Although Donald Trump now seems to be the great defender of bitcoin or the ‘cryptobro’ par excellence, not so long ago he was a firm detractor of cryptocurrencies. The newspaper archive attests to those times when the Republican did not hesitate to publicly criticize crypto assets. The turn in his positioning has been 180 degrees, since the president has gone from calling bitcoin a scam to proposing that the United States be the world capital of bitcoin.
In 2021, a journalist asked Trump: “Don’t you like bitcoin? Wouldn’t you invest in bitcoin?” The response was forceful: “Bitcoin seems like a scam. I don’t like it because it is another currency that competes against the dollar. I want the dollar to be the world currency,” he said in an interview on the phone with Fox.
His skepticism too was captured on Twitter (now
A few months ago, Mike Brock, an executive at Block, the payments firm formerly called Square and founded by Jack Dorsey – also founder of Twitter -, brought up that he was in a meeting in 2020 with Trump and his Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and that The Republican wanted to “ban bitcoin.” According to your versionMnuchin convinced him not to do it. Despite stopping him in that attempt, this official, during his time in the administration, was also no friend of cryptocurrencies and defended that bitcoin was smoke, like the then president.
Trump’s previous term did not stand out for any actions or measures related to cryptocurrencies. The digital asset ecosystem has continued to develop and regulation has focused on specific aspects. In the United States there is no regulation that applies to the entire country as is the case in Europe, but rather the regulations differ by state and the different regulators approach the matter from different, even contradictory, perspectives. Trump had an opportunity to address this issue, but he preferred not to do anything because he was a ‘crypto-skeptic’ at the time.
It is true that a term has passed in between, the industry has evolved a lot in a short time and digital assets, in general, have been gaining weight. Although it is not known specifically what caused Trump’s change of heart, partly because he has spent a long time outside the media space, there have been milestones that could have influenced him. Part of his circle is ‘outlaw’. It is known that his son-in-law Jared Kushner has promoted the debate on the role of cryptocurrencies in the administration. Meanwhile, the world has been opening up to bitcoin and El Salvador is the greatest example of this.
In 2022, already out of the White House, the once again elected president started fooling around with the ‘crypto’ world, starting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Trump released his own collection of NFTs, which he began selling for $99 each sticker. This meant an approach to the ‘crypto’ ecosystem through blockchain technology, which is the basis of cryptocurrencies.
Out of the spotlight, Trump has been changing his view on bitcoin, something that has been evident when he returned to the presidential race. First of all, the Republican has been accepting cryptocurrency payments to finance his election campaign, receiving donations in bitcoin, ether, solana, dogecoin or XRP.
From saying to fact
But this is just an appetizer of the politician’s conversion into a ‘cryptobro’. His electoral intentions when it comes to digital assets are emphatic: turn the United States into the world capital of bitcoin, create a strategic reserve of bitcoins and, in general, promote cryptocurrencies.
In any case, these proclamations contrast with its official program, which refers very briefly to ‘crypto’. The Republican approach is, literally, to end the democratic repression against cryptocurrencies, ensure the right of Americans to mine bitcoins and guarantee that they can custody cryptocurrencies in their private wallets. It remains to be seen which measures will remain promises and which will end up materializing.
Although there is a way from saying to doing, it seems that Trump has already started with the nods to cryptocurrencies. His right-hand man during the election campaign, Elon Musk, is a firm defender of ‘crypto’ and both have already staged it. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX will manage the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE, by its acronym in English). Doge is a cryptocurrency that the richest man in the world has always promoted and the office he is going to run is named after him, precisely.
But if Musk is an ambassador for Doge, Trump is an ambassador for bitcoin. Of course, since a month ago, when he launched his World Liberty Financial (WLF) project and began selling its associated token. In reality, WLF is a ‘crypto botch’, since it does not comply with basic ‘crypto’ principles, such as decentralization or the elimination of intermediation. Furthermore, the politician wants to promote crypto assets in the United States, but the cryptocurrency he sells, WLFI, can only be purchased outside that country.
There are more contradictions in its role as a ‘cryptobroker’ and in the project in which it puts its heart and soul: “We want to promote the dollar as a reserve without compromising the freedom of digital assets,” says the WLF white paper. The dollar depends on the monetary policy of central banks, which directly clashes with any ‘crypto’ approach. Trump is a defender of cryptocurrencies, but there are gaps in his speech.
Government adoption?
In any case, it is true that If anyone can change the current state of the industry, it is him. Experts hope that his legislature will favor a more benign regulatory environment with cryptoassets. It is not trivial for the world’s main power to adopt cryptocurrencies, although it remains to be seen what this implementation will be like and to what degree it is done. If the United States buys bitcoins, other countries can follow in its footsteps. Furthermore, if Trump really takes inclusion measures, it could move to the next phase: government adoption.
This year has seen a major milestone in the cryptocurrency market, the approval of the bitcoin spot ETF, which has allowed financial institutions to offer their investors and trade bitcoin or ether. The national regulator, the SEC, approved the bitcoin exchange-traded fund in January and did the same with the ether fund in July.
That step was already a victory in the ‘crypto’ market, since it meant institutional adoption. Now, if Trump promotes digital assets from the government, we could be In the run-up to government adoption, starting with the United States and, perhaps, continuing to the rest of the world.
In any case, cryptocurrencies are overcoming obstacles and the fact that the president-elect is working on pro-cryptocurrency regulations clears the way for companies to expand businesses, individuals to adopt them and there is more innovation.
All-time highs
These perspectives have permeated the market with historical highs. Bitcoin has exceeded $92,000 and, in just one week, its revaluation has been 35%. In fact, cryptocurrency has been one of the assets most favored by the election result in the United States.
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