The vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, is a bit of an anomaly among Capitol Hill politicians: she’s never had strong words to say for or against digital currencies, tokenization, blockchain, or NFTs.
None of that has mattered for the past four years as US president Joseph Biden has had plenty to say about crypto during his stay in the White House.
Candidate Harris?
But that’s all changed since Biden announced his intent to drop out of the upcoming presidential election. While there’s no guarantee that his vice president will get the democratic nomination, he’s already given Harris his endorsement.
Were Harris to get the nomination, she’d still face former US president Donald Trump, who’s been bombastic on crypto — against it in the past, for it as of late.
Trump’s plans for the space may become a bit clearer in the coming weeks as he’s slated to speak at the Bitcoin Conference on July 27. But, in the meantime, it’s likely safe to assume he’s at least pro Bitcoin.
The question then becomes: what happens to crypto if Harris wins?
President Harris?
Just because we don’t know her official stance doesn’t mean we can’t glean some details as to what it might look like.
For starters, there’s plenty of reason to believe she could stay the course that’s already been set. By and large, since her political wagon has been hitched to Biden, her donors and supporters come from his camp. It could be much easier for “president Harris” to make changes to the status quo than “candidate Harris.”
Also of note, Harris and her husband are both heavily invested but, according to her White House financial disclosure for 2023, neither hold any digital assets.
This stands out because, based on the disclosure, they aren’t even a little curious about digital assets despite being connected to Silicon Valley. Harris is a California native who’s been seen as one of the more tech-friendly democrats to come into prominence in recent years, her somewhat cautious stance on AI notwithstanding.
It’s possible her shunning of cryptocurrency has been exactly that: an outright dismissal of the technology itself. If that’s the case, we might expect her to drum up anti-crypto support as her campaign begins to unfold.
Finally, it’s worth considering the razor thin margins between Trump and Biden support before the latter dropped out of the 2024 race. If we imagine a scenario where Harris needs to hurry up and find a few percentage points in order to justify her candidacy, then the real question is whether coming out pro-crypto would help or hurt her against Trump.
Related: Trump's VP pick, JD Vance, could mean a new era for crypto