CRYPTO STORY OF THE DAY

Over The Last Week, Crypto Has Been Receiving An Unusual Amount Of Attention From High-Ranking US Officials - On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Referred To Bitcoin As A, 'Speculative Store Of Value' Which Appeared In Part To Prompt The First Trump Twitter-Rant Targeting Crypto- This Before Facebook's Head of Calibra David Marcus Testifies Before Congress About The Company's Plans In Crypto And Broader Finance - The Space Has Never Been Such A Hot-Button Topic In US Politics

• In what is being characterized as a watershed moment by the pro-crypto media, Powell, in highlighting the use case for Bitcoin, said that, 'almost no one uses [Bitcoin] for payments' and instead compared the crypto to gold. Trump, who has been publicly disparaging Powell for months, appeared to attack those comments saying, 'I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money.' The three-part tweet criticized crypto for its volatility, attacked Libra and went on to say that the US Dollar would remain the World's dominant currency forever. The Marcus testimony saw additional contention over the weekend, with crypto-news source The Block reporting that a draft of a bill titled, 'Keep Big Tech Out Of Finance' was being floated by the House Financial Services Committee.

Takeaway: There are plenty of puts and takes from the recent elevated political attention around the space. Clearly, having a Fed Chairman and President acknowledge crypto in a meaningful and serious way is indeed vindication for the innovators in the sector. That said, with regulators already dragging their feet on decision-making, having a sitting President with over a year left on their first-term publicly disdain the sector could cause additional complications. Furthermore, Trump's response to Powell shows that the space could even become a partisan topic which obviously could lead to even more distortions where Government approvals are required. Ultimately, while it is clearly difficult to predict where the politics will net out, the fact that these conversations are occurring is a product of crypto's general success and an unavoidable outcome of the development of the asset class.