Coinbase’s chief financial officer, Alesia Haas, said on Wednesday that U.S. vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is using the firm's Commerce platform to accept crypto donations.
After this article was published, a Coinbase spokesperson told Fortune that "Coinbase can confirm that Future Forward has onboarded with Coinbase Commerce." Future Forward identifies itself as Harris's official super PAC.
Haas made the claim in a conversation with Citigroup’s director of payments, Peter Christiansen, at Citi’s 2024 Global TMT Conference in New York, a recording of which Fortune has reviewed.
The claim follows a report by The Block that Coinbase was in conversation with the Harris campaign. Harris’s campaign has not yet replied a request for comment.
Under President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party has for the most part been less supportive of crypto than Republicans. But that recent lobbying efforts could be on the verge of changing that.
“She is accepting crypto donations. She's using Coinbase Commerce now to accept crypto for her own campaign," Haas said, referring to the company's platform of merchants it has operated since 2018.
Advocacy group Crypto4Harris says they aren’t aware of Harris accepting crypto, and Harris’ official fundraising site doesn’t currently show the integration. In June a super PAC, Future Forward announced it had raised $50 million to support Harris. We've reached out to Coinbase base to reconfirm Haas's claim and await response.
Shifting tones?
If true, the development would follow on what Haas says is “elevated policy spend” by Coinbase going into what she says is a rare opportunity. “We're in a unique precipice where we might get regulatory clarity in the US.”
In June, Coinbase made it’s first contribution to Fairshake, a political actions committee set up support candidates that support crypto. Throughout the second quarter of this year Haas says “incremental” contributions were made to the PAC, “furthering support of just general policy efforts into Q3.”
As of June the super PAC reportedly won 32 of the 34 elections it was involved in. “We are seeing those dollars have impact in those elections,” Haas says.
“She has a huge opportunity. We’re cautiously optimistic,” Haas added. “She has not rolled out the details yet, but she has made overtures that she would like to drive crypto legislation.”
Meanwhile, Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong has reportedly said that the company has donated directly to neither Presidential campaign.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from Coinbase.
