Crypto super PAC Fairshake adds $25 million in additional Coinbase chips

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said it had donated $25 million to cryptocurrency-focused political action committee (PAC) Fairshake as it steps up its lobbying efforts ahead of the November US election.

In a June 3 blog post, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the latest donations bring the total amount raised by the PAC and its affiliates this election cycle to $160 million. This amount matches donations from Ripple and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz last week.

“Crypto voters won’t take us seriously until we send a clear message to political candidates that anti-crypto is bad politics,” Armstrong wrote. “We should support pro-crypto candidates on both sides of the aisle, and disrespectfully vote anti-crypto candidates out of office.”

Armstrong said Coinbase is willing to dialogue with critics, but “we no longer need to support them” and will “work to remove anti-crypto candidates from office.”

With $160 million in funding, Fairshake is one of the top cash-flush super PACs in the country, according to an OpenSecrets analysis. Although you cannot donate money directly to political candidates, you can spend unlimited amounts of money to support them in other ways.

Fairshake’s biggest spend this cycle was $10 million on lobbying for Democrats, a quarter of the $40 million it spent this cycle, according to OpenSecrets data.

Earlier this year, it funded attack ads against California Rep. Katie Porter, who lost her Senate race in March.

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Coinbase’s donation comes ahead of the November 5 U.S. election, in which the presidency, 435 House of Representatives seats and 34 of the 100 Senate seats will be contested.

Although Republicans hold a majority in the House and Democrats control the Senate, a May Public Citizen report said the “outsized influence” of the cryptocurrency sector in key races “has the potential to tilt control of Congress in favor of one party or the other.” .

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump remains the most popular candidate despite several recent felony convictions. A June 3 FiveThirtyEight poll showed him leading incumbent Joe Biden by 1 percentage point.

magazine: Cryptocurrencies have revealed a sudden rift among Democrats just months before the election.