The 2024 United States presidential election is lurking just over the horizon. The outcome could have a profound impact on crypto regulations in the country, which could, in turn, make or break the next crypto bill. It could also determine whether the Federal Reserve develops a dystopian digital dollar and takes total control of the US and the global economies. Since January, there's been a coordinated effort by Regulators in the United States to cut the crypto industry out of the banking system. The original operation also choked the point, which likewise involved cutting certain industries out of the banking system. It began in 2013 under President Obama and ended in 2017 under President Trump. For context, Obama was re-elected in 2012, and Trump was elected in 2016. This is important to point out because it suggests that Operation Choke will only end after the 2024 election. Most likely, after one year, the next president will take over the seat. It also suggests that the crypto crackdown will only end if a Republican is elected president. However, it does seem that there are more pro-crypto Democrats this time around.
Crypto hearings
Over the last year, the number of pro-crypto Democrats has been growing. This might have something to do with the fact that crypto has become a key political issue never mind all the lobbying by crypto companies and projects and it's not just crypto. Central Bank digital currencies or CBDCS have also become a key political issue as of late and it appears that politicians on both sides of the aisle are skeptical of them. This might have something to do with the fact that CBDCS will allow the government to control every transaction even so there are still plenty of U.S politicians who are vocally anti-crypto and pro cbdc and the fact of the matter is that given that the US presently has a Democrat president means that these politicians have had an outsized impact on both crypto and cbdc policy. Now the opinions of the average U.S politician don't always matter when it comes to policy. That's because it's ultimately up to the president to sign off on whatever laws they propose. The President also has the power to nominate key Regulatory and Central Bank personnel. As we've seen over the last year, Regulatory and Central Bank Personnel can have an even bigger impact on crypto than the presidents and politicians policies. For instance, SEC chairman Gary Gensler and federal Vice chair for supervision Michael Barr are two examples of key players in the crypto crackdown.
Getting back to the elections, it is obviously too soon to say who the presidential candidates for both parties will be, but the current polls suggest that there are four main Front Runners two on each side. On the Democrat side we have current President Joe Biden and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy. On the Republican side, we have former president Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the current governor of Florida. Let's see where they all stand on crypto and CBDCS.
Joe Biden — so far, he is anti-crypto and is apparently pro-cbdc as well. One of the first things he did as president after being elected in November 2020, was to nominate Janet Yellen to become the Secretary of the Treasury. Janet pushed for rules tracking all cryptocurrency transactions and since that time Janet has been a key player in operation choke point two and likely had a hand in the decision to sanction tornado cash literal computer code that's not controlled by anyone. Janet's term technically has no expiry but she is reportedly planning on stepping down in the next year or two. Now in January 2021 Biden also nominated Gary Gensler to become SEC chair and Gary's tenure began the following April. Since that time, he said that everything besides BTC is a security and must be regulated or banned. Gary's term will expire in April 2026. Gary could leave the SEC sooner than expected. That's because he is reportedly planning on becoming the next treasury secretary if Janet Steps down. Then chances are Gary will get her job, especially under a Democrat Administration. However, this would do more harm than good to crypto because Gary would have more powers at his disposal to further crack down on the crypto industry. If so, then it is quite possible that his seat at the SEC would be filled by another anti-crypto candidate nominated by Biden. The good news is that most of Biden's subsequent anti-crypto nominees never got their respective gigs. These include Saul Omarova who essentially wanted to consolidate the banking system at the OCC and Sarah Bloom Raskin who wanted to print massive amounts of money to fight climate change. The money printing under the Biden Administration was arguably the primary contributor to the Crypto Bull Market. Biden Administration also announced its strategy for so-called emerging Technologies. It includes a section about digital ID. If you wonder why that matters, it's because a government-issued digital ID is required for a full-scale cbdc rollout.
