Original author: flowie , ChainCatcher
Original translation: Marco, ChainCatcher
Tech upstarts are expressing their own interests by providing campaign funds to support cryptocurrency-friendly candidates, which is also influencing the attitudes of American politicians towards crypto assets.
Following Trump and Biden's series of initiatives to "please" cryptocurrencies, another US presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also affirmed crypto technology, saying that "cryptocurrency is a symbol of freedom and transparency" and purchased 21 bitcoins during the campaign to express his support for using cryptocurrencies as a trading currency.
In addition to the growing number of young crypto voters, the crypto "monetary power" that takes the initiative and the crypto "think tank" that cannot be ignored also influence the weight of the crypto currency.
Last week, after Ripple announced a $25 million donation to the cryptocurrency super political action committee (PAC) Fairshake, a16z also announced that it would donate $25 million to Fairshake.
Behind the US election, the record high crypto currency power
During the 2022 midterm elections, Sam Bankman-Fried (now convicted of a felony), the founder of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States at the time, made tens of millions of dollars in political donations, becoming the most core force in crypto influencing the U.S. political ecology.
After Sam Bankman-Fried was imprisoned, in the 2024 US presidential election, crypto companies such as Coinbase, Ripple, and crypto-supporting venture capital firms such as a16z took over from FTX and SBF, trying to gain a voice for the crypto industry through "cash power."
Crypto PAC Fairshake, which continues to receive funding from Ripple, a16z, Coinbase and others, has become the main political influence tool in the cryptocurrency industry in 2024.
Before Ripple and a16z announced a cumulative investment of US$50 million in Fairshake, according to a report released by consumer rights organization Public Citizen on May 6, Fairshake and its two affiliated PACs (Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress) had raised more than US$102 million for the 2024 election, ranking third among all PACs at the time.
According to an earlier report by Bloomberg, the crypto industry donated only $83 million to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Although the 2024 U.S. presidential election is still a few months away, the amount of political donations in the crypto industry has already far exceeded that of the previous election cycle.
Ripple contributed approximately $50 million of the more than $100 million raised by Fairshake.
With a16z announcing a $25 million donation to Fairshake, a16z's donation is expected to reach $47 million, while Coinbase donated $23.5 million. In addition, Jump Crypto also donated $5 million, and Circle and Kraken donated $1 million each.
Some well-known figures in the crypto industry also participated in the donation.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin billionaire executives behind Winklevoss Capital Management, donated a total of $5 million.
Tether and Bitfinex executive Phil Potter donated nearly $2 million, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong personally donated $1 million.
In addition, Electric Capital executives Avichal Garg, Multicoin Capital’s Tushar Jain, and Kyle Samani Paradigm’s Matt Huang donated funds ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Behind the more radical crypto political donations is the crypto companies' forced battle for survival in the face of increasingly stringent policies from U.S. regulators.
The main force of crypto donations in the 2024 US election are also the institutions most affected by US regulation. Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken and others have all been accused of violating securities laws.
Although Kraken chose to accept a $30 million fine to reach a settlement, Ripple, Coinbase and other institutions are still struggling with US regulators.
Recently, Ripple filed an objection to the US SEC's motion to ask the judge to impose a fine of $2 billion on it, asking the court to impose a fine of no more than $10 million. The lawsuit against the crypto exchange Coinbase, which was accused of violating securities laws by the US SEC, has not yet been concluded.
Instead of raising funds from wealthy crypto companies and investment institutions, Stand With Crypto, a crypto lobbying organization initiated by Coinbase, will also launch a PAC for the US election, raising funds from its 440,000 members to support cryptocurrency-friendly politicians.
Currently, its Stand With Crypto official website shows that nearly 900,000 crypto users have provided it with more than 87 million US dollars, and the largest donation came from the recent donation of 1 million US dollars from Moopay.
According to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks U.S. political funding data, several crypto industry supporters are among the largest political donors in the United States.
The largest donor so far is Jeffrey Yass, an American billionaire and co-founder of trading giant Susquehanna International Group (SIG), who donated more than $70 million between 2023 and 2024.
In early July 2022, Jeffrey Yass donated 100 Bitcoins (BTC) to the crypto political organization "Crypto Freedom PAC", which was worth more than $1.9 million at the time, setting a record for the largest political donation denominated in Bitcoin in the Federal Election Commission's records. Joe Kildea, the person in charge of Crypto Freedom PAC, once said that Jeffrey Yass's crypto donation may be due to Crypto Freedom PAC's support for candidates who oppose the Biden administration's regulation of cryptocurrencies.
In addition, a16z founder Marc Andreessen also donated more than 11 million US dollars to this US presidential election.
Expect more crypto donations to come. Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey also recently announced that his team will raise $100 million to launch a campaign to "ensure the next president of the United States supports Bitcoin."
The winning rate exceeds 80%, and the role of cryptocurrencies in “money power” is beginning to emerge
According to a report by Public Citizen, in the six 2024 primaries in which the richest crypto PAC Fairshake and its affiliated PACs were involved and have now ended, only one cryptocurrency-backed candidate lost, with a winning rate of over 80%.
Among them, Fairshake spent $10 million on advertising to oppose Katie Porter's campaign for California Senator, and ultimately Katie Porter lost the election.
In the coming months, 11 other candidates supported by Fairshake and its affiliated PACs will participate in the party primaries, and some of the candidates have received more than $3 million in support.
Fairshake has also pledged to spend money in general election Senate races in battleground states like Ohio and Montana, which are considered critical to securing a Senate majority.
Coinbase's crypto lobbying organization "Stand With Crypto" will also use part of the fundraising funds to hold crypto events to get close to candidates for the 2024 US presidential election and infiltrate ideas that are favorable to crypto.
In December 2023, Republicans Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy, and Democrat Dean Phillips discussed the crypto industry at the "Stand With Crypto" event and interacted with crypto media CoinDesk.
The Stand With Crypto website once showed that the candidates it would invite include Trump, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Republicans Doug Burgum, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie.
The crypto “think tank” that cannot be ignored
In addition to exerting "monetary power", some crypto organizations or individuals are also acting as think tanks for important candidates to influence US elections and the direction of future crypto policies.
Trump has recently changed his attitude towards cryptocurrencies and has played the crypto card. For example, he said he would "ensure the future of cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin happens in the United States", supported cryptocurrencies, accepted crypto donations, and pardoned the founder of Silk Road.
Trump's series of crypto cards have won him a lot of praise. This is inseparable from the professional crypto advice provided by David Bailey's team at Bitcoin Magazine.
David Bailey revealed that his team has been advising the Trump campaign on developing a policy that is friendly to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Bailey also mentioned an executive order submitted to Trump that would be signed on his first day back in power that would focus on cryptocurrencies, but did not provide further details.
Amid Trump's crypto offensive, the Biden campaign is also actively looking for crypto think tanks. According to The Block, the Biden campaign has recently begun contacting some crypto industry experts, including crypto people Biden has rejected in the past, to seek guidance on its crypto policy.
Conclusion
The 180-degree reversal of the U.S. SEC's attitude towards the Ethereum ETF, as well as the abnormal support for encryption by candidates such as Trump and Biden, all show that encryption has become an unprecedentedly important weight in the U.S. election.
As crypto super PACs grow stronger, crypto companies strive to change the unfavorable regulatory environment, and some crypto professional teams join the competition team to offer advice and suggestions, it is expected that the influence of crypto on the US election will continue to expand.
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