Big Crypto is now spending more on US elections than any other industry
www.businessinsider.com
Crypto companies have already funneled some $119 million into federal elections, according to data from Public Citizen.

The crypto industry is making its mark on this year’s elections to the tune of some $119 million.

The funding has largely come from two companies — Coinbase and Ripple — which are funneling money into super PACs like Fairshake PAC, which is dedicated to “elevating pro-crypto candidates and attacking crypto skeptics,” according to Public Citizen.

At the 2024 bitcoin conference in Nashville in February, Trump — who called bitcoin “highly volatile and based on thin air” in 2019 — said he’d lay out a plan “to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.” Trump has already won the backing of several crypto enthusiasts, including his running mate JD Vance, who owns at least $250,000 in bitcoin.

  • JiveTurkey@lemmy.world
    1306·
    2 months ago

    The new currency that’s backed by the old currency and uses a shit ton more electricity. What a time to be alive.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          214·
          2 months ago

          Without old currency denomination. But as soon as you can start clearing debts with crypto, its effectively a third-party printable currency that the federal government has endorsed.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              2 months ago

              It’s “paying loans and fees with crypto”. Specifically, “paying government loans and fees”, which makes the state an insatiable consumer of a third-party currency and gives it real implicit value.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        71·
        2 months ago

        The entire crypto industry is basically propped up by the existence of Tether, which is (notionally) backed by the US dollar.

        Without Tether you lose any remaining institutional investment. Big companies want to be able to trade in crypto but they don’t want to hold crypto, because it’s volatile, and convertong fiat to crypto takes too long for effective trading. Tether is the middle man.

        So yes, since Tether basically facilitates all meaningful crypto trading, and Tether is supposedly just tokenized USD, their statement about crypto being backed by the old money is perfectly cromulent.

      • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
        513·
        2 months ago

        There’s a huge difference.

        Fediverse uses almost no energy compared to Reddit and Twitter. This is because few people are using fediverse alternatives.

        Bitcoin uses more energy than entire countries, despite few people using it.

        • uienia@lemmy.world
          271·
          2 months ago

          And also the fediverse serves a purpose. Crypto is just a shortsighted pyramid scheme fueled by greed.

          • Allero@lemmy.today
            39·
            2 months ago

            Crypto is not all about short-term gains and it does have utility. It’s just not an answer to everything, and we should stop treating it like a speculative asset.

            • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
              7·
              2 months ago

              we should stop treating it like a speculative asset.

              If it were to stop acting like a speculative asset more people might take it seriously.

              • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
                11·
                2 months ago

                If it were to stop acting like a speculative asset, nobody would be using it.

                It is all just perpetrated by tech bros who try to get rich from it. Their crypto portfolio is directly connected to the amount of people they can convince to buy in.

                • jumjummy@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  2 months ago

                  Exactly, and if somehow it became impossible to instantly convert crypto to USD, crypto would be worthless. Crypto doesn’t have enough actual utility on its own besides gray/black market purposes.

          • sour@feddit.orgEnglish
            302·
            2 months ago

            No, you don’t. The same way I don’t have to justify using nextcloud vs gdrive because nextcloud uses a lot more energy per user since it’s self hosted.

            Bitcoin uses an absurd amount of energy for its popularity and use. Period.

          • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
            141·
            2 months ago

            and you’d have the same problem cryptocurrency has.

            No, that’s not going to happen. The reason why cryptocurrencies must rely on a consensus algorithm is because the order of transactions matter. One transaction can make another transaction impossible depending on which one comes first.

            Fediverse doesn’t have this strict condition. No post and comment can make another impossible. It’s also not the entire world if a post is lost.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
        15·
        2 months ago

        Decentralization isn’t the reason, and conflating it with fediverse services is disingenuous.

        The reason many cryptos use a lot of power is because of proof of work.

        Proof of stake and proof of work have the same effective result for voting power. In order to effectively mine, you need a large capital investment and in order to stay competitive in mining you need to continue spending capital, the same is true for proof of stake as the larger overall stake the lower the payouts, so it requires more capital investment.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        1511·
        2 months ago

        Can’t tell if this is shill, but I dislike cryptocurrencies and anyone who defends them. Not that you did, per se, but it’s close.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            6·
            2 months ago

            You can buy a gift card in cash which works just like a debit card and not have to worry about cryptocurrency.

                • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
                  21·
                  2 months ago

                  they didn’t say a bank specifically,

                  I had to pay student loans in another country, but my bank blocked the credit card transactions because they were foreign. The only other way was cryptocurrency with a tiny fee, or a bank transaction with 10% plus 50$ fees. Guess which one I picked.

                  Gift cards that act like credit/debit cards are harder to get than they used to be. I think all of the mainstream ones require identification or linking to a previous bank account per regulation now

                  The prepaid card issuer is required by law to verify your identity for most types of prepaid accounts. You may be asked to provide your full name, street address (no P.O. boxes), date of birth, and Social Security number, taxpayer identification number, or another identification number. (link)

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            2 months ago

            To your point about money transfers, this is only true because crypto exchanges are dodging regulations. The cost and time involved in international transfers is primarily red tape, because no one likes wire fraud, money laundering, or people funding terrorism.

