David Sacks Quietly Divested From Crypto Company at Center of Conflict of Interest Controversy

David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s crypto and synthetic intelligence czar, got here below fireplace this week following allegations that he might financially profit from Trump’s announcement of a U.S. strategic crypto reserve.

The initiative, which Trump shared particulars about on Sunday, would contain the federal government holding a reserve of digital property, together with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Cardano (ADA), and Solana (SOL). Critics raised considerations that people inside the administration with ties to those property might stand to achieve from the transfer.

Sacks, a enterprise capitalist with earlier crypto investments, rapidly grew to become a focus of the controversy. Over the weekend and into Monday, he responded on X (previously Twitter), rejecting accusations that he had a monetary curiosity within the coverage. He said that he had divested from all of his private crypto-related holdings earlier than becoming a member of the administration, together with his stake in Multicoin Capital, a crypto-focused funding agency.

One lingering query, nonetheless, was whether or not Craft Ventures — Sacks’ enterprise capital agency — had retained its funding in Bitwise, a crypto index fund supervisor that Sacks helped fund again in 2017. Bitwise’s funding merchandise embrace an ETF that holds all of the property talked about in Trump’s strategic reserve plan, elevating considerations that it may benefit from the federal government’s crypto purchases.

On Tuesday, a supply near Craft Ventures confirmed to CoinDesk that the fund exited its place into Bitwise previous to the beginning of the President’s second administration. The Craft Ventures web site was additionally up to date on Tuesday to mirror that it had exited its Bitwise funding in January 2025.

Craft Ventures, Bitwise and Sacks have but to remark publicly on the obvious exit. The supply near Craft Ventures informed CoinDesk that the agency has not commented publicly in order to not disrupt Sacks’ authorities clearance course of, which is at the moment ongoing.

In his social media protection, Sacks dismissed your entire controversy. “The accusation that people who are already very successful in business go into government to make more money is a lazy and stupid narrative,” he wrote. “As I’ve learned, serving in government involves substantial disruption and divestiture of one’s business interests.”

The debate over Trump’s proposed reserve continues to divide the crypto group. Some of the president’s crypto supporters argue {that a} Bitcoin-only reserve can be preferable, whereas others query whether or not the federal government needs to be concerned in digital asset holdings at all — arguing that authorities intervention within the crypto house contradicts the business’s decentralized beliefs.

Conflict of curiosity questions additionally proceed to swirl across the president, himself. The Trump-backed crypto startup World Liberty Financial has a treasury of round $500 million price of crypto property, together with some listed in his Sunday reserve announcement.