The crypto industry spent $135 million to help get pro-crypto candidates elected during the 2024 election. And with the midterms coming up later this year, they have an even larger pile of money, with about $180 million ready to be deployed between now and November, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Much of the money is held by Fairshake, which Bloomberg notes became the largest single-issue PAC in history during the 2024 election cycle. Fairshake is funded by large names in the crypto world like Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple Labs, who all want to see politicians in office who are going to be light on regulations and in favor of abolishing as many consumer protection laws as possible.
Crypto is so closely aligned politically with President Donald Trump and the far-right that it can be easy to forget that crypto PACs like Fairshake and its smaller affiliates Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs spent money on both Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 election. Democrats Sen. Ruben Gallego from Arizona and Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan both received millions from the crypto lobby in 2024, which actually upset some crypto evangelists who only want to see the MAGA agenda advanced.
That said, there are some crypto PACs like Fellowship, launched in late 2025, that only support Republicans. Fellowship PAC has more than $100 million to deploy, according to the New York Times, and is backed by the stablecoin company Tether. Jesse Spiro, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Tether, is the chairman of Fellowship, according to The Block.
Tether, of course, has ties to the Trump regime through Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who founded Cantor Fitzgerald, now run by his sons. Cantor Fitzgerald holds a 5% stake in Tether and works as its asset manager. Lutnick has divested himself of his holdings, but obviously, his sons being in charge still raises questions about conflicts of interest.
Crypto groups have spent over $20 million in the 2026 cycle so far, according to Bloomberg, including on ads in places like Illinois, where they oppose the election of La Shawn Ford, who’s running for the House. YouTube ads attacking Ford for “ripping off” and evicting “those in need” were purchased last month, according to Google’s ad transparency center. Ford is a state representative in Illinois running for federal office for the first time to represent Illinois’s 7th Congressional District and has called the ads “false, misleading, and defamatory.”
One of the astounding things about the crypto industry’s war chest is that it dwarfs some of the Republican Party’s big hitters. The GOP’s Congressional Leadership fund had $91.4 million on hand as of early March, according to Bloomberg. The Republican Party’s Senate Leadership fund had $166.4 million, still short of the roughly $180 million held by the crypto lobby.
President Trump has become deeply immersed in the world of crypto, despite expressing skepticism years ago. The president is hosting an event at Mar-a-Lago on April 25 for what’s being advertised as “the most exclusive crypto and business conference in the world,” according to the Palm Beach Post. Mike Tyson and Tony Robbins are slated to speak, as well as Trump himself, who made about $1 billion from crypto in just the first half of 2025, according to Forbes.
That kind of profiting from the presidency would have been unheard of in a previous era, but it’s barely noticed in the national conversation these days as Trump does whatever he likes without the mildest of consequences.
