On Wednesday, the number of members of Stand with Crypto, an advocacy group for voters who hold cryptocurrencies, surpassed one million. Supporters of cryptocurrencies are pressuring lawmakers to draft new regulations for the digital asset market while avoiding more burdensome compliance standards.
The quick expansion of the group demonstrated the potential voting power of Bitcoin users, according to Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, an online marketplace for buying and selling cryptocurrencies that assisted in the establishment of Stand With Crypto last August.
“It’s a much bigger voting bloc than most people probably would have anticipated,” Armstrong told sources.
Tens of millions of dollars are being spent by the cryptocurrency industry on US elections this year in an attempt to support pro-crypto candidates and defeat those who favour tighter regulation.
Coinbase matched recent contributions from tech-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and cryptocurrency payments processor Ripple by donating $25 million to the pro-crypto political action group Fairshake on Monday.
Targeting voters in battleground states, Stand with Crypto currently has over 16,000 members in Arizona, where Democratic President Joe Biden won by just over 10,000 votes, and almost 24,000 members in Georgia, where Democratic President Joe Biden defeated Republican Donald Trump by 11,779 votes in 2020.
Armstrong reported that strong support for the Republican-sponsored bill that would establish a new legal framework for digital currencies and frustration over Biden’s veto of a measure intended to overturn the Securities and Exchange Commission’s accounting bulletin on crypto assets were the main drivers of the group’s membership surge.
Despite the White House’s stated opposition, the Republican-led House of Representatives enacted the so-called Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act last month with bipartisan backing. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has issued a warning, stating that the law may expose investors and markets to new risks.
A person familiar with the case stated that Coinbase representatives had met with officials from the White House and the Biden administration to discuss the difficulties over the past few months.
Armstrong declared he would not be supporting a presidential candidate since he believed that bipartisanship in crypto matters was necessary to secure the enactment of legislation.
But considering the measure’s widespread bipartisan support, he said Biden’s veto last week was obviously “a bad political move.”
“I think that it’s just bad politics to be anti-crypto. There’s no voter constituency that you’re winning over by doing that, but you are upsetting a huge number of Americans who’ve used this technology,” he said.
52 million Americans, or about one in five Democrats, Republicans, or independent voters, are estimated by Coinbase to have used cryptocurrency. The unclear regulations governing the business infuriated a lot of people.
He stated, “They want to elect representatives who share their values.” Although it was uncertain if members of the quickly expanding “voter bloc” would base their votes in the upcoming presidential election in November on concerns over digital assets, he added that a portion most definitely would.
Both the Biden campaign and the White House declined to comment.
According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Biden’s team has increased its outreach to businesses and bitcoin users in recent weeks.
The Trump campaign declared last month that it would take cryptocurrency contributions. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond when asked if it was taking these kinds of donations.
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