First, Bitcoin’s price dropped below $90,000.

Then Caroline Pham, acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, went onstage at a futures-industry conference in Chicago and described US President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda as a reset of perceived hostility for the industry under the Biden Administration.

“The President’s working group is ushering in the golden age of crypto,” Pham said, referring to a committee set up by Trump on digital assets.

The timing of those comments is notable. The top crypto’s price trades 27% below its October high, trembling at the $90,000 mark, and the rest of the market has shaved over $1 trillion, roughly a quarter, of its total value since October.

Even so, Pham was adamant that the current administration had flipped the script on the Biden years’ crackdown on the industry.

She has a point. Since taking office, President Trump has issued a barrage of pro-crypto executive orders, hosted the inaugural crypto conference at the White House, signed a landmark stablecoin bill, and the US Congress has advanced bills to carve out clearer lanes for crypto trading.

Regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, have adopted a light-touch attitude towards policing the industry, and have pledged to pave the way for more innovation in the industry.

In her speech, Pham detailed the CFTC’s progress on crypto regulations in the last year.

The CFTC chair said the agency is using existing regulations to greenlight spot cryptocurrency trading on approved derivatives exchanges. Pham highlighted how the CFTC wants to open the door to tokenised collateral, including stablecoins.

For Pharm, these policies are necessary to regain the country’s lost decade in the global crypto race, during which the US seemingly lost talent and capital to offshore jurisdictions with friendlier policies.

Earlier this month, US senators proposed a bill to shift oversight of crypto trading from the SEC to the CFTC.

However, Pham said both agencies aren’t at cross-purposes in the business of crypto regulations.

“The turf war is over,” Pham noted in her speech, referring to an era where both agencies seemed to tussle over crypto jurisdiction in the US.

“We are getting back to basics and back to regular order.”

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.