Is Trump VP Pick J.D. Vance Good for Crypto?

By Sander Lutz

Former president Donald Trump announced on Monday that he has selected Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his running mate for 2024, a hardline overture to the MAGA wing of the Republican Party that’s sure to shake up an already unprecedented election year. 

But first things first: How does Vance stack up when it comes to crypto? 

While Vance’s political identity has shifted quite a bit over the years—he went from denouncing Trump as “America’s Hitler” in 2016 to emerging as one of the former president’s most loyal devotees—his political calculations have largely ebbed and flowed with the tide of the Republican base.

The same can be said about his stance on crypto. Vance disclosed in 2021 that he owned between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Bitcoin while running for Senate. In 2022, when Vance was running for Senate, the former lawyer and best-selling author made overtures about crypto’s utility—but from within the context of Republican fears regarding the censorship of conservative speech.

That’s not to say Vance isn’t tech savvy. In 2016 and 2017, he worked as a venture capitalist under prominent investor and crypto maven Peter Thiel in San Francisco. But his relationship to crypto has always filtered through the lens of Republican politics, not technological innovation.

In 2023, for instance, in his first year in the Senate, Vance introduced a bill that sought to shield crypto firms—along with gun manufacturers and oil and gas companies—from harsh federal regulatory oversight. The bill did not touch on crypto’s particular importance or value. Rather, it focused on painting regulators of crypto and other industries as pushing what he described as “woke initiatives.”

Similarly, in January, Vance seized on the opportunity to lambast the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an embarrassing Twitter hack on the eve of the agency’s historic approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Into this summer, as defending crypto became a more proudly Republican talking point, so too did Vance’s rhetoric shift on the subject. Just weeks ago, in late June, the junior Ohio senator began circulating draft legislation that would overhaul how federal agencies regulate crypto, in a manner described as very industry-friendly.

Vance is a bit late to the party, however. Several of the 39 year-old’s colleagues in the Senate, most notably Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), have been working towards building a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework for years.

What does this all mean for crypto-inclined voters? In the most immediate sense, both members of a major American presidential ticket have explicitly embraced the industry—a historic first. 

But if his record is any indication, Vance is following the pro-crypto tide, not leading it. Should that tide within the Republican Party shift, all bets are off as to whether the GOP’s new heir apparent will stay the course.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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