Big Crypto Is Trying to Block Democrats’ Senate Dreams

Nothing personal, Sherrod. Photo: Daniel Lozada/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The crypto lobby is going after the once and maybe future U.S. senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown with a tire iron, according to the New York Times:

The industry’s main super PAC, Fairshake, which is backed by some of the richest people in Silicon Valley, is starting to unspool a planned $30 million advertising campaign against former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat running again for the chamber, the group told The New York Times. The push is by far the crypto industry’s most aggressive move yet in the midterms, and it could have significant implications for the Ohio Senate race, one of this year’s top contests for control of Congress.

If this report gives you a sense of déjà vu, it’s probably because the crypto bros went medieval on Brown in 2024, when he lost the Senate seat he had held for 18 years to Republican Bernie Moreno. At a blockchain symposium last year, Tim Scott, the GOP chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, explicitly thanked the crypto industry for “for getting rid” of Brown and replacing him with Moreno.

While such bald assertions of a lobby’s political clout are a bit unusual, even at a private event, Scott had reason to gush with gratitude. Crypto had sought to purge Brown because of his allegedly hostile attitude toward the industry as Senate Banking Committee chairman. His defeat helped clear the way for their buddy Scott to take the self-same committee gavel. It was a pretty classic example of raw use of money to secure political favors, although of course crypto bros would frame it as a matter of institutional self-defense against sinister big-government regulation.