How is the crypto sector influencing the US election?

While the US election is set to impact the crypto market, the reverse is also true — the industry is already influencing lawmakers at both the federal and state levels as voting day approaches.

In December 2023, in order to gain a toehold in the political sphere, a group of three affiliated super political action committees (PACs) backed by prominent figures in the crypto sphere revealed plans to invest a substantial US$78 million with the aim of supporting crypto-friendly candidates in their political campaigns.

Fairshake, one of the group’s three affiliated super PACs, has now raised upwards of US$200 million through donations from major stakeholders, including significant contributions from the Winklevoss twins and companies such as Kraken, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Electric Capital Partners. The group reportedly spent around US$10 million on attack ads to sway voters against Representative Katie Porter (D) in California’s Senate race in March, which she ultimately lost. The Cedar Innovation Foundation, another super PAC group with unknown backers, reportedly engaged in similar lobbying efforts in January to unseat crypto cynic Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Before President Biden withdrew as the Democratic candidate, Republicans were the primary beneficiaries of super PAC support. However, the situation changed almost immediately when Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race, although she remained tight-lipped on the issue for weeks following her nomination.

A new advocacy group, Crypto4Harris — which included billionaire and crypto advocate Mark Cuban and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci — was quick to throw its support behind Harris, who was perceived as more receptive towards the industry.

At the Democratic National Convention on August 21, an aide to Harris’ team said she would “support policies to expand the industry.” Harris confirmed her position on the issue at a Wall Street fundraiser a month later while emphasizing that consumer protection is an equally paramount part of her “Opportunity Economy” pledge.

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on October 14, Harris reaffirmed her commitment to supporting the crypto industry, stating that her administration would establish rules for digital assets.

Following this announcement, Chris Larsen, the co-founder of Ripple Labs, donated US$1 million worth of his company’s native tokens XRP to Future Forward, a significant super PAC that’s backing Harris’ run. Ripple Labs has been engaged in a years-long battle with the SEC over sales of XRP. Judge Analisa Torres ruled in Ripple’s favor in August, but the SEC reopened the case by filing a motion to appeal on October 2.

How is crypto currently regulated in the US?

The regulatory landscape for the crypto industry in the US is still evolving, and further developments are expected to occur in the coming years. As it stands, various government agenciesemploy diverse strategies to regulate different aspects of the industry, reflecting their unique mandates and objectives.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the primary regulator of securities in the US and, under Chairman Gary Gensler, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, it has taken the view that many cryptocurrencies constitute securities and are therefore subject to federal securities laws.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is the primary regulator of futures and options contracts in the US. It is of the opinion that certain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are commodities due to their decentralized nature and the fact that they are not backed by a government or other central authority.

Both regulators have taken action against crypto exchanges for breaking laws. Most notably, the CFTC brought charges against Binance founder Changpeng Zhao for violating the Commodity Exchange Act in March 2023. Meanwhile, the SEC has been involved in litigation against numerous crypto companies for years.

What does Harris think about crypto?

The Democrat’s presidential nominee is Kamala Harris, who is currently serving in the Biden administration as Vice President. This section will discuss Harris’ own positions on crypto alongside those of the Biden administration.

There has been heightened government engagement with the crypto sector under the Biden administration. He has been carefully navigating the crypto industry, aiming to balance innovation and economic growth with consumer protection and regulatory oversight.

In March 2022, Biden signed an executive order outlining a strategy to assess the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies. It focused on six key areas, including consumer protection, responsible innovation and global competitiveness. The order also addressed the lack of coordination between government agencies by promoting a more unified approach.

Building on this move, the White House released a more detailed framework for responsible digital asset development in September 2022. It expanded upon the key areas identified in the initial executive order and provided further guidance for a coordinated, government-wide approach to managing the risks and harnessing the benefits of digital assets.

It is currently not known whether a Harris administration would enact the crypto policies laid out in Biden’s 2025 budget proposal, which includes measures that prevent investors from immediately selling and repurchasing digital assets, as well as one that would require more traditional reporting methods for digital asset transactions. The budget also includes an excise tax on electricity used to mine cryptocurrencies, which is expected to generate US$10 billion in revenue in 2025 and over US$42 billion over 10 years.

As discussed earlier, the Democratic Party struggled to maintain a unified approach to cryptocurrencies under the Biden administration.

