Crypto or cryptocurrency has risen in popularity and prominence in the past decade. Maybe you’ve heard of Bitcoin or Ethereum or Dogecoin or $TRUMP. Since these digital tokens may become the future of how we pay for things, the White House had its first summit on crypto. Let’s chat.

What is crypto?

Actually, let’s start with “what is cryptography?”

Cryptography is the process of hiding or coding information so that only the person a message was intended for can read it. Source: Fortinet

Historically, cryptography became really useful for military communication, allowing allies to send and receive messages without the enemy understanding what was sent even if they were able to get a hold of the message. For everyday technology, cryptography is often used when you send text messages or log in to a website. Hackers or bad actors have a hard time understanding or decoding these coded messages.

While “crypto” is a prefix for a number of words, these days when people say “crypto” they are often referring to cryptocurrency.

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend. Source: Investopedia

A cryptocurrency’s usage is usually tracked using a blockchain, which is basically a digital ledger that records all the crypto’s transactions. Instead of keeping all the ledger entries on a single computer or system, the entries are recorded across a network of computers. You may hear of the blockchain as being decentralized, which refers to this computer network. Decentralization ensures the accuracy of the ledger, as any transaction entry across all the computers must match to be considered true. Further the entries to the blockchain are publicly viewable and can’t be changed once verified, reducing the chance of fraud.

What are some examples of crypto?

The current top three cryptocurrencies are

Bitcoin

Ethereum

Tether

Why did the White House have a meeting about crypto?

As crypto becomes more popular, the current administration is interested in creating more friendly policies. So last week, the White House invited industry leaders to gather and discuss. President Trump also announced a $17 billion crypto strategic reserve. You should also expect to see regulation further enabling crypto as it is increasingly recognized as a legitimate form of currency.

I wonder how the administration will regulate crypto. While there are fairly established currencies like Bitcoin, there are also a ton of so called “meme coins”. With a bit of knowledge, just about anybody can start a meme coin version of crypto. Some people have lost significant money investing in new untested meme coins, so be careful.

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President Donald Trump speaks at the White House Digital Assets Summit — 3/7/2025