Dem
53
Ties
4
GOP
43
The crypto "industry," which is like talking about the "Nigerian prince industry," only bigger, is flexing its muscles and has donated over $176 million to candidates in over 100 congressional races this cycle, in an attempt to build a Congress that won't try to rein crypto in or pass laws that treat crypto ads like ads for cigarettes. Although Donald Trump used to regard crypto as the biggest scam in town, at some point he had an epiphany—he loves scams—so he got into the crypto "business" himself and has made billions off it. But industry "leaders" realize Trump will not be around forever and Democrats tend to pass laws to protect people from scams, so they want to seed Congress with members who will oppose any attempt to regulate crypto, even if a future Democratic president does want to do that.
The crypto barons have set up a super PAC, Fairshake, which spent $196 million in the 2024 cycle and is at it again. So far it has done well, with 53 of the 58 primary candidates it supported winning their primaries. Of course, candidates often win for reasons unrelated to their positions on crypto. Fairshake understands that ads that say "Vote for John Smith because he supports crypto" would be a bad idea, so the ads are all stealth ads. They urge voters to support crypto-preferred candidates for reasons ranging from immigration to taxes to many other topics, just not crypto.
Fairshake also runs bitter personal attack ads on candidates who want to rein in crypto or to just make people aware of the risks. One of their top targets has been Sherrod Brown (D), who is trying to regain his old job as senator from Ohio. He lost his seat in 2024, largely due to the barrage of money against him from the crypto people. If he wins this time, he will certainly be a huge foe of crypto in the Senate. Fairshake has also spent $10 million to defeat Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D-IL). Unfortunately, for them, she has billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) soilidly behind her, and he can take $10 million out of his petty cash box any time he wants to.
After the collapse of FTX and the meltdown in 2022, the SEC got on crypto's case during the Biden administration and levied $6 billion in penalties in 98 cases. Fairshake understands that having the SEC go after crypto again in 2029 could be a big problem, so it wants to remove crypto from the SEC's oversight portfolio and give to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is much more accustomed to dealing with highly speculative investments. The bill to do this, the Clarity Act, has been blocked by Senate Democrats.
Fairshake isn't the only crypto organization spending money in politics. The Winklevoss twins have spent $21 million on ads, mostly trying to defeat Brown. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, big fans of crypto, gave $3 million to MAGA Inc. and $1 million to the Republican campaign committees. Other crypto titans, including Mike Novogratz, Chris Dixon, Matt Huang, and Charles Cascarilla, have also made big donations to support pro-crypto candidates. (V)