The U.S. cryptocurrency industry has been flexing its campaign funding to help unseat veterans and elevate new allies in Texas and other states as the congressional midterm season approaches in full swing, though the arrival of new political action committees may call the sector’s careful bipartisanship into question.
Fairshake remains an unrivaled conduit for millions of old-school US dollars to steer the primaries, but other crypto super PAC names have crept into the conversation and become louder in the wake of this week’s Texas primary. And the collective crypto consumption is already contributing to real consequences for the next Congress.
Recent runoff battles in Texas illustrated the crypto industry’s expanded reach in politics, with Fairshake targeting and helping unseat a longtime Democrat member of the House of Representatives, crypto critic Al Green and one of the new PACs throwing their weight behind a Republican Senate candidate. The Fellowship super PAC, affiliated with Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald, backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ouster of the incumbent Republican with $500,000.
Although House races are often won or lost on funding in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Fairshake spent $6.5 million to get U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee advanced to replace Green. The Blockchain Leadership Fund (established recently with inaugural donations from Anchorage Digital and Chainlink) also supported and donated to Menefee, who won Tuesday’s unusual runoff of two incumbents pitted against each other in redistricting and expected to win November’s general election in his Democratic-dominated district.
Across the Texas primaries, Fairshake also endorsed a slate of Republicans seeking House seats, including Alex Mealer ($453,000), Tom Sell ($426,000), Carlos De La Cruz ($607,000) and Jon Bonck ($348,000) — scoring dominant victories in districts widely seen as coming later this year.
But eliminating Al Green, part of the House Financial Services Committee, is seen by crypto insiders as a big win. A critic of the dangers the industry could pose to consumers, Green voted against crypto policy legislation while also co-sponsoring a bill that sought to ban President Trump from his personal crypto business interests.
Southern wins
The Texas successes join a recent Fairshake sweep of the $20 million it spent supporting candidates in the Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia primaries. Two of the Republicans in those states were also supported by the Fellowship: US Representative Andy Barr in his Kentucky Senate race and US Representative Barry Moore’s campaign for the Senate in Alabama, who is still facing a runoff.
However, the industry has also seen setbacks — particularly in Illinois, where Fairshake spent more than $10 million trying to defeat Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton en route to her Democratic primary victory in March, meaning a crypto-crossed candidate is likely to arrive in the Senate next year.
For a crypto industry that maintains about two dozen different political lobbying and advocacy organizations and is constantly establishing new ones, the dominance of a single super PAC has been remarkable. However, it doesn’t really come from any unifying sentiment across the sector, but from the fact that a trio of core crypto companies have been willing to devote so much money to politics – primary backers Coinbase, Ripple and a16z.
Those running Fairshake have routinely declined to answer questions about its decision-making and strategy since the fund’s early days, and a spokesman declined to comment for this article. But the mega PAC now has a substantial record to demonstrate its strategy, which has involved carefully seeking a balance of Republican and Democratic candidates to throw its support behind. Organizers created two affiliated PACs to operate through: Protect Progress (for Democrats) and Defend American Jobs (for Republicans). And those arms have sought to shore up primary victories, especially in districts or states where one party is dominant and the primary will essentially determine who wins the general election in November.
The party balance may tip this year, however, judging by the greater funding of the Republican affiliate in recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. But even as its support for GOP candidates becomes more weighted, Fairshake has illustrated that its goals have nothing to do with traditional political ideology and everything to do with friendly cryptopolitics. It buys ads for its preferred candidates, using any political message that helps that Republican or Democrat get elected — almost never mentioning crypto.
The crypto industry’s campaign funding is not lost on members of Congress who are currently trying to hash out digital asset policy, including the Senate’s bipartisan effort to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which represents the leading policy target for crypto lobbyists. But the strategy of building bipartisan crypto support on Capitol Hill isn’t the apparent goal of a few of the other PACs.
