The political awakening in the cryptocurrency industry is already influencing the highly anticipated U.S. election, with many industry insiders optimistic about Trump’s approach to attracting the industry. This article, “How Crypto Money Is Poised to Influence the Election,” was authored by David Yaffe-Bellany, Erin Griffith, and Theodore Schleifer, and published in The New York Times. It has been compiled, translated, and rewritten by Foresight News.
Ryan Selkis, a high-ranking executive in the cryptocurrency industry, received an unexpected invitation last month at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago: former U.S. President and current candidate Donald J. Trump wanted him to speak a few words. Selkis, the founder and CEO of the well-known cryptocurrency data analytics company Messari, was one of the hundreds of participants at the NFT celebration events for Trump’s non-fungible tokens. While on stage, Selkis turned to face the former president and declared, “There are over 50 million cryptocurrency holders in the U.S., a significant voting bloc.”
The cryptocurrency industry is trying to overcome a series of historical scandals and establish its strong political influence in the 2024 election cycle, making it a widely discussed political topic in the world of cryptocurrency. A notable development is the formation of a super PAC alliance by three major cryptocurrency companies (Ripple, Coinbase, and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), which plans to invest around $150 million in supporting cryptocurrency-friendly candidates in congressional elections.
These PACs have stated that they do not intend to directly participate in the presidential election. However, some executives in the cryptocurrency industry are mobilizing the entire industry to support Trump, who responded by praising cryptocurrencies and hosting high-ranking cryptocurrency industry executives at Mar-a-Lago.
Many supporters of cryptocurrencies view the 2024 election as a crucial moment for the industry. Two years ago, following the closure of several cryptocurrency companies, the Biden administration began cracking down on the industry, filing lawsuits and criminal charges against some industry leaders. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been intensifying its investigations into certain cryptocurrency companies and related cases, potentially forcing the cryptocurrency industry out of the U.S. market.
“The 2024 presidential election will be a pivotal moment in the history of cryptocurrency,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company that has long been at odds with the federal government. “You will see a technology evolve into a partisan political issue.”
Garlinghouse, Selkis, and other executives in the cryptocurrency industry believe that the newly active “cryptocurrency voters” could influence the final election results. They often cite a survey commissioned by the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which showed that 52 million Americans own cryptocurrency. In contrast, the Federal Reserve estimates that about 7% of U.S. adults own or use cryptocurrency, totaling around 18 million people.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has attended multiple cryptocurrency industry conferences and sometimes holds fundraising meetings with wealthy industry executives outside the venues. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Block, considered donating millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to support Kennedy.
However, voter enthusiasm for cryptocurrency may not be as important as the industry’s campaign funding. Ripple, Coinbase, and Andreessen Horowitz each donated around $50 million to cryptocurrency PACs, which plan to use these funds in several competitive Senate races. In March, the largest PAC, Fairshake, spent about $10 million on advertisements attacking Democratic candidate Katie Porter, who participated in the California Senate primary and had a close relationship with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a long-time critic of cryptocurrency. Porter lost the election.
“It’s shocking that an industry of relatively smaller scale has attempted to buy enough politicians to hijack the public agenda,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of the financial reform advocacy group Better Markets.
The vast resources of the cryptocurrency industry have turned some niche issues into focal points of the presidential election. Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy made his first appearance at a Bitcoin event in Miami and attended several industry conferences, sometimes holding fundraising events with wealthy industry executives outside the venues.
For a long time, President Biden has been seen as an opponent of cryptocurrency because the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman he appointed, Gary Gensler, has sued multiple cryptocurrency companies. However, some Biden supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, have urged his campaign team to repair relations with the cryptocurrency industry.
Cuban stated in an email that Biden’s campaign team had accepted this suggestion. Four sources revealed that in recent weeks, Biden’s officials have contacted Coinbase and Ripple to discuss cryptocurrency-related policies. Nevertheless, most people in the cryptocurrency industry seem to support Trump. Despite the former president’s past statements that Bitcoin “looks like a scam” and his frequent criticism of the tech industry, he has made several supportive comments about cryptocurrencies in the past month and promised to end the regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrencies during the Biden era. Last Tuesday, Trump met with executives from some of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining companies at Mar-a-Lago, including Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.
