Trump and Biden start the battle of "crypto election"

Starting from this year, people all over the world are paying attention to the US election.

On the one hand, in the context of increasingly obvious political polarization, the lingering haze of economic recession, and serious divisions in public opinion, the choice of the next president of the United States It will have a crucial impact on the direction of the country's political situation. On the other hand, with the transmission of high inflation, the intensifying trade war, and the collective development of economies, we also need to pay attention to the U.S. election as to where the global economy will go.

On November 5, the 2024 US presidential election will be held as scheduled. Judging from the current situation, it is no surprise that this year's US president will be chosen between the 81-year-old Democratic representative Biden and the Republican representative Trump, who is known for his crazy talk. In order to gain votes, both will spread their arms, shout, and make speech tours to explain their political intentions and election promises, including economic, demographic, gender, education, and military issues.

But what is different from the past is that encryption is rarely included in the presidential battle issue this year.

Not long ago, Trump suddenly stated that he would accept cryptocurrencies as campaign donations and encouraged voters who support cryptocurrencies to vote for him. "President Joe Biden doesn't even know what cryptocurrencies are, and if you like cryptocurrencies in any form, if you support cryptocurrencies, you better vote for Trump."

This is not the first time that Trump has shown his support for the encryption field. As early as December 15, 2022, Trump announced the issuance of 45,000 NFTs through the social media website TruthSocial he founded, with a starting price of US$99 per piece, and the purchase of 45 digital trading cards will Get a ticket to dinner with Trump.

Judging from the design of the NFT, each card in the series has Trump's personal image illustration, perhaps to satisfy his personal desire for performance, the NFT series Designed as Trump’s version of superheroes, cowboys or astronauts, they are full of personal characteristics. What is interesting is that on the eve of the release, Trump once posted on truth social that "America needs a superhero" and also emphasized that there was an "important announcement" to be announced. In response, Biden quipped to Trump, "I've had some big announcements over the past few weeks..."

Trump’s NFT series, source: public information

At the beginning of this year, it released the third "Mugshot" NFT series again. Although he was suspected of cutting leeks, Trump still kept his promise. On May 8, Trump flew back to Florida after appearing in court and had dinner with buyers who purchased more than 47 Mugshot Edition NFT trading cards. At the dinner, Trump once again uttered wild words, "We have already done it (big sales) before NFT was popular. We will make NFT popular again."

Trump claims to make NFT popular again. source: From the perspective of Ethereum, not only did the blue-chip NFT series, which serve as price support, fall by more than 20% as a whole, but transaction volume and market value also dropped significantly. According to data from CryptoSlam, Ethereum, the former base of NFT, had sales of US$241 million in April. , which was almost halved from the US$489 million in sales in March, setting the worst monthly NFT performance since October 2023.

Whether Trump can truly make NFT great again is unknown. After all, the United States has not been great again under his leadership, but judging from this move , encryption, was really brought to the electoral horizon by Trump.

Judging from the current party attitudes towards encryption, most Democrats led by Biden tend to be cautious towards encryption, especially after the collapse of FTX. It also strengthens the direction of strict supervision. A clear sign is that Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. SEC who is criticized by many crypto people today, is a long-term donor to the Democratic Party. He also served as the chief financial officer of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. The Democratic Party has a clear-cut banner. The majority of the Republican Party, led by Trump, has rarely shown a tolerant attitude towards encryption, perhaps in order to show their different political views and attract votes.

In fact, looking at the entire election, although encryption only occupies a very small part, this does not mean that it is not important. On the contrary, small issues with big differences will affect voters' support more.

Cryptocurrency in Arizona Several key swing states such as , Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania have a strong say. Data shows that approximately 18% of voters in these states (or 3.4 million people) hold digital assets. In 2020, Trump narrowly lost three swing states.

Perhaps for this reason, since the election officially started in January this year, many candidates have expressed support for encryption. In addition to Trump, US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (nephew of former President John F. Kennedy) is also a staunch supporter of encryption. “Cryptocurrency is an outlet for our addiction to the Federal Reserve, which is the best way to hedge against inflation. It strips control of the government and monopoly banking system that uses money printing to transfer wealth to billionaire oligarchs while impoverishing ordinary Americans. If you agree that crypto equals freedom, please help me advance this vision as president. ”

It seems that the support rate of the party has surged. However, if you look carefully, there are not many presidential candidates who rebel for the election. Take Trump as an example. In 2019, his attitude towards Bitcoin was very different. He said on the X platform, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are not currencies. Moreover, the value fluctuates greatly, there is no physical object, it comes out of thin air, and it is not regulated. These factors allow cryptocurrency to be used for illegal activities, including drug trading and other illegal activities.” In 2021, Trump reiterated. expressed his personal opinion, saying "Bitcoin looks like a scam. I don't like it because it is another currency competing with the US dollar."

