What do the US presidential candidates have to say about cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies and politics are intertwined. Here’s what the top politicians in the U.S. elections think about cryptocurrencies.

Not all of the remaining candidates for the U.S. presidency have spoken directly on crypto, but their pasts may reveal their views. Let’s review their stance regarding Bitcoin.

Two supporters of the crypto industry — the crypto billionaire Brock Pierce and rapper Kanye West — have announced their intention to run for the presidency in 2020. Their victory could help change the country’s policy towards digital assets. However, they have little chance not only to win, but even to register. The current president, Donald Trump, has long been known as the opponent of Bitcoin.

His opponent in the November elections, Democrat Joe Biden, expresses a diametrically opposed viewpoint on most topics and believes in the power of technology. However, the players of stock and crypto markets are afraid of his victory because of uncertainty. The already difficult struggle for the White House is exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic and recession, which also affects the crypto industry. In the past, other crypto supporters have fought for the president’s office, let’s look at their presidential campaigns.

John McAfee

Back in 2016, McAfee participated in the presidential race as a candidate from the Libertarian Party, but lost the battle to the former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.

In 2018 he made another attempt to overtake the White House, although sincerely admitted that the chances of his victory are very low.

“In spite of past refusals, I have decided to again run for POTUS in 2020. If asked again by the Libertarian party, I will run with them. If not, I will create my own party. I believe this will best serve the crypto community by providing the ultimate campaign platform for us.”

However, eventually something went wrong: in early 2019, the entrepreneur fled from the U.S. authorities on a yacht in neutral waters, who accused him of tax evasion. Later, his arrest was reported, but then he was released again.

At the end of 2019 McAfee reaffirmed that he intends to fight for the post of president, but in March 2020 announced that he was quitting the race and will run for the post of Vice-President of the Libertarian Party. This is how he explained his decision in a conversation with Spectator USA:

“It does not matter who the president is. Our political system is like a car with a frozen steering wheel. It does not matter who is driving — it is going to go where it wants. I am no different from anyone else in my ability to drive an undriveable machine. All I can do is point to the fact that the entire political process is a charade.”

Andrew Yang

The representative of the Democratic Party, Andrew Yang, became the first member of the presidential race in 2020, who proposed a clear policy on the cryptocurrency market regulations. He wanted to create the Ministry of Technology, to give a legislative definition of the status of tokens and the powers of federal agencies, to ensure consumer protection, as well as to promote the development of a clear tax policy and the creation of a single regulatory framework.

Yang explained the need for a unified approach to regulation by the fact that the growth of the crypto market outpaced the government’s response. The federal regulatory framework had not been established, which led to a conflict of interests among several agencies that independently regard cryptocurrencies as property, goods or securities.

Yang also stressed that in 2019, a hearing in Congress on the proposed Facebook project Libra showed that lawmakers lack basic knowledge about blockchain technology, digital assets and other advanced technologies. To eliminate this deficiency, Yang proposed to revive the Office of Technology Assessment at Congress, which was abolished in 1995.

Existing regulation at the level of some states Yang called “burdensome” for the industry. According to him, BitLicense, issued by the state of New York, “had a frightening effect on the American market of digital assets”.

Yang’s intentions were praised by Coin Center, an organization that lobbies for industry interests in the White House, and enthusiastic political supporters even launched the independent Humanity Forward Fund policy action committee.

In January 2020, Andrew Young said that the state, however it wants, is not able to prohibit people from making financial transactions outside the traditional banking system. As early as February, Yang upset his fans by announcing that he was quitting the presidential race.

Refusing to fight for the presidency, Yang nevertheless continues to actively promote the Humanity Forward Fund initiative. One of its key points is to introduce an unconditional basic income of at least $2000 per month for all adult Americans. As a politician is convinced, this measure becomes even more relevant in the context of the global coronavirus pandemic and will help the U.S. to avoid sinking into a new “Great Depression”.

