Donald Trump guilty: crypto regulation at risk?

Donald Trump has been declared guilty of as many as 34 charges by the Manhattan court, and this puts his proposals on crypto regulation at risk.

However, the news did not cause any shake-ups in the crypto market.

The memecoin of Trump

There is in particular a token, whose ticker is precisely TRUMP, which belongs to the memecoin MAGA.

During the course of 2024, the price of the TRUMP token had risen from $0.25 to the all-time high of over $15 on Wednesday. In other words, in just under five months it had gained 10,000%, with the bulk of this increase occurring between mid-January and early March.

Since then it had first dropped from 9.7$ to 3.9$, but only to then take off again towards 15$.

Yesterday, upon the publication of the news of Donald Trump’s criminal conviction, it immediately experienced a rapid drop (-36% in two hours), but after briefly falling below $10, it then recorded a remarkable rebound that brought it back to its historical highs. 

Subsequently, however, it started to decline again, which demonstrates that the often high volatility of memecoins is due solely to pure speculation. 

Before the news, it had gone from $12.4 to over $15 in a few hours, only to plummet below $10 in two hours, bounce back to briefly record a new all-time high above $17, and then return to around $13.5. 

Practically it made a +8% in just under 24 hours but passing through a +20% followed by a -36%, then by a +88% and then again by a -24%. 

Moreover, the current price is perfectly in line with that of May 29 before it made a first leap that brought it for the first time in its history above $15. 

In other words, it can be stated that it has been moving sideways for three days, but with really remarkable volatility. 

The November elections: Donald Trump focuses on crypto regulation

It is clear that the data regarding the prices of the memecoin TRUMP are only useful for analyzing its volatility in the market, or for speculating on it. 

The real issue, that is the political one, is a whole different thing. 

Trump remains the main challenger to the current USA president Joe Biden in the presidential elections in November. 

It is not yet clear how much yesterday’s conviction may affect his approval, but apparently he is already receiving statements of support from his bull supporters. 

Regarding the crypto world, Trump this year has been very favorable to the development of the sector in the USA. The Biden administration, on the other hand, initially practically lashed out against it, only to make a real U-turn in recent weeks by supporting, for example, the approval of Ethereum spot ETFs.

It is possible that in the current election campaign the crypto are playing a certain role, even if not central, but it seems that there is no candidate who, in words, is really against it. 

In reality, the most pro-crypto candidate, although it would be better to say pro-Bitcoin, is Robert Kennedy Jr., but he does not seem to have any concrete chance of winning.

Only Biden and Trump remain, with the latter being very much in favor of crypto, at least in words, while the former seems to have changed his mind recently and although not openly in favor, at least seems to have become concretely tolerant. 

However, it should not be forgotten that what politicians claim during the election campaign is not law, and once elected, they often behave differently from the expectations they had generated with propaganda aimed solely at winning the elections. 

The crypto regulation in the USA and the role of Donald Trump

The real issue at stake for the crypto sector is regulation in the USA, and this will presumably be definitively approved only after the elections. 

Such regulation, however, is not being developed by the democratic government of Biden, but by Congress, which has a Republican majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate. 

The Republicans seem to be generally in favor not only of the evolution and expansion of the crypto sector, but also of more favorable national regulation. Among the Democrats, however, the majority appears to be opposed. 

In fact, in the Senate, work has been underway for years on crypto regulation, but the Democratic majority has not allowed its approval. Instead, the House has recently approved a first draft law that, however, could be rejected in the Senate. 

Trump in campagna elettorale ha promesso che se verrà eletto darà una mano allo sviluppo di una regolamentazione crypto favorevole. 

The crypto and the USA

The United States of America remains the most innovative country in the world, if only for the fact that the major innovative companies in the world are based there. 

As for cryptocurrencies, the American company of reference is definitely Coinbase, which moreover has been listed on the Nasdaq since 2021, but MicroStrategy is also an American company. 

At the same time, however, the biggest failure ever for a crypto exchange is that of the American FTX, even though it was based in the Bahamas. 

The USA, especially during the first Trump administration, had become the cornerstone at a global level of the crypto sector, but during the Biden administration, new foreign realities emerged, primarily Dubai. 

Despite this, the US markets remain absolutely dominant, even in the crypto sector, as demonstrated by the incredible boom generated by the mere arrival of the spot Bitcoin ETFs on the US exchanges. 

While many other jurisdictions, primarily the European Union, have established a clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, the USA from this point of view is still behind, making things difficult for local crypto companies like Coinbase.

In such a turmoil, the SEC also got involved, challenging various crypto entities in court, generally only to lose.

In light of this, it seems likely not only that in the event of a Trump victory a new crypto regulation will be approved in the USA, but also that perhaps even in the event of a Biden victory a similar outcome could be reached.