Crypto companies have already contributed $189 million to influencing the 2026 midterms, giving the industry an enormous pool of money to reward allies and punish critics. A new Public Citizen report shows how quickly crypto has become one of Washington’s most powerful corporate forces, even before voters reach the general election.
Much of the money has flowed into Fairshake and its affiliated groups, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, which intervene in races involving candidates from both parties. But a substantial portion has also gone to explicitly Republican organizations, including the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., Digital Freedom Fund, and Fellowship PAC. Backed by corporate crypto giants like Coinbase and Ripple, these groups have weaponized a historic war chest to elect politicians who will write friendly rules and aggressively target candidates advocating for stricter consumer protections.
The sheer scale of this spending completely eclipses traditional political heavyweights. Despite representing a fraction of the traditional economy, the crypto sector’s political contributions account for more than one-third of all disclosed corporate election spending in this cycle. Crypto businesses are now the largest identifiable source of corporate election money in Public Citizen’s analysis, surpassing other major spenders from Big Tech and AI, online betting, fossil fuels, finance, healthcare, and tobacco.
And those figures are probably incomplete. The analysis only includes certain disclosed corporate contributions of at least $5,000 to super PACs and hybrid PACs. It excludes undisclosed funding routed through dark-money organizations, as well as much of the money being spent on state elections.
Public Citizen’s analysis of Federal Election Commission disclosures found that crypto companies supplied 37% of the $517 million in reported corporate election spending for the cycle. That $517 million is already 12% higher than the corporate spending recorded during the entire 2024 election and almost three times the $184.1 million spent ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Ripple was the crypto sector’s largest identified contributor, spending $49.6 million. Crypto.com followed with $38.6 million, Coinbase contributed $35.2 million, and Gemini-related entities added $25.7 million. Together, those four groups accounted for roughly $149 million. Fairshake received $82.6 million from crypto companies, while the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. received $56.2 million. Coinbase and Ripple directed a combined $81.5 million to Fairshake, while Crypto.com, Gemini, and Blockchain.com supplied $44.4 million to MAGA Inc. Cantor Fitzgerald also contributed $10 million to Fellowship PAC, another crypto-focused group that has reportedly discussed spending at least $100 million.
The timing of the report is incredibly on the nose. Just yesterday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down federal limits on how much political parties may spend in coordination with their candidates. The 6-3 decision does not directly alter the rules governing independent super PACs, but it opens another major channel through which wealthy donors and corporate interests can help finance federal campaigns.
The Crypto Lobby Keeps Winning
The crypto industry’s big spending has already seemingly helped produce a number of election wins.
Notably, the industry made an example out of Texas Representative Al Green, a 20-year Democratic incumbent who lost a primary runoff for the state’s 18th Congressional District to fellow Democratic Representative Christian Menefee. Republican-led redistricting had placed portions of both lawmakers’ districts into the newly configured 18th District. Fairshake and its affiliate, Protect Progress, poured more than $4 million into the race to target Green, who had earned an “F” rating from the industry-aligned Stand with Crypto group for opposing key crypto bills and calling digital assets a national security risk. After Menefee, who carried an “A” rating, cruised to victory with nearly 70% of the vote, Fairshake gloated and described Green as the first Democratic incumbent of the cycle to lose his seat, declaring that “anti-crypto hostility carries real electoral consequences.”
More recently, the industry’s spending spree secured another major victory in Maryland. Fairshake’s political network spent $5.5 million (an astronomical sum typically reserved for high-stakes Senate races) to boost Democratic state delegate Adrian Boafo in his primary bid for Representative Steny Hoyer’s open House seat. CoinDesk reported that Boafo had ranked fifth in an earlier poll before the super PAC’s advertising campaign, although the crowded field and Hoyer’s endorsement also complicate any attempt to attribute his victory to a single factor. While Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen blasted the “obscene” flow of special-interest cash, Fairshake boasted of its kingmaking power. The PAC also spread its wealth on the very same night, pouring $516,000 into April McClain Delaney’s Maryland race and $1.3 million to defend New York Representative Ritchie Torres, one of the industry’s most reliable Congressional allies.
Of course, the industry’s biggest political payoff may have been Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Crypto executives, investors, and aligned political groups spent heavily during the 2024 cycle, while Trump recast himself as an industry ally and promised a more permissive regulatory regime.
For now, a key area of focus for the crypto industry is the passage of the CLARITY Act. The large amount of spending on the upcoming midterms could be helpful in making sure the bill is signed into law even if it doesn’t happen prior to the November elections. Ethics restrictions involving elected officials and their families remain one obstacle in the Senate, alongside disagreements over stablecoin rewards, tokenized securities, decentralized finance (DeFi), and the finalized division of authority between the SEC and CFTC.
Early this year, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong threw his weight around by pulling the crypto exchange’s support for a draft version of the CLARITY Act. The move was one of the first signs of a new power dynamic playing out when it comes to lobbying efforts in Washington. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would later claim that Armstrong is “full of shit” when it comes to his stance on proper crypto regulation.
