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How cryptocurrency is poised to influence elections

Published

5 months ago

17 June, 2024

How cryptocurrency is poised to influence elections

Ryan Selkis, a cryptocurrency executive, was dining at Mar-a-Lago last month when he received an unexpected invitation: Former President Donald J. Trump wanted him to come on stage and say a few words.

Selkis, who runs crypto data firm Messari, was one of about two hundred attendees at an event celebrating Trump’s decision series of non-fungible tokens, the digital collectibles known as NFTs. As he reached the lectern, Mr. Selkis turned to the former president.

“There are 50 million cryptocurrency holders in the United States,” the executive declared. “That’s a lot of voters.”

This message has become a political talking point in the cryptocurrency world, as the industry tries to shake off a wave of scandals and establish itself as a powerful force in the 2024 election cycle. Three major crypto firms have done so united to finance a group of affiliated super PACs, which invest around $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional races.

The PACs do not intend to participate in the presidential election, a spokesperson for the groups said. But top cryptocurrency executives have tried to rally the industry behind Trump, who has reciprocated by praising digital currencies and hosting executives at Mar-a-Lago.

Many cryptocurrency advocates see the 2024 election as a pivotal moment. After a series of crypto firms collapsed two years ago, the Biden administration took an initiative aggressive repression, filing lawsuits and criminal charges against some of the industry’s leading figures. The Securities and Exchange Commission is prosecute cases this could actually force the cryptocurrency industry to leave the United States.

“The 2024 election will be the most important in the history of cryptocurrencies,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company that has been feuding with the federal government for years. “You’re seeing technology become a partisan political issue.”

Garlinghouse, Selkis and other executives have argued that newly energized “crypto voters” could influence the outcome of the election. They often cite a surveycommissioned by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, suggests so 52 million Americans own digital currencies. (The Federal Reserve estimates that the total represents 7% of the adult population, or approximately 18 million people.)

But voters’ supposed passion for cryptocurrencies may be less important than the industry’s campaign war chest. Ripple, Coinbase and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have each donated about $50 million to crypto PACs, which plan to spend those funds on several competitive Senate races. In March, the largest PAC, Fairshake, spent about $10 million on attack ads against Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate in the California Senate primary who was allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime crypto critic . Mrs. Porter lost her race.

“A single, relatively small industry is literally trying to buy enough politicians to hijack the public agenda,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a financial reform advocacy group. “It’s truly breathtaking.”

The industry’s vast resources have turned a number of niche issues into a talking point in the presidential campaign. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the independent presidential candidate, Done his first official campaign appearance at a Bitcoin event in Miami, and he has attended numerous industry conferences, sometimes holding fundraising meetings with wealthy executives on the sidelines.

President Biden has long been considered anti-cryptocurrency because his SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, has sued so many crypto companies. But some Biden supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, have insisted his campaign is mending fences.

The campaign was receptive to the message, Mr. Cuban said in an email. In recent weeks, Biden officials have reached out to Coinbase and Ripple, asking to discuss cryptocurrency policy, four people familiar with those discussions said. However, much of the industry appears to be coalescing around Trump. While the former president once said that Bitcoin “looks like a scam” and has often been critical of the tech sector, he has made several supportive comments on cryptocurrencies over the past month, promising to end the regulatory crackdown. On Tuesday, Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with executives from some of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining companies, including Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.

Bitcoin should be “MADE IN USA!!!” He published on his social network.

The last time the cryptocurrency industry spent large sums on a political race, its top donor was Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, who spent tens of millions of dollars supporting both Democrats and Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Two years later, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s company is bankrupt and he is serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud.

The collapse of FTX was a huge setback to the cryptocurrency industry’s efforts in Washington. Last year the SEC sued Coinbase and other cryptocurrency companies, claiming that the digital assets they allowed customers to buy and sell were unregistered securities. In May, the industry scored a rare legislative victory when Congress voted to overturn an SEC accounting guideline that crypto firms had challenged. Mr. Biden vetoed the resolution.

