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Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

reuters.com

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Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#91
post #65

And as if to sprinkle salt on the wounds, the Supreme court today allowed unlimited spending by political parties 'in coordination with allied interests(read the money class)' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48734220 Moneyed interests have always jockeyed for power, but earlier they were held somewhat in check by Congress which had to listen somewhat to voters. With Citizens united in 2010 and corporate media dr…

Distract the masses with the 'birthright citizenship' ruling, while simultaneously giving the 1% what they paid for: more influence over elections/legislation. 4D chess.

Birthright citizenship is not a distraction

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto money makes a change from Russian bribes. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58711151 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/lord-evans-...

Explain again how crypto money is not Russian bribes?

Christopher Harborne isn't Russian, and Thailand isn't Russia.

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#93
post #3

A UK party rising up the charts is caught up in a scandal - crypto guy gave the party leader (personally) £5m which he failed to declare and he started the party a few days later indicating he was paid to start the party. It came out when Crypto guy gave an interview and mentioned it not realising the consequences. The party leader first claimed it was for security. Then it was determined he had bought property with…

> Crypto guy "Crypto guy" is understating Christopher Harbone's (alias Chakrit Sakunkrit) reach. He was big in Asian aviation back in the day and is a relatively large player in the British DefenseTech space via QinetiQ. He was also one of the earlier investors in Tether. He also previously bankrolled Boris Johnson and was his Ukraine advisor [0]. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/10/the-1m-man-...

> "relatively large player in the British DefenseTech space via QinetiQ"

After he donated £1m to The Office of Boris Johnson, £270k to the Conservative Party, and the Conservative government gave QinetiQ an £80m defence contract. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Harborne#Political...

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no wonder the fascists won the "libertarian" crypto vote when the message you and sister have for the comments as your campaign slogan to those voters is "your values are fucked" and "at least we're not the guy who showed up and offered you something." Did you think "your values are fucked" is actually persuasive at garnering votes?

If libertarians can't parse than putting fascists in power is, long term, a bad fucking idea as demonstrated literally every time it's happened throughout history, I don't want their fucking vote. I'm not interested in their opinion about anything, especially this. It is not my nor anyone else's job, including Kamala's for that matter, to coddle your sweet little fee fees about wanting your fake power-wasting money t…

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Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#95
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll pick one incorrect claim out of many: Public ledger systems have no privacy at all, by design. You can hope nobody knows which wallet is yours, but that's not serious privacy. Today that's not even really hide-it-from-your-kid-brother privacy.

I expressly mentioned Monero, which doesn't have a transparent ledger. It's fungible, like cash. Even Bitcoin is pseudonymous, so definitely has cons in terms of privacy compared to banks, but also benefits. Monero is completely private. What are the other errors in my critique of banks? Will you explain how Monero is worse than banks?

You claimed:

>crypto in general is a big improvment on banks

I responded to your claim. If you feel you can defend your claim, go ahead. If your only response is to change the subject, ok. That's your call.

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If libertarians can't parse than putting fascists in power is, long term, a bad fucking idea as demonstrated literally every time it's happened throughout history, I don't want their fucking vote. I'm not interested in their opinion about anything, especially this. It is not my nor anyone else's job, including Kamala's for that matter, to coddle your sweet little fee fees about wanting your fake power-wasting money t…

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> You've answered the question as to why those people didn't support you

I asked no such question. You said:

> It's not hard to figure out, the fascists have been more explicitly welcoming to crypto freedom or at least put themselves out there to solicit that vote even if you claim their underlying policies aren't.

To which I said:

> If you back fascists to promote crypto, your values are fucked.

This is not a statement wondering why they didn't. I know why they didn't, even if I didn't directly say it. I'm saying here if your support for proper policies or candidates is contingent on their supporting your stupid shitcoins, then your values are fucked and I'm not interested in your conclusions as a result. Or to be more specific, if you're prepared to give Fascists power because you think it'll be better for your coinbase account, your values are fucked.