However, crypto Dems have some reasons to be hopeful of a moderate approach under Harris. Harris has ties to the tech industry going back to her time as an Attorney General in California in the 2010s, where she was influential in facilitating an agreement on privacy policies.

In early August, Harris was also publicly backed by crypto platform Uphold board member JP Thieriot, and she has reportedly been meeting with industry officials in the weeks leading up to the August 14 online “townhall” event of crypto Democrats, Crypto4Harris, which does not have ties to the official campaign.

Since then, Harris has shown support for the cryptocurrency industry at multiple events.

What does Trump think about crypto?

In response to the crypto industry’s growing influence in the political sphere, Trump also appears to have shifted toward a supportive stance in recent months. After initial skepticism, his forays into the crypto world include the launch of his second collection of Trump Cards, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Polygon blockchain.

In May, Trump became the first presidential nominee to accept donations in digital currencies, and in June, he advocated on Truth Social for all future Bitcoin mining to be done in the US.

Also in May, Lee Bratcher, founder and president of the Texas Blockchain Council, shared insights with Coindesk on Trump’s interest in crypto, suggesting he may have been influenced by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who was supportive of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology during his brief campaign.

“Trump looks to Vivek on tech and digital asset policy,” Bratcher said. “When he saw how Vivek captured the Republican voter — and more centrist (voters) than Trump can capture — he’s probably more interested in that (policy).’

Trump appears to be driven by a desire to distinguish himself from political opponents who favor a more active regulatory approach, as well as crypto’s increasing popularity and potential.

In May, he criticized Biden, the Democratic party and Gensler at a dinner for buyers of his NFT cards, telling pro-crypto attendees that they “better vote for Trump” if they want crypto in “any form.”

While he hasn’t explicitly said how he plans to tax digital assets, Trump is a prominent proponent of lower taxes. His administration signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in 2017, the largest tax code change made in decades. Provisions within the act are set to expire in 2025, although Trump has said he will make them permanent if he is re-elected. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if they become permanent, these tax cuts would deduct billions from the US revenue base annually beginning in 2027.

At a rally in New Jersey in mid-May, Trump promised voters that he would impose further tax cuts, lowering the maximum capital gains tax rate from 20 percent to 15 percent. This would affect crypto assets, as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats cryptocurrencies as property, making transactions subject to capital gains and other taxes.

According to Section 1031 of the tax code, some capital gains taxes can be deferred for like-kind exchanges — in other words, investments that are of the same nature or character, even if they differ in size or value. The IRS concluded in 2021 that only “real property” can qualify for tax deference as like-kind exchanges, excluding swaps of cryptocurrency. However, some attorneys disagree with that classification.

Trump spoke at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville on July 27, promising friendly regulations and the creation of a strategic Bitcoin stockpile for the US. A draft of legislation to support a Bitcoin reserve was introduced by Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy) at the event following Trump’s speech. The draft legislation for the reserve fund briefly mentions that it would contribute to reducing the US national debt, but it lacks specific details on how this would be achieved. Trump was notably tight-lipped on the issue during a recent interview with Elon Musk.

It’s worth noting that a special-interest group called Project 2025 has developed a 900 page conservative policy agenda called the Mandate for Leadership that includes strategies to shift the power of the IRS and other agencies toward the executive branch. Additionally, the document recommends that the SEC and the CFTC collaborate to delineate the distinction between digital assets that are classified as securities and those that are considered commodities.

The group was organized by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has influenced Republican policies in the past, including during Trump’s presidency.

Why is Neumeyer calling for a US$100 silver price?

There’s a significant distance for silver to go before it reaches the success Neumeyer has boldly predicted. In fact, in order for the precious metal to jump to the US$100 mark, its price would have to increase from its current value by around 350 percent.

Neumeyer has previously stated that he expects a triple-digit silver price in part because he believed the market cycle could be compared to the year 2000, when investors were sailing high on the dot-com bubble and the mining sector was down. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before the market corrects, like it did in 2001 and 2002, and commodities see a big rebound in pricing. It was during 2000 that Neumeyer himself invested heavily in mining stocks and came out on top.

“I’ve been calling for triple-digit silver for a few years now, and I’m more enthused now,” Neumeyer said at an event in January 2020, noting that there are multiple factors behind his reasoning. “But I’m cautiously enthused because, you know, I thought it would have happened sooner than it currently is happening.”

