Trump’s VP pick JD Vance is first Bitcoin holder on a Presidential ticket

If Donald Trump wins the November presidential election, America will have its first crypto Vice President. Trump announced on Monday afternoon that Bitcoin-holding Ohio Senator J.D. Vance will be his running mate “after much deliberation and consideration,” according to a post on the Truth Social network.

The senator, former venture capitalist and author of Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir of his white, working-class upbringing in Ohio’s rust belt, has a personal stake in legitimizing cryptocurrency. Vance holds between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Bitcoin on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, according to a financial disclosure Vance made last year. He also has a brokerage account with Robinhood, a gold ETF worth up to $250,000, a crude oil ETF worth up to $100,000 and a checking account with brokerage firm Charles Schwab worth up to $250,000.

Vance’s pro-crypto history

Vance has made no secret of being a crypto-friendly voice on Capitol Hill. Politico reported last month that Vance introduced a bill that would revamp how the U.S. regulates digital assets. Vance’s plan would overhaul how the SEC and CFTC oversee the crypto market and make existing policy more industry-friendly.

Vance also introduced a bill last year that sought to protect banks from bowing to regulatory pressure to cut off services to crypto companies, Politico reported. To do so, Vance’s bill would have prohibited regulators from citing “reputational risk” when taking action against lenders. On top of that, in 2021, Vance issued a statement opposing the proposed Portman-Warner-Sinema amendment to the Infrastructure Bill, accusing it of “mass surveillance” of the crypto industry and a “backdoor ban” on Bitcoin. Crypto, he added, is “one of the few sectors of our economy where conservatives and free thinkers can operate without pressure from the social justice mob.”

Crypto selection

Crypto has taken on an increasingly prominent role in Trump’s campaign in recent months, with the candidate openly expressing his desire to emerge as a “crypto president.” For example, this week Bitcoin 2024 organizers announced that Trump will speak at an annual conference, a tribal gathering for fans of the original cryptocurrency, taking place in Nashville this month.

The story continues

All of this is a major shift for Trump, who told Fox Business in 2021 that Bitcoin “just seems like a scam.”

Trump’s efforts to promote crypto stem from growing evidence that crypto voters are a real demographic group. A Harris Poll survey released in May found that a fifth of voters in swing states “view cryptocurrency policies as an issue important enough to influence their support.”

In a consistently close election, a few hundred thousand votes in swing states can make all the difference. What’s more, crypto has money for the right candidates. Political action committees Fairshake and Stand With Crypto have collectively raised more than $357 million to lobby pro-crypto policymakers in a desperate bid to overthrow the current SEC administration, which is openly hostile to crypto.

This story was first published on Fortune.com