55966e89>

In the popular HBO series Game of Thrones, alliances were often short-lived and fluid. Many of the great houses changed alliances as their never-ending quest for power continued.

Enter the United States’ 2024 presidential election. Cryptocurrency PACs are becoming a force in congressional elections, and retail crypto owners represent a substantial share of the voting electorate.

Silicon Valley and other tech entrepreneurs have historically voted for progressives. However, President Biden’s administration has been openly hostile to tech generally and to crypto in particular. At the same time, some crypto advocates say that they can’t bring themselves to vote for former President Trump despite his recent and open embrace of crypto. Some question whether he will follow through on his rhetoric.

Exclusive: Mike Flood is shaking up Congress over cryptocurrency

It is true that a politician won’t necessarily live up to campaign promises. Tell us something we don’t know.

Much like the shifting alliances in Game of Thrones, natural alignment and historical behavior are the two strongest ways to judge whether an alliance will last. It is clear that a crypto/Trump alliance has potential, while a Biden/crypto alliance is impossible.

Can things get any worse under Biden? His administration engaged in an “Operation Choke Point” effort to encourage regulated banks to cut crypto businesses off from the banking system. His IRS has promulgated a rule to treat crypto wallet developers as if they were brokers. And his Justice Department charged developers of privacy protocols — built in compliance with the Treasury Department’s money transmitter guidance — with somehow violating money transmitter laws.

Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman, Gary Gensler, asserted that all crypto tokens are unregistered securities, even while giving them no reasonable path to register with his agency. The president’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) asserted that all participants in the community of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) — Ooki DAO — were jointly and severally liable for a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol supported by the DAO. (It was an abuse of power, and Biden promoted two commissioners who voted “Yes.” He nominated Christy Goldsmith Romero to lead the FDIC, and Kristin Johnson to serve as an assistant secretary of the Treasury Department.)

Related: SEC has 'very low' odds of winning against Uniswap

The list of the Biden administration’s attacks on crypto goes on. Yet, in response to political winds that show crypto is having an impact on both the presidential and congressional elections, the Biden campaign is now accepting crypto donations! That development may need to be added to Webster's entry for “chutzpah” as a canonical example.

The Trump administration’s history with crypto is more positive. His nominee for CFTC chairman, Chris Giancarlo, was nicknamed “Crypto Dad.” His nominee for SEC commissioner, Hester Peirce, was nicknamed “Crypto Mom.” And his nominee for CFTC chairman, Heath Tarbert, now works as general counsel at Circle. Overall, Trump’s nominees were pro-innovation generally, and pro-crypto specifically. If the Trump team decides to get the band back together in a second administration, it will lean pro-crypto.

Of course, the crypto community and Trump also have a shared enemy in Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Trump’s antipathy for Warren may be stronger than it is for any other U.S. senator. And it just so happens that Warren’s influence on the Biden administration’s financial regulatory nominees is to blame for much of Biden’s war on crypto. That will almost certainly be enough to cement Trump’s support for crypto after the election, and to secure a lasting alliance between Trump and the crypto world.

In a political debate at the Consensus crypto conference in May, Messari founder Ryan Selkis compared Democratic candidates reaching to crypto advocates in this election to cheating spouses caught in the act. They might profess regret and love, and it may work out that way in the long term, such that crypto policy could one day become bipartisan. But they certainly shouldn’t be forgiven today for years of attacking this technology — or anytime before they have proven they have had a change of heart.

This election, I’m voting for the enemy of my enemy. Donald Trump is the best chance that crypto has for a future, free from an existential threat posed by the U.S. government. This is the only choice crypto voters have.

J.W. Verret is a guest author for Cointelegraph and an associate professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He is a practicing crypto forensic accountant and also practices securities law at Lawrence Law LLC. He is a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Advisory Council and a former member of the SEC Investor Advisory Committee. He also leads the Crypto Freedom Lab, a think tank fighting for policy change to preserve freedom and privacy for crypto developers and users.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.