Original author: Gyro Finance
Original source: Gyro Finance
Since the beginning of this year, people all over the world have been paying attention to the U.S. election.
On the one hand, against the backdrop of increasing political polarization, the lingering specter of economic recession, and the serious rift in public opinion, the choice of the next president of the United States will have a crucial impact on the direction of the country's political situation. On the other hand, the transmission of high inflation, the intensifying trade war and the development of economies, the future of the global economy also needs to be watched by the US election.
On November 5, the 2024 U.S. presidential election will be held as scheduled. Judging from the current situation, it is not surprising that this year's US president will be chosen between Biden, the 81-year-old representative of the Democratic Party, and Trump, the representative of the Republican Party, who is known for his crazy words. To win votes, both will chant and lecture on their political intentions and electoral commitments, including economic, demographic, gender, educational, and military issues.
But unlike in the past, crypto has been included in the agenda of this presidential war in a rare event this year.
It wasn't that long ago that Trump suddenly said he would accept cryptocurrency as campaign contributions and encouraged pro-crypto voters to vote for him, "President Joe Biden doesn't even know what cryptocurrency is, and if you like any form of cryptocurrency, if you support cryptocurrency, you'd better vote for Trump." ”
This is not the first time Trump has shown his support for crypto. As early as December 15, 22, Trump announced the release of 45,000 NFTs through the social media site he founded, TruthSocial, with a starting price of $99 per piece, and the purchase of 45 digital trading cards will give you a ticket to dinner with Trump.
Judging from the design of the NFT, each card in the series has an illustration of Trump's personal image, perhaps to satisfy the individual's desire to perform, and the NFT series is designed as a Trump version of the image of a superhero, cowboy or astronaut, full of personal characteristics. Interestingly, on the eve of the launch, Trump had posted on Truth Social that "America needs a superhero" and also emphasized that there were "important announcements" to be announced. In response, Biden quipped Trump, saying, "I've had some big announcements over the past few weeks..... too. ”
Trump's NFT collection, source: public information
At the beginning of this year, it released the third set of "Mugshot" NFT collection. Despite suspicion of cutting leeks, Trump still kept his promise. On May 8, Trump flew back to Florida after a court appearance to have dinner with buyers who purchased more than 47 Mugshot Edition NFT trading cards. At the dinner, Trump once again said wildly, "We did it (big sales) before NFTs were popular." We're going to make NFTs hot again. ”
Trump claims to make NFTs hot again, source: X platform
It should be emphasized that in addition to the Bitcoin NFT, which is still in the residual temperature, the current NFT field can be called a glory. According to CryptoSlam data, Ethereum, which used to be the base of NFT, had sales of $241 million in April, almost halved compared to $489 million in sales in March, setting the worst monthly NFT performance since October 2023.
It is unknown whether Trump can really make NFT great again, after all, the United States has not become great again under his leadership, but judging from this move, encryption has really been brought to the election by Trump.
Judging from the current partisan attitude towards crypto, most of the Democratic Party led by Biden is cautious about crypto, especially after the collapse of FTX, the Democratic Party has firmly established the direction of strict regulation. A clear sign is that Gary Gensler, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who is now widely criticized by crypto people, is a long-time donor to the Democratic Party, and previously served as the chief financial officer of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. And most of the Republican Party, led by Trump, may have shown a rare tolerance towards crypto in order to show that they have different political views to attract votes.
In fact, looking at the election as a whole, although crypto is only a very small part, this does not mean that it is not important, on the contrary, small choices with large differences will affect the voters' support more.
According to an online survey of more than 1,000 voters in each state commissioned by DCG in early April, the online survey of more than 1,000 voters in each state by Harris Polls shows that about 18% of voters in these states, or 3.4 million people, hold digital assets. And in 2020, Trump narrowly lost three swing states.
Perhaps for this reason, since the official start of the election in January this year, a number of candidates have expressed their support for crypto. In addition to Trump, US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (nephew of former President John F. Kennedy) is also a staunch supporter of crypto, "Cryptocurrencies are an outlet for our addiction to the Federal Reserve, which is the best hedge against inflation." It strips the government and monopoly of control of the banking system, which 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 partisan support has surged, but if you are careful, there are not a few presidential candidates who oppose the election in order to elect. In 2019, for example, Trump's attitude towards Bitcoin was very different, saying on Platform X, "I'm not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrencies are not currencies, and they fluctuate a lot, they don't have physical objects, they come out of nowhere, they are not regulated, and these factors allow cryptocurrencies to be used for illegal activities, including drug trading and other illegal activities." In 2021, Trump once again reiterated his personal opinion, saying that "Bitcoin looks like a scam." I don't like it because it's another currency that competes with the dollar. ”
But just a few years later, Trump has become a supporter and follower of crypto, trying to make NFTs great again, and even mocking an 80-year-old man for not being proficient in using crypto software.
