Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

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ttartoran about 3 hours ago 53 commentsRead Article on reuters.com

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Discussion (53 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

khurs•about 2 hours ago

A UK party rising up the charts is caught up in a scandal - crypto guy gave the party leader (personally) £5m which he failed to declare and he started the party a few days later indicating he was paid to start the party.

It came out when Crypto guy gave an interview and mentioned it not realising the consequences.

The party leader first claimed it was for security.

Then it was determined he had bought property with it.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-nigel-fara...

lostlogin•about 1 hour ago

Crypto money makes a change from Russian bribes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58711151

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/lord-evans-...

mrkramer•about 1 hour ago

I remember watching Sky News and hearing that UK political parties were from then on forbidden to take donations in crypto which is just another nail in the coffin of crypto. All started going downhill when Satoshi left his Bitcoin project.

nixosbestos•about 1 hour ago

Nice - one don't even have to click the URL to know what POS is involved.

stanleykm•about 2 hours ago

I wonder why all the libertarian freedom loving crypto guys keep backing fascists

victorbjorklund•11 minutes ago

Because they are not really true liberterians. They are more ”I wanna be free from rules but I want more rules for others”

nkrisc•about 1 hour ago

It’s not your freedom they care about.

sardine5•about 1 hour ago

Christopher Harborne - not just a libertarian freedom loving crypto guy, but also the largest single shareholder of QinetiQ, a pretty notable UK Defence company.

Finnucane•about 1 hour ago

Because they're not as much 'freedom loving' as they are 'selfish dicks.'

cyberax•about 1 hour ago

They're idiots. They think that they just need to be buddies with the leading fascist and they're going to be golden. They don't have enough knowledge or curiosity to study what happened EVERY time this was attempted.

Hint: you might be buddies with the big fascist now, but this can change at any moment. And then you're just fodder for his _other_ cronies. Oh, and don't forget that even if you think that you're adept at court intrigue and covert ops, your _children_ might not be so skilled. Will they retain your fortune when the big fascist suddenly decides to... reallocate... some of their wealth?

mothballed•about 2 hours ago

It's not hard to figure out, the fascists have been more explicitly welcoming to crypto freedom or at least put themselves out there to solicit that vote even if you claim their underlying policies aren't. Trump offered the freedom of Ross Ulbricht at the libertarian convention, did Kamala come to the libertarian convention and offer anything?

lostlogin•41 minutes ago

> did Kamala come to the libertarian convention and offer anything?

I thought that offering ‘not Trump’ would be enough. I was very wrong.

ratelimitsteve•about 2 hours ago

if you're in with the fascists they are the most liberty-oriented party. you can do whatever you want, entirely without regard to the law.

mrguyorama•about 1 hour ago

But this has never been true. Lots of valuable, productive, and loyal Nazis ended up in political prisoner camps.

Because that kind of kleptocracy runs on constantly fighting factions and incentives and selfishness. The core belief is selling someone else down the river because you can.

khurs•about 2 hours ago

Andreessen Horowitz - $51.65m... are they the Goldman Sachs (Vampire Squid) of the Tech world?

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-grea...

xpct•11 minutes ago

Has a16z already boasted about this investment, or is that podcast episode coming out later this year?

Analemma_•about 1 hour ago

Honestly, that comparison is insulting to Goldman Sachs. Goldman at least sometimes provides funding for things beneficial to humanity: infrastructure projects, small business loans, and the like. A16Z has transitioned fully to various incarnations of casino apps and getting rich by getting people addicted to gambling, they are a purely negative force in the world with no upside whatsoever.

snypher•29 minutes ago

Show me something Goldman has done that wasn't for the return %.

Analemma_•26 minutes ago

That's not what I argued and you are misrepresenting my point. My argument is that, at least sometimes, Goldman invests in positive-sum trades which make the world better off, even if they extract too much for themselves in fees and leverage. By contrast, the various investments A16Z makes are negative-sum and only manage to make the world worse.

BiraIgnacio•about 2 hours ago

Is this a little or a lot? any idea how that compares to other industries and donors?

gwbas1c•27 minutes ago

Paragraph #2 directly answers your question:

> More than one-third of all corporate money contributed to this year's November elections, and primary elections leading up to them, has come from the crypto industry, making it the top corporate political spender, the group said.

petilon•1 minute ago

Only one-third? They are slowing down. Crypto companies accounted for almost half of corporate donations in the 2024 election cycle.

ratelimitsteve•about 1 hour ago

someone below is saying it's over a third of all spending so far. which feels like a lot to me.

knorker•about 1 hour ago

When it's from an industry consisting 100% of organized crime and negative-sum grifting, it's a lot.

I'd read a donation with "from the oil industry" and "from The Organization Of Stealing All Copper from Public Spaces" as different types of "bad", even if I'd prefer that the oil industry also not buy politicians.

