Big Crypto is now spending more on US elections than any other industry
www.businessinsider.com
Crypto companies have already funneled some $119 million into federal elections, according to data from Public Citizen.

The crypto industry is making its mark on this year’s elections to the tune of some $119 million.

The funding has largely come from two companies — Coinbase and Ripple — which are funneling money into super PACs like Fairshake PAC, which is dedicated to “elevating pro-crypto candidates and attacking crypto skeptics,” according to Public Citizen.

At the 2024 bitcoin conference in Nashville in February, Trump — who called bitcoin “highly volatile and based on thin air” in 2019 — said he’d lay out a plan “to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.” Trump has already won the backing of several crypto enthusiasts, including his running mate JD Vance, who owns at least $250,000 in bitcoin.

  • gressen
    712·
    2 months ago

    How is crypto backed by old currency?

    • uienia
      513·
      2 months ago

      Without old currency it is completely worthless.

      • UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
        214·
        2 months ago

        Without old currency denomination. But as soon as you can start clearing debts with crypto, its effectively a third-party printable currency that the federal government has endorsed.

        • thallamabond
          40·
          2 months ago

          Is “clearing debts with crypto” ≈" buying stuff with crypto"?

          • UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
            12·
            2 months ago

            It’s “paying loans and fees with crypto”. Specifically, “paying government loans and fees”, which makes the state an insatiable consumer of a third-party currency and gives it real implicit value.

    • KazuyaDarklightEnglish
      270·
      2 months ago

      They aren’t paying these politicians off in Bitcoin.

      • explodicleEnglish
        50·
        2 months ago

        Apparently you can pay off JD Vance with it

    • Voroxpete
      71·
      2 months ago

      The entire crypto industry is basically propped up by the existence of Tether, which is (notionally) backed by the US dollar.

      Without Tether you lose any remaining institutional investment. Big companies want to be able to trade in crypto but they don’t want to hold crypto, because it’s volatile, and convertong fiat to crypto takes too long for effective trading. Tether is the middle man.

      So yes, since Tether basically facilitates all meaningful crypto trading, and Tether is supposedly just tokenized USD, their statement about crypto being backed by the old money is perfectly cromulent.

    • Ferris
      50·
      2 months ago

      they keep it in the reserves

      jk

        • explodicleEnglish
          110·
          2 months ago

          That’s the neat part, it isn’t. USDT is a sword of Damocles hanging over the crypto industry.