration officials (including then-SEC Chair Gary Gensler) while orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history.

The administration’s tactic of regulation-by-enforcement, instead of setting explicit rules, produced a perverse outcome: legitimate, compliance-focused companies were pushed offshore or bankrupted, consumers suffered, and American innovation was suppressed. In contrast, bad actors like Bankman-Fried (who understood political maneuvering) flourished in the ambiguity. When clear rules are refused, only those who never intended to comply benefit.

The authors conveniently overlook one of the most alarming episodes of the Biden era: “Operation Choke Point 2.0.” Under pressure from federal regulators, banks systematically debanked lawful crypto businesses, cutting them off from the financial system without due process, formal rulemaking, or legislative backing. This debanking campaign engulfed ordinary individuals and small businesses that had turned to crypto because the traditional banking system had long neglected them. The Biden administration’s approach severed consumers from tools they used to engage with the financial system, without subjecting a single policy to the democratic process of notice-and-comment rulemaking.

The authors dismiss crypto as a “painfully slow and expensive database” with “almost no practical use.” They briefly acknowledge crypto’s use for international wire transfers

but dismiss this as though enabling fast, low-cost cross-border remittances for millions is a trivial accomplishment.

It is not. Global remittance fees average nearly 6.5%, costing migrant workers and their families billions of dollars annually. Stablecoins operating on blockchain networks can execute the same transfers in minutes for a fraction of the cost. This represents an immediate, material financial improvement for families in developing nations. The Biden economists sat in “dozens of meetings” and apparently remained unimpressed. One wonders if they spoke to any of the people these tools serve.

Beyond remittances, blockchain technology supports a rapidly expanding ecosystem of financial applications. Fidelity, JPMorgan, BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Morgan Stanley, Visa, Mastercard, Meta, Stripe, Block Inc., and Franklin Templeton are actively building on blockchain infrastructure. The Biden economists’ assertion that no “giant tech firms” utilize this technology is blatantly incorrect.

The op-ed’s news hook is bitcoin’s price decline. Using short-term price fluctuations to condemn an entire asset class is analytically unsound. Amazon’s stock plummeted 94 percent from its peak during the dotcom bust. By the Cummings-Bernstein standard, it should have been dismissed as “fundamentally worthless.” Volatility is a characteristic of emerging markets, not proof of worthlessness.

Furthermore, it labels the Bitcoin network as “slow.” What it lacks in speed it compensates for in security – a quality that should be paramount for regulators. Outsiders or intermediaries cannot veto or reverse transactions between peers, unilaterally confiscate user funds, or tamper with its distributed ledger. This is why it is used globally in regions where regular citizens face targeting by their governments. Meanwhile, other blockchains facilitate payments at breakneck speed.

The authors repeatedly invoke the straw man of a taxpayer-funded bailout of the crypto industry. No serious policymaker (or crypto participant) has proposed such a thing. The stablecoin legislation Cummings and Bernstein reference creates fully reserved payment instruments overcollateralized with the most liquid government bonds globally. The Trump administration’s bitcoin reserve proposal involves no new taxpayer expenditure.

Meanwhile, when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 2023, the Biden administration authorized extraordinary measures to guarantee all deposits. Their concern about moral hazard appeared highly selective.

The op-ed devotes significant space to crypto industry political donations, implying corruption. The suggestion that an industry advocating for favorable regulation through political participation is inherently corrupt would indict virtually every sector of the American economy. Denied a fair hearing by regulators, the crypto industry turned to the political process as a last resort – a cornerstone of American democracy. If political spending is problematic, the authors might start by examining their own side of the aisle during the Biden Administration, when Bankman-Fried overwhelmingly gave to Democrats.

The Biden administration had a historic opportunity to establish the United States as the global leader in digital asset regulation: to write clear, fair rules that would protect consumers while allowing innovation to flourish on American soil. Instead, it chose to weaponize the banking system against a legal industry, creating a lose-lose-lose for innovation, consumer protection and the U.S. crypto ecosystem.

Cummings and Bernstein write that crypto’s boosters “have run out of excuses.” On the contrary, it is the Biden administration’s crypto haters who owe the public an explanation.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

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