The ranks of “crypto presidents” are growing. Is a new global consensus coming?

Author: Huo Huo, Plain Language Blockchain

2024 is a super election year, with dozens of countries and regions around the world holding key elections, involving a total population of more than 4 billion, among which the US election is undoubtedly the biggest focus. However, unlike in the past, the topic of cryptocurrency ranks third in popularity among all super PACs participating in the 2024 US election.

I still remember that four years ago, it was rare for presidential candidates to discuss the issue of Bitcoin during their campaigns. Three years ago, when El Salvador was the first to use Bitcoin as legal tender, most people were still watching. However, in last year's primary elections, the situation began to change, and the era when encryption was marginalized in politics seemed to be gone forever.

On the one hand, the duel between former President Trump and current President Biden is making various efforts to win the support of encryption voters; on the other hand, many encryption companies plan to inject a lot of cash into the 2024 US presidential election, and there are already signs that these funds are helping the encryption industry win more support in Washington.

In addition, among the 12 primary candidates for the 2024 US presidential election in 2023, 5 presidential candidates have explicitly and publicly expressed their support for Bitcoin and the encryption industry. At the end of December 2023, Argentine President Javier Milley was elected. It is reported that Milley's policy propositions include dollarization, ending currency controls, closing the central bank, drastically reducing national spending, and actively supporting Bitcoin...

Argentine President Javier Milley

So which presidents and regions in the world have explicitly expressed their support for Bitcoin?

01 El Salvador: Nayib Bukele

El Salvador became the first country in the world to officially recognize Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. In 2021, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender and simultaneously launched Chivo Wallet, a government-designed digital wallet app that allows users to pay with U.S. dollars or Bitcoin. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at around $36,000.

The decision was made by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.On the one hand, El Salvador is an agricultural-driven economy that relies too much on remittances from abroad as a significant part of its GDP; on the other hand, Bukele was eager to lead El Salvador to prosperity after taking office, and his party holds 64 of the 84 seats, giving it absolute decision-making power.

When the price of Bitcoin fell to a low of around $16,000 in November 2022, Bukele announced that El Salvador would begin buying one Bitcoin a day.

In March 2024, according to foreign media reports, Bukele said that the country's Bitcoin holdings may exceed the public's estimates, and posted on Twitter that El Salvador is earning Bitcoin-related income through its passport program, converting Bitcoin into US dollars for local businesses, mining and government services, saying that the Bitcoin portfolio is worth nearly $205 million and has made $83 million from the Bitcoin investment strategy.

Then on March 14, Bukele posted again that the country is ready to deposit "a large part" of Bitcoin assets in "cold wallets" and other related offline devices.

However, a study published in Science magazine in December 2023 showed that since El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, Bitcoin has not been widely used, and "digital payments (application scenarios) are scarce and concentrated."

02 US President (Former President, Candidate)

At the end of 2024, the United States will hold the next presidential election. Although the polls will not begin until November 5, 2024, dozens of American politicians have expressed their intention to compete with the current Democratic President Joe Biden.

Of the 12 candidates participating in the 2024 US presidential election, the five presidential candidates who have explicitly publicly expressed their support for Bitcoin and crypto assets include four Republican candidates: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Francis Suarez, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Robert Kennedy Jr. of the Democratic Party.According to FiveThirtyEight data at the time, among the Republicans who have announced their candidacy, Donald Trump has the highest support rate of 54%; Ron DeSantis ranked second at 17%.
As expected, Trump and Biden started the battle of the "crypto election".

As we all know, the current Biden administration (Democratic Party) seems to have been taking an anti-crypto stance, so once a candidate who supports crypto is elected, this may have a huge impact on the next crypto bull market. From the current party's attitude towards crypto, most Democrats, led by Biden, tend to be cautious about crypto, especially after the collapse of FTX, the Democratic Party has further strengthened its strict regulatory direction. And most Republicans, led by Trump, perhaps in order to show their different political views and attract votes, have rarely shown an inclusive attitude towards crypto.

And as Trump has been calling for "crypto-friendliness" all the way, supporting technological innovation, and even opening a crypto donation website in May, Biden and other Democrats can no longer sit still, and began to loosen up, and simultaneously announced the recruitment of Meme managers.

Perhaps crypto only occupies a very small part of the entire US election, but this does not mean that crypto voters are not important. It may be that a small policy will have a greater impact on voter support.

