Craven welcomes first ‘crypto president’ as digital currencies soar on Trump victory

Australia’s youngest billionaire Edward Craven has welcomed a crypto overhaul under Donald Trump, saying more ‘positive regulation’ will catapult digital currencies deeper into the mainstream.

Australia’s youngest billionaire Edward Craven has welcomed a crypto overhaul under Donald Trump, saying “more favourable legislation” and “positive regulation” will catapult digital currencies deeper into the mainstream and help the industry succeed.

Mr Trump has vowed to become the “crypto president” and courted crypto cash during the US election. “If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,” Mr Trump told the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in June.

He said he also planned to amass a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” where the government would keep the tokens it holds or acquires and create a crypto president advisory council. Mr Trump has also appointed Elon Musk – one of cyrpto’s biggest backers – to a new role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which also shares the same acronym as dogecoin.

Digital currencies have rallied following Mr Trump’s victory. Bitcoin hit $US93,000 last week – a record high – Mike Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs and Fortress Investment Group partner has predicted the digital currency will hit $US100,000 by next month and believes there will huge innovation in the blockchain space in the next five years as companies focus on further intensive decentralisation.

Ed Craven with business partner Bijan Tehrani welcomes more positive regulation for Bitcoin.

Mr Craven first invested in crypto in 2012 and has built a cryptocurrency betting empire from Melbourne that has propelled his wealth to $3.86bn, according to The List – Australia’s Richest 250.

“I’ve been involved with crypto for a long, long time now. I think I first came across it in 2012 when it was a very different landscape,” Mr Craven told The Australian.

“Seeing it now, it’s come a long way. The underlying technology behind cryptocurrency – when you peel it back and look at blockchain, I think is really exciting. It’s solving a problem that people have been trying to solve for thousands of years – and that is how do you make a decentralised ledger. How do you know who owns what, and how do you make sure that no one controls that ledger.

“It’s great to see the landscape and the industry continue to be more and more trusted. It looks like there may be further favourable legislation put in place to support the industry with positive legislation to help us succeed.”

But despite building a multi-billion empire – the Australian arm of which has made more than $500m in profits in just three years and employs 450 people in Melbourne – Mr Craven says he is conservative and doesn’t want to “speculate too much” on how high the digital currencies, including Ethereum, will go.

“I’ll be honest with you. Whilst I believe in the technology, I also believe in investing very safely and cautiously, and I think sometimes that volatility is something which is outside my personal risk appetite,” he said.

This includes selling some of the first bitcoins he bought very early.

“As the price went up for those 2012 bitcoins, I sold them very early on. I didn’t have the courage to hold all the way out. You can buy at the right time, but selling is the hard bit.”

Mr Craven, who started his crypto gambling brand Stake.com with business partner Bijan Tehrani in 2017, has expanded his empire to include streaming platform Kick – which launched in 2022 and hosted a live stream between influencer Adin Ross and Mr Trump in August, amassing millions of views.

He also offered sign-on bonuses of up to $100,000 to entice staff to join Easygo Solutions, which provides services to Stake.com and Kick steaming, raiding the likes of Atlassian and Canva earlier this year.

But his meteoric rise hasn’t been without controversy. His empire recently avoided a $580m claim against it by a former business partner after a US court threw out the claim due to a lack of jurisdiction. It has also a legal petition lodged against it in Curacao from a group of customers.