Tariffs, Bitcoin and rule reversals: Inside Trump’s first 100 days in office

Donald Trump’s second-term opening relied on the stroke of a pen rather than acts of Congress.

Between Jan. 20 and Apr. 29, he issued 143 executive orders, 42 proclamations, and 42 memoranda, while only five bills became law.

Trade policy involved a blanket 10% levy on imports and a punitive 145% duty on Chinese goods, triggering Beijing’s 125% rebuttal.

At the same time, the White House wrote the first chapter of official American Bitcoin ownership, transferring forfeited coins worth about $12 billion into a new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and promising never to auction them again.

Regulatory deletions followed as the SEC struck Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, erasing the extra capital charge that had pushed banks out of crypto custody.

Congress and the president nullified the IRS rule that would have treated decentralized exchanges as brokers.

Former commissioner Paul S. Atkins returned as SEC chair with a pledge to make the United States “the best and most secure place in the world to invest and do business.”

Together, those moves reopened the door for large financial institutions to handle digital assets and positioned Bitcoin alongside gold and treasuries on the federal balance sheet.

[Editor’s Note: This report focuses purely on policy or rhetoric that has a correlational impact on crypto or Bitcoin.]