Democracy Wins Once Again in the USA

We have all seen the SEC drop their investigation today against Ethereum. It's absolutely no surprise this comes in an election year. Democracy has forced the government's hand. The people want cryptocurrency. You lose votes by going against cryptocurrency.

You lose votes because very few people strongly dislike cryptocurrencies. However, there is a significant portion of the population that strongly likes cryptocurrencies. These are the two groups who are swayed by cryptocurrency policy. There's plenty of people who slightly dislike cryptocurrency. The majority of people do not care at all about cryptocurrency in the USA.

Game theory here is to appease cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The SEC has completely flipped their stance on crypto this year. Sure, part of that is due to court rulings against them. Perhaps they could have pointed to these rulings as justification for their hardline stances if these rulings went the other way. The fact is, however, that the rulings were pro-crypto, and now the SEC appears to be attacking the industry for no good reason.

This election looks super tight, and it's no surprise Trump started speaking pro-crypto. He has realized he can sway crypto enthusiasts to his side. Not only is he going pro-crypto, but he can easily paint the current administration as ANTI-CRYPTO. The easy attack is to go after Gensler, who is Biden's guy.

Biden cannot afford to be cast as anti-crypto. It is too strong a voting point for a significant percentage of voters. Crypto is a multi-trillion dollar industry at this point. It would sound ridiculous even in 2020 to suggest that crypto policy could play a role in a US Presidential Election.

Not anymore. One fifth of US voters have bought crypto, according to a Paradigm study. People have put their real money into this industry. And the ones that do have high hopes. Most crypto investors believe their investments will multiply. So even those with seemingly small positions view them as important.

All this is to say, the democratic system has worked as designed. It has forced politicians to heed the people's demands, which is crypto-friendly policy. Ultimately, the industry has grown "too big to kill", and in fact, it is now also "too big to ignore".

I don't believe either candidate truly wants cryptocurrency to succeed. At the end of the day, cryptocurrency threatens a government's control by offering an alternative to their monetary system. This is why so many Authoritarian countries have been so hard on crypto. But at this point, their hands may be forced as well. If the US is allowing the industry to grow, then they risk being left out of a massive part of the economy