Et voilà: One Big Beautiful Bill.
It took some negotiating, but the centerpiece of President Trump’s 2024 campaign platform has been cleared by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. All it needs now is Trump’s signature, which he’s expected to provide this Friday – on Independence Day.
Getting here wasn’t easy. Trump’s Republican Party controls both branches of the U.S. Congress, but they don’t have absolute control; it took a lot of finagling to reach this point, and along the way, some important cryptocurrency legislation was jammed in and taken out. The final version of the “OBBB” barely made a dent in Thursday’s crypto news, two days after the Senate’s draft excluded several key provisions that would have made stakeholders and miners very happy indeed.
Where Are the Crypto Tax Exemptions?
On the cutting room floor.
Dissatisfied with the House version of the OBBB that passed in May, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) offered an amendment that would shield many crypto transactions from being taxed, including an important de minimis exemption for anything under $300 (with a $5,000 annual cap). Any crypto earned from airdrops, mining and staking would also be tax-free until sold.
In the end, the version of the OBBB passed by the Senate did not include these exemptions. Lummis voted for the bill anyway, saying she’d work with Senate Finance Committee chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) and others to get it taken care of somewhere down the road.
Naturally, the crypto markets responded negatively on Tuesday:
- Bitcoin (BTC): minus-1.5%
- Ethereum (ETH): minus-3.2%
- Ripple (XRP): minus-3%
- Solana (SOL): minus-4%
Bitcoin has managed to weather the storm better than the altcoins, as usual. Even in the early hours after Thursday’s passage of the final bill, BTC is holding firm, having clawed back most of this week’s losses to sit at US$109,716.21 as we go to press. However, the altcoins haven’t recovered nearly as well – except for the TRUMP memecoin, up 0.69% to $8.92 over the past 24 hours.
Why Is TRUMP Going Up?
Because the POTUS is getting what he wants.
Not only does Trump get to sign his Big Beautiful Bill on July 4, he also gets to profit heavily from what it doesn’t contain: the Democratic-led amendment that would have banned the president, vice-president, and other officials from owning or promoting crypto.
This is huge for both Trump and his family. According to the financial disclosure released on June 13, Trump made $57 million off this year’s crypto sales through his World Liberty Financial venture – and that doesn’t even include what might be hundreds of millions in profit off memecoins like TRUMP. Bloomberg estimates the Trump family took in $390 million of an estimated $550 million in token sales this past year, more than 10 times the $34 million the Trump Organization earned from real estate licensing.
Will Elon Musk Form a New Party?
Ah, very good, you saw where all this was heading. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Musk has rekindled his feud with Trump, threatening to spend heavily to defeat the Republican Party during the 2026 mid-terms – and perhaps even form his own party: the America Party. After the Senate passed its version of the OBBB on Tuesday, traders at Polymarket pushed the odds of that happening from 11% to 44%.
At press time, Polymarket now has specific prices for the America Party being created by the following dates:
- July 4: 17%
- July 31: 32%
- December 31: 41%
It isn’t easy to start a viable political party in the United States, and Musk has been known to flip-flop on a wide range of matters. But this wager – or investment, to be precise – doesn’t require the America Party to thrive, only to exist.
Invest accordingly.
