The cryptocurrency industry has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to spend in the 2024 election on various races House and Senate throughout the U.S. And while crypto is generally associated with conservatives and especially the ideology of Donald Trump, one of the biggest crypto super PACs is also spending money on Democrats this cycle. And some Republicans are not happy about that. Not happy at all.
NBC News has a new report about Republican discontent within the crypto community about spending on Democrats. And one group is getting most of the heat. Fairshake PAC has emerged as one of the most powerful political groups with a primary focus on crypto and it has already notched some wins. For instance, the group ran attack ads during the primaries against Katie Porter, the California Democrat who wound up losing to Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey, who will compete on the ballot this November.
But Fairshake also spent money to support a Democrat during the primaries. The group spent $2.7 million to help Shomari Figures win his House primary in Alabama, according to crypto news outlet CoinDesk. Figures is a progressive Democrat who supports crypto as a form of tech “innovation,” probably the most common way that Democrats who support pro-crypto policies have phrased it.
A new round of general election funding by Fairshake has drawn scrutiny that the primaries didn’t generate in Republican circles. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat running in Arizona, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat running in Michigan, have received commitments of about $3 million each from Fairshake, according to NBC News. As NBC notes, Slotkin had appeared to be skeptical of cryptocurrency until very recently and now holds an A rating from the nonprofit advocacy group Stand With Crypto. Similarly, Gallego was not known as a promoter of crypto until recently and now has a positive rating from Stand With Crypto.
None of this is sitting well with Republicans who see Democrats as the enemy of cryptocurrency’s future. Republicans have been quicker to embrace crypto as both a speculative asset and a real currency, even if some were skeptical in the earliest days. Donald Trump previously called bitcoin “not money” and complained it was “highly volatile and based on thin air.” But Trump is all in on crypto now, even if he clearly doesn’t understand how it works.
“Republicans are WTF about what’s going on with Fairshake, and I think that’s a pretty bad omen for the industry, that people are wondering why our main trade association is pointing its arsenal at our friends,” NBC News quotes one anonymous crypto booster as saying.
And you can understand the confusion from Republicans. Can they depend on people like Gallego and Slotkin who appeared to be crypto skeptics until recent months?
To be sure, Fairshake is still supporting plenty of Republicans but has publicly stated its intention to stay out of the presidential race between Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. But time will tell whether Fairshake’s gamble on House and Senate races will pay off for the crypto industry. It does appear to be a smart bet, based on the way things are headed in November. Harris is on track for a solid win if the latest polling is accurate, and there’s a very good chance that she helps deliver both the House and the Senate for the Democrats. If that’s really the way things go, the crypto lobby is going to need friends in positions of power.
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