The former President and likely Republican candidate for the 2024 election, Donald Trump, recently expressed his support for the cryptocurrency industry and called himself the “Crypto President” at an event hosted by tech investors, venture capitalists, and industry leaders in California last week.
Trump is known for saying what people want to hear, but he seems to really support the crypto industry. The fundraiser was organized by David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, two prominent names in Silicon Valley. They helped Trump raise $12 million from rich donors who seem tired of President Biden’s reportedly anti-crypto stance and comments.
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Three sources who attended the event confirmed to Reuters that Trump was very vocal in supporting the development of the crypto industry in the United States.
Trevor Traina, a former ambassador in Austria during Trump’s tenure was among those sources. He further stressed that Trump blasted the current administration for its efforts to stop the advance of the sector and said that this would stop the second he gets to office.
Although Trump was reluctant to name specific policies and efforts that would support the space (an all-too-common political tactic), his rhetoric is clearly well aligned with the complaints of industry leaders who believe that the United States is falling behind other countries in this area due to a lack of political support.
Trump Aims to Exploit Biden’s Unfriendly Policies to His Political Benefit
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that prompted financial regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to ensure that they enforce policies that guarantee the responsible development of projects within this space.
Since then, the SEC and its Chairman, Gary Gensler, have brought up a significant number of cases and opened investigations against crypto exchanges, individual projects, and even well-known personalities in the industry, accusing some of them of offering unregistered securities to the public, committing wire fraud, or conspiring to launder money.
Meanwhile, just last week, Biden vetoed a resolution that aimed to overrule the infamous Staff Accounting Bulleting (SAB) No. 121, which forces institutions that provide custody to crypto assets to list these deposits as liabilities on their balance sheets.
In contrast, Trump has relied on cryptocurrency to raise money for his campaign and became the first presidential candidate in the country’s history to accept donations in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
“I am very positive and open minded to cryptocurrency companies, and all things related to this new and burgeoning industry,” he said in a post published on the social media platform Truth Social, which he owns.
Earlier this year, Trump also launched a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that would be sold to raise money for his campaign. The collection was called the “mugshot edition” and depicted the former president as a superhero, basketball player, or even WWE wrestler.
Each NFT cost $99 and they could not be traded by their owners until December 2024 – meaning that they were pledging their allegiance to Trump regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.
This is not the first time that Trump has turned to NFT enthusiasts to raise some cash. Back in 2022, he also promoted a collection of digital cards that were widely popular. Back then, he sold over 40,000 specimens in just 24 hours and raised millions from both supporters and speculators.
Trump Appeases to Crypto Lovers to Win San Francisco
Jacob Helberg, another attendee who works for the artificial intelligence firm Palantir, also confirmed Trump’s positive comments toward the sector and his criticism of the Biden administration for putting obstacles to the industry’s development.
“President Trump made clear that the Biden-Gensler crusade against crypto will grind to a halt within one hour of a second Trump administration,” Helbert told Reuters.
Although San Francisco is typically known as a stronghold for the Democrats, the hostile actions taken by the Biden administration are being used to undermine its support in the area by Trump’s campaign.
Apart from Sacks and Palihapitiya, who are well-known supporters of the crypto sector, other industry leaders including executives from Coinbase and Gemini – two prominent US-based crypto exchanges – attended the fundraiser.
Congress Remains Split Over Crypto on Partisan Lines
A group of Republican lawmakers, with the surprising help of some Democrats, have been pushing forward comprehensive regulations that help bring order to the chaos that is usually the crypto sector.
In May, a new bill known as the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) was passed in the GOP-controlled House with a staggering total of 279 votes against 136.
The law is being sponsored by the Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry, French Hill, and Dusty Johnson. The passage of the bill in the House was considered a “historic step” toward the creation of adequate regulations that protect consumers, foster innovation, and keep America on the radar when it comes to financial technology.
The regulatory burden of overseeing the sector according to the bill’s text would be split between both the SEC and the CFTC – something that none of the two agencies are too happy about and may be the reason why the current administration is not fond of this law.
A total of 76 Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in approving FIT 21, which signals that there are a few cracks in the walls of the party led by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is currently the minority leader within the House.
The Biden administration expressed concerns about the bill’s ability to tackle all of the sector’s complexity and considered it insufficient in its current state to achieve the goal of protecting consumers and investors.
Biden did not explicitly threaten to veto it but there’s still a long road ahead until it can get to the Senate.
Meanwhile, the former Speaker of the House and top Democratic lawmaker, Nancy Pelosi endorsed the bill and said it would be a good “first step to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets.”
It seems that there is no accord between Democrats and their President as to how the path forward looks like when it comes to regulating the industry, which could give Trump an advantage over Biden in this particular topic.