A major
ad-Vance for crypto
Republican
vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has championed crypto and is likely to
favour less regulation
Nikou Asgari JULY 19 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/c17891f6-0cbb-40d4-92cc-62e148eedfeb
Hello and
welcome to the FT Cryptofinance newsletter. This week, we’re looking at the
crypto stance of JD Vance.
For crypto
bros already excited about the prospect of former president Donald Trump’s
potential return to the White House, his choice of running mate could hardly
have been better.
In JD Vance,
bitcoiners see one of their own. Not only does the Hillbilly Elegy author own a
lot of bitcoin (at least he did in 2022, his most recent financial filings
show) but he’s championed crypto as an alternative to mainstream finance. This
is music to the ears of an industry that sees itself as the victim of baseless
hostility from US regulators.
“Overall,
it’s a positive thing for crypto because the current administration and
regulatory situation in the US has been very challenging,” said Alexander
Blume, chief executive of trading company Two Prime. “It pretty much could only
get better.”
Vance’s rise
in US politics has been helped by prominent venture capitalist and crypto
enthusiast Peter Thiel, for whom Vance worked for a short period at the start
of his career. Thiel later helped bankroll Vance’s successful bid for the
Senate and, beyond giving him an education in tech, has even been credited for
his spiritual awakening and conversion to Christianity.
The
possibility of the Ohio senator serving as vice-president has been widely
praised by crypto enthusiasts, who were already highly excited about the
prospect of a Trump presidency and a pro-crypto outlook from Washington.
The price of
bitcoin surged almost 11 per cent to more than $65,000 this week after Trump
survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, as traders raised their bets
that he would win in November.
Among
Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires, crypto has become a bold dividing line in
this election, with Trump and now Vance’s bullish positions earning them
millions of dollars in donations — some paid in the form of crypto — as well as
likely votes.
Tech and
crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan heartily endorsed Vance, explaining on social
media platform X that the senator “understands military, media, tech, finance,
and politics”, while venture capitalist David Sacks also applauded the pick.
A more
crypto-friendly White House would stand in stark contrast to the tough rules
and Securities and Exchange Commission clampdown led by Joe Biden-appointed
chair Gary Gensler, who has pursued companies including Coinbase and Ripple
over the past few years.
Many crypto
believers point to Vance’s personal crypto holdings as a mark of his
credentials and interest in the asset.
He held
somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of crypto on Coinbase in 2022,
according to the most recent financial disclosures. He’s also invested up to
$15,000 in decentralised exchange Ethex, and somewhere between $15,001 and
$50,000 in rightwing video platform Rumble, on which Trump’s Truth Social
advertises.
When Canada
vowed to freeze the bank accounts of those protesting against Covid-19
restrictions in 2022, Vance wrote on Twitter that “this is why crypto is taking
off”. He’s also been critical of Gensler, saying that his approach to crypto
regulation “is the exact opposite of what it should be”.
“On an
ideological, philosophical basis, it seems he sees the value of bitcoin,” Blume
said, adding that Vance’s outlook “has all been extremely positive,
pro-crypto”.
While his
plans are still unclear, the Ohio senator may have more policies up his sleeve
and a better grasp of the industry than Trump, given that he has worked in
Silicon Valley and sits on the powerful Senate banking committee.
Vance is
already getting stuck in, circulating a draft proposal that would overhaul how
Washington’s top two regulators oversee crypto, according to Politico.
Of course,
this is also the man who once called Trump “America’s Hitler”, among other
things, although those views seem to have changed markedly. If the polls are
correct, we could soon be finding out a lot more about his true views on
crypto.
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