The outcome of the U.S. presidential election and its implications for the cryptocurrency industry have become more uncertain this week after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race following President Joe Biden’s departure. Last month, former President Donald Trump quickly changed his tune on bitcoin and embraced the community as a voting bloc, agreeing to attend one of the industry’s largest conferences in Nashville this weekend and adding it as a priority in his Republican Party platform. Many are now wondering what a Harris administration could mean for cryptocurrency, especially after years of an anti-crypto crusade led by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, a Biden appointee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts. The outlook on that front is unclear right now. Harris has not publicly stated her position on crypto. Who she would nominate for cabinet positions is also unknown. What is clear, however, is that Democrats now have an opportunity to win back some of the crypto vote they have lost in recent years. “This provides a new opportunity to have a new conversation with Democratic leadership… [and] “It’s going to take a lot of effort for the Democratic Party to do something positive about the industry — maybe include something in their platform and start making some of the changes that we’ve missed over the last couple of years, the policy changes that the industry needs,” said Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, a policy-focused advocacy group. JMP Securities analyst Devin Ryan added that “there could be a pendulum swing back to the middle, and we’re seeing that in real time.” On Tuesday, a day after Harris launched her campaign, billionaire Mark Cuban said his advisers had started reaching out to him about cryptocurrency policy. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, got a boost recently when Trump incorporated cryptocurrencies into his platform. The price of bitcoin rose about 12% in the week after Trump began accepting bitcoin donations. BTC.CM=mountain 2024-05-01 BTC since May The market, however, has yet to respond to Harris’ campaign. JMP’s Ryan noted that this uncertainty could inject volatility into the markets, “but with a positive bias.” “This is the first election where this has really become a prominent voting issue,” he said. “All the data points are suggesting a coalescing bipartisan view, and that will likely become the most relevant support here for the market.” In recent years, Democratic lawmakers have been seen as less friendly toward cryptocurrency — due in large part to Warren’s openly anti-crypto stance and Gensler’s apparent attempts to rein in the industry — than Republicans. That’s changing quickly, however. The cryptocurrency industry sees itself as nonpartisan, and in recent weeks, bipartisan support for cryptocurrency in Congress has been growing. “There have been some positive actions from the Democratic Party in recent months, including support for the repeal of SAB 121,” Ryan said. SAB 121 is a controversial SEC accounting policy that forced banks to treat digital assets on their books as liabilities. The House voted on May 8 to overturn it. “This is repairing some of the damage,” Ryan said. “It’s a degree of receptivity and embrace.” Around the same time, the House passed a crypto infrastructure bill called FIT 21, or the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, which would specify when cryptocurrencies fall under the purview of the SEC versus the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Many are hailing this, and specifically the bipartisan support, as a historic victory for the industry. “We have a lot of Democrats in the House and Senate who are very supportive of the industry — particularly in California,” Smith said. “A lot of the votes we saw on the FIT 21 bill in the House included people like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, who are senior members of the California delegation,” Smith said. “Given where [Harris] “And the fact that she’s younger, it’s a real opportunity to reset the narrative,” she added. “Certainly, if she were elected, she would probably want to put her own people in charge of the SEC and other federal agencies. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.”

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