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President-elect Donald Trump fulfills a campaign promise by tapping crypto advocate Paul Atkins to chair the SEC.
Created in 2008, Bitcoin was the world’s first cryptocurrency. For better or worse, Bitcoin’s continued rise to prominence has been less as a new-age form of digital currency and more as a type of high-risk investment. Let’s be honest, how many people do you know who have actually used Bitcoin, or any other type of cryptocurrency, to pay for something?
In its first few years as a digital currency, the value of a single Bitcoin was less than $0.10. In 2017, its price quickly jumped to $2,000, then to $5,000, before eventually breaking the $10,000 mark. This soon triggered a flood of investor dollars seeking quick returns. More importantly, it caught the attention of Wall Street. By 2021, Bitcoin had risen to more than $60,000.
Mark M. Grywacheski
On Nov. 4, the day before the U.S. presidential election, the price of Bitcoin was at $67,811. The day after the election, on Nov. 6, Bitcoin quickly surged to $75,637, a record high. On Dec. 4, it breached the $100,000 mark and closed at $103,340. That’s right. In just one month, Bitcoin had gained more than $35,000, an increase of 52%. So, what caused this sudden surge in Bitcoin?
During their respective campaigns, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris advocated for a more government-friendly relationship with the cryptocurrency industry. This was in stark contrast to the Biden administration, which aggressively used regulatory agencies — especially the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) — to crack down on cryptocurrency exchanges and investors.
But Trump’s support for the cryptocurrency industry was much more vigorous and expansive. In July, at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Trump vowed to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet.” After he won the presidential election on Nov. 5, investors sent Bitcoin’s price soaring.
A key element of Trump’s strategy is to remove current SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who led much of the Biden administration’s crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry. Gensler will likely be replaced by Paul Atkins, Trump’s presumptive nominee. Atkins is currently CEO of Patomak Partners, a financial consulting firm. He also served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008. It’s expected Atkins will be less antagonistic toward the cryptocurrency industry and will be more apt to embrace Trump’s broader deregulation goals.
Trump has also announced that David Sacks will be the nation’s first “AI and crypto czar.” Sacks is a venture capitalist with an expansive list of investing in high-tech companies including PayPal, Palantir, SpaceX and Facebook, among others. In his new role, Sacks will look to refine and provide clarity to the often-confusing U.S. legal framework that governs the cryptocurrency industry.
The biggest knock against Biden was that his regulatory oversight over the cryptocurrency industry was too heavy-handed. It forced much of the investment and technological innovation within the industry to flee the U.S. and move overseas — primarily to competing markets in Asia. But there is also significant risk for Trump if his regulatory framework is too lax. The cryptocurrency industry has a long, painful history of fraud, theft and corruption.
Many would likely agree the goal should be to allow investment and innovation within the cryptocurrency industry while also providing a framework of consumer protections. It’s a delicate balancing act. We’ll see if Trump succeeds.
In 2004, Peony Lane Wine planted its first plot of pinot noir, a natural wine, in one of the highest elevations for wine-growing in North America—Paonia, Colorado. Owner Ben Justman takes a unique approach to winemaking, marrying a process that dates back thousands of years with a modern-day approach to business operations by accepting Bitcoin transactions and even featuring a Bitcoin-inspired Satoshi’s Reserve wine.
Justman grew up on the pinot noir vineyard he operates today, a vineyard his dad tended to throughout his childhood as a hobbyist. After graduating college, he knew he wanted to start a business, and despite having no background in wine-making, the winery was a natural business opportunity. “We started the winery in 2019 and didn’t sell any wine until 2021. In that time, I committed, made, and invested in three vintages with zero proof of concept, zero proof of my ability to do this,” said Justman. Despite these challenges, Square reports the wine received positive reviews from customers and sommeliers alike.
Justman is a big believer in Bitcoin. He not only empowers customers to pay for his goods with it, he has converted 1% of all fiat wine sales to Bitcoin in the last three years using Square as an early adopter. “That 1% of Bitcoin, it’s cool to go sell wine and then come home with a little bit of Bitcoin,” said Justman.
He’d like to increase how much he converts to Bitcoin in the future as the winery’s sales grow, but for now, he leaves what he converts untouched. These sales are converted to Bitcoin and appear in his Cash App Bitcoin balance. This process is so automated as a part of Justman’s business operations that he hasn’t purchased Bitcoin on an exchange in the last few years.
Justman says Bitcoin is one of the fundamental human inventions in monetary technology that can move society forward. “I think of it as if my business succeeds and Bitcoin succeeds, great. I win. If my business fails, and this is the only business I’ve ever really run, and Bitcoin succeeds, I win,” said Justman. If Bitcoin fails in his lifetime, he says, then he’d worry about his ability to access financial freedom without it. Justman is aligned with the mission of Bitcoin, creating freedom from relying solely on fiat money. He uses his business to help spread awareness and found that customers paying in Bitcoin are willing to be patient when it comes to a much more friction-full checkout experience.
As of now, he says a small but not insignificant amount of his online sales occur in Bitcoin. “I’ve never or hardly ever met Gen Zers that are into Bitcoin,” said Justman. When it comes to customers, his winery is typically an older demographic. “It’s more millennials through boomers. I mean there’s a lot of 60-plus-year-olds that are really psyched to buy my wine with Bitcoin.”
From 2021 to 2024, Peony Lane Wines was available exclusively in person at farmers’ markets and online. Justman started selling exclusively at farmers’ markets, on the road six days a week throughout the summer, and navigating hardships like wine going bad or having to extend the aging of certain batches by a few years.
“All of my capital was invested in the wine whether it was being made or aging,” said Justman, who also sells wine online. “I’ve been slowly whittling that down to where first it was five farmers markets, then four, then three, now I’m at two a week during the summer.” Selling wine in person gave him the gift of seeing people’s reactions to the product firsthand, exposure that led to sales without a ton of upfront capital. However, hitting the road six days a week made it hard to scale the business. One of the keys to taking a step back from in-person sales was tapping into the Bitcoin community.
The Bitcoin community isn’t the only one helping grow his business. He continues to learn about Bitcoin and winemaking regularly, listening to personal finance podcasts and Bitcoin podcasts, and reading marketing-focused business books. Justman also often looks to a group of neighboring winemakers who share a mission to grow awareness of Colorado wine in the U.S. Farmers’ markets allow new and returning customers to try his pinot noirs and maybe a neighboring stand’s cabernet sauvignon too. He hopes in the coming years Peony Lane Wines scales up, becomes known for pinot noir, and the region broadly gains more recognition for its wine industry.
This story was produced by Square for its publication The Bottom Line and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Mark Grywacheski is an expert in financial markets and economic analysis and is an investment adviser with Quad-Cities Investment Group, Davenport.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Any prices or quotations contained herein are indicative only and do not constitute an offer to buy or sell any securities at any given price. Information has been obtained from sources considered reliable, but we do not guarantee that the material presented is accurate or that it provides a complete description of the securities, markets or developments mentioned. Quad-Cities Investment Group LLC is a registered investment adviser with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.
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President-elect Donald Trump fulfills a campaign promise by tapping crypto advocate Paul Atkins to chair the SEC.
Mark M. Grywacheski
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