About

The cryptocurrency industry has been throwing money into politics unlike ever before, and that’s even after political donations from the industry skyrocketed in the 2022 election cycle. Despite the relatively small size of the industry, it has become one of the biggest spenders in the upcoming elections in the United States.

Cryptocurrency companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to put towards buying crypto-friendly politicians and ousting those who have spoken up for stricter regulations to protect consumers in an industry that is fraught with hacks, scams, and fraud. Although parts of the industry have tried to portray this as a grassroots effort, the reality is that a very small number of crypto companies, and the billionaire executives and venture capitalists behind them, are spending millions with a singular goal: to obtain favorable crypto policy, no matter the cost.

“Money moves the needle. For better or worse, that’s how our system works.”

– Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO

This website shines a much-needed spotlight on this spending, without the veneer of press releases in which these companies and executives still try to claim to be “apolitical” or “non-partisan”.

Most of the money in the war chests amassed by cryptocurrency-focused PACs has yet to be deployed, and this project will give you a real-time¹ view into where it’s being spent, by whom, and for whom. Join me in following the crypto.

Who I am

Follow the Crypto is a project by Molly White, an independent technology writer, researcher, and software engineer. She is also the force behind Web3 is Going Just Great, where she documents only some of the many disasters in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries. She writes about crypto and about technology much more broadly in the Citation Needed newsletter.

Consider supporting her so she can continue to do this kind of independent research and writing.

She has disclosures for her crypto-related work.

Data

Most of the data shown on this website comes directly from the Federal Election Commission. Some data about political advertisements comes from Google’s Ad Transparency Center. Some additional information, such as news coverage and some other political ads, is gathered manually.

Despite the name, none of this data is coming from a blockchain. Most election spending by the cryptocurrency industry is in dollars, and both crypto- and dollar-denominated election spending are included in FEC reporting.

Election data is messy, and despite best efforts to clean up the data, there may be errors. If you think something’s missing or erroneous, please get in touch!

Code

The code for this website is all open source and available on Github: frontend, backend.

About

Who I am

Data

Code

Further reading