Trump's second presidential term could be a boon for cryptocurrencies

The cryptocurrency industry raised millions in donations for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and now insiders hope to take that investment to the bank.

The crypto industry is optimistic about Trump’s second term, pushing for policies friendly to digital currencies, including a revamp of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Over the past four years, a concern of many in the industry has been SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s tough-on-crypto stance.

“He effectively thinks that every single crypto is a security, and he’s been aggressively going after products where he feels that they’re securities and they’re not being registered,” said Marlon Williams, founder of the Atlanta Blockchain Center, a crypto startup incubator.

Gensler announced last week that he would step down as SEC chair in January, and Williams and others in the industry are seeking a new SEC chair who will ease off that aggressive opposition to cryptocurrencies. However, economists are wary that a crypto-friendly SEC could make room for additional bad actors in a space already known for fraudulent schemes.

“The chances are excellent that a lot of people are going to lose a ton of their wealth as a result of this,” said Tom Smith, a professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. “Then people will say, ‘What? Why wasn’t somebody looking out for me?’”

In the past fiscal year, 18% of all SEC tips, complaints and referrals were crypto-related, even though crypto takes up less than 1% of U.S. capital markets, according to the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General.

“A lot of investors were scammed by fake projects, fake founders, fake ideas, etc. There has been a lot of that in the space,” Williams said. “But there are a lot of good actors, especially in the United States, because they are aware of the hammer of the U.S. government.”

But it’s not just the SEC that the industry aims to change.

Since 2020, Georgia has become a leading state in crypto mining. The energy-intensive process involves computers solving complex math equations to verify transactions in the currency, often in warehouses full of stacks of computers.

Ida Bolt, a Georgia tax lawyer specializing in cryptocurrency, said she and others in the crypto space are confident during Trump’s second term there will be discussion of tax incentives for mining at a federal and state level.

“He’s offering a lot of hope for innovation and a more hands-off regulatory approach in terms of regulation by enforcement,” Bolt said. “I think he wants to provide a lot of incentives for crypto companies to take root in the United States.”

The value of bitcoin skyrocketed to record highs soon after Trump, once a crypto skeptic, landed another four years in the White House. He’s since changed his perspective on the digital asset, saying he’ll be a “crypto-president.”

Last week, the company that operates Trump’s Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group, reportedly made inroads toward buying Bakkt, an George-based cryptocurrency company once led by former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia.

In the run-up to the election, the crypto industry wasn’t just backing Trump’s presidential campaign. Crypto super PACs raised funds for congressional candidates across the country, including Brian Jack, who won a seat for the U.S. House in Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District. The super PAC Defend American Jobs raised about $1.3 million for Jack, according to the nonprofit watchdog OpenSecrets.

“We should embrace digital innovation and provide clear, common-sense guidelines for blockchain technology,” Jack’s campaign website states. “By doing so, we can create American jobs, protect American consumers, and enable America to remain the global leader in financial services.”