Ryan Selkis, a cryptocurrency executive, was dining at Mar-a-Lago last month when he received an unexpected invitation: Former President Donald J. Trump wanted him to come up on stage and say a few words.
Selkis, who runs crypto data company Messari, was one of hundreds of attendees at an event celebrating Trump's presidency. crypto-bluster-at-nft-gala-lacked-policy-substance/” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>non-fungible token series, the digital collectibles known as nfts. When he reached the lectern, Selkis turned to the former president.
“There are 50 million cryptocurrency holders in the United States,” the executive x.com/twobitidiot/status/1788389754502856707″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>declared. “There are a lot of voters.”
That message has become a political talking point in the cryptocurrency world, as the industry tries to shake off a wave of scandals and establish itself as a powerful force in the 2024 election cycle. Three major cryptocurrency companies have teamed up to fund a group of affiliated super PACs, investing around $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional elections.
The PACs do not plan to participate in the presidential election, a spokesman for the groups said. But top cryptocurrency executives have tried to rally the industry behind Trump, who has reciprocated by praising digital currencies and hosting executives at Mar-a-Lago.
Many cryptocurrency supporters see the 2024 election as an existential moment. After the collapse of a number of crypto companies two years ago, the Biden administration embarked on an aggressive crackdown, filing lawsuits and criminal charges against some of the industry's leading figures. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating cases that could effectively force the crypto industry out of the United States.
“The 2024 election will be the most important in the history of cryptocurrencies,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company that has argued with the federal government for years. “We're seeing a technology become a partisan political issue.”
Garlinghouse, Selkis and other executives have argued that newly energized “crypto voters” could influence the outcome of the election. They often cite a surveycommissioned by crypto exchange Coinbase, which suggests that 52 million Americans own digital currencies. (The Federal Reserve Dear All which the total is 7 percent of the adult population, or approximately 18 million people).
But voters' supposed passion for cryptocurrencies may be less important than the industry's campaign war chest. Ripple, Coinbase, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have each donated about $50 million to crypto PACs, which plan to spend those funds on several competitive Senate races. In March, the largest PAC, Fairshake, spent about $10 million on attack ads against Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate in the California Senate primary who was allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime crypto critic. time. Mrs. Porter lost her race.
“A single relatively small industry is literally trying to buy enough politicians to hijack the public agenda,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a group that advocates for financial reform. “It's pretty impressive.”
The industry's vast resources have made a set of specific issues a talking point in the presidential campaign. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the independent presidential candidate, bitcoin-conference-rcna83123″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>made his first official campaign appearance at a bitcoin event in Miami, and has attended multiple industry conferences, sometimes holding fundraising meetings with wealthy executives on the sidelines.
President Biden has long been seen as an anti-crypto because his SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has sued many crypto companies. But some Biden supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, have pressured his campaign to fix things.
The campaign has been receptive to the message, Cuban said in an email. In recent weeks, Biden officials have reached out to Coinbase and Ripple to ask them to discuss crypto policy, four people familiar with those discussions said. Still, much of the industry appears to be rallying around Trump. While the former president bitcoin-scams-donald-trump” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>once said that bitcoin “seems like a scam”, has made several supportive comments on cryptocurrencies over the past month, promising to end the regulatory crackdown. On Tuesday, Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with executives from some of the world's largest bitcoin mining companies, including Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.
bitcoin should be “MADE IN USA!!!” he aware on your social network.
The last time the cryptocurrency industry spent large sums of money on a political race, its biggest donor was Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, who spent tens of millions of dollars supporting both Democrats and Republicans in elections. midterms of 2022. Two years later, Mr. Bankman-Fried's company is bankrupt and he is serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud.
The collapse of FTX was a huge setback to the crypto industry's efforts in Washington. Last year, the SEC sued Coinbase and other crypto companies, arguing that the digital assets they allowed customers to buy and sell were unregistered securities. In May, the industry won a rare legislative victory when Congress voted to repeal an SEC accounting guideline that cryptocurrency companies had challenged. mr biden banned the resolution.
Now, the industry is fighting back. Fairshake has announced plans to run in four more Senate races this year, including close races in Ohio and Montana, where Democrats who have criticized cryptocurrencies are running for re-election. Privately, cryptocurrency executives have credited Fairshake with softening some skeptical lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Mr. Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, crypto-skeptic-sherrod-brown?sref=zVYYYI5e” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>saying in April that he was open to promoting a bill that the industry would support.
A few weeks after the California Senate primary in March, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democrat who defeated Ms. Porter, visited Coinbase's offices in Mountain View, California. He met with representatives from Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz and cryptocurrency-focused investment firms Electric Capital. , Paradigm Capital and Haun Ventures, said two people familiar with the meeting.
Trump has not always been a supporter of cryptocurrencies. He has said that he preferred dollars to bitcoin and in 2019, x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149472282584072192?lang=en” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>tweeted that digital currencies were “air-based.” But lately, some cryptocurrency executives (in search of a political savior) have embraced it.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a cryptocurrency enthusiast and former presidential candidate, has claimed credit over Trump's pivot to cryptocurrencies and carved out a role as his emissary to the industry: On Wednesday afternoon, Ramaswamy met privately with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington and encouraged him to support Trump. campaign, said a person familiar with the meeting.
Armstrong has not publicly endorsed any presidential candidate. “We will not give special treatment to any particular party,” he said in a statement. “Cryptocurrency is a truly bipartisan issue.”
Mr. Selkis, who x.com/twobitidiot/status/1800129037903466904″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>identifies As a libertarian, he attended the Mar-a-Lago event in May after tech/2024/06/05/did-a-single-nft-purchase-change-washingtons-mind-on-crypto/” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>get a ticket from a colleague who could not attend. “I'm eating my salad and the president calls me on stage,” Selkis recalled in an interview.
That night, Mr. Trump x.com/frankdegods/status/1788359051031761269″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>declared, “If you are pro-cryptocurrency, you better vote for Trump.” He also has crypto-fundraising-fec-22f96d5727903f7cb0c0951152e2b0fa” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>Announced that his campaign would accept donations in digital currency and pledged to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, a cult hero in the cryptocurrency world who ran the online drug market Silk Road.
On Tuesday night, Trump met with about 15 bitcoin mining executives for more than an hour at Mar-a-Lago, according to one of the attendees, Salman Khan, chief financial officer of Marathon Digital.
At one point, Khan said, executives showed Trump the inside of a machine used for bitcoin mining, an energy-intensive process that has raised environmental concerns. “He liked the American-made feature,” Khan said.
Not everyone in the cryptocurrency world agrees with Trump. At a conference in May, Marvin Ammori, a Democrat who works for the crypto company Uniswap, debated Selkis on stage about the industry's political strategy, warning that Trump might not keep his campaign promises.
Still, this month, Trump attended a fundraiser at the home of David Sacks, a prominent venture capitalist, in San Francisco, and reiterated his support for cryptocurrencies, according to three people who attended. Among the guests were Mr. Selkis, cryptocurrency executives Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Paul Grewal, Coinbase's chief legal officer, the people said.
“President Trump has already won the crypto vote,” Selkis said. “It's over.”
Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.
