(New York) The return of Donald Trump to the White House promises to be a deliverance for many cryptocurrency players, who see the United States repositioning itself on this global market.
Updated yesterday at 2:45 p.m.
Thomas URBAIN with Lucie LEQUIER in London
Agence France-Presse
In July, the Republican candidate, once firmly opposed to this technology, promised to an audience of insiders to make his country “the world capital of cryptos”.
In total, digital currency support groups raised some $245 million during the election campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), with most of the money targeting Democratic opponents of the sector. .
According to the Washington Postbarely elected, the real estate developer is already looking for crypto-compatible profiles for key positions in his future government.
Members of its team are responsible for surveying the environment to better understand its regulatory expectations, always according to the daily newspaper.
The prospect of a new Trump presidency has put bitcoin into orbit, which has gained more than 25% in a week and exceeded the symbolic threshold of $90,000 on Wednesday for the first time.
Donald Trump has already announced his intention to remove, upon his inauguration, the president of the financial markets regulator (SEC), Gary Gensler, sworn enemy of the sector.
In the absence of a clear legislative framework, this former banker has chosen a repressive approach to digital currencies, which he intends to regulate like traditional financial securities.
On this contested legal basis, the SEC sued three of the largest exchanges, Binance, Coinbase and Kraken, as well as a series of smaller ones. start-up.
Pushed abroad
“The absence of clear rules has not only stifled innovation, it has pushed companies towards countries with more transparent legislation,” said Katherine Snow, legal manager at Thesis*, which develops applications based on bitcoin .
Many see a satisfactory compromise in the so-called FIT21 bill, widely adopted in May by elected officials from both sides in the House of Representatives.
Currently in the hands of the Senate, it notably plans to hand over control to another financial regulator, the CFTC, with a more pragmatic and less dogmatic approach.
“The fact that certain crypto assets escape the definition of financial securities could greatly accelerate the approval of new investment products and increase the influx of capital into the sphere” of digital currencies, says Simon Peters, analyst at eToro.
Chandra Duggirala, boss of the Tides incubator. Network, hopes for a break with the government of Joe Biden, whose “policies are seen as unfavorable to cryptocurrencies in the United States”.
He mentions in particular the pressure put on traditional banks to dissuade them from collaborating with “blockchain” entrepreneurs, the technology on which digital currencies are built.
“We would like talented people not to be intimidated to join this industry,” argues Burnt Banksy, founder of the development platform Xion. “We would like not to have to worry about our banks slamming the door in our face. »
Long stigmatized, regularly presented, at best, as a den of speculators and, at worst, of delinquents, the world of alternative currencies expects Donald Trump to normalize it.
Possible conflict of interest
Michael Cahill, boss of Douro Labs, specializing in the collection of financial data, believes all the more in Donald Trump’s commitment to cryptocurrencies since “he has launched his own projects in the field”.
In September, the billionaire and his three sons joined forces with several industry figures to launch World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency investment and borrowing platform.
This unprecedented position raises the question of a possible conflict of interest, with measures favorable to digital currencies directly benefiting this young company.
For those responsible for the Coinhouse platform, the Trump 2.0 government would also benefit from facilitating, or even encouraging, payments in “stablecoins”, cryptocurrencies indexed to another currency, most often the dollar, which greatly limits their volatility.
In the opinion of professionals, the legitimization of cryptocurrencies would also benefit from the creation of national bitcoin reserves, mentioned in July by Donald Trump.
“Proactively adopting digital assets would put the United States in a position to define standards and a strategy for cryptocurrencies,” considers Katherine Snow.
According to Simon Peters, the government already owns about 210,000 bitcoins, mostly from seizures in court cases, worth about $18 billion.
For Katherine Snow, maintaining this stock or even strengthening it “would be a signal of our commitment to innovation, which could attract investment and quality people”.
