As if weeks of coming and going about not being “anit-crypto” weren’t enough, Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris finally decided to stamp it on her website to assure that she is indeed not “anit-crypto” and would encourage emerging technologies such as digital assets and artificial intelligence.
Her comments came amidst an ongoing fundraiser campaign in New York, at the expense of media speculations about an anti-crypto stance.
Kamala Harris’s First Public Comment on Crypto
According to Bloomberg, ” We’ll invest together in America’s competitiveness and future. We’ll protect America’s innovators in AI and digital assets and protect our consumers and our investors,” Harris said at a Manhattan fundraiser on Sept. 22.
We will build a level playing field for business, with transparent and stable rules of the road, Kamala Harris said. We’ll invest in the chips of the future, in clean energy, and other growth areas, and we’ll eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.
This marks Kamala Harris’s first major statement on cryptocurrency since becoming the Democratic Party’s leading candidate. It comes at a critical time, as her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has also been courting support from the crypto industry.
It was unclear how Harris’s presidency would handle crypto differently from President Joe Biden, who was seen as anti-industry.
In August, Brian Nelson, Kamala Harris’s senior campaign adviser, started spilling the beans, hinting she’d embrace crypto policies if elected president in November. “They are crying out for rules of the road because companies have collapsed,” she responded.
This is a notable and somewhat positive statement by Kamala Harris,” Coinbase policy chief Faryar Shirzad said in a Sept. 22 X post.
“I find it not nearly as forward-leaning as the concrete, visionary positions taken by Donald Trump, but still noteworthy because she gets the recognition of digital asset innovation to be important, commensurate with AI,” Shirzad added.
Encouraging” comments, Alexander Grieve, a vice president of government affairs at venture firm Paradigm, told X. “This should be the last anti-crypto administration,” whoever it is, he added, for November.
“This is progress, and progress is good,” wrote crypto venture firm Variant’s legal chief Jake Chervinsky on X. “But ‘while protecting our consumers and investors’ could mean a lot of things.”.
“The anti-crypto army is hiding behind ‘consumer protection’ as a smoke screen to hide their efforts to wreck our industry,” he said. “Well, bring it on, I say. Let’s see some policy substance.”
Crypto as a Campaign Issue
Crypto has become a campaign issue. U.S. crypto companies, including Coinbase, Ripple, and Gemini, have spent nearly $120 million in efforts to sway November’s elections, as Public Citizen reported in August.
Trump has issued four collections of non-fungible tokens, hawked his family’s crypto platform, and mainly hid his head in the crypto sand.
He promised to be a “crypto president” and to fire US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, whose agency has taken multiple enforcement actions against the country’s most prominent crypto players.
Harris and Trump are running neck-and-neck in national polls, with Harris leading Trump by only 2.9 percentage points, according to data from FiveThirtyEight on Sept. 22.
Too Little, Too Late?
Kamala Harris’ late poll promises on crypto weren’t very impressive to many in the crypto community, especially since presidential elections are less than two months away. Industry players pointed out that she merely mentioned crypto without making any concrete promises.
Many questioned her motive for raising the crypto late in the campaign, while others reminded everyone that she was still the Vice President. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues cracking down on the crypto industry.
X user Eric.eth listed all the prosecution and enforcement actions against the crypto industry under the Biden-Harris administration.
Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams praised Harris’ first public comments on crypto but was challenged by Messari founder Ryan Selkis. “Only Uniswap is rallying behind @Harris scene this, thus can’t be trusted,” Selkis said.
Conclusion
Of the two Presidential hopefuls, Trump is still considered a crypto favorite, all thanks to his promise to fire Gary Gensler and make the U.S. the Bitcoin hub. However, Trump has had a U-turn on crypto himself; he is dead against it, suggesting the tool was vital for illegal trades.
