Ripple co-founder donates $1 million in XRP to Harris campaign

Reported by Cointelegraph: According to the latest Polymarket election odds, Kamala Harris has a 45.9% chance of securing the Oval Office in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Records from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) revealed that Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen contributed 1,754,815.29 XRP, valued at $1 million at the time of the donation, to the Harris-Walz 2024 Presidential campaign.

The FEC filings show the contribution was made on Aug. 14, 2024, to the pro-Harris Future Forward political action committee (PAC). According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, this represents the first documented crypto contribution to the Harris campaign.

In September, a spokesperson for Future Forward told Cointelegraph that the PAC was accepting crypto donations for Harris after false reports surfaced that the campaign was directly accepting crypto campaign donations.

According to the FEC, Future Forward has collected over $200 million in contributions as of October 2024.

Larsen and corporate executives pledge support for Harris
The Ripple Labs co-founder joined 87 other corporate executives to pledge support for Harris in a September letter, which read:

"With Kamala Harris in the White House, the business community can be confident that it will have a President who wants American industries to thrive."
Signatories of the letter also asserted that “Vice President Harris has a strong record of advancing actions to spur business investment in the United States.”

Harris attempts to court the crypto industry
During the same month, a collection of crypto industry advocate groups and executives announced they were raising $100,000 for the Harris campaign to influence the Vice President’s stance regarding US digital asset policy.

The industry executives hoped the donations would cause Harris to deviate from her administration’s current hostility toward crypto.

Following industry pressure and outreach, Harris finally broke her silence and made the campaign’s first statements about crypto policy. The Harris campaign issued this response in late September:

“We will partner together to invest in America’s competitiveness, to invest in America’s future. We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.”
However, the statement did not represent a departure from current administration policy. Portions of the response were lifted —almost verbatim — from an earlier statement the Biden administration made in May 2024 before vetoing the bipartisan SAB-121 repeal at the end of the month.