For the first time in its short yet rich history, Bitcoin price reached six figures on December 4, 2024. This happened just hours after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social his pick for the new Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): Paul Atkins, previously SEC commissioner under George W. Bush and, currently, a fierce crypto advocate.

This was the culmination of a vocal pro-crypto campaign from the Republican Party during the 2024 electoral race. Promises made by Trump himself, combined with those he appointed and those who were elected in Congress alongside the president, have made Bitcoin soar like never before, but the future is not without concerns.

Donald Trump, His Campaign and His Promises

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has come a long way since calling crypto a “scam” in 2021 upon news of El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender within their jurisdiction. It was not only disdain towards cryptocurrency he felt, as he also recognized Bitcoin as a potential competitor against the primacy of the U.S. dollar.

Three years later, in September of 2024, amidst his electoral campaign, the Trump family announced their own cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial. As a separate venture, just days before the January 20 Inauguration, both Donald and Melania Trump each announced their own crypto tokens issued from the Solana blockchain. $TRUMP and $MELANIA, though, are meant neither as an investment nor as a security, according to their respective websites Get Trump Memes and Melania Meme, but rather a way to show support to the First Family and the ideals they embody. Both $TRUMP and $MELANIA have soared and then quickly plummeted in value.

What explains such a radical shift in stance? The family’s experiences as Trump faced a civil fraud judgment, which allowed the New York General Attorney, in the case of failure to post bond, to freeze Trump’s bank accounts, may have informed his change in stance towards cryptocurrency, as recounted by Eric Trump at the Abu Dhabi Bitcoin Conference in December of 2024.

And indeed, cryptocurrency has been celebrated for years as an alternative to centralized financial systems. Lauded as a tool for financial autonomy and privacy, it is meant to empower people and to protect them from currency manipulation and undue government or bank seizures. It is to be noted, though, that cryptocurrency can be seized in case of the use of cryptocurrency for illegal activities, as Know Your Client procedures are required in the United States.

Trump’s sudden switch to a pro-crypto worldview may have been precisely due to his encounters with the law from his impeachments to his different criminal and civil proceedings, including the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Where the state apparatus had made him a public enemy, Bitcoin represents, in the president’s own words, “freedom, sovereignty and independence from government, coercion and control.” Whether his enthusiasm is sincere or motivated by the lucrative appeal of a growing crypto industry is a mystery that remains to be elucidated in the coming years. 

Campaign and Promises

As a keynote speaker for the July 2024 Bitcoin Conference, Trump promised if elected to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.” Where he previously viewed Bitcoin as competition for the U.S. dollar, he now sees an opportunity to strategically strengthen the United States by extending its sphere of dominance: “If we don’t do it, China is going to figure it out, and China’s going to have it—or somebody else."

The time to fulfill this “crypto capital” promise among many others regarding cryptocurrency has now come. What will follow his entry into office on Inauguration Day? What financial environment awaits American and international crypto enthusiasts? Let’s review Trump’s promises during his 2024 presidential campaign and developments from his first days in office.

1. National Bitcoin Reserve

Trump announced his intention to create out of the $20 billion worth of seized Bitcoin in the United States’ possession a federal “hodling” reserve. These were obtained by the American government from law enforcement operations. This national Bitcoin reserve would allow for the price of Bitcoin, determined by demand and supply which are themselves affected by public sentiment, to remain high by constraining the supply.

Many support this idea, including Senator Cynthia Lummis, who views this reserve as a way to “chip away” at the important US national debt as the price of Bitcoin continues to appreciate, and as well as a way to strengthen the U.S. dollar. She introduced a bill last year which, if enacted, would put in place a reserve held by the Treasury of 1 million Bitcoins at the purchase rate of 200,000 Bitcoins a year.

Others, on the other hand, doubt the worth and even the feasibility of the project. When asked to comment on Trump’s national Bitcoin reserve project, Federal Reserve System Chairman Jerome Powell answered that the Fed is not allowed to own Bitcoin, as per the Federal Reserve Act. That would require a law change the Fed is not looking for, although it is up to Congress to consider such a law change.

On January 23rd, Donald Trump invited David Sacks to join him as he signed the first crypto executive order of his presidency. This executive order creates a Working Group with the task of proposing a regulatory framework governing digital assets and of exploring the idea of creating a national stockpile of digital assets.

2. Pardon Ross Ulbricht

Early in his campaign, Trump promised, if elected, to pardon Ross Ulbricht on “day one”—founder of Silk Road and symbol of freedom for many as the pioneer of the most extensive freewheeling marketplace using the renowned privacy tool dark web Tor browser and Bitcoin to obscure the identity of its users. He was sentenced almost a decade ago to a lifetime in prison for crimes related to drug and false identity document traffic as well as money laundering—a sentence many among Libertarians and the Bitcoin community deem unfair and disproportionate to his crimes.

Although many Bitcoiners were disappointed on January 20 to not see Trump follow through on his “day one” promise, during his second day in office, Trump indeed pardoned Ulbricht. 

3. Crypto-Friendly Regulations

Joe Biden’s administration, in coordination with the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Department of Justice in what some refer to as “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” maintained a strong anti-crypto stance by excluding from traditional institutions crypto companies. Trump promised to revise the regulatory framework surrounding cryptocurrency, loosening up government oversight over crypto-related activities.

To that effect, the president also vowed, recognizing his knowledge on the matter to be incomplete, to place crypto experts at the forefront of policymaking. On that matter, Trump has already indeed delivered.

