Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is vowing to craft cryptocurrency regulations to protect Black men and bolster their economic security, after polls indicate a growing number of Black male voters are looking to side with former president Donald Trump.

On Monday, Harris’ campaign unveiled a new set of economic pledges to Black men, including a promise to enact the country’s first cryptocurrency legal framework. The move represents a long-demanded request from the digital asset community, which says it has been battling regulatory uncertainty and “regulation by enforcement” under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler.

Black men are among the largest demographic groups investing in crypto, with 20% of Black men directly owning or having owned crypto.

“Vice President Harris appreciates the ways in which new technologies can broaden access to banking and financial services,” the Harris campaign said. “She will make sure owners of and investors in digital assets benefit from a regulatory framework so that Black men and others who participate in this market are protected.”

Optimists in the crypto community are calling for a so-called policy “reset” under Harris, following several years during which the Biden-Harris administration has pursued bad actors in the crypto industry. Under this administration, the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, was sued, along with America’s largest registered crypto exchange, Coinbase. The wave of lawsuits against the crypto industry sparked outcry that the incumbent administration was less interested in constructive engagement than making an example of the nascent sector.

However, Harris’ recent allusions to crypto indicate that the Democratic Party might be more willing to embrace digital asset innovation while balancing consumer and investor protection. Harris has explicitly pledged to "encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets,” and her campaign has already conducted outreach to the crypto community, reflecting a deeper desire to iron out the details of a new crypto regulatory framework.

Former president Barack Obama upbraided Black men at a recent campaign rally for failing to display adequate support for Harris. "I’m speaking to men directly,” he said. “Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

Trump, however, has gained major support – and significant financial backing – of a broad segment of the crypto community by pledging to unseat SEC chair Gary Gensler, create a national bitcoin stockpile, and transform the U.S. into the world's "crypto capital" at Bitcoin's top conference earlier this year. Although critics question the feasibility of his plans and his about-face on crypto (Trump previously called crypto "a scam"), millions of dollars of crypto fundraising have bolstered his campaign, underscoring the community's growing influence in elections.