{"id":14875,"date":"2024-09-30T16:12:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T16:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14875"},"modified":"2024-09-30T16:12:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T16:12:22","slug":"crypto-is-betting-it-all-on-the-2024-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14875","title":{"rendered":"Crypto is betting it all on the 2024 elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Crypto has spent a record $119 million<\/a> in the 2024 federal elections, magnitudes more than it has ever spent before. This huge number means that crypto accounts for almost half of all corporate political contributions in this cycle. Its spending since 2010, totaling $129 million, puts the industry second only to fossil fuels, according to a report<\/a> from the progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s already 15 percent of all known corporate contributions since the Citizens United<\/em> ruling<\/a>,\u201d says Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen who authored the report on crypto election spending, referring to the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates for virtually unlimited corporate spending in elections through outside groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crypto\u2019s ballooning political war chest and voracious appetite to dangle money in front of lawmakers speaks to the power it has amassed over the past decade and a half, even as it has struggled to gain any real traction with the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three-quarters of Americans who\u2019ve heard of crypto aren\u2019t confident in its safety and reliability, a 2023 Pew Research survey<\/a> found, and only 7 percent of Americans used crypto last year, according to the Federal Reserve<\/a>. Crypto\u2019s reputation suffered in particular from the controversy surrounding crypto companies in the last few years, especially the catastrophic meltdown of FTX<\/a>. Though the first cryptocurrency was launched in 2009, it still hasn\u2019t penetrated as a mainstream payment method<\/a>, with very<\/a> few<\/a> retailers<\/a> allowing customers to pay directly with cryptocurrency. It remains mostly a vehicle for speculative investment<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite that \u2014 or because of it \u2014 crypto companies have redoubled their efforts to help elect pro-crypto politicians and lobby for policies that would boost the sector\u2019s growth. The industry wants the influx of money it\u2019s spending to send the clear message that the crypto craze isn\u2019t over \u2014 and in fact, isn\u2019t a craze at all, but the lasting future of finance<\/a>. \u201cCrypto is here to stay,\u201d Paul Grewal, Coinbase\u2019s chief legal officer, recently wrote in public comments<\/a> regarding regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sector\u2019s most strident champions want you to believe that it\u2019s a key issue for voters in the upcoming election, right next to inflation and health care. The industry is shouting from the rooftops that politicians can\u2019t ignore crypto \u2014 and trying its hardest to make sure we won\u2019t be able to either.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After a rough few years of being walloped by scandals and government crackdowns, crypto is facing an existential crisis. There are already some patchwork regulations governing the world of digital currencies, but one key issue remains hotly debated: Which government agency should oversee them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the US, securities like stocks and bonds have to be registered<\/a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which comes with a host of disclosure requirements and other rules to protect investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the SEC is concerned, the law already puts most cryptocurrencies squarely under its purview, and the agency has been aggressively pursuing enforcement against crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance<\/a>, alleging that they\u2019re running unregistered securities exchanges. But the crypto industry doesn\u2019t want to be regulated by the SEC \u2014 it wants to fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe CFTC is a much smaller agency with far fewer resources,\u201d says Molly White, a crypto researcher and critic who has been tracking<\/a> the industry\u2019s political spending.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“One major change this election cycle is how much more visible and vocal the Trump-supporting faction of crypto proponents has become. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who founded the crypto exchange Gemini, tried to donate roughly $1 million worth of bitcoin<\/a> each directly to the Trump campaign, apparently unaware it would exceed the FEC contribution limit. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have both affirmed that they\u2019re joining Team Trump<\/a> too. Other backers include Jesse Powell, co-founder of the crypto exchange Kraken, and Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of the ethereum blockchain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth noting that when Bankman-Fried was still the biggest face of crypto, he was known as a Democratic megadonor. We only found out later that he\u2019d contributed roughly the same amount<\/a> to Republicans through dark money groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, for his part, was a harsh crypto critic<\/a> in the past, but has recently done a 180, saying he would end Biden\u2019s \u201cwar on crypto,<\/a>\u201d and that he would fire Gensler, the SEC chair. He even recently announced a family crypto project, run by the Trump Organization, called The DeFiant Ones \u2014 a play on \u201cdecentralized finance<\/a>\u201d \u2014 that would<\/a>, according to Trump, help Americans who have been \u201csqueezed by the big banks and financial elites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But crypto\u2019s partisan inclinations are more complicated than simply supporting Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The industry\u2019s spending is funneled mostly through the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which has already spent $93.8 million this election cycle<\/a> and is the second best-funded super PAC in the election, after Trump-backing Make America Great Again Inc. Fairshake\u2019s backers include Coinbase, which has contributed a total of $50 million<\/a> to the 2024 elections so far, and Ripple, a blockchain payment network that spent $49 million. (Both Coinbase and Ripple have faced SEC lawsuits.) Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has also contributed $47 million to Fairshake<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fairshake largely focuses on House and Senate races, and has been largely nonpartisan, supporting and opposing politicians of both parties based on their crypto stance.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/money\/371597\/crypto-politics-spending-2024-elections-trump<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Crypto has spent a record $119 million in the 2024 federal elections, magnitudes more than it has ever spent before. This huge number means that crypto accounts for almost half of all corporate political contributions in this cycle. Its spending since 2010, totaling $129 million, puts the industry second only to fossil fuels, according to a report from the progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s already 15 percent of all known corporate contributions since the Citizens United ruling,\u201d says Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen who authored the report on crypto election spending, referring to the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates for virtually unlimited corporate spending in elections through outside groups.<\/p>\n

