According to a new report from Public Citizen, a non-profit, progressive consumer rights advocacy organization, and think tank, the cryptos industry has spent over 0.119 billion US dollars on the 2024 US presidential election on August 22nd, reported by CaiLian News.

According to calculations, this investment scale is unprecedented and accounts for nearly half, namely 48%, of all corporate donations in this year's election. By comparison, crypto companies' total spending in the past three election cycles was 0.129 billion US dollars.

In addition, according to this report, this money was mainly invested in a non-partisan SPAC called Fairshake and its affiliates, which are dedicated to supporting candidates who are in favor of cryptos and defeating crypto skeptics, and they have received nearly 0.114 billion US dollars.

Super political action committees (SPACs) are a kind of political organizations that emerged in the US in 2010. They are designed to influence election results by raising and spending large amounts of money. In simple terms, they are the main channel for big donors to donate money to candidates in US elections.

Compared with traditional political action committees, super political action committees can accept unlimited donations from all parties, and the only limitation is that they cannot contact candidates or their campaign teams directly. Therefore, they are usually used to fund advertising, propaganda activities, and other political actions to support or oppose specific candidates or policies.

Major donors

According to the aforementioned report, crypto companies $Coinbase (COIN.US)$ Ripple is one of the largest "consumer choices" in the digital assets field so far this year. Coinbase donated a total of $50.5 million, of which $45.5 million was donated to Fairshake SPAC; Ripple donated a total of $49 million, donating $45 million to Fairshake.

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal posted on X on Wednesday, stating, "We are proud to exercise our freedom of speech and advocate for an updated financial system that benefits all Americans."

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also commented, "It is crucial for the US to catch up with other major economies in establishing reasonable (and clear) rules for cryptocurrencies."

Causing concerns

Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen and author of the report, wrote in a statement, "Cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase and Ripple can spend over $0.1 billion to quell criticism of cryptocurrencies and boost their supporters' position, which reflects a disastrous judgment error by the Supreme Court on United Citizens."

"Companies can't vote," he wrote, "but the only reason cryptocurrencies have become a hot topic in this election cycle is because cryptocurrency companies are spending staggering amounts of money to make themselves impossible to ignore."

In the case of "United Citizens v. Federal Election Commission", the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot restrict campaign spending by corporations and outside groups. Supporters argue that this is in line with the principles of freedom of speech, while opponents believe that this ruling will lead to a large amount of money intervening in election campaigns, corrupting democratic politics.

Editor/Somer