Fortune Article

Despite its creation as an economic force existing outside the political system, crypto has long had a strange relationship with U.S. elections. Look no further than Brock Pierce, the Mighty Ducks child-star-turned-Tether-founder, who ran for president and the Senate in two separate races, or the Bitcoiner Bruce Fenton, who received a respectable 4.47% of the Republican primary vote for the 2022 New Hampshire Senate seat. But for all its adherence to transparency, crypto’s most influential role in politics has not been the vanity candidacies of blockchain advocates, but the growing prevalence of dark money.

Corporations may not get a vote, but thanks to the 2020 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United, they do get to spend as much money on races as they want, often through organizations that obscure the identity of their donors. Sam Bankman-Fried took full advantage, funneling money into races through individual donations and Super PACs, which do not cloak their benefactors, although he later admitted that he likely gave tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates through dark money channels. (The Department of Justice, sadly, dropped its campaign finance charges against Bankman-Fried.)

With Bankman-Fried out of the picture this election cycle, the rest of the industry has stepped up. A new report by the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen details the extent of crypto sector donations, finding that digital asset-affiliated Super PACs have already raised more than $102 million for the 2024 election—the third-most of all Super PACs—with more than half coming from direct corporate expenditures, primarily Coinbase and Ripple Labs.

That the crypto industry is coming out in force should be no surprise. In 2020, and even 2022, crypto had not quite become a partisan issue, with lawmakers working across the aisle on an array of bills that would bring regulation to the sector. The collapse of FTX right before the 2022 elections killed any momentum, with many Democrats waking up to the consumer threats posed by the wildcat industry, while Republicans became incensed by the heavy-handed approach of SEC chair Gary Gensler and his perceived handler, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

As the Public Citizen report details, most of the crypto Super PAC donations are flowing to House and Senate primaries, including an eye-popping $10 million against Democratic Senate candidate Katie Porter in California, who lost in March and blamed the “onslaught of billionaires.” (A spokesperson for one of the crypto super PACs thanked her for the credit.) Some donations are supporting Democratic candidates, including crypto favorite Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), although most of the money so far has favored Republicans. And while the outsized impact of the Super PACs is apparent, Public Citizen makes clear that uncounted dark money is likely playing a role as well. According to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, this election cycle is on track to surpass all previous in terms of dark money.

The real question is whether crypto contributions will have an impact. “Money moves the needle,” Coinbase CEO and top donor Brian Armstrong said on a panel last September. And he may be right, both in terms of getting the industry recognized by Washington’s power brokers and by swaying elections. According to Public Citizen, of the six completed primary races where crypto super PACS intervened, only one crypto candidate lost. Another crypto candidate, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), won yesterday, and there are ten more upcoming primary races.

The biggest test will be the race for Ohio’s Senate seat, where blockchain antagonist and Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown is up for reelection against Republican Bernie Moreno, an enthusiastically pro-crypto candidate. The latest poll from March showed Brown with a slight advantage, although the race just began in earnest. “I wouldn’t say that there’s a target on their backs,” said Coinbase’s head of U.S. policy, referring to Brown and crypto skeptic Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in an interview with the New York Times. “What I would say is, there is, I think, an opportunity.”

Leo Schwartz
leo.schwartz@fortune.com
@leomschwartz

DECENTRALIZED NEWS

Alum from LedgerPrime and Genesis raised $28 million for Arbelos, a crypto trading firm that will provide liquidity for over-the-counter derivatives, led by Dragonfly. (Fortune)

A new reorganization plan will see nearly all FTX creditors get 118% of their funds back in cash, although it must first be approved by the Delaware bankruptcy court. (CoinDesk)

The British banking app Revolut is taking a step forward in digital assets through the reveal of a crypto trading platform for retail customers in the U.K. (Fortune)

The Singapore-based QCP Capital, one of the largest options trading desks for crypto, received initial approval to operate in Abu Dhabi. (Bloomberg)

Following a new Wells notice against the brokerage firm Robinhood, Gary Gensler repeated his assertion that crypto markets do not have the necessary disclosures while arguing that digital assets are a low priority for the SEC. (CNBC)