Crypto exchange Coinbase says it donated $25 million to crypto-focused super political action committee (PAC) Fairshake as it ramps up lobbying ahead of the November United States elections.
In a June 3 blog post, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the latest donation brings the total amount raised by the PAC and its affiliates to $160 million this election cycle. The amount matches donations last week from Ripple and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
“Crypto voters won’t be taken seriously until we send a clear message to political candidates that it is bad politics to be anti-crypto,” Armstrong wrote. “We need to support pro-crypto candidates on both sides of the aisle, and unceremoniously vote anti-crypto candidates out of office.”
Armstrong said while Coinbase is willing to talk to critics, “we no longer need to support them” and will “work to get anti-crypto candidates out of office.”
With its $160 million funding, Fairshake is one of the country’s top cash-flushed super PACs, according to OpenSecrets analysis. It can’t directly donate funds to political candidates, but it can spend an unlimited amount of money to support them in other ways.
OpenSecrets data shows Fairshake’s biggest expenditure this cycle is $10 million on lobbying against Democrats, a quarter of the $40 million it has spent for the cycle.
Earlier this year, it bankrolled attack ads against California Representative Katie Porter, who lost a primary race for the Senate in March.
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Coinbase’s donation comes ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. elections, where the presidency, all 435 House seats and 34 out of 100 Senate seats are being contested.
The House has a Republican majority, while the Democrats control the Senate, but a May Public Citizen report said the crypto sector’s “outsized influence” in key races “has the potential to tip control of Congress toward one party or the other.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is still the favorite despite his multiple recent felony convictions. He’s ahead of incumbent Joe Biden by 1 percentage point, according to June 3 FiveThirtyEight polls.
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