The crypto industry was the decisive winner of the 2024 election
Just two years ago, Sam Bankman-Fried was still roaming the halls of Capitol Hill, making campaign donations and persuading lawmakers to pass cryptocurrency legislation. Today, of course, he awaits his appeal in a Brooklyn federal detention center with Diddy, but in a cruel twist of fate, his vision came true, two years too late: The US finally had the crypto election.
When Coinbase took the mantle from SBF and launched the “Stand with Crypto Alliance” in August 2023, I was skeptical to say the least about the existence of a single “crypto voter”, let alone the 50 million Americans that Coinbase cited as a potential bloc . And I would argue that Coinbase—and the rest of the companies and VCs that joined the entente, from Winklevii to a16z crypto—are largely in agreement. When their affiliated Super PACs spent tens of millions of dollars on ads in critical battleground races, they avoided mentioning crypto altogether.
And yet, crypto won, all the way to the top of the ticket. Litters of ink have already been spilled about how Silicon Valley’s MAGA team steered Trump into his second term, but crypto served as the vanguard to make tech’s shift to the right more politically palatable. Figures like Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong have been in open battle with the Biden administration — and especially SEC Chairman Gary Gensler — for more than a year, after all.
After referring to Bitcoin as a “fraud” as recently as 2021, Trump has embraced the crypto industry’s cool wallets, even if his own foray into memecoins hasn’t quite paid off. He spoke at a flagship crypto conference, visited a Bitcoin bar in New York and pledged to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, a sign of how deep down the rabbit hole he went. We’ll see if he keeps his promises.
Downticket, boosted by enough campaign donations to make SBF blush, pro-crypto candidates won in both parties—261 in the House, according to Stand with Crypto, and 17 in the Senate. Several of the industry’s biggest foes, including Ohio Senator and Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, lost, paving the way for blockchain legislation to have a chance to pass next session or even during a compromise .
And then there’s the rise of the election betting markets, with Polymarket and Kalshi predicting a Trump win nearly all the way, even as the polls suggested a flip or Harris. As I told Allie yesterday, odds aren’t exactly a good way to measure accuracy, but the prediction markets certainly enjoyed their dominant run. “The global truth machine is here, powered by people,” tweeted 26-year-old founder and CEO Shayne Coplan.
So what does this all mean? Crypto is nowhere near an issue Americans care about like immigration or inflation, yet it was an undisputed driver—and winner—of the 2024 election. The industry will likely now have a hand in deciding economic policy of the next four years, from winding down nearly a century of securities regulation to introducing stablecoins into the monetary system to choosing Gensler’s replacement. You probably won’t be paying for coffee with Dogecoin anytime soon, but crypto could reshape our infrastructure. Somewhere in Brooklyn, a monkey’s leg is unfolding for SBF.
I’ll be writing a Terms Sheet for the next couple of weeks and I promise it won’t all be about crypto! Send me story ideas and tips or just say hello at leo.schwartz@fortune.com.
Leo Schwartz
Twitter: @leomschwartz
E-mail: leo.schwartz@fortune.com
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Nina Ajemian edited the deals section of today’s newsletter. Register here.
BUSINESS OFFERS
– Naptha AI, a Singapore-based orchestration of artificial intelligence agents for the cyber economy has raised $6 million in pre-funding. Arche Capital and Cyber Fund led the round and were joined by Seed Club Ventures, angel investors and others.
– MoradaUno, a Mexico City-based real estate rental platform, raised $5.6 million in Series A funding. Flourish Ventures and Cometa led the round and were joined by Clocktower Ventures, Picus Capital and Y Combinator.
– Thesys, a San Francisco-based AI visualization and interface development platform, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Together Fund led the round and was joined by 8vc.
– Pibox, a Los Angeles-based audio and video production project platform, has raised $1.2 million in funding from Presto Ventures, Globalive Capital and Startup Wise Guys.
PRIVATE CAPITAL
– Sagewind Capital acquired a majority stake in Sabel Systems Technology Solutions, a Dayton, Ohio-based provider of digital research and development, acquisition and support solutions for the US government. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– VR Equitypartner and SüdBG acquired a majority stake in DEKOM, a Hamburg-based IT systems provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXPENSES
– Cencora has agreed to acquire Retina Consultants of America, a Southlake, Texas-based retinal specialist management services organization, from Webster Equity Partners for approximately $4.6 billion in cash.
PEOPLE
– Interwoven Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm, has added Erez Agmoni as co-founder and general partner. Previously, he was at Maersk.