While U.S. crypto insiders continue to pound away at a noncommittal Biden administration, a more urgent mission is developing to find out the digital assets views of Vice President Kamala Harris, though her dual life as vice president and presidential candidate may interfere with taking a strong stance.
Industry insiders have been conducting meetings with officials connected to the White House, and though one of those meetings last week included a senior adviser from Harris’ own office, the sessions have been predominantly one-sided and had nothing to do with her campaign. Meanwhile, some crypto executives and investors are pursuing a few emerging efforts to support Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, even without a direct indication of how she’ll approach the sector.
This week, the fledgling “crypto4harris” effort kicks off Wednesday with an online forum at which prominent industry figures are expected to gather under the vice president’s banner. Such initiatives don’t yet have formal ties to the Harris campaign.
Amanda Wick, a former federal prosecutor who now consults in crypto and has been helping organize industry support for Harris, said the objective at this point is to get Harris to publicly acknowledge “an openness and a willingness to have a reset” with the sector.
“It’s a really important industry; it’s a really important voting block; it’s a really important source of fundraising,” said Veronica McGregor, the chief legal officer for crypto wallet provider Exodus who is also helping organize the Harris events, in an interview. “And most crypto people I know intend to put their money where their mouth is and support candidates who are not trying to kill the industry.”
McGregor said that multiple people working on the crypto4harris project are in contact with the vice president’s campaign, even if it’s not at a formal level. Wick declined to delve into details on the Harris campaign’s interactions with crypto supporters, but she said, “We have seen indicators from the campaign team that they’re open to having a conversation.”
With just a few months left before the November election, crypto players continue knocking on all the political doors to chase their main U.S. goal: A clear set of rules for using and trading cryptocurrency. That included a meeting two weeks ago between crypto business leaders and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo in San Francisco, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Adeyemo has been staying in touch with crypto leaders to discuss policy initiatives he’s been working on, the person said.
While those in the digital assets sector remain frustrated that Harris isn’t yet rolling out her own pro-crypto message, some cite the constraints of a vice president whose job description requires supporting the current administration.
“I don’t think you can expect a sitting vice president to say, ‘Oh, well, my boss was completely wrong on this. Let me tell you what we’re going to do,'” McGregor said. “I just don’t think you can expect that. That’s asking a lot.”
Former President Donald Trump doesn’t face such constraints. Though his own administration didn’t embrace the emerging technology when he first had the chance, he’s become a digital assets cheerleader in recent weeks. As a result, some prominent industry leaders have given him their support and their money with the hope that a second Trump administration will reverse the enforcement pursuits and compliance clashes of the Biden administration.
“His pandering is now finding fans in people who have been in the desert and are happy to head towards an oasis, even if it’s a mirage,” Wick said in an interview.
Harris said over the weekend that she’ll roll out her economic policy views in the coming days, though there’s no indication yet that it’ll include mention of digital tokens. Her campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on crypto4harris.
Industry insiders have balked this week at some of the news of Harris’ campaign hires, because the officials — including President Joe Biden’s former director of his National Economic Council, Brian Deese, and Bharat Ramamurti, who was the council’s deputy director — have been associated with past actions against crypto. She’s also tapped Brian Nelson, a former senior Treasury Department who spent some of his tenure scrutinizing the role of digital assets in terrorism and illicit finance, but she also brought on David Plouffe, a high-profile Democratic political mind who has more recently advised crypto companies. Because Harris hasn’t announced her position, these hiring decisions have been read as a proxy.
The vice president may not be in a position to match Trump’s enthusiasm, but the sudden emergence of her campaign has sparked excitement among crypto Democrats and those who weren’t eager to support Trump.
“There’s a lot of energy in this campaign, more than we’ve seen since, I think, maybe [President Barack] Obama,” McGregor said. “There’s a lot of people trying to jump in, ‘What can I do?’ I see that a lot.”
A poll fielded by crypto investment firm Paradigm may indicate that Harris has a chance to change the minds of some Democratic token enthusiasts who’ve resented the Biden administration’s actions, according to the results released by the company on Monday.
Even as the candidates battle for the future White House, the industry is still trying to deal with the administration of President Biden. Digital assets leaders have been conducting highly publicized meetings with current federal officials, including the one last week, where Coinbase (COIN) Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal – for one – advocated support for federal legislation.
“Any conversation on moving beyond this administration’s unproductive record on crypto is positive,” Grewal said in a statement. “It isn’t too late, but time is running short. The White House should publicly back the Senate’s efforts to pass a bipartisan market structure bill much as the House has done and sign it into law.”
So far, the administration has been only vaguely supportive of doing something about cryptocurrency. The two well-publicized recent roundtables with White House officials and the Adeyemo meeting with a few crypto firms haven’t yet produced concrete results.
The Harris supporters say one of their chief aims is to insist that cryptocurrency not drift into partisan territory in the U.S., which had been indicated by the industry’s increasing lean toward Trump and Republicans.
The Republican Party formally adopted a pro-crypto position in its official platform. The Democrats, who will attend their national convention next week in Chicago, have already released a draft of their own platform, which doesn’t embrace crypto despite the efforts of some lawmakers to get it included.
“When other countries are picking up speed, when we have a debt crisis, when the dollar is progressively weakening, the ramifications of getting this wrong should scare everybody, regardless of party, and there are Dems that see that and who are trying to raise their voices,” Wick said.
UPDATE (August 13, 2024, 16:18 UTC): Adds industry concerns about Harris’ campaign hiring.