1) Donald John Trump

Although Trump has publicly expressed his negative attitude towards crypto during his previous presidency (January 2017-January 2021), believing that crypto assets are "thin air", he has been very "honest" in his actions in the past two years and has become one of the presidential candidates who are most good at playing cryptocurrencies.
He launched the NFT project on December 16, 2022, Trump Digital Collectible Cards, and earned a total of $4.87 million after all were sold out. In the crypto wallet suspected to be his own, according to the Washington nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) on August 14, 2013, he also held nearly $2.8 million in crypto assets (ETH).

Currently, Trump leads other Republicans by a considerable margin in the polls. However, as more and more Republicans announce their candidacy and Trump is involved in cases, it is still unknown who will represent the Republican Party in the 2024 US presidential election.

2) Ron DeSantis

On July 31, 2023, at a campaign event in New Hampshire, US presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in response to the Biden administration's continued suppression of crypto assets and crypto institutions since 2023:

"After I am elected president, Biden's war on Bitcoin and crypto will end."

"We will allow Americans to invest in Bitcoin and crypto assets. No one forces you, but if you want to buy (crypto assets), you can buy them."

DeSantis also firmly opposes CBDC (central bank digital currency). He believes that unlike cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies transfer the power of individual consumers to the central government on a large scale, giving the federal government the ability to control where the money goes.

DeSantis also said, "If I were president, we would abolish central bank digital currencies from day one."

3) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Another person who invested in crypto assets is Robert Kennedy, a Democratic candidate competing for the 2024 US presidential election. He is a member of the famous political family, the Kennedy family, and the nephew of former US President John F. Kennedy.

On July 24, 2023, Kennedy Jr. attended a Bitcoin conference in Miami and announced that his campaign would be "the first presidential campaign in history to accept Bitcoin donations through the Lightning Network."

Robert Kennedy speaks at the Miami Bitcoin Conference in 2023

On July 27, he confirmed on Twitter that he did hold Bitcoin and had bought 2 Bitcoins for each of his 7 children. He emphasized that Bitcoin is an inflation-resistant currency, which gives retail investors freedom instead of holding legal tender that is dominated by the system. He hopes to exempt Bitcoin from capital gains tax.

Like DeSantis, Kennedy Jr. is more firmly optimistic about the future of Bitcoin and encryption, and promised the public that if he is elected president, he will gradually use Bitcoin to support the US dollar. He explained that this is a gradual process, and the plan will start on a very small scale, perhaps only 1% of the national debt will be backed by hard currency, gold, silver, platinum or Bitcoin.

4) More

Two other presidential candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Francis Suarez, are less likely to become the president of the United States in 2024 according to the polls, but they are not impossible, and they are also supporters of Bitcoin.

But unlike DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy said he is a fan of Bitcoin, but he will not use Bitcoin as a commodity to help stabilize the dollar: "I think Bitcoin does not meet the criteria of the commodity basket for a variety of reasons. Bitcoin may become part of the commodity basket at some point in time, but for some technical reasons, I will not include it today."

And presidential candidate and Miami Mayor Suarez will accept Bitcoin for presidential campaign donations. During his tenure as mayor, Suarez was known for his advocacy of cryptocurrencies. He vowed to make Miami a Bitcoin center, and he practiced it himself. As mayor, he accepted Bitcoin salary. Suarez is also deeply involved in the development of the crypto industry and believes that the United States needs a president who understands crypto assets and artificial intelligence technology.

03 Argentine President: Javier Milei

Javier Milei is an Argentine economist, a former member of the Argentine National House of Representatives and a leader of the liberal movement. He was successfully elected in the November 2023 presidential election.

Tucker Carlson, a famous American journalist, once interviewed Milei, which was viewed more than 421 million times on Twitter. One of the key contents of this interview is the dollarization of the Argentine economy. In the proposal, Milei has been emphasizing the importance of abolishing the Argentine Central Bank and talked about the opportunities that Bitcoin can provide for this process.
In his vision, after the closure of the country's central bank, Bitcoin will become the main remedy for inflation in Argentina. Before the presidential campaign, Milley had been on several talk shows, often promoting the benefits of Bitcoin and crypto assets, believing that "Bitcoin can eliminate the central bank."

On November 20, 2023, perhaps because of Milley's election, Bitcoin, which was hovering at $30,000, rose to over $37,000, a 24-hour increase of 2.3%.

