If the Trump administration does not put any other restrictions, just like the Joe Biden administration, then I am hoping to see the Mixers campaign back on the BitcoinTalk forum. Other than that, it takes some time to get an increment in pay rates, as there will be more active profiles, so surely the pay rates will also be more here. Everyone is also hoping to see more campaigns here, as currently the number of users who are selected in the campaigns here are minor.
I doubt simply not putting new restrictions would be enough for that.
From theymos himself:
For the mixer policy to be reversed, the legal environment would have to improve a lot. I think that one of these would have to happen:
- Some mixers win their court cases.
- Congress passes laws which explicitly protect mixers.
- The administration ends up being extremely pro-privacy, better than 99% of politicians in office.
It'll take at least a year before we have a good idea of what the new administration will really be like, but my expectation is that they will only be ~10% better than the Biden administration in this area. I would be surprised if they dropped the case against the Tornado Cash devs, for example.
The Trump administration could be a lot better than I expect, but they could also be a lot worse. I think for example that the Trump administration might be even more aggressive on sanctions (especially against Iran), and they might therefore see financial privacy as a threat to their sanction power. There are also several reasons why the Trump administration may want to restrict cross-border payments generally: to allow for financial repression in response to a debt crisis, to improve the US's hugely-negative net international investment position (which is often a major issue in the minds of Trump-aligned economists), to tariff services in addition to goods, or to control the value of the dollar. Severe restrictions on cross-border payments could also put them in opposition to financial privacy.
The Biden administration clearly wanted to move as close to banning crypto as they could get away with, so it's definitely good that they're gone, but it's not as if Satoshi has just been elected president. The Trump administration has some interest in pleasing their crypto donors, but that can be achieved mainly just by getting prices to go up. They don't much care, and don't have to care, about privacy, disintermediation, decentralization, etc.
Some mixers win their court cases = doubt, but could maybe happen, specially now that Tornado cash sanctions have been lifted.
Law to explicitly protect mixers = never going to happen.
Pro-privacy administration = huhh, maybe? But not as much as theymos wants.
But like I said, seems like they really are dropping the case against Tornado Cash devs, which theymos doubt it would happen.