Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase Inc., speaks at the Singapore FinTech Festival on Friday, November 4, 2022, in Singapore.
Brian Van Der Beek | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Election Day proved to be very successful for the cryptocurrency industry. No one is a bigger winner Coin Library CEO Brian Armstrong.
Coinbase shares soared 31% on Wednesday, its best day ever, as investors celebrated the company’s efforts to bring pro-crypto candidates to power. Coinbase-backed PAC Fairshake said that of the 58 candidates it backed, 46 won, with the remaining 12 candidates yet to be determined.
Armstrong, who co-founded Coinbase in 2012 and took it public in 2021, remains the cryptocurrency exchange’s largest investor, owning more than 10% of the company’s outstanding shares. As of Latest agent filinghe owns 34.8 million Class A and Class B shares, the value of which increased by about $2.1 billion on Wednesday to nearly $9 billion.
“Anti-cryptocurrency is simply bad politics,” Armstrong wrote in a post. postal On October X, Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno was declared the winner of the state’s Senate race after defeating incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.
in a Longer follow-up post On Wednesday, Armstrong said, “No matter how you look at it, this election is a huge win for cryptocurrencies.”
Bitcoin It rose more than 9.5% to hit a record of more than $76,400.
A Coinbase spokesman declined further comment.
Roughly $40 million in cryptocurrency aimed at defeating Senate Banking Committee Chairman Brown. One PAC paid for five ads aimed at raising the profile of Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur who had little visibility when he entered the race.
Coinbase’s “Stand With Crypto Alliance” launched last year gave Brown an “F” grade and Moreno an “A” grade.
According to NBC News, Moreno won 50.3% of the vote and 46.3% of the vote. His victory helped secure the Republican majority in the Senate and coincided with Republican candidate Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race.
“I am deeply grateful to Ohioans for their overwhelming support in this campaign,” Moreno said in a statement late Tuesday. “I look forward to working with the new Republican Senate majority to repair our economy, secure our borders, and restore America’s strength at home and abroad.”
Moreno’s statement made no mention of cryptocurrency, despite the industry funding his campaign.
Politics pays off
For Armstrong, politics has become a big part of the job as his company works toward a friendlier Washington and a more compliant regulatory environment.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler Last year, Coinbase was sued for selling unregistered securities. The judge has since ruled that the case should be tried by a jury. Coinbase has pushed back hard and said it hopes to work with regulators to develop an appropriate set of laws to govern the nascent industry.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno speaks to supporters at the Brecksville Community Center in Brecksville, Ohio, on November 4, 2024.
Stephen Mattlen | Getty Images
Armstrong told CNBC in September that he used to visit the nation’s capital once or twice a year. Then at least once a quarter. And the pace is only accelerating.
“In the beginning, a lot of people didn’t know what cryptocurrency was,” Armstrong said of his early travels. Now, “the discussion has actually progressed to how do we pass clear rules, legislate in the United States?”
Coinbase is one of the largest corporate donors during the 2024 election cycle, giving more than $75 million to Fairshake and its affiliated PACs, including a new commitment of $25 million to support crypto-backed companies in the 2026 midterm elections. Super PAC. Armstrong has personally donated more than $1.3 million to candidates up and down the ballot.
Coinbase is not involved in the presidential race and has focused its finances entirely on congressional races in an effort to assemble a group of lawmakers with a positive view of the industry.
Coinbase’s sharp post-election gains more than made up for a 15% drop last week after the company reported disappointing quarterly results due to lower trading revenue and lower revenue from subscription services.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal participated in many Trump fundraisers in the months before the election. As the results came in on Tuesday, Grewal posted on X that he wanted the SEC to “understand what happened tonight.”
“Stop suing cryptocurrencies,” Grewal wrote. “Start the conversation with cryptocurrencies. Start setting the rules now. There’s no reason to wait.”
Armstrong retweeted Grewal’s comments, adding a line of his own: “Yes.”
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