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Kamala Harris\u2019 pick for running mate, Tim Walz, has a blank slate on crypto, leaving the industry scratching its head on where he may land on the issue. By contrast, two of her newly-appointed key advisers are no strangers to the industry: one took crypto exchange Binance to court, while the other has worked for the firm.<\/p>\n
The latter is David Plouffe, a top adviser to former President Barack Obama, who will be Harris\u2019s senior adviser for strategy and winning the electoral college.\u00a0His sojourn into crypto began in 2022 when Plouffe joined the Binance Global Advisory Board<\/a> to advise the exchange on regulatory, political, and social issues. <\/p>\n Then, in 2023, he took on a role as global strategic advisor for Alchemy Pay<\/a>, a Singapore-based payment company to \u201cbridge the gap between fiat and crypto economies.\u201d Last year, Plouffe spoke with CoinDesk<\/a><\/em> about the need to regulate crypto. \u201cOn the government side, there has to be a sense of, okay, let\u2019s not fit this new thing into old rules,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do we fashion new rules? But those rules have to protect the public, there has to be transparency, there has to be accountability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Then there is Harris\u2019s other new adviser, Brian Nelson, who is leaving his job as the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence to join the campaign, Axios<\/em> reported<\/a> on Tuesday. During his time in this role, the Treasury brought enforcement actions<\/a> against Binance for violations of U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions laws. The exchange and its affiliates were forced to pay $4.3 billion across two settlements\u2014the largest such penalty in history. <\/p>\n Crypto\u2019s loudest critic Senator Elizabeth Warren has worked with Nelson for years, and welcomed<\/a> his appointment to the Harris campaign, having worked with Nelson for years. \u201cIt\u2019s always good to have someone advising our leaders about the threats to national security that come from holes in our anti-money laundering rules,\u201d she told Politico<\/em>.<\/p>\n Nelson has spent a career cracking down on illicit finance, but there is evidence he is not virulently opposed to crypto in the same way as Warren. Nelson was \u201cone of the most thoughtful people to occupy that role\u201d when it comes to thinking about digital assets, a crypto executive working close to Congress told Fortune<\/em>, speaking on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s kept an open mind about crypto policy and engaged with industry,\u201d Perianne Boring, founder and CEO of block trade association The Digital Chamber, told Fortune<\/em>, who has worked with Nelson as a member of the Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s deeply concerned about illicit finance usage but hasn\u2019t painted crypto as poison like others,\u201d Cody Carbone, chief policy officer at The Digital Chamber, added on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n For instance, Nelson attended CoinDesk<\/em><\/a>\u2018s Consensus conference in May. On stage, he spoke of \u201ctailored regulatory and statutory approaches that will achieve the goal that we all want, which is to promote and support financial innovation here in the United States.\u201d In that interview, he also affirmed that the Treasury does not intend to ban cryptocurrency mixing services. Plus, in February, Nelson fact-checked Warren, testifying<\/a> that crypto accounted for only a small fraction of terror financing to Hamas, correcting earlier reports that the group has received tens of millions of dollars in crypto.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the White House aides who will be sticking around for the Harris campaign, two of them will be meeting with crypto executives on Thursday<\/a>, per Politico\u2019s<\/em> reporting<\/a>. The meeting is organized by crypto-loving Democratic Representative Ro Khanna.<\/p>\n Others slated to attend the meeting include Lael Brainard, the White House\u2019s economic adviser, who was formerly the Federal Reserve\u2019s Vice Chairwoman. The person familiar says Brainard has been \u201cincredibly thoughtful\u201d about what a crypto reset could look like, and she has previously spoken about the need for regulation. \u201cThe recent turmoil in crypto financial markets makes clear that the actions we take now \u2014 whether on the regulatory framework or a digital dollar \u2014 should be robust to the future evolution of the financial system,\u201d Brainard said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, following the collapse of Terra Luna.<\/p>\n Anita Dunn, who served as a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, has left to advise the largest super political action committee backing Harris, and will attend Thursday\u2019s meeting. Last month, Dunn attended a roundtable<\/a> with crypto leaders including Uniswap\u2019s executive team, on behalf of the White House. At that meeting, \u201cthe message delivered via Anita Dunn was the Biden campaign is anti-crypto, and we are not even willing to reconsider our position at this time,\u201d Boring said. <\/p>\n But, that meeting was pre-Biden\u2019s resignation. While Dunn was delivering the party line, she has since been open to reconsidering what a reset on the industry might look like, the unnamed source said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n CEO Daily provides key context for the news leaders need to know from across the world of business. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights about\u2013and from inside\u2013the C-suite. Subscribe Now<\/a>.<\/div>\n\u2018Hasn\u2019t painted crypto as poison\u2019<\/h2>\n
Further advisers to watch<\/h2>\n
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