But just a few years later, Trump turned into a supporter and follower of encryption. He wanted to make NFT great again, and even insinuated an 80-year-old man who was not proficient in using encryption software.

The reason is that the rapid development of the encryption industry in the United States has become an important reason. In 2022, 9.6% of U.S. adults own cryptocurrency, compared with only 0.6% in 2015. After the adoption of ETFs, more Wall Street institutions also entered the crypto world. Judging from the data, 11 ETFs have absorbed US$52 billion in assets. If we look at the United States, the U.S. government has more than 200,000 BTC in custody on the chain, with a value of more than 6 billion U.S. dollars, making it the first among the world's mainstream government holdings. In addition,encryption itself expresses the stripping away of censorship and control, which is highly consistent with the current American society with unbridled ideology and huge gap between rich and poor. Due to its natural financial advantages, even in some third world countries, such as Nigeria and Ethiopia, the support for cryptocurrency has surpassed that of fiat currency.

SDCPC’s survey of U.S. crypto holders, source: SDCPC

Of course, even so, the young people who really occupy the votes are still A minority, which may be why Biden’s party is not interested in it. From a deeper analysis, the establishment faction behind the Biden Party mostly has conservative and traditional attitudes, and party supporters themselves have expressed strong opposition to cryptocurrencies that threaten the hegemony of their country's legal currency. However, other parties will automatically choose the opposite political stance in order to show their independence. Calling for freedom and equality has become an important means of party competition.

If you look closely, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has actually conducted research and attention on the encryption field. For candidates, the encryption industry is just a tool, a piece of evidence to represent votes. When necessary, it is enough to show an appropriate attitude to attract fans, and even candidates who have declared support in advance may not do so after taking office. Faced with other pressures to rebel, after all, compared to the traditional world, cryptocurrency only accounts for 1% of the financial volume, which is far less important than welfare, education and other issues that affect the country's citizens. From this perspective, the focus on encryption across all parties is only temporary.

But sadly, from the perspective of the encryption field, partisan support is particularly important. In recent times, the SEC's supervision of encryption has gradually extended from centralized institutions to decentralized projects. Metamask, Uniswap, and self-hosted wallets have all become targets of supervision, which has undoubtedly put the encryption market into panic. If decentralized projects will be deemed to violate securities laws, then other projects will be left to their own devices.

As the general election approaches, frequent law enforcement activities have also given rise to conspiracy theories in the market, and the SEC seems to be taking a stand. In this context, the encryption industry can only fight for its own rights through elections. According to a report by Public Citizen, outside lobbying groups related to the cryptocurrency industry have raised more than $102 million to lobby for digital asset-friendly candidates in the upcoming U.S. congressional elections. David Bailey, chief marketing officer of Azteco, even tweeted that they have been working with the Trump campaign team over the past month to formulate the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency policy agenda.

In the early morning of May 9, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAB121 repeal bill. This resolution is intended to reject the U.S. Securities Commission (SEC)’s 2022 regulation on crypto assets. Employee Accounting Bulletin on Trustees and Recognitions (SAB121). This bill once required financial institutions that custody customers' crypto assets to include crypto assets in their balance sheets. In this case, to ensure transparency, the custodian institution needs to include crypto assets in the liability column of the balance sheet, and In order to ensure the balance of assets and liabilities, the asset column should also be increased by the same amount. This undoubtedly increases the custody cost of the custody institution and violates the basic principle of uniform treatment of assets.

Therefore, as early as when it was released in 2022, the plan received many reviews. Its passage by the House of Representatives this time is an important part of the crypto-political resistance. In this regard,Biden expressed strong opposition, saying that the resolution affected the normal enforcement of the SEC. If the president receives the resolution, he will reject the proposal. But on the other hand, the party is by no means monolithic. In view of Trump's change in attitude towards encryption, some party aides have suggested to Biden that regulation of the encryption industry should be reversed in a timely manner.

It can be seen that the game between the two parties regarding encryption will continue, and it is still difficult to say that encryption will win before the dust has settled. In the long term, with the rapid growth of encryption adoption, the political ecology of being hijacked by voters may also come to the fore. This situation has precedents in areas with concentrated adoption such as South Korea and Argentina. But in the short term, encryption may be little more than a flash-in-the-pan theme in the campaign.

Back in the encryption world, for Lezi people, the wave of popularity of the general election is naturally inevitable.

The secondary market moved with the wind, and election MEME coins appeared. "BODEN" and "BODEN" named after Biden and Trump "TRUMP" constitutes an alternative betting ecology. Previously, BODEN, as the MEM currency of the Biden election, had increased hundreds of times in a short period of time. This year’s election will determine who will receive the hundred-fold increase.

As of the date of publication, BODEN and TRUMP were trading at US$0.26 and US$8.66 respectively, with TRUMP rising 14.6% in 24 hours.