A recap of the Biden administration’s war on Bitcoin

This week, numerous high-profile politicians and business leaders, including former President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Vivek Ramaswamy, flocked to the 2024 Bitcoin conference in Nashville. Despite receiving an invitation, presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris opted out of attending.

David Bailey, the organizer of the conference, criticized Harris’ decision on X, tweeting, “No surprise. What can she say to us when she’s actively imprisoning developers, forcing our industry overseas, attacking PoW … it would have been a disaster for her.”

The Biden-Harris administration's anti-crypto stances may come back to haunt Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.

Over the course of President Biden’s reign, his administration has waged an all-out war on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a stark contrast to Trump’s embrace of Bitcoin and the RNC’s pro-crypto platform.

Attacking miners

In March 2022, President Biden signed an executive order on “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets” to regulate Bitcoin and crypto. The executive order increases regulations on Bitcoin by increasing oversight to safeguard against risks, “responsible development,” and “equitable economic growth.”

Following his executive order, which included a call to reduce “negative climate impacts,” the White House released a press release attacking Bitcoin and crypto-assets for their “considerable amounts of electricity usage, which can result in greenhouse gas emissions.”

As a result of Biden’s climate alarmism, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy urged President Biden to “limit or eliminate the use of high energy intensity consensus mechanisms for crypto-asset mining,” advice he would later heed.

President Biden’s 2025 budget proposal contains a 30% excise tax on Bitcoin mining, an operation vital to Bitcoin’s stability and security. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a strong proponent of crypto, believes the tax “endangers America’s hard-won leadership position and the future of Bitcoin mining in America.”

Vetoing pro-Bitcoin legislation

In May 2024, President Biden vetoed H.J. Res. 109, Congress’ bipartisan effort to overturn the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto accounting guideline, Staff Accounting Bulletin 121. The Biden administration believes the SEC’s guidelines protect consumers and investors.

SAB 121 requires banks and businesses to penalize banks for protecting and holding on to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for clients by mandating them to be reported as liabilities on balance sheets, jeopardizing consumers’ assets during a bankruptcy.

In a letter to President Biden, the American Bankers Association wrote that SAB 121 “threatens the [banking] industry’s ability to provide its customers with safe and sound custody of digital assets.”

Crypto advocacy groups, like the Blockchain Association, also criticized the Biden administration’s “punitive, anti-crypto” accounting guidelines for stifling innovation. “The Biden administration is swimming against the … growing consensus in Congress that digital asset innovation should be supported — not punished,” Kristin Smith, the Blockchain Association's CEO, stated in a post on X.

Appointing anti-Bitcoin staff

President Biden’s hand-picked SEC chair, Gary Gensler, is also known for driving the Biden administration’s war on Bitcoin by attempting to crack down, and potentially shut down, Binance and Coinbase, two of the largest crypto exchange places.

On CNBC, Gensler argued that Coinbase should be “permanently restrained and enjoined” from “operating its crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.” The Gensler-led SEC filed two lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase last year, sending plummeting numerous crypto currencies’ values by over 15%.

And in a post on X, Gensler alleges Coinbase “deprives investors of critical protections, including rulebooks that prevent fraud and manipulation, proper disclosure, safeguards against conflicts of interest, and routine inspection by the SEC.” But ionically, X added a community note that implicitly accuses Gensler of manipulating information.

“Coinbase has repeatedly attempted to get guidance and include the SEC. Recently, Coinbase has had to sue the SEC to attempt to get simple clarity over the issues that this tweet alleges Coinbase is guilty of,” it says.

Increasing taxes

President Biden has also threatened to raise the capital gains tax up to 44%, close to double the current top rate. So if a wealthy individual buys 1 Bitcoin for $60,000 and then sells it for $90,000, the investor may only make less than $17,000. In other words, crypto investors would be punished by facing significantly higher tax rates on their crypto investments, weakening the crypto market.

The Biden-Harris administration's anti-crypto stances may come back to haunt Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid. As Election Day draws nearer, it will be interesting to see whether Harris reconsiders her administration's hostility toward the cryptocurrency industry in hopes of winning back tech elites.