            If crypto ever “succeeds” as it hopes to, it will become more and more regulated, and the value you see in it will increasingly diminish.

          • subignition@fedia.io
            1·
            2 months ago

            I wonder whether a travel notification could have solved your issue with paying a foreign merchant.

  • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    551·
    2 months ago

    Oh and by the way, crypto users… the coins they’ll be promoting won’t be yours. They won’t be pushing for clear SEC categorization or lower taxes. They’ll be helping insiders, and you’re on the outside.

    Coinbase made their first attempt to consolidate power with the New York Agreement. This is their next attempt, now with regulatory capture.

    Republicans are offering you financial freedom that you already have without their permission.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
    331·
    2 months ago

    Weird that the anti crime criminal is promoting crime coin, or not weird at all. Republican party has for years campaigned on fires they started (see debt, immigration, economy, etc)

    I guess supporting something whose only legitimate uses are digital theft, money laundering, and buying human trafficking victims are their way of ensuring cartels won’t ever stop existing

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      56·
      2 months ago

      Weird that the anti crime criminal is promoting crime coin

      Crypto is a painfully both-sides affair, what with the enormous volumes of investor cash flooding the election system. This went back to JP Morgan’s backing of Etherium during the Obama administration, with crypto-bros infesting multiple Fed banks and throwing their own batch of state and federal office holders at the wall. Then Scam Bankrupt Greed’s FTX went big and straight up bought out Senators Cynthia Lummis and Catherine Gillibrand to write crypto-friendly regulatory reforms. His bank imploded before that legislation could worm its way through Congress.

      But now they’re back and with even more obscene piles of cash. Mistaking the Crypto-bros as uniquely Republican is going to bit liberals in the ass biggly. You’re going to start finding crypto investments in your pension funds, your 401ks, and your college trusts very soon, if the Newsome Imperium and the Bloomberg banksters are allowed to ram their novelty tech innovation bills through Congress uninhibited.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 months ago

        Newsom is largely centrist, its less that crypto is party aligned and more that its corruption aligned - the republicans are just more corrupt on average.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          45·
          2 months ago

          Newsom is largely centrist

          He’s absolutely buried within the Silicon Valley lobbying community and has repeatedly wielded his gubernatorial power to quash pro-labor and pro-regulatory legislation on those grounds.

          the republicans are just more corrupt on average

          California Democrats are a stone’s throw away from any Midwestern Republican when it comes to “business friendly” state policies. The only thing either group cares about is economic growth.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    332·
    2 months ago

    You mean money launderers, criminals, and foreign governments are openly spending more than any other industry?

    • cybermass@lemmy.ca
      288·
      2 months ago

      It isn’t, it’s a technology. People use that technology to scam.

      Same as phone calls aren’t scans and email aren’t scans but people can use them to scam.

      Crypto has a purpose, just one that doesn’t apply to many people.

      • xep@fedia.io
        172·
        2 months ago

        We’ll find that use case any day now. The one that isn’t enabling crime, that is.

        • cybermass@lemmy.ca
          1·
          2 months ago

          Yeah that’s pretty much the only solid purpose crypto has as of now. But the technology itself is cool.

        • Allero@lemmy.today
          35·
          2 months ago

          Define enabling crime.

          Is payment for private VPN enabling crime? Is sending money to and from relatives in sanctioned jurisdictions enabling crime? Is supporting opposition leaders enabling crime?

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
            61·
            2 months ago

            “Is sending money to and from relatives in sanctioned jurisdictions enabling crime?”

            Yes. Literally yes. What the fuck do you think a sanctioned jurisdiction is?

              • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
                5·
                2 months ago

                If you believe that it’s a moral good to break those laws, that’s fine. But that’s not the argument you were making.

                • Allero@lemmy.today
                  13·
                  2 months ago

                  Fair enough, I digressed.

                  Though between our countries, no law prohibits me to send crypto to each other, so here it is not criminal activity. Operating such transactions in fiat is what falls under scrutiny.

          • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
            4·
            2 months ago

            A VPN has uses outside of criminal activities.

            Crypto gets perpetuated through them.

        • ililiililiililiilili@lemm.ee
          14·
          2 months ago

          Crypto enables freedom, and yes, criminals are kinda into freedom. Imagine cash has never existed and try to pitch that. It would never make it past the board. You are correct that crypto may not help your average American. But its use as a safer haven are important in places like El Salvador, Nigeria, and Curacao.

      • NoiseColor@startrek.website
        129·
        2 months ago

        In reality only a small part of crypto could be the classified as scams. I know that’s the main crypto narrative on lemmy, but there is nowhere near much of scams as talked about here.

        • subignition@fedia.io
          8·
          2 months ago

          The scams and shitcoins are likely going to be the loudest because they need to cast a wide net, so it’s not too unexpected for those to be the most visible “crypto things” to your average person

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      46·
      2 months ago

      Crypto absolutely does have utility, but it’s not currency of the future.

