In 2009, a pseudonymous developer going under the name Satoshi Nakamoto published Bitcoin, a completely digital and open source currency. It is based on a peer to peer model, which means that all of the work done to validate and transfer Bitcoin is managed by users. Over the years, the popularity of Bitcoin has increased greatly, even becoming an official currency of El Salvador. Recently, it has reached a price of 90,000 USD per coin, but what caused this to happen?
In order to ensure secure transactions, the creator(s) of Bitcoin created the first blockchain. The idea behind the blockchain is to distribute all the work relating to transfer and verification of data among many different individual users. This process is known as “decentralization” and because of it, more data is given to the public about every transaction. The open nature of blockchain technology makes it incredibly resistant to infrastructure based attacks. Since its inception, blockchain technology has been adopted by many other cryptocurrencies.
Directly after the election, the value of Bitcoin has reached an all time high. Due to their independence, cryptocurrencies are very popular with libertarian and conservative Americans. Donald Trump has shown his support for cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-adjacent projects before. Having launched his own NFT collection in 2023. Trump has also accepted cryptocurrency donations for his campaign and has made promises to deregulate cryptocurrencies. There is also a possibility that he could appoint pro-crypto politicians in the US government, which could make the value of Bitcoin even higher. Trump has already given a vanity government job to Elon Musk, an extremely pro-crypto entrepreneur who was partially responsible for the resurgence of Dogecoin. Since he still hasn’t finished picking his cabinet members, there could be more pro-crypto members to come.
Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency seeing a boost from the election, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and XRP have all gone up in response to Trump’s win. The CEO of Robinhood, a major crypto and stock trading website, has called this general increase the “Trump Pump”. If Trump makes cryptocurrencies a more central part of his economic policy, it’s very possible that cryptocurrency culture itself becomes included in the cultural and political divide of America.