Trump’s victory may be negative for crypto assets | CoinDesk JAPAN

Political media outlet Politico said on January 8 that if Donald Trump wins this year’s U.S. presidential election, the tide could “turn” in favor of crypto assets (virtual currencies). An article was published.

Big change from the Biden administration

“It marks a significant shift from President Joe Biden, whose administration and regulators have consistently taken a skeptical approach, viewing crypto assets as a risk to consumers and the broader financial system,” said Jasper Goodman. Goodman) reporter writes.

Trump, an “anti-establishment” presidential candidate, quoted influential figures such as House Majority Leader Tom Emmer and former Commissioner of the Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks. He argued that if he wins, he is likely to implement policies favorable to crypto assets and remove regulations.

Trump once said that crypto assets are “baseless” (though he now appears content to make millions of dollars from NFTs). However, even without explicitly stating that it will collaborate with crypto assets, it would be better than the hostile stance taken by the Biden administration.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed lawsuits against established companies like Coinbase and Kraken, and the Department of Justice has reached a historic settlement with Binance. That makes sense, given President Biden’s whole-of-government approach to cracking down on the industry.

On the other hand, the possibility of friendlier regulation may be more detrimental to the crypto industry than Gary Gensler, whose term as SEC Chairman is coming to an end anyway.

While it has become commonplace for crypto stakeholders to criticize regulations and seek clarity, borderless, decentralized, and stateless protocols will only become truly borderless, decentralized, and stateless through trial and error. You can also claim that you can become a national.

The spread of fraud and fraud

And in fact, crypto assets appear to have destroyed our best chance of developing serious, widely available protocols that can withstand threats from malicious actors and nation states.

On the contrary, over the past four years, the 15-year-old industry has come under pressure from hostile authorities around the world, particularly in the United States, to demonstrate how resilient, open and practical blockchain-based technology is. I missed an opportunity to prove something.

This is obviously an exaggeration, but it’s not far off the mark either.

Instead of developing useful tools that could withstand nuclear disaster, for example, the industry has produced case after case of why this technology should be regulated.

Big technological failures like the Terra collapse and the multibillion-dollar FTX scandal are exceptions, but crypto assets are rife with small frauds and abuses. There is no way that allowing this kind of behavior to go unchecked is good for crypto assets.

I don’t believe there are regulatory solutions to systemic problems like fraud. Open, permissionless protocols like blockchain and the internet will always be exploited and misused.

However, there is a clear correlation between the proliferation of scammers and the capitalization of the crypto industry (for example, compare data from the last bull market and bear market).

Risk of deregulation

A shift in sentiment that indicates the U.S. government is loosening regulations on crypto assets could give bad actors a lot of leverage. It could also tacitly allow companies to sell risky financial products to individual consumers again.

Has crypto asset lending really solved its flaws after all the major crypto asset lending operators went bankrupt?

Indeed, regulation need not be a partisan issue, even if supporting crypto assets is becoming increasingly politicized.

Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, an ally of President Trump, told Politico that Republicans are trying to prioritize “consumer protection without destroying an industry that is in its very early stages.” .

And although we don’t know how this year’s presidential election will turn out, there is a possibility that the Biden administration will last another four years and that Gensler will be promoted to the Treasury secretary position he has long coveted.

Development beyond politicization

Ideally, developers would eliminate politics completely and develop protocols that regulators can’t touch.

Unfortunately, however, there has been a crackdown by the Biden administration and regulators, which has been called “Choke Point 2.0,” which has prevented the cryptocurrency industry from using banking services, and the ), many developers simply caved in instead of stepping up to develop better protocols.

All of this is based on the idea that open source development is, as the name suggests, a collaborative effort, and that sharing lessons can advance the field as a whole. Others believe that open protocols become “unhackable” after enough hacking. It’s like making a diamond by continuously compressing trash.

Would it be better for crypto assets if Trump became president again in 2025? It is worth noting that there were various predictions even around the time Trump was elected president at the end of 2016.

CoinDesk described the transition to Trump as a “trial run of smart contracts,” while others were concerned about Trump’s negative views on Big Tech.

Interestingly, while former New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo writes about the tech sector lamenting Trump’s victory, Politico writes about tech industry luminary Peter Thiel ( Peter Thiel) was cited as having the potential to bring unexpected financial benefits. What was the first thing Politico’s Tony Romm mentioned? It was Mr. Thiel’s Bitcoin investment.

｜Translation and editing: Akiko Yamaguchi, Takayuki Masuda
｜Image: Former US President Donald Trump (Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com)
｜Original text: No, a Trump Victory Might Be Bad for Crypto