Author: jk, Odaily Planet Daily
From the point of view of July 2024, all parties generally predict that it is only a matter of time before Trump wins this year's US election. From the perspective of the crypto world, Trump is undoubtedly a more pro-crypto image than the current US President Biden; not only does he chat and laugh with various crypto bosses, but he also chooses a pro-crypto vice presidential candidate and makes many pro-crypto promises.
However, there are also dissenters: On July 11, Arthur Hayes said that Trump’s “sudden interest in cryptocurrencies” was insincere.
Hayes said,
Courting the young, politically active, and upstart crypto crowd may have won Trump the election. So Trump is boosting his image among crypto supporters by saying all the “right things.” Unfortunately, this newfound political attention has caught the attention of many in our industry. The political Hot Chicks are trying to bring us home, not the other way around. These feelings are misplaced. The Playboys of Crypto are not movie stars, but fools standing on the fringe of the party.
I am dismayed that many crypto experts who should know better are now blindly hosting gimmicky fundraisers for the Trump campaign. They mistakenly believe that Trump is sincere and that if they just donate enough money, the "Kill Crypto" campaign will go away. This is pure bullshit. Trump is a savvy politician. He will say anything to anyone who wants to be re-elected. Once in office, anything to do with crypto will be a distant memory.
Let's review history: Trump has run for the US presidency several times. What are his political promises? How many of them have been fulfilled? Especially in the fields of economy and new technology, the success rate of this part will in a sense become a reference for Trump's attitude towards the encryption field.
How many of Trump’s campaign promises have been fulfilled?
Trump actually made many promises during his previous campaigns. In general, statistics will select the promises that are more serious, made in public, and mentioned several times. According to statistics from the neutral website PolitiFact, during his previous presidency, Trump successfully kept about 23% of his promises, gave in and partially fulfilled 22% of his promises, but broke about 53% of his promises. In other words, in terms of keeping campaign promises, the data seems to support Arthur Hayes's point of view.
The percentage of Trump's promises he has kept. Source: PolitiFact
In the economic field, Trump successfully kept the following promises during his last term:
Did not cut Social Security payments (he did try to cut and break his own promise, but was stopped by Congress)
Raising tariffs
Renegotiating the North American Trade Agreement
Reduce some taxes
Withdrawal from TPP
The commitments that were not successfully fulfilled were:
Invest in U.S. infrastructure and set up a U.S. infrastructure fund
The economy is growing at a rate of 4% per year.
Bringing Industry Back to the U.S.
Cutting federal spending
Cutting the federal debt and reducing the deficit
Reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three
Get China out of the WTO
Build a wall across the US-Mexico border, and have Mexico pay for it
Although we can make effective predictions about the future based on this data, we can see that some of the things that the Trump administration has full power to achieve have indeed been resolved; but if it involves more underlying economic development issues (such as US government debt), it is highly likely that they cannot be resolved.
What crypto promises has Trump made so far?
At present, Trump’s commitments in the field of encryption are summarized as follows: (Data source comes from CNBC and Bloomberg, etc.)
Trump invited holders of his NFT collection to his home in Florida and promised to end regulatory hostility toward the industry if re-elected;
At the Liberal Party convention, he promised to release Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted of creating the dark web marketplace Silk Road;
At the same convention, he vowed to keep Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has proposed a bill to increase regulation of the crypto industry, and “her goons” away from Bitcoin holders.
In June, after meeting with executives from several bitcoin mining companies, Trump announced that if he returns to the White House, all future bitcoins will be minted in the United States. (This should not be considered a hard commitment)
Judging from these points, it is indeed the right of the White House to "end regulatory hostility" in some way, such as replacing Gary Gensler and releasing Ross Ulbricht. Based on previous data, this may indeed be a goal that Trump can achieve after taking office.
It is worth mentioning that this is almost the opposite of Trump’s attitude five years ago. In 2019, Trump himself tweeted that he was “not a fan of Bitcoin, its value is highly volatile, like it’s based on air.”
Trump tweets in 2019. Source: Bloomberg