After his election, especially in recent weeks, contrary to some previous reports, the Milley government did not promote the Bitcoin standard in Argentina. Many sources clarified that Javier Milley had no relevant actual support for crypto policies, and stated that although Milley was positive about Bitcoin and criticized the central bank, his main economic proposal was the dollarization of the Argentine economy, not the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. Milley's comment that Bitcoin was "returning money to its original creators, the private sector" was taken out of context, suggesting a broader policy measure to adopt Bitcoin, but this was not proposed by him.

Is this a lesson for the US election and the development of encryption?

04 Mexican Presidential Candidate: Indira Kempis

Kempis is currently a senator of the Republic in the 65th Legislature of the Federal Congress for the Civic Movement Party. In late August 2023, she announced her intention to become Mexico's first female presidential candidate amid internal controversy over the party's future.

Kempis is well known among Bitcoin and crypto asset advocates as she has been outspoken about the opportunities that early Bitcoin adoption could present for Mexico.The senator has encouraged the crypto economy over the past few years since taking office in 2018. She has also pushed for Mexico to enact Bitcoin regulations similar to those in El Salvador, according to Bitcoin Magazine.

Kempis introduced the bill to create a CBDC in 2022, when she made headlines by suggesting that the Central Bank of Mexico be the sole issuer of the digital peso, although crypto was not mentioned in the bill.

However, after criticism from the cryptocurrency community over the introduction of a CBDC, Kempis supplemented the bill to include Bitcoin, hoping to make Bitcoin, the first crypto asset, legal tender in Mexico.

The Bank of Mexico has not yet provided an analysis of the CBDC bill, and reactions from lawmakers have been mixed. For example, one senator expressed strong opposition, arguing that while Bitcoin is legalized in El Salvador, Mexico "will not accept" Bitcoin as legal tender.

She has also actively participated in some crypto-related activities, such as promoting the certification of the "My First Bitcoin" course in the province of Nuevo León, where she was born, in August 2023.

However, the Mexican presidential election has already begun on June 2, 2024. On June 3, Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate of the campaign alliance of the ruling National Regeneration Movement Party of Mexico, announced her victory in the presidential election in the capital Mexico City, becoming the first female president in Mexican history and will take office on October 1, but her crypto stance has not been revealed much.

Although this result is of great significance to Mexico's promotion of gender equality, the current Mexican government is likely to continue its policies and strategies in crypto regulation in the future, so you can keep an eye on it.

05 Current British Prime Minister: Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak, the new leader of the ruling Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, officially took office as British Prime Minister on October 25, 2022.

During his tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunak actively promoted economic policies and financial legislation. Although there is no clear crypto event directly related to him, his policies and decisions have had an impact on the UK economy and financial sector.

While serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer in April 2021, Sunak proposed that the UK Treasury and the Bank of England explore the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

In April 2022, Sunak called for the recognition of stablecoins as a valid payment method.

In a question-and-answer session a few months before his election, Sunak said that he preferred BAYC to Crypto Punks. He prefers a portfolio of multiple cryptocurrencies to one or two cryptocurrencies. It can be seen that he has a high and long-term focus on cryptocurrencies.

After taking office, Sunak began to promote the pound stablecoin, saying that "my ideal is to make the UK the center of global crypto asset technology", and then included stablecoins in the scope of regulation and made cryptocurrencies one of the recognized payment methods.

And in April 2023, he also proposed to make the UK a crypto-friendly technology center and planned to launch the UK's official NFT.

However, the UK general election will be held on July 4, 2024, a day that may cause the ruling Conservative Party to lose power. According to voting intention surveys, the Labour Party is currently expected to win the upcoming election, and the Labour Party has not yet clarified its position on the crypto industry and is currently silent on crypto legislation, but they have expressed their desire for the UK to become a tokenization center and expressed support for the Bank of England's digital pound plan.

06 President of the Central African Republic: Faustin-Archange Touadéra

The President of the Central African Republic is a loyal "believer" in Bitcoin and has always supported and been committed to the promotion and application of Bitcoin. In April 2022, it was announced that Bitcoin would be adopted as legal tender, and tax payments would be accepted for crypto payments. In addition, a legal framework was established to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies, making the Central African Republic the second country after El Salvador to officially adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, and also the first country in Africa to adopt Bitcoin as a payment currency.

In April of the same year, he pushed the National Assembly of the Central African Republic to pass a bill announcing the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender to help the country's economic recovery and construction.

In May of the same year, the "Crypto Center" plan Project Sango was released to attract global crypto enthusiasts, planning to build a crypto island and a digital wallet. At the same time, it was stated that the Central African legislature had passed the "Tokenization Act" to approve the tokenization of land and natural resources. However, as the crypto bear market deepened, the plan did not develop smoothly.

