- Donald Trump will announce his running mate soon.
- Polymarket gives North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum strong odds to win.
- But where does he — and other hopefuls — stand on crypto?
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could announce his pick for vice president before Thursday’s debate with opponent Joe Biden, the current US president.
A report in The Hill said North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is the current favourite.
Crypto betting platform Polymarket has put Burgum’s chances of receiving the nod at 40%.
But he could face stiff competition from the more Make America Great Again, or MAGA, wing of the Republican Party.
J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio — senators for Ohio and Florida, respectively — are also considered strong contenders for VP.
On Polymarket, you could take a flutter on Vance at 15% or Rubio at 6%.
Polymarket gives entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy a 12% chance of being Trump’s running mate.
Trump, however, has reportedly ruled out crypto enthusiast Ramaswamy, earmarking him for a cabinet job instead.
Still, Ramaswamy’s appearance on Polymarket’s betting pools is a sign that crypto investors are hopeful ahead of elections that the industry’s backers will find powerful positions in a Trump administration.
Trump has explicitly positioned himself as a pro-crypto president, and has courted investors and Bitcoin miners.
Will his second-in-command also be open to the industry?
Let’s take a look at his touted running mates and where they stand on crypto.
Doug Burgum
As one columnist dryly noted, Burgum combines Trump’s favourite qualities in a man — he’s wealthy, and he has a healthy head of hair.
Burgum, who advises the Trump campaign on energy policy, is the richest governor in the US with a net worth of $100 million.
With Burgum’s sign-off, crypto miner Bitzero announced plans in 2022 to develop a plant on the site of a Cold War-era missile base in the North Dakota prairie.
At the time, Burgum hailed them as “solidifying North Dakota’s status as a global hub for data centre development.”
It’s possible to buy a token called $BURGUM. A website for the project says its mission is to support Burgum’s campaign for vice president.
The project has a market cap of $4.25 million according to CoinGecko.
J.D. Vance
Of all the candidates for running mate, Vance is probably closest ideologically to Trump.
He’s a former Marine and venture capitalist with deep roots in Silicon Valley, and is staunchly pro-crypto.
Invoking MAGA culture war rhetoric, Vance has said that crypto is one of the few sectors of the US economy where “conservatives and other free thinkers can operate without pressure from the social justice mob.”
As a senator, he introduced a bill to prevent regulators from cutting off crypto firms’ access to banking services.
Marco Rubio
Rubio hasn’t said much publicly about crypto.
Like many Republican politicians, however, he appears concerned about central bank digital currencies.
Rubio has backed bills to prevent development of a digital dollar and to limit the use of China’s digital yuan.
There is a Marco Rubio-themed memecoin, however.
Reach out to the author at joanna@dlnews.com.