With another $25 million from Ripple and $24 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the crypto industry’s main campaign finance fund, the Fairshake political action committee, is amassing unprecedented firepower for this year’s midterm congressional elections.
The crypto super PAC that burst onto the scene in the last political cycle will report having $193 million on hand, according to a statement Wednesday. If it spent that money this year, it would likely rank among the top five PACs in the country, rivaling the 2024 tallies of the major party campaign finance organizations. In the previous cycle it was already in sixth place among the PACs that raised the most money.
Since 2024, the levels of cash that Fairshake and its affiliated PACs devoted to electing pro-crypto members of Congress have been an undeniable element in the level of political support the industry has been able to muster. Lawmakers deciding the industry’s legislative fate are well aware that those who support favorable legislation will likely benefit from considerable campaign help, while those who oppose it will potentially face millions of dollars in opposition ads.
“As the midterm elections approach, we are united behind our mission, and Fairshake continues to oppose anti-crypto politics and support pro-crypto leaders,” Fairshake spokesperson Josh Vlasto said in a statement. “The time has come to protect consumers, cultivate American innovation, and open the financial system to more Americans.”
As Fairshake announces this war chest that exceeds the amounts it raised in the last election, members of the Senate are preparing for a hearing Thursday on the industry’s most important legislative initiative. The Senate Agriculture Committee is set to consider amendments and potentially advance the cryptocurrency market structure bill, but industry experts expect it to advance only along partisan lines, without Democratic support.
So far, negotiations on the bill had failed to reach agreement on a number of points that Democrats had requested. Two of them – a ban on top government officials (including the US president) profiting from the cryptocurrency industry and a requirement that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have commissioners before the policy moves forward – have received pushback from the White House.
Fairshake contributed to the victories of more than 50 candidates in the previous Congressional cycle, sometimes dedicating tens of millions in the Senate’s most important battles. In one of them, former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who had led the Senate Banking Committee and never allowed cryptocurrency legislation to advance, was defeated.
After those elections, in which the PAC fell fairly evenly between the numbers it supported in each party, it continued to participate in special elections as they arose, adding a handful of additional crypto supporters to the congressional roster. As a super PAC, it only invests in external ads that are not directly affiliated with candidate campaigns, and Fairshake’s ads rarely mention cryptocurrencies.
Even without Fairshake spending money, Washington is aware of the cash reserve. In addition to major new additions from Ripple and a16z, Coinbase also contributed an additional $25 million last year. These three companies have been the main drivers of this effort, which is not the only one in the industry.
In September, the new Fellowship PAC announced it had $100 million in commitments to contribute to pro-crypto candidates who will help President Donald Trump’s digital assets agenda, stating that the super PAC’s “mission is defined by transparency and trust.” But he has refused to identify his supporters or respond to requests for information about his plans, and nothing about his finances other than his federal registration has yet been made public.
The brothers behind Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, also announced $21 million last year for another super PAC, the Digital Freedom Fund, to support Republican candidates and combat expectations that Democrats will win a majority in at least one chamber of Congress this year.
In current betting on Polymarket, prediction markets give Democrats a 79% chance of winning the majority in the House of Representatives, which would mean they would control the committee chairs and the floor agenda.
Online betting places Democrats with a 36% chance of winning the Senate. But the party only needs one chamber to gain influence over cryptocurrency legislation next year, including the market structure bill, if it has not already been passed.
Read more: Fairshake: Crypto titans use old-school dollars to turn the tide in Congress