In his August 2022 with Wall Street Silver, he reiterated his support for triple-digit silver and said he’s fortunately not alone in this optimistic view — in fact, he’s been surpassed in that optimism. ‘I actually saw someone the other day call for US$500 silver,’ he said. ‘I’m not quite sure I’m at the level. Give me US$50 first and we’ll see what happens after that.’

Another factor driving Neumeyer’s position is his belief that the silver market is in a deficit. In a May 2021 interview, when presented with supply-side data from the Silver Institute indicating the biggest surplus in silver market history, Neumeyer was blunt in his skepticism. “I think these numbers are made up,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust them at all.”

He pointed out that subtracting net investments in silver exchange-traded products leaves the market in a deficit, and also questioned the methodology behind the institute’s recycling data given that most recycled silver metal comes from privately owned smelters and refineries that typically don’t make those figures public.

‘I’m guessing the mining sector produced something in the order of 800, maybe 825 million ounces in 2022,’ Neumeyer said when giving a Q4 2022 overview for his company. ‘Consumption numbers look like they’re somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 billion ounces. That’s due to all the great technologies, all the newfangled gadgets that we’re consuming. Electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills, you name it. All these technologies require silver … that’s a pretty big (supply) deficit.’

In a December 2023 interview with Kitco, Neumeyer stressed that silver is more than just a poor man’s gold and he spoke to silver’s important role in electric vehicles and solar cells.

In line with its view on silver, First Majestic is a member of a consortium of silver producers that in January 2024 sent a letter to the Canadian government urging that silver be recognized as a critical mineral. Silver’s inclusion on the list would allow silver producers to accelerate the development of strategic projects with financial and administrative assistance from the Canadian government. Canada’s critical minerals list is expected to get an update in the summer of 2024.

In his 2024 PDAC interview, Neumeyer once again highlighted this sizable imbalance in the silver’s supply-demand picture. “We’re six years into this deficit. The deficit in 2024 looks like it’s gonna be bigger than 2023, and why is that? Because miners aren’t producing enough silver for the needs of the human race,” he said.

More controversially, Neumeyer is of the opinion that the white metal will eventually become uncoupled from its sister metal gold, and should be seen as a strategic metal due to its necessity in many everyday appliances, from computers to electronics, as well as the technologies mentioned above. He has also stated that silver production has gone down in recent years, meaning that contrary to popular belief, he believes the metal is actually a rare commodity.

Neumeyer’s March 2023 triple-digit silver call is a long-term call, and he explained that while he believes gold will break US$3,000 this year, he thinks silver will only reach US$30 in 2023. However, once the gold/silver ratio is that unbalanced, he believes that silver will begin to take off, and it will just need a catalyst.

‘It could be Elon Musk taking a position in the silver space,’ Neumeyer said. ‘There’s going to be a catalyst at some time, and headlines in the Wall Street Journal might talk about the silver supply deficit … I don’t know what the catalyst will be, but investors and institutions will wake up to the fundamentals of the metal, and that’s when it will start to move.’

In an August 2023 interview with SilverNews, Neumeyer discussed his belief that banks are holding the silver market down. He pointed to the paper market for the metal, which he said the banks have capped at US$30 even in times of high buying.

‘If you want to go and buy 100 billion ounces of silver (in the paper market), you might not even move the price because some bank just writes you a contract that says (you own that),’ he explained, saying banks are willing to get short, because once the buying stops, they push the price down to get the investors out of the market and buy the silver back. ‘… If the miners started pulling their metal out of the current system, then all of a sudden the banks wouldn’t know if they’re going to get the metal or not, so they wouldn’t be taking the same risks they’re taking today in the paper markets.’

The month after the interview, his company First Majestic launched its own 100 percent owned and operated minting facility, named First Mint.

In 2024, gold has seen a resurgence in investor attention as the potential for Fed rate cuts nears closer. In his interview with Cambone at PDAC 2024, Neumeyer countered that perception, stating, “There’s a rush into gold because of the de-dollarization of the world. It has nothing to do with the interest rates.”

What factors affect the silver price?

In order to glean a better understanding of the precious metal’s chances of trading around the US$100 range, it’s important to examine the elements that could push it to that level or pull it further away.

The strength of the US dollar and US Federal Reserve interest rate changes are factors that will continue to affect the precious metal, as are geopolitical issues and supply and demand dynamics. Although Neumeyer believes that the ties that bind silver to gold need to be broken, the reality is that most of the same factors that shape the price of gold also move silver.

