If Trump is elected and would follow through with his promise to ‘love’ the crypto industry, the rest of American consumers should brace themselves.
Trump pledges to fire SEC chair at Nashville Bitcoin conference
Cheers at Bitcoin conference follow Donald Trump’s pledge to fire SEC chair Glen Gensler
When Donald Trump declared his newfound love of crypto at the Bitcoin2024 conference in Nashville in July, he reportedly received ecstatic reactions.
This comes as no surprise, as he promised the crypto community exactly what it wanted to hear.
“We will have regulations, but from now on the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” the former president and GOP presidential nominee said in Nashville.
He pledged to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Statements like these made it sound like everyone in the country would benefit from a strong standing of crypto in the United States.
The opposite is true: The young industry has time and time again proven to be a playground wide open for dubious actors, at the expense of regular Americans trying to invest their hard-earned money.
The crypto market so far failed on its promise of creating an alternative financial sector that – due to its supposedly superior technical architecture – is immune to manipulation and hence safe for consumers.
Millions of Americans own crypto, but for most, the investment is small
The implosion of the crypto currency exchange FTX and the subsequent sentencing of its fraudulent founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, to a 25-year sentence is only one of many examples that show:
The industry lacks sufficient safeguard regulations that have the regular American’s best interest in mind.
The crypto crash in the summer of 2023 again exposed the industry’s risky practices, taking away the money of many small investors.
Trump used to be very critical of crypto, calling it a “scam,” but now, things have changed.
For Trump, his support for the crypto industry is a smart campaign move. It’s not about votes, though. The community is too small for that. While it is estimated that around 96 million users in the U.S. hold cryptocurrencies, the estimated average revenue per user in 2024 is roughly $100.
This shows that while there are a few high-profile heavy hitters, many only hold to very small amounts of crypto, maybe to dip their toe in the field. It is unlikely that you would base your voting decision on an asset worth 100 bucks.
But it’s not the small investors Trump is after: There are a lot of deep-pocket investors whose account balance is more or less directly linked to the policies trying to hedge the industry in – or not. And the crypto money is rolling in for Trump, although his sincerity is yet to be proven.
The future of crypto will either be a tightly or loosely regulated market
At the Nashville event, crypto entrepreneurs reportedly paid half a million dollars to attend a private event with Trump.
It seems the crypto market indeed is paying off, but only for a selected few. If Trump is elected and would follow through with his promise to ‘love’ the crypto industry, the rest of American consumers should brace themselves.
The stakes of becoming involved in crypto might get even higher – since most regulatory attempts the industry is fighting against are aimed at reigning in the market and making it safer for regular customers.
Angela Gruber is a German journalist and tech reporter embedded with The Tennessean in Nashville, as a recipient of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship for international journalists. She works for Der SPIEGEL in Hamburg, Germany. Call her at (615) 364-4325 or email her at angela.gruber@spiegel.de.