Cryptocurrency backers and billionaires haven’t always fit neatly into the US’ two-party system, but in this election the digital money is swinging in behind Donald Trump.
Tech industry figures who’ve made fortunes in crypto have donated millions to Trump in 2024, including the Winklevoss twins, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk.
Trump is also wooing the crypto enthusiast community, appearing and making a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, and promising crypto-friendly regulation and change at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It marks a change in position from the former President, who tweeted in 2024 that crypto was based on “thin air” and enabled illegal activity.
“I’d like to believe he’s come around,” Rich Clarke, the founder of Bitcoin Atlanta, told Q+A.
“He’s learned a few of the issues, I still feel like he doesn’t have a super great grasp of the ecosystem and how it actually works, but he may be being pragmatic – they did the math and there’s a big enough voting bloc.”
Clarke said he came to the world of cryptocurrency through libertarianism, having previously supported libertarian candidate Ron Paul for president.
For Clarke, Trump represents an ideological break from the “warhawk” policies of previous Republican administrations, with many Bush-era Republican politicians now backing Democratic vice president Kamala Harris.
But there’s scepticism about the motives of the big-money backers of Trump’s crypto push.
While some will be at least partially motivated by ideology, “ultimately this is all about business,” said University of Washington professor Margaret O’Mara, an expert on the connection between politics and Silicon Valley.
“The spectre of regulation of cryptocurrency is something those in the industry are quite worried about,” said O’Mara.
Money from crypto interests has also poured into competitive races further down the ballot, with attack ads produced that in many cases don’t even mention cryptocurrency policy.
The ads are made by super-PAC Fairshake, which this week pledged a further $25 million for future elections by crypto exchange platform Coinbase, bringing their total contributions to close to $100 million.
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand on Air
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