Former President Donald Trump choosing Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate is being hailed by cryptocurrency proponents as a powerful combination for the growing industry.
Trump, who used to be a cryptocurrency skeptic, has shifted course in recent weeks in an attempt to position himself as the champion of the crypto industry. His Monday announcement that Vance would be his running mate has been enthusiastically welcomed by crypto evangelists who see the ticket as very pro-crypto.
“Monumental, a word that comes to mind,” Jayson Browder, head of public policy for Marathon Digital Holdings, told the Washington Examiner about the two running together. Marathon is the world’s largest bitcoin mining company. Crypto miners employ powerful computers to to solve complicated math problems in order to add new blocks to bitcoin’s public ledger, known as the blockchain, and are in turn rewarded with the digital token.
Vance is seen as a friendly face for the nascent industry, and, notably, two years ago, he disclosed he owned between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of bitcoin. Additionally, last month the Ohio senator began circulating draft crypto legislation that would be friendly to the industry, according to Politico.
Former Indiana GOP Rep. David McIntosh, who is now the president of the conservative Club for Growth, told the Washington Examiner that out of the leading vice presidential contenders in Trump world, Vance was perhaps the best choice for crypto.
“I think it’s a huge development,” he told the Washington Examiner. “J.D. in particular understands — because we had a good conversation on one of these trips with Trump — that it’s the internet all over again.”
McIntosh said that when he was in Congress in the 1990s, lawmakers purposely chose not to regulate the internet and as a result “innovation took off.” He sees the growing cryptocurrency space as the latest development that should be allowed to flourish in the same way the internet was.
“The blockchain and all the innovations from that have that same potential,” he said. “And Trump and J.D. understand that we want to keep the United States at the forefront of that.”
It is also worth noting that because bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are such new concepts, they have only been a viable technology during the presidencies of Barack Obama, Trump, and Joe Biden. While Republicans are generally more hands-off with regulating it, Trump has been — and if he wins, will be — the only Republican president who has had to contend with crypto regulation.
Even before Vance was selected, the Trump campaign had received millions of dollars in donations in the form of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. That came after the campaign opened itself up to crypto donations a couple months ago amid Trump’s pro-crypto pivot.
Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the billionaire founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, donated a combined $1.6 million in bitcoin to Trump.
Trump hasn’t always been a proponent of the digital asset space. In fact, policywise, his courtship of bitcoin and crypto proponents can be seen as a 180-degree turn.
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. … I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar,” Trump told Fox News in 2021 a few months after leaving the presidency, adding that he wants the dollar to be the currency of the world.
But the former president was singing a different tune in May when he told attendees at the Libertarian Party’s convention that he would defend the crypto industry.
“To the nation’s 50 million crypto holders, I say this: With your vote, I will keep [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren and her goons away from your bitcoin,” Trump told the crowd, drawing a contrast to the Massachusetts Democrat, who is one of the industry’s biggest opponents.
Biden, on the other hand, has faced backlash from cryptocurrency proponents.
The Biden administration recently found itself at odds with the industry by opposing bipartisan legislation that passed the House 279-136 and is meant to bring regulatory clarity for digital assets while safeguarding investors and consumers.
Biden’s regulators have also clashed with crypto proponents. The Securities and Exchange Commission under Chairman Gary Gensler has been quite tough on the industry, particularly since the collapse of major exchange FTX. SEC enforcement actions against crypto companies have nearly doubled since Gensler took over in 2021. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Biden has also cracked down on the digital assets space.
The price of bitcoin has risen over the past few days since the attempted assassination of Trump and the former president’s choice of Vance to be his running mate.
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Bitcoin is now punching in at nearly $65,000, an increase of more than 13% in just the past five days alone. Ether, a cryptocurrency on the ethereum blockchain, has risen nearly 12% over the same period of time.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have generally had a good year. Bitcoin investors have notched 47% returns since the start of 2024 and 80% returns over the past 12 months, further buoying optimism about the growing industry.
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