Jessy, Golden Finance
Trump's official inauguration is getting closer. He has also nominated cabinet members for his new administration. There is no doubt that Trump, as well as some of his cabinet members, are crypto-friendly.
Thanks to the Trump administration’s crypto-friendliness and the U.S. interest rate cuts, the crypto industry has officially ushered in a bull market.
For example, as WLIF, a project highly tied to the Trump family, continues to buy tokens such as AAVE, LINK, and ENA, these tokens have all seen very significant increases.
The market trend has become very clear. As the US regulation of encryption becomes clearer, DeFi-related projects will become one of the main themes of the next bull market. The Trump family's continued bets on DeFi projects are also a manifestation of this trend.
In terms of policy, the 21st Century Financial Innovation and Technology Act is likely to be passed. After the bill is passed, it will clearly define when cryptocurrencies are commodities or securities. If the bill clarifies that relevant tokens are deemed to be decentralized and functional, they will be considered digital commodities and not subject to SEC regulation, and they can be exempted from the centralization requirements. This will encourage DeFi projects to evolve in a more decentralized direction. In addition, the bill requires the SEC and CFTC to study the development of DeFi, evaluate its impact on traditional financial markets and potential regulatory strategies, which will attract more DeFi projects to "return" to the United States and promote the prosperity and development of the DeFi market.
It is based on this regulatory change in the United States that DeFi has become an important narrative in this bull market.
What projects are Trump, his related projects, and his cabinet members buying and supporting? What does this indicate about the future development of encryption?
Trump:
Its business scope involves encryption
WLFI:
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is a crypto project endorsed by the Trump family and will be officially launched on September 16, 2024. Trump claims to be the Chief Crypto Advocate of the World Liberty Financial project.
Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Donald, serve as Web 3 ambassadors for World Liberty Financial, and his 18-year-old youngest son, Barron Trump, is the DeFi visionary of World Liberty Financial.
The project's white paper states that Trump will occasionally promote the project, and in return, Trump's company will receive 75% of the project's revenue.
The project mainly focuses on the construction of lending services, such as a credit account system built on the Aave and Ethereum blockchains, as well as a decentralized cryptocurrency trading venue. The project's governance token is WLFI.
Currently, the project is still in the public sale stage, and 1/4 of the tokens have been sold, and US$75 million has been raised.
WLFI is also constantly purchasing tokens from other projects. In the past period of time, its purchases are as follows:
ETH: In the past 12 days, a total of $30 million was spent to purchase 8,105 ETH at an average price of $3,701.
AAVE: Bought 6,137 AAVE at an average price of $324.
LINK: 78,387 LINK were purchased at an average price of $25.5.
ENA: 509,955 ENA were purchased at an average price of approximately $0.981.
Ondo: Bought 134,216 ONDO tokens at an average price of approximately $1.86.
CB BTC: 103 CB BTC were purchased at a unit price of $97,181
WLFI basically buys DeFi-related projects, which also highlights the ambition of the WLIF project. It also wants to build an on-chain lending platform, including an on-chain trading platform. The tokens it purchased include stablecoins, mortgage lending, RWA, oracles, and packaged Bitcoin projects, basically covering all on-chain DeFi projects.
With Trump taking office and the gradual clarification of US regulations, DeFi will most likely usher in a period of vigorous development.
2. Business layout in other encryption fields
Companies under the Trump family are also actively developing crypto businesses. For example, the Trump family owns the cryptocurrency exchange "World Free Finance", and its social platform "Truth" has applied to create a crypto payment service called "truthfi". It also plans to acquire the crypto service company Bakkt. These business layouts are closely related to virtual currencies.
Trump's cryptocurrency holdings:
According to the holdings of Trump's wallet, Trump's largest holding is TROG, a Meme Coin, and ETH ranks second in his portfolio, with more than 495 ETH worth $1.99 million. In addition, he also holds more than 478 WETH worth $1.93 million.
Some of the Meme Coins in its wallet, such as Trump, are basically obtained from airdrops, while Ethereum is the donations it received during the presidential campaign, as well as the commission income from the sale of its related NFTs, and also some of the share of WLFI sales.
Trump’s wallet also contains mainstream tokens like Matic, but the source is uncertain.
In terms of politics, Trump wants to build the United States into a crypto-friendly country, starting with Bitcoin as a national reserve and then establishing a series of policies and regulations that will help the development of the crypto industry.
Most of Trump’s cabinet members are crypto-friendly or already hold cryptocurrencies.
Crypto holdings of Trump administration cabinet members
Trump's cabinet includes 15 cabinet secretaries and some cabinet-level officials, numbering around 20 people.
Among these 20 people, there are at least six crypto-friendly people, many of whom have publicly stated that they hold cryptocurrencies. These people are:
David Sachs
He was appointed by Trump as the White House director of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs, and also serves as chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
He has a very positive attitude towards encryption. The venture capital firm Craft Ventures he founded has many investments in the field of cryptocurrency, covering infrastructure, CeFi, DeFi, NFT and other fields, including projects such as dydx and Lightning Labs.
