Coinbase Spent $21M on Lobbying Last Year.

In 2022, bitcoin corporations spent a record $21.55 million lobbying in Washington, with the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, leading the list of spenders.

According to an examination of disclosures conducted by OpenSecrets, which gathered disclosures from more than 50 industry players, the amount spent on lobbying in 2018 was more than twice as much as the $8.29 million that the cryptocurrency business is planning to spend on lobbying in 2021.

According to the findings of the research, Coinbase had the most lobbying expenditures, totaling approximately $3.4 million in 2022. The Blockchain Association, Crypto.com, Binance Holdings, and Ripple come in at the second, third, and fourth spots, respectively, when it comes to the amount of money they spend on lobbying. They spent approximately $1.9 million, $1.2 million, 1.1 million, and $1 million.

It is important to note that contributions to political campaigns, financing of elections, or political donations do not count as spending on lobbying, even though donors sometimes need recipients to cultivate ties with legislators.

The record lobbying spending occurred during a year in which the industry witnessed a string of high-profile failures, beginning with the implosion of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin and ending with the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and, most recently, the failure of crypto lending company Genesis. The string of failures began with the implosion of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin and ended with the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.

Yet, despite the fact that the cryptocurrency business is spending more money on lobbying, the total amount spent on lobbying by the industry’s individual companies and trade groups is still a significant fraction of what large technology and e-commerce corporations spend.

According to an investigation conducted by OpenSecrets, which is a research organization that monitors the flow of money into American politics, Amazon and its subsidiaries handed out a total of $21.38 million in 2022. In a similar vein, Alphabet shelled out more than 13 million dollars for lobbying activities in 2017.

Sam Bankman-Fried Was a Megadonor for Politicians Last Year

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, spent approximately $40 million on political action committees and campaigns in the previous year, with the majority of his contributions going to the Democratic party and the candidates affiliated with it. He was a major contributor to Joe Biden’s successful presidential campaign in 2020 and was one of the campaign’s single greatest donors.

In the month of December, Elon Musk made the assertion that the SBF had the potential to give the Democrats up to one billion dollars. The ousted crypto boss’s revelation that some of his political donations were not officially declared gave rise to rumors and speculation.

The ruling that the Supreme Court made in 2010 on the Citizens United case makes it feasible for donors to give money to politicians without their identities being known. Hence, undisclosed donations are permissible under the law.

Nevertheless, more recently, the current management of FTX has requested that political figures and any other receivers of donations made by Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX officials repay the monies by the end of the month.

In the announcement, it was stated that the recipients of the donations would be required to repay the amount that they had received from FTX executives, even if they had used that amount to make a payment to a third party, including a charity. This obligation would apply even if the recipients used the amount to make a payment to a charity.

coinbase Coinbase Spent Crypto Industry Spent Lobbying