Some days the Washington circus delivers an episode better than any season of House of Cards.
Tuesday night, Trump grabbed his megaphone — I mean, his social media platform — and fired shots at American banks trying to gut the bill that would give crypto a regulatory framework in the US. His exact words: "The Genius Act is being threatened and undermined by the banks, and this is unacceptable."
Damn. When was the last time a sitting US president got into a public brawl with JPMorgan and Bank of America on behalf of an industry that, until yesterday, was treated like the crazy cousin of the financial world?
The domino effect
On Wednesday, the market did what the market does when it smells heavy political backing: it ripped.
Coinbase surged over 12%. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy, for those who missed the memo) jumped 9%. Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, climbed nearly 6%. Meanwhile, shares of JPMorgan and Bank of America dipped less than 1% — a symbolic drop, almost a polite "screw you" from the market to the big boys.
Bitcoin rose 5%. Ether, 6%. Everything piling up into a rally that tastes like a narrative shift.
What's really at stake
Let me translate the wonk-speak for you.
There's a bill called the Clarity Act making its way through Congress. This bill wants to create clear rules for the crypto market — something the industry has been begging for years and that Gary Gensler's SEC refused to do, preferring the "regulate by lawsuit" method (a sick joke that cost billions in legal fees).
Within this bill, there's a vicious fight over yield-bearing stablecoins — meaning dollar-pegged tokens that offer a kind of "interest" to the holder. Think of it as a savings account, but without a bank in the middle.
And now you understand why Jamie Dimon and his buddies are sweating bullets.
If companies like Coinbase and Circle can issue yield-bearing tokens backed by dollars, why the hell would the average American leave money sitting in a big bank paying 0.01% interest on a savings account? It's the same logic that made Nubank explode in Brazil — when you offer something better to the consumer, incumbents either adapt or lobby to destroy you.
American banks chose option two. And Trump, for reasons that mix electoral strategy, ideological conviction, or pure showman instinct — chose the crypto side.
The necessary cynicism
Now, before you go buying Coinbase like there's no tomorrow, let's inject the dose of realism every grown-up investor needs.
Trump saying he supports something on Truth Social is not the same thing as a bill getting passed. Remember "Mexico will pay for the wall"? Yeah.
The banking lobby in the US is one of the most powerful on the planet. JPMorgan spent $13 million on lobbying last year alone. These guys don't lose fights easily. They'll move heaven, earth, and every regulator to make sure yield-bearing stablecoins, if they exist at all, come with so many restrictions they're dead on arrival.
On top of that, today's rally needs to be seen in the right context. Crypto was already bouncing back from a recent beatdown. Trump's support is gasoline on a fire that was already burning — it amplifies the move, but it didn't start it.
What actually matters
The question that counts isn't whether Coinbase will jump another 12% tomorrow. The question is: will the American crypto market finally get clear rules that allow real competition with the traditional banking system?
If yes, we're looking at a structural shift worth trillions. If not, it was just another episode of the reality show that American politics has become.
As Nassim Taleb would say: watch who has skin in the game. The banks are fighting because they have everything to lose. Crypto is fighting because it has everything to gain. And Trump? Trump is fighting because he's Trump — and he always, always, picks the side that generates the most headlines.
Coinbase could be the next Visa or it could be the next Pets.com. The difference between those two scenarios runs straight through the US Congress.
Which one are you positioned for?
