First US Presidential debate planned for June 27 — Will crypto be on the agenda?

Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the presumptive candidates for U.S. President in 2024, will face off against each other for the first time in four years in a June debate.

In a May 15 X post, President Biden said he had received and accepted an invitation from CNN for a presidential debate on June 27, challenging Trump to respond. The former U.S. President reportedly accepted the date for the event in a statement to Fox News, saying he was “ready and willing” to debate President Biden in an earlier post to his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump has been required to appear in a New York courtroom as a defendant in a criminal trial involving hush money payments to an adult film star and falsification of business related to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, but the presiding judge attends to other matters on Wednesdays. It’s unclear whether his other pending criminal cases in the District of Columbia, Florida and Georgia could conflict with the June debate.

If confirmed, the debate would be held before either Trump or President Biden officially accepted their party’s nomination for U.S. President. The Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention are expected to occur in August and July, respectively. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., trailing President Biden and Trump in the polls, claimed he was “excluded” from the debate.

During their runs to become the Republican Party nominee for president, candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis often discussed crypto-related issues and central bank digital currencies. As recently as May 8, during a dinner for supporters who purchased his nonfungible tokens , Trump said he was “good with” crypto in the United States. However, the former president has previously referred to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin ( BTC ) as a scam.

Related: Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump are crypto champions

Many lawmakers and industry leaders seemingly supportive of President Biden have called on him to consider how crypto-focused people will vote in 2024. Some have pointed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing several enforcement actions against crypto firms under the Biden administration and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren attacking digital assets through legislation and public statements.

Though President Biden rarely speaks on digital assets personally, he has used his position to oppose legislation and policies that many in the space reject. On May 8, as the House of Representatives was considering passing a joint resolution that would overturn an SEC policy on banks holding crypto, President Biden said he would veto the measure. The resolution passed the House with support from 21 Democratic lawmakers and is headed to the Senate.

The last time President Biden and Trump faced off in person was in September 2020 for the first U.S. Presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University. Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, later claimed in his book that the former president had been diagnosed with COVID-19 days before the debate but hid the results.

Neither then-candidate Biden nor Trump discussed cryptocurrency or blockchain during the two debates. At the time of publication, President Biden’s campaign website did not have an ‘issues’ page for his policy positions, while Trump’s website included his stance on the economy. Neither website specifically mentioned digital assets.

“Many crypto owners are single issue voters and we risk losing them in this presidential election,” said Democratic Representative Wiley Nickel in a May 11 X post.

With neither major U.S. Presidential candidate having precise positions on crypto at any given moment, it’s unclear whether the technology will be a subject during the June 27 debate or the second one scheduled on Sept. 10. Election Day in the United States is Nov. 5.

Magazine: Opinion: GOP crypto maxis almost as bad as Dems’ ‘anti-crypto army’