"The department [DOJ] won't pursue cases it feels are better left to financial regulators, focusing instead on crimes committed with cryptocurrency."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't feel all that out of the ordinary. The SEC normally prosecutes exchanges. The previous US administration (Biden) created a special team in the DOJ to target cryptocurrency exchanges in the wake of FTX. The new administration (Trump) disbanded the team to refocus DOJ on other priorities, primarily terrorism, including crimes committed with cryptocurrency. SEC and other agencies will still police exchanges. It feels a bit of a leap to say fraud is now legal. Probably not a leap to say Trump is pro crypto since he seems obsessed with overall market stats.
The SEC needs to clarify it's rules around crypto. AFAIK, it's been a mess for years with a lot of uncertainty around how to operate.
Here's a random article from CNBC that explains it in more detail: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/doj-ends-crypto-enforcement-...
I suppose I can expect this comment to get downvoted. But if we keep overreacting to everything Trump does, we'll likely miss the bigger abuses of power. It would be nice to be able to discuss biz policies once again without the flame wars. The recent policy shift from being hostile to crypto to being more collaborative seems a good thing. And yes, we need to keep a close eye on where this goes because people will try to exploit it with fraud.