Selkis, who runs the crypto data firm Messari, was among a couple of hundred attendees at an event celebrating Trump’s series of nonfungible tokens, the digital collectibles known as NFTs. When he reached the lectern, Selkis turned to face the former president.
“There’s 50 million crypto holders in the U.S.,” the executive declared. “That’s a lot of voters.”
Crypto Tracker
That message has become a political talking point in the crypto world, as the industry tries to shake off a wave of scandals and establish itself as a powerful force in the 2024 election cycle. Three large crypto firms have banded together to finance a group of affiliated super political action committees, investing about $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional races.The PACs are not planning to participate in the presidential election, a spokesperson for the groups said. But top crypto executives have tried to mobilize the industry behind Trump, who has reciprocated by praising digital currencies and hosting executives at Mar-a-Lago.Many crypto supporters view the 2024 election as a pivotal moment. After a series of crypto firms collapsed two years ago, the Biden administration embarked on an aggressive crackdown, bringing lawsuits and criminal charges against some of the industry’s leading figures. The Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing cases that could effectively force the crypto industry out of the United States.”The 2024 elections will be the most consequential in crypto’s history,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a crypto company that has sparred with the federal government for years. “You are seeing a technology become a partisan political issue.”Garlinghouse, Selkis and other executives have argued that newly energized “crypto voters” could sway the outcome of the election. They often cite a survey, commissioned by crypto exchange Coinbase, that suggests that 52 million Americans own digital currencies. (The Federal Reserve estimates that the total is 7% of the adult population, or roughly 18 million people.)
But voters’ supposed passion for crypto may be less important than the industry’s campaign war chest. Ripple, Coinbase and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have each donated about $50 million to the crypto PACs, which plan to spend those funds in several competitive Senate races. In March, the largest PAC, Fairshake, spent about $10 million on attack ads against Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate in the California Senate primary who was allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime crypto critic. Porter lost her race.
“A single relatively small industry is literally trying to buy enough politicians to hijack the public agenda,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a financial reform advocacy group. “It’s pretty breathtaking.”
The industry’s vast resources have turned a niche set of issues into a talking point in the presidential campaign. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate, made his first official campaign appearance at a bitcoin event in Miami, and he has attended multiple industry conferences, sometimes holding fundraising meetings with wealthy executives on the sidelines.
President Joe Biden has long been seen as anti-crypto because his Securities and Exchange Commission chair, Gary Gensler, has sued so many crypto companies. But some Biden supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, have pressed his campaign to mend fences.
The campaign has been receptive to the message, Cuban said in an email. In recent weeks, Biden officials have reached out to Coinbase and Ripple, asking to discuss crypto policy, four people familiar with those discussions said. Still, much of the industry appears to be coalescing around Trump. While the former president once said that bitcoin “seems like a scam” and has frequently been critical of the tech industry, he has made several supportive comments about crypto over the past month, promising to end the regulatory crackdown. On Tuesday, Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with executives from some of the world’s largest bitcoin mining companies, including Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.
Bitcoin should be “MADE IN THE USA!!!” he posted on his social network.