With just 48 days left until the presidential election, nonpartisan digital asset advocacy group Stand With Crypto is celebrating the registration of over 100,000 crypto supporters across five key battleground states in September, FOX Business reported.
To mark the milestone, the nonprofit will host its second annual “Stand With Crypto Day” event on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. It also marks the culmination of a two-week bus tour through battleground states Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where SWC advocates helped mobilize local crypto communities to make their voices heard on Nov. 5.
The “Stand with Crypto Day” celebration will take place at the capital's Black Cat music venue on Wednesday night and will feature a performance by pop music group The Chainsmokers as well as industry leaders, including a fireside chat between Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-North Carolina, and Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry.
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Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, helped launch Stand With Crypto in August 2023, during which it attracted more than 1.4 million digital asset advocates to support the group's work and raised approximately $1.5 million, according to the group's website.
“I think this tour proves the hypothesis that crypto voters are real,” Kara Calvert, vice president of policy at Coinbase, said in an interview with FOX Business. “They're not just in major tech hub cities, but in a variety of suburban communities across America, and people are really excited about it.”
A total of 4 million Americans own cryptocurrency in the five battleground states the group visited, and 83% of them said they plan to vote on November 5. According to Stand With Crypto data, the number of cryptocurrency holders eager to vote for crypto-friendly candidates in these five states is eight times the vote margin in the 2020 presidential election, meaning there are significantly more pro-crypto voters in these states than the voting bloc that made the difference in President Biden's victory over former President Trump in the last election cycle.
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Digital assets have become a somewhat prominent issue in the 2024 presidential election, driven by efforts to mobilize the crypto fanbase. Republican candidate Donald Trump has been courting the crypto industry for months, signaling his intention to embrace digital assets and roll back the strict regulations seen under the Biden administration. Trump gave a keynote speech at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Nashville this summer, calling for the United States to become the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Trump's running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, has yet to take an official stance on cryptocurrencies, but her deputies have met with crypto industry leaders (including Coinbase) to build relationships and convince them that crypto is not just an issue for Trump and the Republican Party.
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FOX Business has learned that those meetings have fizzled out in recent weeks amid strong industry skepticism about Vice President Harris' record and her indirect role in the Biden Administration's crackdown on digital assets.
Meanwhile, industry supporters have donated a massive $180 million to various pro-crypto candidates at the congressional level through super PACs such as FairShake, which aims to elect crypto-friendly lawmakers to Congress. The increase in crypto donations in this election is notable, as the crypto industry only contributed $15 million in the 2020 election cycle.
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“The interest is so high and the reason it's so heightened is because we're now going into an election that could change everything, and that's really exciting,” Calvert said.