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Despite a history of flip-flopping on the crypto industry, United States president-elect Donald Trump has suddenly become an enthusiastic advocate for the space and has actively made several eye-catching promises.
Now that he’s set to once again assume control of the executive branch, he will have oversight over a variety of different important appointments, the ability to pardon or commute certain sentences, and a demonstrated willingness to use the bully pulpit to advocate for policies that he believes in.
As we prepare for the next several years, Protos has collected several crypto promises that Trump has made and that we will be watching closely.
Read more: Tether’s dreams come true with Donald Trump victory
Gary Gensler and Ross Ulbricht could both be out
One of the things that Trump promised — to extraordinary cheers at the Bitcoin Conference — was that he would fire Gary Gensler, the current chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and a frequent target of crypto industry ire.
However, he may be frustrated in this promise by rules that limit the President’s ability to remove leaders of independent regulators.
Even ignoring the SEC, Trump will have the opportunity to make a variety of appointments that will meaningfully affect both regulation and enforcement against the cryptocurrency industry, with many hoping his Treasury Secretary will be an industry ally.
More in the scope of his traditional powers, Trump has promised that on day one he will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the Dread Pirate of Silk Road; this would presumably occur simultaneously with the day-one pardons he has promised to insurrectionists.
Bitcoin to be ‘made in the US’ and then stockpiled
Trump has additionally promised that he would create a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” that would be based around “100 percent of all bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires in the future.”
This promise cannot be achieved literally, as much of the bitcoin held by the government will eventually be paid in restitution or returned to the victims of various inequities.
Optimistically, we must assume that Trump meant “all Bitcoin the US government currently holds and will retain the right to continue holding,” but found it too wordy.
Trump has also repeatedly signaled his support for the mining industry, making the nonsense claim that “all” bitcoin should be “made in the US.” Achieving this stated goal would require the United States to take extraordinary steps to ensure that the price it could offer on energy to miners was substantially lower than every single country on Earth.
Even in that case, it is unlikely that all miners would be able or willing to move.
Read more: Tether’s dreams come true with Donald Trump victory
World Liberty Financial is planning to restructure US debt… somehow
Additionally, the Trump-endorsed crypto project World Liberty Financial, which has sold less than 2% of the number of tokens promised by Trump in an X Spaces, has vowed to fundamentally “restructure where the US debt is held.”
There has never been any explanation of how this functionally useless protocol will accomplish this.
Trump has also promised to kill all development on Central Bank Digital Currencies, buying into conspiracy theories that these tokens would someday exist as a surveillance tool. Instead, he has made sure to emphasize how much he likes cryptocurrencies with public ledgers.
Broadly, the crypto industry seems optimistic that this administration change will grant them a respite from what they have described as regulation by enforcement.
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