Republican candidates’ policies on crypto come up short

Vivek Ramaswamy at the opening of the Turning Point Action conference on July 15, 2023, in West Palm Beach, Fla. Joe Raedle—Getty Images

Proof of State is the Wednesday edition of Fortune Crypto where Leo Schwartz delivers insider insights on policy and regulation.

Happy Wednesday, everyone. It’s Jeff, filling in for Leo, who is on a well-deserved vacation, to offer our weekly view on what’s happening in the world of Washington, D.C. As many are aware, the race to become the Republican Party’s next nominee for president is well underway with the first debate scheduled for late August. So where do the candidates stand on crypto?

Front-runner Donald Trump expressed hostility to crypto during his presidency and has not publicly changed his stance—though he has been happy to rake in cash from selling NFTs of his image. Meanwhile, his leading challenger, Ron DeSantis, spoke up for crypto when he launched his campaign in May, swiping at the Biden administration’s positions while saying, “You have every right to do Bitcoin.” As for others in the race, former VP Mike Pence has chosen a Bitcoin evangelist as his chief economist, while entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has said he’s counting on crypto donations to help fund his campaign.

All of this is a shift from earlier presidential campaigns when candidates expressed suspicion of crypto—if they had even heard of it all. But so far the GOP candidates have offered little in the way of policy proposals to harness the innovative potential of blockchain, or make the U.S. a leader in the field of crypto. (Ironically, the candidate who has attracted most support among crypto-loving conservatives is Democratic crackpot Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

According to Ron Hammond, director of government relations at the Blockchain Association (and a worthy follow on Twitter), the limited energy the GOP presidential candidates have put into crypto has come in the form of denouncing CBDCs. This issue is a red herring—an MIT report this week makes clear no one in the U.S. government is calling for a CBDC—but it’s red meat for a base worried about financial deplatforming in the wake of the Canadian trucker protests.

The lack of serious crypto policy proposals from GOP presidential candidates is not surprising—after all, much of the party has come to resemble a personality cult devoted to little more than lib-baiting. And as Hammond notes, crypto is not exactly stump speech material. The good news is that, even as the would-be presidential candidates do little on the crypto front, Republican members of Congress—and some Democrats—are working hard to craft legislation to build the industry. If crypto is going to advance in the next two years, support will come from Capitol Hill, not the White House.

Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts

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