Crypto PAC Pours $30M Into Key Senate Race

Crypto's biggest political player is once again coming for Sherrod Brown. Fairshake, a deep-pocketed super PAC funded by Silicon Valley crypto wealth, says it will pour $30 million into ads and mailers hitting the Ohio Democrat, a longtime industry skeptic running in one of the cycle's key Senate races, per the New York Times. The move comes after Fairshake played a major role in ousting the former Senate Banking Committee chairman from his seat in 2024 and follows Democrats' united opposition to the Clarity Act, a bill that would have given the industry broad regulatory protections under any future Democratic administration.

Fairshake, sitting on a $120 million war chest, had flirted with saving cash for 2028 but is now expected to tilt heavily Republican this year, even as it insists it's bipartisan. Brown, hit with $40 million in Fairshake ads in 2024 after saying the crypto industry had "betrayed the public interest," has softened his public rhetoric in recent months, hoping to avoid outright attacks, per Politico. In a May statement, his campaign manager said he would "keep an open mind" and "work to ensure that as more people use cryptocurrency, it expands opportunity and lifts up Ohioans." Brown, who could return to the Senate Banking Committee, faces GOP Sen. Jon Husted, who already holds a sizable financial edge.