a16z: What Does a Trump Presidency Mean for Crypto?

Original Title: A Positive Path Forward

Original Authors: Miles Jennings, Michele Korver, Brian Quintenz, a16z crypto

Original Translation: 0xjs, Golden Finance

Cryptocurrency founders have been asking us what the recent U.S. election means for their projects. We told them that we have a great opportunity to build on the bipartisan foundation of the last Congress and bring the best of cryptocurrency to the world.

Over the next few months, we expect to hear a series of speculations and "hot topics" about what will happen in terms of legislation and regulation—most of which are just noise. The fact is, it is too early to tell how everything will unfold, but what we do know is that this is significant for the industry. We are very optimistic that the government will now promote innovation, accelerate progress, and enable the crypto ecosystem to thrive in the United States.

This will allow us to realize numerous exciting consumer benefits in the future: enabling people to have their own digital identities, providing new business models for creativity, facilitating low-fee or free cross-border transactions using stablecoins, offering new ways for small businesses like restaurants to interact with customers, the emergence of decentralized social networks, the development of energy webs and other physical infrastructure, and democratizing AI and gaming through blockchain, among many other things we cannot even imagine.

The good news is that there is now a constructive path for engagement with regulatory and legislative bodies that can bring regulatory clarity. You all should now feel empowered to explore all the groundbreaking products and services supported by blockchain technology, including tokens. While we may have greater flexibility for experimentation, we must not forget that the fundamental regulatory principles applicable to blockchain systems remain unchanged. This means that the saying "trust leads to regulation" still holds. Therefore, you should continue to focus on removing centralization aspects or reliance on trust in your projects, as these areas will continue to undergo regulatory scrutiny.

Next year, we will advocate for clear regulatory frameworks to foster and support innovation and decentralization. This is both an opportunity and a responsibility for builders—you can actively shape the future by developing projects that demonstrate how decentralized protocols mitigate risks and validate the reasonableness of new regulatory approaches.

This will provide a decentralized path for well-intentioned entrepreneurs while safeguarding consumers by ensuring early detection of fraud and scams.

Regardless of how new legislation or the regulatory environment may adjust, regulators and policymakers will still effectively scrutinize certain aspects of the industry. This is especially true for token issuance, where the guiding principles in our token issuance playbook still apply.

We should expect that these forthcoming clear rules will make it easier to identify and shut down bad actors (similar to FTX) while allowing well-meaning projects to take off. This can both protect consumers and rebuild trust and confidence in the technology. Previous enforcement approaches lacked regulatory clarity, hindering good actors and indulging bad actors, actively harming consumer interests, and unfairly eroding people's trust in the field.

However, for many, the concern of regulatory overreach leading to a delay in using tokens to distribute project control and build community should now be met with greater confidence in the legitimate use of tokens for projects. We will soon release new guidance on using Decentralized Uncorporated Nonprofit Associations (DUNA) applicable to projects looking to settle in the U.S., shield token holders from liability, manage tax and compliance requirements, and drive more economic activity.

The future of cryptocurrency in the U.S. is bright - it is currently the best time to build in the U.S., and we are excited about the possibility of ultimately achieving regulatory clarity.

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