Nfts
Trump’s mugshot NFTs highlight crypto’s arrival on the campaign trail
Hannah Miller and María Paula Mijares Torres | Bloomberg
The resurgence of cryptocurrency markets this year has made digital assets a hot topic on the campaign trail ahead of the U.S. election in November, and the political battle lines are increasingly well defined.
Donald Trump has staked out crypto-friendly territory – with the sale of non-fungible tokens inspired by his photo – after President Joe Biden’s administration became an industry scourge famous for its numerous scams and high-profile outbursts .
Yet despite all the rhetoric and the roughly $85 million in donations to crypto-focused political action committees, many experts are skeptical that any of this will make much difference in the election. Ultimately, voters simply don’t care enough about the issue for it to influence them in a major way, according to Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at Florida State University.
“For most people, Bitcoin isn’t even on their radar,” said Atkeson, director of FSU’s LeRoy Collins Institute. For those who own cryptocurrency, they might view it simply as an investment rather than a political statement, she added.
Regardless, Bitcoin and other digital assets have become topics of discussion alongside other hot-button issues such as inflation, abortion, and the wars in Ukraine and Israel.
Take Donald Trump, who gave his wholehearted support to the industry last week on a day off from the court during his silent trial, when he hosted a gala for fans who purchased at least 47 NFTs from his collection MugShot. Those who made the bulk purchases even received a physical trading card containing a fragment of the suit the former president wore when he was arrested after his indictment in August on election racketeering charges.
Meanwhile, other politicians such as independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz are popping up on the crypto conference circuit.
And after nearly four years of contentious relations between President Biden’s administration and the industry, political action committees are raking in donations and spending them on ads targeting anti-crypto politicians.
A crypto group with some 440,000 members launched a PAC called Stand With Crypto on Friday. It joins three crypto super PACs — Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress — that have raised about $85 million between 2023 and 2024, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
Deep-pocketed cryptocurrency donors claimed a quick victory in March, when Democratic Rep. Katie Porter lost California’s Senate primary election following a series of attack ads and push-out efforts. the vote.
Still, one might wonder how much credit crypto donors deserve for this outcome. Porter had been at a significant disadvantage from the start since she was running against experienced “celebrity” Rep. Adam Schiff, according to Dennis Kelleher, executive director of Better Markets, a financial reform nonprofit. Schiff has been in Congress since 2001 and was the lead impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial. Kelleher called the crypto lobby’s victory lap for this race “laughable.”
Attack Ads
An attack ad against Porter funded by Fairshake didn’t even mention her anti-crypto stance, instead focusing on where she received campaign donations.
“Clearly, these ads didn’t think Bitcoin was the big change, otherwise they would have accepted that,” Atkeson said.
Yet skepticism about crypto’s influence at the ballot box is far from universal among policy and market observers. Campaign dollars spent by PACs will continue to bring crypto into the conversation, according to Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial.
“We are only going to see more crypto during this US election cycle, not less,” Savic said.
And unlike past elections, millions of people involved in the industry will likely vote in the next presidential race, said Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University.
“This time it’s different”
“If you had asked this question four or eight years ago, I would have said that this was a really specialized sector and that there was no story to tell here,” he said. he declared. “But this time it’s different.”
Industry research has found that one in five voters in battleground states care about crypto policy and that there really is a “crypto voter,” according to Kristin Smith, CEO of the trade group Blockchain Association. And the fact that younger candidates are more interested in the topic could mean more policy attention on crypto in the future, she added.
“What we’re seeing in some swing states where the presidential election is very close, or even some Senate elections, is that when you consider such a small number of voters changing the election, the position of the candidate Crypto policy takes into account a significant number of people,” she said.
For Kelleher, of the crypto-critical group Better Markets, there is another important group of people to consider: all the voters who have been turned off by the long list of crimes and scandals associated with the asset class.
“It’s hard to believe that there will be many people who conclude that voting for a group of criminals and predators is somehow in their interest,” he said. .
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With help from Bill Allison.