Why was Vance, born in the 1980s, chosen by Trump to run for running mate?

Author: Huo Huo, Vernacular Blockchain

On July 13, Trump raised his fist and shouted "Fight" during the shooting incident, becoming the "chosen one" and becoming popular all over the world. Later, Trump announced at the Republican National Convention that he would nominate James David Vance (J.D. Vance), a supporter of crypto innovation, as his vice presidential candidate for the 2024 presidential election, which caused an uproar. This is very attractive to voters who hold crypto assets, and this group accounts for a large proportion. A new poll released by Grayscale at the end of May showed that about 47% of American voters expect to include cryptocurrencies as part of their investment portfolio.

So, what is Vance's connection with cryptocurrencies? And what made Vance, who is only 40 years old, be chosen by Trump?

Vance - Crypto-friendly Candidate

According to the Washington Post, a study published in April by the Pew Research Center concluded that 17% of American adults have purchased cryptocurrencies, and most of them (equivalent to about 40 million people) still own cryptocurrencies. This is a huge population structure that will greatly affect people's voting results in 2024. Both are also the reasons why Trump and Biden have introduced crypto-friendly policies this year.

Cryptocurrency investors believe that compared with the Biden administration's cautious and picky attitude towards the crypto industry and various regulatory suggestions, if Vance is successfully elected as vice president, it will be of great significance to the promotion of cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the Trump campaign team is betting on Vance and is expected to win at least millions of crypto voters to vote for them.

So what is Vance's connection with cryptocurrencies?

1) Cryptocurrency stance

Vance has always been in favor of the crypto industry and has been critical of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regulatory policy on cryptocurrencies.

In March 2024, at RemedyFest, a conference hosted by the startup incubator Y Combinator, Vance, a Republican senator, said: "For me, the fundamental question is how do we build a competitive market that is conducive to innovation and competition, so that consumers have the right choices, rather than just being obsessed with pricing power in the market and ignoring other things that are really important."

At the same time, Vance believes that large technology companies need to be constrained, and is worried about excessive regulation of blockchain technology. He believes that using blockchain technology to implement functions such as identity authentication can effectively challenge social media giants such as Meta. He also reviewed the birth of US antitrust law in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and said that many of the arguments put forward by advocates at the time are also applicable to modern times. "If we can't achieve identity authentication, then it will be difficult for us to challenge the giants in this field." "People recognize that concentrated private power can be as dangerous as concentrated public power," he said at RemedyFest.

A few days before attending RemedyFest, Vance also posted on X that "it's time to break up Google," claiming that Google News has increasingly quoted left-leaning sources in recent years, arguing that "Google and Facebook have indeed interfered with our political process."

Translation: Although it's long overdue, the time has come to break up Google. This is more important than any other issue of election integrity. Control of the information monopoly in our society is in the hands of a technology company with obvious political leanings.

At RemedyFest, Vance opposed SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's attitude towards cryptocurrencies, saying that current regulation is the exact opposite of what it should be:

"The SEC seems to ask this question when regulating cryptocurrency: 'Is this a practical token? If it is a practical token, then they want to ban it. If it is a token with no practicality, they don't seem to care. " Vance believes that practical tokens can be regulated, but should not be banned.

When Canada froze the bank accounts of those protesting Covid-19 restrictions in 2022, Vance tweeted: "This is why crypto is on the rise. If you don't have the right politics, the regime will cut off your access to banking services."

During a televised debate in 2022, Vance argued that the "2020 election was stolen from Trump," which led to Trump's subsequent ban from social media platforms such as X and Facebook.

Vance has also been an outspoken advocate for a more relaxed regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies, positions that are currently consistent with Trump's.

2) Cryptocurrency assets

There is no doubt that Vance's past remarks in support of cryptocurrency have helped Trump gain more credibility in the cryptocurrency field.

And there is a saying in the Silicon Valley venture capital circle: "The best way to deeply understand a person is to analyze his venture capital portfolio carefully." In 2021, Vance's estimated net worth was $5 million, including assets and income. Then in 2022, according to his latest financial disclosure, he held $100,000 to $250,000 in Bitcoin on Coinbase and invested about $15,000 in DEX Ethex. It can be said that Vance is the first US presidential candidate to own Bitcoin.

In addition to Trump's own successful NFT digital art series, venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar said in the post: "President Trump and Vice President Vance will form the first crypto government."

So apart from this, what else made Vance win Trump's favor?

Vance and Trump's two-way run

Vance, born on August 2, 1984 in Ohio, grew up in a poor family and served in the US Marine Corps. He was a writer and venture capitalist in his early years and was elected as a Republican U.S. Senator in 2022.

Vance initially became popular for two reasons:

First, he wrote a best-selling book. It was also in 2016 that he became popular after publishing his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy", which tells about his growth experience in a poor family: his parents divorced, his mother had been accompanied by painkillers and drugs for a long time, remarried several times, and he was raised by his grandparents.

