With Donald Trump scheduled to be inaugurated for a second term as US President on Jan. 20, many crypto industry insiders have said they expect the administration to strike a different tone on digital assets than it did before.
The former Republican president first took office in January 2017, a few months after winning a close election against former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Unlike the 2024 election cycle, Trump did not appear to have mentioned cryptocurrency, blockchain or Bitcoin (BTC) even once during his 2016 campaign while competing to win the Republican nomination or against Clinton in the general election.
When Trump won the election in November 2016, the price of Bitcoin was roughly $700, rising to roughly $900 by his 2017 inauguration. Before he left office in January 2021, the price of the cryptocurrency had risen roughly 4,000% in four years to more than $36,000, including a sharp drop at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social media activity
One of the first times the US President — or, at that time, any president — made a public statement on crypto while in office was to post on Twitter (now known as X) in 2019 that he was “not a fan” of Bitcoin and saying cryptocurrencies were “based on thin air.” While the sentiment was negative on digital assets, many industry insiders lauded the social media post for bringing attention to the technology from the world’s highest office.
Regulatory approach
According to a book later released by Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, the US president had told his Treasury secretary to “go after Bitcoin” in 2018, suggesting a possible regulatory crackdown.
Under Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton, the financial regulator filed 62 enforcement actions involving crypto assets, including against Ripple Labs, Block.one and actor Steven Seagal.
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Trump seemed to largely keep up this negative view of digital assets after losing the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden. In a June 2021 interview, roughly five months after leaving office, he said Bitcoin “just seems like a scam” and suggested the cryptocurrency was competing against the US dollar.
This public sentiment remained until he launched his own line of non-fungible token (NFT) digital trading cards in December 2022. He announced his intention to run for US president again in November 2022.
No pardon for Silk Road founder
Ross Ulbricht, known by many for creating the darknet marketplace Silk Road, had already been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by the time Trump took office in 2017. The Silk Road founder was convicted in 2015 of money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to traffic narcotics.
Trump had four years to exercise his authority as US president and pardon or commute Ulbricht’s sentence, but ultimately, nothing happened while he was in office.
Reports from 2020 suggested that Trump was sympathetic to Ulbricht’s situation, but he did not appear to have seriously considered a pardon or commutation until it became one of his 2024 campaign promises.
In May 2024, then-candidate Trump said he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if elected, suggesting that the Silk Road founder could be free by the end of January. Until Jan. 20, President Biden still has the authority to pardon anyone facing federal charges, including Ulbricht.
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