Trump's Bitcoin Watershed

Remember when BTC was only for crooks...?

DONALD TRUMP spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville this weekend, making history as the first former US president to attend the conference and make a full-throated endorsement of Bitcoin, writes Frank Holmes at US Global Investors.

My team and I had the pleasure of joining some 8,000 other Bitcoiners to listen to Trump's speech, which I believe will be remembered as a watershed moment in the history of the digital asset.

I'll share more details from Trump's speech below, but for now, I want you to consider how far Bitcoin has come in just the first 15 years of its existence.

You may remember a time not so long ago when the prevailing perception of Bitcoin was that only criminals and terrorists used it. It wasn't on any institutional investor's radar. Warren Buffett famously called it "rat poison squared".

How things have changed! Post-Bitcoin ETFs, the world is gradually moving toward mass adoption. Major tech companies, from MicroStrategy to Tesla, keep it on their balance sheet. In two countries so far, it's used as legal tender.

And now a former US president is throwing his full weight behind it.

Bitcoin's price could be "going to the moon," President Trump said, and if that's the case, he "want[s] America to be the nation that leads the way."

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that this year's presidential race is unlike any in modern US history – maybe ever.

President Joe Biden's withdrawal and endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris has sent shockwaves through the political establishment, and while former President Donald Trump remains the frontrunner, the wind has certainly shifted in Harris's favor. She's managed to secure a majority of Democratic delegates, and she now has the endorsement of all top party leaders, including Barack Obama.

Harris's campaign said it raised a jaw-dropping $200 million in the first week of her campaign, which, if true, has to be a record. Users on the online betting platform Polymarket now believe the vice president has a 38% probability of winning in November, up from just 1% just a month earlier.

As a bit of trivia, Biden isn't the first sitting president to choose not to seek reelection, but he's the first to make the announcement so close to Election Day.

Not including Richard Nixon, who quit the office outright in 1974, the last two presidents to forgo reelection were Lyndon Johnson, in 1968, and Harry Truman, in 1952.

This political upheaval comes at a time when the US economy is sending mixed signals. On the one hand, gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter hit an impressive 2.8%, beating expectations and more than doubling the growth in the first quarter.

The S&P 500 is up about 14% this year, despite recent pullbacks as investors rotate out of high-flying tech stocks into smaller, undervalued companies. The shift appears to be partly driven by expectations of lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

In any case, these positive indicators – a solid economy and stock market – typically bode well for the incumbent party, giving Harris an edge.

However, we can't ignore the economic anxiety that many Americans are feeling right now. A recent survey by buy-now-pay-later company Affirm found that three in five Americans believe we're in a recession, even though we're not officially in one.

Credit card payment delinquencies are also rising at a concerning rate right now as Americans' pandemic-era savings have run dry. The percentage of cardholders who are more than 30 days delinquent is at a 12-year high, while the percentage of those who are 60 days or more past due hit a new series high of around 2.6%.

Recently, I discussed J.D.Vance, a former venture capitalist and Trump's running mate. I indicated that Vance is likely to serve as the Trump campaign's bridge to Silicon Valley's deep pockets.

But Harris, 59, has similar connections as well. She served as California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017 and then as senator from 2017 to 2021. As a result, she reportedly has long-term connections to Silicon Valley.

The New York Times reports that, in past campaigns, the vice president has relied on Silicon Valley's tech elites for donations. A recent CNN headline, in fact, reads that "Kamala Harris wants to be America's first Silicon Valley president."

An area I'm watching closely is the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency space. As someone who's deeply involved in the sector through HIVE Digital Technologies, I believe the next administration's stance on crypto could have significant implications for this emerging and yet important asset class.

Although Harris hasn't made any statements for or against digital currencies in the past, her team has reportedly reached out to crypto-savvy figures like Mark Cuban. The Blockchain Association, the industry's trade group, said that Harris presents a "fresh opportunity" to make inroads with the Democratic Party, which has historically not been as welcoming to digital assets and crypto mining as Americans on the political right have been, generally speaking.

Trump, on the other hand, has transformed himself into the ultimate pro-Bitcoin candidate after being "orange pilled" by Bitcoin mining executives at his Mar-a-Lago home last month. The former president posted on his social media platform Truth Social soon after the meeting that he wants "all the remaining Bitcoin to be made in the USA."

Trump repeated the same forceful message when he spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the Bitcoin conference. If the US didn't embrace Bitcoin technology, Trump warned, "China will...and we cannot let China dominate."

Specific policy plans that Trump laid out for making the US the "Bitcoin superpower of the world" included drafting clear regulations, protecting the right to self-custody and dramatically increasing electricity output.

"We will be creating so much electricity that you'll be saying, 'Please, please, Mr. President, we don't want any more electricity. We can't stand it,'" the former president joked. He also said he would fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler "on day one."

The cornerstone of Trump's plan is that the US government would hold 100% of the digital assets it has or will acquire in the future in a "strategic Bitcoin reserve." The government currently holds around 210,000 bitcoins, valued at over $14 billion, through law enforcement activities.

This would set the US apart from other countries, many of which have policies on the books to sell assets confiscated during criminal investigations – assets including Bitcoin. Germany, for instance, recently completed disposing of 50,000 bitcoins, an action I predict the country will one day regret.