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   goal was to “create a nonpartisan cost for being negative on crypto and   
   tech,” the venture capitalist added. “People need to know there are   
   consequences.”   
      
   To make this point, Lehane and Fairshake wanted to find a contest in   
   which the group’s spending was certain to attract national attention.   
   Fairshake compiled a list of high-profile races, and near the top was   
   the fight to replace Dianne Feinstein in California. The obvious target   
   was Porter, whose strongest opponent in the Democratic primary was   
   Representative Adam Schiff. California was reliably blue, and so, if   
   Fairshake helped defeat Porter, the group wouldn’t get blamed for   
   handing a seat to the Republicans. What’s more, California’s primary   
   occurred on March 5th—early in the campaign season—which meant that   
   Porter’s race would get lots of attention and Fairshake would have time   
   to broadcast its involvement and petrify candidates in other states.   
   Because Porter was friendly with Elizabeth Warren, she could be   
   painted—fairly or not—as anti-crypto. Best of all, many polls indicated   
   that Porter was unlikely to win the primary anyway, so if the super PAC   
   “went in with a big spend, and made a big splash and she lost,   
   Fairshake could take the victory lap regardless of whether it tipped   
   the scales,” the Coinbase employee said. The calculation was prescient:   
   Fairshake’s spending helped doom Porter in the primary, and the general   
   election appears to be a lock for Schiff (who got an A from Stand with   
   Crypto). As another political operative put it, “Porter was a perfect   
   choice because she let crypto declare, ‘If you are even slightly   
   critical of us, we won’t just kill you—we’ll kill your fucking family,   
   we’ll end your career.’ From a political perspective, it was a   
   masterpiece.” Porter will be out of government at the end of this year.   
      
   After Porter’s defeat, many politicians who had once treated crypto   
   with disdain or hostility suddenly became fans. In May, two months   
   after Porter’s defenestration, a pro-crypto bill came up for a vote in   
   the House. In previous years, similar bills had languished amid tepid   
   Republican support and strong Democratic opposition. The new bill—known   
   as the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act—was   
   openly opposed by President Biden. But it sailed through the House,   
   with nearly unanimous Republican backing and seventy-one votes from   
   Democrats. The Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, recently joined a   
   Crypto4Harris virtual town hall and promised that passing the   
   legislation this year is “absolutely possible,” adding, “Crypto is here   
   to stay.” The Democratic senator Sherrod Brown—a longtime crypto   
   critic—is running for reëlection in Ohio, where Fairshake has directed   
   forty million dollars to ads in support of his opponent; Brown has   
   lately been tempering his public criticisms of the industry. Earlier   
   this year, crypto donors indicated that they might get involved in   
   Montana’s Senate race, where the incumbent Democrat, Jon Tester, once a   
   crypto skeptic, is facing a difficult fight. Soon afterward, Tester   
   voted to weaken S.E.C. oversight of cryptocurrencies, earning him the   
   unusual grade of “C (Neutral on crypto).” It looks like Fairshake will   
   stay out of Montana as long as Tester keeps voting the right way. A   
   similar dynamic occurred in Maryland: after the super PAC threatened to   
   take sides in the Democratic Senate primary there, both major   
   candidates proclaimed their pro-crypto bona fides.   
      
   In total, Fairshake and affiliated super PACs have already spent more   
   than a hundred million dollars on political races in 2024, including   
   forty-three million on Senate races in Ohio and West Virginia, and   
   seven million on four congressional races, in North Carolina, Colorado,   
   Alaska, and Iowa. Three and half million dollars was used to help   
   vanquish two left-wing representatives who were members of the so-   
   called Squad: Jamaal Bowman, of New York, and Cori Bush, of Missouri.   
   Of the forty-two primaries that Fairshake has been involved in this   
   year, its preferred candidate has won eighty-five per cent of the time.   
   The super PAC’s latest filings indicated that it had more than seventy   
   million dollars to spend in the remainder of the election cycle. Its   
   donations to political candidates are on par with those of the oil-and-   
   gas industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and labor unions.   
      
   Just as Airbnb sought to change the conversation around Proposition F   
   by proposing various concessions—paying taxes and sharing data—the   
   crypto industry has become a vocal proponent of a seemingly solutions-   
   oriented fix: new regulations for cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.   
   Critics, however, say that these proposals are self-serving. A central   
   dispute between the crypto industry and regulators concerns whether   
   cryptocurrencies are securities—akin to, say, a share of Apple, the   
   sale of which is governed by strict investor-protection laws—or   
   commodities, like a bushel of corn, which can be sold with very little   
   government involvement. Most fiat currencies—that is, those issued by   
   governments—are used primarily to buy such things as food and clothing,   
   rather than to gamble on the rise and fall of exchange rates.   
   Cryptocurrencies, in contrast, are often difficult—or, in some cases,   
   impossible—to use for purchasing physical goods, and they are   
   frequently held by speculators solely as a wager that their value will   
   rise. There are several thousand cryptocurrencies in existence. A   
   few—most notably, Bitcoin and Ether—are considered commodities. The   
   statuses of most of the rest are up for debate.   
      
   “Now, to demonstrate that he has come of age, Jeffrey will open a   
   childproof bottle of acetaminophen in front of all his friends and   
   family.”   
   Cartoon by Patrick McKelvie   
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   Many within the industry want Congress to pass regulations that would   
   treat mainstream cryptocurrencies as commodities, which are overseen by   
   the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a relatively sleepy agency   
   that most people have never heard of—and that tends to be less   
   belligerent than the S.E.C. If the C.F.T.C. becomes the primary   
   regulatory body for crypto, it’s likely that the stream of lawsuits and   
   fines against large crypto companies will slow or cease. More   
   important, selling Dogecoin (the cryptocurrency associated with a Shiba   
   Inu dog), Dentacoin (“the only cryptocurrency by dentists, for   
   dentists”), or CumRocket (cryptocurrency for the pornography   
   aficionado) would become significantly less risky, and more profitable.   
      
   People in the government think that this would be disastrous. “A lot of   
   these tokens, frankly, have no real utility, no actual use, and they’re   
   just for gambling or scamming people,” an official familiar with the   
   S.E.C.’s thinking told me. “We already have regulations in place that   
   have protected investors in these kinds of situations for decades.   
   Crypto just doesn’t want to abide by them. If your entire business plan   
   is asking ‘Can we get Kim Kardashian to tweet about us?’ and then   
   taking people’s money, the government needs to be involved.”   
      
   In fact, convincing average Americans that the crypto industry is a   
   wholesome, customer-friendly place has been a tough sell: polls   
   indicate that most people do not consider the crypto sector to be safe.   
   Lehane’s colleagues within the industry have therefore shifted their   
   tactics slightly. Getting Congress to pass friendly legislation is   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)