Trump's Crypto Embrace

Trump Pump. Crypto had a mainstream moment last night at 2024 US Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s NFT trading card gala. Could a Trump re-election be bullish for the crypto industry, and what tokens managed to pop off?

Collectors of Trump’s NFT trading cards got access to an exclusive Q&A with the former President at his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach golf estate, and many of his responses at the event quickly found their way into virality on Crypto Twitter.

In one clip, Trump states he does not want to see crypto companies forced to leave America because of hostile regulation.

In another, he berates Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and the broader Democratic party for their anti-crypto attitudes, juxtaposing himself as the candidate who is “fine with it” and the only choice for pro-crypto voters come the general election this November.

Trump's message resonated strongly with an overwhelming majority of CT, leading many thought leaders to throw their weight behind the controversial Presidential hopeful in an election that has increasingly become a single-issue contest for many industry participants.

While there is certainly a possibility that Trump was simply pandering to his pro-crypto audience given the nature of the event, President Biden's administration has clearly demonstrated that it will do everything possible to stall and hinder the growth of crypto.

From executive branch agencies that have done little besides suing leading crypto companies for breach of unclear regulations while failing to provide clarity to President Biden’s commitment to veto a recent House bill seeking to eliminate onerous capital requirements imposed by the SEC on banks that custody crypto assets, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the current administration is committed to maintaining a hostile stance toward crypto.

A Trump re-election would be monumental for the industry, considering that his statements – alongside his NFT collection – suggest his administration would adopt a much more pro-crypto approach to regulation than its predecessor, potentially providing the needed regulatory clarity to fuel widespread adoption.

Additionally, while the proposed Biden Budget for 2025 would send the highest capital gains tax bracket to its highest level since 1922 and includes a novel 25% on unrealized gains, Trump has vowed to make expiring provisions from his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent upon re-election.

Extension of these tax cuts would not only increase the amount of capital retained by investors, it is also anticipated to increase the US fiscal deficit by $3.8T over the next decade. The former factor would fuel investment by crypto insiders and the latter would bolster the attractiveness of decentralized monetary systems to the masses.

PolitiFi tokens have yet again emerged as one of the preeminent avenues to gamble on the outcome of the upcoming election and express support for the candidates.

Given the Donald’s strong alignment with the crypto industry, the majority of degens were aping Trump-associated memecoins, sending the derpy TREMP memecoin on Solana skyrocketing over 200% and the more venerable Ethereum-native TRUMP surging 80% at their peaks.

While the impact was substantially more muted for the premier Joe Biden memecoin, BODEN, the token also experienced a minor pump, gaining as much as 40% after Trump responded to a fan’s question about the coin at his gala.

Unfortunately for BODEN apes, and potentially PolitiFi token holders at large, Trump indicated in his response that the token was overvalued.