Biden v. Trump: Who’s Better for Crypto?

I’ll admit that crypto is a quirky consideration for a presidential election.

Indeed, I posted a tweet on Twitter/X a week or so ago noting Biden’s on-again/off-again flirtation with crypto and stating that it would have an impact on the election. A follower disagreed and told me that of the many things Americans care about, crypto policies don’t even make the top 10.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

What is indisputable is the fact that the 2024 election will be the first in American history in which crypto is actually a meaningful topic, whether it’s a top 10 or top 100 issue.

The fact that both candidates are formulating crypto policies says a great deal about the rise of crypto in the American consciousness, and the role it’s now playing in commerce and finance.

Which is why I’m addressing this topic in Field Notes, and in non-partisan fashion.

You already know I am a crypto fan-boy. I truly believe that crypto will mean for American society, business, finance, entertainment, education, innovation, ingenuity, etc. what the internet has meant over the last 25 years… only on an overdose of steroids.

It’s going to change everything. It will make our lives more efficient in ways we cannot yet fathom, and it will save bags of money for business, which is Reason #1 that crypto is here for the duration. As I say all the time: The internet did not succeed because humanity needed a faster way to share cat pictures.

Its use-cases exploded because it made business more efficient and opened an entirely new path for reaching customers that businesses could never have reached at scale otherwise.

Small example, but I just bought a gimbal for my iPhone for videos I’m planning to shoot on my six-week summer adventure in Thailand and Vietnam. Without the internet, there’s simply no way I would have found this gimbal maker in Asia or known about their products, and no way this maker would have found a consumer in a corner of Portugal.

Crypto and blockchain are going to power the internet to the next level.

Which is why I have six figures invested in crypto, and why the politics of crypto resonates with me.

And I know I’m far from alone.

Stand With Crypto, a non-profit advocacy group, has raised nearly $90 million from more than 1.1 million members. Statistics the group has collected hint at an interesting story at play in this election cycle:

• 52 million Americans now own crypto. In the 2020 election, Americans cast 158 million votes. So we now have basically a third of the electorate (well, those that voted) holding crypto. To what degree will that play a role in how they vote?

• 87% of Americans say the US financial system is broken (a correct opinion!). Crypto repairs many of the broken aspects of traditional finance, including banking the unbanked, erasing racism from lending, and opening up financial services and financial opportunities that Main Street has rarely, if ever had access to.

• 60% of crypto owners are younger—millennials and Gen Z—and as a cohort they are vocal proponents of burning down some of the unfair systems that boomers created and at which Gen X largely shrugged.

• 41% are minorities—and, again, crypto is blind to race, religion, financial status. It simply does not care who you are, and that’s a huge selling point among financially and politically marginalized groups.

• Finally, 45% say they will not vote for an anti-crypto candidate.

It’s that last stat, I have to assume, that has lit a fire under both presidential candidates.

In crypto terms, Trump was out of the gate early.

Though he was anti-crypto early in his political career, he’s now worshipping at the altar of Satoshi Nakamoto, the father of bitcoin and the cryptosphere that has grown up in the last 12 years.

Trump is accepting crypto donations, wants all remaining bitcoin “to be made in the USA” (meaning he and his advisors clearly don’t understand the global nature of bitcoin mining, but oh well). Moreover, he owns crypto personally and has released his own NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, those one-off art-based crypto projects.

Biden has long been anti-crypto, echoing a lot of the negativity that spews from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Which is kinda odd to me. Warren and the Dems are all about helping the little people (at least in theory), yet they’re standing against an industry that promises far more help, access, and services for everyday Americans—and at vastly lower cost—than does any part of the traditional finance sector.

Some Dems are coming around to the realization that they’re on the wrong side of history, and crossed the aisle recently to vote with GOP colleagues on passing landmark legislation that gave America its first, well-thought-out approach to crypto.

The industry loved it.

Crypto markets loved it.

And Biden vetoed it.

It was a “slap my head” moment that left me talking to my computer screen when I read the headline.

“What the hell are you thinking?? You need every vote you can get and you’re going to kill a piece of legislation that resonates with millennial and Gen Z voters! What absolute morons are advising you??” (Note: Millennial voters number about 62 million, more than Gen X and nearly as many as the boomers. Gen Z has 41 million potential voters in 2024. That’s a lot of voters who lean pro-crypto.)

These days, the Biden administration seems to be flipping its narrative. Reports say the administration is suddenly reaching out to the crypto industry in an 11th-hour attempt to gain insight on what good crypto legislation should look like.

All of which, I guess, brings me back to the point that for the first time in the history of presidential elections, crypto has a not-insignificant role.

More to come as the vote draws nearer…