Crypto News: Industry Spends $176 Million on Midterms

The cryptocurrency industry has spent roughly $176 million across more than 100 midterm races in this election cycle, according to a Reuters review of campaign spending, in a campaign to elect friendly lawmakers and build a bipartisan bloc in Congress that can defend its interests long after President Donald Trump leaves office. The spending, spread across House and Senate contests in both parties, makes the $2.75 trillion industry one of the most aggressive political forces of the 2026 campaign.

The scale of the effort is the product of years of preparation. According to interviews with more than a half-dozen crypto political strategists and a Reuters review of the spending, the industry is not simply backing candidates who already agree with it. It is trying to pick candidates who already have a real chance of winning and who can help once they get to Congress. The goal, the strategists said, is a Congress that will advance the industry’s legislative agenda no matter who sits in the White House or which party holds the majority.

That ambition explains why the spending has been so broad and so early. With Election Day on November 3 and early voting already under way, the industry’s money has been flowing for months into primaries and special elections and the general election contests that will decide control of Congress. The result is a political operation that now rivals the biggest corporate spenders in American politics, operating largely out of sight of the voters it targets.

Crypto News: The $176 Million Midterm Bet

At the center of the operation stands Fairshake, the industry’s largest super political action committee, which spent $196 million during the 2024 election cycle and is leading the industry’s strategy again. Fairshake entered this cycle holding between $120 million and $193 million in resources, according to published estimates, and it has deployed that money with striking efficiency. The group said 53 of the 58 candidates it supported in primaries or special elections this year won and will be on the ballot on November 3.

The pace of spending has been steady rather than frantic. By the middle of the year, crypto-related political spending had already passed $189 million, according to a separate analysis of federal disclosures by the advocacy group Public Citizen, reported by The Block. By October, one estimate put total political spending tied to the sector at at least $206 million, a figure that counts a broader set of crypto-linked donations than the $176 million in direct race spending identified by Reuters.

Whatever the exact measure, the direction is the same. As of July 2026, more than one-third of all tracked corporate political contributions came from the crypto sector, making it the top corporate political donor of the cycle. This is not a one-off intervention. It is the second act of a strategy that began in earnest in 2024, when the industry discovered that concentrated spending in a relatively small number of races could reshape the politics of an entire policy area.

The strategy has two halves. The first is to elect allies. In October, Fairshake announced its support for 32 House candidates who backed the CLARITY Act, the market-structure bill that would set rules for digital asset markets much as existing law governs the stock market. The group included 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats, a deliberate mix that reflects the industry’s determination to keep its agenda bipartisan. The second half is to defeat enemies, and that work has been just as visible to the people on the receiving end of it.

Cryptocurrency News: The Ads That Never Say Crypto

Super PACs can accept and spend unlimited sums of money, but they cannot coordinate directly with the campaigns they support. That legal structure shapes how the industry’s money reaches voters. Fairshake and its network are flooding several races with tens of millions of dollars in advertising, but voters have little way of knowing who is paying for the messages they see. Most are sponsored by Fairshake’s affiliate PACs, which carry innocuous names like Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, and the ads themselves barely mention crypto at all.

Instead, the spots focus on the hot-button issues that move voters in a midterm year: taxes, immigration, the cost of living, and the records of the candidates themselves. An advertisement that says a candidate will cut taxes or secure the border reaches voters who would never watch one about digital asset market structure. The crypto connection is invisible by design, and the spending behind it is disclosed only in federal filings that few voters ever read.

The opacity has drawn sharp criticism from campaign finance watchdogs. Public Citizen, the advocacy group that tracks corporate political spending, said crypto was the single-biggest corporate spender in federal races in 2026. In 2024, the group described the industry’s spending as akin to a corporate Death Star hovering over elections, a phrase that captured the sense among critics that a single industry had acquired the power to intimidate lawmakers across the political spectrum.

