I wouldn't dispute the influence of Trump on the price increase and awareness in recent times. He used Bitcoin for the campaign and also got the support of the crypto industry. His move no doubt benefited the crypto space.
However, nobody can claim that Trump is now the symbol of Bitcoin. His influence in the industry is gradually fading away that some of his policies are not having much effect on the market. If he leaves office his influence will vanish within a few months. Elon Musk once had such influence on the crypto market but he no longer commands such. When China banned Bitcoin mining there were predictions that the price would crash but it never happened. Bitcoin has a way of purging itself from external influence.
Trump is not "the symbol of Bitcoin", rather, Bitcoin is a symbol of Trump: most Americans today associate Bitcoin today with "a Trump thing". It's basically the CyberTruck of investments today.
(China never banned Bitcoin, they simply forbade their banking system to put it on their balance sheets; and China's population never represented more than a few % of Bitcoin's total holdings).
How long Trump's badness (or goodness, to be absolutely fair) will be remembered by Americans will depend on the severity of the effects on the country. Obviously Hitler took a long time to "wear off" in Germany for instance. But sure, maybe Trump will go quietly and the US will go back to normal, and Trump Jr. will not be the Republican nominee, and the US will quickly forget about Trump. I personally doubt that will happen though.
It doesn't matter what I think or anybody here thinks: to most Americans, Bitcoin is a "Trump thing". And if Trump's brand diminishes, so will Bitcoin's.
Sadly America is just a part of the world. There are other nations out there that can boost Bitcoin. After all, Bitcoin got known not because of America or Trump. Bitcoin brand is already established even before anyone from America use it to their political scheme.
Bitcoin, like most Internet things, started in the USA (in terms of mainstream prominence at least, if not being invented here). Arguably 90% of Bitcoin's holdings are probably in US hands. All of the major "blockchain" companies like Binance and Coinbase are US based. Most of the Bitcoin hashrate is currency in the USA. Etc. etc.
I agree that if Trump becomes a pariah in the USA and he takes Bitcoin with him, then Bitcoin will look to other countries to rebuild its audience, but it will be a major blow and surely drop the price by at least 90%.
As for hinderance for Bitcoin in... 10 years? 10 years is a long, long, LONG time in the world of technology. Bitcoin already has thousands of competitors and some very large ones already, and technologically it is not strong at all compared to its competitors--it only has its brand name that gives it value. I think the market for digital currencies is going to be very different in 2 years, let alone 10 years...
I used 10 years because in the past decade+ while Bitcoin adoption as been increasing there were quite a number of things which as affected the growth but looking at it now some of those are nothing while many can be ignored, the key one standing is the government, US precisely but after this what next?
In the past years even before all of these Bitcoin had growth that brought even others to it and change their view, what make you think in the future when maybe something like this happen the growth will just halt because the adoption rate decline after such news at first and it will take too long for a comeback?
Let's go back to history and see how it has scale up to this point, yes this will be bigger than many but will the pattern change?
What is different now is that in 2024 the crypto industry was the single-largest political donor in the United States, and they will probably be again the top donor in this year's elections. This is a HUGE development: crypto is now bigger than the oil industry, or the pharmaceutical industry, or other traditional giant political donors.
In doing this, crypto has connected itself--using billions of dollars--to the fate of the US government, and specifically to one US political party, the Republicans (95% of the money goes to Republicans and Trump).
The other thing that has changed in the last 10 years is that Bitcoin is a much bigger part of the US investment portfolio--it's no longer limited to a few bitcointalk.org hardcores
. You have to remember that the people you and I talk to on a daily basis are not the ones responsible for giving Bitcoin a $1 trillion market cap, that is instead millions of everyday Americans who just want an investment that will increase in value.
Take away "average mainstream American investors" and Bitcoin won't "die", but it certainly will retreat in price by 90% or more.
