The political awakening in the cryptocurrency industry is impacting high-profile local elections in the United States.
Ryan Selkis, an executive in the cryptocurrency industry, received an unexpected invitation last month at a dinner party at Mar-a-Lago: former U.S. President and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump wanted him to speak a few words.
Selkis, the founder and CEO of the well-known cryptocurrency data analytics company Messari, was one of the hundreds of participants in Trump’s series of non-fungible token (NFT) celebration events. Stepping onto the stage, Selkis turned to face the former president.
“There are over 50 million cryptocurrency holders in the United States,” the executive declared, “This is a very significant voting bloc.”
The cryptocurrency industry is trying to shake off wave after wave of historical scandals and establish its strong political influence in the 2024 election cycle, which has become a well-known political topic in the cryptocurrency world. The most prominent development is a coalition of three large cryptocurrency companies (Ripple, Coinbase, and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz) forming a super political action committee (PAC) alliance, investing around $150 million to support candidates friendly to cryptocurrency in congressional elections.
Spokespeople for these PACs stated that they do not intend to directly participate in the presidential election. However, some executives in the cryptocurrency industry are mobilizing the entire industry to support Trump, who has responded by praising cryptocurrencies and hosting these industry executives at Mar-a-Lago.
Many cryptocurrency supporters believe that the 2024 election is a crucial moment for the industry. Two years ago, after a series of cryptocurrency companies collapsed, the Biden administration began cracking down on the industry, bringing lawsuits and criminal charges against some industry leaders. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been intensifying investigations into some cryptocurrency companies and related cases, which could force the cryptocurrency industry out of the U.S. market.
“The 2024 presidential election will be a crucial one in the history of cryptocurrency,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company that has been in contentious relations with the federal government for years, “You will see a technology evolve into a partisan political issue.”
Garlinghouse, Selkis, and other executives in the cryptocurrency industry believe that the newly active “cryptocurrency voters” may influence the final election results. They often cite a survey commissioned by the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which shows that 52 million Americans own cryptocurrencies. In contrast, the Federal Reserve estimates that about 7% of American adults own or use cryptocurrencies, around 18 million people.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has attended multiple cryptocurrency industry conferences and sometimes holds fundraising meetings with wealthy industry executives outside the venue, such as Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Block, who once considered donating millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to support Kennedy.