Establishing the USA as a Dominant Force in the Bitcoin Industry

One of Donald Trump’s campaign trail stops was the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, where he promised to make the United States the ‘crypto capital of the planet’. But what might this look like?

In the wake of Donald Trump’s electoral victory and an overnight increase in the price of crypto assets, Dr Rhys Bidder of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance explains what steps the incoming President, who has recently launched his own crypto venture, might take to take cryptocurrencies into the mainstream.

Many expect him to replace the head of the SEC with a candidate more positively disposed to crypto and who will lead the agency away from “regulation by enforcement” towards an approach that is more restrained, less ambiguous and perhaps even supportive. There are already members of the SEC who have expressed a desire for such an approach, and there are even pockets of bipartisan support for crypto in DC. As such, we could see a rapid change in the crypto regulatory and legislative environment.

Changes to watch out for

Dr Bidder explains that changes in policy to support cryptocurrencies could cross a range of different areas:

How the SEC modulates its approach to whether certain crypto assets are securities (as opposed to commodities)
How crypto assets are assessed for tax and financial regulation purposes
Whether the government will include Bitcoin in the strategic reserve
Whether the mining of bitcoin (with its enormous energy demands that were drawing the attention of environmentalists) is looked upon more favorably.

He continues: “it’s hard to know how more subtle issues over the appropriate oversight of decentralized crypto protocols might evolve. There are important debates as to the role of smart contracts that allow individuals to exchange assets without an intermediary – should they be classed as regulated exchanges, should their designers be held responsible for the use of these contracts, should there be ‘Know Your Client’ and anti-money laundering… and so forth.”

He adds that while a tension between traditional Wall Street supporters of Trump and the decentralized finance proponents of crypto may mean these changes are not plain sailing, “overall the Trump victory – and a strong Republican showing more broadly – is still a big positive for crypto.”

The long term future for cryptocurrencies

Dr Bidder concludes that the supportive Trump presidency could be both a major opportunity and a major test for the cryptocurrency industry:

Trump’s election will likely give a broader boost to crypto in a key market – probably the key market – that many people around the world have been waiting to come alive. There have been false dawns for crypto before, however, and the hope must be that the industry builds in a sustainable manner, rather than in fits and starts of recent years. Under Trump, crypto will have no excuse if it can’t shed its (perhaps undeserved) image as immature and riddled with fraud.

Dr Rhys Bidder, Deputy Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance

In this story

Deputy Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking & Finance

Risk Warning: Cryptocurrency is a unregulated virtual notoriously volatile instrument with a high level of risk. Any news, opinions, research, data, or other information contained within this website is provided for news reporting purposes as general market commentary and does not constitute investment or trading advice.

/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.

Source link

#Making #USA #Bitcoin #Superpower