The Trump Administration’s Encryption Landscape

Jessy, Golden Finance

Trump’s official inauguration is getting closer. It also nominated its favorite cabinet members for the new government. There is no doubt that Trump, and some of his Cabinet nominees, are crypto-friendly.

It is precisely thanks to the encryption-friendliness of the Trump administration and the interest rate cuts in the United States that the encryption industry has officially ushered in a bull market.

For example, as WLIF, a project that is highly tied to the Trump family, continues to buy tokens such as AAVE, LINK, and ENA, these tokens have experienced considerable gains.

The next market trend has become very clear. As the supervision of encryption in the United States gradually becomes clearer, DeFi-related projects will become one of the main lines of the next bull market. The Trump family’s projects continue to bet on DeFi projects, which is also a manifestation of this trend.

In terms of policy, the "21st Century Financial Innovation and Technology Act" is likely to be passed. After the bill is passed, it will clearly define when cryptocurrencies are commodities or securities. If the bill makes it clear that relevant tokens are judged to be decentralized and functional , are regarded as digital commodities and are not subject to SEC supervision, and will be exempted from the exemption period if they meet the centralization requirements, which will encourage DeFi projects to evolve in a more decentralized direction. In addition, the bill requires the SEC and CFTC to study the development of DeFi and evaluate its impact on traditional financial markets and potential regulatory strategies. This will attract more DeFi projects to "return" to the United States and promote the prosperity and development of the DeFi market.

It is precisely based on this regulatory change in the United States that DeFi has become an important narrative in this bull market.

As for Trump, which projects are he buying, and which projects are he supporting, including Trump’s cabinet members? What does this portend for the future development of encryption?

Trump:

• Its business landscape’s involvement in encryption

1. WLFI:

World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is an encryption project endorsed by the Trump family and will be officially launched on September 16, 2024. Trump calls himself the Chief Crypto Advocate of the World Liberty Financial project.

Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Donald, jointly serve as Web 3 ambassadors for World Liberty Financial, while his 18-year-old youngest son, Barron Trump, is He is the DeFi visionary of World Liberty Financial.

In the project’s white paper, it is stated that Trump will occasionally promote the project. In return, Trump's company will also receive 75% of the project's revenue.

The project mainly focuses on the construction of lending services, such as a credit account system built on the Aave and Ethereum blockchain, and also has a decentralized cryptocurrency trading venue. The project’s governance token is WLFI.

Currently, the project is still in the public sale stage, with 1/4 of the tokens sold, and US$75 million has been raised.

WLFI is also constantly purchasing tokens from other projects. In the past period of time, its purchase status is as follows:

ETH: A total of US$30 million was spent on 8,105 ETH in the past 12 days, with an average price of US$3,701.

AAVE: Bought 6,137 AAVE at an average price of $324.

LINK: 78,387 LINK were purchased at an average price of US$25.5.

ENA: 509,955 ENA were purchased at an average price of approximately US$0.981.

Ondo: Bought 134,216 ONDO tokens at an average price of approximately US$1.86.

CB BTC: Bought 103 CB BTC at a unit price of $97,181

What WLFI buys are basically DeFi-related projects, which also demonstrates the ambition of the WLIF project. It also wants to build an on-chain lending platform, including an on-chain trading platform. The tokens it purchased include stablecoins, mortgage lending, RWA, oracles, and encapsulated Bitcoin projects, basically covering all DeFi on the chain.

With Trump taking office and U.S. regulations gradually becoming clearer, DeFi will most likely usher in a stage of vigorous development.

2. Business layout in other encryption fields

Companies owned by the Trump family are also actively developing encryption businesses. For example, the Trump family owns the cryptocurrency exchange "World Free Finance", the social platform "Truth" under its name has submitted an application to create an encryption payment service called "truthfi", and also plans to acquire the encryption service company Bucket. These business layouts All are closely related to virtual currencies.

• Trump cryptocurrency holdings:

According to the holdings of Trump's wallet, it can be found that Trump's largest holdings are TROG, a Meme Coin, and ETH ranks second in his portfolio, with more than 495 ETH worth $1.99 million. Additionally, he holds over 478 WETH worth $1.93 million.

Some of the Meme Coins in its wallet, such as Trump, are basically airdrops, while Ethereum is the donations it received during the presidential campaign, as well as the commission income from selling its related NFTs, including some sales by WLFI divided into.

Trump’s wallet also contains mainstream tokens like Matic, but the source is uncertain.

In terms of politics, Trump wants to build the United States into a crypto- friendly country, starting with using Bitcoin as a national reserve, and then establishing a series of policies and regulations that will help the development of the crypto industry.

Members of Trump’s cabinet are mostly crypto-friendly, or they themselves hold cryptocurrencies.

Crypto holdings of Trump administration cabinet members

Trump's cabinet includes 15 cabinet secretaries and some cabinet-level officials, numbering around 20 people.