Crypto\u2019s ballooning political war chest and voracious appetite to dangle money in front of lawmakers speaks to the power it has amassed over the past decade and a half, even as it has struggled to gain any real traction with the public.<\/p>\n

Three-quarters of Americans who\u2019ve heard of crypto aren\u2019t confident in its safety and reliability, a 2023 Pew Research survey found, and only 7 percent of Americans used crypto last year, according to the Federal Reserve. Crypto\u2019s reputation suffered in particular from the controversy surrounding crypto companies in the last few years, especially the catastrophic meltdown of FTX. Though the first cryptocurrency was launched in 2009, it still hasn\u2019t penetrated as a mainstream payment method, with very few retailers allowing customers to pay directly with cryptocurrency. It remains mostly a vehicle for speculative investment.<\/p>\n

Despite that \u2014 or because of it \u2014 crypto companies have redoubled their efforts to help elect pro-crypto politicians and lobby for policies that would boost the sector\u2019s growth. The industry wants the influx of money it\u2019s spending to send the clear message that the crypto craze isn\u2019t over \u2014 and in fact, isn\u2019t a craze at all, but the lasting future of finance. \u201cCrypto is here to stay,\u201d Paul Grewal, Coinbase\u2019s chief legal officer, recently wrote in public comments regarding regulation.<\/p>\n

The sector\u2019s most strident champions want you to believe that it\u2019s a key issue for voters in the upcoming election, right next to inflation and health care. The industry is shouting from the rooftops that politicians can\u2019t ignore crypto \u2014 and trying its hardest to make sure we won\u2019t be able to either.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“After a rough few years of being walloped by scandals and government crackdowns, crypto is facing an existential crisis. There are already some patchwork regulations governing the world of digital currencies, but one key issue remains hotly debated: Which government agency should oversee them?<\/p>\n

In the US, securities like stocks and bonds have to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which comes with a host of disclosure requirements and other rules to protect investors.<\/p>\n

As far as the SEC is concerned, the law already puts most cryptocurrencies squarely under its purview, and the agency has been aggressively pursuing enforcement against crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, alleging that they\u2019re running unregistered securities exchanges. But the crypto industry doesn\u2019t want to be regulated by the SEC \u2014 it wants to fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CFTC is a much smaller agency with far fewer resources,\u201d says Molly White, a crypto researcher and critic who has been tracking the industry\u2019s political spending.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“One major change this election cycle is how much more visible and vocal the Trump-supporting faction of crypto proponents has become. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who founded the crypto exchange Gemini, tried to donate roughly $1 million worth of bitcoin each directly to the Trump campaign, apparently unaware it would exceed the FEC contribution limit. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have both affirmed that they\u2019re joining Team Trump too. Other backers include Jesse Powell, co-founder of the crypto exchange Kraken, and Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of the ethereum blockchain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that when Bankman-Fried was still the biggest face of crypto, he was known as a Democratic megadonor. We only found out later that he\u2019d contributed roughly the same amount to Republicans through dark money groups.<\/p>\n

Trump, for his part, was a harsh crypto critic in the past, but has recently done a 180, saying he would end Biden\u2019s \u201cwar on crypto,\u201d and that he would fire Gensler, the SEC chair. He even recently announced a family crypto project, run by the Trump Organization, called The DeFiant Ones \u2014 a play on \u201cdecentralized finance\u201d \u2014 that would, according to Trump, help Americans who have been \u201csqueezed by the big banks and financial elites.\u201d<\/p>\n

But crypto\u2019s partisan inclinations are more complicated than simply supporting Republicans.<\/p>\n

The industry\u2019s spending is funneled mostly through the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which has already spent $93.8 million this election cycle and is the second best-funded super PAC in the election, after Trump-backing Make America Great Again Inc. Fairshake\u2019s backers include Coinbase, which has contributed a total of $50 million to the 2024 elections so far, and Ripple, a blockchain payment network that spent $49 million. (Both Coinbase and Ripple have faced SEC lawsuits.) Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has also contributed $47 million to Fairshake.<\/p>\n

Fairshake largely focuses on House and Senate races, and has been largely nonpartisan, supporting and opposing politicians of both parties based on their crypto stance.” <\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/money\/371597\/crypto-politics-spending-2024-elections-trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[583,1397,372,198,236,551,279],"class_list":["post-14875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-campaign-finance","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-regulation","tag-regulations","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14876,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14875\/revisions\/14876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}