      People going against all crypto lack nuance, and people promoting crypto as solution to all problems are either naive or deceptive.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
        8·
        2 months ago

        As long as I have not seen blockchain do anything even remotely useful that couldn’t already be done better before without it, I will keep calling it useless.

        • Allero@lemmy.today
          44·
          2 months ago

          Blockchain has more utility than crypto, but keeping focused on the latter, crypto may allow for anonymous (pseudonymous) transactions* that are also immutable, which can preserve your privacy and also allow you to financially support whoever government doesn’t want you to support - be it protesters, or your relatives in sanctioned jurisdictions, or, say, Ukrainian army if you are Russian**, or whatever.

          It also gives you Internet money you’re in full control of - no one can freeze or seize your assets***.

          *This does not apply if you use open ledger cryptocurrency and bought it from a traceable source, especially an exchange that requires KYC

          **I am Russian, and I do not transfer money to Ukraine. Rest assured, dear FSB agent. But many people do, and they should be protected

          ***Assuming you use a trusted non-custodial wallet and adhere to basic DeFi hygiene if you use it. Also, sometimes, like when you do crime, inability to freeze your assets is bad. But I did happen to be in a situation when all my bank accounts were wrongfully arrested, and it took me 3 weeks to make my appeal approved by the court to restore access to my own money. Makes sense for me now to keep some money in cash and crypto.

  • banshee@lemmy.world
    261·
    2 months ago

    This is embarrassing. Currency should never be an industry in the first place.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      41·
      2 months ago

      That’s part of what they’re lobbying for - to have it treated as a currency and not a commodity.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
        102·
        2 months ago

        They should treat it as a currency first then. The first major problem with crypto I saw was people were treating it as a commodity instead of using it to buy things.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
          54·
          2 months ago

          But it really doesn’t work as a currency.

          Real currencies represent debt, not value. You work a week and you’re owed something for that work. You get currency that represents what you’re owed. You’re not meant to hold on to currency, it represents an incomplete transaction. When you spend the money you get the value of what you’re owed.

          Crypto currency depends on it having value. People holding onto it in the hopes of it increasing value. If people stop holding onto crypo-currency the value would crash and it would be useless.

          It’s not really feasible to take out a loan denominated in crypto currency. Sure it might be technically possible to make this happen but you’d be a fool to borrow crypto currency as if it increased in value (which it has to do to avoid crashing) you’d end up owing more value than you originally borrowed even before any kind of interest might be charged. There’s a reason why central banks want slow by steady inflation: people can be confident that if they take out a loan they won’t wind up owing more in value terms than they originally borrowed.

          Crypto “currencies” simply aren’t currencies because the nature of it being required that they have an increasing value to avoid crashing means they can’t perform the basic functions of finance.

          People buy crypto currency in the hopes that it will increase in value. Inevitably everyone who might possibly be interested in buying into crypto currency will have already bought into it. There’s a finite number of people in the world. When that happens it will no longer be increasing in value and then what do the people that bought into it as an investment do? They sell. And the value crashes. This means is fails at the other requirement of a currency, a stable value.

          It’s a pyramid scheme and everyone knows it. The crypto guys are just trying to get in the last few pumps before they dump it entirely.

          • alienanimals@lemmy.world
            53·
            2 months ago

            By your definition stocks are also a pyramid scheme and everyone knows it. The more people that buy it, the price goes up! Sell? The price crashes! What a revelation!

            • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
              11·
              2 months ago

              Nope. A stock is a share of a company. A company has assets and revenue. Stocks either provide dividends (which is a share of the profits) or will invest their profits into growing the company which increases it’s value, which in turn increases the value of the share.

              Certainly stocks can be over valued, and I’d say many of them are right now. But that aside there is a value in a share of company that isn’t based solely on someone else valuing it hoping someone else will value it more.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          2 months ago

          They were buying things with it. Mostly drugs and other illegal things, but still.

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
            5·
            2 months ago

            That is/was its number one use as a currency, but more crypto was moved around as commodity trading or being held with the intention of commodity trading then ever use to buy things with.

      • banshee@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 months ago

        You may know more about this than I do, but this seems incorrect. The crypto industry relies on trading commodities. If they wanted a digital currency, would they not lobby for a central bank digital currency?

      • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
        31·
        2 months ago

        They’re lobbying so they can make more money from cryptocurrency. It’s not going to benefit the common folk in any way (unless you believe in trickle down economics).

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    2 months ago

    Jesus fuck, Citizens United needs to be reversed almost as much as Roe v Wade.

    • mmhmm@lemmy.ml
      6·
      2 months ago

      Imo citizens united paved the way for the reversal. Billionaires like must are clear they need meet for the machine and the only meat that spends money is human

  • hark@lemmy.world
    171·
    2 months ago

    Funny that some cryptobros still think bitcoin is the currency of the people. That shit is controlled by the rich as well, including the banks that they claimed would be left out of the “crypto revolution”.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    8·
    2 months ago

    incredible that this thing that in my childhood didn’t even exist yet and in my teen years was a fairly revolutionary and subversive idea has turned into an actual industry trying to influence elections