Among these 20 people, there are at least six crypto-friendly people, many of whom have publicly stated that they hold cryptocurrency. These people are:

• david sachs

He was appointed by Trump as the White House director of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs and also serves as chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

He has a very positive attitude towards encryption. The venture capital company Craft Ventures he founded has made many investments in the field of cryptocurrency, covering infrastructure, CeFi, DeFi, NFT and other fields, including projects such as dydx and Lightning Labs.

In his role as White House chief of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, Sachs will help spearhead Trump's campaign promise to deregulate the cryptocurrency industry, serving as a direct liaison between cryptocurrency advocates and the White House. , as well as the liaison between Trump, Congress and federal agencies dealing with digital assets, to promote the formulation and implementation of relevant policies and strive for a friendlier policy space for the cryptocurrency industry.

Currently, according to public information, it holds at least Bitcoin and Solana.

Bitcoin: In 2012, David Sachs began investing in Bitcoin and adopted a "set and forget" long-term holding strategy. He viewed Bitcoin as a tool to resist fiat currency inflation and censorship2.

Solana: In October 2021, David Sachs revealed in a podcast that he holds a large amount of Solana. Even after the collapse of FTX in 2022 triggered turmoil in the crypto market, he never sold his Solana holdings and firmly believed that it had the potential to surpass Ethereum in the future.

• robert kennedy jr.

Nominated by Trump to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

He believes that cryptocurrencies are a good way to hedge against inflation and believes that Bitcoin is the "perfect base currency." He hopes that the United States will become the center of global cryptocurrencies and has proposed a series of policy recommendations to this end, such as exempting Bitcoin from converting to U.S. dollars. Capital gains taxes, backing the U.S. dollar with hard assets like Bitcoin, etc. He also intends to promote budget transparency. He plans to put the entire U.S. budget on the blockchain to improve budget transparency and accountability, allowing every American to view budget items at any time and prevent corruption and misuse of funds. .

It was revealed that Robert Kennedy Jr.’s family trust holds Bitcoins worth between $100,000 and $2.5 million. He also purchased 21 Bitcoins during the campaign and three for each of his children. Bitcoin, shows support for the cryptocurrency through real investments.

• Howard Lutnick

Nominated by Trump Trump has nominated him to be the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. If confirmed, he will also be directly responsible for the relevant work of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

He believes that Bitcoin has value such as decentralization and is the only asset that no one can take away. He also advocates that Bitcoin should be treated as a commodity, similar to gold and oil.

Lutnick is a staunch supporter of the stablecoin Tether. His company Cantor Fitzgerald not only holds an undisclosed stake in Tether, but is also responsible for managing Tether's huge reserve assets, most of which exist in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds.

On July 27, 2024, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Lutnick announced the launch of a $200 million Bitcoin loan program to provide leverage for those who own Bitcoin.

• Tulsi Gabbard

Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence.

In 2019, Tulsi Gabbard signed a bill aimed at blocking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulation of cryptocurrencies, which she believed would protect investors, promote innovation, and bring more to her region. provide diversified business opportunities and promote the development of the United States in the field of digital economy.

In 2023, Tulsi Gabbard publicly criticized the Biden administration's exploration of central bank digital currencies at the Bitcoin 2023 conference. She believed that central bank digital currencies would record transaction information and increase the risk of surveillance of ordinary Americans, thereby threatening Popular freedom and economic autonomy.

She emphasized that Bitcoin, as a decentralized cryptocurrency, has the characteristics that it cannot be manipulated by third parties and can retain the privacy and freedom of cash transactions in the digital world. Therefore, she believes that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have positive effects on social development. significance.

According to public documents in December 2017, it holds Ethereum and LTC worth $1,000 to $15,000. It is unclear whether it still holds it.

Summarize

As the first U.S. president to openly support the crypto industry, Trump not only actively or passively holds crypto assets, but his business landscape is also actively involved in the crypto field. From selling NFT in the early years, to currently working on DeFi projects and acquiring exchanges. Trump has become increasingly involved in the crypto industry.

Not only is it deeply involved in the encryption industry in the commercial sector, after becoming president, the US strategic Bitcoin reserve will most likely come true, coupled with its promotion of encryption legislation, relaxation of supervision, and the establishment of encryption-specific agencies and positions , it can be seen that this will better coordinate the relationship between the government and the encryption industry, and will also enable the encryption industry to have laws to follow and develop in a relatively relaxed environment.

The cabinet members chosen by Trump are basically crypto-friendly representatives. Although the SEC Chairman Paul Atkins he chose has no public information showing that he holds virtual currency assets. But in fact, staunch supporters of cryptocurrencies are expected to review many of the rules and court enforcement actions under Gensler after taking office, adopt a softer attitude towards cryptocurrencies, and seek rules aimed at promoting capital formation. changes to create a more favorable regulatory environment for the crypto industry.

Some cabinet members, even though their nominated positions are not related to the economy, have clearly expressed their support for encryption. As policy makers, only by truly holding virtual currencies can we formulate truly crypto-friendly policies.

Currently, based on the holdings of Trump and some cabinet members and the expansion of the cryptographic territory, it can be seen that the United States may invest more in the DeFi track.