But the President of the Central African Republic said, "If everyone is not optimistic about Bitcoin, then we will issue our own country's cryptocurrency."

In July of the same year, the Central African Republic launched the public sale of the national cryptocurrency Sango Coin, positioning the Central African Republic as a "cryptoeconomic country." Sango Coin is deployed on the Bitcoin sidechain and interacts with the Bitcoin mainchain, allowing users to trade between Sango Coin and Bitcoin. The initial public sale price is $0.1, the total supply is 21 billion, and the token sale is divided into 12 cycles, with the price gradually rising to the final $0.45. Central Africa also provides various empowerments, such as purchasing and pledging Sango Coin in exchange for citizenship, obtaining electronic residency, or obtaining land property by pledging Sango Coin.

However, two months after the public sale of Sango Coin, the Constitutional Court of the Central African Republic ruled that the use of tokens to purchase land and citizenship was unconstitutional. In addition, the country's National Parliament announced in March this year that Bitcoin would be changed from legal tender to a benchmark cryptocurrency.

It can be said that despite the ups and downs, Central Africa is still exploring this path.

07 Japanese Prime Minister: Fumio Kishida

The Japanese government has a relatively open attitude towards cryptocurrencies and is considered one of the leading markets for crypto assets in the world. It has taken a series of regulations and measures to regulate and promote the development of cryptocurrencies.

In April 2017, Japan officially recognized crypto assets as a legal means of payment and promulgated the Payment Services Act to regulate crypto CEX/DEX and service providers.

In addition, the Japanese government has also established a special agency, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), to regulate crypto CEX/DEX and related businesses. The FSA reviews exchanges and takes measures to ensure the safety of users' funds.

In November 2021, Fumio Kishida, who came from the Liberal Democratic Party, was elected Prime Minister of Japan. After taking office, Fumio Kishida said in his speech: "With the shrinking labor force, there is an urgent need to use digital technology. Japan will actively promote the digital transformation of the public and private sectors."

In June 2022, the Japanese parliament passed a bill clarifying the legal status of stablecoins, defining them essentially as digital currencies. Since then, Japan has become one of the first major economies to introduce a legal framework for stablecoins.

Fumio Kishida then proposed to use Web3.0 as a pillar of economic reform, and in April 2023, he released a white paper to address issues such as digital currency tax reform and NFT. The white paper formulated regulatory proposals for all Web3.0-related things from NFT to DAO.

In July 2023, at the WebX Summit hosted by the media CoinPost, Fumio Kishida said in his speech that Web3 technology has the potential to subvert the traditional framework of the Internet and lead social change. The Japanese government is working hard to improve the development environment of Web3.

On February 16, 2024, the Kishida government also approved a bill to enhance Japan's industrial competitiveness, the Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act, which will take measures to add crypto assets to the list of assets that investment limited partnerships can acquire and hold. This is a major change in policy and will directly allow venture capital companies to invest in projects that specifically issue crypto assets.

It can be said that after Fumio Kishida was elected prime minister in 2021, he immediately developed crypto-related industries such as Web3. The passage of these bills this year means that Japan is further open to the development of digital assets.

08 Former Brazilian President: Jair Bolsonaro

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro also took an open and positive stance on crypto policy. He has said that he will support the legalization of Bitcoin as legal tender and hopes that Brazil can become the first country to adopt Bitcoin. During his term, no value-added tax or income tax was imposed on crypto transactions. At the same time, he also supported the Brazilian Central Bank's research on the issuance of digital currencies.

In addition, in April 2022, Bolsonaro approved a bill after a long deliberation in the Brazilian Senate. This is the first bill in Brazil to manage encryption, which will lay the foundation for the creation of a regulatory framework for the country's encryption industry.

The bill was first proposed by a federal congressman in 2015, and was finally signed and passed by former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to legalize cryptocurrency as a means of payment in Brazil.

Overall, Bolsonaro has promoted the openness of Brazil's encryption policy, but also hopes to use digital assets to strengthen national sovereignty and control. His policies have played a certain role in promoting Brazil to become the encryption center of South America.

09 Summary

It can be seen that encryption assets, led by Bitcoin, are infiltrating the development process of various countries in the form of economy or politics. The emergence of countries friendly to encryption assets has accelerated the journey of encryption from marginal finance to mainstream finance.

As more countries recognize the potential of blockchain technology and digital currencies, we may see a more integrated and robust global crypto market.