Some of the most powerful companies in the crypto industry have funded a super PAC, which has now managed to accumulate a war chest of $85 million.
Now, the organization has begun using the funds to go up against some of the political candidates in the country.
The PAC
Fairshake is a political action committee (PAC). According to a recent filing with the Federal Election Committee, it is principally funded by crypto companies like Ripple Labs, Andreessen Horowitz, and Coinbase.
Tens of millions of dollars have been pledged to Fairshake by these companies as well as their leaders and there are plenty of other companies and their founders that have also made sizable donations to the PAC.
These include Bitwise, Solana Labs, ARK Invest, the Winklevoss brothers, Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, and Paradigm.
The first target of Fairshake was a Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter from Orange County who is engaged in a four-way race for the open US Senate seat in California.
On Monday, the PAC put in millions of dollars at a negative ad blitz targeting her. A representative confirmed that they had spent $2.9 million on ads against Porter.
The issue
The congresswoman is not one of the most prominent enemies of the crypto industry in Washington and has not drawn the ire and criticism directed at more outspoken crypto critics.
These include Democratic Senators like Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren. But, she is certainly not pro-crypto by any means.
This is because Porter has allied with Warren repeatedly on many issues. Warren had also endorsed Porter’s Senate run last year and taught her at Harvard Law School.
It is worth noting that Porter’s campaign site has not made any mention of crypto, but the same does not apply to her rival in the Senate race.
Adam Schiff, a fellow Democrat and Los Angeles Congressman has explicitly stated on his campaign website that a crypto regulatory framework should be developed to keep growing the Web3 and blockchain industries in California.
More details
Coinbase recently published a blog post related to Fairshake in which it said that there is an urgent need to support Americans owning digital assets and upset with the existing state of the financial system.
It is interesting to note that there has not been any mention of crypto in the anti-Porter ads that Fairshake has released in California.
Ironically, the first ad by the organization against Porter paints her as being in the pocket of many special interest groups.
A representative of Fairshake said that the congresswoman says one thing, but does something completely different.
They said that despite her claims, she had taken campaign funds from big oil, big pharma and big banks and her Super PAC was trying to mislead people about her record.
The congresswoman’s campaign has a different perspective, as expected. They have made an effort to emphasize Porter’s lack of hostility towards the crypto industry.
A recent poll shows that Adam Schiff is currently in the lead with 25% of the support amongst the pack of California candidates.