Now the industry is reacting. Fairshake yes plans announced to enter four more Senate races this year, including close races in Ohio and Montana, where Democrats who have been critical of cryptocurrencies are running for re-election. Privately, cryptocurrency executives credited Fairshake with mollifying some skeptical lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Mr. Brown, who is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, She said in April he said he was willing to introduce an industry-backed bill.

A few weeks after the California Senate primary in March, Representative Adam Schiff, the Democrat who defeated Ms. Porter, visited Coinbase’s offices in Mountain View, California. He met with representatives from Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz and cryptocurrency-focused investment firms Electric Capital, Paradigm Capital and Haun Ventures, two people familiar with the meeting said.

Mr. Trump has not always been a supporter of cryptocurrencies. He said he preferred dollars to Bitcoin and in 2019 he did tweeted that digital currencies were “based on nothing”. But lately, some crypto executives, looking for a political savior, have embraced it.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a cryptocurrency enthusiast and former presidential candidate, did so boasted credit for Trump’s position on cryptocurrencies and has carved out a role as an emissary in the sector: on Wednesday afternoon, Ramaswamy met privately with Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington and encouraged him to support Trump’s campaign campaign, a person familiar with the meeting said.

Mr. Armstrong has not publicly endorsed a presidential candidate. “We will not give special treatment to any particular party,” he said in a statement. “Cryptocurrencies are a truly bipartisan issue.”

Mr. Selkis, who identifies as a libertarian, he attended the Mar-a-Lago event the following May get a ticket from a colleague who couldn’t make it. “I’m eating my salad and I get cold-called on stage by the president,” Selkis recalled in an interview.

That night, Mr. Trump declared, “If you’re pro cryptocurrencies, you’d be better off voting for Trump.” He did it too announced that his campaign would accept digital currency donations and pledged to do so commute from home to work the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, a cult hero in the cryptocurrency world who ran the Silk Road online drug market.

On Tuesday evening, Trump met for more than an hour with about 15 Bitcoin mining executives at Mar-a-Lago, according to one of the attendees, Salman Khan, chief financial officer of Marathon Digital.

At one point, Khan said, executives showed Trump the inside of a machine used for mining Bitcoin, a process that consumes a lot of energy which raised environmental concerns. “He liked the made-in-America thing,” Mr. Khan said.

Not everyone in the cryptocurrency world agrees with Trump. At a conference in May, Marvin Ammori, a Democrat who works for the cryptocurrency company Uniswap, debated Selkis talks on stage about the industry’s political strategy, warning that Trump may not keep his campaign promises.

However, this month, Trump attended a fundraiser at the San Francisco home of David Sacks, a prominent venture capitalist, and reiterated his support for cryptocurrencies, according to three people who attended. Among the guests were Mr. Selkis, cryptocurrency executives Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, the people said.

“The cryptocurrency vote has already been won by President Trump,” Selkis said. “It’s over.”

Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

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Cryptocurrency Price August 1: Bitcoin Dips Below $65K; Solana, XRP Down Up To 8%

Published

4 months ago

1 August, 2024

BlockChainBulletin Staff

Major cryptocurrencies fell in Thursday trading following the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep its key interest rate unchanged. Overnight, the U.S. Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate at 5.25-5.5% for the eighth consecutive time, as expected, while also signaling the possibility of a rate cut at its next meeting in September. The unanimous decision by the Federal Open Market Committee reflects a continued wait-and-see approach as it monitors inflation trends.

CoinSwitch Markets Desk said: “Bitcoin has fallen below $65,000 after the US Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest rates unchanged. However, with markets now anticipating rate cuts at the next Federal Reserve meeting in September, the outlook for a Bitcoin rally by the end of the year has strengthened.”

Meanwhile, CoinDCX research team said: “The crypto market has plunged after the Fed decision. Tomorrow’s US unemployment rate announcement is expected to induce more volatility, with the ‘actual’ figure coming in higher than the ‘expected’ one, which is positive for cryptocurrencies.”