And while there is certainly a cost to having principles, to say that Kamala didn't win because she refused to court crypto is just ridiculously out-of-touch. That's a big question with a lot of variables, but I assure you things like:

1) Her being a woman

2) Her being non-white

3) Her being yet another pro-corpo do-nothing Democrat, with a back story including being a PROSECUTOR of all things

Had a shitload, a metric assload, an utter container-ship load more to do with her defeat than anything even tangentially related to your weird secondary finance system, and on that point I would bet a lot of REAL, not crypto, currency.

And here's the part you're missing about Trump and his ilk "showing up": that offer means nothing. Fascist regimes don't keep promises to their useful idiots, they keep them right up until they're not useful anymore. They'll feed your crypto conartists to the same wolves they'll feed me to, because nobody wins long-term under fascism, including the fascists who aren't currently holding the leash. Ross Ulbricht's pardon doesn't tell you Trump loves crypto freedom, it tells you Trump knows how to make a low-cost gesture to a bloc he needs this cycle. And frankly it tracks well that crypto holders were targeted by the Trump admin anyway, you're a self-selecting bloc of marks, ready and eager to hold ANOTHER bag to go with the one you've statistically speaking, already got.

But far more importantly: Fascists are not shy about the Fascist shit they aim to do, namely to harm people at scale. If you cosign that for bitcoin, I'm not here to persuade you or win your heart: that is not a position that a reasonable person takes, and so I see no purpose in attempting to reason with you.

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#97
This just came out: Trump reports more than $1.4 billion in income from crypto ventures [1]. He received more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture he and his sons co-founded. Trump reported another $635 million from the sale of his $TRUMP meme coins.

$TRUMP meme coin shot up to $75 two days after launch. It has lost most of its value [2]. Guess who got rich off the people who invested in $TRUMP coin?

A UAE-linked investment firm acquired a 49% stake in Trump's World Liberty Financial for $500 million just before Trump's January 2025 inauguration, directing significant upfront payments to Trump family entities.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-reports-more-than-14-...

[2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/official-trump/

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distract the masses with the 'birthright citizenship' ruling, while simultaneously giving the 1% what they paid for: more influence over elections/legislation. 4D chess.

Birthright citizenship is not a distraction

Well it’s by definition a distraction as it sucks all the air out of the newsroom. Doesn’t mean it’s not important just that it’s such a big story that any other rulings are gonna fly under the radar.

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#99
post #59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paragraph #2 directly answers your question: > More than one-third of all corporate money contributed to this year's November elections, and primary elections leading up to them, has come from the crypto industry, making it the top corporate political spender, the group said.

Only one-third? They are slowing down. Crypto companies accounted for almost half of corporate donations in the 2024 election cycle [1]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/23/crypto-companies-are-pouring...

My gut reaction to this was "Duh, the money is in AI now, leaving less for crypto".

Then I looked at the numbers.

TFA: $189M so far for 2026.

CNBC: $119M so far for 2024.

TFA has already surpassed the numbers for 2024! I don't know what to make of that other than a magnification of the ills in the American political system. And yeah, I'm sad crypto still has money even with all the snAIk oil going around. Turns out I don't really understand how money works at this scale.

Caveat lector: there's of course probably some explanation I missed. Like maybe we're counting firms that has double-dipped in crypto and AI.

Re: Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto guy "Crypto guy" is understating Christopher Harbone's (alias Chakrit Sakunkrit) reach. He was big in Asian aviation back in the day and is a relatively large player in the British DefenseTech space via QinetiQ. He was also one of the earlier investors in Tether. He also previously bankrolled Boris Johnson and was his Ukraine advisor [0]. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/10/the-1m-man-...

> " relatively large player in the British DefenseTech space via QinetiQ " After he donated £1m to The Office of Boris Johnson, £270k to the Conservative Party, and the Conservative government gave QinetiQ an £80m defence contract. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Harborne#Political...

Tbf QinetiQ was a major player in DefenseTech and UAVs even before BoJo.

Talon robots, the Zephyr UAV, and the Banshee UAVs are all their IP and still being used in Ukraine [0][1]

[0] - https://www.qinetiq.com/en/news/qinetiq-delivers-10000th-ban...

[1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-accelerates-long-range...

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