Instead of fast forwarding and speculating on who won last week’s presidential debate between President Trump and ex-Vice President Biden, lets go in reverse. Back to the future so to speak. Lets go back to 2016 and the presidential debates between candidate Donald Trump and candidate Hillary Clinton. Why? To see what was a huge global financial “awakening” that neither current candidate even bothers to mention. Interested?
Lets begin with remembering that Bitcoin was a touch above $600 during the Trump/Clinton debates and is now well over $10,000 (after hitting $20K). Why is that important? Beyond the fact that I am a huge Bitcoin fan and investor (stay with me here), blockchain technology and its protocol exploded in adaption with all things fintech becoming household names.
Digitization of assets, new adaption of digital payments, moves toward a cashless society (Covid-19 helping) and global central banks developing their own digital currencies (CBDC’s). Regulators all around the world are trying to keep up with the rapid growth of new crypto exchanges, new digital financial instruments, investor protection and regulations and even HOW to regulate. All since the last presidential debates (like, 4 years) and yet all this digitization has not been brought up or addressed once on either party’s platform agenda in the 2020 election season.
Which leads one to believe that the past four years of this rapid innovation in the digital economy is only the very beginning of more structural changes coming. Maybe the next presidential debates (2024) will result in votes being cast on the blockchain. Maybe paper money will be like the old rotary dial phone. Or, maybe there will be a global currency (Bitcoin or other) that replaces the U.S. dollar. Even now the Chinese are getting ready to launch the digital Yuan with plans to become the world’s reserve currency. So, perhaps all thees “maybes” are the reason the presidential candidates are not ever going to bring them up since neither party has any plan to address the future of all things digital. THAT should be no surprise actually.
So, its fun and interesting to “look back” at what actually happened over the past four years as the next presidential debate comes up. Four more years to 2024 and debates then?
Please, the next 24 hours is up for grabs. One thing for sure – iPhone 75?
Bill Taylor is Managing Director/CIO at Entoro Wealth & is widely published in financial industry media throughout the world
