The 2024 Presidential Election Breakdown With Alex Thorn

Bankless Nation, last night the United States had an election, and last night an election was concluded. Today, to unpack all of that with us is Alex Thorne, the head of research at Galaxy Digital. He's gonna help us understand the impact of the election results last night and what it means for the crypto industry moving forward. Alex, thanks so much for I know it was a long night last night, and it's an early morning this morning. Thank you so much for coming on the show and unpacking all of this with us.

Yeah, you're welcome, David. Hey, Ryan. Uh wow. I mean, wow. What a what a night. I think um better than certainly the mainstream media uh would have had anybody expect.

I think that's right. I think that's right. That's a definitely a big topic is the gap between the mainstream media and uh our more crypto-native news sources. Polymarket definitely uh having a front and center role here. Uh but first I want to just kick things off, Alex, with the red sweep. Uh last night, uh the Republicans won the presidential race, the Senate, the House, and the cherry on top, the it looks like the popular vote as well. Just a first reaction. What does this mean for crypto? What does this mean for our industry?

Uh it's game changing. We are about to enter a golden era of crypto and Bitcoin in America. There you that sound that you're hearing, maybe you're you're hearing some static, that's thousands of crypto op entrepreneurs buying tickets to move back to the United States. Like this is an absolute

It's an absolute game changer. Um, you're gonna have endless nonstop catalysts every week for 18 months. The headlines are gonna knock your socks off, just like the former president said in Nashville we're gonna be so tired of winning, sir. We're gonna be begging him, please, sir, no more winning, no more electricity, sir.

I mean, no, it's truly game changing. The the former president has his own DeFi protocol.

I mean, he's plenty, you know, he he's he sells NFTs. This is um

I obviously he's made tons of pledges. He's he's adopted an entire pro crypto agenda, but it's not just that. He's got Howard Lutnick said he owns shed loads of Bitcoin, said it's hundreds of

Who's that? Howard. Who's Howard?

It's the CEO of uh Cantor Fitzgerald, the primary uh uh dealer bank that

um Tether does all its banking.

Tether, too. Can't

They do.

world. Okay.

They do. And they're also, I mean, one of the biggest and most iconic American banks. Um, and

he's leading Trump's transition team. You've got Vivek Ramaswamy on the team who loves Bitcoin and crypto. JD Vance owns a bunch of Bitcoin, at least we know.

Um, and and loves it, right? You got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I mean, this is a team of people around him. Not not in not, you know, not to mention his entire family, right? Don Don Jr. and and Eric and supposedly Barron also all love crypto, right?

So I I think there is a very, very strong chance that

um the next four years are just truly game changing for the upside for crypto.

I think the big surprise here, I think if you asked the average crypto participant who is going to win, they would say, you know, it's probably it's probably going to be Trump. Uh the polls were giving us uh 50-50. Polymarket was giving a decent edge to Trump.

Yeah.

But I think the new thing, the the surprise is the sweeping landslide. So how can you like, what is what is why is that gap significant? So, like, you know, the difference between a solid Trump victory and a completely sweeping landslide, what's the significance of that?

Yeah, this is a shot across the bow, uh, across a number of bows, right? I mean, start just maybe with the the mainstream media. There was a significant divergence between even sort of major proprietary forecast models and the prediction markets and odds, right? As you said, David, like, yeah, Calci, um, poly market, predicted, interactive brokers, uh, uh Robinhood, all these bookies, they all had it for in Trump's favor the whole time, at least since summer, like,

but in some cases 6040 or or higher, right? And

um, but like Nate Silver's model converged to 50 50 last, you know, on on Monday night, like.

Um 538 was much closer. Now they they mostly slightly favored Trump, but so but these, you know, that's there's this joke about statisticians that like there's all these like you know, like lines and charts on them thing, and at the end they're like, I don't know, 50-50 coin flip, right? Um

Oh, they can never be wrong.

yeah. I mean, he look, he he was probably slightly favored to win, but I don't think that you know, certainly even in his camp from Republican friends of mine last week were concerned, they're they were worried, maybe it was slipping, right?

Um, you know, an a a near victory. Let's say, I mean, their their outcomes on both sides where it could have been 270 to 268 in the electoral college, that would have been a disaster for the country in general. Like, I think it's fair given what happened in 2020.

