Crypto Billionaires Pour Millions into Alabama Senate Race to Secure Pro-Crypto Senator

From a billionaire’s perspective, a U.S. Senate seat can be tantalizingly cheap. In 2022, Peter Thiel spent just $15 million in independent campaign expenditures to help elect his former employee JD Vance—a fraction of his net worth, which has since grown by about $12 million per day.

Now, a group of cryptocurrency billionaires appears poised to repeat the strategy in Alabama’s Senate race. With Alabama solidly red, the Republican primary winner is almost certain to win the general election. The primary vote is set for Tuesday, June 18, 2024, with a runoff scheduled for July if no candidate secures a majority.

Initially, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall led the polls. However, after Donald Trump endorsed GOP Congressman Barry Moore in January 2024, a crypto-funded super PAC, Defend American Jobs, injected over $5 million in February alone to promote Trump’s preferred candidate. Moore quickly overtook Marshall in the polls and has maintained a lead since.

The involvement of crypto billionaires in Alabama’s Senate race reflects their broader strategy to influence Congress through unprecedented spending. Beyond electing a pro-crypto senator, the ads funded by Defend American Jobs serve as a warning to other candidates: opposing crypto interests could result in millions of dollars in opposition spending.

Rick Claypool, research director at the watchdog group Public Citizen, noted that no industry has ever before "so wholeheartedly embraced raising as much directly from corporations and openly using that political war chest as a looming threat (or reward) to discipline lawmakers toward adopting an industry’s preferred policies."

Defend American Jobs, which backs pro-crypto Republicans, is primarily funded by another super PAC, Fairshake. A sister super PAC, Protect Progress, similarly funds crypto-friendly Democrats. Together, Fairshake and its affiliates have spent over $130 million on congressional elections in 2024.

In Ohio, Defend American Jobs spent more than $40 million to help wealthy Republican car dealer Bernie Moreno defeat then-Sen. Sherrod Brown, a long-serving Democratic incumbent and labor advocate.

Nearly all of Fairshake’s funding originates from just three sources: crypto companies Ripple and Coinbase, and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has significant crypto investments. Federal Election Commission records show each has contributed roughly $90 to $100 million to Fairshake since the 2024 election cycle. Andreessen Horowitz’s contributions are split between its founders, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

All three of Fairshake’s major funders have also sought to align with Donald Trump. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, donated $2.5 million to a pro-Trump super PAC following the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Coinbase and Ripple are contributing to Trump’s White House ballroom fund.