Kanye West

Kanye West is an American rapper, producer, entrepreneur and husband of Kim Kardashian. On July 5, he announced his intention to compete for the presidency in November this year as an independent candidate.

This is not the first time West has announced its intention to run for the presidency. Back in 2015, he said that he was going to compete for the job in 2020. But last November, he specified that he intends to run for president only in 2024. However, it is obvious that the rapper has decided — he has a chance to succeed this year too.

43-year-old West may well qualify for the presidential seat — he fits all the criteria. But this year he has little chance to be registered. For an independent candidate to get on the ballot, he must register in every state of the United States. But West has already missed several deadlines to register in six states — so he can’t qualify for at least 102 votes from the 538 panel. West needs to hurry up not to lose another 85 votes — in July, the deadline for another seven states expires. In addition, he still has not applied to the Federal Election Commission.

West can also register with one of the other U.S. parties. However, so far, no party has expressed support for the entrepreneur. Another opportunity to win an election is to convince voters to put their candidate on the ballot themselves. In the United States, this is allowed — sometimes local elections win in the country. But on a national scale, there were no such things. Also, to participate in elections, West must hire a staff of volunteers to collect signatures — but the registration deadline already expired this month.

On July 8, in an interview with Forbes, West revealed some details of his election campaign. He said he no longer supported Donald Trump, but praised his achievements and criticized his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. In case of victory, West promised to turn the White House into a government structure by analogy with what is shown in the fictional country of Wakanda from Marvel movies. The entrepreneur intends to develop medical innovations, but noted that he considers vaccination against coronavirus “chip implantation” and spoke out against abortion. West also hopes to return “fear and love for God” to American schools and government agencies.

In the crypto community, West is believed to be a supporter of digital assets, although he barely mentioned them in his interviews before. In an interview in 2018, he said that he did not like the 20-dollar bill, as it shows Andrew Jackson — the seventh president of the United States and a slave owner. Looking at it, he thought about using Bitcoin. Shortly before the interview, he also wrote on Twitter about decentralization.

Brock Pierce

The current chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, Brock Pierce, is an early Bitcoin investor and one of the largest participants in the Ethereum crowdsale. In addition, he has participated in the launch of EOS Alliance, Block.one, Blockchain Capital, Tether and Mastercoin, and has acted as advisor to projects such as Airswap, Bancor, BitGo, BitGuild, BlockV, Bloq, DNA, Element Group, Metronome, Shyft and tZERO.

The decision to go for the presidency as an independent candidate, a former Hollywood actor announced on July 5. The entrepreneur says that America needs a rethinking of values and radical changes, and he wants to achieve them at the expense of already available advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, which should be introduced into the government infrastructure.

Pierce’s decision was already supported by well-known representatives of the Bitcoin industry, including Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd and Blockstream Strategic Development Director Samson Mow.

Conclusion

The two candidates with the highest chance of winning are current president Donald Trump and the democrat representative Joe Biden.We will not go into the analysis of the chances of Trump and Biden winning. Judging by the polls they are almost equal: periodically one of them breaks out ahead, but none of them has a decisive advantage yet. Judging by the opinion polls, Biden is 8% ahead of Trump right now. But most likely, the voting outcome will be decided at the last moment — in 2020 everything changes so quickly that it is a hopeless task to predict future events.

There are interesting statistics: when the S&P 500 index grows three months before an election, the incumbent party usually wins, when it falls, the incumbent president usually loses. Now, after the phenomenal bounce of March, the markets have gone down again. However, according to other statistics, the incumbent president of the USA is usually re-elected for a second term. But COVID-19, unemployment and riots over police brutality against the Black Americans are clearly playing against Trump.

Despite all this, Bitcoin is still in an upward trend. The cryptocurrency will continue to grow in the future, so now is the time to make money on this growth. Join our Bitcoin cloud mining platform Hashmart.io to start earning BTC on a daily basis!