Trump's first weeks in office have involved a flurry of executive orders. Some have been dramatic, such as the federal government hiring freeze. Other orders have been toothless or vague, such as the order telling federal agencies that they need to do what is in their power to lower prices.

But Trump's EO on cryptocurrency is the one that caught my eye. It's titled: "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology"—but what does that actually mean?

The executive order has two main components: one relating to decentralized cryptocurrency and one relating to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

According to the order's stated purpose:

The digital asset industry plays a crucial role in innovation and economic development in the United States, as well as our Nation's international leadership. It is therefore the policy of [the Trump] Administration to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors of the economy.

As with most government policies, the language sounds positive. Who doesn't want America to innovate and grow? But reading more closely might give you pause.

Some of the content is in fact positive. For example, the order requires federal agencies to allow citizens to "participate in mining and validating, to transact with other persons without unlawful censorship, and to maintain self-custody of digital assets."

Mining is the process by which new crypto tokens are generated. The process varies, but for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, mining involves using a computer to solve increasingly complex math problems. The ability to mine is especially important since mining has been politically targeted by extreme environmental groups as a waste of energy. Eventually, the math problems associated with mining become so difficult, computers will be unable to mine any more Bitcoin, making the supply finite.

Allowing individuals to mine is central to the crypto concept. Furthermore, establishing protection for maintaining self-custody of digital assets, keeping them out of the range of unlawful seizures, is one of the most important aspects of cryptocurrency.

The order also seeks to "[protect] and [promote] fair and open access to banking services for all law-abiding individual citizens and private-sector entities alike." This clause reaches beyond crypto to traditional savings, and is particularly timely due to an increase in politically-influenced debanking of consumers (which occurred with the trucker protesters in Canada).