Shortly before The three-day Bitcoin 2024 conference kicked off in Nashville this week, and Tyler Winklevoss, the bitcoin billionaire who founded the Gemini crypto exchange with his twin brother Cameron, had harsh words for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. He was angry that after years of tension between the Biden administration and the crypto industry — many in the space have complained of a regulatory crackdown — the vice president declined an invitation to attend the annual Bitcoin Fest.
“She can’t even take the first step and show up to start fixing things,” Winklevoss tweeted Wednesday. “Our industry will not forget this. We will not show her mercy in November,” he added ominously. Earlier that day, Bitcoin Magazine In a tweet, CEO David Bailey, the event’s organizer, claimed that a Democratic donor told him that Harris privately said that “Bitcoin is criminal money.” (While the total amount of money raised annually through crypto-based crimes is in the billions, that’s a relatively small percentage of transactions.) Meanwhile, feverish rumors that Donald Trump, who has become increasingly pro-crypto, might use his keynote speech at the conference to announce plans to adopt bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset for the United States have sent the price soaring. The price also rose after he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month, temporarily boosting confidence in his election bid.
But Harris had every reason to feel unwelcome at the Bitcoin conference. Chief among them is that tech oligarchs and the crypto crowd have already thrown their weight behind Trump as they seek a freer hand in the digital asset economy. At the same time, Trump has aggressively courted the movers and shakers of crypto finance, trying to sell himself as the “crypto president” who can reverse Joe Biden’s attempts to rein in the sector — despite his 2021 comment that bitcoin “looks like a scam.” In a speech on Saturday, Trump said that if he wins, “the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world,” adding: “If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be minted and minted and made in the United States. It’s not going to be made anywhere else. And if Bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say … I want America to be the nation that leads the way, and that’s what’s going to happen.” So you’ll be very happy with me.
Trump outlined several steps he would take to help the crypto industry. “The day I take the oath of office, the anti-crypto campaign of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be over,” he said. Trump pledged, to loud applause, that he would immediately fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and replace him with an industry-friendly regulator. He said he would create a Presidential Cryptocurrency Advisory Council to create a new regulatory framework that would “benefit” the industry. He warned the audience that if Democrats win in November, “every single one of you will go. They will be vicious. They will be tough. They will do things you wouldn’t believe.”
These statements are expected to spur more donations from crypto investors who are already betting on Trump. Bitcoin MagazineFor his part, Bailey has pledged a goal of raising $15 million for Trump’s campaign during the Nashville event. Last month, the Winklevoss brothers—whose Gemini company this year settled a lawsuit from New York state over its frozen cryptocurrency lending program, returning $2.2 billion to customers and paying a $37 million fine—pledged $1 million in bitcoin each to Trump’s campaign. The sum exceeded the $844,600 maximum that Trump 47, the joint fundraising group they donated to, can legally accept from an individual, and the difference was returned to the Winklevoss family. (Among other GOP campaign spending, the committee funnels money toward Trump’s legal bills.) They also each contributed $250,000 to the American Political Action Committee, the group through which Elon Musk and his allies have backed Trump.
Other donors to the PAC include Sean Maguire of venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, who has expressed interest in “legalizing” cryptocurrencies and announced a $300,000 donation to Trump with a statement claiming that “Democrats are trying to regulate technology — especially open source AI and cryptocurrencies — in ways that incentivize the best builders to build outside of America.” He poured half a million dollars into the PAC. Ken Howery, co-founder with Peter Thiel of venture capital firm Founders Fund, which invests heavily in crypto and blockchain technologies, donated $1 million. Another million came from Antonio Gracias, the former Tesla executive who is believed to have helped engineer the automaker’s $1.5 billion purchase of Bitcoin in 2021. His firm, Valor Equity Partners, invests millions of dollars in crypto companies. Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of software firm Palantir and managing partner of 8VC, also donated $1 million to the PAC. Earlier this year, he talked about how AI and encryption technologies can benefit from each other.
Although he has not donated to the PAC, Silicon Valley venture capitalist and close Musk associate David Sachs has donated thousands of dollars directly to the Trump campaign. Two months ago, Sachs said he preferred Trump’s sudden encouragement of cryptocurrencies to the scrutiny of the Biden administration. “It may be an appeasement,” Sachs told a business summit in May. “But at least he’s saying the right thing and Biden’s not saying the right thing. At least if he’s appeasing, there’s a better chance he’ll do the right thing.” (Last year, on the tech and investing podcast All in(Sachs made the unfounded claim that SEC Chairman Gensler, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, had formed an “alliance,” with Warren promising “that she would make him Treasury Secretary if he basically destroyed cryptocurrencies in the United States.”)
It’s not just Trump. The super PAC Fairshake, funded by crypto companies including Coinbase, Jump Crypto and Ripple, has become a major force in funding congressional races, backing candidates seen as industry allies and helping to unseat opponents including progressive Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Katie Porter with critical ads. It has received tens of millions from the Winklevosses and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in crypto companies. (Andreessen and Horowitz recently pledged to donate to Trump; Horowitz says the Biden administration has “essentially undermined the rule of law to attack the crypto industry.”) As of the end of June, Fairshake had nearly $120 million in cash on hand, while two other crypto PACs, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, had more than $5 million and nearly $2 million, respectively. The former has spent media time attacking Democrats pushing for consumer protections in cryptocurrencies; the latter has distributed more than $15 million in endorsements to Republicans in the 2024 election cycle.
But while Trump was planning to ride that wave of criticism by attacking Biden over his record on crypto, it may be difficult to use the same line against Harris, who some see as more amenable to these companies because of her background in tech-saturated San Francisco politics. And while a few major investors were shocked by Harris’ snub this week, it’s unclear what position she will take on the issue. On Friday, Financial Times Harris's advisers have reportedly reached out to people close to crypto companies to try to “reset” relations with the industry.
Even before Biden dropped out of the race, the administration had made efforts to ease the White House’s rift with cryptocurrency advocates, and the House of Representatives passed a pro-crypto bill in May with the support of 71 Democrats. While Biden was not a supporter of it, he has not said he would veto the legislation.
However, it would be foolish for the crypto elite to try to untie their fortunes from Trump’s at this point, regardless of which direction Harris takes. They’ve picked their pick and poured a fortune into his campaign, hoping the president would adopt a hands-off approach to their tokens and exchanges. Now they just have to hope that’s enough to send Trump’s stock to the moon.
