US presidential candidate Joe Biden stepped down as a candidate for the upcoming elections.
Markus Thielen believes that Gensler will resign soon, along with most other democrats in public offices.
Bulls across the market experienced a liquidation wipeout when Biden stepped down.
Kamala Harris is now the democratic party's candidate—but her odds of crypto support are highly slim.
US President Joe Biden announced during the weekend that he was resigning from his re-election bid.
Interestingly, this step-down comes just four months before the US elections, putting several events in play.
Firstly, what happens next? Particularly in the crypto industry?
Biden and the Biden administration have been subject to severe backlash over the years over their opposition to the crypto sector.
On 1 June, even the US president vetoed a resolution that would have overruled the SEC's Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 121 because he didn't want to "support measures that jeopardize the well-being of consumers and investors."
Biden, the SEC boss Gary Gensler, and other anti-crypto members of the US Democratic party, like Elizabeth Warren, have faced intense backlash over the years for "hindering" innovation in the US.
So, what were the effects of Biden's step down on the market?
More importantly, what happens now that pro-crypto Trump has a "better" chance of re-election?
Let’s find out.
The current SEC chair, Gary Gensler, isn't very popular in the crypto industry.
This dislike has stemmed from intense regulatory pressure from the SEC on several sectors of the crypto market over the last five years under Gensler's leadership.
One of the most famous cases of this has been the Ripple versus SEC case, which has gone on since 2020.
The regulatory agency sued Ripple over its institutional sales of XRP tokens three years before, in 2017, and has dragged the case on for four more years after.
More than suing Ripple, the SEC has pursued other entities and individuals, including Coinbase, Binance, Metamask, Consensys, Patrick Orlando, the ex-chief of Digital World Acquisition Corp, Uniswap, Changpeng Zhao, and a host of others outlined here.
Gensler has also faced backlash for "missing FTX" and Terra while going after other semi-unrelated securities fraud cases in the US.
However, in a report on Monday this week, 21 July, 10X research founder Markus Thielen pointed out that present SEC chairs typically resign whenever there is a change in administration.
"With Joe Biden dropping out of the US Presidential race, no credible candidate can seriously challenge Donald Trump. […] despite SEC Chair Gensler's term ending on 5 June, 2026. He will most likely resign by January/February 2025."
Moreover, a Trump presidency would be “disastrous” for Gensler’s role as head of the agency.
In essence, Biden's suddenly "choosing" to resign from his campaign shows an almost absolute "certainty" that Trump would be sworn in as president in January 2025.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is up by around 7% on the weekly timeframe and is trading strongly above the $67,000 price level.
The same goes for most of the altcoin market, with most cryptocurrencies in the green.
Coinglass liquidations
However, Coinglass data shows that the bullish liquidations for 20 -21 July largely outweigh the bearish ones, nearly twice over.
In particular, Bitcoin traders lost the most, with around $50 million wiped off the slate—despite the flagship cryptocurrency being green on most timeframes.
Some of these losses, while negligible, came from Biden-affiliated memecoins, according to CoinMarketCap.
Trump memecoins take the lead.
Most Trump memecoins, as shown above, are green, with examples like "Super Trump Coin" and "Baby Trump" doing 25% and 15%, respectively.
However, the reverse is the case for Biden-themed ones.
Joe Biden is down by 75%
As shown, "Jeo Boden" is down by a staggering 57%, while "Joe Biden coin" is down by an even harsher 75%.
With Biden's chances now off the table, the Democrats appear to have a chance to win back the crypto community's favour—with Kamala Harris.
Or do they?
Former Blockchain Association lawyer Jake Chervinsky seems to think so, considering his lengthy Twitter post on Monday, stating that "there's a chance for a reset.”
“A new Democratic nominee can flip the script and win back a meaningful number of crypto voters," he opined, finishing with, "If the Democratic Party is serious about winning this election, the new nominee must seize this opportunity.”
However, does Vice President Kamala Harris have anything to say about crypto?
With Harris now directly endorsed by Biden and PolyMarket bets for a "Kamala Harris presidency" hitting an all-time high of 31%, it appears that the Democrats still have a chance, no matter how small.
However, at any point in the past, Harris has never expressed any strong views for or against crypto.
On the other hand, considering that most of her current supporters are from the Biden camp, the odds of Harris veering off-course and "suddenly" endorsing crypto appear slim.
Overall, considering the democratic party’s cautious stance towards emerging technology like crypto and AI, the odds aren’t zero, but they sure are slim.