{"id":15760,"date":"2024-08-01T13:38:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T10:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bitwise-cio-political-stance-on-cryptocurrency-is-irrelevant\/"},"modified":"2024-08-01T13:38:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T10:38:51","slug":"bitwise-cio-political-stance-on-cryptocurrency-is-irrelevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/bitwise-cio-political-stance-on-cryptocurrency-is-irrelevant\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitwise CIO: Political Stance on Cryptocurrency Is Irrelevant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Upon returning from the Bitcoin 2024 conference, Bitwise&#8217;s Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan <a href=\"https:\/\/experts.bitwiseinvestments.com\/cio-memos\/the-big-takeaway-from-the-2024-bitcoin-conference\">concluded<\/a> that the crypto industry is &#8220;not optimistic enough.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Several recent promises made by American politicians at the event prompted him to &#8220;rethink the possibilities&#8221; of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<p>Hougan highlighted several key points from the conference:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Presidential candidate Donald Trump announced plans to create a national Bitcoin reserve and expressed his desire to make the US the &#8220;crypto capital of the world&#8221;;\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill proposing the government purchase 1 million BTC;<\/li>\n<li>Representative Ro Khanna (Democrat from California) stated the need to &#8220;reject the hostile policies of the past&#8221; and embrace the first cryptocurrency as a &#8220;key part of the country&#8217;s financial future&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>Independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. urged the US Treasury to acquire 4 million BTC. According to Bitwise&#8217;s CIO, this &#8220;sounded crazy&#8221; until he explained: the US currently holds 19% of the world&#8217;s gold reserves, and the proposed amount of Bitcoin would represent a similar share;<\/li>\n<li>Senator Roy Haggerty (Republican from Tennessee) declared that a love for the first cryptocurrency is &#8220;in his DNA,&#8221; equating the asset to freedom and independence, while his colleague Marsha Blackburn &#8220;drove trucks around the conference zone,&#8221; promoting support for digital gold;<\/li>\n<li>Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the conference but &#8220;felt enough political pressure&#8221; to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1a4c5066-9cc0-4849-993b-06a28022ad66\">reveal plans<\/a> for a Democratic &#8220;reset&#8221; for crypto companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s madness. Less than two years ago, FTX collapsed in a historic fraud, Bitcoin was trading at $17,000, and skeptics were dancing on the grave of the crypto industry. Now politicians are openly talking about building a &#8216;Bitcoin Fort Knox,'&#8221; Hougan marveled.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He believes it is easy to view Washington&#8217;s acceptance of cryptocurrency as &#8220;shameless opportunism.&#8221; However, digital assets are a significant political force: over 80 million Americans own cryptocurrency, and the industry has &#8220;one of the largest&#8221; political action super committees in the US.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;Most politicians don&#8217;t actually like Bitcoin; they just bow to its growing popularity. But I&#8217;m not sure it matters. When you say &#8216;opportunism,&#8217; I say: &#8216;That&#8217;s how politics works.&#8217; Politicians embrace cryptocurrency because Americans embrace cryptocurrency,&#8221; added the top executive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Nevertheless, according to Hougan, &#8220;the fact remains&#8221; that the government&#8217;s attitude towards the industry has significantly changed. He noted that there are now &#8220;equal risks&#8221; for both market growth and decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Support for Crypto Candidates<\/h2>\n<p>Lightspark CEO David Marcus expressed support for the Republican administration and Trump ahead of the upcoming US elections.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am crossing the Rubicon and backing the Republican Party and President Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Many \u2014 including a former version of myself \u2014 get trapped in a mental framework that becomes their identity and prevents them from radically evolving their thinking with new facts and information. I\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Marcus (@davidmarcus) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidmarcus\/status\/1818700003810197698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 31, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He stated that over several years he made a &#8220;gradual 180-degree political turn&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;At the time, I still believed in the conventional idea that Democrats should serve the people. However, I was shocked to learn that Republicans care more about their constituents, while Democrats, in my experience, are more concerned with state power and control.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Active support for crypto candidates is also provided by MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, who also spoke at Bitcoin 2024. He recently published a quote from Senator Bill Hagerty, urging to &#8220;clarify&#8221; the situation with digital assets in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We need to make certain that it happens here in America.&#8221; \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenatorHagerty?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@SenatorHagerty<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bitcoin?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Bitcoin<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HEIEro4V6S\">pic.twitter.com\/HEIEro4V6S<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Saylor\u26a1\ufe0f (@saylor) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/saylor\/status\/1818326702545613264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Previously, the author of the bestseller &#8220;Rich Dad, Poor Dad&#8221; and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki expressed a positive attitude towards the former president. According to the businessman, if he wins, the first cryptocurrency will rise to $105,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In July, Bloomberg journalists reported that Bitcoin miners and crypto companies, which were hindered from going public in the US, would benefit from a second Trump presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Upon returning from the Bitcoin 2024 conference, Bitwise&#8217;s Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan concluded that the crypto industry is &#8220;not optimistic enough.&#8221;\u00a0 Several recent promises made by American politicians at the event prompted him to &#8220;rethink the possibilities&#8221; of Bitcoin. Hougan highlighted several key points from the conference:\u00a0 Presidential candidate Donald Trump announced plans to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[949,1150,1138,842,26],"class_list":["post-15760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitwise","tag-news-plus","tag-opinions","tag-politics","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"19","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}