The US Justice Department is shutting down its crypto unit as Trump administration regulations continue to weaken.
“The Justice Department does not regulate digital assets,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote in a memo Monday evening.
Author: Cheyenne Ligon | Edited by: Nikhilesh De Updated: Apr 8, 2025 3:20 PM Published: Apr 8, 2025 3:05 PM
Key points:
- The US Department of Justice has decided to immediately disband the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), focusing its efforts solely on cryptocurrency enforcement.
- The Justice Department will stop prosecuting crypto exchanges and services for non-compliance with regulations, shifting its focus to criminal activity involving digital assets.
- The move comes in response to President Trump's executive order aimed at establishing clarity in the regulation of the crypto industry.
The U.S. Justice Department disbanded its cryptocurrency unit on Monday, notifying employees that it was “narrowing” its crypto enforcement functions in line with Donald Trump’s January digital asset executive order, which promised to create “regulatory clarity” for the crypto industry.
In a four-page memo to staff titled “Ending Regulation Through Prosecution,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), created in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden’s administration, would be “immediately disbanded.”
“The Justice Department is not the body that regulates digital assets,” Blanche wrote in a memo reviewed by CoinDesk. “However, the previous administration used the Justice Department to pursue an unwise regulatory strategy through prosecutions that was poorly conceived and poorly implemented. The Justice Department will no longer pursue lawsuits or enforcement actions that essentially impose a regulatory framework on digital assets, while the current Trump administration regulators are doing this outside of prosecutions.”
Blanche informed staff that the Justice Department would no longer bring cases against cryptocurrency exchanges, mixing services, or offline wallets “for the actions of their end users or unintentional violations of the rules.” Staff were instructed not to bring charges for regulatory violations in cryptocurrency-related cases, including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), unlicensed money transmitters, and other violations of federal securities and commodities laws.
Instead, Justice Department officials were instructed to focus on “prosecuting individuals who endanger investors in digital assets” or use cryptocurrency to facilitate criminal activity such as terrorism or gang financing.
“Ongoing investigations that do not meet the priorities outlined above should be closed,” Blanch added, noting that his office would work with the Justice Department's Criminal Division to “review ongoing cases for compliance with this policy.”
NCET is not the first federal crypto-focused group to be disbanded since Trump took office in January. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission
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