The U.S. federal government has solidified its position against central banking digital currencies favoring “stablecoins.” This change, along with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, should result in trustees seeing increased demand for digital assets and needing to navigate more complexities in this fast-changing area.
Our last article in January 2024 examined central banking digital currencies and how those differ from digital currencies (also known as “cryptocurrency”). We’ll now review the many changes since that time and how fiduciaries can continue to educate themselves on those differences. Those differences, politically and economically, took an explosive turn this year as the United States unequivocally declared its focus and preference for digital currencies over CBDCs via its current presidential administration.
CBDC Global Status
Nearly every country worldwide had an almost uniform announcement to study CBDCs. That study period varied depending on the domestic banking and payment settlement system’s maturity. CBDCs have moved from “pilot studies” to full integration in Jamaica, Nigeria and the Bahamas. However, the steps both the People’s Republic of China and Russia have taken are more impactful.
Specifically, the Russian government can pay a limited number of expenditures starting on Oct. 1, 2025. The full-scale use of CBDC payments via the digital Ruble begins Jan. 1, 2026. Its introduction on a regional level is delayed to Jan. 1, 2027. The Russian government points to “convenience” as the main selling point; however, there has been significant pushback because of concerns about surveillance and control.
Regulatory Changes in the United States
Before 2025, trustees had a stalemate on analyzing digital assets held in trust. The Internal Revenue Service provided clarity around reporting requirements, and the Securities and Exchange Commission had a predictable mandate on what was legally actionable. In late 2024, the U.S. House introduced the “CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act” as an amendment to the Federal Reserve Act, but that failed to pass. That legislation stated that the United States couldn’t issue a CBDC without congressional approval. More on this later.
Encouraging cryptocurrency by removing regulatory barriers. This, and much more, changed rapidly beginning January of this year. Undoing a previous administration’s platform efforts isn’t unusual. The current president and his administration’s pace and intensity focus on digital assets and safeguards. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order No. 14178 dismantled the entire Department of Justice’s cryptocurrency investigations team. That order effectively ends CBDCs in the United States on the one hand while authorizing and encouraging “stablecoins” on the other.
The SEC defines a stablecoin as “a type of crypto asset designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference asset, such as USD or another fiat currency, or a commodity like gold, or a pool or basket of assets.” Since his inauguration, Trump invested and co-funded, personally, the launch of USD1, a federally endorsed stablecoin. The USD1 is marketed as a “patriotic alternative” to CBDCs.
Critics argue that stablecoins pose a greater, not lesser, threat to the U.S. financial system than CBDCs and are much easier to implement, thus more likely to cause damage sooner. As if on cue, the GENIUS Act was also passed this year. That Act provides a legal framework for stablecoins like USD1 but is silent on explicit conflict-of-interest, particularly by political actors.
OBBBA: A federally funded digital direction. Trump signed the OBBBA into law on July 4. The bill is over 900 pages long and includes provisions relating tangentially to trustees via fixing the estate tax exclusion amounts, etc. The OBBBA also relates tangentially to the furtherance of centralization of federal control via digital means. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act is intended to disallow a U.S. CBDC because it risks increased federal privacy destruction. However, over $500 million of OBBBA funds are allotted to build predictive algorithms, behavioral mapping and facial recognition to embed in public programs.
While pro-cryptocurrency lawmakers could not add their digital asset language of choice to OBBBA, the attention and willingness to make favorable laws for those digital assets at the congressional level is higher than ever.
The underlying macroeconomic development is persistent, and inflation is increasing across the U.S. economy. That inflation, historically, if high enough, encourages movement to safer value forms. With the amount of debt OBBBA adds to the federal deficit, the resemblance of cause and effect and higher future inflation seems plausible. We’ll have to see whether stablecoins become those same “safer” value forms as they’re already advertised.
Reaction of the Estate Planning Industry
Amid this paradigm shift, estate planners and trust banks are choosing to “go crypto” or stay within traditional legal concepts and principles. One of these adoptions is what’s called a “cryptocurrency trust.” Some law firms now offer clients a traditional trust vehicle tailored to just hold actively traded cryptocurrency. The trustees of those trusts are selected specifically for their experience and ability in trading and assessing the stability of the various players and counterparty risk.
Also, while the smart contract movement seems to have fizzled, the idea of a trust-in-concept, existing entirely on a blockchain ledger and fully integrated with a traditional estate plan, is again showing up in white papers at crypto conferences.
States Attracting Digital Assets
Certain states are amending legislation to lessen trustee liability around cryptocurrency. Wyoming now recognizes digital assets as intangible property and has established Special Purpose Depository Institutions to offer secure custody options for cryptocurrency.
Indeed, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming is the current champion for what might be termed “retail cryptocurrency reform.” Her bill, filed right after her proposed changes failed to make it into OBBBA, seeks to normalize tax redundancies and inefficiencies for certain segments of the industry so more “Americans engage with crypto.”
Old or New Way?
Trustees handling cryptocurrency are increasingly forced with a choice: Do we follow the old or the new way? The new way means finding a shelter against a devaluing U.S. dollar. A clear and present push for a more active cryptocurrency market likely will mean more regulatory and taxation reform in its favor. As that happens, trustees will continue their intellectual wrestling match on how to handle cryptocurrency.
By now, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (2015) is so far behind the changes of the cryptocurrency industry as to be almost quaint. That, ironically, gives fiduciaries of trusts a clearer position with which to exercise their duties. The tried-and-true traditional methods of fiduciary duties still instruct how we look at any asset held in trust.
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