TORONTO — Despite a recent setback, U.S. President Donald Trump should be able to sign stablecoin and market structure legislation before Congress goes on break in August, said White House official Bo Hines on Wednesday.

Lawmakers are still discussing the legislation, which is good, said Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, said on stage at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.

«Negotiations are ongoing,» he said. «But I remain steadfast in my optimism that we’re going to achieve — the President’s desire is to do it — but stablecoin legislation and market structure legislation before the August recess.»

Still, he acknowledged that the legislative process was «evolving.»

Hines said earlier in the day that Trump’s crypto ventures, as well as the president’s family’s tie-ups, did not pose any conflicts of interest.

«His sons have the right to engage in capital markets as private business people, like anyone else does in the U.S.,» he said on CoinDesk TV. «I don’t see any conflict in doing so. By the way, it should be exciting that they’re engaging in this space. If you’re a good business person, you should be looking at digital assets and saying, ‘how can I get involved?’ Because this is the next generation of finance.»

He repeated this argument on stage at Consensus.

«As we launch these tariff negotiations and trade negotiations play themselves out, we want to establish ourselves as a leader in digital asset financial technology more generally,» he said.

Asked on CDTV about reports that a small company was purchasing TRUMP coins, Hines said, «I’ll say very firmly, the president of the United States can’t be bought.»

The White House and members of its working group are still working on a strategic Bitcoin reserve, Hines said on stage.

Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley denied reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is investigating the crypto bank, calling the reporting “bullshit” during a panel discussion at Consensus 2025 in Toronto on Wednesday

In an article published last month, business publication Barron’s reported that DHS’s money laundering and financial crimes unit, the El Dorado Task Force, was contacting former Anchorage employees to ask them about the company’s practices and policies. Neither Anchorage nor DHS commented on the record for that story.

Following the report, McCauley said his firm asked its lawyers to look into the allegations and found them to be untrue.

“There is no investigation into us, as is unambiguously clear at this point,” McCauley said. “That article is what some might call bullshit. Happy to clear the air on that.”

Anchorage Digital is widely considered one of the most regulatory compliant companies in the crypto space. In December, it obtained a highly-coveted and difficult-to-get BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), one of the toughest regulators in the crypto industry.

Sam Altman’s blockchain project World has sparked controversy in the past due to its use of iris-scanning technology to create digital identities. But World Foundation Advisor Liam Horne says that the controversy around that technology, known as orbs, is often misunderstood.

It’s “actually the complete opposite,” of what critics share regarding World or Altman owning that data, Thorne said on Wednesday at a panel at Consensus 2025. “The data literally never leaves the orb.”

The World Network uses its orbs — chrome, bowling ball-shaped devices —to perform iris scans that verify an individual’s unique identity as part of a system called «proof-of-personhood.» When a user looks into an orb, the device maps their iris and immediately converts the biometric into a privacy-preserving address known as a World ID, that proves that a user is a real, unique human being, rather than a bot.

The project has faced scrutiny across multiple jurisdictions, with regulators in Europe, Africa and Asia raising concerns about data privacy and consent. But Horne reiterated that the system is designed to be privacy-preserving from the ground up.

Previously, Orbs were only available in select locations in South America, Asia, and Africa, but earlier this month the team behind World shared that they were expanding to the United States, and bringing orbs to six different cities including Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco.

Read more: Sam Altman’s World Crypto Project Launches in US With Eye-Scanning Orbs in 6 Cities