Trump’s Vice Presidential Pick JD Vance Is First Bitcoin Holder on a Presidential Ticket

If Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, America will have its first cryptocurrency vice president. Trump announced Monday afternoon that Bitcoin-owning Ohio Senator J.D. Vance will be his running mate “after long deliberation and reflection,” according to a post on his social media platform Truth.

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 owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Bitcoin on cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbaseaccording to a financial disclosure by Vance last year. Additionally, Vance has a brokerage account with Robinhood, up to $250,000 in a gold ETF, up to $100,000 in a crude oil ETF, and up to $250,000 in a brokerage checking account Charles Schwab.

Vance’s pro-crypto history

Vance has made no secret of the fact that he is a pro-crypto voice on Capitol Hill. Politico reported Last month, Vance was circulating a bill that would overhaul how the U.S. regulates digital assets. Vance’s plan would revamp how the SEC and CFTC police the cryptocurrency market and make current policy more industry-friendly.

Last year, Vance also introduced a bill that would attempt to protect banks from succumbing to regulatory pressure to cut off services to cryptocurrency companies, Politico reported. To do this, Vance’s bill would prohibit regulators from citing “reputational risk” when taking action against lenders. Additionally, in 2021, Vance issued a declaration opposing Portman-Warner-Sinema Amendment that was proposed in the Infrastructure Bill, accusing it of ushering in “mass surveillance” of the cryptocurrency industry and a “backdoor ban” on Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is “one of the few sectors of our economy where conservatives and free thinkers can operate without pressure from the social justice crowd,” he added.

The Crypto Election

Cryptocurrency has taken on an increasingly significant role in Trump’s campaign in recent months, and the candidate has been vocal in recent months about his desire to emerge as the “crypto president.” For example, this week the organizers of Bitcoin 2024 announced what Trump will be speaking at the annual conference, a tribal gathering for fans of the original cryptocurrency, taking place this month in Nashville.

All of this is a big change for Trump who in 2021 said Fox Business in 2021 that Bitcoin “just looks like a scam”.

Trump’s efforts to court crypto stem from growing evidence that the crypto voter is a real demographic. A Harris Poll survey published in May found that a fifth of voters in swing states “consider cryptocurrency policies to be an important enough topic to influence their support.”

In an election that has been consistently close, a few hundred thousand votes in swing states can make all the difference. Plus, cryptocurrency has money for the right candidates. Political action committees Fairshake and Stay with Crypto together they have raised over $357 million to lobby pro-crypto policymakers in a desperate attempt to oust the current SEC administration, which has been openly hostile to cryptocurrencies.

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