Democrats and Republicans are vying to win over an emerging voter bloc that appears to be up for grabs this November: crypto enthusiasts.
Crypto advocates, spurned by the Biden administration and what they described as arbitrarily harsh regulations, lined up to support Donald Trump’s campaign. The ascension of Kamala Harris has created a fresh opportunity to woo this new category of single-issue voter.
Left-leaning techies hope Harris will offer them an olive branch and a chance for a reboot. Billionaire Mark Cuban and former Trump administration official Anthony Scaramucci are part of the motley crew who will try to drum up support for Harris among cryptocurrency fanatics Wednesday on a fundraising Zoom call.
The Crypto4Harris initiative is a nod to the swelling political power of the industry’s advocates, whom grassroots organizers on both sides of the aisle are attempting to mobilize ahead of the election. The Harris call is expected to draw more than 1,000 people, said organizer Jonathan Padilla.
“We want to have a reset on crypto policy with the Harris campaign,” said Padilla, a founding member of the Stanford Future of Digital Currency Initiative and CEO of Web3 data and marketing firm Snickerdoodle Labs. “We want to show crypto is not a myopic, one-party industry. We have diversity of thought on both sides.”
Donald Trump headlined a bitcoin conference in July in Nashville, where he said bitcoin holders should “never sell” and the U.S. should become the “crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
His newfound enthusiasm is an about-face from previous comments. In 2019, he tweeted he was “not a fan of bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”
For crypto supporters, the pivot is welcome. Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, general partners at the firm bearing their names, endorsed Trump last month on their podcast, citing his favorable crypto policies, in contrast to President Biden’s aggressive attempts to regulate the industry.
“A lot of people, forever, have had the single-issue vote of voting with their wallet,” said Morgan Beller, a general partner at the venture firm NFX and a former crypto executive. “It’s a different flavor of that.”
Beller has had run-ins with the Biden administration’s hard stance toward the crypto industry. Regulators charged her NFT animated series “Stoner Cats,” a show created with Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, for conducting an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities.
“I’ve personally experienced what I think is objectively unfair treatment of crypto projects by the current administration, so it does hit home a little bit more personally,” Beller said. “A lot of what you’ve seen in crypto is giving speeding tickets without telling you what the speed limit was.”
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, whose constituency includes Silicon Valley, last week organized a conference call with White House officials, including a Harris adviser, and executives from Coinbase, Ripple and other companies, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Padilla said he is in talks with crypto leaders and the Harris campaign to understand what actions could be taken to win over the industry’s support. “We’ve had early engagement with the campaign, and we’re hoping this leads to more meaningful conversation.”
The roster of speakers for Wednesday’s Zoom call includes Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Josh Harder, along with a number of crypto executives.
‘These are getable votes’
Perianne Boring, founder and CEO of the blockchain trade group the Digital Chamber, said she has been a single-issue crypto voter for a decade, selecting candidates based solely on their stance on the industry.
“This hasn’t really been a federal presidential election issue until now,” the 36-year-old said. “Any politician that wants to restrict our access to this technology, in my opinion, does not reflect the American values.
“What blockchain represents is a platform where everyone is equal,” she added. “It’s an American ideal we can all hopefully strive for.”
Last week, Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit started by Coinbase, named Logan Dobson as executive director, overseeing voter mobilization efforts. The former Republican political adviser said the margin between Trump and Harris in battleground states will likely be slimmer than the number of crypto owners.
“It’s a swing group,” Dobson said of crypto owners. “These are getable votes. I think everybody would be surprised if the margin of this election, one way or the other, is so wide that this group couldn’t decide it.”
Dobson said his group, which is funded by Coinbase, Paradigm, Kraken and other prominent crypto companies, is focused on convincing users of the technology that they should care about elections.
“Who they vote for is absolutely up to them,” Dobson said. “Previously, the crypto community has not engaged with the political process that much. And I think my job is mostly to change that.”
The group has previously endorsed both Democratic and Republican candidates in congressional races.
But at least one prominent crypto leader has warned against choosing political loyalties based on any “pro-crypto” stance. Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, wrote last month that “making decisions in this way carries a high risk of going against the values that brought you into the crypto space in the first place.”
To some crypto-focused voters, the choices in the November election seem lacking, and their allegiances are up for grabs.
“I’m mortified to say that I’m undecided,” said NFX’s Beller. She thinks Trump is a “horrible, horrible person,” but she has been unhappy with the Democratic party and is a bit dispirited from her past experiences.
“If Mitt Romney was running, I’d be thrilled,” she said.