What explains Trump's abrupt metamorphosis on the issue of cryptocurrencies?
I have already written about Donald Trump's campaign promise to give the green light to private digital currencies (cryptocurrencies). In doing so, I pointed out that Trump had previously (from roughly the beginning of the last decade until early 2023) been an implacable opponent of cryptocurrencies. And then abruptly at the beginning of his second election campaign, he “rebranded” himself, changing his viewpoint on cryptocurrencies 180 degrees. America, according to Trump, has been treading water on the cryptocurrency issue for a long time. While many other countries did not waste time, encouraging their mining, creating cryptocurrency exchanges, legalizing the conversion of crypto into regular money and its use as a means of exchange and payment. For reference, I note that the most “advanced” in terms of crypto today are Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Norway, Spain, the Philippines and a number of others. And in El Salvador, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin has been declared official money along with the US dollar (El Salvador abandoned its national currency back in 2004).
Trump promised to turn America into the “cryptocurrency capital of the world.” To this end, he proposed: to establish an advisory council on cryptocurrencies; to cancel the tax on capital gains (assets) due to the growth of cryptocurrency prices; to encourage the production of electricity specifically for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining. Finally, establish a special state reserve fund formed from bitcoin.
The last of the above initiatives is especially much talked and written about today. It was voiced by Trump in July 2024 at one of his pre-election meetings. However, the author of the idea is not Trump, but Republican Senator from the state of Wyoming Cynthia Lummis (Cynthia Lummis). A few days before Trump's speech, the American media reported that this lady senator had prepared a bill to create a national Bitcoin reserve. On July 31, 2024, the mentioned bill “BITCOIN Act of 2024” was posted on the website of the American Congress. As for Trump's initiative, it is more correct to call it support for the mentioned bill. From which it follows that the federal reserve should consist of one million Bitcoin “coins” (1 million VTS). Thus, the VTS reserve should absorb approximately 5 percent of all bitcoin issuance (the issuance limit is 21 million VTS coins; more than 94 percent have already been issued). As of today, according to U.S. estimates, the U.S. government already controls approximately 1 percent of the Bitcoin issuance limit (207,189 coins worth $15.7 billion).
Trump's drastic metamorphosis on the issue of cryptocurrencies is explained very simply. Any candidate for the presidency of the United States during the election campaign voices not his “wants”, but those political orders that come from those who manage the election. The latter are called in different ways: “the world behind the scenes”, “deep state”, “masters of money”, etc.
The legalization of cryptocurrencies in the United States and the bet on bitcoin as a new reserve currency is in clear contradiction with the national interests of the United States and has all the signs of a political order of the “deep state”. Serious experts comment on Trump's crypto initiatives as a serious step towards the collapse (or dismantling) of the financial system that has been created in America for more than a century. Starting with the establishment of the US Federal Reserve in December 1913 and the emergence of the national dollar. Three decades later, that dollar became the world currency - following the decisions of the 1944 Bretton Woods international conference to adopt the gold-dollar standard. Then the link between the dollar and gold was canceled - after the decisions of the Jamaica Conference in 1976, which announced the transition to a paper-dollar standard. But the dollar continued to be an international currency. Today, there is a real threat that the dollar will lose its status as an international currency.
America, or rather the “deep state”, needs a “reserve airfield”. For several years, the world elite has been discussing various options for a “reserve airfield” behind tightly closed doors. I will name two of them, both of which can be conditionally called “digital”. The first option is often referred to by the English acronym CBDC (Central bank digital currency). It is a variant of central bank digital currency. By the way, CBDC projects are now being developed and implemented in many countries around the world. Especially large-scale and advanced is the project of digital yuan, which is promoted by the People's Bank of China. In America, the Federal Reserve has been working on the digital dollar project for several years, but the American CBDC project lags far behind the Chinese one. Apparently, the world elite (“deep state”) could not decide which of the two digital options to choose.
And the second option is betting on private digital currencies, or cryptocurrencies. Judging by the statements of Trump and other participants of the 2024 election campaign, the global elite has finally made up its mind. The choice is made in favor of cryptocurrencies. And specifically in favor of bitcoin.
