Is Kamala Harris Really Accepting Crypto Donations?

A recent comment from Coinbase's CFO has created a false impression that Vice President Kamala Harris is accepting crypto donations for her campaign.

At Citigroup's 2024 Global TMT Conference on September 4, Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said that Kamala Harris was "accepting crypto donations via Coinbase Commerce for her campaign."

However, a Coinbase spokesperson later clarified that Haas was referring to the Future Forward USA PAC, not the Vice President's campaign directly. Future Forward is a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris's bid for the US presidency this year. There has been no official response from Harris's campaign.

However, Future Forward's acceptance of crypto donations also represents a more positive move by pro-Democratic groups toward digital assets.

Future Forward has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to support Harris, as the race with the Republican candidate becomes more intense than ever.

Although it has not publicly announced its stance on crypto, Harris's group is said to have reached out to “repair” with prominent crypto companies such as Coinbase and Ripple. The Democratic Party under President Biden has generally been less supportive of crypto than the Republican Party. There was also speculation that Ms. Harris called “Bitcoin a money for criminals,” but recent advocacy efforts are dispelling this extreme view.

Since August, the “Crypto for Harris” campaign has been launched to counter former President Donald Trump’s pro-blockchain comments. Several prominent Democrats and industry figures have joined, giving the movement momentum. Ms. Kamala’s approval rating has even surpassed Mr. Trump’s on the Polymarket platform.

Meanwhile, Harris’s opponent, Donald Trump, has been ahead of the curve and has won favor with the crypto community earlier. Mr. Trump also has ambitions to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the world.”