Someone read all 69 pages of that filing carefully — and what they found inside stopped the crypto industry cold.
On April 14, 2026, Kevin Warsh — Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, replacing Jerome Powell whose term expires May 15 — filed his financial disclosure with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Buried among funds exceeding $100 million and municipal bonds spread across dozens of states was something deeply unusual for a prospective Fed chair: a real, multi-layered crypto portfolio.
These are not exploratory bets or token curiosity buys. These are substantive positions across multiple investment vehicles.
Warsh's Crypto Portfolio: Solana, DeFi, and Layer-2 Exposure
Inside Warsh's AVGF I vehicle sit indirect stakes in Solana, Optimism, and the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Through DCM Investments 10 LLC, the disclosure lists dYdX — one of the leading DeFi derivatives protocols — alongside Polychain Capital, Compound, Blast (an Ethereum layer-2 with yield functionality), Lighter, and Lemon Cash. The AVF family of funds adds Dapper Labs, DeSo, Eulith, Zero Gravity (an L2 AI blockchain), and Friends With Benefits.
There is also a direct position in Tenderly — an Ethereum and Web3 developer platform — through Founder Bets Master SPV LLC, valued between $1,001 and $15,000. The crypto connection runs deeper still: Warsh is a former investor in Basis and in Bitwise Asset Management — the issuer of one of the spot Bitcoin ETFs — and built ties to the sector through Marc Andreessen during his venture capital years.
On the wealth side, the filing shows joint assets with his wife Jane Lauder — of the Estée Lauder family — totalling between $131 million and $209 million. The two largest positions, both in Juggernaut Fund LP at over $50 million each, are covered by confidentiality agreements and do not disclose underlying assets. Both must be divested if he is confirmed.
What Warsh's Crypto Holdings Mean for Fed Policy
The implications here are not symbolic — they are operational and concrete. The Fed chair plays an active role in at least four major dossiers directly affecting the crypto sector: oversight of banks that custody digital assets, the Fed's stance on stablecoins and tokenized deposits, research on a U.S. CBDC, and supervision of financial infrastructure integrating blockchain with traditional markets.
Federal ethics rules require a one-year recusal period on matters involving recent financial interests. This means that — at least in the early part of his term — Warsh could not weigh in on dossiers directly touching protocols or companies he has just divested. That constraint could slow, at least temporarily, certain crypto supervision decisions at the Fed.
On the other hand, the very existence of these positions in the disclosure signals something important: the next Fed chair understands this sector from the inside. He has invested in DeFi. He has placed bets on Ethereum layer-2 infrastructure. He backed Polymarket's prediction model. That is a different generation from his predecessors.
For more regulatory context, see our analysis of the CLARITY Act and the U.S. regulatory pivot, and the SEC-CFTC classification of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana as commodities.
Senate Confirmation Hearing: What to Watch in April 2026
The Senate Banking Committee has not yet set an official date, but sources close to the process point to the week of April 21, 2026. One obstacle looms: Senator Thom Tillis has stated he will block any vote on Warsh until the Department of Justice's criminal investigation into Jerome Powell is resolved transparently — adding further uncertainty to an already delicate transition.
What is certain: if Warsh is confirmed, the Federal Reserve will have, for the first time in its history, a chair who knows DeFi because he invested in it — and who will be forced, for one year, to recuse himself from the very topics he knows best.
The sector is watching. The hearing is approaching. And the document nobody expected is already public.