Republican lean
The brothers at the top of Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, created the Digital Freedom Fund with $21 million to support Republican candidates and President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda, although the PAC has yet to jump into the political scene.
And the new Fellowship PAC, established with about $11 million — well short of the $100 million originally pledged — has contributed exclusively Republican support in several races. All but two of the Fellowship’s chosen Republican candidates boast Trump’s personal endorsement, with the remaining two in crowded fields where the president did not make a choice. The PAC’s alignment with the president’s policies was hinted at in the first press release touting its foundation in support of what the administration had begun to enact in cryptopolicy. However, its chairman argued that it is not dead set on GOP support.
“Community will also provide bipartisan support,” Jesse Spiro, the super PAC’s chairman, said on stage at Consensus Miami 2026 earlier this month. “It’s not partisan. In that sense, it will be candidates who support innovation in the United States, who support crypto, who support the ecosystem.”
What is less certain is the nature of its backing. Although foreign firms cannot directly engage in US elections, the foundation was linked to Tether since its inception, when an anonymous press release promised it would be a $100 million campaign finance giant fighting for transparency. Since then, a Tether executive, Spiro, emerged as its chairman, but its treasurer and its big opening contribution came from Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s US financial partner that manages the stablecoin leader’s reserves.
So far, the millions in ads it has bought for Republicans (most, $629,000, for Barr in Kentucky) have flowed through the Nxum Group, a company co-founded by Tether US CEO Bo Hines (a former crypto adviser to Trump). Nxum has launched a series of ads across the country, and some of those produced by the fledgling political firm appear to have leaned into AI video production.
Spiro did not respond to messages seeking comment. The PAC’s federal filings indicate that it may have spent the bulk of its opening funds.
The industry’s Republican weight outside of Fairshake comes at a time when the party is marred by midterm election math. Trump’s declining popularity in the polls has dragged down the party’s already slim chances of retaining its House majority next year. It’s possible that industry-backed Republicans in this year’s race will find themselves in the minority in Congress next year and less able to steer crypto policy.
Better on the prediction market platform Kalshi (whose own regulatory fate could be affected by these political results), Democrats put a 77% chance of winning the majority in the House. They suggest the Democratic Party’s tougher path to winning enough Senate seats puts its chances of a majority in the upper chamber at 46%.
Continuing the industry’s early strategy of supporting candidates from both parties, the Anchorage Digital and Chainlink-backed Blockchain Leadership Fund has so far had modest beginnings, focusing on smaller, organic contributions directly to the candidates’ own campaigns.
Its president, Jennifer Holdsworth, told CoinDesk that the foundation was “proud to support several candidates who won their primaries yesterday.” She said the result made clear that “voters want leaders who will keep digital asset innovation, jobs and opportunity here at home.”
Anchorage Digital also contributed funds to the Fellowship. Kevin Wysocki, head of policy at the crypto bank, said its involvement with both PACs is meant to reflect its “commitment to investing in bipartisan outcomes.”
“Crypto’s biggest legislative gains — including the passage of the GENIUS Act — have come from the thoughtful leadership of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” he said in a statement to CoinDesk.
Other crypto interests, Solana Policy Institute and Multicoin Capital, have partially backed a separate PAC – the Sentinel Action Fund. The Sentinel mounted an aggressive $8 million spending campaign against Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s bid to return to the US Senate, where he previously chaired the Senate Banking Committee and blocked crypto legislation. Recently, it supports Republican Mike Rogers’ Michigan Senate run with nearly $900,000 in expenses.
But none of the other PACs remotely approach the scale of Fairshake, which had boasted $193 million in spending power before the election season began. It is not only the top crypto campaign fund, but a leading super PAC across all US industries and political organizations.
When US House veteran Green went down in flames this week, a Fairshake spokesman, Geoff Vetter, called it proof that “anti-crypto hostility has consequences.” It’s a message industry money is clear on, even as lawmakers up for election this year continue to work on (or oppose) crypto legislation.
