The Harris Era: A New Dawn for the Crypto Industry?

Author: Andrew Singer Compiler: BitpushNews an

The campaign of Kamala Harris, the current Vice President of the United States and presidential candidate, has sent several signals that her administration will be favorable to the cryptocurrency industry.

As Harris continues to climb in the polls, industry observers are beginning to ask more questions.

Will Harris' presidency include younger advisers and political appointees who are more open to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, unlike the old guard such as Biden, Yellen and Gensler?

Will it support fair and balanced cryptocurrency reform legislation?

Will it serve cryptocurrency users and innovators better than the Republican Party — even though Donald Trump has said he wants to be the “crypto president” and promised to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler (a crypto nemesis) “on Day One” of his new administration?

Elsewhere, an online town hall event called “Harris for Crypto” is planned for Wednesday evening, with a lineup that includes Mark Cuban, Anthony Scaramucci, and others who are “determined not to give former President Trump an easy win in the cryptocurrency vote this fall,” according to Fox Business.

Over the past week, even prediction markets have begun to tilt in favor of the Democratic candidate.

Harris and Waltz are both “pragmatic”

It’s too early to draw any firm conclusions about what a Harris administration might mean for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the United States, but the backgrounds, political leanings, ages of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, and their choice of campaign advisers offer some clues.

Harris and Waltz are both “pragmatic,” Mo Vera, a former adviser to President Joe Biden, told Cointelegraph. “They build consensus and are able to reach across party lines,” he added. Most people believe that bipartisanship is essential to passing cryptocurrency reform legislation.

“We need that balanced view” — not the confrontational view that a Biden administration sometimes brings, he added.

In addition, the two candidates are younger. Vera expects a “fresh perspective on cryptocurrencies.”

Harris grew up in Northern California, not far from Silicon Valley. "She has a lot of experience with technology."

Vera believes Harris and Waltz share a "more modern, more relevant perspective, almost an Obama-esque one." He is now a senior advisor to Unicoin, an asset-backed cryptocurrency.

Concordium CEO Boris Bohr-Bilowitsky told Cointelegraph: "I'm optimistic about a Kamala Harris presidency and that she will support cryptocurrencies." He added:

"She's already hanging out with the right people, like David Plouffe, a former Binance advisor. She also has very strong ties to Silicon Valley."

They brought in not only Plouffe, but also Gene Sperling, a former Ripple Labs board member. "They're crypto experts," Vera said. “That says a lot.”

Harris and Waltz are nearly two decades younger than Trump. “The cryptocurrency user base tends to be younger,” Vera noted. They tend to be more “hip” and open to financial innovation.

Don’t expect a “miracle”

What specific initiatives can people expect from a Harris-Waltz administration?

“Past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes in financial markets or policy,” Jack Solovey, a fintech policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, told Cointelegraph, adding:

“That being said, improvement is a low bar compared to a Biden-Harris administration.”

Soloway also hopes to see “firm public statements from the Harris-Waltz campaign about their crypto policy positions, which have been lacking so far.”

Vera believes balanced and fair crypto reform legislation can be achieved under a Harris presidency, but the industry itself must also do its part.

Vera said the crypto industry has taken a “chaotic approach” to crypto reform regulation. For example, there are multiple blockchain associations. Companies like Coinbase are also “doing their own thing” when it comes to lobbying and regulation. “As an industry, we should come together.”

Should Harris remove SEC Chairman Gensler on “Day 1”?

Such a remedy might sound good, but Vera responded, “But it’s not.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent government agency, and “the president does not have the power to remove the SEC chairman without cause,” as Tonya Evans recently wrote in Fortune. It may eventually be managed, but it won’t be easy, and it certainly won’t be done on “Day 1.”

There’s no doubt that Gensler has stirred strong emotions within the cryptocurrency community. “The reality is that Gensler has politicized the agency, and that’s a big problem,” said Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Innovation Council.

Still, the SEC chairman may not survive even under a future Democratic administration, “because the reality, and something that I think people in the crypto space overlook, is that Gary Gensler is not popular among a broad range of industry participants, not just in the crypto space,” Warren added.

Partisan divide?

To complicate matters further, “the Democratic Party is divided on cryptocurrencies,” Aaron Klein, Miriam K. Carliner Chair and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Economic Studies Department, told Cointelegraph, “with a significant portion of elected officials on one side being deeply skeptical, and many Democratic voters owning and supporting cryptocurrencies.”

Klein noted that Republican presidential candidates have already seized on this, adding:

“Trump even campaigned on a pro-crypto image, even though his administration showed little support for the industry during his presidency.”

Perhaps the best way for a Harris candidate to approach the cryptocurrency issue would be to “walk the middle path, offering enough to crypto supporters to distinguish it from a Biden administration while retaining enough ambiguity to define her administration after the election,” Klein said.

It’s entirely possible that Trump will become disillusioned with cryptocurrencies again at some point. Klein recalls that in 2016, Trump campaigned on a platform of “restoring Glass-Steagall, which highly regulated banks,” “but once in office, he deregulated them.”

Three Pillars of Effective Regulation

Still, there are still many unknowns, and Solovey is still waiting for “a clear public statement of principles from the Harris-Waltz campaign on cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance, let alone a position on a regulatory agenda or crypto-related legislation.” Perhaps in the coming days and weeks, he says, that will change. If the new Harris administration does have a chance to pass federal cryptocurrency reform legislation, it needs to tread carefully.

“The Democratic Party tends to over-regulate,” comments Vera, a former CFO, management executive, and senior advisor to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Biden on Latino and LGBT policy.

He added that effective regulation rests on three pillars: it must promote innovation and growth, support business and consumers, and weed out bad actors.

“None of this, if done properly, will harm our industry,” Villa concluded.