Kamala Harris’s softens Democrats’ stance on crypto, winning over some in Silicon Valley

It began with a call to billionaire Bitcoin enthusiast Mark Cuban. Next: Invitation to speak at Bitcoin 2024 — a proposal his team is reportedly considering. Now, there are talks of meetings with digital asset giants Ripple, Coinbase and Circle. The message is clear: Kamala Harris’ campaign is reconsidering the crypto question.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley is reconsidering her. While many tech figures turned their backs on Democrats during President Biden’s campaign, about 100 venture capitalists and founders have pledged their support for Harris, including some crypto insiders.

So it’s not surprising that cryptocurrency people were among the nearly 100 venture capitalists, founders and tech leaders who pledged their support to Harris on Wednesday.

“We stand for business, the American dream, entrepreneurship and technological progress,” the signatories said, in an effort to distance Silicon Valley and the business community from Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Right now @svangel We spend our days seeking out, investing in, and supporting founders who are building the future. We are pro-business, pro-American Dream, pro-entrepreneurship, and pro-technological progress. At this critical moment, we are united in our support for the Vice President… picture.twitter.com/HIIkEDTDOb

— Ron Conway (@RonConway) July 31, 2024

Trump vowed to be a crypto president. As a result, industry heavyweights lined up to voice their support, including: a16z co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Winklevoss twins, who founded crypto exchange Gemini. Meanwhile, crypto political action committees have spent more than $28.5 million in congressional races to support crypto-friendly Republicans and counter skeptical Democrats, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of campaign data published July 20.

We have compiled for you six crypto VCs that have pledged their support.

Ron Conway

Conway is the managing partner and founder of SV Angel. The fund invests in at least ten crypto firms, including Coinbase, Uniswap, and OpenSea. “I have known Kamala for decades, and she has been a warrior, a leader, and an advocate for the tech ecosystem since the day we met,” Conway wrote on X. She also donated nearly $450,000 to Harris for President as of the end of June, according to federal campaign data.

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Ryan Morrison

As a partner at Founders Circle Capital, Morrison invested in Robinhood, a retail investing app that offers crypto services. More broadly, the firm also invests in digital assets prime brokerage FalconX.

Rebecca Kaden

Kaden is the first female managing partner at Union Square Ventures. USV’s portfolio includes 24 crypto firms, including Coinbase, Blackbird Labs, Dapper Labs, and Polychain Capital. Kaden donated $4,000 to Democratic candidates and committees last year.

Mark is Cuban

It’s no secret that Cuban (worth $5.4 billion) — who has invested in 20 blockchain companies — envisions Bitcoin becoming a “global currency.” His investments include Arbitrum, Polygon and DeepSea. Cuban is a staunch critic of Trump, questioning the merits of the former president’s supposedly business-friendly promise to impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods and accusing Trump University of being a scam, according to an X post.

Me: Trump scammed thousands of hardworking Americans with his university, bankrupted vendors and didn’t pay his bills
You: But all businessmen do that

Me: He didn’t want to leave WH. He called Ga.Sec of State and asked for 11780 votes. He requested… https://t.co/bshaHOZBNq

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 26, 2024

Reid Hoffman

The LinkedIn co-founder and partner at Greylock has invested in six crypto companies, including Coinbase. In a 2014 blog post, Hoffman called Bitcoin “transformative” and “remarkable.” On Wednesday, he called supporting Harris “an investment.” [our] democratic future.”

This story was first published on Fortune.com

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