Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Azuma (@azuma_eth)
On July 15, local time, former US President Donald Trump announced at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that Ohio Senator James David Vance would run as his vice presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Later, the Republican National Convention formally approved J.D. Vance's nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
As J.D. Vance's nomination was approved, many well-known figures in the political and business circles publicly expressed their congratulations.
Tesla founder Elon Musk (who had previously stated that he would support the Republican Party) said: "Congratulations to J.D. Vance, Trump made an excellent choice."
Nick Tomaino, founder of 1confirmation, also congratulated, saying: "J.D. Vance is only 39 years old, and he will have the opportunity to become the second youngest vice president in history... He is smart, has a deep understanding of the Internet and cryptocurrency, and advocates freedom and progress for young people... This is the opposite of the current politics of the elderly."
For users in the cryptocurrency industry, the name J.D. Vance may be more or less unfamiliar, but compared to Trump, who is still suspected of temporarily currying favor with cryptocurrency users just to win votes, J.D. Vance seems to be a more pure cryptocurrency supporter.
Odaily Note: Arthur Hayes recently wrote an article questioning that Trump does not really support cryptocurrency, but is just overdrawing his promise to get more votes.
The main promoter of crypto-friendly bills
J.D. Vance was born in 1984. At the age of 39, he has only two years of political experience, but now he is expected to become the second youngest vice president in American history (second only to Breckinridge in 1857, who lost to Lincoln in the election after his term ended).
In addition to being a politician, J.D. Vance is also an author (author of the book "Hillbilly Elegy") and a venture investor focusing on the technology field (formerly worked at Mithril Capital, a venture capital firm owned by Peter Thiel), and cryptocurrency is one of the industries that J.D. Vance focuses on.
According to the American political news website Politico, as early as 2022, J.D. Vance was successfully elected as a federal senator from Ohio for his friendly stance on cryptocurrency. At that time, J.D. Vance actively advocated a more relaxed regulatory approach to digital asset regulation.
In May of this year, J.D. Vance voted in favor of the Senate's vote to repeal the SAB-121 accounting standard, which was extremely opposed by the cryptocurrency industry.
Last month, Politico again reported that J.D. Vance had drafted legislation to reform digital asset regulation, which is expected to overhaul the way the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulate the cryptocurrency market.
Although there are some relatively cryptocurrency-friendly political forces in the Democratic camp that are currently promoting similar bills, such as Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow and Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand, an unnamed cryptocurrency lobbyist said that J.D. Vance's draft is more conducive to industry development than the bill being promoted by the Democrats because it will adopt a simpler approach to determine which digital assets the SEC will regulate, rather than the CFTC - the cryptocurrency industry generally believes that the SEC has too much power over the market.
The lobbyist's final assessment was, "People certainly don't want to start over, but at this point, J.D. Vance's bill is much better."
Currently, J.D. Vance's bill has received the support of 71 Democrats in the House of Representatives. According to people familiar with the relevant developments, J.D. Vance's team is expected to formally propose the bill this month.
Bitcoin holders
In addition to being active at the policy level, J.D. Vance himself was once a Bitcoin holder.
In October 2023, J.D. Vance submitted his mandatory financial disclosure report for 2022 as a senator. The report showed that as of 2022, J.D. Vance owned between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of Bitcoin and held these assets through Coinbase.
In addition, J.D. Vance also opened accounts with brokerage firms Robinhood and Charles Schwab, but did not disclose specific holdings details.
As of now, the latest vice presidential candidate has not yet filed his 2023 financial disclosure report, but his net worth is estimated to be at least $5 million and at most $10.5 million.
Selected Historical Statements
J.D. Vance has publicly mentioned cryptocurrencies many times in previous public events.
As early as 2022, when Canadian authorities blocked the bank accounts of a group of truck drivers protesting epidemic control, J.D. Vance mentioned cryptocurrency for the first time: "This is why cryptocurrencies are booming. If you have the wrong political views, the regime will cut off your access to banking services."
In February of this year, when the SEC launched an enforcement action against the cryptocurrency mining company Debt Box, J.D. Vance and several other congressmen jointly launched a letter to question the SEC.
In February of this year, J.D. Vance slammed current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's excessive regulation of cryptocurrencies at Remedy Fest, a private conference jointly organized by Y Combinator and Bloomberg.
J.D. Vance mentioned at the time: “I think the worst candidate for (SEC) is Gary Gensler… He wants to inject too much politics into the actual business of U.S. securities… Gary’s approach to regulating blockchain and cryptocurrency is completely opposite to the way it should be.”
In summary, combined with J.D. Vance’s past remarks and actions, you can clearly sense his long-term positive attitude towards cryptocurrency. Although we cannot rule out the suspicion that J.D. Vance’s actions are excessive marketing in order to canvass votes, for now, he is the best candidate that the cryptocurrency industry can expect.