Furthermore, his January 23rd executive order on digital assets established the values under which future regulations would be built upon, including the promotion and protection of individual liberties as to their blockchain and digital asset-related activities, as long as they remain lawful.

4. Pro-Crypto Administration

Trump’s promise of establishing a pro-crypto administration is on its way to being fulfilled following his 2024 campaign, the first election in which cryptocurrency was one of the main issues on the debate stage.

It is with a strong circle of crypto proponents at his side that the president is moving towards taking office, including Paul Atkins, recently nominated for SEC chair, and who already shares his expertise on the advisory boards of blockchain and crypto enterprises. This announcement was one of which catapulted the price of Bitcoin well over its previous record.

A few days following the nomination of Paul Atkins, Trump announced he would make David Saks, an experienced investor as well as the former chief operating officer and product leader for PayPal, the “White House A.I. and Crypto Czar” once in office. As the czar, Sacks would be expected to work on a legal framework in order to make it possible for the crypto industry to thrive in the United States. He joined President Trump in the Oval Office on January 23rd to sign an executive order paving the way for future crypto-friendly regulations.

Trump has made known early following his electoral win his intention of establishing two different advisory bodies to the president: the Department of Government Efficiency, which will be led by the vocal crypto advocate Elon Musk following the exit of fellow crypto-enthusiast Vivek Ramaswamy from the project, as well as a cryptocurrency advisory council created through executive order. 

Trump’s first day in office saw the issuing of an executive order renaming and reorganizing the U.S. Digital Service as the United States DOGE Service as well as tasking government agencies with the creation of their own DOGE teams, in effect establishing the DOGE as part of the Executive Office of the President rather than an advisory council as previously suggested.

Although how much sway these bodies will have on actual regulations and policies is yet unknown, the existence of crypto advocates within the president’s inner circle is likely to remind him of his commitments towards the crypto industry.

On the legislative side, with lobbying efforts from crypto enterprises as well as the Stand With Crypto advocacy organization, Congress also overwhelmingly leans pro-crypto. At the January 3rd 119th Congress, 298 crypto-friendly regulators were counted out of 535 – a clear majority.

Looking forward, even aside from the president himself, it appears the new government in place will take a much looser and friendlier approach to regulating cryptocurrency.

Concerns

Self-Interest

Many are wary of Trump’s sudden switch to a pro-crypto stance, especially following the launch of World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coin, three ventures which, if successful, have the potential to be very lucrative for the Trumps. Although the president himself is not at the head of World Liberty Financial, his sons instead being in charge, the crypto enterprise is part of a business directly affiliated to the Trump Organization conglomerate.

Amidst concerns that his private financial interests would shape policies, the Trump Organization released an ethics white paper showing a commitment to put safeguards in place against the fact. This ethics paper bars, as one of its main points, Trump from participating in day-to-day decision-making at the Trump Organization, which includes all of Trump’s ventures and affiliated enterprises. Despite such measures, conflict of interest remains a major concern for both crypto enthusiasts and crypto critics alike.

$TRUMP and $MELANIA Memecoins

The launch of the memecoins just days before Trump’s inauguration has obtained mixed reactions even within the crypto community. On one hand, some applaud his business moves and his endorsement of cryptocurrency as legitimizing cryptocurrency, which has been at the fringe of the financial system under Biden’s administration and previously.

On the other hand, others worry that his and Melania’s tokens, which are among the more volatile forms of digital assets, will instead hurt the image of crypto, reinforcing the idea of cryptocurrency as facilitating scams. Furthermore, many among those who purchased either the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins are Trump supporters who might not otherwise have any experience with or financial knowledge about crypto or the risks that come with investing in this asset class.

And indeed, many fraudulent crypto actors have taken the opportunity to create scams to defraud these supporters using the names of other members of the Trump family, including $IVANKA and $BARRON. It can be argued that the rise in such prominent scams brought by the Trump memecoins contribute to the delegitimization of cryptocurrencies, with many proponents of crypto angered by the Trumps’ initiatives.

Boom and Bust

Cryptocurrency is volatile due to its decentralized nature, with, in most cases excluding stablecoins, a value determined by the forces of (in the case of Bitcoin, a capped) supply and demand which themselves are affected by public sentiment and media coverage.

Bitcoin in particular has seen unprecedented growth in the last months. Those familiar with the concept of boom and bust cycles—alternating cycles of high returns and rapid economic growth, followed by sharp declines— worry. Investors have witnessed this phenomenon inherent to capitalism hit their Bitcoin shares in 2021 and 2022—hard. Since then, Bitcoin has recovered incredibly. Boom and bust cycles are inherent to our financial system. Although some claim to be able to predict their pace, in practice, it is impossible to foresee when a bust might be at hand.

Conclusion

Donald Trump, in an openly pro-crypto electoral campaign leading up to a record victory among returning presidents, has pledged to make the United States of America the “crypto capital of the planet.” There is no question that crypto lobbyists have helped him and like-minded congressmen return to office on January 20. He followed through on some of his promises to crypto enthusiasts by pardoning Ross Ulbricht on January 21 and signing on January 23 an executive order setting the ground for the future of crypto in America under his wing.

Despite this, the memecoins issued at the eve of Inauguration Day have dampened the support of some crypto proponents, as well as potential concerns of self-interest as it is becoming clear the Trumps have a stake in boosting the crypto industry. Whether or not the president will follow up on all his words remains to be seen.

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