- Joe Biden’s team just rehired former crypto adviser Carole House.
- She will join as an adviser on cybersecurity and “critical infrastructure policy.”
- Her appointment comes as Donald Trump backs crypto, making it an election issue.
A key official that advised and co-authored President Biden’s 2022 executive order on crypto and digital assets has returned to the administration.
Carole House will be a special adviser on the White House’s National Security Council, where she’ll focus on “critical infrastructure policy” and cybersecurity, she said on LinkedIn.
“Honoured to have been called to return to service of absolutely critical mission sets that are necessary to shape the future of secure and trustworthy digital economies,” she wrote in a post announcing the move.
Her White House return comes as Biden is amping up his crypto cred amid former president Donald Trump’s embrace of the digital assets industry.
Neither House nor the White House immediately responded to a request for comment from DL News.
House was most recently an “executive in residence” at Terranet Ventures, a venture firm that partially focuses on crypto.
She has held numerous positions throughout the federal government, including previous stints as adviser at the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, and the National Security Council, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“She is a no-nonsense expert whose pragmatic approach will greatly benefit the Biden team,” Dave Grimaldi, an executive vice president at the Blockchain Association, a crypto lobbying group, told DL News.
House has shown measured advocacy.
“Adoption for lots of good economic cases are happening internationally,” she said, in reference to crypto, during the 2024 iteration of Consensus, an annual industry conference.
However, she did repeatedly emphasise the need for “more enforcement.”
Crypto becomes political
Trump has made crypto a more prominent message of his campaign.
“If you’re in favour of crypto, you’re gonna vote for Trump,” he said during a May gala for holders of Trump NFTs at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.
Since then, he’s met with Bitcoin miners, started to accept campaign donations in crypto, and shared crypto betting site Polymarket’s odds of him winning the 2024 presidential election.
Biden, in turn, has signalled a more open stance to the digital assets industry.
His administration did an about-face on spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds, his officials are reportedly set to attend crypto industry meetings, and he is said to be considering accepting crypto donations.
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.