Donald Trump won the election, Bitcoin is now worth over $107,000, and Wall Street is now raving about crypto like it’s the next gold rush. Sounds perfect, right? Except it’s not.
Thanks to Trump, crypto is infiltrating everything. Wall Street, banks, pension funds, 401(k)s — places it should never have been. That’s great for investors I guess, but if you ask me and any true Bitcoin believer, there’s a darker reality behind the hype.
It’s an unwritten law of the world that what goes up must eventually come down. So no matter how high Bitcoin goes, it will eventually crash. And the scary part is when that happens, it will be the worst we’ve ever seen. Naturally, because the market has never reached the levels it is today.
The higher the stakes, the worse the crash. Just ask our Wall Street friends. For years, the appeal of crypto was its independence from the system. Now, the system is embracing it. We are no longer the rebels, we are the establishment.
At a Bitcoin conference in July, Trump floated an idea that shocked everyone — a “national strategic bitcoin reserve.” Analysts are taking this seriously. Under Trump, the United States could actually start hoarding bitcoin like it’s gold. If that sounds crazy, it gets even crazier. This guy wants $15 trillion in bitcoin reserves.
Even before his election victory, the floodgates were open. BlackRock and other financial giants launched bitcoin exchange-traded funds, giving ordinary investors access to bitcoin through their brokerage accounts. Crypto is creeping into mainstream finance at a rapid pace, but with no brakes.
Trump's Crypto Army Is Dismantling Rules—And There Will Be Costs
After the recent crash in 2022 when Bitcoin collapsed and billions disappeared, the industry didn’t really stop. There was no new “killer app” or game-changing technology to restore confidence. Instead, they played politics.
More than $130 million poured into political campaigns during this year’s election cycle. The crypto industry has been crafting a narrative out of lawmakers: Ignore us at your peril because “crypto voters” are coming for you. The pitches have been impressive, even if the “crypto voters” narrative was cobbled together from scratch.
Trump has taken advantage of this. His administration is already grooming crypto loyalists for key regulatory roles. Paul Atkins, a longtime critic of financial oversight and a crypto enthusiast, is Trump’s pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under his leadership, the crypto industry will face less scrutiny, not more. If you thought fraud was bad in 2022, just wait. Trump’s plan doesn’t stop at undermining the SEC, though. As we speak, Congress is working to shift crypto oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Compared to the SEC, the CFTC is very poorly funded and far less experienced in the retail-focused crypto markets. The result? Regulatory chaos, exactly what the industry wants.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is next. The bureau was created after the 2008 crash to protect consumers from predatory financial practices. The biggest crypto names hate it. Marc Andreessen has criticized the agency, calling it a hindrance to crypto companies.
Elon Musk has insisted, asking the government to “delist the CFPB.” To be fair, these guys have a point. If Trump and Congress were to delist the CFPB, it would be open season on crypto platforms, fintechs, and shady payment systems.
Tens of thousands of people were left stranded when Synapse, a fintech company backed by Mark, collapsed earlier this year. This kind of chaos will only get worse without consumer protections.
Banks and pension funds are playing with fire.
The last time crypto exploded, banks were relatively safe. Pension funds and 401(k)s felt almost nothing. Regulators made sure of that. The 2022 crisis was brutal for retail investors, but at least it didn’t lead to a financial collapse. That firewall is now crumbling.
The SEC’s approval of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs has opened the door. Traditional banks and investment firms are jumping in, eager to cash in on the new crypto wave. Now, pension managers are adding Bitcoin exposure to their 401(k) plans. The industry is even fighting to keep crypto directly on its balance sheets.
It’s not hard to see where this is headed. Crypto companies have already fought to kill protections like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121. The rule would have forced banks to disclose crypto holdings and maintain reserves to cover customer assets.
Lawmakers passed a bill in early 2024 to repeal it, but Biden vetoed the effort. Trump won’t. Under his watch, those protections would disappear, leaving banks completely exposed.
But the president’s plans aren’t just about deregulation. His “Global Financial Freedom” project — a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform — is already spending millions on crypto acquisitions. The project reportedly burned through $45 million in December alone.
The real end game
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried spent more than $100 million to buy political influence. He presented lawmakers with a vision of a regulated crypto future, where companies could “regulate themselves” and innovation would flourish. It was a sham. FTX imploded, billions of dollars disappearing overnight.
The crypto industry hasn’t changed. It’s still lobbying hard against regulations. It’s still pushing lawmakers to ignore them. And now it has Trump on its side.
I would feel safer if I really believed these guys believed in Bitcoin. But I don’t, because at the end of the day, politics is just politics. If Bitcoin wasn’t going to make Trump richer in any way, how many of you can clearly say you think he would still be committed?
Let’s face it. Every bull run ends in a crash. And every crash leaves destruction in its wake. The difference now is that Bitcoin has grown too big to fail.
A crypto collapse under Trump’s leadership would not only hurt retail investors and break my heart. It would impact the banking system, pension funds, and the entire global economy. So as we watch Mr. Trump take the oath of office, beware that the countdown is on.
How long do we have until the next 'crypto winter' comes?