Crypto Goes Unmentioned Again at Second Presidential Debate

Crypto did not emerge as a topic of discussion during the second presidential debate, but that didn’t stop the candidates from going back and forth on a number of other topics.

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‘Concepts of a plan’

The narrative

The 2024 U.S. presidential election is less than two months away. On Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met to argue for their respective visions of and for America.

Why it matters

The election is in less than two months. In a little over four months, the U.S. will have a new commander-in-chief, who can nominate new regulatory agency and Department heads and drive policy. Obviously, the crypto industry is interested. Alas, the issue did not make an appearance Tuesday night.

Breaking it down

There’s really not a whole lot to say here. A group of CoinDesk reporters watched it and you can read my coverage with my colleague Sam Reynolds here. Some quick takeaways:

• Polymarket had Trump up by a few cents in its 2024 election winner market before the debate started. By the end, he and Harris were tied.

• Polymarket believes Harris won the debate itself. The contract will resolve after the next Ipsos/538 poll is published with snap results. An immediate CNN poll agreed.

• That prior headline has made some people on X (formerly Twitter) a bit upset. Take it up with the Polymarket bettors.

• Harris’ strategy seems to have been to bait Trump (comments on crowd sizes, anyone?) and otherwise appeal to undecided, centrist voters in this election, with remarks about the border, being a gun owner, tax credits for young families, tax deductions to small businesses and protecting healthcare rights like abortion.

• Trump’s strategy seems to have been to focus on the contrasts between him and President Joe Biden, whose administration Harris is a part of. He commented on his COVID response, his plan to impose tariffs on foreign companies importing goods and otherwise establish himself as the man with the existing bona-fides.

• Forget crypto, tech issues generally didn’t make an appearance in this debate. Artificial intelligence, the recent Google monopoly ruling, datacenter expansion, the PS5 Pro being a whopping $700, Huawei introducing a trifold cellular phone that costs four times the PS5 Pro, none of these made the (a little over) 90-minute debate (though to be clear, the moderators did have a lot of topics to get to and there was a lot of extemporaneous back-and-forth.

• You can read fact-checks of the candidates’ claims from NPR, CNN or the Wall Street Journal here (WSJ did not publish one unified article hence the Google link) or at your favorite news organization.

• The vice presidential nominees – Sen. J.D. Vance and Gov. Tim Walz – will debate on Oct. 1.

This week

• 14:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. EDT) The House Financial Services Committee held a subcommittee hearing on decentralized finance.

• 01:00 UTC Wed. (9:00 p.m. EDT) Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump held a debate (see above).

Elsewhere:

• (The Wall Street Journal) There was (apparently) a Tik Tok trend where people discovered a “money glitch” where they could deposit a check to their Chase Bank accounts and immediately withdraw the cash, even if they didn’t have enough funds. People did this, seemingly unaware that it’s called “check fraud.” Long story short Chase is now referring these customers to law enforcement officials.

• (NBC) Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline for continuing to fund the government.

• (Politico) Politico dug into some of the fights within and around Fairshake, the crypto-focused super political action committee.

• (NBC) So this went in a weird direction. A group of lawmakers, including Vice Presidential nominee and Sen. J.D. Vance, claimed that immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio (a claim reiterated by Donald Trump on the debate stage Tuesday night). This is not the case, but it’s a claim that’s spreading.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Twitter @nikhileshde.

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