Former President Donald Trump, a recent convert to the crypto universe, chose crypto supporter Sen. J. D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, signaling that support for digital currencies may play an important role in the GOP campaign this year.
The Democratic Party nomination is somewhat in limbo. The Biden administration has been less than friendly at times to the crypto universe, but his leading replacement — Vice President Kamala Harris — has had little to say on cryptocurrency. Earlier this year crypto bettors on the cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket, reportedly thought her changes to enter the race and win the presidency were on the rise.
Trump, who was unfriendly to cryptocurrencies during his presidency, and the Republican Party have more recently become increasingly friendly toward digital assets, noted Politico columnist Jasper Goodman just two days after Trump’s May 8 pronouncement at a high-dollar dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump will be a featured speaker at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville on July 27. Former CoinDesk senior research analyst George Kaloudis noted that “crypto is standing in as a feather in the cap for the individual freedom talking point GOP voters love, to the point where Trump has completely backtracked on his anti-crypto rhetoric of just a few years ago”.
One reason, he suggested, is that “there are enough single-issue crypto voters out there to make a difference.” Back in January, Goodman had penned a story entitled, “Donald Trump may be crypto’s unexpected savior,” in which he cited a poll by the Crypto Council for Innovation trade group that showed 51% of crypto owners would vote for Trump versus 41% for Biden.
Goodman noted opposition to crypto by leading Democrats, notably Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) and Sherrod Brown (D, OH), and that the Biden administration and regulators were “consistently taking a skeptical approach to crypto.”
Just days after Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, said, “President Trump’s (May 8) remarks signal a sea change in the importance of digital assets this election cycle,” dozens of Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), announced support for an effort to undo Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines that critics said discouraged banks from holding digital assets.
Schumer’s support for undoing the SEC guidance was tied to his own state’s “strong law on the books” and his statement that New York officials were not consulted on the SEC regulation. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, another of the 11 Senate Democrats to support the SEC rollback, was “frustrated” that there had been no opportunity to debate “any of the real [crypto] bills.”
The short-lived Democratic revolt was a stark rebuke to both Sen. Warren and President Biden, who vetoed the bipartisan rollback. But many other Democrats were holding firm with the White House. “It scares the dickens out of me,” said Rep. Sean Casten (D, IL), citing fears over money laundering.
All that fear over money laundering and other nefarious activities in crypto’s early days now appears to be mere growing pains in an industry eager to be properly regulated. Financial journalist Nicole Willing says that asset-backed tokens, which combine the security and transparency of distributed ledgers with tangible, real-world assets, provide the crypto universe with a unique measure of stability and trust.
Silvina Moschini, executive producer of Unicorn Hunters, fueled by Unicoin, a cryptocurrency tied to such real world assets (RWA), derides those who refuse to imagine a future in which cryptocurrencies will be integral to the financial system as “forced, self-serving, and even fanatical” – and a “dying breed.” Just last year, she notes, cryptocurrency users grew from 432 million to 580 million worldwide – a 34 percent jump in one year.
Just days ago, Business Insider stated that Bitcoin’s price targets now depend on Trump’s reelection. In the eyes of investors, they said, Trump is pro-Bitcoin, and he has framed the GOP push for cryptocurrencies as a battle against central bank digital currencies. Trump argues that CBDCs would “give a federal government – our federal government – absolute control over your money. They could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone.”
That said, the choice facing the Democratic Party as its own nominating convention draws near is even more important for the party’s public face on an issue that may for now directly impact only a small fraction of the electorate but whose advocates represent a sizable block of single-issue voters.
