Kevin Hassett held up to $5 million in Coinbase amid Trump crypto push

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett held between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares in crypto giant Coinbase at the end of 2025, as President Donald Trump’s administration rapidly rewrote federal cryptocurrency policy.

Hassett’s previously unreported 2025 annual financial disclosure lists the investment as vested Coinbase shares. He formerly worked as an advisor to the company. The filing shows he had not fully divested from the company nearly 11 months into Trump’s second term. While the filing was recently released, it doesn’t indicate whether Hassett still holds the shares as it covers only 2025.

Three days after taking office in 2025, Trump established the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets within the NEC. His executive order included Hassett’s White House position or a designee as a member and required the group’s final recommendations to reach Trump through Hassett’s office.

The group, chaired by the then-White House crypto advisor David Sacks, went on to propose sweeping regulatory changes to digital-asset markets, banking, stablecoin and taxation. The administration has also reversed Biden-era crypto policies, created a government bitcoin reserve and pushed Congress toward a broader federal regulatory framework.

Hassett, who advised Coinbase from 2021 until January 2025 before joining the White House, has said he stayed out of crypto matters while ethics officials addressed his investment.

The White House declined to answer CNBC’s questions about whether Hassett still holds the shares or whether holding them has prevented him from working on matters within his office’s purview.

When CNBC asked about the shares in June 2025, Hassett said he had not sold them because he did not want to create the appearance that he was timing a sale. He said he had received guidance from “the ethics people” and was determining “what needs to be done.”

“Meanwhile, I have recused from any matter that’s related to crypto,” Hassett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The White House, in response to CNBC’s questions about the new financial disclosure, indicated that recusal continues.

“Since day one, Kevin Hassett has and continues to be in full compliance with all ethical requirements, including his recusal from all cryptocurrency-related matters,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CNBC in a statement.

The holdings raise questions, an ethics expert said, about whether Hassett’s Coinbase stake created potential overlaps with his official duties and whether managing those conflicts through recusal sidelined one of Trump’s top economic advisors from a major policy priority housed within the council he leads.

“I think he’s got a major conflict of interest, or the appearance of one,” said Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund. 

What remains unclear is what a recusal means in practice — which meetings, decisions or policy discussions has Hassett avoided and how…