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POLICY 03/11

Crypto's $176 million election bought almost nothing

Crypto PACs spent $176 million on the midterms, $63 million of it against Sherrod Brown. He won, Democrats took Congress, miner stocks fell overnight.

COIN REPO · · 3 MIN READ · #policy #markets #mining

The industry went into election day as the biggest single-issue spender in American politics. It came out having lost the two races it cared about most.

BREAKING 03/11

Democrats took the House and, on the overnight count, the Senate too, per CoinDesk's live coverage. Crypto PACs spent about $176 million across the cycle; roughly $75 million of it went into two races the industry lost.

Where the money went

  • Ohio. Fairshake and the Digital Freedom Fund spent more than $63 million opposing Sherrod Brown's return to the Senate. Brown was projected to beat Sen. Jon Husted.
  • Illinois. Fairshake put over $10 million against Juliana Stratton in the primary. She won the general.
  • Texas. Fellowship PAC, tied to Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether, gave $3.8 million to Ken Paxton's primary run. Paxton lost the Senate race to James Talarico. Gov. Greg Abbott conceded to Gina Hinojosa.
  • Iowa. The Digital Freedom Fund gave $400,000 to Ashley Hinson. Josh Turek won.
  • Alabama. Barry Moore, a Fairshake-backed Republican, won — the industry's one clear result of the night.

Mississippi was a 48.9–48.9 tie with 96.6% counted. Nebraska's Pete Ricketts was level with independent Dan Osborn.

What it means for the bills

Nobody in the live coverage mentioned market-structure legislation by name, which is itself the story. HashKey's Tim Sun put it carefully: Democratic control "may delay the implementation of certain crypto policies," while arguing that doesn't mean an immediate reversal. Rep. Robert Garcia, set to chair House Oversight, pledged investigations into the Trump family's business dealings. Over 40 House Democrats had already asked Treasury to probe World Liberty Financial back in February; five senior Senate Democrats sought hearings on the family's crypto ventures.

Supporters' case, critics' case

Industry groups argue the spending bought a bipartisan bloc that passed stablecoin rules and that the losses were in races any Republican would have lost in a Democratic year. Critics point out that $63 million against one senator who won comfortably is the most expensive way yet discovered to make an enemy of a committee chair.

The market

Bitcoin dipped 0.3% overnight and then recovered to about $77,400, erasing the loss. Zcash jumped 11% to $1,285; Ethereum added 2.5%. The official TRUMP memecoin fell more than 5% to about $1.50.

The damage was in equities tied to AI data centres, on fears of restrictions on the buildout: Cipher −14%, Hut 8 −10%, Bitdeer −6%, CoreWeave −5.9%, IREN −5.5%. SpaceX fell 7.6% and Tesla 5.3%; Elon Musk had spent over $475 million backing Republicans.

Those miner tickers had rallied hard the day before — Hut 8 was up 16% on Tuesday ahead of earnings, Riot 14%, MARA 9%, per 24/7 Wall St. Whiplash, not a trend.

The pattern bitcoin is breaking

Every midterm since 2014 has landed in a bitcoin bear market: on election day BTC sat 35% below its 200-day average in 2014, 9% below in 2018, 22% below in 2022, CoinDesk notes. This year it is 5.2% above a 200-day average of roughly $73,169 — the bear market was front-loaded into January and February. DWF Labs' Martin Lee: the months after a midterm have historically been "choppy to slightly bearish," but BTC "has been higher 12 months later every time."

Sources

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