Ryan told the Guardian that he could see how political tides were changing “overnight”, which informed his proposal. In part, his thesis drew from personal experience: He’d been served by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in March 2024, only to have the case summarily dropped, which he suspects was a pragmatic move to avoid alienating the tech sector during Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. By November, with Donald Trump poised to return to the White House as the self-appointed “crypto president”, Ryan could identify “a massive American-shaped opportunity”.