As the 2024 US presidential race continues, both leading candidates – Donald Trump from the Republican Party and Kamala Harris from the Democratic Party – have been making their positions on key issues clear to help voters make their choice in November.
Among these major issues that both candidates have been talking much about is cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular. Crypto has become a topic that these days attracts many younger and tech-oriented voters, along with investors in the cryptocurrency space.
Donald Trump, who made his negative position on Bitcoin clear during his previous presidential term, has now made a surprising “crypto pivot,” promising to support cryptocurrencies should he win the elections. His opponent Kamala Harris has been acting likewise, striving to draw more voters into her Democratic camp to persuade them to give her their votes in the fall.
Trump and Harris Attracting Voters Through Crypto
Trump’s earlier stance on Bitcoin and crypto was a rather skeptical one. In 2019, he posted a tweet, making his famous critique at BTC: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”
Trump then also said that crypto could “facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” He said that the USA has “only one real currency and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is called the United States Dollar!”
However, as 2024 arrived, Trump’s opinion on this issue suddenly underwent drastic changes. The former president embraced crypto as part of his pre-election platform and began positioning crypto and Bitcoin in particular as a key part of his vision of America’s stronger economic leadership in the future.
Donald Trump began to accept donations in crypto in support of his campaign this year. He accepts not only Bitcoin and large market cap altcoins, such as Ethereum and Solana but also meme coins, like Dogecoin, PEPE, and Shiba Inu. Besides, Trump has made several statements showing his firm intentions to embrace Bitcoin mining on a large scale in the USA.
“If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,” Trump said at a campaign event in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He also pledged to create a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile”, as well as “to “support the right to self-custody to the nation’s 50 million crypto holders.” Trump proclaimed that if the US does not embrace Bitcoin, China certainly will.
During the Bitcoin Conference that took place in Nashville, US this year, Trump promised to turn the US into “the cryptocurrency capital of the world and a global Bitcoin superpower.” During his speech at the same event, he called Bitcoin the ninth most valuable asset in the world, predicting that one day it would surpass gold in market value. Besides, Donald Trump stated that he would never allow the creation of the digital dollar (CBDC – central bank digital currency) since it would put great restrains on freedoms of Americans.
Besides, what many in the cryptocurrency space considered very important, Trump promised to commute the prison term of the Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht who was sentenced to two life terms in jail. Trump stated that the time Ulbricht has spent in prison already since his arrest in 2023 is enough for punishment.
Curiously, Trump’s election opponent from the Democrats, Kamala Harris has not been very loud about crypto during her campaign and has not made any particular statements or commitments about it.
However, she also began accepting donations in crypto to support her election campaign. This week, she released a policy statement, in which her priorities as potential future president were outlined. The crypto community was shocked to see crypto omitted there completely.
Crypto community splits between Trump and Harris
While Trump seems to be a stronger crypto supporter and has been making concrete commitments and statements about it, the cryptocurrency community seems to have split into those who support Trump and those who would rather see Harris as the US president over the next four years starting November.
Among big cryptocurrency celebrities who are actively supporting Trump are Bitcoin billionaires and founders of the Gemini exchange Winklevoss twins and Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO stresses that Kamala has been supporting the suppression of free speech on social media, as well as she, as a representative of the Democratic Party, supports Biden’s policy of importing illegal migrants into the country and ensuring they get voting rights at the upcoming elections.
Elon Musk in particular has been sharing news on his X account showing that many immigrants have been engaged in violent activities against Americans and the local police while they have not been receiving worthy punishment for that. Therefore, Musk became a core supporter of Trump and the latter has recently confirmed that he would definitely create a Government Efficiency Commission with Elon Musk at the head of it. This agency will conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”
As for Harris’s supporters, they include such leading cryptocurrency companies as Coinbase and Ripple Labs with both its leaders – CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen.
Still, multiple experts so far believe that regardless of their position of crypto, Kamala Harris so far has higher chances to win over Donald Trump.
