The Trump Administration’s Crypto Landscape

Jessy, Golden Finance

The day of Trump's official inauguration is getting closer. He also nominated the cabinet members of the new government that he is optimistic about. There is no doubt that Trump, as well as some of his nominated cabinet members, are crypto-friendly.

It is precisely thanks to the Trump administration's crypto-friendliness, coupled with the US interest rate cuts, that 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 impressive gains.

The next market has also become very clear. As the US regulation of cryptocurrencies becomes clearer, DeFi-related projects will become one of the main lines of the next bull market. The Trump family's projects continue to bet on DeFi projects, which is 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 regarded as digital commodities and not regulated by the SEC, 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.

And what projects are Trump, his related projects, including Trump's cabinet members, buying and supporting? What does this indicate about the future development of encryption?

Trump:

• His business territory is involved in encryption

1. WLFI:

World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is an encryption 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 of World Liberty Financial, and his 18-year-old youngest son, Barron Trump, is the DeFi visionary of World Liberty Financial.

In the white paper of the project, it is stated that Trump will occasionally promote the project. In return, Trump's company will also receive 75% of the project's revenue.

The project focuses on the construction of lending services, such as a credit account system built on the Aave and Ethereum blockchains, and also a decentralized cryptocurrency trading venue. The governance token of the project is WLFI.

Currently, the project is still in the public sale stage, and 1/4 of the tokens have been sold, and $75 million has been raised.

And WLFI is also constantly buying tokens of 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 on purchasing 8,105 ETH, with an average price of $3,701.

AAVE: 6,137 AAVE were purchased 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 about $0.981.

Ondo: 134,216 ONDO tokens were purchased at an average price of about $1.86.

CB BTC: 103 CB BTC were purchased at a unit price of $97,181.

WLFI basically purchased 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, which basically cover all DeFi on the chain.

With the gradual clarification of US supervision after Trump took office, DeFi is likely to usher in a stage of vigorous development.

   2. Business layout in other encryption fields

Companies under the Trump family are also actively deploying encryption businesses. For example, the Trump family owns the cryptocurrency exchange "World Free Finance", and its social platform "Truth" has submitted an application to create a crypto payment service called "truthfi". It also plans to acquire the encryption 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. ETH ranks second in his portfolio, with more than 495ETH worth $1.99 million. In addition, he also holds more than 478 WETH worth $1.93 million.

Some Meme Coins in his wallet, such as Trump, are basically obtained through airdrops, while Ethereum is the donations he received during the presidential campaign, as well as the commissions from the sale of its related NFTs, including some of the shares of WLFI sales.

Trump's wallet also has mainstream tokens such as 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.

Members of Trump's cabinet are basically crypto-friendly or hold cryptocurrencies themselves.

Crypto holdings of Trump administration cabinet members

Trump's cabinet includes 15 cabinet ministers and some cabinet-level officials, about 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 head of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs at the White House, and also served as chairman of the President's Science and Technology Advisory Committee.

He has a very positive attitude towards encryption. The venture capital company he founded, Craft Ventures, has many investments in the field of cryptocurrency, covering infrastructure, CeFi, DeFi, NFT and other fields, including projects such as dydx and Lightning Labs.

Sacks's position as the head of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs at the White House will help lead the realization of Trump's promise to relax regulations in the cryptocurrency industry during the campaign. 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, to 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, he holds at least Bitcoin and Solana.

Bitcoin: In 2012, David Sacks began investing in Bitcoin and adopted a long-term holding strategy of "set it and forget it". He sees Bitcoin as a tool to resist fiat currency inflation and censorship.

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.

was nominated by Trump as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

He believes that cryptocurrency is a good way to hedge inflation and believes that Bitcoin is a "perfect base currency." He hopes that the United States will become the center of global cryptocurrency and has put forward a series of policy recommendations for this purpose, such as exempting capital gains tax on the conversion of Bitcoin to US dollars and supporting the US 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 is disclosed that Robert Kennedy Jr.'s family trust holds Bitcoin worth between $100,000 and $2.5 million. He also bought 21 Bitcoins during the campaign and 3 Bitcoins for each of his children, demonstrating his support for cryptocurrencies through actual investment.

• Howard Lutnick

Nominated by Trump Trump nominated Trump as US Secretary of Commerce. If the nomination is confirmed, he will also be directly responsible for the relevant work of the Office of the US Trade Representative.

He believes that Bitcoin has the value of decentralization and is the only asset that no one can deprive. 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 US Treasury bonds.

On July 27, 2024, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Lutnick announced the launch of a $200 million Bitcoin loan program to provide leverage to those 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 believes that the bill will protect investors, promote innovation, and bring more diverse business opportunities to her region, and promote the development of the United States 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 believes that central bank digital currency will 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, has the characteristics of being unmanipulated by third parties and can retain the 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 holds Ethereum and LTC worth $1,000 to $15,000. It is unclear whether he still holds them.

Summary

As the first US president to openly support the crypto industry, Trump not only actively or passively holds crypto assets, but his business territory 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 US strategic bitcoin reserve is likely to become a reality. In addition, Trump has promoted crypto legislation, relaxed regulatory efforts, and established 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 operate in a relatively relaxed environment.

The cabinet members selected by Trump are basically crypto-friendly representatives. Although Paul Atkins, the chairman of the SEC he selected, has not disclosed any public information showing that he holds virtual currency assets. However, as 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, although the positions they nominated are not related to the economy, have also clearly expressed their support for cryptocurrencies. As policy makers, only by truly holding virtual currencies can truly crypto-friendly policies be formulated.

Currently, 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.