At 12:21 pm IST, Bitcoin (BTC) was down 3.2% at $64,285, while Ethereum was down nearly 4.5% at $3,313. Meanwhile, the global market cryptocurrency The market capitalization fell 3.6% to around $2.3 trillion in the last 24 hours.

“Bitcoin needs to clear its 200-day EMA at $64,510 to consolidate further. Otherwise, a retest of $62,000 could be in the cards,” said Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus.

Altcoins and meme coins, such as BNB (3%), Solana (8%), XRP (5.7%), Dogecoin (5%), Cardano (4.6%), Avalanche (4.3%), Shiba Inu (3.8%), Polkadot (3.4%), and Chainlink (4%) also saw declines.

The volume of all stablecoins is now $71.64 billion, which is 92.19% of the total cryptocurrency market volume in 24 hours, according to data available on CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 54.99%. BTC volume in the last 24 hours increased by 23.3% to $35.7 billion.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, opinions and views provided by experts are personal. They do not represent the views of the Economic Times)

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Altcoins WIF, BONK, RUNE, JUP Down 10% While Bitcoin Drops 4%

Published

4 months ago

1 August, 2024

BlockChainBulletin Staff

Altcoins WIF, BONK, RUNE and JUP drop 10% as Bitcoin recedes 4%

Altcoins dogwifhat, Bonk, THORChain, and Jupiter have suffered losses of more than 10%, while Bitcoin is down 4% in the last 24 hours.

After a period of relative calm yesterday, July 31, Bitcoin (BTC) price action has seen a drastic change as the cryptocurrency dropped by more than $3,500, bringing its value to $63,300. At the same time, altcoins mirrored this trend, with the total value of liquidated positions rising to nearly $225 million over the course of the day.

Initially, the week started on a positive note for Bitcoin, which reached its highest point since early June, hitting $70,000. However, this peak was short-lived, as it was quickly rejected, leading to a substantial decline, with Bitcoin falling below $65,500.

The cryptocurrency managed to regain some stability, trading comfortably at around $66,800. However, following a Press conference According to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the value of Bitcoin has fallen again to $64,300, down more than 3% in 24 hours.

BTC Price Chart 24 Hours | Source: crypto.news

The recession coincided with a relationship from the New York Times stating that Iran had called for retaliatory measures against Israel following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, increasing the risk of further conflict in the region.

Meanwhile, on the economic front, the Federal Reserve decided to keep its benchmark interest rates in place, offering little information on a planned September rate cut. Powell also hinted that while no concrete decisions have been made on the September adjustment, there is growing consensus that a rate cut is likely.

Amid Bitcoin’s decline, altcoins have suffered even more significant losses. For example, dogwifhat (Wife) saw a 12.4% drop and (DISGUST) has suffered a 10% drop. Other altcoins such as THORChain (RUNE) also fell by 10%, while Jupiter (JUPITER) and the Ethereum naming service (ENS) decreased by 8% and 9% respectively.

Among the largest-cap cryptocurrencies, the biggest losers are Solana (SOL) with a decrease of 8%, (Exchange rate risk) down 6%, Cardano (ADA) down 4%, and both Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) recording a decrease of 4.4%.

Data from CoinGlass indicates that approximately 67,000 traders have been negatively impacted by this increased volatility. BTC positions have seen $61.85 million in liquidations, while ETH positions have faced $61 million. In total, the value of liquidated positions stands at $225.4 million at the time of writing.

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Riot Platforms Sees 52% Drop in Bitcoin Production in Q2

Published

4 months ago

1 August, 2024

BlockChainBulletin Staff

Riot Platforms posts 52% decrease in Bitcoin production for Q2

Bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms has released its second-quarter financial results, highlighting a decline in cryptocurrency mined due to the recent halving.

Colorado-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Riot platforms revealed its second quarter financial results, highlighting a significant reduction in mined cryptocurrencies attributed to the recent halving event that took place in early April.

The company reported total revenue of $70 million for the quarter ended July 31, a decline of 8.7% compared to the same period in 2023. Riot Platforms attributed the revenue decline primarily to a $9.7 million decrease in engineering revenue, which was partially mitigated by a $6 million increase in Bitcoin extraction income.

