US Elections: Bitcoin in the Spotlight

Never has a G7 presidential election cast such a vivid light on Bitcoin. As Francis Pouliot, Bull Bitcoin’s founder, explained during a Bull Bitcoin Podcast this summer with the Bull Bitcoin Europe team, Bitcoiners have become single-issue voters. Today, they make up a large enough share of the U.S. electorate to swing the election. Both Robert F.  Kennedy Jr (RFK), Donald Trump, and Kamala Harris recognize this fact, with each paying lip service to the Bitcoin community. Most notably, Trump and RFK even made appearances at the Nashville conference this year.

But let’s be clear: their understanding of and commitment to Bitcoin is wildly uneven. RFK’s Nashville speech showed he’s done his homework. Trump’s appearance, however, mostly proved he’s smart enough to listen to his son Barron and his ally Vivek Ramaswamy when they tell him Bitcoin is now too central to ignore. Kamala, on the other hand, demonstrated classic Democrat hypocrisy, gibbering empty love declarations about “crypto” without acknowledging her administration’s aggressive undermining of the industry.

For any Bitcoiners not fully aware of these attacks, let me spell out just a few:

• Gary Gensler: Appointed by this administration, Gensler has capriciously opposed spot Bitcoin ETFs at every turn.

• Operation Chokepoint 2.0: A coordinated, unconstitutional effort by the administration to unbank crypto businesses, pressuring crypto-friendly banks and culminating in the orchestration of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, despite the bank being adequately capitalized.

• Misrepresenting Bitcoin: The administration has continuously twisted Bitcoin’s message, especially through the Senate Banking Committee, led by staunch anti-Bitcoiner and communist Elizabeth Warren.

• Mining Ban: The administration’s ironclad opposition to Bitcoin mining, most notably New York’s ideological mining ban, disregards every logical and economic argument in favor of the industry.

• FTX Scandal: The administration has a quasi-incestuous closeness with the fraudulent “shitcoin casino” that was FTX.

• Crypto as Identity Politics: The Democrats attempted to racialize Bitcoin, disregarding the fact that Bitcoin may be the most universally inclusive financial technology ever created.

There’s more, but this list should be enough to convince any sensible Bitcoiner of the brazen hypocrisy and audacity of the Democrat candidate’s attempts to court the Bitcoin community.

As for Trump, while his actions may not have been openly anti-Bitcoin, he’s hardly been a reliable ally. Despite having two Bitcoin advocates in his inner circle who chant “Bitcoin, not shitcoin,” he’s gone ahead and launched his own ludicrous shitcoin, World Liberty Financial. And let’s not forget his cringy JPEG collection. When those DeFi scams predictably failed, he did what any failed shitcoiner does — he took a turn flipping fries at McDonald's.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump uses a frier during a visit
to a McDonald’s outlet in Pennsylvania. (New York Times/AP pic)

Still, after Trump’s Nashville appearance, many conservative U.S. Bitcoiners hailed him as a new Bitcoin savior. This isn’t a new phenomenon; we’ve seen libertarians applauding pro-Bitcoin legal tender laws, and Bitcoiners fawning over blatant shitcoiners like Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, all because they said something flattering about Bitcoin. As I recently pointed out in an upcoming podcast with Rikki from Bitcoin Explorer on Bull Bitcoin’s YouTube channel, when it comes to politics, Bitcoiners often resemble “virgins giving bondage advice”: while they are usually good at spotting and calling out affinity scams, their naiveté about the political game often lead them to fall for the cheapest tricks.

What This Election Means for Bitcoin

So, what can we expect from this election for Bitcoin?

Polls and betting markets like Polymarket are currently leaning towards a Trump landslide. Though these predictions have been wrong before — as with Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election — the overall climate in the U.S. and the Democrat candidate’s failure to ignite real popular support, despite backing from mainstream media, tech giants, and Hollywood’s darling celebrities, seem to confirm this outlook.

Under a Trump presidency, we can expect a green light for U.S.-based Bitcoin mining, a more relaxed SEC stance toward the crypto industry, continued massive deficits, escalated trade wars, an even more politicized dollar, and sweeping tax cuts.

In short: Orange man good for the orange coin.

Besides, the current market setup is extremely bullish: global liquidity is on the rise, ETFs are seeing strong inflows, Corporate America is warming up to MicroStrategy’s playbook, Bitcoin dominance is skyrocketing, and the low-conviction shitcoiners are throwing in the towel and swapping their failed scams for sats. The derivatives market funding rate looks solid, and options market data suggests a potential gamma squeeze if Bitcoin hits new highs. Detailing each factor would make this newsletter too long, but the short version is this: a Trump victory could act as the perfect catalyst for a Bitcoin melt-up.

On the other hand, if Kamala wins, the outlook is slightly less bullish in the short term but bullish nonetheless. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but a Kamala presidency would mean more regulations, more financial repression, more censorship, Weimar-style deficits to fund unproductive social justice bullshit, and an even wider BRICS–West divide. This would likely result in an initial market plunge — especially as it would come as a shock to global markets — but highly favorable conditions for Bitcoin in the medium to long term. Indeed, Kamala’s quasi-communist agenda would starkly highlight Bitcoin’s value proposition. After all, censorship-resistant, inflation-resistant money that lives on a decentralized, government-immune infrastructure is most useful when governments are printing and censoring at record speed.

That’s the price angle, but a Trump presidency offers broader, concrete upsides for Bitcoin:

• Ross Ulbricht’s Release: Trump has promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht, Bitcoin OG and Silk Road founder, on day one — a move that would resonate deeply within the Bitcoin community.

• Crypto-Friendly Appointments: Much of the regulatory assault on crypto has come from the DOJ, the Attorney General, and the New York District Attorney, all appointed by the President. If Trump is serious about making the U.S. a crypto-friendly hub, he could replace these positions with individuals more favorable to the industry.

• A Softer Stance on Privacy: With privacy advocates in his circle, Trump could ease the crackdown on privacy-focused tools like CoinJoin, potentially advancing the use of Bitcoin’s privacy features.

• Stablecoin Support: Stablecoin issuers are among the biggest buyers of U.S. government debt — a critical factor given the country’s mounting financial needs. Trump might establish a stablecoin-friendly framework, as long as issuers back their assets with U.S. paper, creating a win-win for both parties.

• Sacking Gary Gensler: Trump has pledged to remove Gary Gensler from the SEC and appoint a new chair who would likely be more supportive of Bitcoin and the industry at large.

If you’re a Bull Bitcoin customer, chances are you’re here to stack sats in self-custody with a medium to long-term outlook, so you’re in a strong position regardless of political outcomes. Bitcoin’s most undervalued feature is the certainty it offers about your financial future, allowing you to ignore the political circus and focus on real wealth-building.

Beyond political promises, the Overton window is shifting, and it’s moving Bitcoin’s way. Between the ECB’s recent paper implicitly warning those who ignore Bitcoin to “Have Fun Staying Poor”, the world’s largest asset managers now parroting long-standing Bitcoiner talking points and broadcasting them to a wider audience, and the U.S. presidential campaign shining a spotlight on censorship resistance and positioning Bitcoin as a serious alternative to the legacy banking system, it’s clear that the tides are turning unmistakably in Bitcoin’s favor.