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A Coinbase-backed lobby group initially graded Kamala Harris as “supports crypto” but dropped the characterization after wide criticism.
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Coinbase’s lobbying group, Stand With Crypto, has retracted its labeling of Kamala Harris as “supports crypto” on its website and says it has now changed how it scores politicians following strong backlash.
The group, which publishes its rankings of United States politicians on their support of crypto based on public comments, gave the Democrat’s presidential nominee its second-highest scoring grade on Sept. 23 — a “B” showing that Harris “supports crypto.”
Stand With Crypto explained on X that Harris “recently made a Somewhat Supportive statement” as the reason for the score.
Source: Stand With Crypto
On Sept. 22, Harris made her first public statement about crypto during her election campaign, “We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.”
The lobby group backtracked on its score a day later, with Harris’ profile on its site now showing there’s “not enough information” on her crypto stance.
“We’ve gotten a ton of feedback at [Stand With Crypto] on our politician scorecard recently, and I wanted you to know we’ve listened and made changes,” Stand With Crypto executive director Logan Dobson wrote in a Sept. 25 X post.
“It will now be more difficult for candidates to receive a scorecard grade — any grade, positive or negative,” he added. “We think it’s appropriate to require more from candidates — more statements, more detail — before our scorecard assigns them a full grade.”
Dobson said if a politician makes crypto-related statements that aren’t enough to be scored on, Stand With Crypto will mark that there isn’t enough information.
But the lobby group’s update didn’t go far enough for some. Tierion founder Wayne Vaughan inferred in an X post that Harris’ score should show she doesn’t support crypto as he claimed as Vice President, she “has presided over the most anti-crypto administration in United States history.”
Before Stand With Crypto’s update, others criticized the group’s characterization of Harris’ crypto support.
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“Kamala [Harris] has made one vague statement of support, months late, with zero details,” Tom Shaughnessy, co-founder of analysis platform Delphi Digital, wrote in a Sept. 25 X post.
CoinList Co-founder Brian Tubergen said on X that basing Harris’ score on “a one-off vague statement” was “absurd.”
Meanwhile, Stand With Crypto marks Harris’ newly pro-crypto Republican rival Donald Trump as “strongly supports crypto,” giving him points based on social posts hocking his non-fungible token (NFT) collections and news reports about his crypto earnings.
The group only scored one “very anti-crypto” comment from Trump — when he said the value of Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency is “based on thin air” in 2019.
It doesn’t mention when Trump said crypto “may be fake” and is “a disaster waiting to happen” in 2021, nor when he said Bitcoin “just seems like a scam” and didn’t like it “because it is another currency competing against the dollar” that same year.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
