Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral primary election on June 24, which has since caused a stir among the crypto industry’s upper crust.
Mamdani will face off against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in November, and it’s clear that many in the crypto industry are uneasy about the prospect of a Mamdani victory. Executives and pro-crypto government officials alike have decried his policy proposals, with critics equating his left-leaning policies to Soviet collectivism.
Mamdani laid out many specific policy positions, several of which were further left than the Democratic Party norm, but he has remained relatively silent on cryptocurrency. His opponent, Adams, in contrast, is promoting it at great length.
With the general election growing closer, observers are now weighing if Mamadani will challenge the crypto industry — or if he even can.
What does Mamdani think about crypto?
In the days following the election, major crypto figures like Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Tyler Winklevoss, as well as US AI and crypto czar David Sacks, offered a scathing critique of Mamdani.
Tyler Winklevoss called New York City a “broken kleptocracy” under Democratic rule and, regarding Mamdani’s surging popularity in the mayoral election, said, “It appears things will have to get worse in NYC before they get better.”
Sacks called on Silicon Valley, which is in California, to “wake up” to the supposed rising tide of communism in New York.
During his campaign, Mamdani outlined a number of policies that raised eyebrows among moderate Democrats and conservative opponents alike, but he has offered little in regard to how he will approach regulating the city’s crypto industry.
The few public statements he has made were relatively tame. In 2023, a year after the implosion of the Terra stablecoin ecosystem and the broader crypto crash that followed, New York Attorney General Letitia James called for more consumer protections within the stablecoin industry.
Mamdani, who was then a member of the New York City Assembly, agreed.
Such statements were hardly rare for the time, when customers from collapsed or bankrupted firms like Celsius, Terra and FTX were left out to dry.
Two years later, crypto would only come up in his campaign in the context of his opponent, former Mayor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani took issue with Cuomo advising crypto exchange OKX in its response to a Securities and Exchange Commission probe. OKX would eventually plead guilty to charges of violating US Anti-Money Laundering laws.
Mamdani’s concerns over consumer protection are far from fringe. US financial regulators and lawmakers, even pro-crypto ones, have called and continue to advocate for consumer protections as new crypto legislation makes its way through Congress.
Related: New York AG urges Congress to bolster protections in crypto bills
Before the Senate voted on the GENIUS Act, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the act moved ahead only once it contained “significant improvements to a number of important provisions,” including consumer protection.
Can Mamdani challenge the crypto industry?
As mayor of New York City, Mamdani would have considerable influence over issues like municipal taxes, licensing, building permits, etc. But the office’s ability to influence the crypto industry — for good or bad — appears limited.
At the beginning of his term in 2021, the current mayor, Adams, promised to make NYC a crypto hub, beginning with a pledge to take his paychecks in Bitcoin (BTC). His administration made a number of pro-crypto statements, announced blockchain education efforts and stated it was exploring a digital wallet for public benefits recipients.
As of late 2024, few felt that NYC had become the hub that Adams promised. Thomas Pacchia, founder of the NYC-based Bitcoin bar PubKey, told Cointelegraph in October 2024 that there was “nothing that I can notice” that changed since Adams took office.
“If there were specific programs, it never really came across my desk at PubKey or any of the other stuff that I’ve done,” he said.
Adams continues to make pro-crypto statements and overtures to the industry, but at its core, his office’s influence is limited in this regard. The financial industry in the city has to answer to state regulators like the New York Department of Financial Services and the attorney general.
It stands to reason that, even if Mamdani wanted to go to war with the crypto industry, he’d need to coordinate state regulators first. While Attorney General James has been tough on crypto, and the BitLicense is tricky to get, crypto companies are still opting to move to New York.
Another strategy could be for the crypto industry to simply support Mamdani. According to crypto lawyer Aaron Brogan, willingness to compromise on certain issues, along with a few campaign contributions for the upcoming general election, may do much to sway Mamdani to a neutral, if not pro-crypto stance.
Mamdani faces threats ahead of a very possible win
Whether Mamdani would “go to the mattresses” with the crypto industry or even be able to significantly challenge it remains to be seen.
But the chances of Mamdani winning the election look good, according to American businessman and political strategist Bradley Tusk. “The general election is not going to be competitive,” he wrote on June 24.
Tusk said that even if Cuomo runs as an independent, which he is as of June 27, “The voters don’t want [Cuomo] back — and he didn’t seem to want the job either. Adams polls at around 10% in terms of favorability and re-elect.”
So, the chances of Mamdani winning, especially with a record-breaking young voter turnout, look bright — presuming crypto money doesn’t get involved… and the Trump administration does not deport him.
In his aforementioned post, Winklevoss floated the idea of supporting a candidate who could oppose Mamdani. While Winklevoss did not commit to spending, the crypto lobby has shown to be effective in influencing election outcomes.
Furthermore, Mamdani’s platform included a policy of not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who have been conducting mass arrests of immigrants, including some citizens, around the United States.
This drew the ire of President Donald Trump, who falsely claimed that Mamdani, who moved to the US at seven and was naturalized in 2018, was in the country illegally. Representative Andy Ogles hurled Islamophobic epithets at Mamdani on X and called for him to be denaturalized and kicked out of the country.
Mamdani faces an uphill battle for the mayor’s office in New York, and the crypto industry may be the least of his problems.
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