That's some welcome mat

On Wall Street, markets are waking to marching bands celebrating a court-ordered halt to President Trump's tariffs. Dow futures rallied to start the daylight portion of Thursday on the East Coast where risk-takers are rolling up their sleeves. 

Out West, yesterday, Bitcoin 2025 attendees couldn't escape the long, loving arms of Team Trump as the First Sons and Vice President J.D. Vance took Day 2 of the conference by storm to herald the arrival of the digital asset age and their unrivaled support for it.

In Pakistan, a financial minister declared plans to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Meanwhile, a dozen cryptos, including DOGE, ADA and XRP, became available in the U.S. on eToro which just made its debut on the Nasdaq. Stablecoin giant Circle intends to go public soon. Stablecoin legislation is drawing closer to the finish line on Capitol Hill.

Bitcoin being above $100K is the new normal. Crypto has gone mainstream, big-time.

Sadly, this reality has led to an alarming spate of recent violent attacks, as well as some other scary prospects, contend critics of the notoriously volatile asset class. 

By virtue of Coinbase recently being included in the S&P 500, an exclusive country club for blue chip stocks, millions of investors will be exposed to crypto — whether they realize it or not. Some U.S. industry watchdogs are thus now warning that the mainstream adoption of crypto is a disaster courting a catastrophe, as any implosion of the crypto sector, as these naysayers see it, will ultimately reverberate in portfolios everywhere (The Motley Fool).

Vice President J.D. Vance gave a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2025 conference on Wednesday, reminding attendees that they have a “champion and an ally" in the White House.

“In our administration, we understand the full potential of the digital assets industry," said Vance, who in the past has disclosed he's stacked some satoshis.

Vance called the largest crypto a "symbol and driver of personal liberty for all our citizens."

As he spoke (cogently, if long-winded) in the afternoon, spot BTC struggled to stay awake. It's been as low as $107.1K in the past 24 hours. BTC's ATH of nearly $112K came one week ago.

Just a few hours before Vance took to the stage, Donald Trump Jr., alongside brother Eric, leveraged another panel slot to talk up the family's fast-blossoming crypto foray. "We're very long crypto," crowed Trump Jr. "It's a huge part of everything we do now."

Indubitably. The First Family is connected with Trump-themed NFTs and memecoins as well as a mining firm that plans to go public and a DeFi platform replete with its own stablecoin.

Additionally, Trump Media & Technology Group (symbol: DJT), which owns Truth Social, has veered into crypto-backed ETFs and yesterday announced it was raising $2.5B to buy BTC.

Since Trump Media unveiled the Michael Saylor-esque hoarding strategy, shares of DJT have lost more than 10%, falling to $21.

Meanwhile, Solana-run Official Trump (TRUMP), 53rd-largest coin, has declined 14% in the past week, sinking below $13.

The U.S. Department of Labor, under Trump-appointed Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, yesterday morning formally rescinded Biden-era guidance on the inclusion of digital assets in 401(k) portfolios. It's yet another significant shift away from the coolness of the previous administration, pushing an enormous barn door at least slightly ajar. It's an exciting, overdue development in the eyes of some, but an alarming one in the view of some others.

It was back in Q1 of 2022 that the DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued the following compliance advice to fiduciaries: you need to exercise “extreme care” before adding crypto to investment menus.

"This language marked a departure from the DoL’s historically neutral, principled-based approach to fiduciary investment decisions," the DOL said in a press release. In that release, Secretary Chavez-DeRemer added: “The Biden administration made a choice to put their thumb on the scale. We’re rolling back this overreach.”

"As a huge general rule, crypto doesn’t belong in a 401(k), period, end of sentence,” said Knut Rostad, head of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, a McLean, Virginia-based group that lobbies on behalf of the financial advisory industry.

It's worth noting that back in March of 2022 — prior to the Terra ecosystem collapse and the subsequent onset of crypto winter — the DOL didn't outright forbid crypto investing; rather, it merely urged a hefty amount of consideration prior to allowing crypto on the menu, as failure to do so could expose plan sponsors to liabilities were things to go wrong.

Currently, the DOL is not saying 401(k) plans should add crypto. The DOL is reverting to an official policy of advising plans to adopt a “neutral approach” to such assets, so that they get treated as any other. Pension plan stewards as fiduciaries still have a legal responsibility to put the best interests of investors first.