Political Winds Continue to Turn as Politicians Race to Show Support for Crypto
Each day, Coinrule will run through the state of the digital assets market for Blockbeat, your home for news, analysis, opinion and commentary on blockchain and digital assets.
The great political circus that is a US election has recently been running on overdrive. President Biden has announced he will not be running for re-election. Republican challenger Trump has survived an assassination attempt. In light of that, one would think that the cryptocurrency industry does not play a major role. But somehow, unexpectedly, it does. On Saturday, Trump became the first US presidential candidate to address a major Bitcoin conference, the 2024 Bitcoin conference in Nashville.
In characteristic fashion, Trump knew how to throw out some crowd pleasers. He promised to fire the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, who is extremely unpopular in crypto circles due to his anti-crypto approach, on his first day in office. He vowed to appoint a new SEC chairman more friendly to Bitcoin and crypto. In even bigger news, Trump announced that under him as President, the government would keep 100% of its current Bitcoin rather than auctioning it off, slowly building up a national reserve. The announcements would be an unprecedented step in the road towards mainstream adoption for both Bitcoin and crypto. Following Trump’s speech, Bitcoin surged over 3%, hitting its highest price in six weeks and approaching the $70,000 mark.
In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat presidential candidate, is not ignoring the crypto vote either. In contrast to the previous policy of the Biden-Harris administration, that largely ignored industry voices, members of the vice-president’s team have contacted crypto companies to arrange a roundtable meeting. Companies on the invite-list seem to include leading exchange Coinbase, stablecoin company Circle, decentralised exchange Uniswap and blockchain group Ripple Labs.
Also, a group of Democrat officials, including members of Congress, and state officials published an Open Letter asking the Biden-Harris administration to change their stance on Digital Assets. The call includes the request to remove SEC Chairman Gensler, echoing the promise made by Trump.
Whoever is shocked by the pace of change is not alone. Even seasoned observers of the political circus did probably not expect the winds to shift so quickly. But money talks in politics. A pro-crypto super Pac, Fairshake, has raised more than $200 million from backers including Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz, according to filings. Since Trump publicly announced his pro-crypto position 2 months ago, a significant amount of this funding has gone towards his campaign. The crypto industry, which originally set out to change the game, finds itself right in the middle of it. Whoever will form the new US government will have a lot to deliver to meet the growing expectations from the industry. But either way, it seems that a major milestone on the road to regulatory clarity will be reached one way or another over the next 12 months.
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