Crypto campaign money is bipartisan

Crypto companies are unabashedly rewriting the playbook for how American corporations influence elections, according to a new report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

What they're saying: "No industry has ever before so wholeheartedly embraced raising as much directly from corporations and openly using that political war chest ... to discipline lawmakers toward adopting an industry's preferred policies," the report's author, Rick Claypool, writes.

Stunning stat: Blockchain companies have supplied 48% of the $248 million of corporate money donated to influence federal elections this cycle, according to the research.

But perhaps more importantly, it's the sector's breaking with the tradition of industries primarily siding with one party or another that is changing the game.

• Fairshake, the crypto industry's dominant political action committee (PAC), has been backing or opposing candidates on both sides of the aisle, based on whether or not a candidate is viewed as helpful or harmful to cryto.
• It endorsed equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in House races this year (for a total of 18).
• And its decision to back two Democrats and one Republican in the Senate races (so far) has drawn ire from partisans on both sides.

How it works: When it has engaged in paid media, Fairshake has not spent its money to make cryptocurrency itself an issue in elections.

• It ran ads against Rep. Katie Porter in California's Democratic Senate primary, and incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic House primary for New York's 16th District.
• The ads were designed to smear the targets' reputations, without mentioning digital assets. (Both Porter and Bowman lost their primaries.)
• In the general, Fairshake's most high-profile pick is endorsing Republican Bernie Moreno in the Ohio Senate race — a move likely designed to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Banking Committee chair and a crypto critic.

By the numbers: Fairshake, the crypto industry's dominant political action committee (PAC), has raised $169 million, according to the PAC.

• And though some of that money comes from wealthy individuals, Fairshake's been a magnet for business dollars, with nearly $114 million coming from corporate backers.
• Contributions have come primarily from Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, and Ripple, the company behind a stablecoin called XRP. Both companies are at the forefront of crypto's battle with regulators for legitimacy.

The big picture: If the strategy works, it could usher in a new era of spending by big companies to get the outcomes they want in elections.

• "The crypto sector strategy seems to be: give crypto corporations what they want, or your political career gets it," Claypool writes.

What they're saying: A professor of political science at the University of New Haven, Patricia Crouse, said that she believed other industries will watch the success of massive money approach closely.

• "It's all a domino effect when you're talking about politics. Everybody wants to be on the winning team, so you're paying attention to what these organizations are doing," she told Axios.

💭 Our thought bubble: Blockchains are meant to be unchangeable records that last forever, which perhaps explains why the industry's politics has come to share the spirit of former British Prime Minister Henry John Temple (better known as Lord Palmerston), who said in 1848:

• "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual."