Call them the crypto candidates.
Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump announced Monday via his Truth Social media platform that he chose Ohio Senator and former tech venture capitalist J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.
Trump, who has made championing digital asset innovation a key part of his campaign platform, praised Vance for his "very successful business career in Technology and Finance" and fighting for American workers.
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Vance, however, brings his own crypto street cred to the presidential race. Since being elected to the Senate in 2022, he's introduced and voted in favor of pro-crypto legislation, is a holder of the number one digital currency, Bitcoin, and has been a staunch critic of Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Genlser’s regulatory crackdown on digital assets.
"…JD is a great choice, former VC, and very good on crypto," Castle Island Ventures founder Nic Carter said in a post to his X account. "Trump 2.0 is signaling a pro-tech, pro-Silicon Valley, pro-American dynamism outlook."
Vance, 39, comes from working-class Ohio, served in the Marines, worked his way through college and Yale Law School before going on to work as a venture capitalist under PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
He is also a best-selling author. His 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," provided a deep look into the economic plight of middle America and helped explain the populism behind the rise of Donald Trump as a national politician and president that year. He and Trump weren't always allies; Vance was initially a free-marketeer, libertarian and a critic of Trump's brand of politics.
Yet his views have become more populist over the years and as he leaned into the MAGA world and Trump endorsed him for Ohio's senate seat.
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Vance is now the first millennial to be on a presidential ticket of a major party, and he brings that generation's politics to the race, which includes crypto. Vance voted to repeal the agency’s controversial staff accounting bulletin known as SAB 121, that restricts certain banks and broker dealers from holding digital assets, which passed both chambers of Congress by simple majority in May before it was ultimately vetoed by President Biden.
In February, Vance penned a letter to SEC Chairman Gensler alongside a handful of fellow GOP Senators, raising concerns over an enforcement case against crypto firm Debt Box, where a judge found that SEC lawyers had used false statements to justify freezing assets and bank accounts associated with the company.
"It is unconscionable that any federal agency…could operate in such an unethical and unprofessional manner," Vance wrote. "…trust is undermined, and your mission compromised, by episodes like the DEBT Box case."
Vance has also made statements blasting Gensler for his regulation of crypto and blockchain technology, saying he wants to inject politics "way too much" into the business of securities, calling his approach to regulating crypto and blockchain "the exact opposite of what it should be."
Last year, Vance introduced a bill in the Senate called the Financial Regulatory Accountability Act with the intention of preventing federal banking regulators from blocking disfavored industries, like gun manufacturers and crypto firms, from access to banking services.
In response to Canada’s finance minister freezing the bank accounts of Canadians protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2022, Vance touted crypto as a solution.
"This is why crypto is taking off," he said in a post on X. "The regime will cut off your access to banking if you have the wrong politics."
Other members of the $2 trillion crypto industry are hopeful that a Trump-Vance winning ticket will be a hindrance to anti-crypto lawmakers, like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who touted building an "anti-crypto army" as part of her re-election campaign.
"Senator Warren’s ‘anti-crypto army’ would be no match for a Trump-Vance presidency," Sam Lyman, Director of Public Policy at Riot Platforms, told FOX Business. "This is the dream ticket for anyone who believes in self-sovereignty and the freedom to transact."
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Meanwhile, Trump himself is scheduled to be a featured speaker at the largest Bitcoin conference next week in Nashville, where he’s expected to lay out his plans for championing blockchain technology, the right to self-custody of digital assets, and preventing the establishment of a so-called central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
Trump’s advisor on crypto, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is reportedly being considered for a position in Trump’s cabinet, will be speaking at the event. It’s unclear if Vance will make an appearance.
