Coinbase, Ripple Pour Over $100 Million to ‘Buy Influence’ in US Election, Says Public Citizen

Major crypto companies have emerged as the largest corporate political contributors this year, donating a significant portion of the $248 million to candidates ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November.

Coinbase and Ripple are leading the charge, pouring massive investments into super political action committees that back candidates who support favorable crypto regulation, according to a Public Citizen report.

The report, released Wednesday, warned large crypto donations could influence lawmakers to weaken regulations, potentially putting consumers at risk while benefiting “Big Crypto.” Large crypto firms have contributed 48% of the $248 million figure this year, per the report.

“The biggest of the Big Crypto corporate money donors are Coinbase and Ripple, which together have dumped about $99 million into buying influence over the 2024 elections,” Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen, tweeted Wednesday. 

Fairshake PAC secured $202.9 million, with more than half—$107.9 million—coming directly from firms like Coinbase and Ripple, making it the primary beneficiary of corporate crypto contributions.

Following publication, Ripple and Coinbase referred Decrypt to public statements made by top executives detailing how their donation efforts are shaping the progress and adoption of crypto and blockchain technologies.

Other major contributions came from the founders of Andreessen Horowitz with $44 million, the Winklevoss twins with $5 million, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong with $1 million.  

Jump Crypto added $15 million to the Fairshake PAC, while Payward Inc. and Circle Internet Financial each contributed $1 million. 

The millions in political spending by Big Crypto is a “brazen and unprecedented attempt by a relatively small corporate sector to distort U.S. democracy to serve its private, profit-maximizing interests,” Claypool told Decrypt. “Most Americans are either unaware of crypto or hold unfavorable views of it—but by spending so much, these corporate interests have made their demands for light-touch regulation and minimal enforcement impossible to ignore.”

“The fact that our elections can be dominated like this by niche corporations trying to buy their preferred policy outcomes shows US democracy is in dire need of reforms to reduce the political influence of billionaires and big corporations,” Claypool added.

Earlier this week, Ron Conway, a prominent Democratic donor and tech billionaire, severed ties with a network of crypto super PACs, including Fairshake, after they pledged $12 million to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) without his knowledge.

Conway’s decision to walk away from those PACs on Monday speaks to a larger division within the crypto community over the backing of right-wing conservatives, including donating millions of dollars to former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

To be sure, analyzing corporate contributions since 2010 reveals the dramatic rise of the crypto sector in 2024 election spending. 

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates for corporate spending in elections. 

The ruling permits corporations to channel unlimited funds to super PACs and other independent groups as long as they don’t directly coordinate with candidates’ campaigns.

Crypto corporations have been among the biggest beneficiaries of this ruling, contributing $129 million in the last three election cycles alone, the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization revealed.

That figure represents 15% of the total corporate contributions of $884 million since the ruling was enacted.

It follows the industry’s electoral interventions, which began in 2020 with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research contributing $5.2 million to Future Forward, a Biden-Harris supporting PAC. 

By 2024, Coinbase emerged as the second-largest corporate spender in federal elections, second only to Koch Industries.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

Editor’s note: Adds public statements from Ripple and Coinbase executives as well as statements from Claypool.