Many crypto holders in the United States have been critical of President Joe Biden, Democratic Party lawmakers, and the officials has chosen to serve as regulators in his administration long before election season. Although President Biden has rarely made statements about crypto, this stance may change as Election Day approaches.
During his term, Biden may have inadvertently helped bring crypto further into the mainstream conversation for presidential politics. Shortly his inauguration, he nominated Gary Gensler as chair of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). In March 2022, he signed an executive order to a regulatory framework for digital assets. The president also announced and followed through with a veto a resolution intending to overturn an SEC accounting rule on banks and crypto in 2024Several U.S.-based crypto users also hold President Biden accountable for lawmakers in his party against legislation and policies they view as beneficial for digital assets. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is for being one of Congress’s most vocal anti-crypto figures and frequently links digital assets terrorism financing and illicit activities.
Under Gensler’s leadership, the SEC increased enforcement cryptocurrency firms resulting in pending cases against Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken among others. Publicly a “come-in-and-talk-to-us” approach as the best path forward for legally offering their products and services within the United States is how Gensler characterized it; however many companies criticize inconsistent enforcement of securities laws by regulators – most recently with reports suggesting that Ether could be classified as security by the SEC.
Contrastingly former U.S. President Donald Trump initially told his treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin to “go after” Bitcoin (BTC while he was president in 2018 but later described cryptocurrencies as “not money” or “based on thin air” in 2019 after leaving office Trump called BTC “ a scam” while also remarking that cryptocurrencies were “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” Only starting December 2022 did Trump seem more willing to embrace assets launching an NFT collection following announcement of reelection bid on Nov. 15th & planning all remaining Bitcoin mined domesticallyafter beating out pro-crypto Republican candidates from years prior.