They helped Trump take back the White House. The rewards have come swiftly.

Trump’s return to power was achieved in part through an unorthodox coalition-building strategy. He courted groups who might’ve been overlooked by Republican candidates, like Bitcoin enthusiasts, making direct appeals with policy promises tailored to specific audiences. Many of them are benefiting now.

David Bailey, a longtime Bitcoin investor and evangelist, had tempered expectations in early 2024 when he first pitched Donald Trump’s campaign on the political upside of embracing cryptocurrency. Even after Trump pledged over the summer to make the US a Bitcoin haven and the industry spent tens of millions of dollars supporting his presidential bid, Bailey suspected Trump’s overture might be a fleeting appeal for crypto voters rather than a lasting commitment. Yet since returning to office, Trump has upended the federal government’s wary stance toward cryptocurrency just as he said he would. Earlier this month, he signed an executive order directing the Federal Reserve to hold Bitcoin alongside gold—a move long sought by crypto advocates and once considered improbable. “If a year ago you put me into hypnosis and said, ‘Describe to me your deepest dreams of what could happen,’ this would be straight-up fantasy,” said Bailey, who owns the Bitcoin conference where Trump first stepped out as a pro-crypto candidate. “I never would have believed it could happen.” Trump’s return to power was achieved in part through an unorthodox coalition-building strategy. He courted groups who might’ve been overlooked by Republican candidates, like Bitcoin enthusiasts, making direct appeals with policy promises tailored to specific audiences. For those who played along, the rewards have come swiftly. The Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina, for instance, had reliably voted Democratic in presidential elections for decades. But an eight-year pursuit by Trump for the battleground state’s predominant native group – culminating with his promise last fall to grant the tribe much-coveted federal recognition – appeared to resonate at the ballot box. In Lumbee-rich Robeson County, where Barack Obama twice won handily, Trump secured a 28-point victory, his largest margin across three races.