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Tzar Sacks is in Town and Crypto’s Reign of Terror is Over
For the past few decades David Sacks has been one of the wealthiest people in America. But who is David Sacks and why should we bother with what he has to say on crypto?
Adam Atlantic
January 21, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
The reign of terror against crypto is OVER.[1]
These are the words from the incoming ‘White House Crypto and AI Tzar’[2] David Sacks at last week’s Crypto Ball in celebration of President Trump’s inauguration.
But who is David Sacks?
Why should we bother with what he has to say on crypto? And what exactly is a White House Crypto and AI Tzar?
A PayPal Mafia OG
Sacks’ rise to the (still murky) role in the White House started in the early days of a company called Confinity.
This financial startup had a little product, which Sacks was the project lead of called, PayPal. Confinity around this time also had bought a company called X.com off a guy called Elon Musk. And then rebranded the whole thing to just PayPal, where Sacks served as the Chief Operating Officer.
This makes Sacks one of the ‘PayPal Mafia’ with the likes of Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Peter Thiel (PayPal, Palantir), Steve Chen (YouTube), Russel Simmons (Yelp) and Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn).
They all went on to become hugely successful post-PayPal (hence the PayPal Mafia moniker).
Sacks would go on to start Yammer, a business social network, which Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion in June 2012. For the past few decades Sacks has been one of the wealthiest people in America, in the world, and had deployed his capital into other titans of the US stock market.
Using his wealth and connections, Sacks was also an early angel investor in companies such as Airbnb, SpaceX, Facebook, Rumble, Slack and Palantir.
This puts Sacks in a very unique position as he is deeply connected within the American tech scene. He has first-hand experience in some of the most important companies in America (Meta, Palantir, SpaceX, PayPal, and others), and is a trusted confidant of President Trump.
He’s also very popular thanks to his role in one of the world’s leading podcasts, the All-In podcast.
Sacks’ Flippening Forecast
But Sacks has also been a bull for cryptocurrency, believing in its potential to transform finance. In a recent podcast he said,[3] ‘We can't really think of money without the state, but Bitcoin, it's sort of this sci-fi future where you could maybe have these two things decoupled.’
He also was early into Bitcoin and sees the potential for blockchain technology as a growth engine in the US. He’s an investor in Solana, and has even said,[4] ‘There’s a lot of people, I’d say, smart money in Silicon Valley, who are betting on a flipping where Solana could ultimately overtake Ethereum as the preferred platform.’
While his authority to actually do anything is still unknown, it’s clear he will have some sway when it comes to crypto policy in the White House.
According to a recent report on Politico,[5]
‘Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican who has helped to craft crypto-friendly legislation from his perch on the House Agriculture Committee. “I’m pretty excited, because I do think there’s a lot we have to get done in the AI and digital asset space — and listen, David Sacks is a guy who knows how to charge forward.’
Sacks will take a big dose of criticism from the other side of the political divide. But for now, his addition to the administration as the Crypto Tzar is just one more huge signal that we’re on the cusp of perhaps the biggest bull market in crypto yet.
Trust in crypto,
Adam Atlantic