- Trump will likely find it difficult to get any proposals past the Democrats, as he typically gets backlash from them on everything he does.
- Crypto will continue on its current cycle with or without Trump, Chirp CEO says.
The US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s newfound support for crypto is nothing but a publicity stunt and is unlikely to bring meaningful long-term changes to US crypto policy, an industry expert said.
“Donald Trump’s U-turn to now support crypto may be a canny short-term move to get the web3 enthusiasts on his side, but it’s unlikely that crypto will significantly benefit in the longer term,” Tim Kravchunovsky, founder and CEO of the decentralised telecommunications network Chirp, said.
Trump told crypto backers at Mar-a-Lago last week that they “better vote” for him because of the way the Biden administration have unleashed a regulatory crackdown on the industry.
“They are against it,” he said at an event promoting his own non-fungible token, or NFT.
Positive effect may not last long
During his first term in the White House, Donald Trump was no fan of cryptocurrencies; he once tweeted they were “based on thin air.” He later sold millions of dollars’ worth of NFTs. This week, he rebranded himself as crypto’s candidate of choice.
But Trump was vying for votes from the exceptionally loud crypto crowd that Biden had thoroughly snubbed. Sure, only a few hundred heard him firsthand. Their videos of Trump’s pro-crypto musings ricocheted across social media and triggered a torrent of media coverage for crypto’s self-appointed political champion.
Even if Trump does follow through with real pro-crypto policies – of which there is no evidence so far, Kravchunovsky said that Trump he will likely find it difficult to get any proposals past the Democrats, as he typically gets backlash from them on everything he does.
That said, now that he has declared himself a champion of cryptocurrency, he said that a Trump win in the upcoming US election will likely fuel the crypto bull run – just like his previous victory drove markets higher.
“Again, though, this positive effect is unlikely to last long. Crypto will continue on its current cycle with or without Trump, but it would be foolish to expect any drastic changes in US crypto policy under his presidency,” Kravchunovsky said.
As for the DePIN sector in particular, he said that a Trump administration could adopt de-regulation policies in sectors like telecommunications, as well as a general pro-business stance, which could indeed “benefit projects like ours”.
Equally, though, his policy on international trade and tariffs could affect the cost and availability of the hardware required for our antennas, which would certainly create challenges, he said.
“So I wouldn’t be too hasty in assuming that Trump as president would herald a golden age of crypto in the US. There’s very little certainty about this and, so far, his sudden support of web3 appears to be nothing more than a publicity stunt in the hopes of attracting a swing vote from the US crypto community,” he added.