By Lananh Nguyen and Divya Chowdhury
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire expects U.S. executive orders "imminently" from President Donald Trump, which he said could allow banks to trade crypto, offer crypto investments to wealthy clients and hold it in portfolios.
Circle is the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, a digital token pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. USDC is the world's second largest stablecoin by market value and ranked as the eighth largest cryptocurrency by CoinGecko.
Trump has promised to be a "crypto president" and is expected to issue executive orders aimed at reducing crypto regulatory roadblocks and promoting widespread adoption of digital assets following his inauguration on Monday.
The incoming president's own newly-created cryptocurrency soared on Monday to nearly $12 billion in market value.
Allaire said he would like to see the repeal of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which he said "effectively made it punitive for banks and financial institutions and corporations even to hold crypto assets on their balance sheet".
"That's something I think to watch closely in terms of EOs (executive orders)," Allaire said during an interview with the Reuters Global Markets Forum at the start of this week's World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.
"I'm strongly in favour of repealing it and I would hope that President Trump would take that action," Allaire said, adding that Circle already counted banks as commercial partners.
Allaire expects renewed activity from Congress on digital asset regulations, adding: "We expect Committee work to be very active, literally in the coming weeks".
Others in Davos said they too expect swift action under the new Trump administration.
"We expect the new SEC will take action," said Faryar Shirzad, Chief Policy Officer at Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), adding this "will almost certainly bring banks much more into the custodial space."
"Broad-based adoption (of crypto) is good for the ecosystem, and so we're very much supportive of other participants coming in," Shirzad told Reuters.
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