European Union will follow Trump's lead on crypto regulation: VanEck

VanEck’s Alessandro Valentino believes that the “Crypto President” Trump is setting a precendent for other countries.

Summary

• VanEck product manager Alessandro Valentino says U.S. has opened the doors for crypto
• Several European countries are already following the U.S. example.
• Trump needs the crypto industry more than it needs him, he added.

Donald Trump’s administration has opened the doors for crypto businesses to expand into tradFi. Now, other countries are following by example. In an interview with crypto.news, Alessandro Valentino, a product manager for investment management firm VanEck, shared his view of European investors and regulators view crypto.

Interest in digital assets in Europe is growing. On August 27, VanEck revealed that its Europe-based diversified crypto ETF surpassed $500 million in AUM. Valentino stressed that VanEck was one of the first firms to offer crypto ETFs in the European Union, seeing that regulation is changing in a favorable direction.

“In Europe, with the DLT pilot regime, there has been significant progress. It essentially enables companies to create a sandbox environment where they can experiment with distributed ledger technologies,” Alessandro Valentino, VanEck.

Trump’s administration is leading the way

Much of this recent progress in Europe was inspired by regulatory changes in the U.S. According to VanEck’s Alessandro Valentino, Donald Trump’s administration continues to remove major obstacles for the crypto industry.

“Trump brought a lot more clarity, especially from a regulatory standpoint. I mean, he fired Gary Gensler, who was, for years, clearly against the creations of any crypto ETF whatsoever,” said Alessandro Valentino, VanEck. “He also went against de-banking, which many crypto companies had issues with.”

Still, changes in Europe are happening at a different pace. According to Valentino, the major issue is not the MiCA regime, whose effects will still have to be assessed. Instead, the biggest issue is regulatory fragmentation. Some countries, like Ireland, Luxemburg and Germany, make launching ETFs easier, while it’s more difficult than others.

Is the “Crypto President” Trump a risk for the industry?

Trump is clearly making efforts to tie his brand with crypto, and for a good reason. Crypto firms spent $131 million in 2024 elections, and they mostly backed Republicans. However, with Trump’s approval rating falling, political winds may start changing.

Still, VanEck’s Alessandro Valentino, who referred to Trump as the “Crypto President,” doesn’t believe that a change in leadership would undo the progress that has been made.

“Every industry, once it gets big enough, does some lobbying,” said Valentino. “I don’t think Trump’s approval rating will affect Bitcoin too much. I would rather say that Trump needs to be aligned with crypto more than crypto has to be aligned with Trump,” he concluded.