Vitalik Buterin, as Other Crypto Leaders Line Up Behind Trump, Argues Against Picking Candidates Just Because They Like Crypto

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, as other prominent cryptocurrency leaders vocally support Donald Trump’s run for U.S. president, argued against supporting candidates purely based on whether they are “pro-crypto.”
“By publicly giving the impression that you support ‘pro-crypto’ candidates just because they are ‘pro-crypto,’ you are helping to create an incentive gradient where politicians come to understand that all they need to get your support is to support ‘crypto,'” Buterin posted on his blog Wednesday.
“There is a growing push within the crypto space to become more politically active, and favor political parties and candidates almost entirely on whether or not they are willing to be lenient and friendly to ‘crypto,'” Buterin added. “In this post, I argue against this trend, and in particular I argue that making decisions in this way carries a high risk of going against the values that brought you into the crypto space in the first place.”
The comments from Buterin, widely viewed as Ethereum’s intellectual leader, stand in stark contrast to the strongly pro-Trump rhetoric from other well-known crypto figures.
Ryan Selkis, the co-founder of crypto information platform Messari, has been especially vocal, calling himself a “single issue voter” – meaning he prefers Trump over the incumbent, Joe Biden, because Trump says he likes crypto. Selkis appeared at a recent Mar-a-Lago gala where Trump touted his NFT collection and talked about his newfound friendliness toward digital assets.
Coinbase, the large U.S.-based crypto exchange, has emerged as a major force in political donations this year, with its Fairshake PAC. The crypto industry now sports one of the biggest piles of money to sway elections – with wins already notched. At its core, this is about electing politicians who will make the U.S. an easier place for crypto businesses to operate.
Read more: Crypto Giants Notch Wins in Expensive Quest to Sway U.S. Politics – Without Mentioning Crypto
On X, Selkis blasted Buterin for the post. “I respect Vitalik but he has always been among the most naive and useless political commentators in crypto. Idealism is not realism, and he pretends we aren’t dealing with a cultural cancer and infestation of Marxism. He’s wrong.”
UPDATE (July 17, 2024, 21:24 UTC): Adds comments from Ryan Selkis.
Edited by Aoyon Ashraf and Nick Baker.
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Margaux Nijkerk reports on the Ethereum protocol and L2s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and Emory universities, she has a masters in International Affairs & Economics. She holds a small amount of ETH and other altcoins.