KEY POINTS
- Some 50 million U.S. adults own crypto, and more than half of the crypto-holding population plan to increase their holdings
- Betting volumes on election-related event contracts on Polymarket prove there is a 'crypto voter base'
- Data from Stand With Crypto shows that most 'pro-crypto' candidates are from the Republican Party
With only two weeks left before the U.S. elections, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse believes that some candidates are missing out on a growing voter base that may turn out to be a key demographic in the November elections.
Garlinghouse took to X Monday to share a clip from X owner Elon Musk's town hall in Pittsburgh Sunday wherein the tech billionaire was asked by an audience member if he thinks the XRP Ledger, a public blockchain, will be integrated into financial institutions in the future.
Musk dodged the question, but clarified that his comments shouldn't be taken as an endorsement or a lack of endorsement for XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger.
The Tesla CEO then talked about crypto in general, saying it can be a valuable defense against the control that the centralized financial system has established over the years.
Do Voters Actually Care about Crypto?
Garlinghouse shared a clip on the question and answer between Musk and the apparent crypto user who attended the town hall and shared his thoughts on the matter.
Voters care about crypto - they care about XRP - it's not a niche issue. They want real policies that drive innovation and create jobs.
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 21, 2024
Candidates that ignore crypto and blockchain risk a serious loss in support from a growing, informed voter base. https://t.co/PfrjjyzCBn
"Voters care about crypto – they care about XRP – it's not a niche issue. They want real policies that drive innovation and create jobs," Garlinghouse said.
The crypto executive's words are backed by data. CoinGecko shows that as of early Tuesday, the crypto market has reached a total market cap of over $2.4 trillion. XRP, the seventh-largest digital token on the top ranks by market value, accounts for $30 billion of the industry's total value.
Bitcoin, the world's first and largest crypto asset by market cap, still makes up for the biggest chunk, commanding a market value of over $1.3 trillion as of early Tuesday. Still, XRP isn't very, very far behind and in recent weeks, its popularity has only skyrocketed amid the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) hounding.
Connecting the said figures to the state of crypto in the United States, it can be safe to say that the country is a key adopter of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
The latest data shows that nearly 50 million American adults own crypto (around 14% of the country's total population). Furthermore, Triple-A research shows that the U.S. is the second-largest country in terms of crypto adoption.
Over 55% of U.S. crypto users are planning to increase their digital asset holdings, considering how 81% of American adults in the country have already heard about crypto.
There's also Polymarket, a decentralized market prediction platform that allows users to buy and sell crypto to bet on future events. As of early Tuesday, over $2 billion has been poured into Polymarket's event contract predicting the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump is leading Kamala Harris by double digits.
There are many other event contracts on the platform that have grown to become hundred-million-dollar bets in the lead-up to Nov. 5, further cementing the association of crypto and the elections.
Ripple CEO Issues Warning on Missing Out
Aside from pointing out that voters in the country care about crypto and XRP, Garlinghouse also issued a dire warning for some candidates who may be missing out on the crypto voter base.
"Candidates that ignore crypto and blockchain risk a serious loss in support from a growing, informed voter base," he said.
It appears an increasing number of politicians now understand what Garlinghouse is saying, and many of them are from the Republican Party, at least based on their public promises to the crypto community.
For instance, crypto advocacy nonprofit Stand With Crypto revealed that in top races such as the Senate, a disproportionately huge number of GOP candidates have an A (strongly supportive) rating, compared to many Democrats who either have an F (strongly against), a D (somewhat against), or a B (somewhat supportive) rating.
Stand With Crypto provides information on 2024 candidates, gathered from their work around bills supporting crypto and their public statements made so far about the industry.
Many crypto users on X have also been talking about the elections in recent months, suggesting that crypto voters may be watching whether candidates will lean toward the industry or maintain a hostile approach toward the burgeoning sector.
