We hear and read quite enough these days (more than enough) to know pretty much exactly what Donald Trump thinks on a broad range of issues: for example, nobody seriously harbours any doubts about his thinking on tariff reform (such as it is); and it doesn’t take a trained relationship counsellor to realise he doesn’t like Jerome Powell (current chairman of the Federal Reserve), at least he dislikes him enough to take to Truth Social (of course) and accuse Powell of high-level incompetence: in the process triggering an across the board slump in US equity markets…and, of course, nobody, nobody anywhere, can be in any doubt that Donald Trump simply loves Bitcoin.
He loves Bitcoin so much that just about as soon as he got his feet under the Resolute Desk for the second time, Trump signed an Executive Order creating a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a “US Digital Asset Stockpile”: self-avowedly profiling the US to become a global leader in digital asset strategies, despite the fact that (from a regulatory perspective) the Federal Reserve has been extraordinarily coy on that issue over recent years (but hey, the Fed aren’t exactly flavour of the month at the moment…see above).
Bitcoin markets responded dramatically to this apparently unequivocal endorsement of non-fiat currencies. In the days following the White House announcement on 6 March, the price of Bitcoin shot up by more than $5,000 (to $66,239.82), and since Trump was elected last year, the aggregate market price of Bitcoin has increased by 27.7%, before reaching today’s giddy height of $88,556.64…and all because Donald Trump loves Bitcoin…or at least he says he does.
Half a World Away
The significance of Trump’s burgeoning love affair hasn’t been lost on the bean counters and policymakers in New Delhi, where Prime Minister Modi’s Government has steadily begun (since last February) to review its previously tough regulatory stance on Bitcoin in particular, no doubt well aware that the Subcontinent simply can’t afford to be left behind in the dash for digital pre-eminence.
So, on 2 February, India’s Economic Affairs Secretary, Ajay Seth, pointed out (rightly) that digital assets “don’t believe in borders” (www.reuters.com); and in December 2024, the retiring Governor of the Reserve Bank of India was at pains to heap praise on the Bank’s pilot programme presaging rollout of a new centralised digital currency (“CBDC”) for the Subcontinent. He went so far as to describe India’s CBDC as the “future of currency”, and, on a more general basis, the Reserve Bank itself has recently been exploring the viability of any new CBDC as a primary settlement mechanism capable of underpinning cross-border digital payments.
We’ve certainly come a long way since this same Reserve Bank fought tooth and claw in 2018 to completely ban crypto currencies.
Hand in Hand with Crypto
And, of course, where Crypto leads, AI can’t be far behind. Small surprise then that India is also positioning itself to join the vanguard of generative AI modelling, with the progressive release of a brand new AI algorithm over the course of the coming year.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union IT Minister, also announced that India has this year acquired no less than 18,693 state of the art graphic processing units (specialised superfast circuitry designed to handle intense computer based calculations), and is also planning to marshal more than $20 Billion in additional foreign investment to fund a dramatic expansion in domestic data centres over the next three years.
And perhaps more importantly, this new Indian-inspired generative AI model will be capable of engaging seamlessly with each of the Subcontinent’s diverse cultures,121 subcontinental languages, and 270 distinct local dialects (which are often discrete languages in themselves): this achievement certainly shouldn’t be taken lightly given interstate administrative barriers, lack of effective cultural bridging and mountains of red tape have so often in the past seriously inhibited Indian domestic trade.
So, in short, watch this space: Donald Trump might be pursuing his own peculiar species of creative destruction, but India is locked, loaded and ready to take a leading role as the world moves on to its next destination.
Red Ribbon Asset Management (www.redribbon.co) aims to harness the full potential of fast-evolving and emerging technologies to meet the needs of global communities as part of a circular economy, fully recognising the compelling demands of planet people and profit.
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Red Ribbon Asset Management (www.redribbon.co) aims to harness the full potential of fast evolving and emerging technologies to meet the needs of global communities as part of a circular economy, fully recognising the compelling demands of planet people and profit.
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