By Stephanie Kelly and Suzanne McGe
Translation: Blockchain in Vernacular
Republican candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump, who once called cryptocurrency a “scam,” is now serving as a keynote speaker at one of the industry’s largest conferences, Reuters reported July 25.
Trump made the comments in 2021, and he will speak on Saturday, the final day of the three-day Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty and Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Loomis will also speak.
Among Democrats, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California will also attend.
1. Development status
After FTX and a string of other crypto companies collapsed in 2022, the industry quickly rebounded, sending token prices tumbling and forcing several companies into bankruptcy. Supporters of digital assets say cryptocurrency users are becoming a growing political force in this election cycle, though it’s unclear how many users will prioritize cryptocurrency issues when voting .
Republicans are courting their votes by promising to roll back regulations, which could tie a currency designed to bypass the government to a major U.S. political party.
“For most of its history, cryptocurrency was effectively a nonpartisan issue,” said David Yermack, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, because neither Republicans nor Democrats understood it or were willing to learn more about it.
“I do think the Republicans have started to move a little faster in this area in the last year or two.”
Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit industry group backed by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, has organized more than 1.3 million supporters. Meanwhile, three major pro-cryptocurrency super PACs — Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress — that didn’t exist before this election cycle have raised more than $230 million to support friendly candidates.
2. Impact
The impact is already being felt. Fairshake, a super PAC that supports cryptocurrency candidates, has spent more than $10 million this year against California progressive Democrat Katie Porter, who is running for U.S. Senate. Porter questioned the impact of bitcoin mining on climate change but lost in the primary.
Some cryptocurrency supporters are backing Trump, including the billionaire Winklevoss twins, who founded the crypto company Gemini and gave Trump $1 million in bitcoin each but had to retract the money because it exceeded the limit allowed under federal law.
Overall, 7% of U.S. adults held or used cryptocurrency in 2023, down 3 percentage points from 2022 and 5 percentage points from 2021, the Fed noted in a May report.
“It’s clear that this industry wants to buy off as many politicians as possible to hijack the agenda of the American people and put their special interests first,” said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, a Washington advocacy group.
“Their special interest is certainly to have little or no regulation,” he added.
Yet the annual meeting attracted more politicians than ever before.
“There’s a joke that the speaker list looks like RNC Lite,” one attendee said in an interview, referring to the Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee in mid-July.
3. Trump’s new support
Trump’s appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 conference is his latest show of support for the industry. At a June fundraiser in San Francisco, he slammed Democratic attempts to regulate the industry. He met with bitcoin mining companies at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month.
“We tried to engage with the Biden administration, but they were not receptive," said Jayson Browder, head of public policy at Marathon Digital Holdings, who attended the Mar-a-Lago meeting. “Former President Trump was very receptive and is now actively supporting our industry."
Trump recently said he would like to see more American companies engage in Bitcoin mining.
Cryptocurrency executives are unhappy with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) enforcement actions under President Joe Biden. The agency claims that several crypto companies, including Coinbase and BN, facilitated trading of digital assets on their platforms that should be registered as securities, which the companies deny.
The White House told Reuters that the Biden-Harris administration will continue to meet with stakeholders and work with Congress to develop the necessary protections to capitalize on the potential benefits and opportunities of crypto-asset innovation.
If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election in November, she may advance Biden's cryptocurrency policies.
The Trump and Harris campaigns had no immediate comment for this article.
Traders betting on a second Trump presidency are flocking to asset classes that could get a boost under his administration. Cameron Dawson, chief investment officer at NewEdge Wealth, said cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, are “by far the most direct and cleanest way to play the ‘Trump trade.’”
Conference attendee Hillary Adler, who co-founded the operating system BitcoinOS and once voted Democratic but now describes herself as a left-wing libertarian, said she was not surprised that some Republican politicians were turning to support cryptocurrency. "Republicans have always had a better long-term strategy in politics," she said. "Now, they care about cryptocurrency."
Link to this article: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/07/5322.html
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-republicans-court-crypto-votes-dollars-bitcoin-2024-2024-07-25/
