- Kamala Harris has accepted the Democratic nomination.
- One month into the presidential race, her stance on crypto is still not clear.
US President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race a month ago and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, setting her up to potentially become the 47th president of the United States.
But should Harris win the election in November, it remains uncertain whether she will maintain the Biden administration’s adversarial stance toward crypto, or reset and embrace the industry, as her campaign told the Financial Times.
With Harris set to accept the Democratic nomination later today, here’s what we know so far about her crypto stance.
Personal beliefs
Oddly enough, Harris has never publicly commented on crypto.
Financial disclosures indicate that neither Harris nor her husband, Douglas Emhoff, have exposure to the cryptocurrency sector — instead preferring to invest in Treasury bonds and emerging markets.
However, she has strong ties to the tech industry, The New York Times reported in 2020, with her nomination as vice president being seen as “good news” for Silicon Valley.
The Harris campaign was reportedly in talks with Bitcoin Nashville organisers for her to make an appearance at the conference in July.
She ultimately declined to show up at the event headlined by her main rival, former President Donald Trump.
Staffing choices
The Democratic presidential nominee is still in the process of rolling out her economic platform.
But Alex Thorn, head of research at crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, shared a report from Bloomberg Business claiming that Harris has hired two of Biden’s advisers to help her on the matter: Brian Deese and Bharat Ramamurti.
Ramamurti’s LinkedIn page shows that he worked for Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren — one of the most vocal anti-crypto lawmakers in the US — for almost seven years before moving to the White House.
Deese, for his part, was one of the co-authors of a White House blog post that focused on crypto exchange failures and fraud cases that came to light in 2022.
Ramamurti and Deese were also responsible for shutting down an important stablecoin bill that was being worked on in the Senate, according to the The American Prospect.
Harris has made two more hires with links to crypto: David Plouffe, a former Obama adviser who also worked as a Binance adviser, and Brian Nelson, who was the Treasury department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence under Biden.
Plouffe’s hire is certainly encouraging for crypto, but Nelson is more of a mixed bag. Like Ramamurti, Nelson has worked with Warren for years — yet industry leaders have described him as thoughtful and attentive to the space.
“It’s always good to have someone advising our leaders about the threats to national security that come from holes in our anti-money laundering rules,” Warren told Politico when Nelson joined the campaign.
At the DNC
Harris did have a US prime-time chance to clearly communicate her position on crypto when the Democratic Party unveiled its official platform on Monday.
But despite mentioning artificial intelligence five times, the 92-page document makes no reference to Bitcoin, crypto, or digital assets.
Crypto backers were quick to draw comparisons with the Republican Party platform, which dedicated a whole section to the industry — promising protections for Bitcoin miners and to defend the right to self-custody digital assets.
However, Nelson did say on Wednesday that Harris will be looking to help the crypto industry grow.
“She’s going to support policies that ensure that emerging technologies and that sort of industry can continue to grow,” he told Bloomberg News.
Gensler as Treasury secretary?
The Washington Reporter also claimed on Monday that Harris was contemplating nominating Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler as Treasury secretary.
Gensler is particularly reviled in the crypto ecosystem, and the report caused outrage.
However, it contradicted a list of potential candidates for Treasury secretary in a Bloomberg Business report cited by Thorn.
That latter article suggests Harris is considering National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for the role, and didn’t mention Gensler.
Tom Carreras writes about markets and US politics for DL News. Got a tip about Kamala Harris and Bitcoin? Reach out at tcarreras@dlnews.com.
