On January 30, 1835, President Andrew Jackson was attending the funeral of Congressman Warren R. Davis at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

As he exited the East Portico, Richard Lawrence, a house painter who had been stalking Jackson, saw his opportunity.

For context…

Lawrence apparently believed he was King Richard III of England and that Jackson was somehow preventing him from claiming his rightful throne.

As Jackson passed by, Lawrence stepped out from behind a pillar, drew a pistol, and fired at point-blank range. The gun misfired with a loud "pop," failing to discharge its bullet.

Jackson, despite being 67 years old and in poor health, immediately realized what was happening and lunged at Lawrence with his cane raised.

Lawrence, undeterred, pulled out a second pistol and attempted to fire again. Incredibly, this gun also misfired.

The odds of two guns misfiring in such quick succession were later calculated to be 1 in 125,000.

Sheer luck? Divine intervention? I have no idea.

Doesn’t matter. Point is, it happened.

Similarly, the odds of Trump dodging that bullet - (although I’m sure his ear disagrees with that framing) - were equally slim.

In almost all cases in history…

Assassination attempts on this scale mark clear before-and-after points in American history. They tend to serve as dividing lines for historians and social scientists.

Chances are, July 13 will be no different.

As you know, we aren’t a partisan letter.

We aim to understand and analyze events from a broad perspective, looking beyond the immediate headlines to the deeper currents.

And it’s hard to ignore the gravity of what has just happened. I’ll be the first to admit: I have no clue what will come of it.

If the prediction markets are any indication - although they have problems - Trump’s win is now in the bag.

Sticking to our normal beat - the markets:

If they’re right, here’s one thing we can say…

We’re looking at a huge potential turnaround for crypto. Especially now that we know Trump’s VP pick.

J.D. Vance

Vance is no stranger to crypto - and has come out - with zero ambiguity - in support.

In fact, he’s been spending much of his time on regulatory clarity. As of late, Vance has been circulating an industry-friendly bill that claims to provide way more clarity than its counterpart, FIT21.

FIT21 proposed handing the bulk of crypto oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Vance's bill, on the other hand, takes a simpler approach to determining which digital assets the SEC would oversee versus the CFTC.

Vance has also shown support for crypto in other ways:

a. He voted to get rid of the SAB 121 rule, which requires banks holding crypto for customers to list these assets as liabilities on their balance sheets, unpopular in crypto for obvious reasons.

b. He criticized the SEC for how they handled crypto regulation.

c. Public records show he has owned Bitcoin since 2022 - somewhere between $0 and $250,000 worth.

In short…

If Vance becomes Veep, the crypto industry might see clearer regulations, making it easier for crypto companies to operate.

BUT

There’s more to this story…

Much more on that tomorrow.