With the 2024 US elections drawing closer, the crypto industry is not just dipping its toes into the political pool but cannonballing, making waves with its financial contributions running into tens of millions. Nearly half of corporate donations in this election cycle are coming from crypto companies, according to the reports.
We’re talking about a whopping $119 million, as highlighted by Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group.
At the head of this monetary deluge are industry giants, such as Coinbase and Ripple, which account for over 80% of the donations. Their money is not simply lying idle, but it is landing right into super PACs, falling behind crypto-favorable candidates, all in a bid to tilt the balance that much more in Washington.
Now, this probably doesn’t come as a shock, considering the crypto industry has come under the microscope since the Biden administration. With Coinbase and Ripple caught in legal wranglings with the SEC, it makes sense that they are heavily invested in the political arena.
But here’s the kicker: it’s not just one side of the political aisle that’s profiting off this crypto cash. Yeah, Donald Trump may truly fly the “pro-crypto” banner right up to the stars, even keynote a $1.2 billion Bitcoin conference in Nashville, but money talks on both sides and, with the House, Senate, and presidency all up for grabs, you better believe that crypto dollars are flowing to both parties.
What’s really mind-blowing is how quickly crypto is spending on elections compared with the hulking old political spenders such as Big Oil and the banks.
Since the 2010 Citizens United ruling, the crypto industry has captured—what?—15% of all disclosed corporate contributions. And most of that is for this election cycle alone.
Take a bipartisan super PAC with deep pocket support from the top pro-crypto companies and others, raising funds to the approximate $169 million with backing from big names like Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple, and Jump Crypto. All the moneys are strategically spread around the country’s most important House and Senate races—all to prop up pro-crypto candidates and keep the critics at bay.
Yet, the interesting part is that most of these crypto-backed candidates do not proclaim the support from the rooftops themselves. The adverts funded by crypto dollars, therefore, stick to parochial political talking points, totally avoiding the industry at the heart of it all.
Here is an amount of money in the crypto industry being thrown around that is now too large to ignore.
Rick Claypool with Public Citizen, which wrote the exposé, thinks that this is but another clear illustration of the problems brought about by the Citizens United ruling.
He pointed out that when comes to electoral expenditure, crypto firms are ranked position two- just behind the more giant fossil fuel companies.
Across the aisle, Democrats are working to find some middle ground with the crypto world.
While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has suggested in the past that crypto legislation is likely to move through by year’s end, campaigns like the Vice-President Kamala Harris campaign are already putting together a pro-crypto platform to build on the potential change from the approach the current administration has taken.
Yet through all this, Trump keeps cashing checks from the highest echelons of the digital asset world, doubling down his support for crypto further and further.
In fact, he’s taken to claiming that, should he win, the U.S. will become the “crypto capital of the planet.”.
This much is clear as we edge closer to election day: the crypto industry isn’t playing the political game; it is rewriting the rules.
