Bitcoin companies earmark $78m to back pro-crypto candidates in the United States

Bitcoin companies including Coinbase, Ripple, Circle, Kraken and other players in the bitcoin market have earmarked a total of $78 million to support the Fairshake political action committee, which advocates pro-crypto candidates for the United States presidential election.

Among the other beneficiaries of the organisation:

• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z);
• ARK Invest;
• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong;
• Blockchain Capital;
• Jump Crypto;
• Lightspark;
• Messari;
• Multicoin Capital;
• Paradigm;
• Ripple;
• Gemini founders, the Winklevoss twins.

“Leveraging the transformative potential of the American crypto community, Fairshake seeks to promote leaders who are willing to advocate for innovation and to navigate the challenges of responsible regulation in the digital age,” the Fairshake press release said.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that his company intends to “lead the effort together with other industry leaders” to back candidates lobbying for regulation of digital assets.

Team @Ripple is putting a stake in the ground, leading the charge with other industry leaders to support pro-innovation and pro-crypto candidates in the 2024 US election cycle. The US cannot afford to continue taking a back seat on the global stage.
Regulatory overreach (esp from… https://t.co/hpkqNf7Y99

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) December 18, 2023

“The United States cannot afford to continue playing second fiddle on the world stage. Excessive regulation (especially from the SEC) is pushing the jurisdiction in the wrong direction, while other countries fully benefit from the United States’ lack of leadership,” he added.

In Garlinghouse’s view, the industry should be encouraged to adopt initiatives that promote “transparency, innovation and a compliance-oriented approach.”

13 June Ripple secured a partial victory in the case against the SEC. The court ruled that programmatic sales and other distributions of XRP tokens do not constitute the sale of investment contracts. However, according to the court’s ruling, the sale of the asset to institutional participants in the industry violated securities laws.

The founder and managing director of a16z Chris Dixon also announced that the firm had contributed to Fairshake. He noted the committee’s goal of electing leaders who “advocate thoughtful regulation.”

“There is a battle in Washington for the future of blockchain technology: some policymakers intend to ban it, while others believe that innovation should have no obstacles. Neither of these options will allow the technology to fully realise its potential and reorient the future of the internet from big tech to the people who use it,” Dixon wrote.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted that the industry now “has a larger war chest to elect pro-crypto candidates in 2024.”

The crypto industry has a large war chest now to elect pro-crypto candidates in 2024. We’re proud to contribute, and give the 52m Americans who have used crypto better representation.

It will be bipartisan. And hopefully we can get it to $100m in Q1 next year. https://t.co/V20G2d3Eoc

— Brian Armstrong ?️ (@brian_armstrong) December 18, 2023

“We’re proud to have contributed and provided better representation for the 52m Americans who have used cryptocurrency. The Fairshake slate will be bipartisan. We hope to raise the amount to $100m in the first quarter of next year,” said the head of the trading platform.

In the summer, Coinbase was faced with an SEC lawsuit accusing unregistered securities offerings in the form of a number of tokens. The exchange’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal described the Commission’s approach to regulating the cryptocurrency industry as “undermining the United States’ competitiveness,” and the company refused to change its business model in light of authorities’ allegations.

According to Politico, Fairshake backed 13 presidential candidates and has already spent $1.2 million on television advertising. In all the promo spots, it is said that the politicians are working to “attract jobs of the future” and to create “the next generation of the Internet.”

In November, presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy unveiled the Three Freedoms of Crypto concept that would “guarantee a bright future for cryptocurrency and Americans’ economic freedom.”

Earlier he criticised the digital dollar and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for promoting CBDC.

Later another presidential candidate, Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. named Bitcoin an answer to the threat of a state digital currency, which is an “elegant solution” for transactional freedom.