In his position as White House director of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs, Sachs will help lead the implementation of Trump's campaign promise to deregulate the cryptocurrency industry. He will serve as a direct contact between cryptocurrency advocates and the White House, as well as a liaison between Trump, Congress and federal agencies dealing with digital assets. He will promote the formulation and implementation of relevant policies and strive for a more friendly policy space for the cryptocurrency industry.
Currently, according to public information, it holds at least Bitcoin and Solana.
Bitcoin: In 2012, David Sachs began investing in Bitcoin and adopted a long-term holding strategy of "set it and forget it". He saw Bitcoin as a tool to resist inflation and censorship of fiat currencies2.
Solana: In October 2021, David Sacks revealed in a podcast that he holds a large amount of Solana. Even after the collapse of FTX in 2022 caused turmoil in the crypto market, he never sold his Solana holdings and firmly believed that it had the potential to surpass Ethereum in the future.
Robert Kennedy Jr.
Nominated by Trump as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
He believes that cryptocurrency is a good way to hedge against inflation and that Bitcoin is the "perfect base currency." He hopes that the United States will become the center of global cryptocurrency, and has proposed a series of policy recommendations, such as exempting capital gains tax on the conversion of Bitcoin into U.S. dollars and backing the U.S. dollar with hard assets such as Bitcoin. He also intends to promote budget transparency. He plans to put the entire U.S. budget on the blockchain to improve budget transparency and accountability, so that every American can view budget items at any time to prevent corruption and abuse of funds.
It was revealed that Robert Kennedy Jr.'s family trust holds between $100,000 and $2.5 million worth of Bitcoin. He also bought 21 Bitcoins during the campaign and 3 Bitcoins for each of his children, demonstrating his support for cryptocurrency through actual investment.
Howard Lutnick
Nominated by Trump Trump as U.S. Secretary of Commerce. If the nomination is confirmed, he will also be directly responsible for the relevant work of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
He believes that Bitcoin has value such as decentralization and is the only asset that no one can deprive of. He also advocates that Bitcoin should be treated as a commodity, similar to gold and oil.
Lutnick is a staunch supporter of the stablecoin Tether. His Cantor Fitzgerald not only holds an undisclosed stake in Tether, but is also responsible for managing Tether's huge reserve assets, most of which are in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds.
On July 27, 2024, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Lutnick announced the launch of a $200 million Bitcoin lending program to provide leverage to people who own Bitcoin.
Tulsi Gabbard
Nominated by Trump as Director of National Intelligence.
In 2019, Tulsi Gabbard signed a bill aimed at preventing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from regulating cryptocurrencies. She believed that the bill would protect investors, promote innovation, and bring more diverse business opportunities to her region, thereby promoting the development of the U.S. in the digital economy.
In 2023, Tulsi Gabbard publicly criticized the Biden administration's exploration of central bank digital currency at the Bitcoin 2023 conference. She believed that central bank digital currency would record transaction information, increase the risk of surveillance of ordinary Americans, and thus threaten people's freedom and economic autonomy.
She emphasized that Bitcoin, as a decentralized cryptocurrency, cannot be manipulated by third parties and can retain qualities such as privacy and freedom of cash transactions in the digital world. Therefore, she believes that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have positive significance for social development.
According to public documents in December 2017, he held Ethereum and LTC worth between $1,000 and $15,000, but it is unclear whether he still holds them.
Summarize
As the first US president to openly support the crypto industry, Trump not only actively or passively holds crypto assets, but his business scope is also actively involved in the crypto field. From selling NFTs in the early years to doing DeFi projects and acquiring exchanges, Trump's involvement in the crypto industry has become deeper and deeper.
Not only is Trump deeply involved in the crypto industry in the business sector, but after he becomes president, the U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve is likely to become a reality. In addition, he will promote crypto legislation, relax regulation, and establish crypto-specific institutions and positions. It can be seen that this will better coordinate the relationship between the government and the crypto industry, and will also enable the crypto industry to have laws to rely on and develop in a relatively relaxed environment.
The cabinet members chosen by Trump are also basically crypto-friendly. Although there is no public information showing that Paul Atkins, the chairman of the SEC he chose, holds virtual currency assets, he is actually a staunch supporter of cryptocurrencies. It is expected that after he takes office, he will review the many rules and court enforcement actions under Gensler, take a more moderate attitude towards cryptocurrencies, and seek rule changes aimed at promoting capital formation to create a more favorable regulatory environment for the crypto industry.
Some cabinet members, even though their nominated positions are not related to the economy, have also clearly expressed their support for cryptocurrencies. As policy makers, only those who truly hold virtual currencies can formulate truly crypto-friendly policies.
At present, based on the holdings of Trump and some cabinet members and the expansion of the crypto landscape, it can be seen that the United States may invest more in the DeFi track.
