The cryptocurrency industry is spending roughly $176 million to influence more than 100 US midterm races, and the reason is procedural, not partisan. Executive orders and agency rules can be reversed by a future administration. Laws passed by Congress cannot. So the industry is trying to elect a Congress that will write its preferred rules into statute.
According to Modern Diplomacy, Fairshake, the industry's largest super PAC, and its affiliates had spent about $150.8 million on the 2026 midterms by October 20, with other crypto groups adding roughly $25 million. That money buys advertising, candidate support and, the industry hopes, a durable bipartisan coalition in Washington.
This guide explains the machinery behind that figure: what a super PAC can legally do, why the money flows to House and Senate races rather than the presidential contest, and which specific bill the spending is designed to pass. The mechanics matter for any voter in a targeted state, because the advertising arrives whether or not it mentions cryptocurrency at all. For broader context on how outside money fits into the cycle, see our elections news coverage.
What is a super PAC, and what can Fairshake legally do?
A super PAC is a political committee that may raise and spend unlimited money, provided it does not coordinate with the candidates it supports. Fairshake is exactly that kind of committee, funded by crypto companies and wealthy investors. Its legal lane is independent spending: advertisements for or against candidates, in primaries and general elections alike.
The scale is not new. Fairshake spent $196 million during the 2024 election cycle. This year, it says 53 of the 58 candidates it backed in primaries or special elections won and will appear on the November 3 ballot. Those are the committee's own figures, reported through campaign finance filings and cited by Modern Diplomacy.
Why target Congress instead of the White House?
The answer sits in the difference between two kinds of government action. Under President Trump, the industry has already secured one win: the 2025 GENIUS Act, which created the first federal framework for stablecoins with substantial bipartisan support. But industry strategists argue that executive actions and agency-level rules may not last. A future administration could reverse them.
Legislation is the durable instrument. That is why the money goes to congressional races, where the outcome determines who votes on the industry's priority bills. The US crypto market is valued at about $2.75 trillion, and industry leaders describe political spending as an investment in shaping future regulation. The strategy dates back further than Trump: since 2018, when lawmakers struggled to find room for an early bipartisan crypto roundtable on Capitol Hill, the industry has been building its advocacy apparatus. The 2022 collapse of FTX and the market turmoil that followed brought heavier scrutiny under the Biden administration, including more than $6 billion in SEC penalties across 98 cases, according to a Georgetown University Law study cited by Modern Diplomacy. Executives responded by expanding political outreach, arguing that regulatory uncertainty threatened investment.
Which bill is the money trying to pass?
The industry's principal legislative objective is the Clarity Act. The bill would shift significant oversight of cryptocurrency markets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency that polices futures and commodities markets. It stalled during the current congressional session.
Passing any bill requires moving it out of committee, onto the floor, and through both chambers — a sequence with many failure points, as our explainer on how a bill actually dies in committee sets out. The Clarity Act has hit one of them: Democratic senators blocked it from advancing to a final vote. One objection concerned an ethics provision that would have required members of the Trump family to sell their cryptocurrency holdings.
Fairshake's response maps directly onto that legislative arithmetic. It supports House candidates from both parties, but limits its Senate support to Republicans, because Democratic senators blocked the bill. Critics object to the framework itself. Gary Kalman of Transparency International argued that moving oversight to the CFTC could mean less stringent regulation and could restrict states from writing tougher rules of their own.
Where is the money actually landing?
The largest single target is Ohio. Fairshake has spent more than $68 million on the Senate race between Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted, according to AdImpact figures reported by Modern Diplomacy. Brown, a longtime crypto critic and former Senate Banking Committee chair, lost in 2024 and is seeking to return. Notably, Fairshake's advertising against him focuses on taxes and immigration rather than cryptocurrency policy — and one advertisement repeated a claim about his voting record that Reuters had previously debunked. Brown's campaign accuses special interests of trying to undermine his work for working Ohioans.
Primaries get the money too. In a Maryland Democratic House primary, industry groups spent $5.3 million backing state Delegate Adrian Boafo, who raised $1.9 million on his own. Rival candidate Quincy Bareebe described the resulting advertising environment as overwhelming. In Illinois, Fairshake spent more than $10.1 million attacking Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton in her Senate campaign, and another $2.5 million targeting state Representative La Shawn Ford in a congressional race. Ford won his primary anyway, and his campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter over advertisements referencing a federal indictment from 14 years earlier that was later dropped.
The pattern across these races is consistent: the spending shapes what information voters see, even when the ads never mention digital assets. Readers weighing candidate claims against each other can apply the same discipline used to read a political poll in three moves: check the source, the timing and what is actually being measured.
What should voters watch next?
Three things. First, the November 3 results themselves: whether candidates Fairshake backed win seats that will vote on the Clarity Act. Second, whether the bill clears the Senate obstacle that stopped it this session, a question tied to chamber control. Third, the follow-the-money question — who funds these committees and what they expect in return — which our analysis of what small-dollar donations reveal in FEC data approaches from the opposite end of the fundraising scale. For related coverage, see What Small-Dollar Donations Actually Reveal in FEC Data.
The evidence so far establishes a clear mechanism: an industry with a $2.75 trillion market is converting capital into congressional leverage, and the composition of the next Congress will help decide whether its preferred regulator, the CFTC, takes over crypto oversight. What remains unknown is whether that spending translates into the statutory certainty the industry says it is buying — and whether voters in targeted states treat the advertising as information or as noise.
