“It’s the economy, stupid,” was the mantra that brought Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992. George Bush Sr. had an advantage having been the president who ended the Cold War and won against Saddam Hussein’s forces. in Operation Desert Storm. But Clinton focused her campaign on voters’ pockets and managed to defeat a rival with an approval rating close to 90 percent. Thirty years later, the economics mantra is changing meaning: in a race with equal popularity, neither candidate can lose support. Not even that of certain cryptocurrency brokers that Republicans and Democrats had repudiated in the past.
According to a recent survey conducted by Morning Consult for Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by number of users in the United States, approximately 52 million Americans own digital assets in the country. This is equivalent to almost a third of the voters in the 2020 elections. A mass of support large enough to force Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to change their position to attract him to their side.
The most marked change of opinion has undoubtedly been that of Trump. “It is true that in the last election, all candidates were much more inclined to maintain a strong stance against cryptocurrencies. In fact, Donald Trump said that bitcoin was a scam compared to the dollar,’” says David Tercero-Lucas, an economics professor at Comillas University who specializes in crypto-assets and digital currencies.
“I am not a fan of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is very volatile and based on air,” Trump said in 2019, when he was still in office. Oval Office of the White House. “Unregulated cryptoassets can facilitate illicit behavior, such as drug trafficking and other illegal activities,” he added.
Five years later, bitcoin is money for the Republican. To the point that one of the first steps in his campaign was to launch the possibility of receiving donations in cryptocurrencies, as well as putting on sale NFTs similar to collectible cards numbered with his face to raise funds. Trump now defines himself as the “crypto candidate” of these elections and has assured that he will make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet and the global bitcoin superpower”.
But beyond opening his cryptocurrency piggy bank for the campaign, the Republican has given virtually no details on how he plans to keep these promises. “It would be important to understand if it comes to Bitcoin mining (where the United States is already in the lead, being the country that consumes the most energy for cryptocurrency mining) or a kind of “tax haven” of the world of cryptocurrencies, where cryptocurrencies are not regulated or where the regulation is very lax”, explains Tercero-Lucas, highlighting the impact that the latter would have both on the exchanges of cryptocurrencies and on the profits of investors’ capital.
Rather than come up with a plan, Trump used his new card in the crypto movement to open a schism in a tech industry that had always been hostile to him. Silicon Valley has been a Democratic stronghold for decades, with tech companies throwing their money and PR behind Obama, Clinton and Biden. Something that had changed at the start of this electoral race due to the Biden administration’s authoritarian policy towards digital giants, its rejection of cryptocurrencies and its obvious weakness as a candidate.
“They are against it,” Trump repeated about Democrats and cryptocurrencies. With this strategy, Trump managed to win over not only tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, but also other well-known Valley names like Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen. They are the founders of Andreessen Horowitz, the world’s largest technology venture capital fund. Until Kamala Harris’ counterattack came along.
Harris is also on board
The possibility that Trump would challenge Democratic leadership in the digital mecca led Harris to hint that she would pursue more open policies in this area than those she maintained as vice president. Especially at blockchain (the technology behind cryptocurrencies) and artificial intelligence than those she maintained as Biden’s vice president.
“We will promote innovative technologies such as AI and digital assets, while protecting our consumers and investors,” he said at a recent fundraising event, during which he stressed that the crypto sector was an “economic opportunity” for the country.
Added to this are the comments of billionaire Mark Cuban, who has established himself as the Harris campaign’s unofficial spokesperson on technological issues. Something like a Democratic Elon Musk, bridging the differences (Cuban has a fortune of 5.7 billion dollars compared to 260,000 for Musk). According to Cuban, Harris’ team is much more open to regulating cryptocurrencies than the previous administration was.
“I get multiple questions from your camp about crypto,” the billionaire said in Decrypt, a media outlet specializing in this sector. “So I take that as a good sign. The feedback I’m getting, although it’s certainly not confirmed by the vice president, is that she will be much more open for business, [inteligencia artificial]crypto and offer them government services,” Cuban added.
It’s not much, but it’s still enough for Trump to slow down his advance in Silicon Valley. The best example is that of Ben Horowitz himself, who announced that he would support the Republican when Biden was still his competitor, but relented to offer his money to Harris. “I wanted to keep you informed of my political activity,” he wrote in a recent letter to his employees: “Felicia and I have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during this time (… ). Through our friendship, Felicia and I will make a significant donation to entities supporting Harris Walz’s campaign.
Horowitz himself points out that Harris represents little hope for how the tech industry viewed his predecessor. “While I have had several conversations with Vice President Harris and her team about their likely technology policies and am encouraged to believe in her, they have not yet declared what their technology policies will be,” says the big investor: “The Biden administration has been exceptionally destructive on technology policy across the industry, but especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies, blockchain and artificial intelligence. But while I sincerely hope that the Harris administration will do much better, it has not yet declared its intentions.”
The letter arrived after the publication of a Public Citizen reporta Washington-based nonprofit organization that revealed that cryptocurrency companies donated $119 million to the two 2024 presidential candidates. This represents 44% of total corporate donations.
“Donations from cryptoverse-related companies have been very popular during this election campaign, softening aggressive positions against crypto (especially on the Republican side, but also on the Democratic side),” Tercero-Lucas points out. “Crypto companies know that regulation of the sector is necessary, so they are increasingly interested in their relevance in American politics,” he concludes.