Um, Trump's grievances about the outcome of that election, that we

no matter who won, you hoped it would be big so that there wouldn't be like weeks, months of litigation, right?

That's worst case scenario, right?

Yeah, it really is. Like, um, and and so I mean, look,

I think he he's gonna win the popular vote. He's not just gonna win the electoral college. It looks like he's gonna win the popular vote. That hasn't happened in in like, you know, five or eight elections for Republicans. This that's a clear mandate. More of a mandate, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. So so are it the presidential's obviously confirmed, uh, very very confirmed. Senate. Uh, House as well? Is the House now?

The House is uh it it's leaning Republican. Yeah, it is Republican now, but only by two seats currently, right? Like it's barely Republican today.

Um, we won't probably know, even maybe for a couple weeks. There's just a lot of races and a lot of little places, and many will be very close. And the some will go down recounts.

That'll just take a little while. The Senate is confirmed. That was not unexpected. Even uh, even a

big Harris, Harris would have had to really landslide, I think, to carry to hold the Senate and

Um, the the map was just really bad for for Democrats this cycle.

Um, the big, the big, big win for for crypto here is Bernie Moreno unseating Sherrod Brown in Ohio.

Oh, let's talk about

Yeah, explain the significance of that. Who's shared Brown and why is unseating uh so important for the crypto industry?

Yeah, Sherrod Brown is the current chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Um, in a Democrat, he is

um a big ally of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who's you know, senior on the Senate banking committee. He I would say he has not been good for crypto. He hasn't been the most vocal, like outspoken opponent.

But fair shake spent the most money of any race in this race. Crypto money. I think when I looked uh yesterday, they had spent $20 million in this race on Sherrod Brown uh in favor of Bernie Moreno.

because Shradd Brown gets an F strongly against crypto. I mean, he even voted against things like Sab 121 repeal.

Yeah, I mean, even when uh, you know, Democratic senators voted for that, right? So

um he he is uh and and and and the Senate Banking Committee oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Right. And so that that committee is integral to financial regulation in America, and he is a major roadblock to getting anything done, right? If you had like a any

You know, even just a moderate on crypto in charge of that as a Democrat. We might have seen Fit 21 come up on the floor in the Senate or stable coins or something.

For crypto to spend so much money and unseat a guy who uh it was so important in the Senate, like this is a shot across the bow against every anti crypto member of Congress right now. This shows that the industry can flex muscle and deliver.

This is Brian Armstrong. Uh he said this in the aftermath. Welcome to the new members of America's most pro-crypto Congress ever. 219 plus pro-crypto candidates in counting have now been elected to the House and Senate. Tonight, the crypto voter has spoken decisively across party lines and in key races across the country. Americans disproportionately care about crypto and want clear route, rules of the road for digital assets. I mean, I think this speaks very highly to crypto's like, let's talk from an industry perspective and kind of a campaign perspective, to its ability to like organize this election. I mean, the stand with crypto website was you know like kind of genius, and all of the funding and pack money in uh directed races like also had a massive impact. I mean that I don't think the presence of uh crypto in any other race has like felt anything like this, but you really felt the presence of of crypto and not just like uh you know organizers and and donors and and groups like Coinbase and A16Z, but like kind of in the grassroots with with stand with crypto. I mean, there was really a push to overturn some of these.

anti-crypto army type candidates. And it seems to have worked. Like it seems to have paid dividends. I don't think we go back from that. I mean, like big winners coming at the election obviously were were crypto. I think the crypto industry and its ability to shape politics. Also I would say polymarket. By the way, on polymarket,

That's how I um you like saw that Trump was winning. And I I was watching kind of mainstream news as I usually do, like calling elections, going state by state, and at the time I'm

Going so slow.

so slow.

So slow.

And while I was on my phone, I was just seeing like this, which I'd seen in many poly. This is what a market looks like when it's resolving. Okay. So if you can't see the screen, what I'm what I'm showing is kind of like Donald Trump suddenly spiking up, like volatility, and like Kamala Harris odds suddenly spiking down. I saw this in so many markets in Poly Market that are resolving. And I, you know, when you saw it creep up beyond 75% to 80%, I was like, well, it's over. And that happened around like 8 30, 9 o'clock. Like Poly Market was a huge winner in this as well. And that's a crypto, it's a crypto project at the end of the day. So a lot of wins here.