(Bloomberg) -- The cryptocurrency industry spent about $135 million in the 2024 election cycle to back more than 50 candidates, including Democrats and Republicans, incumbents and challengers, shoo-ins and longshots.
But they all now share something in common: Victory.
In the Nov. 5 races, 48 out of 48 candidates backed by crypto’s biggest political action committees were declared winners as of Friday morning. In eight races where votes are still being counted, the PACs’ preferred candidate is ahead in all but three.
Crypto made its biggest bet in Ohio, where it spent more than $40 million to lift Republican Bernie Moreno in his bid to unseat longtime Democratic senator and vocal crypto-skeptic Sherrod Brown. Moreno, who trailed in the polls as recently as late October, was declared the victor with 50.2% of the vote as of midday Thursday. “DC received a clear message that being anti-crypto is a good way to end your career,” Coinbase Global Inc. CEO Brian Armstrong crowed in an X post celebrating the election results.
This may come as a surprise to voters — candidates and ads backed by crypto’s political action committees barely mentioned the industry or its pet issue, regulation. Yet, Fairshake, its primary vehicle for the campaign, has become the largest single-issue super PAC in history. Fairshake and two affiliated super PACs, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, are funded by Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz, among other industry heavyweights.
Its influence campaign dwarfed traditional corporate donors like Koch Industries and Chevron Corp. It now ranks second only to the fossil fuel industry in total money deployed since the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that lifted limits on companies’ political spending, according to consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen.
Now, the industry is touting the massive election spending — and the outcome — as evidence that it’s become a political force to be reckoned with, gathering momentum for the next legislative session and for the 2026 midterms.
Hours after the Presidential election was called, a crypto-backed lobbying group, the Cedar Innovation Foundation, issued a statement celebrating “the most pro-blockchain and pro-crypto Congress in history,” and urging President-elect Donald Trump to dismiss Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler immediately.
The industry plans to keep pushing for favorable regulations. Coinbase and Ripple have been building their lobbying efforts, employing more registered lobbyists in 2024 than ever before, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of Senate Office of Public Records data. Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with large crypto investments, plans to open an office in Washington.
Meanwhile, Fairshake is padding its coffers for the midterms. Last week, Coinbase committed $25 million, and Andreessen Horowitz pledged an additional $23 million, adding to $30 million leftover from this cycle. “Industry will double down on large support of Fairshake,” Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said in an email hours after the election, which he characterized as an “enormous day for crypto.”
It’s money the industry can currently easily afford. Digital asset prices have soared, driven in part by excitement about a pro-crypto president-elect and the likelihood of light-touch regulation. Bitcoin hit a fresh record in the hours after the election, and a rally in Coinbase shares added more than $2 billion to Armstrong’s personal wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
As Armstrong suggested on X, Fairshake and its affiliates are willing to spend big, and spend early, to support allies and defeat opponents. In one high-profile example, it put $10 million into attack ads against Katie Porter, an early Democratic challenger for California’s empty Senate seat. She lost in the primary, and the industry would point to her defeat as evidence of its influence.
It was also a preview of its strategy to avoid mentioning crypto. Polls consistently show that most Americans don’t care about the industry at all. In Ohio, one Fairshake ad argued that Moreno would support Trump’s economic agenda, drive gas and grocery bills down, and end illegal immigration. Another said he’d protect Social Security and energy independence. They touted Moreno’s business background, but not that he’d worked for a blockchain technology company.
“They’re spending all this money,” said Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen. “Their true message, trying to buy policies, is directed at the candidates themselves.”
Protect Progress spent $10 million in support of Elissa Slotkin, who won Michigan’s Senate seat, and $10 million on Ruben Gallego, who is ahead in his campaign for Arizona’s Senate seat. As members of the House, both candidates voted for the industry’s pet bills earlier this year.
Fairshake spent big in US House races as well. The super PAC contributed $1 million to support incumbent US Representativ. Zach Nunn’s win in a competitive Iowa district that includes the Des Moines metro area. Of the $135 million, a little more than 60% has been spent to support Republican candidates or to oppose Democrats. A handful of candidates that the super PACs supported lost in primaries earlier this year.
Campaign spending is just the first step to building relationships on Capitol Hill, said Peter Loge, a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University and a former senior advisor in the Obama Administration. Spending will often get companies and interest groups meetings with lawmakers and staff, but it doesn’t guarantee they will achieve their policy priorities, he said.
“You need to be there campaign after campaign, cycle after cycle. You need to keep showing up,” Loge said. “It’s not write a check, get a bill.”
Still, crypto is taking a victory lap, even for races that weren’t particularly competitive. Protect Progress spent $1 million to back Michigan Democratic incumbent Representative Shri Thanedar, who won with more than 68% of the vote reported so far. Defend American Jobs spent $3 million in support of Republican Jim Justice’s Senate campaign in deep-red West Virginia.
And its playbook could inspire other industries to mimic a strategy that flexes deep pockets and downplays actual corporate interests, said Claypool, calling it an “intimidation tool,” that seeks to “discipline” candidates and lawmakers to fall in line.
“They’ve gone out of their way to avoid being ideological in terms of explaining what the mission of their super PACs is,” he said. “This is a huge ‘corporate money in politics’ problem that the crypto sector is exploiting in ways we haven’t seen before.”
Some signs suggest it’s working. In the Nevada Senate race, the Republican candidate, Sam Brown, added cryptocurrency and blockchain innovation to his list of campaign priorities in late February, after Fairshake and its affiliates spent more than $14 million on advertising in other races ahead of Super Tuesday. His Democratic opponent, Jacky Rosen, also nods to the industry on her campaign page.
Votes in that race are still being counted. Neither Fairshake nor its affiliates supported either candidate — this time.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.