What Trump promised the crypto industry ahead of the election

Former President Donald Trump arrives for his campaign rally at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images

As Donald Trump celebrated his prospective victory on Election Night at Mar-a-Lago, he was joined by a roster of high-profile supporters. Among them were Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick.

One thing those three people have in common: crypto.

It’s an industry that Trump talked little about until recently but has counted on for large amounts of cash for his campaign and related PACs. Getting that money required him to make big promises pertaining to the crypto industry.

Digital asset markets surged on Election Night, with bitcoin hitting a record of over $75,000, as his victory began looking likely. Crypto-linked stocks like Coinbase and MicroStrategy moved higher as well in after-hours trading Tuesday.

With a Republican-controlled Senate on the horizon, Trump has few roadblocks to putting in place a more pro-crypto platform. Here are some of the things he’s pledged to do:

In Nashville in July, Trump headlined the biggest bitcoin conference of the year. In his keynote address, the former president said that if he returned to the White House, he would ensure the federal government never sells off its bitcoin holdings. However, he stopped short of proposing a formal federal reserve of digital currency.

“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said during his keynote speech.

Trump pledged to maintain the current level of bitcoin holdings that the U.S. has amassed from seizing assets from financial criminals.

“If I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” he said.

Currently, the U.S. Marshals Service regularly auctions off bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies held in the country’s coffers such as ether and litecoin. These sales can sometimes trigger drops in crypto prices, like earlier this year when Germany began to liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin it had seized.

In public remarks for months, Trump has promised to unseat U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.

“On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said, referencing the Joe Biden-appointed SEC chairman who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto regulation.

The president does not have the power to fire the SEC chair. Even if Trump were to appoint a new chairman, Gensler would remain a commissioner on the independent agency.

Gensler has brought more than 100 actions against crypto firms during his tenure at the helm of the commission. In multiple interviews, the SEC chair has said he believes much of the industry already belongs under its jurisdiction, and its lawsuits are simply bringing the sector under compliance.

Crypto firms argue that the recent legal battles haven’t given the regulatory clarity the industry has been seeking, and they instead reflect a gross overreach by the commission.

Trump also vowed to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”

“The rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” he said.

Trump has expressly spoken out about his qualms with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is widely viewed by the crypto community as an existential threat.

In June in Palm Beach, Florida, about a dozen bitcoin mining executives and experts sat down with Trump for an hour and a half in a small tea room at the Mar-a-Lago Club. The closed-door session marked the first time the former president took a meeting with the technologists securing the $1.5 trillion bitcoin network by running large banks of high-powered machines.

The intimate gathering brought together a coalition of some of the biggest private and public American miners in the business, including representatives from Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital Holdings, Terawulf, CleanSpark and Core Scientific.

Less than four hours after Trump’s roundtable wrapped, the former president took to social media to extol the virtues of the bitcoin mining business.

“Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after his meeting.

Since then, Trump has on multiple occasions reiterated the sentiment.

“If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,” Trump declared in Nashville.

“We will be creating so much electricity that you’ll be saying, ‘Please, please, President, we don’t want any more electricity. We can’t stand it!'” he added.

In August, Trump said that, if elected, he would lower interest rates.

The Federal Reserve, which guides the country’s monetary policy, sets the benchmark rate. It also, by design, operates independently from the White House.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell in September decided to slash rates by a half point in its first easing campaign in four years.

Rate cuts and the easing of monetary policy historically dovetails with a surge in crypto prices since it makes it cheaper to borrow money.