1. Trump attends Bitcoin conference to win over swing voters
In the early morning of July 28th, UTC+8 time zone, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference held in Nashville, former US President and presidential candidate Trump appeared and delivered a nearly one-hour speech. Although it was delayed by one hour from the original time, the atmosphere on the scene was still very high. Trump fully recognized the status of BTC as a scarce asset and a safe-haven asset, and agreed that BTC will surpass gold to become the world's largest asset class in the future. He also said that the United States must maintain its status as a cryptocurrency superpower, and emphasized that if elected, he would fire SEC Chairman Gray Gensler, who has been hindering the development of cryptocurrency at the compliance level, on the first day of his inauguration.
Trump compared himself to cryptocurrency supporters, implying that he and the cryptocurrency industry were victims of the establishment's tyranny ("election manipulation" and "crypto regulation"), and opposed himself to Harris, emphasizing that Harris was very opposed to cryptocurrency. In his speech, he also clearly opposed the views of some Fed officials that "US dollar stablecoins threaten the status of the US dollar" (see my other research report "The Fed is gradually turning to balance and external consistency, and its potential attitude towards cryptocurrency is still negative"), promised to set up a presidential advisory committee on cryptocurrency if elected, and issued a major statement that after taking office, BTC will be recognized as an official strategic reserve asset of the US government, and the US government led by him will never sell BTC.
In addition, Trump also emphasized the importance of power infrastructure for the development of AI. After the weekend speech, the BTC market price did not react as positively to his statement as when Trump was assassinated. It only began to rise to a certain extent on Monday morning Beijing time. Obviously, for Trump, who failed to implement many promises in his last term and wavered in his policy many times, the "action" of the assassination is far more convincing than verbal promises.
Trump's speech is seen as an attempt to win over cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and a continuation of his friendly stance towards the cryptocurrency world in this election. Five years ago, Trump was also clearly opposed to crypto, but this time his election fundraising already includes millions of dollars worth of crypto assets. Trump's shift in attitude in this election is more a reflection of the prominent social influence of cryptocurrency than his real recognition of cryptocurrency, and Trump's election situation is likely to be less than what he and his team expected, resulting in him having to work hard to win these votes even if the effect is unknown.
2. Trump’s statement after the assassination may be a remedy attempt to continue his campaign strategy of attracting support from cryptocurrency users
After Trump was assassinated, due to his excellent on-the-spot reaction, Trump was unanimously believed by all mainstream media and Internet public opinion to have firmly held the lead, but recent data shows that Harris and Trump are very close in the election and are currently in a stalemate. According to poll data, Trump's lead over Harris is very slight, and even IPSOS poll data shows that Harris is already 2% ahead. Multiple polls show that non-white voters have increased their support for Harris, and Democrats' enthusiasm for this election has also increased significantly. In several key swing states, the support rates of the two are also very close.
Although there have been many voices questioning the above poll data in the market (for example, the IPSOS poll sampling method has been widely questioned), and historically poll data has not been very reliable, the data still reflects that Trump's election situation after Biden was forced to withdraw from the election may not be as smooth as he imagined.
The author believes that Trump’s recent “stupid moves” include but are not limited to:
Is Vance really a good running mate? Both of them are MAGA representatives, both are white, and their "personalities" overlap slightly. They cannot play the complementary role of Obama and Biden (Obama attracts voters of color and is responsible for domestic affairs, Biden is responsible for foreign affairs), Biden and Harris (Biden is responsible for practical matters, Harris attracts minorities, women and people of color). Vance has also been questioned for his tendency to be fence-sitters and dishonest. In his famous work "Hillbilly Elegy", he emphasized that the tragedy of rural Americans is his own problem, and now he accuses China of trade dumping and stealing the jobs of rust belt rednecks; Vance is too young, and his appointment as vice president is likely to have caused strong dissatisfaction from other young establishment leaders in the Republican Party (DeSantis) and others. Compared with Harris's possible vice presidential candidate Mark Kelly (born in an ordinary family, a former Navy carrier-based fighter pilot, and the last mission of the space shuttle Endeavour), Vance seems much inferior;
The recent Russian-Ukrainian proposal is a bit naive. It is nonsense for the Ukrainian army to replace the US military to ensure the defense of Western Europe. Russia, which currently has the initiative on the battlefield, is even less likely to hand over the occupied areas of the four eastern Ukrainian states. Trump, who has no political experience, was found to be completely unfamiliar with diplomacy during his last term. Trump's entire diplomatic staff team is very unstable, and he has completely broken up with Vice President Pence, who is in charge of diplomacy.
In contrast, Biden has been deeply involved in US diplomacy as a senator since the peak of the Cold War. Biden was a member of the first US Congressional delegation to visit China (1979), responsible for the US-Soviet SALT II agreement negotiations and met with Brezhnev and Gromyko. He has rich diplomatic experience and connections, especially knowing Netanyahu for nearly 40 years, and has been in Ukraine for decades (Biden has publicly boasted about his deep control over Ukraine's internal affairs many times, and his second son has made many investments in Ukraine). He is personally the most authoritative expert on US foreign policy after Kissinger. Even though Biden has developed severe Alzheimer's symptoms, as the last generation of Cold War politicians, he has shown a smooth and sophisticated hand on the Russia-Ukraine and Palestine-Israel issues, and has guaranteed the US national interests to the greatest extent, which is something that the Trump team cannot do at all.
