Yesterday, the current president of the USA Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for the November presidential elections, indicating the current vice-president Kamala Harris as a possible alternative.
At this moment the crypto sector is wondering what Harris’s positions are regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Kamala Harris’s position on crypto
The truth is that Harris does not seem to have ever expressed herself clearly about it.
For example, on his official X profile, he has never posted any tweet about either Bitcoin or other criptovalute.
She has never even clearly spoken out on her X profile regarding the issues raised by the SEC in recent years.
On the other hand, since she was elected vice-president in November 2020, she has always maintained a backup position compared to Biden. This suggests both that she chose not to play a leading role in the last four years to let Joe Biden play it, and that her thinking is not so different.
It is not even a coincidence that Biden himself has clearly indicated her as his possible successor.
Harris did not even comment on the FTX case, at the end of 2022, when the great American crypto exchange failed, its founder and CEO had financed the election campaign of many of her democratic colleagues.
The crypto hypotheses on Kamala Harris
In the absence of clear and official statements on the matter, we can only put forward some hypotheses.
The hypothesis that seems to be circulating the most at the moment is that his thinking is substantially aligned with that of Joe Biden.
Yesterday, for example, as soon as Biden announced his decision not to run for re-election, the price of Bitcoin dropped, quite quickly, from $67,400 to $65,800, but as soon as it was known that Biden had indicated Harris as his possible successor, it went back above $67,000.
This suggests that the crypto markets do not mind Harris, or at least do not mind her more than Biden.
The crypto markets clearly prefer Trump, but they seem to tolerate Harris more than they would be willing to tolerate other candidates.
The probabilities of Harris
Kamala Harris, however, is not yet the official candidate of the Democratic Party who will challenge Donald Trump in November.
Yesterday, however, Biden’s endorsement was followed by others, including those of the Obamas, and above all, there was a flood of donations for Harris following Biden’s explicit request in this regard.
At this moment Harris seems to be the main candidate to replace Biden as the Democratic Party candidate in the November presidential elections.
Less clear, however, seem to be his actual chances of victory against Donald Trump.
By now Biden was considered by many as clearly losing against Trump, and that is why he stepped aside. Regarding the actual chances of victory for Harris, there are still some doubts.
However, there are some surveys circulating that would potentially give her the win, even though it is always advisable to doubt surveys that do not come from authoritative and impartial sources.
It will probably still take a little while both to have the possible official and definitive confirmation that it will be her to challenge Trump, and to understand what her real chances of victory are.
The memecoin
In the meantime, the memecoin with its name, KAMA, created by some of its detractors to mock her (and indeed called Kamala Horris), yesterday recorded its new all-time high price.
This is a token launched just a few months ago on Solana, and until the end of June, it hadn’t even made much of a splash in the crypto markets.
As soon as the withdrawal of Biden’s candidacy began to be hypothesized, it started to rise again, reaching a first price peak at the beginning of July over 17 thousandths of a dollar.
Yesterday it suddenly jumped from 10 to 25 thousandths, even though it later returned to 17 thousandths.
Although it is a token traded only on DEX, and with a daily trading volume that does not exceed 20 million dollars, it still gives the idea that the crypto markets might like Harris’s potential candidacy.
Many indeed consider her a loser against Trump, and the crypto markets like a possible victory of Trump.
The same former Republican president yesterday stated that for him it will be easier to beat Harris than Biden.
The bets
That Biden could announce his retirement over the weekend had been in the air for several days.
In fact, on Polymarket, people had been betting on this eventuality for days, with almost 80 million dollars in bets.
It is worth noting, however, that at the end of June on Polymarket, Biden’s candidacy was considered probable at 90%, but already during the first weeks of July there had been significant volatility.
It should be remembered that Biden’s renunciation at this moment is the only certain thing, while the replacement with Harris is still uncertain, although it seems probable.
At this moment on Polymarket, the choice of Kamala Harris as Trump’s challenger is given a probability of even 83%, followed by Michelle Obama with a meager 8%.
However, Trump’s final victory is still given as likely at 69%, with Harris having to settle for now at 29%.
In any case, these are very volatile data, given that, for example, less than a month ago on Polymarket, Biden was given as the probable democratic candidate at 90%.