This book not only exposes the plight of poor white Americans in rural areas, but also examines the white working class in the United States from a sociological perspective. After the book was published, it became a bestseller and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for several weeks, receiving widespread acclaim and readers' attention. In 2020, the book was adapted into a movie of the same name and broadcast on Netflix, which further expanded his influence.

The second is his campaign for the Senate. His main early career experience was venture capital for early-stage technology companies in Silicon Valley. He worked for venture capitalist Peter Thiel at the time, and Thiel played a key role in helping Trump get elected in 2016. Later, he helped Vance successfully run for senator in 2022; (Peter Thiel, billionaire, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and political activist, co-founder of PayPal, first external investor of Facebook, ranked 212th in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of July 2024. During Vance's 2022 campaign for the Senate, Thiel sponsored more than 10 million US dollars.) It happened to be 2016 that Trump, who had never been in politics, began to run for president, but during Trump's 2016 campaign, Vance strongly expressed his opposition to Trump, calling him a "cultural heroin", "America's Hitler", an instigator, "leading the white working class to a very dark place", and said that he "will never support Trump". He also published a column in the New York Times, saying that the former president was "unfit for the highest office in our country." In a deleted X post, he said Trump "should be condemned" because "his policies on immigration and Muslims scare the people I care about..."

However, as time went on, he gradually adjusted his position as he wanted to enter the political circle. He began to realize that the audience of his books, that is, those voters who felt ignored and abandoned, were exactly Trump's core supporters.

Because Trump's political rise is largely based on his criticism and opposition to globalization, immigration policies and political elites, these views are popular in the Midwest and South of the United States. Vance's hometown of Ohio happens to be a key swing state in the southwest, and Vance realized that supporting Trump could help him gain greater influence and support in politics. There are a large number of working-class voters in the state, especially the white working class in the Midwest and rural areas. His personal background and experience enable him to resonate with these voters, especially many of the problems he described in "Hillbilly Elegy", such as globalization, outflow of manufacturing and economic insecurity, are exactly the challenges faced by these voters.

Wanting to be a politician, as a native of Ohio, Vance realized that he must win the support of voters in his state in order to further stand out in politics.

On October 19, 2022, at the Butler County Republican Headquarters in Middletown, Ohio, U.S. Senate Republican candidate J.D. Vance spoke to supporters in his hometown. Source: Gaelen Morse

In 2017, Vance began to publicly express some approval of Trump's policies, especially in terms of economic and immigration policies. He stated that Trump has taken pragmatic measures to address the concerns of working-class voters.

In 2022, Vance won a Republican Senate primary with many competitors with Trump's support. He also thanked Trump for his support and said that he would continue to promote Trump's policies and become a solid and reliable voice in support of Trump in Congress.

At the same time, after taking office in January 2023, Vance actively defended the former president on the criminal and civil charges against Trump, and also had regular phone calls with Trump and had a close relationship with his eldest son Donald Trump Jr.

In June, Vance also hosted a fundraiser for the Trump Organization in San Francisco, which was hosted by technology investor David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya of the All-In podcast.

In addition, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan are the "swing states" mentioned in the Associated Press report. In response to the interview, Trump said that Vance could help him win Michigan and other Midwestern "swing states" and perform well in the vice presidential candidate debate to attract the audience.

However, looking back at Vance's change in attitude towards Trump, this reversal is a bit familiar. Just like Trump, who criticized Bitcoin, eventually changed his attitude and issued an exclusive NFT, Vance did the same to Trump.

Summary

On August 2 of this year, Vance will turn 40 years old. He is one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in history and the first millennial to participate in a major party campaign. As a person who grew up in poverty and turmoil, Vance's life has undergone great changes: From a poor teenager to a lawyer, he married Usha Chilukuri Vance, a classmate he met at Yale Law School, in 2014 and had three lovely children. He is already a winner in life. Usha is of Indian descent and is also a lawyer. His Indian wife helped Trump's campaign team win minority votes; Then he went from being a lawyer to a venture capitalist and a best-selling author. As his influence expanded, he entered the political circle, and then from a high-profile Trump critic, he transformed himself into one of Trump's most staunch defenders, and now he has become his future deputy. It can be said that Vance's personal experience is a model of the American dream and has inspired many people with similar backgrounds.

In his TED speech, Vance said: The American dream is not easy to achieve. He believes that he, who grew up in poverty, can better understand the cruelty of the current survival game, and the decentralized nature of encryption is undoubtedly the best challenge to the current monopoly giants. Regardless of Vance's impact on Trump's second term, it is undeniable that he may have more or less impact on the encryption industry in the future.

However, it is worth mentioning that Vance, like Trump, has a tough stance on China and has complaints about China on a series of issues.