Former President Donald Trump arrives for his campaign rally on the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
As Donald Trump celebrated his prospective victory on Election Night at Mar-a-Lago, he was joined by a roster of high-profile supporters. Amongst them were Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick.
One thing those three people have in common: crypto.
It’s an industry that Trump talked little about until recently but has counted on for giant amounts of money for his campaign and related PACs. Getting that cash required him to make big guarantees pertaining to the crypto industry.
Crypto markets surged on Election Night, with bitcoin hitting a record of over $75,000, as his victory began looking likely. Crypto-linked stocks like Coinbase and MicroStrategy moved higher as well in after-hours trading Tuesday.
With a Republican-controlled Senate on the horizon, Trump has few roadblocks to putting in a more pro-crypto platform. Listed below are among the things he’s pledged to do:
Strategic national crypto stockpile
“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that each bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said during his keynote speech.
Trump pledged to take care of the present level of bitcoin holdings that the U.S. has amassed from seizing assets from financial criminals.
“If I’m elected, it’s going to be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to maintain 100% of all of the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the long run,” he said.
Currently, the U.S. Marshals Service recurrently auctions off bitcoin in addition to other cryptocurrencies held within the country’s coffers comparable to ether and litecoin. These sales can sometimes trigger drops in crypto prices, like earlier this 12 months when Germany began to liquidate lots of of tens of millions of dollars value of bitcoin it had seized.
‘On day one, I’ll fire Gary Gensler’
In public remarks for months, Trump has promised to unseat U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.
“On day one, I’ll fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said, referencing the Joe Biden-appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto regulation.
The president doesn’t have the ability to fireside appointed commissioners. Even when Trump were to appoint a recent chairman, Gensler would remain a commissioner on the independent agency.
The previous president also vowed to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”
“The foundations will probably be written by individuals who love your industry, not hate your industry,” Trump said.
Gensler has brought greater than 100 actions against crypto firms during his tenure on the helm of the commission. In multiple interviews, the SEC chair has said he believes much of the industry already belongs under its jurisdiction, and its lawsuits are simply bringing the industry under compliance.
Crypto firms argue that the recent legal battles have not given the regulatory clarity the industry has been searching for for years they usually as a substitute reflect a gross overreach by the regulator.
Trump has also expressly spoken out about his qualms with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who’s widely viewed by the crypto community as an existential threat.
All bitcoin will probably be mined in America
The intimate gathering brought together a coalition of among the biggest private and public American miners within the business, including representatives from Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital Holdings, Terawulf, CleanSpark and Core Scientific.
Lower than 4 hours after Trump’s roundtable wrapped, the previous president took to social media to extol the virtues of the bitcoin mining business.
“Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We would like all of the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It would help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after his meeting.
Since then, Trump has on multiple occasions reiterated the sentiment.
“If crypto goes to define the long run, I need it to be mined, minted and made within the USA,” Trump declared in Nashville in a message targeted to the industry’s bitcoin miners — who secure the network by running large banks of high-powered machines.
“We will probably be creating a lot electricity that you will be saying, ‘Please, please, President, we don’t need any more electricity. We won’t stand it!'”
Fed rate cuts
In August, Trump said that, if elected, he would lower rates of interest.
The Federal Reserve, which guides the country’s monetary policy, sets the benchmark rate. It also, by design, operates independently from the White House.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell in September decided to slash rates by a half point in its first easing campaign in 4 years.
Rate cuts and the easing of monetary policy historically dovetails with a surge in crypto prices because it makes it cheaper to borrow money.
