Fairshake-affiliated groups fund candidates in California, New Jersey, South Dakota primaries
Nearly a dozen candidates across California, New Jersey, and South Dakota advanced in their races after receiving support from $3.5 million in media spending by cryptocurrency industry-backed PACs, according to primary results reviewed on June 3.
Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, both affiliated with Fairshake, deployed the funds to back Democratic and Republican candidates. Fairshake itself reported a war chest of $193 million in January.
In California, Democratic candidates Jacqui Irwin, Ted Lieu, Zoe Lofgren, Dave Min, Mike McGuire, Hilda Solis, George Whitesides, and Lou Correa won or advanced their races. Lateefah Simon, also a Democratic candidate in California, benefited from the spending. In New Jersey’s 8th congressional district, Democrat Rob Menendez received support. South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds was also backed by the PACs.
Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs are funded largely by Coinbase and Ripple Labs. Protect Progress alone spent $3.1 million supporting Adrian Boafo, a Democratic candidate in Maryland’s 5th Congressional district primary, which is scheduled for June 23.
“America needs members of Congress who will act to lay out responsible guardrails for the community to maintain our global leadership,” said Geoff Vetter, Fairshake spokesperson.
Many candidates supported by crypto PACs have backed pro-crypto legislation such as the GENIUS Act or made public statements supporting digital assets. Similar PAC spending occurred in Texas runoff primaries the week prior, resulting in Democrat Christian Menefee defeating incumbent Al Green and four Republican candidates winning primaries in smaller House districts.
On Wednesday, a new hybrid PAC called Defend Developers was announced to support incumbent members of Congress who champion developer protections and crypto builders. The PAC’s board includes CEOs, CLOs, and policy leaders from DeFi Education Fund, Orca Creative, Solana Policy Institute, and Uniswap Labs.
Gavin Zavatone, founder of Defend Developers, said the move addresses a gap in congressional understanding of blockchain development. “For too long, developers building decentralized technologies have faced regulatory uncertainty and enforcement actions instead of clear rules and guidelines,” Zavatone said.
He added: “While legislation and rulemakings are being written as we speak, for some policymakers there is limited incentive to understand the fundamental nature of software development.”
Defend Developers filed its statement of organization on May 15. As of Wednesday, the FEC portal showed no funding or expenditure activity for the PAC. The organization’s treasurer and custodian of records is Nick Stoltzfus, co-CEO of Stratofied, an on-chain student loan digital asset platform.
Maryland is the next focus for Fairshake and its affiliates, according to the spending data reviewed.
