Crypto takes its 2024 political campaign to the White House
Close to one dozen crypto executives attended a video call with top White House officials Thursday, bringing up a series of concerns with how the current administration has treated the industry.
Their larger goal was a reset of relations with Democrats after a rocky few months as they try to set up crypto as an issue that can be bipartisan — both for the remainder of the 2024 campaign and into 2025, no matter whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins.
"It's not too late," Coinbase Global chief legal officer (COIN) Paul Grewal told Yahoo Finance after attending the call. "There's certainly an opportunity, even over the next 90-some days, and in this legislative session, for there to be a real reset moment."
The gathering is just the latest in an attempted thaw between the two sides. According to one participant, it was the crypto executives' side of the virtual table that did most of the talking while White House officials mostly listened.
The executives discussed what they viewed as a lack of coherent regulation of crypto, and, in one case, even broached the removal of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, a persistent foe of the industry.
Thursday’s meeting was, according to a sources familiar with the situation, organized by Dem Rep. Ro Khanna of California and featured a range of top Biden administration advisors from National Economic Council director Lael Brainard to White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed.
Harris had a voice in the room with Kristine Lucius, the vice president's domestic policy advisor, in attendance, according to the people familiar with the situation.
The gathering also included an array of crypto-world figures — Skybridge founder and managing partner Anthony Scaramucci, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Kraken CEO David Ripley, and others.
The White House declined to provide a readout of Thursday’s meeting, saying it was private.
White House assistant press secretary Robyn Patterson told Yahoo Finance that President Joe Biden has offered a comprehensive approach to digital assets and that "the Biden-Harris administration will continue meeting with a range of stakeholders and working with members of Congress to develop safeguards that are necessary to harness the potential benefits and opportunities of crypto-asset innovation."
The wish list articulated Thursday appears largely in line with what the wider crypto community has been agitating for for months: more favorable regulation from the next US president.
The list ranges from tax cuts and stablecoin legislation to rules that distinguish which crypto tokens are securities and, therefore, fall under the scrutiny of the SEC.
The crypto world also wants the SEC and its chairman, Gensler, to curtail an aggressive crackdown on the industry via enforcement actions and lawsuits.
On Wednesday a federal judge delivered what appeared to be an industry-friendly ending to one of those major cases.
XRP issuer Ripple Labs Inc. was ordered to pay a civil penalty of $125 million for improperly selling its XRP token to institutional investors. The sum was far smaller than the SEC had sought.
A larger outreach to Kamala Harris
This week's gathering is presumed to be one of several attempts over the coming weeks to strengthen the connections between Democrats and the crypto community.
Less than 20 days into her campaign as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris hasn’t given details as to whether crypto will be a significant part of her platform, though some industry players have remained hopeful.
A newly formed group called Crypto4Harris is organizing a virtual town hall next Wednesday that will seek to connect Democratic lawmakers and industry officials.
Snickerdoodle Labs CEO Jonathan Padilla is helping to organize those efforts. The former head of blockchain strategy at PayPal has posted on social media that the speakers next week will range from investor Mark Cuban to Scaramucci to Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren.
Others in the industry, however, have been deeply critical of the US government’s approach to crypto under the Biden administration, with Grewal and others describing the industry’s many confrontations with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an outright battle.
Cameron Winklevoss, one of Biden and Gensler's fiercest critics in the community, recently called the outreach efforts "the Big Bluff."
The Thursday call comes after the Republican party has made a sweeping effort to seize crypto support.
Former President Donald Trump and a parade of Republican politicians traveled to Nashville last month to address the crypto world during the Bitcoin 2024 conference.
In his speech at the conference, Trump laid out a plan to make the US "the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world."
That included making a number of promises to the industry if elected in November, including appointing a crypto Presidential Advisory Council; firing Gensler; ushering in more friendly regulation for crypto token issuers, operators, and bitcoin miners; and banning central bank digital currencies.
Along with Independent party candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., who also spoke at the conference, Trump made a commitment to order the US government to begin hoarding bitcoin.
This post has been updated.
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance. Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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