On August 20th, according to Decrypt, bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital executives met with Democratic National Committee Chairperson Jamie R. Harrison and his advisors earlier this month. Jayson Browder, senior vice president of government affairs at Marathon Digital, said that the meeting, which took place about a week ago, discussed ways to mitigate the environmental impact of bitcoin mining in addition to existing efforts to reduce "methane emissions and carbon emissions" associated with bitcoin mining. Participants also discussed recent poll data showing an increase in retail and institutional investment in cryptocurrencies in the United States. In the weeks before that, there were signs that the Democratic Party had softened its stance on cryptocurrencies ahead of the presidential election, which some experts predicted would be narrowly decided.