With Donald Trump taking the US presidential office for the second time, crypto inventors and financial experts around the world expect this term of the Republicans to be the most crypto-positive government in the country’s history.
Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market have displayed incredible rallies to new highs following the presidential election on November 5th.
The total crypto market cap crossed the $3 trillion point within a week, with the market now sitting in the same position as the peak of the cryptocurrency bull run back in November of 2021.
The majority of the recent gains have been dominated by the largest token, aka Bitcoin, which has increased over 35% since election day and set a new all-time high of $93,480 on November 13th.
However, despite the recent price hikes and predominantly optimistic narrative around the crypto market, regulatory confusion for this new financial market continues to persist on the global level.
Not very long ago, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced the Bitcoin Act of 2024, which advocates for the US Treasury Department to strategically acquire Bitcoin as part of national reserves in order to strengthen the dollar and maintain crypto leadership in the years to come.
The US holds more than 8,000 tons of gold in its treasury, and the senator argued that converting portions of these holdings would not affect the government’s balance sheet.
According to the proposed bill, the US would acquire up to 1 million BTC tokens (about 5% of the total Bitcoin supply at the moment) over a period of five years and hold the crypto amount for at least 20 years with complete transparency through independent proof-of-reserve audits.
The bill is currently in the initial stages of the legislative process and reinforces the pro-crypto stance of the Trump government.
Experts believe that the establishment of the proposed strategic Bitcoin reserve could boost global crypto adoption.
The Republican’s crypto-positive outlook, however, is not shared by the Eurasia government of Russia, which signed the new law to impose restrictions on cryptocurrency mining earlier in October.
According to Yevgeny Grabchak – Russia’s Deputy Minister of Energy – the Far East, southwestern Siberia, and Southern regions of the country are facing electricity shortages, as “miners have used up all available power capacity.”
Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin had addressed power shortages in the region of Buryatia and Irkutsk, which, according to him, were due to crypto miners.
In the recent statement, the deputy minister mentioned that the electricity consumption by miners has surged by 14% in the past two years, making crypto mining a primary reason for the exhaustion of available resources.
The new ban seeks to cut down crypto mining on both private and industrial scales. China remains, perhaps, the most prominent nation with restrictions on crypto activities.
Though the country had become the largest mining hub for cryptocurrency by the mid-2010s, the continuous crackdown on the new virtual asset class remains the most strict in the world.
After initially issuing a blanket ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs) back in 2017, the government imposed a complete ban on crypto trading platforms by 2019. Chinese officials cited concerns regarding financial stability and potential money laundering by crypto users as reasons for the regulatory restrictions.
Later, in 2021, the government amplified its anti-crypto narrative with a complete ban on all cryptocurrency activities, which included crypto mining. The ban led to the closure of some of the largest mining plants in the world and a significant change in the global crypto-mining dynamics.
A number of African nations have imposed an outright ban on cryptocurrency. In 2017, the Moroccan Foreign Exchange Office and central bank issued a joint statement, warning that transactions in cryptocurrencies would be subjected to penalties.
Algerian government passed a law against cryptocurrency in 2018 that criminalizes the use, purchase, sale, and holding of all crypto assets.
Moreover, Ghana, Lesotho, Serra Leone, Egypt, and Libya all have banned crypto-related activities. The most recent crackdown against cryptocurrency usage in the continent came from the Nigerian government, which imposed strict restrictions on all end-to-end transactions involving crypto tokens.
Nigerian authorities claimed billions of dollars worth of untraceable transactions on Binance – the world’s largest crypto exchange platform – contributed to money laundering and devaluation of the country’s currency, naira.
Binance denied the charges and discontinued all its naira services earlier this year in March.
The newly imposed restrictions on crypto transactions could add to the strict and complicated regulatory environment in the country as well as the rest of the African continent, which has over 38 million crypto users.
While the US, as well as smaller countries like El Salvador and Bhutan, stride toward crypto adoption, global inconsistencies in regulation reveal a fragmented and unclear environment on a broader scale.
Diverging policies and enforcement continue to highlight the challenges of achieving cohesive governance, leaving the crypto market in a state of uncertainty.