Trump Turns U.S. Into Wild Crypto Party — Deribit and Friends RSVP

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In those days, as America passed restlessly from one epoch to another, swept about by winds no man could command and policies less predictable than Moscow spring thaws, a certain group of gentlemen in Dubai — known as Deribit, the largest exchange of dreams and tokens in human memory — found themselves drawn westward, like gold prospectors or Dostoevsky’s gamblers smelling opportunity on the horizon.

With $1.3 trillion in imaginary money traded in 2024 (enough, one might add, to finance several royal weddings or a couple of modest tsarist campaigns), Deribit’s leaders stared out their high-rise windows, sipping Turkish coffee, and considered what would happen should they bring their spectacle to the United States. Their CEO, Luuk Strijers, confessed to the Financial Times that the mood was changing — even the shadows had grown slightly less foreboding, provided one disregarded Wall Street’s eternal skepticism and the Congressmen’s tendency to legislate as if they were writing Tolstoyan novels: complex, everlasting, and confusing to all involved.

Should their deal with Coinbase reach the chapter where paperwork meets signature, the Dubai-issued license would, as required by Byzantine rules and the gods of bureaucracy, need an odyssey to new lands. Even Bloomberg’s scribes, who rarely exaggerate (except when stock prices crash), noted this.

Why stop there? Not to be outdone, other titans — Kraken, among them — plunged into the American fray by purchasing NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in a move that would have made even Napoleon’s financiers blink. The list of would-be conquerors grows longer than a Moscow winter: OKX, Nexo, Wintermute, DWF Labs — all gaze hungrily across the Atlantic, praying for profit and perhaps, vodka to salve regulatory wounds.

That so many desired this formerly inhospitable market is itself a twist worthy of Tolstoy’s pen. For during the previous great reign — that of President Biden — America’s regulators, having read too many detective novels, set upon the crypto world with the zeal of Cossacks after an unpaid tax collector. The collapse of FTX sent tremors through the land; panic and regulation, like two boorish cousins, emptied the halls of commerce.

Yet, as history so often repeats itself with ironic fanfare, a new czar has arisen: Donald Trump, exiled and now returned, trumpets America’s transformation into “the crypto capital of the world” with all the subtlety of a marching band at a tea party 🥁🍵. Anxious regulators, perhaps reminded of quieter occupations, have downed swords and, in many cases, gone fishing: the SEC, in uncharacteristic retreat, has shelved or paused a dozen crusades; the DOJ’s crypto-enforcement unit now gathers dust, awaiting some future scandal or the return of winter.

America, land of the free and home to both visionaries and hucksters, welcomes Deribit and its foreign brethren with the open arms of an uncle who just discovered his long-lost relatives are, in fact, quite wealthy. Soon, perhaps, one will witness not only the great pageants of politics and finance, but also an endless parade of acronyms, fortunes, and the occasional nervous regulator, all playing their parts in the tragedy, farce, and glory that is the American crypto market. 🤹‍♂️🇺🇸

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2025-05-03 19:01