With the fast-approaching 2024 elections in the United States, cryptocurrency executives and investors have poured $78 million into three major independent expenditure-only political action committees, or super PACs, in a bid to back crypto-friendly candidates.
Specifically, these three pro-crypto super PACs include Protect Progress, Defend American Jobs, and Fairshake, the last of which has already spent over $1.2 million on television ads backing Congress House candidates, according to a report by media outlet Politico published on December 18.
Indeed, the campaign has already received support from venture capital (VC) giant Andreessen Horowitz, crypto exchange Coinbase, Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and other major players in the crypto field, including Ripple, Circle, Kraken, and Paradigm.
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Crypto execs vs. regulators
Commenting on the development, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed his optimism regarding this contribution to the fight against regulatory overreach and a lack of leadership that is holding the country back on the global crypto and technology scene and “actively moving the US in the wrong direction.”
“We need to advance leaders who will champion innovation and spearhead paths towards responsible regulation. 2024 is the time to go back to first principles by encouraging initiatives to promote transparency, innovation, and a compliance-first approach. Team Ripple and I won’t squander it.”
At the same time, the head of US policy at the crypto trading platform Coinbase, Kara Calvert, told Politico in an interview that this endeavor was “demonstrating a very serious commitment from the crypto industry to engage in the 2024 elections.” As she added:
“The need to ensure that a crypto super PAC is well-funded, has good management, is getting engaged in the right place at the right time has never been more important.”
As a reminder, US Senator Elizabeth Warren recently caused a commotion by unveiling an expanded coalition of the Senate’s support for the bipartisan Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act to tighten regulations within the expanding crypto space, which she initially introduced back in December 2022.
More recently, John E. Deaton, a legal expert involved with this industry, revealed that 20% of the US Senate already agreed to support her anti-crypto bill, including Lindsay Graham, a Republican, Angus King, an Independent, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat turned Independent, as Finbold reported on December 18.