For that reason, it’s helpful to look at gold price drivers when trying to understand silver’s price action. Silver is, of course, the more volatile of the two precious metals, but nevertheless it often trades in relative tandem with gold.

Looking first at the Fed and interest rates, it’s useful to understand that higher rates are generally negative for gold and silver, while lower rates tend to be positive. That’s because when rates are higher interest shifts to products that can accrue interest.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Fed cut rates down to zero from 1 to 1.25 percent. However, rising inflation has led the Fed and other central banks to hike rates, which has negatively impacted gold and silver. In February 2023, the Fed raised rates by just 25 basis points, the smallest hike since March 2022, as Chair Jerome Powell said the process of disinflation has begun. The Fed continued these small rate hikes over the next year with the last in July 2023.

In this latest upward cycle of the silver market, Fed interest rate moves are playing an oversized role in pumping up silver prices. In early July, as analysts factored in the rising potential for interest rate cuts in the remainder of 2024, silver prices were once again testing May’s nearly 12-year high, and they topped US$31 in September in the days leading up to the anticipated first rate cut.

While central bank actions are important for gold, and by extension silver, another key price driver lately has been geopolitical uncertainty. The past few years have been filled with major geopolitical events such as tensions between the US and other countries such as North Korea, China and Iran. More recently, the huge economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war with Ukraine, the banking crisis in early 2023 and rising tensions in the Middle East brought about by the Israel-Hamas war have been sources of concern for investors.

On a separate note, there is also a strong case to made for the metal’s industrial potential. Higher industrial demand from emerging sectors due to factors like the transition to renewable energy and the emergence of AI technology will be highly supportive for the metal over the next few years. Solar panels are an especially exciting sector as manufacturers have found increasing the silver content increases energy efficiency.

Could silver hit $100 per ounce?

While we can’t know if we’ll reach a $100 per ounce silver price in the near future, there is support for Neumeyer’s belief that the metal is undervalued and that “ideal conditions are present for silver prices to rise.”

Many are on board with Neumeyer in the idea that silver’s prospects are bright, including Peter Krauth of Silver Stock Investor, who believes that ‘we are very likely going to experience the greatest silver bull market of our generation.’

So, if the silver price does rise further, how high will it go?

Let’s look at silver’s recent history. The highest price for silver was just under US$50 in the 1970s, and it came close to that level again in 2011. The commodity’s price uptick came on the back of very strong silver investment demand.

After spending the latter half of the 2010s in the teens, the 2020s have seen silver largely hold above US$20. In August 2020, the price of silver reached nearly US$28.50 before pulling back again, and moved back up near those heights in February 2021. The price of silver saw a 2022 high point of US$26.46 in February, and passed US$26 again in both May and November 2023.

Silver rallied in the later part of the first quarter of 2024, and by April 12 was once again flirting with the US$30 mark as it reached an 11 year high of US$29.26. Despite a brief pull back to the US$26 level, the month of May saw the silver price take another run at US$30, this time successfully pushing into US$32 territory on May 19. Silver prices have experienced volatility for much of the third quarter, ranging from a high of US$31.39 on July 11 to a low of US$26.64 on August 7. As of September 11, silver prices are managing to hold above the US$28 range.

Despite the Fed’s upcoming course reversal on interest rates, the white metal is being weighed down by expectations of a looming recession for both the US and the other economic heavyweight on the block China, according to Trading Economics.

Analyst firm Metals Focus has pointed out that the silver market is expected to post a substantial deficit in 2024 of 215.3 million ounces, the second highest in over 20 years.

What do other experts think about US$100 silver?

Many experts in the space expect silver to perform strongly in the years to come, but don’t necessarily see it reaching US$100 or more, especially given the current macroeconomic conditions.

‘As I was doing my research, and this goes back over several years already, I would get to that US$300 forecast for an ultimate high in the silver price in different ways,’ he said, and broke down what a low gold/silver ratio — like we’ve seen the previous times that silver has peaked — could mean for the metal’s price in the future.

“One of the most significant (events) for me was when we saw almost the entire US Treasury yield curve peak above 5 percent in mid-October,’ he said. ‘Since then, we’ve had the US Dollar Index peak at 107. Both of these have fallen considerably since, I believe in the market’s view that the Fed has stopped hiking rates, with the expectation that rate cuts will come sometime in 2024.’

