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New role will help reshape US policy on digital currency

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Early evangelist for cryptocurrency

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Move comes after bitcoin soared above $100,000 for first

time

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paragraphs 8-10)

Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on

Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief

Operating Officer David Sacks as his "White House A.I. & Crypto

Czar," another step towards overhauling U.S. policy.

"He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry

has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the

U.S.," Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth

Social, without saying whether "czar" was an official title.

The crypto czar and other officials in Trump's incoming

administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange

Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected

to reshape U.S. policy on digital currency along with a newly

created crypto advisory council.

Trump's tech backers generally want to see minimal

regulation around artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies

such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing

innovative sectors with excessive rules.

Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating

prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to

lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.

Trump - who once labeled crypto a scam - embraced digital

assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States

the "crypto capital of the planet" and to accumulate a national

stockpile of bitcoin.

Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday

night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age

for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly U.S.

administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in

financial markets.

Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency

asset manager Astronaut Capital, described the news as extremely

bullish. "David has had somewhat of a hands-on approach to

crypto over the years, at times holding coins such as solana. He

appears to be a lot more technically and commercially competent

regarding crypto than most would think," Dibb said.

Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of

venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of

PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay ( EBAY )

in 2002.

Sacks is considered a member of the "PayPal Mafia" of former

workers and executives at the digital finance firm that includes

prominent Trump supporters Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

Musk, the Tesla CEO who leads artificial

intelligence startup xAI, is a crypto fan and was appointed by

Trump as co-lead of the new Department of Government Efficiency.

The advisory board to streamline government is nicknamed DOGE,

the name of a cryptocurrency.

Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company

Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise

users.

He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC

in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the

world's largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the

internet.

"It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of

web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the

internet of money," he said.

Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory

council on science and technology.