On Tuesday when US Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, two Harris-related crypto indicators—at least one of them signaling her chances of winning the presidential election—shot up.
First, users of prediction markets platform Polymarket gave Harris her highest odds yet in winning the 2024 election, boosting her chances to a 46% probability of becoming the next president, an increase from 6% just three weeks ago. Meanwhile, the chances of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump decreased 19 percentage points in the same period to 53% at the time of writing.
Similarly, a memecoin associated with Kamala Harris jumped in price. KAMA, a Solana memecoin with over 11,300 holders, climbed nearly 7% in the past hour and almost 13% in the past six hours to trade at roughly 1.2 cents, giving it a market cap of over $12.9 million, data from DEXTools shows.
Memecoins based on Trump have mixed performances. TREMP, a token based on the misspelling of the former president’s name, jumped almost 10% in the past four hours to trade at 23.1 cents, giving it a market cap of $23.1 million. On the other hand, DJT, a different memecoin based on Trump’s initials that Martin Shkreli has claimed he and Barron Trump created, plunged 87% in the last 24 hours.
According to former senior advisor to then Vice President Joe Biden, Moe Vela, who is also a senior advisor for blockchain project Unicoin, VP Harris is currently “on a roll” and has “incredible momentum” in the presidential race, evident through recent polls in swing states. For example, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of registered voters published last Tuesday showed that VP Harris had closed the distance in polls for battleground swing states.
Read More: The US Presidential Election Isn’t the Only Reason for Polymarket’s Success
Vice President Harris’s running mate pick comes less than two weeks after fourteen congressional policymakers from the US House of Representatives wrote a letter to the Democratic National Committee and Vice President Harris urging the party to take a more “forward-looking approach to digital assets and blockchain technology.”
The representatives called on the Democratic Party to include pro-digital asset language in the party’s platform, select a vice president candidate with a track record with digital assets, pick an SEC Chair who has an innovative approach, and engage with leaders in the crypto space.