During the quarter, the company mined 844 BTC, representing a decline of over 50% from Q2 2023, citing the halving event and increasing network difficulty as major factors behind the decline. Riot Platforms reported a net loss of $84.4 million, or $0.32 per share, missing Zacks Research forecast a loss of $0.16 per share.

Halving increases competitive pressure

The Colorado-based firm said the average cost of mining one BTC in the second quarter, including energy credits, rose to $25,327, a remarkable 341% increase from $5,734 per BTC in the same quarter of 2023. Despite this significant increase in production costs, the firm remains optimistic about maintaining competitiveness through recent deals.

For example, following the Recent acquisition Cryptocurrency firm Block Mining, Riot has increased its distributed hash rate forecast from 31 EH/s to 36 EH/s by the end of 2024, while also increasing its 2025 forecast from 40 EH/s to 56 EH/s.

Riot Platforms Hashrate Growth Projections by 2027 | Source: Riot Platforms

Commenting on the company’s financials, Riot CEO Jason Les said that despite the halving, the mining company still managed to achieve “significant operational growth and execution of our long-term strategy.”

“Despite this reduction in production available to all Bitcoin miners, Riot reported $70 million in revenue for the quarter and maintained strong gross margins in our core Bitcoin mining business.”

Jason Les

Following its Q2 financial report, Riot Platforms shares fell 1.74% to $10.19, according to Google Finance data. Meanwhile, the American miner continues to chase Canadian rival Bitfarms, recently acquiring an additional 10.2 million BITF shares, increasing its stake in Bitfarms to 15.9%.

As previously reported by crypto.news, Riot was the first announced a $950 million takeover bid for Bitfarms in late May, arguing that Bitfarms’ founders were not acting in the best interests of all shareholders. They said their proposal was rejected by Bitfarms’ board without substantive engagement.

In response, Bitfarms She said that Riot’s offer “significantly understates” its growth prospects. Bitfarms subsequently implemented a shareholder rights plan, also known as a “poison pill,” to protect its strategic review process from hostile takeover attempts.

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Aave Price Increases Following Whales Accumulation and V3.1 Launch

Published

4 months ago

1 August, 2024

BlockChainBulletin Staff

Aave price surges amid whale accumulation and V3.1 launch

Decentralized finance protocol Aave is seeing a significant spike in whale activity as the market looks to recover from the recent crash that pushed most altcoins into key support areas earlier this week.

July 31, Lookonchain shared details indicating that the whales had aggressively accumulated Aave (AAVE) over the past two days. According to the data, whales have withdrawn over 58,848 AAVE worth $6.47 million from exchanges during this period.

In one instance, whale address 0x9af4 withdrew 11,185 AAVE worth $1.23 million from Binance. Meanwhile, another address moved 21,619 AAVE worth over $2.38 million from the exchange and deposited the tokens into Aave.

These withdrawals follow a previous transfer of 26,044 AAVE from whale address 0xd7c5, amounting to over $2.83 million withdrawn from Binance.

AAVE price has surged over 7% in the past 24 hours amid buy-side pressure from these whales. The DeFi token is currently trading around $111 after jumping over 18% in the past week.

Recently, the price of AAVE increased by over 8% after Aave founder Marc Zeller announced a proposed fee change aimed at adopting a buyback program for AAVE tokens.

Aave v3.1 is available

The total value locked in the Aave protocol currently stands at around $22 billion. According to DeFiLlamaApproximately $19.9 billion is on Aave V3, while the V2 chain still holds approximately $1.9 billion in TVL and V1 approximately $14.6 million.

Aave Labs announced Previously, Aave V3.1 was made available on all networks with active Aave V3 instances.

V3.1 features improvements that are intended to improve the overall security of the DeFi protocol. The Aave DAO governance has approved the v3.1 improvements, which also include operational efficiency and usability for the network.

Meanwhile, Aave Labs recently outlined a ambitious roadmap for the projectwith a 2030 vision for Aave V4, among other developments.

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