Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Repugs are caught up in it too.

https://www.grid.news/story/economy/2022/11/21/how-ftx-played-both-parties-and-almost-won-washington/

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has become a name-brand liberal mega donor, giving Democrats more money than anyone else besides George Soros for the 2022 midterms.

Regardless of Bankman-Fried’s personal views, those single-party donations are just one side of FTX’s sweeping bipartisan political strategy to get Republicans and Democrats behind its push for light-touch cryptocurrency regulations.

Executives at FTX have poured more than $60 million in the last year not only to Democrats, but also to Republicans, in hopes of shoring up the kind of support necessary to get bills through Congress. That yearlong sprint, however, has come to an end with the collapse of FTX.

“God’s last joke was that Sam was the number one advocate” of the industry’s preferred approach to regulation, said one crypto industry official who spoke to Grid on the condition of anonymity. “Sam became the public face for this. Sam’s view was this would legitimize crypto.”

Up until 10 days ago, when FTX faced a high-profile insolvency crisis, Bankman-Fried and FTX executives had been on an offensive to sway influential people in Washington and key lawmakers to draw up industry-friendly regulations for cryptocurrency. He became a fixture at the Capitol, testifying about the benefits of crypto and his views on regulation to key lawmakers in the House and Senate.

His co-CEO at FTX, Ryan Salame, transformed into a major political player in the last year, too: He poured more than $23 million into politics this cycle, mostly to help Republicans win office and prop up crypto-friendly GOP allies in their races.

Salame gave millions to super PACs tied to House Republicans like Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), a key industry ally, and even formed one of his own, devoted to helping elect “forward-looking Republican candidates.”