The reason for this is the rapid development of the crypto industry in the United States. In 2022, 9.6% of U.S. adults owned cryptocurrency, up from 0.6% in 2015. After the ETF passed, more Wall Street institutions also entered the crypto world, and judging by the data, 11 ETFs have absorbed $52 billion in assets. If you look at the United States, the U.S. government has more than 200,000 BTC hosted on the chain, worth more than $6 billion, becoming the first mainstream government position in the world. In addition, crypto itself expresses a separation of censorship and control, which is highly consistent with the current American society with ideological detachment and a huge gap between rich and poor. Due to its natural financial advantages, even in some third world countries, such as Nigeria and Ethiopia, cryptocurrency support has surpassed that of fiat currencies.
SDCPC survey of crypto holders in the United States, source: SDCPC
Of course, even so, the young people who actually occupy the votes are still in the minority, which may be the reason why the Biden party is not interested in it. At a deeper level, the establishment behind the Biden Party is mostly conservative and traditional, and the partisan supporters themselves have expressed strong opposition to cryptocurrencies that threaten the hegemony of the country's fiat currency. However, other parties, in order to show their independence, will automatically choose the opposite political position, and the call for freedom and equality has become an important means of partisan competition.
If you look closely, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have actually really studied and paid attention to the crypto space. For candidates, the crypto industry is just a tool, a piece of support for the votes, and it is enough to show an appropriate attitude when necessary, and even the candidates who claim to support in advance may face other pressures to backlash after taking office, after all, compared to the traditional world, cryptocurrencies are only 1% of the financial volume, and they are far less important than the welfare and education issues that affect the people. From this point of view, all partisan attention to crypto is only temporary.
Sadly, partisan support is even more important in the crypto space. In recent times, the SEC's regulatory tentacles on crypto have gradually extended from centralized institutions to decentralized projects, and Metamask, Uniswap, and self-custody wallets have all become the targets of regulatory targeting, which undoubtedly plunges the crypto market into panic. If the decentralized project is considered a violation of the securities law, then the other projects can only be slaughtered.
As the election approaches, frequent law enforcement activities have also created a sense of conspiracy theories in the market, and the SEC seems to be taking sides. In this context, the crypto industry can only fight for its rights and interests through the general election. According to a report by Public Citizen, external lobbying teams related to the cryptocurrency industry have raised more than $102 million to lobby for the upcoming U.S. congressional elections to support digital-asset-friendly candidates. David Bailey, Azteco's chief marketing officer, tweeted that they have been working with the Trump campaign over the past month to set the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency policy agenda.
In the early morning of May 9, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAB121 repeal bill, which is intended to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) employee accounting announcement (SAB121) issued in 2022 on the custody and recognition of crypto assets. In this case, in order to ensure transparency, the custodian needs to include the 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, which undoubtedly increases the custody cost of the custodian and violates the basic principle of uniform treatment of assets.
Therefore, as early as 22 years ago, when it was released, the program received a lot of criticism. The passage of the House of Representatives is an important part of the cryptopolitical revolt. In this regard, Biden expressed strong opposition, saying that the resolution affected the normal enforcement of the SEC, and if the president received the delivery of the resolution, he would reject the proposal. But on the other hand, there is no monolith within the partisanship. In view of Trump's shift in attitude towards crypto, some party aides have suggested to Biden that the regulation of the crypto industry should be reversed in due course.
It can be seen that the game between the two parties will continue on crypto, and it is still difficult to say that crypto will win until the dust settles. In the long term, with the rapid growth of crypto adoption, the political ecology of voter hijacking may also be on the rise, as is already the case in regions with high adoption, such as South Korea and Argentina. But in the short term, crypto may only be a short-lived theme in the election campaign.
Back to the crypto world, for Lezi people, the popularity of the general election is naturally undoubted.
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