Since Joe Biden decided to withdraw his candidacy for the US presidential elections in November, indicating Kamala Harris as his possible successor, there has been much speculation about Harris’s position on cryptocurrencies and crypto regulation.
The problem is that Harris has never made explicit public statements about it, so one is forced to limit oneself to speculations.
The idea of Mark Cuban
Yesterday, Mark Cuban expressed his opinion on the matter.
Cuban is both a supporter of the crypto world and a democrat, so he is certainly not an impartial source. However, in the absence of more precise information, one cannot help but take into consideration even the statements coming from non-impartial sources, if informed about the facts.
Yesterday the billionaire famous for being the owner of the NBA team the Dallas Mavericks, gave an interview to Politico during which he spoke specifically about Kamala Harris.
Cuban states that the feedback he is receiving regarding Harris is that she will be much more open to business, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies than she has been so far.
The vice presidency in the USA: Will Kamala Harris be pro crypto regulation?
Currently Kamala Harris is the vice-president of Joe Biden.
During the last four years, he has operated in the shadow of the president, never taking an initiative that went against Biden’s political line.
In other words, she adapted to her role, leaving the strategic decisions to her president.
Therefore, it has also adapted to the policy substantially against criptovalute of the Biden administration, although in this 2024 from this point of view something has changed.
Indeed, to tell the truth, it’s not that the Biden administration has done much to hinder the crypto market, even though it has seemed in line with the attitude of the Democratic Party in Congress, which has effectively blocked the crypto regulation process that has been stalled for years. Furthermore, many Democrats have taken initiatives against cryptocurrencies, starting with the Attorney General of New York and reaching up to the SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
Harris has never opposed all of this, but she has never clearly expressed her support for this campaign either. She preferred to stay in the shadows.
The turning point
The hypothesis that is circulating is that perhaps he was not entirely in agreement with all the political choices of Biden, his administration, and the senators and representatives of his party in Congress.
He might have simply decided to refrain from commenting on issues he did not agree with to maintain good relations with the president.
The same Cuban states that now it should be her in charge, and this could change his attitude, making him more open towards the business.
It should be noted that technically Kamala Harris is not yet the candidate of the Democratic Party who will challenge the Republican Donald Trump in November, but she seems to be clearly the favorite, so much so that no one seems to seriously consider other hypotheses.
The past of Harris
One thing that not everyone knows is that Kamala Harris in the past has been close to business, especially that of Silicon Valley.
She was born in Oakland, California, on the San Francisco Bay.
Since 2003, she has been the district attorney of San Francisco, and in 2010 she became the attorney general of all of California.
He therefore had relationships for many years with the Californian productive realities, such as those of Silicon Valley, even if mainly from a legal point of view.
From a political point of view, regarding the economy, she has mainly focused on consumer protection and fraud, so in theory, she might not be very close to the crypto sector, but she is also a strong supporter of privacy.
But the thing that most gives an idea of his position towards business is that in the past he has asked for many donations from the leaders of Silicon Valley companies, who have often responded with generous checks. In fact, one of these, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman, has already announced his support for Harris.
USA: Kamala Harris and crypto regulation
All this suggests that Harris’s attitude towards the cryptocurrency sector, and especially crypto regulation, could be different from Biden’s.
It is necessary, however, to make a clarification.
At this moment, some polls show Harris ahead of Trump in terms of consensus, and therefore in the possible number of votes in November.
But despite this, the favorite for the final victory continues to be Trump.
In fact, the US electoral system does not elect as president the one who gets the most votes, but the one who wins the most delegates in the individual States. Trump still seems to be ahead in many key States, so just as it happened in 2016, he could win even by getting fewer overall votes.
Therefore, if Harris were to lose the elections in November, all considerations regarding his possible attitude towards crypto regulation would fall into the void.
Now it will be up to her, once she has officially obtained the candidacy, to clearly explain her position regarding that crypto regulation which, during the four years of the Biden administration, during which she was vice-president, remained stuck in Congress without making any real concrete steps forward.
Given that even the EU now has clear crypto regulations, it seems really strange that the USA has fallen behind in this regard. After all, it was the Democrats who put a spoke in the wheel of the crypto regulation process, and it is not certain that under Harris’s leadership things could actually be different.