A former chief executive of a crypto platform is trying to build a crypto following for Vice President Kamala Harris, hoping to raise money and secure industry endorsements for the Democratic presidential candidate.
Former Uphold CEO J.P. Thieriot says he's hoping to counter the digital assets sector's recent enthusiasm for former President Donald Trump.

The former CEO of crypto platform Uphold, J.P. Thieriot, is trying to drum up crypto support for Vice President Kamala Harris as she pursues the Democratic nomination in the presidential election, arguing that former President Donald Trump is offering empty promises to the industry and Harris is signaling a new openness.

Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 race, has quickly become the crypto favorite, garnering big-money support from industry leaders as he adopts enthusiastic cheering for the digital assets sector (which he'd looked on with open skepticism until recently). But Thieriot said there seems to be "a real opportunity to help shape the Harris campaign’s position on crypto."

"Of course, she's going to have to do some stuff to gain trust, but she has signaled she'd like a chance," said Thieriot, who said he still retains a stake in Uphold and is building a new crypto trading operation, in an interview. "It would be crazy to not engage on that."

He said he wrote a strategy paper with a wider group, which included crypto lawyers who he declined to name. They shared that document with Harris' campaign this week and are awaiting a response.

"We would argue that crypto is this electoral cycle’s foremost interstate swing issue," said the strategy paper, which was reviewed by CoinDesk. "Trump has already moved to try to capture this space, and raised significant capital, essentially offering vague platitudes and no meaningful policy commitments."

The paper suggested an opening crypto fundraiser in San Francisco and predicted that Harris could garner endorsements from prominents crypto figures and potentially earn tens of millions in campaign donations from the industry. Thieriot said he's setting up a website, and the effort can be contacted at info@crypto4kamala.com.

Industry support has most loudly gravitated toward Trump, who spoke at the recent Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tenn., and who says he'll put a stop to the government resistance to cryptocurrency typified by the actions of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and the opposition of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Despite President Joe Biden's appointment of Gensler and ongoing support of his oversight of the cryptocurrency sector, "Kamala has, I think, an opportunity at a clean slate," Thieriot said. The strategy he and the other supporters have in mind: She makes it clear her administration will work with the industry and support clear rules for it, and she shows openness for a friendlier chief at the SEC.

Thieriot isn't alone among crypto insiders now favoring Harris. Tonya Evans, a prominent crypto law professor and board member of the Digital Currency Group, argued that Harris offers a chance for a new course that differs from the Gensler/Warren views that have dominated this administration. Evans is involved in a group of decentralized finance leaders favoring the vice president, which has scheduled a Thursday organizational meeting.

Some of the most recent national polling shows Harris with a slight lead over Trump, though the candidates remain nearly even.

Regulations Election 2024 Kamala Harris Donald Trump Uphold Political Campaigns

Jesse Hamilton

Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.