President Trump’s newfound love affair with cryptocurrencies and his announcement that the United States will become the crypto capital of the world is being applauded as the dawning of a new era. Cryptocurrencies have surged in value, particularly given the president and his family’s entrance into that market.

However, crypto advocates may want to pump the brakes a bit after reading his Jan. 25 executive order — cryptocurrency is an asset like no other and will demand a customized form of regulation.

While the order extols the virtues of digital assets, it also invokes the Washington solution of creating a “working group” of a dozen government entities to “propose a federal regulatory framework” and new “provisions for market structure, oversight, consumer protection, and risk management.” These are hardly words that will comfort crypto libertarians.

The working group can set the tone for the next decade of digital asset regulation, so there are several fundamental principles that should guide it.

First, digital assets such as floating rate cryptocurrencies and stablecoins are unique multiple personality products because they purport to act both as investments and money. Instead of continuing the debate about whether cryptocurrencies are securities or commodities and should be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission or Commodity Futures Trading Commission (both charter members of the working group), it should recognize the uniqueness of........

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