A major ad-Vance for crypto

Hello and welcome to the FT Cryptofinance newsletter. This week, we’re looking at the crypto stance of JD Vance.

For crypto bros already excited about the prospect of former president Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House, his choice of running mate could hardly have been better.

In JD Vance, bitcoiners see one of their own. Not only does the Hillbilly Elegy author own a lot of bitcoin (at least he did in 2022, his most recent financial filings show) but he’s championed crypto as an alternative to mainstream finance. This is music to the ears of an industry that sees itself as the victim of baseless hostility from US regulators.

“Overall, it’s a positive thing for crypto because the current administration and regulatory situation in the US has been very challenging,” said Alexander Blume, chief executive of trading company Two Prime. “It pretty much could only get better.”

Vance’s rise in US politics has been helped by prominent venture capitalist and crypto enthusiast Peter Thiel, for whom Vance worked for a short period at the start of his career. Thiel later helped bankroll Vance’s successful bid for the Senate and, beyond giving him an education in tech, has even been credited for his spiritual awakening and conversion to Christianity. 

The possibility of the Ohio senator serving as vice-president has been widely praised by crypto enthusiasts, who were already highly excited about the prospect of a Trump presidency and a pro-crypto outlook from Washington.

The price of bitcoin surged almost 11 per cent to more than $65,000 this week after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, as traders raised their bets that he would win in November.

Among Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires, crypto has become a bold dividing line in this election, with Trump and now Vance’s bullish positions earning them millions of dollars in donations — some paid in the form of crypto — as well as likely votes. 

Tech and crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan heartily endorsed Vance, explaining on social media platform X that the senator “understands military, media, tech, finance, and politics”, while venture capitalist David Sacks also applauded the pick.

A more crypto-friendly White House would stand in stark contrast to the tough rules and Securities and Exchange Commission clampdown led by Joe Biden-appointed chair Gary Gensler, who has pursued companies including Coinbase and Ripple over the past few years.

Many crypto believers point to Vance’s personal crypto holdings as a mark of his credentials and interest in the asset.

He held somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of crypto on Coinbase in 2022, according to the most recent financial disclosures. He’s also invested up to $15,000 in decentralised exchange Ethex, and somewhere between $15,001 and $50,000 in rightwing video platform Rumble, on which Trump’s Truth Social advertises. 

When Canada vowed to freeze the bank accounts of those protesting against Covid-19 restrictions in 2022, Vance wrote on Twitter that “this is why crypto is taking off”. He’s also been critical of Gensler, saying that his approach to crypto regulation “is the exact opposite of what it should be”.

“On an ideological, philosophical basis, it seems he sees the value of bitcoin,” Blume said, adding that Vance’s outlook “has all been extremely positive, pro-crypto”.

While his plans are still unclear, the Ohio senator may have more policies up his sleeve and a better grasp of the industry than Trump, given that he has worked in Silicon Valley and sits on the powerful Senate banking committee.

Vance is already getting stuck in, circulating a draft proposal that would overhaul how Washington’s top two regulators oversee crypto, according to Politico. 

Of course, this is also the man who once called Trump “America’s Hitler”, among other things, although those views seem to have changed markedly. If the polls are correct, we could soon be finding out a lot more about his true views on crypto.

What do you think of Vance’s position on crypto? Email me at nikou.asgari@ft.com

Weekly highlights

Soundbite of the week

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues against choosing who to vote for based solely on their crypto views, in a message seemingly aimed at the many crypto founders and executives who are donating heavily to Trump’s campaign.

In a blog post on his website, he said that freedom of money in the form of crypto payments was not the only freedom that should decide people’s votes — privacy of thoughts and communications were also important.

“Making decisions in this way carries a high risk of going against the values that brought you into the crypto space in the first place.”

Cryptofinance is edited by Laurence Fletcher. Your comments are welcome