Kamala Harris could rebuild crypto bridges burned by Biden

We suggest that the vice president should consider crypto as another area ripe for a Democratic party reset. Just as she made “we’re not going back” the core theme of her campaign, she can’t go back on the Biden administration’s approach to crypto.

For the past two years, the Biden administration has alternated between ignoring crypto and a fire-and-brimstone campaign of maximum hostility. Since about 20% of registered voters and about one-third of all voters of color owned crypto, neither position made much sense. It makes even less sense now that Donald Trump and the Republican Party have made crypto part of their official party platform. At this point, the Biden administration’s approach to crypto amounts to an exercise in political self-harm.

Changing course on crypto would not require Herculean effort. Take it from us. Both of us are progressive Democrats with long experience in the crypto, government, and non-profit sectors, and here we offer some easy steps Vice President Harris can take to make a crypto reset part of her campaign .

First, take the industry seriously. In the recent past, Democratic-aligned commentators, and even Biden administration regulators, have expressed an extremely confident view that crypto would disappear in a few months. It’s like yelling at the sun to stop rising in the morning. Rather than retreat to such self-delusion, The Harris Campaign should take the simple step of accepting that crypto will endure and craft policy to reflect that.

Part of this should involve Vice President Harris encouraging future administration and campaign staff to learn about crypto: Start a crypto advisory board and hold a roundtable with crypto executives and ordinary users during the campaign. Better yet, download a wallet and tinker with the technology for first-hand experience! When it comes to crypto, usage is the fastest path to understanding.

Second, commit to working with the industry. The US growth of this industry is limited by a lack of regulatory clarity, and many industry players are clamoring to be within the regulatory perimeter. Bring us in! But do so in a way that recognizes both crypto’s unique challenges AND its unique opportunities. Vice President Harris should commit to appointing new regulators at agencies like the SEC who don’t dismiss crypto, and who actually know something about it. (Teaching a course as an adjunct professor while never downloading a crypto wallet is not real expertise.) Rhetoric also matters; the current administration’s often dismissive, and even mocking, tone about crypto is (or should be) beneath public office. Simply put, campaign for president to end the campaign against crypto.

Third, embrace nuance. Recognize that crypto does not fit neatly into existing regulatory or statutory frameworks and needs to be thoroughly addressed. Attempts to jam crypto into existing securities, banking or commodity regulatory regimes have all failed. Other countries and jurisdictions, including the EU, the United Kingdom and Japan, have made progress in accepting that crypto is truly unique technology that requires unique regulations. A Harris administration, starting on the campaign trail, should be the first American presidency to accept that global wisdom. Also, understand that crypto is not just financial technology. From decentralized social media to decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePin) and even intersections with AI and computing, crypto is much more than just a financial instrument. Regulation of crypto must therefore embrace this diversity of use and not simply place it in a financial regulatory box.

Finally, the crypto champion’s unabashedly pro-American impact. Keeping the industry in America is critical to national security and dollar dominance. America has been home to great technological innovation since Fulton launched his steamboat down the Hudson River, and it is critical that America continues to be the heart of crypto innovation. Don’t follow the government’s approach to the semiconductor industry, which we have struggled to correct in recent years. It’s easier to just keep an industry alive in America than to always resurrect it from the dead.

The Democrats’ new standard bearer has a chance to rebrand the party as pro-innovation, pro-consumer and pro-technology. Signaling that crypto is an issue important to the campaign, in the ways outlined above or others, will go a long way. Vice President Harris, all eyes—laser or otherwise—are on you. This is your chance to demonstrate once and for all that technology is not partisan, despite efforts by some to make it so, and to rekindle longstanding ties between Democrats and technology in the crucial weeks before we all vote. This is your chance to forge a new path forward to a better tomorrow.

Sheila Warren is the CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, and Justin Slaughter is the policy director at Paradigm. The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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