Yahoo Finance

Well, the crypto sector spent $130 million to elect industry-friendly politicians this year, and it paid off Tuesday night with pro-crypto candidates like Donald Trump and Republican Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno emerging victorious. For more on what Tuesday's results could mean for the crypto industry, joining us now is Mike Belshe, BitGo co-founder and CEO. Mike, it's great to see you. So, let's start there. The role, Mike, that crypto investors, crypto PACs played in this election. I mean really emerging as a force to be reckoned with, as a force that needed to be addressed by both candidates. What do you make of the role that that played in this election?

Look, I think crypto had a huge role this time around. I think it surprised everybody, but it kind of shouldn't. You know, I mean, really, there's nothing to object about when we say we want people to have the most modern, stable form of financial technology available to them. 20% of Americans hold crypto in one form or another. So of course it should be supported. It's really kind of backwards that we didn't have it already.

What do you Now, now let's spin ahead. Um, Trump in the White House, what should be his priorities, Mike, as you see it as a crypto investor?

There's a lot of different opinions about this. Uh, for me, look, I think the number one is we need heads of each regulatory agency that has an open mind towards what is crypto, what is Bitcoin, how do we bring financial safety to everybody in America? And once you've got that, you can you can move on. What we've had, uh, you've probably heard about it. There's been a a bit of a crackdown unnecessarily on on crypto. Now blocking out of blocking crypto out of our most trusted and and regulated institutions in the country. Um, so getting that unblocked is first priority.

What about you know SEC SEC chair, uh, Gensler, Mike? I think we can assume he'll be moving on. Uh, what do you make of that? Any any any ideas who who you would like to see take take that position, or does it even actually matter, Mike?

Well, he's certainly been the lightning rod for attention, you know, across all of the regulators, but remember, he's not the only one that's been causing trouble for the crypto industry. We also have, you know, the OCC, which previously allowed, you know, banks to touch digital assets. We also have FDIC, which sent out a harsh warning to all of its, uh, uh, regulated entities saying, hey, if you touch crypto, we're going to scrutinize you and make your business difficult. So, you know, although Gensler gets a lot of the attention, he's certainly been the guy doing the most, you know, regulation through enforcement. This is the idea of, hey, I'm going to pull you over, give you a speeding ticket, and I'm going to tell you you're speeding and I'm going to tell you what the speed limit actually was, which makes it so that, okay, you did some enforcement, but it doesn't help everyone else obey the law. So Gensler, I think, you know, obviously is is not going to be around. Uh, we'll see who gets to replace him. Uh, pretty much anything would be better, uh, from that point.

Mike, uh, want to get your reaction to something Anthony Pompliano posted on X. Um, he was talking about one thing he says people are not talking about yet is how bullish a Trump presidency will be for Bitcoin miners. He says deregulation and the energy energy industry will bring more abundance and lower prices. A pro Bitcoin president will bring a tailwind to the asset. Combine, uh, he says those two things, and you can see Bitcoin miners becoming even more attractive opportunity. Your response to that, Mike.

When you understand money, you realize that energy and money kind of go hand in hand. And you know the energy policy in America not related to crypto has really been very weak and if if if if existent at all over the last few years. So if we're going to have a healthy mining industry, we have to have the electricity support it. In China, they've just built a tremendous amount of nuclear power plants. They are looking to have electricity supply, not just for crypto, but for everything that they're building in terms of the future standard of living in China. And we've got nothing in America. So look, if we want to be able to compete on the future of digital money, we need to be able to have the power to support it. And by the way, even if you don't think you should have it for crypto, don't forget AI, right? If you think AI is going to be an important part of our financial lives, of our robotic lives, or self-driving lives, all of that requires massive energy, massive compute power too. We need it here in the United States for sure.

All right, on day that Bitcoin jumps to a record high. Mike, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.