The Trump-crypto love story may not be happily ever after
Analysis by Allison Morrow, CNN
New York (CNN) — Donald Trump didn’t need to do much to win over crypto investors, who are used to being treated like the problem children of the financial world. They’re tinkering in the shadows, doing a thing most normies either don’t understand and/or believe is a scam.
In recent months, the bitcoin crowd has warmed to the former president and Republican nominee, who in turn has warmed to the idea of Big Tech and crypto profits flowing into political action committees that support his reelection.
“Bitcoiners are looking for political validation after years in the wilderness,” said Eric Soufer, a political adviser to major crypto companies. “They believe now is their moment, and it’s hard to resist someone who is telling them everything they want to hear.”
Trump is expected to do just that on Saturday, when he gives the keynote speech at Bitcoin 2024, billed as the largest crypto gathering in the US, in Nashville.
And while Trump has locked in support from a handful of deep-pocketed Silicon Valley bigwigs like Marc Andreessen and the Winklevoss twins, his claim to be the “crypto candidate” may be a harder sell now than it was even just a week ago.
Running against President Joe Biden, Trump only needed to nod in the direction of crypto-friendly policies to get the attention of an industry that is exhausted from battling Biden’s top market regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission chief Gary Gensler, who is, to put it mildly, not a fan.
But running against Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, may change the calculus.
Almost immediately after Biden dropped out of the race Sunday, the tech world began buzzing about what a Harris administration could look like and how it might take a gentler approach to crypto regulation than Biden’s did. (And to be fair, industry insiders say just about anyone would be less hostile than Gensler.)
Harris’ team appears, at the very a least, aware of the opportunity for a vibe shift.
Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and bitcoin enthusiast, told the news site Decrypt that advisers to the vice president have reached out to him with questions about crypto, which he saw as a “good sign.” Cuban also told Politico on Tuesday that Harris would be “far more open” to crypto, though he noted that was “certainly not confirmed by the VP.” Cuban didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Representatives for the Harris campaigns didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. Brian Hughes, a senior Trump adviser, told CNN that crypto innovators and others in the technology sector are “under attack” by Democrats and that “Trump is ready to encourage American leadership in this and other emerging technologies.”
At this point, neither Harris nor Trump has laid out any specific policy proposals related to digital assets. When the Republican Party updated its platform earlier this month, its only mention of crypto said the GOP would “end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown” and “defend the right to mine Bitcoin.”
Harris, a Californian with close Silicon Valley ties, appears to have said little publicly on the topic.
Crypto advocates have coalesced around political action committees that are shopping for candidates who’ll back industry-friendly legislation and take a light hand to regulation. In the 2024 election cycle alone, crypto-backed super PACs have raised more than $180 million — making them some of the top fundraisers around, according to Follow the Crypto, a tracking site run by the tech writer and prominent crypto critic Molly White. So far, those PACs have spent $42 million on both parties, though slightly more for Republicans.
It’s not clear why Trump has shown a sudden adoration for digital assets when he pooh-poohed it during his presidency. But the sector is considerably more flush with cash now than it was four years ago, and for the first time in its 15-year history, politically organized.
Contrast his current stance with what he said in 2019: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.” Or in 2021, when he told Fox Business that crypto “just seems like a scam.”
—CNN’s Steve Contorno contributed reporting.
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