He posted on social media that Bitcoin should be “made in the U.S.A.!”
The last time the cryptocurrency industry poured large sums of money into political campaigns, the biggest donor was Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the now-defunct exchange FTX, who spent tens of millions of dollars supporting both Democrats and Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Two years later, Bankman-Fried’s company went bankrupt, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud.
The collapse of FTX had a significant negative impact on the efforts of the cryptocurrency industry in Washington. Since last year, the SEC has sued Coinbase and several other cryptocurrency companies, alleging that they allowed customers to trade unregistered securities. In May of this year, the cryptocurrency industry achieved a rare legislative victory when Congress voted to overturn SEC accounting standards questioned by the cryptocurrency companies. However, Biden vetoed the resolution.
Now, the cryptocurrency industry is fighting back. Fairshake has announced plans to participate in four additional Senate races this year, including competitive races in Ohio and Montana, where Democrats have long been critical of cryptocurrencies and are seeking re-election. According to two sources, executives in the cryptocurrency industry privately believe that Fairshake has softened some skeptical lawmakers, including Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, expressed willingness to advance legislation supporting the cryptocurrency industry in April this year.
In March, a few weeks after the California Senate primary ended with Porter’s defeat, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who defeated Porter, visited the Coinbase office in Mountain View, California. According to two sources, he met with representatives from Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and cryptocurrency-focused investment firms Electric Capital, Paradigm Capital, and Haun Ventures.
While Trump is not always a supporter of cryptocurrencies—he has expressed a preference for the U.S. dollar over Bitcoin and once stated in 2019 on Twitter that cryptocurrencies “come from thin air” and have no value—recently, some high-ranking executives in the cryptocurrency industry have been eager to find a political savior. As a result, they have turned to Trump.
Cryptocurrency enthusiast and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy claimed credit for Trump’s decision to change cryptocurrency policies and has become Trump’s emissary in the cryptocurrency industry. According to a source, Ramaswamy privately met with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington and sought Armstrong’s support for Trump’s campaign.
Armstrong has not publicly supported any presidential candidate. In a statement, he said, “We will not give special treatment to any particular party. Cryptocurrency is a genuine issue that requires bipartisan attention.”
Self-described liberal Selkis attended the Mar-a-Lago event in May after receiving a ticket from a colleague who couldn’t make it. Recalling the event in an interview, Selkis said, “I was eating salad when the president (Trump) suddenly called me up on stage.”
That evening, Trump declared, “If you support cryptocurrency, your best choice is to vote for Trump.” He also announced that his campaign team would accept cryptocurrency donations and promised to reduce the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, a cult hero in the cryptocurrency world who operated the online drug market Silk Road, which long supported Bitcoin payments, an important use case for Bitcoin.
According to Salman Khan, CFO of Marathon Digital, on Tuesday night, Trump met with about 15 executives from Bitcoin mining companies at Mar-a-Lago for over an hour.
Khan said the executives showed Trump the internal structure of a machine used for Bitcoin mining, a energy-intensive process that has raised concerns about the environment. Khan said, “Trump liked it because it’s made in America.”
Not everyone in the cryptocurrency world supports Trump. In a meeting in May, Marvin Ammori, a Democrat working for the cryptocurrency company Uniswap, discussed political strategies for the industry on stage with Selkis and warned that Trump might not fulfill his campaign promises.
However, according to three attendees, Trump attended a fundraising event held by prominent venture capitalist David Sacks at his home in San Francisco this month and reiterated his support for cryptocurrency. Attendees included Selkis, the Winklevoss brothers, and Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase, among other high-ranking executives in the cryptocurrency industry.
“Trump has won the support of the cryptocurrency industry,” Selkis said. “It’s a done deal.”