Ripple’s Larsen Explains Why He Donated $10M Worth of XRP to Harris’ Presidential Campaign

TL;DR

• Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen endorsed Kamala Harris, citing her pro-innovation stance and connections to the Bay Area tech scene.
• The US presidential candidate recently voiced support for a crypto regulatory framework aimed at protecting vulnerable groups but has yet to provide specific policy details.

‘Excited About Harris’ Economic Message’

The US presidential elections are less than a week away (scheduled for November 5), with Republican Donald Trump facing Democrat Kamala Harris. According to many industry participants, the former is the better choice for pro-crypto voters, considering his favorable stance toward the sector (shown over the past several months).

Trump also promised to fire the US SEC’s Chairman, Gary Gensler, if emerging victorious. The agency and its head have been at open war with many crypto companies, such as Ripple. It filed a lawsuit against the firm in December 2020, accusing it and some of its executives of illegally raising more than $1.3 billion in an unregistered securities offering by selling XRP.

The legal battle is ongoing, with the SEC recently appealing a 2023 verdict set by Judge Torres (which ruled that the company’s XRP sales to retail investors on crypto exchanges did not violate securities laws).

That said, it was a surprise that Ripple’s co-founder Chris Larsen publicly endorsed Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris. He even donated $10 million worth of XRP to support her campaign. In a recent interview for CNBC, Larsen explained he supports Harris due to her “economic message:”

“It is a message of pro-innovation, making sure that our American champions dominate their industries around the world. So I am excited about that. The DNA of Harris’ administration is from the world capital of innovation – the Bay area (it’s a place that has created more trillion-dollar companies than any other place on the planet).

She gets that. She grew up here, and she knows people who founded these companies, so I am really confident that this is going to be a completely different approach from the failed policy of Biden’s administration when it came to crypto.”

Larsen added that members of Harris’ potential cabinet have recently conducted numerous meetings with businesses from the cryptocurrency sector. According to him, the Democrats have left a clear message that their viewpoint on the asset class will be different from that of the previous administration. 

Harris’ Future Approach to Crypto Remains a Mystery 

The Democratic candidate was initially negligent about the digital asset industry and did not focus on it during her campaign. Earlier this month, she finally touched upon the matter, advocating for a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework to protect “black men and others” who participate in the market.

Harris highlighted that a fifth of all black people in the United States own or have previously possessed cryptocurrencies. She also maintained that these “new technologies” expanded the individuals’ access to affordable banking and financial services. 

Nonetheless, Harris’ team did not offer any specific information about what the proposed regulatory framework would include.