Bitcoin
Kamala Harris campaign seeks ‘reset’ with cryptocurrency companies
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Kamala Harris’s advisers have approached major cryptocurrency companies to “reset” relations between her Democratic party and a sector that has emerged as a key supporter of Donald Trump, her rival for the US presidency.
Members of the Vice President’s team have reached out to people close to him Cryptocurrency companies about the meeting in recent days, four people familiar with the matter said. They include leading exchange Coinbase, stablecoin company Circle and blockchain payments group Ripple Labs, two of the people said.
The Office of the Vice President and the Harris The campaign declined to comment. Ripple and Coinbase declined to comment. Circle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harris’s openness to cryptocurrency companies comes as Trump enjoys strong support levels of the industry. The former president — once a vocal crypto skeptic — has thrown his support behind the industry and will deliver the keynote address at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville on Saturday.
Cryptocurrency groups are likely to be a major source of funding for candidates in the election: Pro-cryptocurrency supergroup Pac Fairshake has raised more than $200 million from backers including Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz, according to filings.
People who advise Harris’s campaign on trade issues said the decision to reconnect with the cryptocurrency industry had little to do with attracting new campaign contributions. They said the goal was instead to build a constructive relationship that would ultimately define a smart regulatory framework that would help the entire asset class grow.
Outside advisers to the campaign said Harris wanted to change the perception among many top executives in America that Democrats were anti-business. One person said her campaign was using the leadership change on the Democratic ticket as an opportunity to reset relations with the tech industry, which felt targeted by the Biden administration, particularly on antitrust issues.
The underlying message Harris wants to convey is that Democrats are “pro-business, responsible business,” a person close to her campaign said.
Harris wants to win back those in the tech community, many of them in her home state of California, who have turned away from the party in protest at the threat of new taxes or regulation of their industry.
This month, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced they would support Trump in the election, having previously backed several Democratic candidates. Their firm, Andreessen Horowitz, claims to be the world’s largest investor in cryptocurrencies and has raised around $8 billion to invest in the sector.
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When they announced their support for Trump, the two venture capitalists railed against Joe Biden’s White House and Gary Gensler’s Securities and Exchange Commission. “They’ve fought us every step of the way, and using very nefarious means,” Horowitz said at the time. “They’re destroying the industry.”
Some crypto companies are hopeful that Harris will be more sympathetic to them. “The fact that she’s willing to listen is a big deal. With Biden, you couldn’t even get a meeting… It’s made people have such a bad view of the Biden administration,” said one executive at a crypto company.