The Democratic National Committee published its 2024 Party Platform on Sunday – a document detailing the Democrats’ future political priorities heading into the next election.
Unlike their Republican counterparts, the Democrats’ platform made no mention of the words Bitcoin, crypto, or blockchain.
Democrats Still Quiet On Crypto
The ninety-two-page document touched on popular issues among Democrat voters including lowering housing costs and tackling climate change.
It also prioritized making the wealthy and corporations “pay their fair share” – ending the preferential treatment of capital gains by making investment income tax the same rate as wage income. That would hurt the pockets of all investors, including Bitcoin holders – a group Biden’s administration has greatly disappointed already.
Notably, the DNC platform was written and passed by its committee before Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 Presidential race, and includes lengthy praise for his administration’s ongoing work.
Yet that also means that the platform may tell us little about how the Democratic Party handles crypto under a Harris administration, as many suspect the current Vice President to have a lighter touch on the industry than Biden has.
“It’s expected to pass as written,” said Fox Business journalist Elanor Terret on Monday. “Unclear whether any new additions will be made that reflect Harris’s positions.”
Is This A ‘Pivot’?
Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran is one such person, believing the platforms’ absolute silence on crypto is a quiet signal of the party’s crypto ‘pivot’ under Harris.
“For years we’ve had anti-crypto rhetoric, Warren shouting for an “anti-crypto army” and Treasury, OFAC and the Fed going chokepoint claiming crypto is about money laundering,” Cochrane wrote to Twitter on Monday. “Crypto doesn’t need government handouts to succeed. It needs a non-hostile environment.”
By contrast, the Republican Party’s platform published in July explicitly promised to end Biden and the Democratic Party’s anti-crypto crackdown. It also promised to oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and to protect American’s rights to hold and mine Bitcoin in self-custody.
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump also appeared at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference with promises to establish a national “strategic Bitcoin stockpile”, and to fire the crypto-hostile SEC chairman Gary Gensler. His loud support has garnered him ample vocal and financial backing from crypto leaders including Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, and the Winklevoss twins .
