🐻 Is crypto a Republican vs. Democrat fight?

Hey builders 👋. Welcome to the “first edition” of our newly refreshed brand, Build in Bear (formerly known as Web3 Seems Legit). Last week, I gave a brief breakdown on why we decided to pivot the direction of our brand and the changes to come. If you haven’t read it yet, click here to get up to speed.

Now let’s dive into this issue!

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The TL;DR

📣The big story. Is crypto a Republican vs Democrat fight? It might not be as partisan as you think.

🐻Other news to bear in mind. The DOJ is going after crypto exchanges and mixers, Open AI’s Worldcoin project is looking for $100 million in funding and Elon Musk pumps up the Milady meme NFT with a tweet.

🐾Resources to paw into. Top AI tools for business and get instant job notifications from your target companies.

📣The big story

Is crypto a Republican vs Democrat fight?

“This is the most important election of our lifetime!”

About every 4 years or so, we hear people everywhere saying that to encourage U.S. voter engagement, which, by the way, has been declining, but we won’t talk about that today...

The upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential race is no different and is going to be the most important election to date, just like all the previous elections once were.

But this time, crypto is noticeably playing a larger role in several candidates’ campaigns. The general assumption is that Republicans are for crypto and the Democrats are against it.

Last week, Sleepy Joe tweeted this image, essentially drawing a partisan line in the sand and taking a clear stance on whose side he’s on.

Meanwhile, new Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provided his support for crypto.

And then we have folks from the Republican side, like Vivek Ramaswamy. CBDCs = a big hell no for him.

However, when it comes to the most controversial orange man, we’re not sure where Trump stands on the crypto issue today, but he has previously commented his lack of support for it.

So is crypto really a Republican vs. Democrat fight?

A lot of crypto Twitter folks seem to think that crypto is a partisan issue and are encouraging others to side with the Republican party if they believe in Bitcoin.

I would argue, however, that it’s not that simple.

If you actually look at the individuals in the House and Senate, you would see that while support for crypto does slightly lean towards the Republican side, it’s also not as drastic as you may think.

The problem is that the loudest voices are skewing the overall perception of the two parties. If they want this to change, pro-crypto Democrats need to speak up!

But then this Democrat memo leaked…

A memo meant to be circulated among Democrat Committee members was leaked earlier this week by a Fox news reporter. The letter suggests that Democrats should all stick to supporting the SEC’s anti-crypto stance. It also tries to paint the narrative that Republicans don’t care about protecting investors.

Ok, this is confusing. Whose side do we take then?!

As always, the answer isn’t so simple.

On an industry level, crypto companies have drastically increased their lobbying efforts in the past year. As regulatory threats from the SEC intensify, efforts to influence policy have also increased. My prediction is that the crypto industry’s power over politics is only going to continue to rise, especially with the teardown of traditional banks and the US dollar.

However, on an individual level like you and me, the reality is, the amount of people that actually own crypto is such a small percentage of the population. Of those that do own Bitcoin, even less of them will actually care enough to vote for a candidate purely based on their crypto views.

The best thing you can do is to focus on your state’s representatives. Don’t let crypto Twitter tell you whose side to take and remember that there are plenty of more important issues in society than crypto. Let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Where is our society headed?

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🐻 Other news to bear in mind

🎯 The DOJ is going after crypto exchanges and mixers. In an interview with the Director of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, it was revealed that the US Department of Justice is eyeing crypto companies that are both committing crimes themselves and allowing crimes to be committed on their platforms.

👀 Open AI’s Worldcoin project is eyeing $100 million in funding. Worldcoin aims to create a global digital currency that is globally distributed in a fair and equitable manner. A part of the distribution is a biometric scan of your eyes to confirm your unique identity. Nothing could possibly go wrong here.

💅 Elon Musk is back and pumps up the Milady meme NFT with a tweet. What is the Milady meme and NFT collection and why is it so significant? Not only did Elon tweet about it and pumped it from 3.5 ETH to 7.4 ETH, but it also has a pretty interesting origin and meaning to it. They also have a goal to target and take down Yuga Labs who have been dominating the NFT space.

🐾Resources to paw into

Which AI tools are actually worth using? Check out this list of top AI tools for business and work.

 🧰 Built by @nonmayorpete and @noahedelman02

Are you job hunting? Get notifications right when your target companies opens up relevant positions.

🧰 Built by @amorriscode

📣 Get in touch to feature your project

That’s all for this issue. See you next week!