Former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he plans to launch a fourth NFT collection. Despite the current downturn in the NFT market, Trump is still optimistic that his new NFT collection will perform after the success of his "MugShot" collection that sold out in a day. Meanwhile, Polymarket saw record volumes in July, mostly driven by presidential election bets, with Trump as the favorite. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, along with Elon Musk, also publicly announced that they will support Trump's 2024 campaign.
Trump Plans Fourth NFT Collection
Former U.S. President Donald Trump revealed his plans to launch a fourth non-fungible token (NFT) collection in an interview with Bloomberg on July 16. Trump also talked about the importance of U.S. leadership in the cryptocurrency industry, and how crucial it is to maintain the nation’s competitive edge in the emerging crypto field.
"I’m going to do another one because the people want me to do another one," Trump stated, while reflecting on the success of his previous NFT collections. His latest collection, "MugShot," which featured themes related to his ongoing criminal indictments, sold out in just a day. Trump also pointed out that almost all transactions for his NFTs were conducted in cryptocurrency, which greatly influenced his perspective on digital currencies.
He also places a lot of emphasis on how young the crypto industry is, and even compared it to an infant that requires nurturing to prevent other countries, specifically China, from dominating the space. Trump is very concerned about the potential for China to become a leader in cryptocurrency if the U.S. does not take proactive steps to secure its position.
The interview also touched on the changing attitudes towards crypto in traditional banking. Trump specifically brought up the change in tone from well known figures like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Although he was once a very vocal critic of cryptocurrency, Dimon has softened his stance in recent months, despite previously suggesting that the government should shut down cryptocurrencies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing in December of 2023.
NFT Volumes Drop
Something that Trump should keep in mind is the fact that the NFT market is going through turbulent times in 2024, with June volumes plummeting to $300 million from January's high of $867 million. Despite the downturn, competition for marketplace dominance is intensifying.
Blur has maintained its position as the leading platform, consistently capturing 60% to 80% of the market share this year. Its success could be attributed to factors like the introduction of the BLUR token, which incentivized trading and created a loyal community. Blur also implemented an NFT order book that provides advanced trading tools, efficient price discovery, and deeper liquidity.
Share of Ethereum NFT Marketplace Volume (Source: The Block)
The once unchallenged leader, OpenSea, is showing some signs of a potential resurgence. Its market share has surged to 37.34% from a low of 13.19%. This is a good sign as it indicates that OpenSea is still an established brand with a solid user base. This rebound also happened despite the fact that OpenSea has not launched its own token.
Current trends indicate that traders prefer platforms offering advanced functionalities beyond just buying and selling. The success of Blur's order book system suggests a demand for more sophisticated trading tools in the NFT space, potentially merging the lines between NFT and traditional asset trading.
While Blur still holds the lead, OpenSea's recent gains indicate that the competition is far from over.
NFTs are unique digital assets that represent ownership of a piece of art, digital content, or video, and they are created through the process of tokenization on a blockchain. Each NFT has a unique identification code generated from metadata via an encryption function, making them distinct from one another. While the tokens are stored on the blockchain, the actual assets they represent are stored elsewhere.
NFTs can be traded or exchanged for money, cryptocurrencies, or other NFTs based on the market and owner-assigned value. Ownership is determined by who holds the private keys to the token, which also defines the rights assigned to it.
In contrast to NFTs, cryptocurrencies are also tokens but are fungible, meaning they are interchangeable. Two units of the same cryptocurrency on the same blockchain can be exchanged for one another without any difference in value. On the other hand, even if two NFTs from the same blockchain appear identical, they are not interchangeable because of their unique metadata and the specific value assigned to each token.
Polymarket Hits Record Volumes
Meanwhile, speculation surrounding the United States presidential election has propelled crypto prediction platform Polymarket to record volumes, with more activity in the first two weeks of July than any previous month. According to Dune Analytics, Polymarket saw $116.4 million in volume this month already, surpassing June's $111.5 million.
Polymarket monthly volume (Source: Dune Analytics)
The bulk of this trading is driven by bets on the presidential election outcome, with $263.5 million wagered on which candidate will win on Nov. 4. Currently, Donald Trump is the favorite among prediction traders, with 70% odds of victory. Traders believe President Joe Biden has a 18% chance of winning the election, while Vice President Kamala Harris has a 7% chance, and odds of former First Lady Michelle Obama winning stand at 2%.
In total, Polymarket has seen $471.9 million wagered since the beginning of the year on different events like politics, finance, sports, and crypto.
Polymarket has also enlisted election analyst and statistician Nate Silver as an advisor. According to Silver, prediction markets are not just about financial speculation but are very valuable when it comes to understanding broader sentiment during turbulent times.
He believes in the importance of probabilities in planning, but is skeptical about Trump’s choice of crypto-friendly Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as a running mate. Silver even suggested that it could harm Trump's campaign.
On May 14, Polymarket completed a $70 million Series B funding round that was led by Peter Thiel’s Founder Fund. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also participated in the funding round.
Despite being unavailable to U.S. traders, Polymarket is mostly used to speculate on American political events.
A16z Founders Back Trump’s 2024 Campaign
Polymarket traders are not the only ones backing Trump. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, co-founders of the crypto venture firm a16z, plan to make large donations to support former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to a report by The Information on Tuesday.
The co-founders shared their decision to a16z employees through an internal email after Trump’s announcement of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential pick. This is the first time either co-founder has publicly supported a candidate in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections.
Andreessen and Horowitz now join a growing number of venture capitalists and tech executives backing Trump, with donations funneled to America PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee. The PAC has raised almost $9 million from Silicon Valley insiders.
Trump’s choice to make Vance his VP further solidified his support in the tech sector as Vance is a crypto advocate and seasoned venture capitalist. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also praised the decision on social media, and stated that he will be endorsing Trump’s campaign.
Vance has actively supported the crypto industry in the Senate and is backed by Stand With Crypto, an advocacy group that was started by Coinbase, where a16z holds shares. A16z has also invested more than $7 billion in Web3 projects since 2013, and boasts an impressive crypto portfolio that includes stakes in Avalanche, Coinbase, EigenLayer, Lido, MakerDAO, Optimism, and Uniswap.
In June, Vance introduced draft Senate legislation that favors crypto more than the House’s Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21). He has also criticized the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's actions against crypto companies.
