The post Democratic National Committee Chair Met With Bitcoin Miner Marathon, Exec Says appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Marathon Digital executives met earlier this month with Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie R. Harrison and his advisors, the Bitcoin mining firm’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Jayson Browder told Decrypt. The revelation is another sign that Democrats are taking heed of the crypto crowd, despite the industry’s lack of representation in the party’s newly released platform. The meeting, which was held on August 5 with Marathon CEO Fred Thiel and Government Affairs Associate Lex Samuels, touched upon ways to mitigate the environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining, in addition to existing efforts to “reduce methane emissions [and] carbon emissions” related to the mining of the coins, said Browder. The attendees also discussed recent polling data that shows an uptick in retail and institutional investments in crypto in the U.S. The dialogue followed weeks of signals that Democrats have softened their stances on crypto ahead of a presidential election that some experts predict will be decided by a razor-thin margin. “We spoke to them at a high level on policy that we felt would be favorable to the DNC platform,” Browder told Decrypt last Friday. “They potentially want to engage with our industry on [these issues] and better understand the sort of environmental concerns that some members of the party might have.” It isn’t immediately clear whether the DNC has been in touch with other cryptocurrency companies ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. Committee representatives did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment on the matter.  The DNC met with Marathon roughly a week before Democrats unveiled their 2024 platform late Sunday. The 92-page platform does not reference cryptocurrencies or blockchain networks, marking a stark contrast to the Republican platform, which was released earlier this summer.  The DNC’s omission of crypto in its platform comes after…

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Filed under: News - @ August 20, 2024 9:17 pm