Trump's current advantage may come more from the aura of being chosen by God after surviving an assassination attempt, and from the fact that his opponents are too weak:
Harris is surrounded by rumors of being a mistress. As a female politician, she is far inferior to Hillary and Pelosi.
As vice president, she has not achieved anything in four years, and the only job Biden gave her was border control, which was a mess;
As a minority woman, it is actually difficult for her to increase the votes of people of color and minorities because her ecological niche overlaps with Obama's;
Before taking office as vice president, Harris lacked experience in federal politics and her network was limited to California. She did not have the strong network of unions in various states that Biden had accumulated during his nearly half-century career as a senator, and could not compete for the votes of rust belt workers. These votes with high voter turnout are expected to all fall into the pocket of MAGA old white man Trump, and these votes were the key to Biden's turnaround in the key swing state of Arizona four years ago (thanks to his union network and close personal relationship with the McCain family, Biden has a strong ability to divert these votes). The picture below shows Biden visiting the deceased McCain's memorial and paying tribute to him during his visit to Vietnam in 2023 to commemorate his decades-long friendship with McCain.
But at present, the Democratic Party is in a period of transition, and Harris is the best choice of the Democratic Party's behind-the-scenes manipulators (Obama, the Clintons, and Pelosi) after weighing their own interests. After Biden was forced to withdraw from the election, in order to retaliate against Obama's backstab, he quickly reached a cooperation with Harris, who had always been at odds with him, and stood up for her (the author complained: the old man with Alzheimer's disease is really pitiful. His excellent eldest son died young, and his youngest son did all kinds of evil. He was worried about his troublesome son not going to jail). In recent years, the Democratic Party's election organization ability has been significantly better than that of the Republican Party. It remains to be seen whether Trump's current advantage can be maintained.
3. Cryptocurrency users in swing states may become a turning point for Trump’s election
The cryptocurrency market had a lukewarm response to Trump's statement after the Bitcoin Conference, probably because Trump's speech was during a period of light trading on the weekend. Based on the experience of the sharp rebound in the cryptocurrency market after Trump's assassination last time, the impact of his speech on the cryptocurrency market may not be fully apparent until the opening of the US market on Monday (although cryptocurrency exchanges do not close, the more active trading hours are generally in the early US trading hours). On Monday Beijing time, the market still reacted to Trump's statement before the opening of the US market, and Binance BTC spot rose by more than 3% in 24 hours.
Trump's full shift to cryptocurrency supporters is mainly to win extra votes in swing states. There are seven swing states in the United States in the general sense (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona), which are the "battlefields" that really need to invest energy under the Electoral College and winner-take-all mechanism. The most important of these are Pennsylvania and Ohio. According to a survey conducted by Morning Consult in 2023 commissioned by the Stand with Crypto campaign initiated by Coinbase, there are more than 52 million cryptocurrency users in the United States (defined as those who use cryptocurrency to purchase goods or services, hold cryptocurrency, and use cryptocurrency for transfers), accounting for about 20% of the US population, of which about one-sixth live in one of the seven swing states mentioned above, and 18% of voters in swing states hold cryptocurrency, which constitutes a very considerable voting power.
The Fed's two household surveys, SHED and SDCDC (conducted by USC), also count cryptocurrency usage, as shown in the figure below. In the 2022 Cohort, SDCPC conducted a Household sampling survey of more than 4,761 respondents. SHED did not conduct a separate systematic sampling, but used a ready-made panel sample from IPSOS. The results of the two data on Crypto usage are shown in the figure below. The two surveys of the Federal Reserve are relatively conservative, indicating that the proportion of cryptocurrency users is about 10% nationwide, but this is still a huge number, and it is expected that this number will rise compared to 2021 and 2022. Therefore, Trump's friendly statement on cryptocurrency is likely to help him gain a great advantage in swing states.
At the same time, cryptocurrency enthusiasts may be more inclined to vote and strongly tend to support cryptocurrency-friendly candidates. The strong sway and tendency, stronger desire to vote, combined with the huge base of the crypto population mentioned above, may indicate that the crypto population has become a crucial weight in the US presidential election.
Voter turnout has always been an important aspect of US election research. American voters may be the most burdened group of voters in the world. The primary election for the presidential election is already very complicated (candidates and pledged representatives, national convention delegates). In the formal election, the state electors must be selected at the same time as the presidential candidate, not to mention the long list of candidates at all levels of the federal government, which puts enormous pressure on voter turnout. It is generally believed that people with higher incomes and higher education may have higher voter turnout, and these people may have a higher degree of overlap with the profile of cryptocurrency users.
According to Morning Consult data, crypto voters seem to be more bipartisan than the general electorate: 35% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 31% neutral, which means they are more swaying and have more "united front values", and 90% of cryptocurrency holders in swing states said they would vote, and 55% said they would never vote for a candidate who does not support cryptocurrency. Trump's all-in Crypto statement is aimed at this part of voters who have the crucial characteristics of sway, strong desire to vote, and loyalty to cryptocurrency - after all, even 100,000 votes in swing states may be enough to determine the final victory or defeat of the election.
Compared with classic issues such as Sino-US relations, the Russia-Ukraine war, inflation, health care reform and border control, the impact of the emerging cryptocurrency issue on the US election and Trump's election situation remains to be seen, and may be higher than the expectations of the market and observers.
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