 
 
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson used the Midnight Summit 2025 to explain why many in the industry, including himself, expected the Trump administration to deliver an immediate boost to the cryptocurrency sector.
The Cardano co-founder said the expectation entering the year was that “the Trump administration was going to be this magic net positive for the ecosystem,” driven by campaign promises to turn the U.S. into the world’s crypto capital.
Those pledges were backed by major policy moves, including an executive order supporting the responsible growth of digital assets, restrictions on federal agencies promoting central bank digital currencies, a push to expand stablecoin adoption, and efforts to provide crypto firms with clearer access to banking services.
The White House also formed the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, chaired by David Sacks, and the SEC launched its new “Crypto 2.0” task force to produce a comprehensive regulatory framework.
Despite these steps, Hoskinson argued that the rollout has been “a little unhelpful,” calling the U.S. government a “bag holder,” whose approach created “irrational exuberance” that distorted the market’s four-year cycle.
 
Nevertheless, President Trump’s platform has been aggressively pro-crypto. Trump pledged to build a national crypto stockpile and keep 100% of the bitcoin the government holds.
The president also vowed that all future bitcoin mining would be conducted in the U.S., meeting with major miners and arguing that domestic production would strengthen America’s energy and geopolitical standing.
Charles Hoskinson said these policies may benefit the industry in the long term, but right now, they are colliding with deeper concerns, especially those related to privacy. Hoskinson noted that users are increasingly uneasy about their financial lives being permanently traceable, a trend that is helping shape Midnight’s roadmap.
The IOHK CEO also pointed to rising participation around Midnight, citing hard numbers, such as its scavenger hunt completing over 2.5 years of Bitcoin mining in under 20 days. Combined with growing partnerships and a staged four-phase launch, Hoskinson said the ecosystem is entering an intense but complex transition period.