US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to be the next US President, mentioned cryptocurrencies for the first time in public during a Wall Street fundraiser. She vowed to encourage investment in “digital assets” along with other modern technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), according to a Bloomberg report.
Harris on Crypto
“We will partner together to invest in America’s competitiveness, to invest in America’s future,” Harris said. “We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets, while protecting our consumers and investors.”
“We will create a safe business environment with consistent and transparent rules of the road. We will invest in semiconductors, clean energy, and other industries of the future, and we will cut needless bureaucracy.”
According to a campaign official, Sunday's fundraising event raised $27 million, the largest single-event total since Harris received the Democratic ticket.
Harris, who also served as California's Attorney General, is known to be close to Silicon Valley executives. She, the Democratic National Committee, and state parties together raised $361 million in August, leaving her with $404 million at the start of September.
Her largest donors are said to be from Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood.
Despite Harris’s closeness to the tech world, she had not mentioned crypto in any of her public speeches until now. Her stance around cryptocurrencies was also unclear—whether she wanted to encourage the industry or regulate it heavily.
The “Crypto President”
However, her opponent, Donald Trump, vowed to be the first “crypto President”. He even launched his own line of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is directly accepting cryptocurrencies as political donations.
Trump also attended the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in July, rallying many industry proponents behind him. He further promised to fire the sitting Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, whose term will end in 2026. Under Gensler’s leadership, the regulator opened high-profile cases against several crypto giants.
However, neither Trump nor Harris mentioned anything about cryptocurrencies in their last debate.
