What impact will Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister have on the crypto industry?

Source: Coindesk; Compiled by: Wu Baht, Golden Finance

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada's head of government, is stepping down after nearly a decade in the role.

• Trudeau is seen as part of Canada's federal government's pushback against digital assets, so a friendlier alternative could be a boon for cryptocurrencies, although provinces have been in the driver's seat.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday, potentially paving the way for a less crypto-resistant government in Canada, even as provincial governments play a leading role in determining Canada 's future for digital assets.

"I intend to step down as party leader and prime minister once the party elects a new leader," Trudeau told a news conference, saying "internal strife" had disrupted his governance. “I can’t be the person who carries liberal standards into the next election.”

Trudeau said he would step down as leader of the Liberal Party for 11 years and as prime minister since 2015. Critics of Trudeau in the crypto community have decried the sanctions the government imposed on digital wallets during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.

The government's move to freeze cryptocurrency accounts has reverberated beyond Canada and has become a rallying cry for U.S. Republican lawmakers during the 2024 election. These politicians pointed to this situation as a prime example of the dangers of allowing central bank digital currencies (CBDC), as it could create government interference in cryptocurrency transactions.

The Canadian election is about to be held in October, and according to opinion polls, the Conservative Party 's Pierre Poilievre has a strong advantage. He has also won cross-border support from many supporters of US President Donald Trump.

Poilievre has been an active supporter of digital assets in the past but has been relatively silent on the topic recently.

In Canada, however, securities are a provincial matter, and without a national securities regulator like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the next leader (and therefore prime minister) of the Canadian Liberal Party or Poilievre will have limited influence.

Instead, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), an umbrella regulator made up of provincial regulators, will have more say in what happens next for cryptocurrencies.

One of the possible candidates to succeed Trudeau is Mark Carney (who has not officially announced his candidacy as the campaign has not yet begun). Carney comes from the Bank of Canada and was the former governor of the Bank of England. He has a lot of interest in cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Something to say.

“The core token of a programmable network must maintain token value,” he said in a speech at the Bank for International Settlements in 2021.

Carney also said that strictly regulated stablecoins are the only way for them to succeed, and if they are strictly regulated, "then what is the difference between them and CBDC?"