By some estimates, as many as 20% of Americans had invested in cryptocurrencies as of August 2021. Although the exact figure can vary significantly from survey to survey, it is clear that cryptocurrency is no longer just a niche passion project for investors. technology enthusiasts or a financial speculation tool. Rather, digital assets have become a widespread investment vehicle with the prospect of becoming mainstream.
As optimistic as it may be, this level of mass adoption still does not enjoy commensurate political representation, as senior US politicians are largely behind the cryptocurrency adoption curve. This makes the narrow group of congressmen who are also hodlers particularly interesting. As a legislator, does owning cryptocurrency, or at least having some exposure to it, mean that you also support the digital asset industry?
According to “Bitcoin Politicians”—a crowdsourced data project aimed at tracking cryptocurrency holdings of US political figures using public financial statements—there are currently seven known cryptocurrency investors in both houses of Congress. Here’s a look at how, if at all, your personal financial strategies are reflected in your public policy stances.
Michael McCaul
Michael McCaul, a 59-year-old Republican representative from Texas, serves as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He was also the fifth-richest member of Congress in 2018. McCaul is known for his hawkish positions on foreign affairs: he vocally opposes the US withdrawal from Yemen’s civil war and supports President Joe Biden’s airstrikes. against Iranian-backed targets in Syria.
In 2016, McCaul co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that proposed a commission to study the debate over the use of encryption, including its potential economic effects. In recent years, the Texas legislator has not been seen to make any public statements related to cryptocurrencies.
Barry Moore
A newcomer to the House of Representatives, Barry Moore is a staunch Republican from Alabama. In January 2021, he opposed the certification of the presidential election results and even got his Twitter account temporarily suspended for posts echoing claims of a “stolen election.”
According to a public disclosure, Moore bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Dogecoin (DOGE) in June 2021, an investment whose value has since dropped nearly 50%. The legislator also invested in Ether (ETH) (up to $15,000) and Cardano’s ADA (up to $45,000). Even so, Moore has not publicly expressed his views towards cryptocurrencies.
Marie Newman
Marie Newman, 57, another new addition to the House of Representatives, is an Illinois Democrat aligned with the progressive wing of the party. She is a supporter of abortion rights, gun control, a $15 minimum wage, and the Green New Deal.
Newman has owned Coinbase shares since December 2021, having bought between $30,000 and $100,000. It also recorded the acquisition of more than $15,000 worth of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust stock. Newman has not made any public statements about cryptocurrency-related assets, but he is a member of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, a bipartisan group working to promote a more relaxed regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies that allows the technology to flourish.
Jefferson Van Drew
A retired dentist with nearly three decades of experience as a New Jersey legislator, Van Drew was elected to the House in 2018 as a Democrat, but changed colors in 2020, becoming a Republican. This is not a surprise, as Van Drew was one of only two members of the Democratic party to vote against former President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry in December 2019. Still, he voted in line with Democrats on 89 .7% of the time during their stay in the party.
In a 2020 disclosure, Van Drew booked up to $250,000 into an investment trust operated by Grayscale, one of the largest digital asset management firms on the market. At the time, the representative’s office declined to give the press any details about the exact nature of the investment, and Van Drew himself has remained silent regarding political issues related to digital assets.
michael waltz
Another newly elected to the House of Representatives, Michael Waltz, a retired Army colonel and former Pentagon adviser, is the first Green Beret ever in Congress. A Republican from Florida, Waltz maintains a warrior spirit with a dash of Florida spiciness, having called for a full US boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics over the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of the nation’s Uyghur population. Waltz also voted against President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill and opposed the creation of a commission to investigate the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
According to the revelations, Waltz bought up to $100,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) in June 2021, making him one of the few lawmakers to publicly own the original cryptocurrency, specifically. However, on social media, the rep prefers to talk about foreign policy issues, and when asked about his crypto investment, he compared Bitcoin to gold in terms of serving as an inflation hedge. Waltz is also a member of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus.
Cynthia Lummis
In the case of Cynthia Lummis, a Republican senator representing Wyoming, her fame as a strong supporter of cryptocurrencies probably trumps her credentials as an investor in digital assets. A hardline Republican, Lummis was at one point the only female member of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
In his January 2021 statement, Lummis – a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs – recorded the purchase of between $50,000 and $100,000 in Bitcoin. The senator revealed that her total possessions amounted to about 5 BTC.
Lummis certainly puts his mouth where his money is. On the one hand, he has compared the United States to Venezuela in terms of inflation, and has declared that he wants to launch a financial innovation group that would aim to “educate the members of the United States Senate and their staff about Bitcoin, its advantages and why it’s such a great asset to peg against the US dollar.
Around Christmas 2021, Lummis revealed that he was drafting a comprehensive bill that he plans to introduce sometime in 2022. In a tweet, Lummis asked voters to contact their senators to support the bill, stating that he was looking for bipartisan cosponsors.
Pat Toomey
Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania can be described as the archenemy of public spending (with a peculiar exception for the financing of charter schools), since he once proposed a budget plan with a tax cut of 2.2 billions of dollars. He also happens to be a strong supporter of banking deregulation.
Over the past year, Toomey has emerged as one of the leading public supporters of cryptocurrency in Washington. He criticized Senator Sherrod Brown’s plan to defer crypto regulation to executive agencies and urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to clarify language in the infrastructure bill around tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrencies. cryptocurrencies. In December 2021, Toomey introduced his own set of regulatory principles, released ahead of a congressional hearing on stablecoins. In June 2021, he bought between $2,000 and $30,000 worth of shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin and Ethereum trusts.
Will the trend continue in 2022?
The list of publicly pro-crypto legislators grew significantly in the past year, and while not all the hodieros on Capitol Hill dared to bolster their investment with symmetrical political statements, it is an important trend for the industry. As Chris Kline, co-founder and COO of cryptocurrency retirement investment provider Bitcoin IRA, told Cointelegraph:
As more representatives invest in cryptocurrencies, I believe policymakers will begin to understand digital assets at a deeper level, leading to more informed and detailed crypto policy that will benefit investors at all levels.
Eric Bleeker, analyst and CEO of financial and investment advisory firm The Motley Fool, also underscored the importance of the aspect of legislators’ exposure to cryptocurrencies that enhances their knowledge:
You definitely have to see these investments as beneficial for the industry. Did Visa get worse legislation after Nancy Pelosi invested in its IPO? After all, cryptocurrencies can be seen as a “threat” by governments; we have already seen them banned in China. The fact that legislators have it increases the knowledge of the sector.
Kline also believes that the growing number of politicians investing in crypto will inevitably become active supporters, both verbally and legislatively. With new concepts like the Metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and digital banking constantly capturing the attention of society, there is no reason why society’s representatives should not follow these trends.
In Kline’s opinion, this will require policymakers to understand the deep intricacies and nuances of cryptocurrencies and blockchain: “I see 2022 as the year that policymakers consider the potential of digital assets and another step in their widespread adoption.”
Bleeker expects more US lawmakers to get into the crypto game in 2022 for one simple reason: “Right now, they’re grossly underinvested.” Bleeker noted that in 2018, the median net worth of congressmen was $1 million, and 10 senators had a net worth of more than $30 million. It is true that some legislators may avoid crypto for political reasons, but just looking at the numbers, one can expect more crypto ownership from legislators from a pure portfolio diversification standpoint.
The hope is that more investment in cryptocurrencies by lawmakers will come with a better understanding of this asset class and increased political support.