Crypto’s Big Trump Gamble Is Risky

He stands on a stage at the Bitcoin Conference, in Nashville, and says how much he likes crypto people. He announces a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. He promises to free Ross Ulbricht. He hands out burgers at PubKey, in NYC. He even forms his own DeFi project, World Liberty Financial, complete with an insider-y governance model (what better way to signal one’s fidelity to crypto than that?)

Trump says and does all the things crypto wants to hear and he attracts millions in donations as a result. The loudmouths go to bat for him, culture warriors in performative hatred. He occupies political space that the Biden Administration and the Harris campaign could have occupied if they weren’t so craven to the Warren Wing. He says all the right things, because Trump is the master of saying what people want him to say. He fits perfectly with crypto’s goals, because his politics are adaptable to any situation and crypto was desperate for a friend.

I’ll confess that all this makes me personally uncomfortable, not because I have any great love for Kamala Harris, but because Trump has a long track record of being a fair-weather friend. He could just as easily take an entirely opposite view of crypto, if it suits him, and he has. I’m worried about crypto’s embrace of Trump because I find it hard to believe that Trump shares principles that attracted me to crypto.