For the avoidance of doubt, blockchain people are the copper thieves.

thehoff•about 2 hours ago

It almost doesn't matter? If it was less than other industries doesn't make it okay. I like any/all callouts of industries and their political "donations". Its all so ridiculous.

pooploop64•44 minutes ago

I guess the threat of this is what's unclear. The cryptobros are going to take over the world and then do what exactly?

thehoff•11 minutes ago

Yeah I guess poor wording on my part. It does matter. My point was even if its a lot less than other industries that doesn't negate what's happening here.

bhouston•about 2 hours ago

The fact that political spending is considered free speech in the US gives the rich and already powerful massive sway in the political system, it is basically tiled hard towards them. And then combined with how PACs hide their funding behind names like "Everyday Americans Making the World Better" when really it just wants to lessen online gambling laws for a billion dollar company, is just brutal. US politics is a dystopian future realized.

arealaccount•about 2 hours ago

Even crazier that they sway elections in districts they've never even visited nor intend to ever visit

buellerbueller•about 2 hours ago

Enabled yet again, today, by the SCOTUS.

saalweachter•about 1 hour ago

What I find mildly interesting is how the older money (eg, the Koch brothers) spent decades creating the current environment (between deregulation on business, cutting taxes on the wealthy, and political ventures like the Federalist Society and Heritage, Inc), but it's come together to create a newer group of rich jerks who are really exploiting it to the hilt.

buellerbueller•13 minutes ago

I recall that this outcome (today's rich jerks exploiting it to the hilt) was what was predicted all along.

shemnon42•about 2 hours ago

Rookie numbers.

ChrisArchitect•about 2 hours ago

Tech Influence Watch site: https://influence.citationneeded.news/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632474)

Blog post: https://www.citationneeded.news/tech-influence-watch/

ChrisArchitect•about 2 hours ago

The AI industry is pouring millions into US elections

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687483

downrightmike•about 2 hours ago

Crypto firms have supplied more than one-third of all corporate money so far in this year's elections

Fairshake has received $82 million in contributions this cycle

Crypto, AI, big tech and online betting firms have spent $294 million combined on 2026 elections

June 30 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency companies have spent $189 million so far to influence the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, outpacing their spending for the previous election cycle, according to a new report, opens new tab from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization. More than one-third of all corporate money contributed to this year's November elections, and primary elections leading up to them, has come from the crypto industry, making it the top corporate political spender, the group said.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. Crypto was also the top corporate donor in the 2024 election cycle, when it contributed $170 million and many of the congressional candidates it boosted won their races.

Companies in the artificial intelligence, big tech and online betting sectors have also contributed heavily. Combined with crypto, they have spent $294 million on the 2026 elections so far. In November, the full House of Representatives will be up for reelection, along with roughly a third of the Senate.

"The big takeaway is that corporate money is playing a bigger role than ever in our elections, and it's only expanding," said Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen and the author of the report.

baggachipz•about 1 hour ago

"Very legal and very cool"

paulpauper•about 2 hours ago

As far as the US is concerned, given how badly bitcoin has done since Trump was inaugurated, the worst performing asset class by far, I would say the ROI has been pretty bad. Industries and sectors that donated nothing still got bailouts and other initiatives, such as AI, quantum, metals, and semiconductors. Noting for crypto donors. No bailouts, or even mentions on twitter. Politicians can take money but they don't have to honor their end of the deal to give anything in return.

hgoel•about 2 hours ago

But is that also accounting for any regulatory pressure/investigations that might have otherwise hit those donors? Perhaps just the promise of not being prosecuted for their crimes if/when their scam collapses is sufficient ROI for them.

ratelimitsteve•about 1 hour ago

that and directing US dollars into crypto markets via the government. you can sell people on the idea with the same arguments that are currently moderately successful in convincing people to do things like buy gold as a retirement plan, and anyone who is holding crypto before the government "invests" in it will see incredible returns as demand spikes for an asset whose supply is intentionally capped. The crypto whales are suddenly in the presence of a crypto leviathan in the form of government spending, they not only make a ton of money but they can sell out without crashing the market (solving a huge problem, esp for shitcoin whales but realistically for major stakeholders in all crypto) and everyone who's actually involved in the decision-making process leaves with fistfuls of money from people who didn't meaningfully have a say in which bag they'd be purchasing or at what price.

knorker•about 1 hour ago

The bitcoin people bought a pardon for their hero, one of the biggest facilitators of drug smuggling in the world, and someone who personally paid money to have people killed. Including explicitly saying to indiscriminately kill whatever unrelated bystander happens to be there.

That was a stated goal for them, and they got what they paid for. So good ROI on that.

They've gotten PAAAAH-LENTY for their money.

Did they get their pet asset to go up in price? No. But they managed to buy "crime is legal now". The shitcoin rugpull industry is making BANK, and the DOJ has been paid off to look the other way.

Investigations have been shut down, and mobsters have been freed. They are not the losers. Society is.

TheAmazingRace•14 minutes ago

Ross Ulbricht being let go as part of some quid pro quo with crypto-libertarians was certainly a huge miscarriage of justice. He should not be walking free, but alas.

Finnucane•about 1 hour ago

Some of them have gotten out of jail.

doctorpangloss•about 1 hour ago

Yeah but Justin Sun is a stable genius, losing tons of money is just part of his 4D chess.

righthand•about 1 hour ago

They got Ross Ulbricht out of jail and a few cryptocurrency scammers out too. That’s all the cryptobros wanted was pretty much nothing but symbolism.

ratelimitsteve•about 1 hour ago

I mean, anyone can fail to deliver their end of any agreement. They may have learned a harsh lesson about bargaining with Trump, but that doesn't mean that it was dumb to pursue the deal as negotiated or would be dumb to pursue a similar deal with someone who might actually follow through on it.