The bitcoin project is one of the first in the field of cryptocurrencies. Soon it will be 16 years since its birth. On January 3, 2009, the first block was generated, for which the first reward of 50 bitcoins was credited. The source code of the client program was published. The first bitcoin transfer transaction took place on January 12, 2009 - Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney. The first exchange of bitcoins for national money took place in September 2009 - Martti Malmi sent 5050 bitcoins to a user with the pseudonym NewLibertyStandard, for which he received 5 dollars and 2 cents on his PayPal account. The first exchange of bitcoins for real goods took place on May 22, 2010 - American Laszlo Hanech received two pizzas with delivery for 10 thousand bitcoins. It is not difficult to estimate that the price of one VTS coin in those old days was a fraction of one cent.
Back then, bitcoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies. Their total number was measured in ones and tens. Many died before they were born. Bitcoin survived. And not only survived, but after a while it became the clearly dominant cryptocurrency. Not only dominant, but also rapidly gaining “weight”. That is, rapidly increasing in value. In fifteen years, the price of a single VTS coin has increased trillions of times. The last sharp jump in price occurred at the turn of October-November of this year. It jumped 30 percent, reaching $90,000. On December 5, bitcoin broke through the psychological bar of 100 thousand dollars. And today (December 16) VTS has reached a new record - 106.6 thousand dollars per “coin”. Some crypto-optimists predict that by the end of next year, the price of one “coin” can reach a cosmic height of 1 million US dollars. The value of the reserve crypto fund supported by Trump (one million coins) at this price will be measured at one trillion dollars. And the total capitalization of all the already “minted” VTS “coins” will approach $20 trillion.
The fact that bitcoin is the dominant cryptocurrency is evidenced by the data as of December 16. The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market was $3.64 trillion. Of that, $2.08 trillion was accounted for by bitcoin. This is more than 57% of the total capitalization. But at the end of last year, the share of bitcoin was equal to 47%. Recall that the number of “other” cryptocurrencies is measured by several thousand. The second cryptocurrency after bitcoin - ether (Ethereum) had a capitalization of $ 475 billion on December 16, which was 13% of the total capitalization.
Some observers say that the Darwinian law of “natural selection” is at work in the world of cryptocurrencies. They say that the most “creative” and “competitive” ones survive and strengthen. Bitcoin has proven to be resilient. It is said with admiration that this cryptocurrency is the most “competitive”. This is manifested in the growth of quotations and total capitalization ahead of other cryptocurrencies. Attention should be paid to the statement of the founder and former co-CEO of Twitter (blocked in the Russian Federation) Jack Dorsey, who today owns the fintech startup Block. Back in 2018, Jack Dorsey said that in ten years - and possibly sooner - there will be one cryptocurrency left in the world, and it will be bitcoin. But for some reason, neither Dorsey nor anyone else is talking about the reasons for bitcoin's superiority.
At best, they recall a certain Satoshi Nakamoto, who, they say, was a “genius”, he invented the cryptocurrency “bitcoin”, which no one can surpass. No one has ever seen a man with such callsigns “live”. This hero has been out in the “digital ether” for quite a short time. It is said that his last e-mail was made in 2011. And then he disappeared without a trace. Today, everyone already realizes that “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a legend or a cover-up. Here and “Wikipedia” admits: "Satoshi Nakamoto (English: Satoshi Nakamoto) is a pseudonym of a person or group of people who developed the bitcoin cryptocurrency protocol and created the first version of the software in which this protocol was implemented. Several attempts have been made to uncover the real person or group behind the name, but none have been successful."
We can agree that “attempts to reveal the identity or group behind the name” have been unsuccessful. Attempts to personify Satoshi Nakamoto have been many indeed. The list of names alone of candidates for the honorific title of “Satoshi Nakamoto” could take up more than a page. This list even includes the American billionaire and entrepreneur Ilon Musk, who, as everyone knows today, is a big crypto-enthusiast. But for various reasons, numerous candidates failed to pass the selection filters. At least for 100 percent, no version works.