Breaking through the historic US$50 ceiling will likely happen in quick, sharp daily spikes in the modern AI trading environment, he said, and it could potentially be ‘the first step’ toward even higher silver prices, including $100 silver. ‘The key is that people really fully understand and appreciate the actual (supply) deficit of silver,’ Lin noted.

What is the silver price outlook after $30 in 2024?

In 2024, the silver price has finally broken through the long anticipated US$30 mark, a catalyst experts have discussed heavily in recent years.

‘What do I expect for the rest of 2024? I’m going to be conservative … I’m going to say I think we’ll still be in the US$30s — probably in the mid-US$30s,’ he said. ‘I don’t really think silver is going to be in the US$40s by the end of the year. People make arguments that it’ll be US$50, and it could be. But I’m going to remain conservative.’

‘Once silver gets above US$33 and it stays there for three or four days — or better yet, even two or three weeks — there’s not much holding it back to hit US$50 again,’ he said at the time.

While silver didn’t cross that mark in 2022, Morgan shared concerns about what would happen once it did in his forecast for 2023. ‘Last time we got near US$30, very close to it, Rostin Behnam of the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) came out and said they had to tamp down the silver market. What kind of a free market is that?’

Gareth Soloway, chief market strategist at VerifiedInvesting.com, is another analyst who was confident silver had the potential to break the US$30 per ounce level and move higher in 2024.

Why is silver so cheap?

The primary reason that silver is sold at a significant discount to gold is supply and demand, with more silver being mined annually.

There is an abundance of silver — according to the US Geological Survey, to date 1,740,000 metric tons (MT) of silver have been discovered, while only 244,000 MT of gold have been found, a ratio of about 1 ounce of gold to 7.1 ounces of silver. In terms of output, 26,000 MT of silver were mined in 2023 compared to 3,000 MT for gold. Looking at these numbers, that puts gold and silver production at about a 1:8.7 ratio last year, while the price ratio on September 17, 2024, was around 1:84 — a huge disparity.

While silver does have both investment and industrial demand, the global focus on gold as an investment vehicle, including countries stockpiling gold, can overshadow silver. Additionally, jewelry alone is a massive force for gold demand.

Is silver really undervalued?

Many experts believe that silver is undervalued at under US$30 compared to fellow currency metal gold. As discussed, their production and price ratios are currently incredibly disparate. While investment demand is higher for gold, silver has seen increasing time in the limelight in recent years, including a 2021 silver squeeze that saw new entrants to the market join in.

Another factor that lends more intrinsic value to silver is that it’s an industrial metal as well as a precious metal. It has applications in technology and batteries — both growing sectors that will drive demand higher.

Silver’s two sides has been on display in recent years: Silver demand hit record highs in 2022, according to the Silver Institute, with physical silver investment rising by 22 percent and industrial by 5 percent over 2021. For 2023, industrial demand was up 11 percent over the previous year, compared to 28 percent decline in physical silver investment.

Is silver better than gold?

There are merits for both metals, especially as part of a well-balanced portfolio. As many analysts point out, silver has been known to outperform its sister metal gold during times of economic prosperity and expansion.

On the other hand, during economic uncertainty silver values are impacted by declines in fabrication demand.

Silver’s duality as a precious and industrial metal also provides price support. As a report from the CPM Group notes, “it can be seen that silver in fact almost always (but not always) out-performs gold during a gold bull market.”

At what price did Warren Buffet buy silver?

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A,NYSE:BRK.B) bought up 37 percent of global silver supply between 1997 and 2006. Silver ranged from US$4 to US$10 during that period.

In fact, between July 1997 and January 1998 alone, the company bought about 129 million ounces of the metal, much of which was for under US$5. Adjusted for inflation, the company’s purchases in that window cost about US$8.50 to US$11.50.

How to invest in silver?

There are a variety of ways to get into the silver market. For example, investors may choose to put their money into silver-focused stocks by buying shares of companies focused on silver mining and exploration. As a by-product metal, investors can also gain exposure to silver through some gold companies.

There are also silver exchange-traded funds that give broad exposure to silver companies and the metal itself, while more experienced traders may be interested in silver futures. And of course, for those who prefer a more tangible investment, purchasing physical bullion in silver bar and silver coin form is also an option.