President Joe Biden signed the executive order that is meant to spearhead crypto regulation after yesterday's reports suggested it would have been announced this week.

What Happened: According to a statement released by the White House on Wednesday, the executive order is meant "to establish the first-ever comprehensive federal digital assets strategy for the United States."

"An American approach to digital assets is one that encourages innovation but mitigates the risks to consumers, investors, and businesses, broader financial stability, and the environment," the White House said in the statement.

The executive order does not lay out any specific positions or regulations that U.S. federal agencies would impose on the cryptocurrency industry. The measure seems aimed mainly at accelerating how fast the government will be able to study the industry in order to regulate it more effectively in the future. No new regulation was introduced through the order in question.

The order is meant to focus on helping establish a regulatory framework that would spearhead consumer protection, financial stability, illicit uses, leadership in the global financial sector, financial inclusion and responsible innovation, according to a fact sheet pertaining to the order.

BTC Price Action: The world's first and biggest cryptocurrency Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is trading at nearly $42,000, after seeing its price increase by over 8.3% over the last 24 hours. As usually, the coin is leading the rest of the crypto market — resulting in most cryptos to be in the green as of press time.