When the then-future-and-past President Trump spoke at Bitcoin Nashville in July 2024, he promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet,” and there’s no denying that the crypto market boomed after Trump’s election victory. In early November 2024, Bitcoin traded at around $68,300 before the election results. Soon after, Bitcoin soared past the $100,000 mark, fueling other cryptocurrencies upwardly with it. So, according to the market and passive holders, Trump had already started delivering on his promise: crypto boomed.
But an excitable market is just that. At the time of this writing, on a particularly bloodbathy day, Bitcoin has slipped to around $84,000, with Ethereum sitting around $1,900 (after hitting $4,000 in early December 2024). While the honeymoon may be winding down, the marriage is seemingly still intact. Again, the crypto markets can be volatile, but Trump’s crypto-friendly appointments and endorsements to key positions suggest he plans on keeping his vows.
Show, Don’t Tell: Policy By Appointment
Multiple pro-crypto Trump appointments are worth mentioning. Caroline D. Pham, who spearheaded initiatives to create a U.S. digital asset taxonomy, is now the acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Trump appointed Mark Uyeda as acting SEC chair. Uyeda has signaled a desire to overturn some of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s more antagonistic policies toward crypto.
However, two particular appointments seem to solidify Trump’s pro-crypto stance: Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary and David Sacks as the AI and Crypto Czar, a newly formed position. Bessent has been a vocal supporter of the potential of blockchain and cryptocurrency. In an interview with Fox Business over the summer of 2024, Bessett said, “Crypto is about freedom, and the crypto economy is here to stay. Crypto is bringing in young people, people who have not participated in markets.” Though he’s now divested, Bessent had also been a big investor in Bitcoin-linked ETFs, indicating his pro-crypto stance went beyond just the rhetoric.
As the “crypto czar,” former PayPal exec David Sacks has been tasked with working with the administration’s various financial committees to “work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for and can thrive in the U.S.,” as Trump has described the scope of the position. Regardless, if the market bump reflected crypto’s optimism for a Trump presidency, Trump’s appointments were real-world actions to support this optimism. However, these appointments weren’t Trump’s only consequential actions to affect crypto.
Trump and Crypto: A Marriage of Convenience or Conviction?
During the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the cryptocurrency industry emerged as a significant contributor to political campaigns, with major contributions from companies like Coinbase and Ripple. While multibillionaire Elon Musk isn’t directly involved in the crypto industry, he’s definitely crypto-adjacent, at the very least. Musk gave nearly $119 million to re-elect Trump, with total donations exceeding $200 million. Along with an incredible amount of crypto-related funds plowing into Trump’s re-election bid, leading super PACs of crypto also raised around $131 million for congressional races to help elect dozens of pro-crypto lawmakers.
This influx of crypto donations coincided with a shift in Trump’s stance toward digital assets. Despite previously labeling Bitcoin a “scam against the dollar,” Trump’s successfully courted the industry, and following his re-election, the crypto industry has seen favorable regulatory changes, including the dismissal of significant lawsuits, such as the SEC’s case against Coinbase. So, for all intents and purposes, Trump’s transactional style seemed to pay off for the industry.
The Trump Coin: Trump’s Personal Foray into Crypto
In a move that has both captivated and unsettled the crypto world, Trump wasted no time launching his own cryptocurrency, the $TRUMP meme coin. This unprecedented initiative, announced just days before his inauguration on January 17, 2025, ignited debates over ethics, market volatility, and the future of digital currencies.
The introduction of the $TRUMP coin sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency market. Within hours of its release, the coin’s market capitalization soared to over $7 billion, with individual tokens trading at $64. This surge propelled $TRUMP into the top 20 cryptocurrencies globally. However, the coin soon dumped, affecting the broader crypto market, with over $800 billion in value wiped out. As of this writing, the memecoin now sits at around $13.
Shortly after Trump’s memecoin launch, First Lady Melania Trump announced her own cryptocurrency, $MELANIA. This intensified criticism of the whole ordeal, as many in crypto considered the family affair damaging to crypto’s legitimacy, reaffirming the narrative that the sector is speculative gambling and insanely volatile. But, here’s the kicker: memecoins can be — and often are — precisely that. By their very nature, memecoins hold no utility, and when the real world gets Insta-memecoined, we shouldn’t be surprised. That’s why tokens with actual utility can make crypto great again, especially in the decentralized science space in light of other consequences of the Trump administration.
DeSci’s Utility: A Life Boat for Scientists and Researchers
In early 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration implemented significant reductions in federal research funding, particularly targeting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These cuts have raised concerns about the future of scientific innovation in the United States. In response, the decentralized science (DeSci) movement has emerged as a potential alternative to traditional, centralized research funding models.
The Trump administration’s policies have led to substantial financial constraints on key scientific institutions. Regarding the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest public funder of scientific research, the administration imposed a new policy capping indirect costs for NIH research grants at 15%, effectively cutting billions of dollars in funding for life-saving research aimed at developing cures and treatments for diseases. Following President Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce, the NSF laid off 170 employees and potentially plans more staff reductions and budget cuts. And these are only two of the many scientific and research institutions on the chopping block.
While these policies will affect the entire scientific community, the budget cuts will substantially affect early-career researchers and scientists the most. These researchers typically rely on federal grants to start their own labs and research.
While unfortunate for all affected by the budget cuts (society, scientists, and science), DeSci could play an outsized role in supporting all three. As long as real-world utility and DeSci’s inherent ethos remain pillars of the movement, decentralized science could assist in the following ways:
- Offering Alternative Funding Mechanisms: Utilizing blockchain-based platforms, DeSci enables researchers to secure funding directly from a global pool of contributors, reducing reliance on traditional funding sources, such as federal grants.
- Enhancing Collaboration: Decentralized platforms facilitate seamless, trusted data sharing and collaboration among researchers worldwide, breaking down institutional and geographical barriers.
- Resilience Against Political Influence: Decentralized platforms operate independently of governmental policies, providing a stable environment for scientific inquiry.
- Inclusive Participation: DeSci promotes inclusivity by lowering the barrier of entry for early-career researchers and scientists, allowing them to participate in and contribute to scientific advancements.
Hate him or love him, Trump is certainly influencing the entire crypto market. From the election-win chart bump to his pro-crypto administrative appointments, Trump seems poised to advocate for cryptocurrencies, especially if there’s potential to enrich himself, as seen with the memecoin launch, and/or raise funds from crypto’s industry leaders, as seen in campaign donations. Opinions aside, supporters and critics can agree on one truth: Trump is incredibly transactional.
However, opinions of Trump are a little besides the point. On the other side of the memecoin, DeSci’s utility and ecosystem within the cryptoverse are perfectly positioned to assist those affected by his administration’s decisions, such as the recent funding cuts. So, while it doesn’t really matter whether you support these cuts or Trump in general, for better or worse, the administration may very well serve as a catalyst for facilitating DeSci’s utility out of pure necessity.
