Cryptocurrency executive Ryan Selkis was having dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month when he got an unexpected invitation: Former President Donald J. Trump asked him to come on stage and say a few words.
Selkis, who runs cryptocurrency data firm Messari, was among hundreds of attendees at an event celebrating Trump's line of non-fungible tokens, or digital collectibles known as NFTs. As he took his seat at the podium, Selkis turned toward the former president.
“There are 50 million cryptocurrency holders in the U.S.,” the executive declared. “That's a huge number of voters.”
The message has become a political talking point in the crypto world as the industry seeks to shake off a wave of scandal and position itself as a powerful force in the 2024 election cycle. Three major crypto companies have teamed up to fund affiliated super PACs, investing roughly $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional races.
Spokespeople for each PAC said they have no plans to get involved in the presidential race, but top crypto executives have sought to mobilize the industry behind Trump, who has responded by praising cryptocurrencies and inviting them to Mar-a-Lago.
Many cryptocurrency advocates see the 2024 election as a pivotal moment. After a string of cryptocurrency companies collapsed two years ago, the Biden administration launched an aggressive crackdown, filing lawsuits and criminal charges against some of the industry's key players. The Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing lawsuits that could effectively drive the cryptocurrency industry out of the United States.
“The 2024 election will be the most critical in the history of cryptocurrency,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company that has long been at odds with the federal government. “We're seeing technology become a partisan political issue.”
Garlinghouse, Selkis and other executives argue that newly emboldened “crypto voters” could sway the election outcome, often citing a survey commissioned by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase that suggests 52 million Americans hold cryptocurrencies. (The Federal Reserve estimates the total at 7% of the adult population, or about 18 million people.)
But voters' enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies may not be as important as the industry's campaign spending. Ripple, Coinbase and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have each donated about $50 million to crypto PACs, which plan to use the money in several competitive Senate races. In March, the largest PAC, FairShake, spent about $10 million on attack ads against Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate in the California Senate primary who was allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime crypto critic. Porter lost the election.
“It's amazing to see a relatively small industry literally buy off enough politicians to hijack public policy,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a group that advocates for financial reform.
The bitcoin industry's vast resources have transformed a niche set of issues into a presidential campaign talking point: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his first official campaign appearance at a bitcoin event in Miami and has attended several industry conferences, sometimes holding fundraising meetings with wealthy executives on the sidelines.
President Biden has long been seen as anti-crypto, with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler having sued a number of crypto-related companies, but some of his supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, are urging his campaign to make amends.
Cuban said in an email that the campaign has responded favorably to the message. In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has reached out to Coinbase and Ripple to seek talks about cryptocurrency policy, four people familiar with the discussions said. Still, much of the industry appears to be rallying around Trump. Biden, who once called bitcoin “a scam” and has frequently criticized the tech industry, has made several supportive comments about cryptocurrencies in the past month and promised to end regulatory crackdowns. Trump met with executives from some of the world's largest bitcoin mining companies, including Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms, at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
“Bitcoin should be Made in the USA!” he posted on social media.
The last time the crypto industry poured big money into a political race, its biggest donor was FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed, who spent tens of millions of dollars supporting both Democrats and Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Two years later, Bankman Freed's company is bankrupt and he is serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud.
FTX's collapse was a major setback for the crypto industry's efforts in Washington. The SEC filed suit last year against Coinbase and other crypto companies, alleging that the digital assets their customers could buy and sell were unregistered securities. The industry scored a rare legislative victory in May when Congress voted to overturn SEC accounting guidelines that had been challenged by crypto companies. Biden vetoed the resolution.
Now the industry is fighting back. Fairshake has announced plans to run in four other Senate races this year, including in Ohio and Montana, where Democrats critical of crypto are up for reelection in close races. Privately, crypto industry executives have credited Fairshake with appeasing skeptical lawmakers, such as Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said in April that he was open to moving industry-backed legislation.
A few weeks after California's Senate primary in March, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democrat who defeated Porter, visited Coinbase's offices in Mountain View, California. Schiff met with representatives from Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and crypto-focused investment firms Electric Capital, Paradigm Capital and Haun Ventures, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Trump hasn't always been a supporter of cryptocurrencies — he has said he prefers the dollar over bitcoin and tweeted in 2019 that digital currencies are “based on empty evidence” — but he has recently been backed by some crypto executives looking for a political savior.
Vivek Ramaswami, a cryptocurrency enthusiast and former presidential candidate who has credited Trump for his shift to crypto and has acted as Trump's emissary to the industry, met privately with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Wednesday afternoon to urge support for the Trump campaign, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Armstrong has not publicly endorsed any presidential candidate. “I do not seek to single out any particular political party,” he said in a statement. “Cryptocurrency is truly a bipartisan issue.”
Mr. Serkis, a self-identified libertarian, attended the Mar-a-Lago event in May after receiving a ticket from a colleague who couldn't attend. “I was in the middle of eating my salad when the president suddenly called me up onstage,” Mr. Serkis recalled in an interview.
That night, Trump declared, “If you're in favor of crypto, you should vote for Trump,” announced that his campaign would accept donations in the digital currency, and promised to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the crypto cult hero who ran the online drug marketplace Silk Road.
On Tuesday evening, President Trump met for more than an hour with about 15 executives from bitcoin mining companies at Mar-a-Lago, according to Salman Khan, chief financial officer of Marathon Digital, who was among those in attendance.
At one point, Mr. Khan said, executives showed Mr. Trump the inside of a machine used to mine bitcoin, an energy-intensive process that poses environmental problems. “Trump liked its American-made aspect,” Mr. Khan said.
Not everyone in the crypto industry is on board with Trump. At the May conference, Marvin Amoli, a Democrat who works at crypto firm Uniswap, took to the stage to debate the industry's political strategy with Selkis, warning that Trump might not follow through on his campaign promises.
Still, Trump reiterated his support for cryptocurrencies this month when he attended a fundraiser at the San Francisco home of prominent venture capitalist David Sachs, three people who attended included Selkis, crypto executives Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, the people said.
“The crypto vote has already been won by President Trump,” Selkis said. “It's over now.”
Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.
