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Kamala Harris Offers ‘New Opportunity’ to Make Inroads With Democrats, Blockchain Association CEO Says
Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, and her group of cryptocurrency advocates have developed a roadmap to drum up support for cryptocurrency on Capitol Hill ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
That’s despite the fact that the digital asset industry’s path to the courts of lawmakers, including the next U.S. president, has been full of twists and turns. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, shortly after incumbent President Joe Biden said Sunday that he was withdrawing from the election.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was shot nearly two weeks ago at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The former president is now scheduled to speak at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville, where Smith shared his thoughts in an exclusive interview with Decrypt on Thursday.
These “interesting times” in American politics, however, have not created any obstacles for the Blockchain Association’s cryptocurrency advocacy roadmap, Smith said.
“[Kamala’s nomination] It’s a new opportunity to have a kind of reset from the top of the Democratic Party on their stance on cryptocurrencies,” he told Decrypt. “I think the hope is to bring in a younger candidate who has an understanding of California [tech-driven] the economy offers the opportunity to adopt a new set of policies.”
The Blockchain Association recently reached out to Harris’s team “through multiple channels,” according to Smith. As of this writing, they have not received a response to any of their inquiries from the campaign.
Nonetheless, Smith said she and her colleagues are optimistic they will soon be able to make more progress with a candidate like Harris.
Taking a Stand in Talks with Harris’ Team
The Blockchain Association is one of several cryptocurrency advocacy groups that have reached out to Harris and her team since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday.
On Monday, the Chamber of Digital Commerce called on Harris to invite crypto industry leaders to have an “open dialogue” with her team and include pro-crypto language in her party’s official platform, reminding the presumptive nominee that her candidacy represents an opportunity to change the perception of some cryptocurrency advocates that the Democratic Party has historically acted hostile to the digital asset sector.
This distrust of Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole came to the fore on X this week, with several prominent members of the crypto community expressing concerns that a Harris-led administration would strike a different chord on cryptocurrency regulation and policy than the Biden administration.
“What can [Harris] tell us when it is actively locking up developers, forcing our industry to move overseas,” said BTC Inc. founder David Bailey She said in an X post on Wednesday, shortly after reporting that Harris had not responded to a request for speaking at his company’s big cryptocurrency conference this week.
However, Smith is hopeful that Harris’s campaign is still in its infancy and will soon involve cryptocurrency industry leaders.
“I don’t expect Harris to have exactly the same set of policy positions as Biden,” Smith said. “Harris can stand out.”
By Ryan-Ozawa.