Biden and Bitcoin

The markets in general have had a boost this weekend following the announcement that the next president of the United States would be Joe Biden. The result boosted investor confidence right around the world, and cryptocurrencies appear to have benefited as well, with all of them up by solid amounts on Monday morning.

However, while Trump continues to falsely claim voter fraud, some crypto analysts have taken a look at the sector as we enter some weeks of uncertainty. They specifically want to think about what a Biden presidency will mean for cryptocurrency. According to Cointelegraph, “they appear to have come to a loose consensus that a President who says nothing about crypto is preferable to a president who actively disparages it.”

Trump has been negative about crypto in the past, as has one of his allies, Steve Mnuchin. Qiao Wang at decentralized finance accelerator DeFi Alliance was cheered by Biden’s election. “The fact that Trump and Mnuchin are hostile towards BTC makes a Trump a far inferior candidate. Full stop. However the senate part is debatable. You could argue that democrats are more likely to create inflation which is good for BTC.”

Mike Novogratz, a well-known crypto enthusiast, tweeted, “Wore my lucky hat for Biden. Go $BTC. Go Biden.”

Jake Chervinsky, legal counsel at Compound, suggested that the people Biden chooses for the highest posts in his administration could be crucial for the future of cryptocurrency: “President-elect Biden hasn’t said anything publicly about his views on crypto. For now, it really isn’t a big enough issue to warrant his attention.

The next four years of US crypto policy depends on who he appoints to key positions; we’ll know more as the transition gets going.”

CFTC chairman and Obama appointee Gary Gensler may well be on Team Biden, and in the past he has been positive about Bitcoin. Furthermore, Lael Brainard, the former Federal Reserve governor who led a MIT joint effort to research CBDCs, is a frontrunner for Treasury secretary.

But for the moment, we will just have to wait and see.