Biden’s exit offers Democrats a chance for a crypto ‘reset’ to win more votes

With one in five U.S. voters owning crypto, President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race presents a fresh opportunity for Democrats to explore new crypto policy and capture crypto votes from Donald Trump and the Republican party, analysts say. Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic torchbearers could embrace crypto and restart the Democratic dialogue on crypto, industry analysts say.

“The Biden administration has been extremely hostile to crypto for years, refusing to enact reasonable regulation of the technology and instead attempting to destroy the industry with a campaign of regulation through sanctions,” Jake Chervinsky, chief legal officer and crypto attorney at Variant Fund, said on social media over the weekend.

With President Biden leaving office, the Democratic Party has a huge opportunity to regain a large portion of the crypto vote.

This should be a top priority for the new candidate in an election that will be won by marginal votes in states where crypto is a live issue.

Here’s why:

Her…

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) July 21, 2024

“With President Biden stepping aside, the Democratic Party has a huge opportunity to win back a large portion of the crypto vote,” Chervinsky said. “This should be a top priority for the new candidate in an election that will be won by margins in states where crypto is a live issue.”

Trump’s anti-crypto platform has focused on ending “Joe Biden’s war on crypto,” an argument that could become irrelevant if a pro-crypto Democrat embraces the new technology. In recent months, crypto industry donors have poured millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign coffers, buoyed by the former president’s promise to keep American innovation at home and cut red tape for the struggling industry.

Chervinsky laid out a five-point plan for a Democratic candidate to appeal to Trump’s pro-crypto platform: (1) reach out to the crypto industry, (2) release a list of potential appointees to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, (3) emphasize the importance of keeping crypto innovation in the U.S. rather than overseas, (4) reverse the SEC’s enforcement-first approach to dealing with the industry, and (5) release crypto policy proposals that promote innovation while also bolstering protections.

Chervinsky noted that a significant portion of crypto voters lean Democratic or independent, and most are not “single-issue voters.”

“A new Democratic candidate could flip the script and win back a significant number of crypto voters,” Chervinsky noted. “Of course, a good number of them were Republicans all along, and after Biden’s years, many more have lost to Democrats forever. But if the Democratic Party is serious about winning this election, the new candidate should seize the opportunity.”