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The crypto trio: How the cryptocurrency industry has made its mark on 2024 elections • OpenSecrets [1]
['Maia Cook']
Date: 2024-11-01 22:41:00+00:00
Photo of golden Bitcoin coins and U.S. dollar bills (Image via Getty)
For many voters, cryptocurrency is not a top-of-mind policy issue in the 2024 election cycle. But a triad of affiliated pro-crypto super PACs — Fairshake, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs — have already poured over $133 million into the election.
With the prospect of a new administration on the horizon, the possibility of reversing congressional control and the potential appointment of a new U.S. Securities and Exchange commissioner, crypto advocates are gunning to elect a crypto-friendly president and members of Congress.
The bulk of contributions to the crypto triad came from three crypto-exchange platforms, Coinbase, Ripple, and Jump Crypto — totaling about $93 million. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz chipped in another $45.2 million.
The super PAC received an additional $5 million from Winklevoss Capital Management, a firm run by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, cryptocurrency investors who founded the crypto exchange Gemini and dubbed themselves the world’s first Bitcoin billionaires.
Multiple high-profile individuals in the crypto industry have been vocal in their support of Trump. The Winklevoss brothers have come out as Trump supporters and Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have given $5 million to Right for America, a pro-Trump super PAC. But the crypto industry has not solely benefitted Republicans, and most of the contributors to the trio of crypto-backed super PACs are not expressly partisan. They simply want to elect crypto-friendly politicians.
"No matter what happens in this election, it's going to be the most pro-crypto Congress that we've ever had,” said Coinbase Brian Armstrong in a recent CNBC interview, whose exchange platform recently gave $25 million to Fairshake.
In the months leading up to the election, Trump has been more forthcoming and enthusiastic about his support for the digital asset industry than Kamala Harris, who has yet to take a hardline stance.
“One day, I will fire Gary Gensler and will appoint a new SEC who believes America should build the future, not block [it],” announced Trump at Bitcoin’s flagship crypto conference back in June. “From now on, rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.”
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Before over $7.5 million worth of cryptocurrency contributions flooded his reelection campaign, Trump’s take on the crypto industry was not nearly as optimistic. “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
The rise of super PACs like Fairshake was made possible by the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC and the D.C. Circuit Court decision Speechnow v. FEC — which is the only reason the crypto industry has been able to invest a whopping $133 million into this election.
Since these decisions, super PACs have been allowed to raise unlimited sums of money in favor of candidates, so long as they are not in contact — or “coordination” — with a candidate’s official campaign. Coordination laws were passed to reduce pathways for political corruption, though cases of coordination are rarely punished.
Some experts like Saurav Ghosh, the federal campaign finance director at the Campaign Legal Center, worry that big dollar contributions such as those from the crypto industry are drowning out the public interest and the power of the ordinary voter. Others, like FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor, argue that money is a basic extension of their First Amendment right to free speech, and that democracy benefits from a competitive marketplace of ideas.
“It's very hard to imagine a future in which, you know, the folks who are elected with crypto money behind them are not influenced by that in ways both large and small when they're making decisions about policy,” Ghosh told OpenSecrets. “The concern with money isn't just that it's being spent or it's somehow changing the way elections work. It's that before the election, spending is going to shape what's happening after the election.”
Fairshake and Defend American Jobs have supported candidates from both parties but have leaned strongly in support of Republican candidates while Protect Progress, the third super PAC of the crypto-backed triad, has almost exclusively supported Democrats.
Defend American Jobs has spent over $40 million to support Bernie Moreno, a Republican candidate running for Senate in Ohio against longtime Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in the state’s most expensive election ever. A loss by Brown could flip the Senate in favor of Republicans.
“Unlike Sherrod Brown, who doesn’t know the difference between blockchain and a chainsaw, Bernie has a deep understanding of the technology, what it takes to make certain it develops here in America, and will work to ensure America leads the world,” Moreno’s spokesperson Reagan McCarthy told The Washington Post.
Fairshake spent over $10 million to help defeat Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.)’s Senate bid in California and over $2 million against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a Democrat representing New York’s 16th district who re-ran for the House. Both candidate’s targeted by Fairshake lost in their respective primaries. But the super PAC has spent its energy and money backing candidates from across the aisle, including Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) and Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.), who were both elected in 2023.
Protect Progress has spent over $10 million boosting the campaign of Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). Slotkin voted in favor of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, which seeks to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets.
The super PAC spent another $10 million on Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who believes in “the importance of crypto in driving technological innovation, economic growth, and job creation” and the need for “comprehensible regulatory frameworks that offer clarity and promote responsible innovation.”
With five days until Election Day, it remains to be seen whether the crypto industry’s high bid paid off.
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