The prospect of the forex, stock, gold, and Bitcoin market in the 59th US Presidential election

01 November 2020


I. Market context

The closer to the US presidential election, the more chaotic the financial market is. At the time of writing, we witnessed an increase in DXY and a decrease in Gold and Stocks. As for Crypto, although BTC did not drop sharply, most Altcoins have been “red” for a relatively long time.

This comes from the fact that professional investors are gradually leaning towards keeping safe assets such as USD and cash to be able to hedge against upcoming risks.

Theoretically, neither Trump nor Biden is a proponent or an opponent of Crypto and Blockchain, however, their policies will shape the future of the finance world for the next four years. And of course, Crypto is no exception.

In today's article, we are going to discuss the scenarios that will happen when Trump or Biden wins the election.

The past of the 2 candidates with Crypto

In the past, at least for the past 4 years, neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden have talked about Crypto, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t exposed to cryptocurrencies. Surely, no matter which of the two becomes president, there won't be any policy implemented that will affect the price of Crypto immediately.

In the past, Trump has said that Bitcoin and Crypto are not currencies, and he is not a fan of cryptocurrencies.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/f0cd0d6e-1c37-4478-bd90-d87ba5fce2d0/Untitled.png

More specifically, Trump has criticized Facebook's effort to launch Libra in 2019. Trump has argued that if Facebook and other companies want to be banks, they must have regulatory licenses and be subject to banking laws. Otherwise, they do not have the right to issue cryptocurrency.

In addition, Trump added that Bitcoin has no real value and was "born out of thin air", and if Crypto is not carefully controlled, Crypto has the potential to bring risks such as money laundering or trafficking drugs.

Biden has not commented much on Crypto or Bitcoin, except one time on Twitter, he was joking that the Biden team was not accepting Crypto donations.

Anyway, neither of the two candidates mentioned Crypto or Blockchain during their campaign. Therefore, we will have to look down to their subordinates, such as the SEC and federal lawmakers, for example.

II. Federal law enforcement agencies

The most direct impact of the election on Crypto policy will likely be dependent on the federal regulators that the President will appoint and will be confirmed by the Senate (Currently held by the Republican Party). The chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the secretaries of the Treasury and State are a few individuals who will shape the government's approach to cryptocurrencies.

Currently, the SEC is being operated by Jay Clayton, one of Trump's confidants. If Trump is re-elected, Clayton will be appointed by Trump as Chief Prosecutor of New York. This means commissioner Hester Peirce will replace Clayton to manage the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which is quite ideal for the Crypto world in general.