In Search of the Elusive Crypto Voter

Election season continues unabated, with candidates willing to discuss crypto. There’s an audience, but it’s still unclear whether crypto is a voter issue.

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The narrative

On Monday, a New Hampshire state representative asked a mostly-filled room at an industry campaign event to raise their hands if they were visiting from another state. More than half the people in the room raised their hands. These visitors had come to hear from industry representatives, state lawmakers and – perhaps most importantly – three presidential candidates talk about the upcoming election.

Why it matters

Crypto isn’t exactly a major campaign issue. While it’s come up during one of the primary debates and we’ve seen some candidates express views on crypto, issues like the economy and healthcare tend to rank much more highly as voter priorities. Still, there is a growing movement to have crypto be an issue for voters. It’s too early to say whether this will succeed, especially given the sheer amount of time that exists between now and the election next November.

My colleague Jesse Hamilton and I went up to Manchester, New Hampshire on Monday to hear from presidential candidates about crypto and see if any voters were present who ranked crypto regulation or related industry topics as a primary concern next November.

Breaking it down

Three presidential candidates – Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Rep. Dean Phillips – took the stage in Manchester, New Hampshire on Monday to discuss their positions on cryptocurrency issues with CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton.

There were well over 100 people at the event, listening to the candidates, as well as other speakers like New Hampshire State Representative Keith Ammon and industry names like Coinbase’s Kara Calvert.

I spoke to a handful of those audience members; none said they would vote on crypto issues as their primary focus, though clearly they were engaged enough in the industry to attend an event focused on the election.

The candidate forum was hosted by Stand With Crypto, a Coinbase-backed organization that’s said it has raised over $2 million from some 80,000 individual contributors…