Dear Mr President-Elect: About Those Crypto Promises ... 📝

From Bitcoin "scam" to crypto's saviour - your journey's been one for the books. But it's time for a reality check on those promises. The road from rhetoric to reality is longer than a Twitter thread.

Token Dispatch

and

Prathik Desai

Nov 09, 2024

Hello, y'all. Saturday analysis we dive into the crypto promises Donald Trump made in the run up to his re-election.

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Dear Mr. President-Elect,

The scene at your lavish Mar-a-Lago patio on election night was telling. Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Howard Lutnick - all there, all sharing something beyond their support for you: their stake in crypto's future. Quite the evolution for someone who once called Bitcoin a "scam."

Remember June 2021? You were quite adamant about crypto competing with the dollar. Not a fan, you said.

Actually, let's take a proper walk down memory lane. In 2019, you tweeted that cryptocurrencies "are not money" and their value was "based on thin air."

In 2020, you reportedly warned the Treasury to "get tough on crypto." Then came 2021's "scam" declaration.

But something changed, didn't it? By 2022, you were pocketing $1 million from NFT trading cards. By May 2024, you held over $1 million in Ethereum. The MAGA token hit $3.6 on election day.

Read: Forever Trump 🕺🏼😜

So, what changed? Skin in the game, right?

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Fast forward to July 2024 at Bitcoin Nashville, and suddenly you're promising to make America "the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world."

That's quite the plot twist.

Read: Pro-Crypto, Not Pro-Crypto Politics

We know, we know. There’s just too much at stake. The numbers are compelling. Cryptocurrency ownership in America jumped from 30% to 40% in just a year. That's 93 million voters, Mr. President-Elect. Even accepting crypto campaign donations - BTC, ETH, DOGE. Smart move, politically speaking.

And you didn’t stop there with promising to make the US “crypto capital of the planet”. You did one better to all the crypto folks. Followed it up with list of promises.

Read: 'Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!' 🤌

So, let’s talk about some of these promises?

Take your "Day One" promise to fire Gary Gensler. Sounds simple, right? Except the SEC isn't "The Apprentice." You can't just point and say "you're fired."

While you can name a new chair, Gensler's term runs until 2026. He could stick around, maintaining that Democratic majority at the Commission, which you're so eager to dismantle.

Agreed, eventually, you will manage to get your person in the seat. But the other promises aren’t going to be as easy to fulfill.

That Bitcoin strategic reserve you're dreaming of building? Senator Cynthia Lummis wants something similar.

But the hurdles are higher than Trump Tower

You'll need new enabling legislation
Treasury Department authority is limited
The Fed isn't exactly crypto's biggest fan
Budget committees will have questions - lots of them

Yes, the House passed the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act 279-136. But the Senate? That's another story entirely.

"The proposal would require a complete overhaul of how we think about national reserves," says Robert Cohen, former chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's Cyber Unit. "It's not impossible, but it's like trying to parallel park an aircraft carrier."

Let’s say you do manage to build a $200 billion Bitcoin reserve. But that would be a small fraction of the US national debt (approximately $35.9 trillion).

And you thought of clearing off the debt by…err…“Hand(ing) ‘em a little crypto check?”

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And let's talk about your "crypto capital" vision.

Singapore didn't become a crypto hub through campaign speeches. They spent years building frameworks while we were still debating if crypto was real money.

And then, the infamous Ross Ulbricht commutation promise? Bold move. But like everything else, it's complicated by years of regulatory and legal precedent.

Your economic plans are at loggerheads against your own crypto promises. Those 10% universal tariffs you're proposing? They'll trigger inflation faster than you can tweet "Make Crypto Great Again." The Fed will raise rates, and crypto markets historically love high rates about as much as you love losing elections.

Speaking of history – and you know we hate to bring this up – but your track record with big promises is ... interesting.

Healthcare: During your last term, you vowed to end the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s landmark public health insurance legislation, and replace it with “something beautiful.”

What happened to it?

Well, "something beautiful" became something invisible.

And then, there was the Wall. You claimed to be the best wall-builder there is. Promised to build a great one and make “Mexico pay for it”.

What about it?

The wall has become more of a metaphor than mortar.

But what do we know?

Well, experts who understand economists also don’t quite buy into your promises.

The legislative path ahead? You'll need:

Bipartisan support (yes, those Democrats you love to hate)
Committee coordination
Industry consensus
International cooperation (the dollar isn't the only player anymore)

Here's the thing, Mr. President-Elect: The crypto community isn't asking for miracles. They'd settle for clarity, fair rules, and a seat at the table. No need for grand promises.

We get it, that the crypto community has accepted your victory with open arms.

Bitcoin is sailing north of $76K and has broken multiple all-time-highs ever since you got reelected.

Read: Good Morning Trump's USA ☀️

Besides Bitcoin, even the altcoins - Ethereum and Solana, specifically - have registered record highs.

Read: Who Set Crypto on Fire 🔥

But your own meme coins also saw a slump post election.

But let’s get one thing. A lot of these highs are partly on the back of crypto community’s faith in your promises. That's a lot of trust to live up to.

Your team says you're "ready to embrace new technologies while Biden piles regulations and red tape." Time to prove it.

The next four years don't need grand promises. They need practical solutions. Remember when you said you'd run America like a business? Well, in business, under-promise and over-deliver usually works better than the reverse.

Like Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in his Skin in the Game

“Always do more than you talk. And precede talk with action. For it will always remain that action without talk supersedes talk without action.”

So congratulations on your victory. But perhaps it's time to temper those campaign promises with a dose of reality. After all, in crypto - as in politics - credibility is everything.

And right now, you've got a lot of it to lose.

Sincerely,
Token Dispatch

P.S. About that World Liberty Financial project... but that's a letter for another day.

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