Trump vs Biden: Crypto Edition

Between Elizabeth Warrens “anti-crypto army” and the SECs Gary Gensler’s regulation-by-enforcement, the crypto community is slowly being pushed farther and farther into the arms of Trump and the Republican party.

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Luke Ostapchuk & Dillon Newman
May 15, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

While crypto should be apolitical, it’s obvious for anyone paying attention that it is anything but.

The fault – if we are being totally honest – lands squarely on the Democratic party.

Between Elizabeth Warrens “anti-crypto army” and the SECs Gary Gensler’s regulation-by-enforcement, the crypto community is slowly being pushed farther and farther into the arms of Trump and the Republican party.

For example, last week Republicans put forward a bill to overturn the SAB121 accounting rule – a rule that forces institutions that have cryptoassets in custody to report them on their balance sheet as either an asset or a liability.

The rule has stopped all the big banks in the US from adding custodied crypto to their balance sheets.

In response to the Republican’s bill, Biden vowed to veto it if it reaches his desk. Yes, that’s a President vowing to veto an accounting rule.

While all of this was going down, what was Trump doing? Meeting with crypto leaders such as Messari’s Ryan Selkis. In response to a question regarding crypto Trump stated:

"I want to make sure it’s good and solid, but I’m good with it. If you like crypto in any form—it comes in a lot of different forms—if you’re in favor of crypto you’d better vote for Trump."

It’s for this reason that you have people like Mark Cuban – who’s name has for a while been thrown around as a future VP candidate – on X stating, “If Joe Biden loses, there is a good chance you will be able to thank Gary Gensler and the SEC.”

What’s Next? Joint Resolution 109, which aims to invalidate the controversial SAB 121, will be voted on in the Senate tomorrow. So far, it looks like there is enough Democrats on board to get the legislation to Biden’s desk.

Impact on Prices Going Forward?

While it’s becoming increasingly evident that whichever party wins will heavily influence regulatory clarity and, therefore, prices going forward… we side with Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz on where bitcoin will be trading in the meantime…

During a recent earnings call (see story below), Novogratz predicted that bitcoin would stay in a “consolidation phase” until the US election, stating it could trade anywhere between $55,000-$75,000 in the near term.

“I think that’s probably where we are — certainly for this quarter and maybe next quarter — until either the Fed starts cutting rates because the economy finally slows or we get through the election.”

Later in the call, Novogratz went on to say one of the funniest lines to date, criticizing the Democrats' questionable stance on crypto…

“This is the definition of stupidity if you're a Democrat. It is literally like saying, hey, we're the party against dogs, right. There are more crypto users in America than there are dog owners. Can you imagine a party coming out and saying, oh, we don't like dogs. Like, it's just terrible politics, but that's where we're at.”