Robert F Kennedy Jr or RFK Jr, the nephew of John Kennedy. His father RFK senior was also assassinated in 1968 while running for president. RFK Jr is against centralized power and is personally aware of just how powerful some parts of the government can be. This is basically why RFK Jr is pro-bitcoin — it's a decentralized currency which takes power away from the government, including its most powerful part — the Central Bank. RFK Jr actually spoke at this year's Bitcoin conference where he explained that he understood how important Financial Freedom was when he saw peaceful anti-pandemic mandate protesters in Canada have their bank accounts Frozen last February.
For reference, financial freedom doesn't mean having lots of money. It means having the ability to transact with whoever you want whenever you want. This definition of Financial Freedom has been all but forgotten, and RFK Jr is one of the few people I've seen who remembers the real definition. RFK Jr is anti-cbdc. Meanwhile, RFK Jr seems to be the only presidential candidate with clear policies about it in his speech. At Bitcoin Miami he swore that he will make sure that the self-custody of cryptocurrency is enshrined in law. He also said that the Bitcoin Community is the modern day manifestation of the impulse that wrote the U.S Constitution which is the basis of various freedoms in the United States.
Ron DeSantis is currently the runner-up on the Republican side. Ron has been rising through the political ranks in Florida for over a decade. Prior to that, he was with the U.S Navy for almost a decade. Ron first started making crypto headlines in March this year when he announced his intentions to pass a law Banning CBDCS in his state. He also made the headlines when he slammed the FED on Twitter for suggesting that it could create a digital dollar without Congressional approval. In May Ron successfully passed his anti-cbdc law setting the stage for other Republican states to do the same. However, Ron's anti-cbdc law actually doesn't ban cbdc's. All it does is declare that CBDCS are not classified as money according to Florida's definition of the term. Considering that Ron seems to have a firm understanding of how cbdc's work, he understands that they are programmable and will be used to impose political ideologies on the populace. He also understands that Financial privacy is important and is therefore very pro-cash. Ron's crypto stance is also a bit surprising he understands that Bitcoin is valuable because the government can't control it and correctly pointed out that this is why some politicians oppose it.
Donald Trump got his crypto stance changed a lot over the years. When he was campaigning in 2016, he called for all campaign donations for all candidates to be made in crypto to quote get the big Banks out of it. When Trump was elected, later that year crypto pumped in response. That was odd, given that he hadn't done or said anything else that was explicitly pro-crypto. This could have been because the Republican party is perceived as being pro-crypto or because some members of the administration were pro-crypto. In any case, Trump's personal crypto stance was finally revealed in the summer of 2019 after the following tweet: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity. We have only one real currency in the USA and it is stronger than ever. both dependable and reliable it is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the world and it will always stay that way — it's called the United States dollar.”
Trump reiterated his anti-crypto stunts during multiple interviews in the summer of 2021. However, Trump understands that BTC has the potential to displace the dollar as the world reserve currency. In fact, he is probably the only politician who has acknowledged that BTC is in fact a currency. This begs the question of whether Trump is in favor of a digital dollar. The answer is unknown, but if he was told that it would strengthen the US dollar, he would probably approve it. Trump has recently been vocal about the US Dollar's Decline and its dwindling reserve currency status. He also recently issued an NFT collection on ethereum. Now it's almost certainly just a money making exercise but part of me wonders if Trump could become an etherum maximalist.
Now it is the big question which presidential candidate is best for crypto and Financial Freedom Potentially, that could be RFK Jr, but it is too soon to say whether he will become the Democrat candidate and it's frankly a bit of a long shot. Yet when carrying on the anlysis, we should consider that his popularity could be a sign that a similar candidate could clinch his party's nomination in the future.
It’s hard to imagine crypto policy becoming a pertinent issue for most voters. In recent elections, all policy–let alone crypto–has taken a backseat. But pro-crypto policy positions do have one important audience: crypto-linked donors who still have deep pockets despite last year’s crash. Crypto executives want new laws to curtail a crackdown by federal agencies on their industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought dozens of enforcement actions against firms that the agency says are violating the law, even as those firms’ leaders argue it isn’t clear what the rules are or how to follow them. Legislation, in the industry’s telling, is needed to ensure crypto can thrive in the U.S.