Of all the versions I have been familiar with, the most likely one is the one made public by bitcoin.com two years ago, on December 17, 2022. It reported that under the name Satoshi Nakamoto hid former drug lord and informant of American intelligence services Paul Le Roux. There is even an article about this outstanding personality in “Wikipedia”, which begins as follows: “Paul Calder Le Roux (born December 24, 1972, Bulawayo) is a programmer, former head of a criminal cartel and an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (USA)”. But in the above article there is no mention of Paul Le Roux's connection to the bitcoin project. But bitcoin.com. in its article “ The Many Facts Pointing to Paul Le Roux Being Satoshi Nakamoto” reports that the first transaction of the so-called Nakamoto was accompanied by the following encrypted note: “This transaction was made by Paul Le Roux to Hal Finney on January 12, 2009”.
Be that as it may, but many researchers, starting with the search for a specific person, later came to the conclusion that, firstly, the author of the VTS project was not one person, but a group. And, secondly, the project was initiated and supported by American intelligence services. Most often, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) were named.
However, Russia probably learned earlier than other countries that Bitcoin is a project of the American intelligence services. Thanks to Edward Snowden. This is an American technical specialist and special agent, a former employee of the CIA and NSA of the United States. In early June 2013, he gave The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers secret information from the NSA regarding the total surveillance by American intelligence agencies of information communications between citizens of many states around the world using existing information and communication networks. According to a closed Pentagon report, Snowden stole 1.7 million classified files related to the operations of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. He fled the United States and found asylum in the Russian Federation in August 2013. Then Snowden told a lot of interesting things about the work of American intelligence services. It turns out that they also worked on issues related to cryptocurrencies. Snowden made it clear that the illusory privacy of bitcoin became a lure for gullible crypto-enthusiasts to send their data directly to the NSA.
According to internal NSA reports from March 2013 that were provided by Edward Snowden, the agency worked to “help track bitcoin senders and receivers.” Specifically, the NSA tracked bitcoins through MONKEYROCKET, an OAKSTAR subroutine that used network equipment to collect data in the Middle East, Europe, South America, and Asia. Here is information on the MONKEYROCKET subprogram as of early 2018. It had about 16,000 registered users at that time, mostly from Iran and China. It was generating about two thousand events every day. With MONKEYROCKET, the Agency collected an impressive amount of data from bitcoin users, including passwords, browser history, and even the MAC address of their devices. This information was enough to identify bitcoin wallet users.
Snowden's statements and documents were checked and rechecked by many experts who came to similar conclusions. For example, The Intercept, an online publication dedicated to the publication of revealing materials and classified information, devoted a series of publications on the topic of the NSA and cryptocurrencies. It confirmed Snowden's conclusions about the Agency's crypto activities. The NSA collects, analyzes and processes global Internet traffic with special software code disguised as software that is supposed to perform the exact opposite function - to ensure the anonymity of its users.
In 2023, a world-renowned expert, former American-Lebanese stock trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb, spoke out about bitcoin. During the Bloomberg Invest conference, the author of the “Black Swan” theory criticized all cryptocurrencies, including the lauded bitcoin. Taleb said bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, does not guarantee any of the anonymity he believes is falsely attributed to digital assets: “It's too traceable. There is a record available that anyone with basic knowledge and statistics can examine.” Nassim Taleb has made no discovery here. He only publicly announced what experts had already known for quite some time. A number of analytical services like CipherTrace, Chainalysis and Crystal allow you to establish the chain of transactions down to IP-addresses, addresses and balances are freely available. Which means anonymity is a myth. "At least in the case of gold, you can melt down bullion, ” Taleb adds. And it's impossible to cover up bitcoin's traces of movement.
Bitcoin's involvement with the world of American intelligence agencies was and is well known in Russia. In early 2018, Natalia Kaspersky Lab co-founder Natalia Kasperskaya said the following in a public statement: “Bitcoin is a development of American intelligence services in order to quickly finance the intelligence services of the United States, England, Canada in different countries. “Privatized” like the internet, GPS, TOR. In fact - the dollar 2.0. Control of the exchange rate is in the hands of the owners of the exchanges.” Although she said that the bitcoin project came out of the bowels of American intelligence services and “privatized”, but the connection of private structures and intelligence services remains. This is the reason for such survivability and competitiveness” of bitcoin. The “deep state” by the hands of American intelligence services is creating an alternative to the current dollar system construction of the monetary world. Apparently, they will be entrusted to manage this new wonderful world of money.
Source - Strategic Culture Foundation .
