Two years ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was one of cryptocurrency's most vocal champions on the presidential campaign trail. Running for the 2024 Republican nomination for the White House, the entrepreneur seasoned his stump speeches with praise for Bitcoin (BTC) and token mining operations while taking a hard line against central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Today, Ramaswamy is campaigning to become Ohio next governor. He has not distanced himself from his positions on digital assets, but neither is he putting them at the forefront of his bid — despite his substantial exposure to crypto investments and the Buckeye State's deepening stake in the industry.

2023 X post on CBDCs. Source: Vivek Ramaswamy

Throughout his 2024 presidential run, Ramaswamy repeatedly issued statements in opposition to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), praised Bitcoin (BTC) and its mining operations, and frequently appeared at industry events as a keynote speaker. After Donald Trump won the presidential race, he tapped Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, alongside Elon Musk. Ramaswamy left without ever officially becoming part of the administration.

Before announcing his run for the Ohio governor's office in February 2025, Ramaswamy posted in support of the Ohio Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve Act, a state bill that would allow the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. In September 2025, Strive — the asset manager he co-founded in 2022 — announced plans to enter the digital asset market with a Bitcoin Bond ETF focused on bonds issued by companies acquiring BTC.

Cointelegraph reached out to the Ramaswamy campaign but did not receive a response to repeated requests for an interview.

Crypto as a gubernatorial candidate

Following the official launch of his campaign, Ramaswamy initially kept up much of the same rhetoric he had espoused during his presidential run, speaking at the Bitcoin for America conference in March and at Bitcoin 2025 in May. His campaign website accepts donations in crypto, and he has financial support from the co-founders of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto company: Chase Herro, Zak Folkman and Zachary Witkoff, each of whom donated the maximum allowable amount of $16,615.

Other entities associated with the crypto industry have also donated millions of dollars to Ramaswamy's super political action committee (PAC), "V-PAC: Victors, Not Victims," including $20 million from Susquehanna International Group co-founder Jeff Yass, $6 million from NYDIG founder Ross Stevens, $5 million from billionaire Elon Musk and $5,000 from the Bitcoin Voter Project.

Ramaswamy has maintained his stake in Strive, which reported holding 23,156 BTC worth about $2 billion as of Aug. 28. An August filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed the candidate owned 5,693,897 shares in the company, worth more than $170 million as of Sept. 26. He also reported personally holding more than $1,000 in BTC and Ether (ETH) as of April, through a Coinbase wallet. The overlap gives the race added weight for the industry: Ramaswamy would enter office having publicly backed a state Bitcoin reserve while holding sizable personal and business positions in crypto himself.

Related: US midterm election mirrors 2024 as crypto PACs move into Ohio races

In September 2026, just weeks away from the election, Ramaswamy's public statements on digital assets and related policies appear to have waned in contrast to his 2024 and even 2025 rhetoric. As of the time of publication, he had not addressed a Sept. 17 notice from Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announcing the acceptance of cryptocurrency to pay for state fees and services — a development that makes crypto usable for state transactions in Ohio regardless of the campaign's messaging. Whether Ramaswamy re-engages on digital asset policy before Election Day is one of the remaining questions in a race where the industry has poured millions into supporting him.

What's different for Ohio voters in 2026? Data centers, for one

Ohio voters could be part of the reason Ramaswamy appears to have toned down his talk on crypto. The state was already the target of more than $40 million in spending by industry-aligned groups in 2024 to support Republican Bernie Moreno's Senate run. Moreno defeated incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown two years ago, but history is beginning to repeat itself: Brown is now running against Republican Jon Husted for another chance at the Senate in next month's election. The Fairshake PAC has pledged to initially spend $30 million opposing the Democrat again, and has already reported $11 million in ad buys.

To be sure, a poll conducted by the Digital Currency Group in May 2024, months before that election, suggested that Ohio voters were "more negative towards crypto" compared with those in other US states, with 79% of the state's respondents saying they had never held crypto and 77% holding negative views on the digital currency. Those numbers predate Ramaswamy's gubernatorial run, leaving the 2024 survey as a reference point rather than a current measure of the state's crypto sentiment.

Sentiment on data centers has also become a controversial campaign issue for Ohio politicians in 2026. According to the Pew Research Center, there were 166 data centers in Ohio as of April, giving the state more locations than any other in the country. Ohio is also home to numerous crypto mining operations, including Cipher Mining, Bitdeer and BIT Mining — facilities that, like data centers, are heavy consumers of electricity. Public polling has shown that a majority of Ohio residents do not support data centers in their communities.

Ramaswamy pledged in August that any data center built in an Ohio community would result in no electricity costs for residents and lower property taxes, while his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, has proposed that "all costs for gas, water and electricity needs to be covered by data centers and their investors, not Ohio taxpayers or our communities."

As of Sept. 22, an average of RealClearPolling data showed Acton with a one-point lead over Ramaswamy, making the race essentially a toss-up. At last look on Monday, an event contract on Kalshi carried more than $2 million in bets and favored the Democratic candidate with a 66% chance of winning the governor's race, with similar odds on a Polymarket contract.

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