Economy News: Building a Congress That Outlasts Trump

The most revealing part of the industry’s plan is its time horizon. The strategists who spoke to Reuters were explicit that the goal is to build a coalition that can advance crypto’s interests long after President Trump leaves office. That matters because the industry’s recent good fortune has been closely tied to his presidency: Trump has signed stablecoin legislation into law, appointed industry-friendly regulators, and dropped high-profile lawsuits against major players such as Coinbase and Kraken. The industry has repaid that support in kind. At least $41 million, or roughly a fifth, of the nearly $200 million war chest amassed by MAGA Inc. came from crypto companies and industry figures, according to Federal Election Commission filings analyzed by the Financial Times.

The donors behind that figure show how broad the industry’s political network has become. Foris Dax, the company behind Crypto.com, was the largest crypto donor to MAGA Inc. with a $10 million contribution. Tools for Humanity, the company co-founded by Sam Altman, gave $5 million. The venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz donated $3 million each, and other contributions came from the Winklevoss twins of Gemini, Paradigm’s Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, and longtime crypto backer Tim Draper. In the first half of 2025, MAGA Inc. raised $177 million and reported $196 million in cash reserves.

But a strategy that depends on one president’s goodwill is fragile, and the industry knows it. Presidents change, and the regulatory climate that has been so favorable under Trump could turn hostile under a successor. That is why the spending is aimed at Congress rather than the White House, and why the industry insists on bipartisanship. A law passed by a bipartisan coalition is far harder to undo than an executive order. The CLARITY Act, which would write the rules for digital asset markets into statute, is the prize the industry is chasing, and the reason Fairshake’s endorsed House candidates span both parties.

The legislative agenda does not stop with market structure. The industry is also watching the Senate, where the Agriculture Committee has been preparing to take up digital asset legislation. Every one of those fights will be easier if the lawmakers deciding them owe their seats, at least in part, to crypto’s support. That is the logic of the $176 million, and it operates on a timeline measured in years rather than news cycles.

Wall Street Meets Washington: The Targets

The industry’s spending is not only about electing friends. It is also about punishing enemies, and no target has drawn more of its fire than Sherrod Brown, the longtime crypto skeptic who is vying to return to the Senate in Ohio. Brown, who chaired the Senate Banking Committee and spent years warning about the risks of digital assets, has been subjected to an onslaught of often-personal attacks funded by the industry’s network. Fairshake targeted him with a campaign worth nearly $30 million in 2026, according to published reports, making his race one of the most expensive battlegrounds of the midterm cycle.

The approach has alarmed the industry’s critics, who argue that the sheer volume of money gives crypto an outsized voice in races where it has no natural constituency. Public Citizen’s finding that more than a third of tracked corporate political contributions this cycle came from crypto is the statistic its critics cite most often. The industry’s defenders respond that the money is a response to years of hostile regulation, and that the alternative to political engagement is to accept rules written by opponents. Both sides agree on the underlying fact: no other industry is spending at this scale, with this focus, on this election.

Business News: What Happens After November 3

The immediate test comes on November 3, when the candidates Fairshake backed in the primaries face the general election electorate. Fifty-three made it through their primaries and special elections. A strong showing would confirm that the model works: pick winnable candidates, fund them heavily, and build a bloc that can deliver on legislation. A weak showing would raise questions about whether the money was well spent, and whether the industry’s influence has been overstated.

But the deeper test comes after the election, when the new Congress takes up the legislation the industry has been waiting for. If the CLARITY Act and the Senate’s digital asset bill advance with bipartisan support, the industry will have secured the regulatory framework it has sought for a decade, written into law rather than resting on the goodwill of a single administration. If they stall, the $176 million will look like a down payment on a longer fight.

The stakes extend beyond the crypto industry itself. The midterm spending has become a test case for how a wealthy, concentrated industry can use super PACs to shape American politics while remaining largely invisible to the voters it targets. The advertisements do not mention crypto, the affiliate committees do not carry the industry’s name, and the spending is disclosed in filings that are public but rarely read. For voters in the more than 100 races where the money has flowed, the campaign was about taxes and immigration and the character of the candidates. The industry that paid for much of it was never part of the story they were told.

That invisibility is the point, and it is also the controversy. The industry’s strategists say they are building a durable, bipartisan coalition to secure sensible rules for a technology that is not going away. Their critics say they are buying a Congress. On November 3, the voters will decide the races. What the money bought will be answered in the votes the new Congress casts on the bills the industry has spent $176 million to advance.

Source: Reuters